EK FALAK , EK ZAMEEEN DONO KA MILNA MUMKEEN NAHI THA MAGAR, UNKA PYAAR AMAR THA... BY ALI PETER JOHN

Dear God , they say you are love. But as a passionate lover I feel that you were in a hurry when you created the greatest human feeling called love .If you were love , then why did you let the love of some of the most powerful lovers fail when they fell in love and had to suffer all their lives for what the haters of love called the sin of loving - Ali Peter John

Where were you when your own disciples like Shirin and Farhad were humiliated and even killed for the sin of true love ? Where were you when Romeo and Juliet were tortured and tormented for loving each other ? Where were you when Laila and Majnu were flogged and stoned for expressing their love in the open and before a crowd of heartless people who knew all about hate and nothing about love?

I can ask you many more questions about love ,dear God ,but tell me why did you not allow some great lovers from the beautiful - bad industry of films , let them fulfill their ultimate desire to live for love and die for love?

Why couldn't you get the lovers like Raj Kapoor and Nargis unite and be one when you as God must have known how madly - samely they were in love ? Why did you look on helplessly when you could see love alive in the eyes of Dilip Kumar and Madhubala especially when they did that scene in " Mughal - E - Azam " in which Salim looks into the eyes of Anarkali and caresses her beautiful face with a white feather which wrote thusands of stories about love on that one face of Madhubala ?

Do you know , dear God that this immortal scene of true love was shot at a time when the enemy of love had worked its evil ways to tear them apart , and yet the real - life lovers could do nothing to hide their true feelings of love which even they didn't realise whould always tell the truth , whatever the circumstances and challenges they had to face, even the threat of being killed for their crime of being in love ?

And more than any other lovers in the history of love , did you not see two lovers willing to lose everything in their lives, even their lives to keep their love alive ? Did you as the God of love know about the abounding and infinite love of Dev Anand and his lady - love Suraiya?

If you as the God of love knew how this honest, humble and almost heavenly love between Dev Anand and Suraiya was to end in a painful separation which could not be joined together again or ever ,why did you let that lovers burn in the sacred fires of love till they were shown how much the world ( zamaana) was against their love and saw to it that their love would be disrespected and drowned in the sea in the devlish hope that their love would never suface again ? But how wrong the enemies of love were !

Dear God, have you seen how two lovers suffer when they are separated or when they see their love for each other dying in a world where true love has always been a victim of a " zaalim zamaana? . Dear God , have you seen the pain in the eyes of the lovers when they see very little hope for their love ? Dear God, have you seen the eyes of true lovers who are lost to the world around them and their eyes only see each other and their hearts beats as one and beat only for one another ! Dear God , have you seen the tongues of true lovers quiver , stammer and struggle to speak the truth about their love ?

Dear God have you seen how the fragrance of true love spread all over their bodies and their souls ( I don't believe in abstract things like souls and heaven, but I am inspired and inclined to believe in them when I talk about true love ) .

Dear God , I know you don't have the time for many of your creations but I beg of you to find at least some time to worry about love and true lovers, because if you don't , love and lovers face the threat of dying and dear God , if love and lovers God forbid die you , dear God will be the most pitiable loser in the history of time, and if you lose , how will you show your all powerful face to your chote chote log jinpar tum raj karte ho ? .....
Dear God , let me tell you a little more about Dev Anand and Suraiya . They had worked in seven films as the Ron as the romantic leads and had fallen in love even though Dev was a smaller star then her . They were constantly in touch and the comparatively lesser known Dev proposed to Suraiya and her cruel grandmother disposed when she flung the ring Dev had presented Suraiya with into the sea outside their house on Marine Drive. Dev cried over his lost love , but on an instinct drove to the Mehboob Studio where he was to shoot for "Taxi Driver" with Kalpana Kartik, proposed to her and married her .

Dear God , but do you know that Suraiya, the biggest female star and the richest and also the most "wanted " by some of the most powerful men ,never thought of marrying any man and was a spinster all her life . And like she told Pirroj Wadia, a journalist friend were her " loving memories about the time spent with Dev"

And for Dev , there was not a day when he didn't think or remember his beloved who he remembered even towards the end of his life .

Dear God , I was having my Screen Awards . The Jury had decided to present the Lifetime Achievement Award to Suraiya . We had requested Piroj Wadia to request Suraiya to attend the function. Her first question was whether Dev Anand would be attending I spoke to Dev and he pleaded with me to keep him out of the function as it would be very embarrassing meeting her face to face after more than 50 years. Dev told me to congratulate Suraiya on his behalf . And Suraiya told Piroj to tell her how Dev looked now at 80 . At the function , Suraiya kept looking all over as if she was expecting Dev to walk in anytime, but she was in for a big disappointment because Dev just didn't come like he had told me . The next day Dev ( sorry I am not calling him Dev Sahab because true lovers are not called Sahabs or Memsaabs) and he kept asking me how Suraiya looked and after I gave him my description , he just said , " bahut moti hogayi hai " and smiled a sad smile for a change and got back to work .

Dear God I know , this two must have been one of your plans made in a hurry . Some time later Suraiya died of a massive heart attack. And even as the industry and other sections of people were busy mourning her death Dev asked his staff to build a temporary structure on the terrace of his office with a hot line. He requested me to give him company and as he kept writing , he even kept crying . I didn't ask him why because I knew it was a lover crying for his beloved .

Dear God , do you know that in his last days in a tiny apartment in a building called " Ridhi" he was not the Dev he was and I remember how he smiled when I asked him if he was still missing Suraiya .

On his last birthday celebrated at his favourite Sun N Sand Hotel, he spent an hour with me in his favourite suite and kept crying on my shoulder and kept saying " my son my son " I made bold to ask him if he was missing someone special in this birthday and he smiled a little , cried a little and said , "you know who she is, Ali" And then he was his usual dynamic self at the party. I knew something was wrong with him . The next morning , he called me to say that he was going to London , that was the last time I heard his voice . He did not come back alive from London . He always believed that there was a better life waiting for us after death which was a new life to live in a a better way than we live while on earth.

I wish what he believed is true and he is living a new life with Suraiya as a very beautiful and inspiring part of his new life ......

EK FALAK KA AUR EK ZAMEEN KA MILAN KA SACH HONA MUMKEEN NAHI THA. MAGAR UNKI PREM KAHANI AMAR RAHEGI , TAQAYAMAT RAHEGI