Here’s to the Maazi (Past)

Last weekend was Holi, festival of Colors. Just like Gulal & Bhang, watching ‘Rang Barse…’ from Yash Chopra’s evergreen Silsila has become a tradition of sorts. Since, India Vs Australia, quarter finals was all but fixed, I sat down to watch SilSila.

In the movie, French Kiss, when Meg Ryan’s character goes to visit Kevin Kline’s character’s family at his wine yard, he asks her to smell the wine and name the flavor. She is not able to. Then he asks her to smell all the flavor seeds. And then when she smells the wine, she is able to name the correct flavor. Yash Chopra’s movies are like that wine. When you experience different flavors of life and watch the movie again, your perspective is totally different then your previous viewings.

I don’t need to give the synopsis of Silsila, for I am sure all my Indian friends must have watched the timeless classis. Everyone of us has a ‘maazi’(past), as Bacchan’s character puts it. Some maazi become sweet memories to savor some seem like a bad dream that you are glad is past, but some maazi’s leave an empty space. A space that always asks all the ‘what if’ questions about that someone. With all the serious issues that we dealt with during our youths, it’s funny how we remember ‘not so important’ things, like… (you know what I mean), of that someone.

Some one great once said Life is all about making choices. How would the life have been if the choices we made were a ‘little’ different. It’s not the question about loving our present, but if given a chance would we be willing to change any of the ‘choices’ we made in our past?

Here's to the maazi…