It Has Never Been So Difficult Saying Thank You...

(On the occasion of the release of my 14th book, “One Man So Many Storms") I couldn't invite God because I knew he would always be there. I didn't invite

By Team Bollyy 01 Jul 2019 | Updated On 01 Jul 2019 11:49 IST in Latest Trending

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-Ali Peter John

(On the occasion of the release of my 14th book, “One Man So Many Storms")

I couldn't invite God because I knew he would always be there. I didn't invite any of the big stars because they have ceased to be human beings (most of them) and had to be begged of, pleaded with and run after till the end of time and because of the ferocious bouncers they have all around them, men and even women who remind you about the devils existence and the many men and women I would have to go through and cry before and still get a big ‘no' or some old and sick excuse of their being over committed or out of station. I have grown up with some of the greatest stars who could put these stars of today to the shade, these stars of today would have been security guards or assistants or make up assistants of those great stars who never behaved like the gods these new stars believe they are and God bless them....

It was my 69th birthday and like the last fourteen years I have always brought out a book thanks to Mayapuri and its owners, P.K Bajaj and Aman Bajaj and their staff in Delhi.

I had made up my mind that I would make this event a very simple event where I would invite only my close friends and those who have made a difference to my life. There were many who tried to put pressure on me to use my ‘influence' and invite the stars, like there was a fan called Afzal who came down from Chennai and sat before my working table in a tea shop and kept asking me to invite Dharmendra and I even tried several times since he said he was my fan for several years, but what could I do when every time I dialled his personal number, some strange sounding man took the call and behaved as if I was speaking Turkish to him. I was not unhappy at all, but the fan, Afzal who I thought had come to Mumbai to better his prospects as a writer, wanted to stay in Mumbai only till my event was over and I would introduce him to Dharmendra. When he realised that I was determined and not inviting any stars, especially Dharmendra, he quietly left for Chennai without even letting me know...

Mr Bajaj and his team had kept my books ready. I had a small but very comfortable hall run by Mr Gulati and above all I had the guru of vintage music Sangeet Gyani Manohar Mohabbat Iyer to run my event. My event was to start at 3:00 pm and there was no one except Panditji((Manohar) who is always particular about time, losing his patience, but what could be or me or Ajay or Rajan who have always stood by me do when the sky was in a mood to celebrate my birthday in its own way like it does on every birthday and I celebrate, it was pouring and pouring in geniune ecstasy and no one and no prayers could stop it. At one point, I felt as if I would have a washout event, but my optimism and my prayers kept me going. I had the difficult task of keeping the optimism of Manohar alive and I was thankful for succeeding.

Soon, we had a small but very effective and inspiring audience headed by the poet and lyricist par excellence Irshad Kamil among us and I asked Manohar ji to take off and what a way he took off. In his own way and with his command over all the major languages like Hindi, Urdu and English he gave this small man an introduction that popes and prime ministers would envy. I have often struggled to find ways of how to thank people, but if there was one night when I struggled almost all through the night to find the right way of saying thank you, it was the night after my birthday was celebrated and my book was released I tugged at my normally sensitive heart and my always hyperactive mind to give me words to express my gratitude to all those who were present in ‘Aabhar' (strange, isn't it, that the hall was saying all that I wanted to say to all those who had made my event a memorable one, a small one, but one which I will remember as long as I am capable and giving the opportunity by God to celebrate my birthdays..

Manohar ji had almost said everything about me, but there were still some who had something or the other to say about me and was I moved to tears and was I wondered whether what people were saying about me was something I deserved or not...

It was Irshad Kamil who gave what I feel was the right description about me. He was a geniune poet and a man of his words, after all. He talked about how he used to read‘Screen'and especially my column ‘Ali's Notes' when he was in college and was writing poetry, but had never thought of writing poetry in the songs of Hindi films. He had a certain image about me after reading what I wrote, but when he met me for the first time at the house of Deepti Naval who introduced me to him, he just couldn't believe that I could be the same man who wrote ‘Ali's Notes' and other notes, views and interviews in ‘Screen'. He also said he couldn't imagine what he called my ‘fakiri lifestyle' and my way of working and getting the best or the worst of people I talked to. He remembered the meeting we had just ten days before my event. I was sitting in my ‘office' which was a tea shop where he had come with his wife Tasveer and their young son who had come to have some hot tea at it was raining outside which was the best time for some tea. He had heard a voice calling out to him and he looked back to see that the voice belonged to me and for the next few minutes, it was difficult to say whether he was happy to see me in this unexpected ‘office' or whether I was happy to see him in my ‘office'. Irshad's words were the beginning of a flow or a stream of words and I,a boy from that village who surprisingly still believes that he is part of that village even though the village has been demolished and has made way for what is nowadays called ‘sabka saath sabka vikas'.

One speaker who spoke about how I could call any of the biggest stars and they would never say no was Squadron Leader Anil Sehgal who had come with his dashing, handsome and bright son, Kartikeya who I had seen as a child and who is now a leading journalist with the‘Times of India'.

Among the others who to my embarassment sang the same song but in different words were my ‘boss' in ‘Screen', Mukesh Desai with whom I shared a friendship which was friendship in the true sense of the word and who is now the CEO of T-Series. Mukesh, incidentally is the only man who knows and believes that I can fall in love at any time and he has even kept a track of all the girls I have loved--and lost.

There was my old friend, Marukh Mirza Beg who was one of the three brothers who formed the writing team of the Mirza Brothers which wrote films like “Love Story",“Kasme Vaade" and others till they like all other teams split. He has had a life that could be as stormy or more stormy than my life. He has always been a motivational and positive factor in my life. Can you imagine, a young writer-director whose only dream was to launch his son Assad as a hero and had even performed the muhurat on a particular day and had done it. Soon after the muhurat, he had presented his son with a brand new bike and the son only returned as a mangled and mutilated body and the father had to witness the same son who was going to be a hero go down into the dust with him watching down and then looking up as if he was looking at God and asking him what kind of justice this justice done to him was. Marukh shows that he has forgotten his grief of losing his son, but as a very close observer and friend, I know he will not forget his grief like no great father could.

As I sat there in a huge chair and these eminent men walked past me, I noticed my good old friend, Mr Krishna Hegde, who was my dear friend when he walked with Sunil Dutt and I was very close to Sunil Dutt and with Sunil Dutt's blessings, he had risen to be a MLA and who is now the vice president of a party whose leader I cannot stand, but Hegde continues to be a very good friend and I often feel that he is in the wrong party today.

There were other faces that kept encouraging me and believe it or not, the most inspiring face for me was the very young face of a girl called Aastha Joshi. I had seen some rare light and life on her face and hope for the future when I had my first look at her when she was only 17. Little did I know then that the girl who was only supposed to serve me with as many glasses of tea that evening, would end up filling me with unlimited knowledge about every subject I can think of. She also talks about subjects which go way over my head, but I listen to with all the love and care because in her I certainly see the face of the future.

There were other names which I can remember very clearly with their names, some names like Ms. Smita Pagnis who had come all the way from Walkeshwar(where were all those people who made the rain and the traffic an excuse not to make it?), my actress friend Nanda who I continue to believe deserves much more than what she is recieving, and her husband, Jasmine who was the girl who could make me sing in the ward of a hospital, Vinith Honda, Navin Prabhakar who can make stones laugh and the friends of Ajay Acharya, Qamar Shaikh and Nandan and all the others, even the women at ‘Aabhar' who understood my craving for tea and served me as many times as I wanted.

They say it is the ambience of a place that makes a big difference and if there has been one place where I have been at a serious event revolving around my life and have felt totally at home, it is this place called ‘Aabhar' , where to reach some kind of a heaven on earth, you have to just go up six floors and that too in a very well maintained elevator.

AND HOW CAN I FORGET THE LIBRARY AS EVER SHAMALA PUNEET WHO I HAD LOST FOR QUITE SOME TIME, BUT HAD FOUND HER AT ‘AABHAR' FOR WHICH I AM AABHARI TO ‘AABHAR' AND MR GULATI WHO HAD THIS UNIQUE IDEA OF HAVING A PLACE WHERE SENIOR CITIZENS COULD FIND MEANING AND REASONS TO LIVE LONGER IN AN ATMOSPHERE WHERE HUMANITY WAS TO STILL THE DRIVING FORCE??

Ali Peter John