Yesterday, I woke up with a start in the middle of the night.
Sitting up in bed, I glanced around at the cupboards which held all my possessions...clothes, books, and a whole drawer of trinkets which I hold close to my heart.
This collection seemed so HUGE! Something which needed four cupboards to hold. Apart from the thought that do I need so much, was also another scary thought-- that once I am no more, people around me would just dump all this. What meaning do these things hold for anyone? Some times I grieve over the breaking of my favorite bangle, sometime a lost ear ring, sometime a dress that gets torn or spoiled. I cannot carry even a fistful of these. I need to leave them all behind.
These words may sound cliched but when this thought runs through your mind, that moment can be quite overpowering.
Some kind of premonition? Maybe, I thought, as the next morning, news of passing away of the superstar of Bollywood, Rajesh Khanna, filtered through. The biggest superstar...and the loneliest one. Even as I was around 8-9 years of age, Rajesh Khanna's fame was on wane, with his movies failing one after another. Plus the fact that there wasn't the TV in those days to give us an insight into the celebrities' lives. So there wasn't much I knew about him then, apart from the repeat broadcast of all his hit songs through the radio channels.
In more recent times, the internet provided an insight into the lives of these Bollywood actors...of the destitute lives of actors like Bhagwan who squandered away all their earnings (which was so much more than they ever dreamt of).
To compare, actors of Rajesh Khanna's age were more prudent with money, not wishing to end up in penury or live their evening years in chawls. He built his estates but again died a poor, lonely life.
Actors this generation have realized the value of balancing work with family and hopefully they'd have had a more fulfilling life. This is so important, because worse than dying of penury, is to die due to loneliness.
After all, you can't carry even a fistful of all that you possess.
Sitting up in bed, I glanced around at the cupboards which held all my possessions...clothes, books, and a whole drawer of trinkets which I hold close to my heart.
This collection seemed so HUGE! Something which needed four cupboards to hold. Apart from the thought that do I need so much, was also another scary thought-- that once I am no more, people around me would just dump all this. What meaning do these things hold for anyone? Some times I grieve over the breaking of my favorite bangle, sometime a lost ear ring, sometime a dress that gets torn or spoiled. I cannot carry even a fistful of these. I need to leave them all behind.
These words may sound cliched but when this thought runs through your mind, that moment can be quite overpowering.
Some kind of premonition? Maybe, I thought, as the next morning, news of passing away of the superstar of Bollywood, Rajesh Khanna, filtered through. The biggest superstar...and the loneliest one. Even as I was around 8-9 years of age, Rajesh Khanna's fame was on wane, with his movies failing one after another. Plus the fact that there wasn't the TV in those days to give us an insight into the celebrities' lives. So there wasn't much I knew about him then, apart from the repeat broadcast of all his hit songs through the radio channels.
In more recent times, the internet provided an insight into the lives of these Bollywood actors...of the destitute lives of actors like Bhagwan who squandered away all their earnings (which was so much more than they ever dreamt of).
To compare, actors of Rajesh Khanna's age were more prudent with money, not wishing to end up in penury or live their evening years in chawls. He built his estates but again died a poor, lonely life.
Actors this generation have realized the value of balancing work with family and hopefully they'd have had a more fulfilling life. This is so important, because worse than dying of penury, is to die due to loneliness.
After all, you can't carry even a fistful of all that you possess.
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