my ancestors were from Bangladesh. my great grand father was an accountant for a muslim jamindar. his son and my grand father were playmates and grand father was like a son to the jamindar. during the partition, my family shifted to kolkata. as a parting gift the jamindar gifted grand father a watch. that was my grandfather's last gift to me. my identity, family history and the memories of grand father are attached to the watch....
history, love, family ties, separation...the story above has got everything except the truth. yes my ancestors were from Bangladesh, but the rest is all fictitious. but it doesn't mean i haven't shared this story with anyone. this story is a reality to me as much as my getting up in the morning and brushing my teeth. in fact, there are many more fascinating stories related to my bangladeshi ties. this whole fictitious world is probably created because my grand parents or my parents never provided me any accurate details about our past in bangladesh or life then was so mundane that it would even be embarrassing bringing it all up. i took it upon me to glamorise my family history a bit. at least my grand kids will have interesting stories to boast about. who knows, my creativity might lead me find a mughal or genghis khan connection (as most of us in the family look like the mongolians) to add the cherry on the cake.
right from enid blyton's faraway tree and currently ekta kapoor's serials this fantasy world amuses me. let me just support ekta kapoor and say that her serials are the adult versions the faraway tree, famous five, st clare's combined. one of the top things in my to-do list is to be a script writer of ekta kapoor or write a complete masala bollywood movie something like om shanti om or any rajnikant movies. the so called non commercial movies with the critics award are very easy to make. i mean u can get inspiration from the normal day to day life. but to create the song dance where 50 different people dancing in the same graceful synchronisation, returning of the dead, reincarnation, the dialogues for eg. "pata hi nahi chalta kab betian jagat jananiyan ban jati hai" etc is pure genius. it is very easy to ridicule such things but to achieve that state of ridiculousness is a form of art. and the fact that those movies/serials are promoted with absolute sincerity is amazing. have u ever seen a sooraj bharjatiya or ekta kapoor smirk when they are promoting the tulsis of their world. 'dariya kinare kanhaiya,' 'saajan bina adhuri sajni' wud probably the name of few of my movies. i am confident that i will bag at least 5 filmfare awards.
whenever i worry about the lack of zing in life, i just think about my split personalities 1. zulekha from afghanistan protecting herself under the wings of terrorism, 2. sophie a jewish descendant who is also an interpol agent 3. sohini who approves ads. like they say its all in the mind.