Haunted and Stranded

 

I do believe in Ghost and its existence on earth. Oh my God ! having said that I think, I just admitted; I also believe in the existence of souls. Souls that wander around us all the time; after leaving the body. But, hey; I am not afraid of them, because I am sure, I really have not hurt anyone to that extent; they will come around to haunt me down.

I am not afraid from dark, neither I am afraid of the ghost, meaning it will harm me in anyway. During my school days, I used to read so many stories in Indian magazines, with very compelling truth behind it. If not all the time but mostly its troubled souls, which get trapped on earth, due to their ‘unfinished’ business on earth. Extensive study on this subject matter reveals that, mostly  suicide cases and those who were murdered are the ones, whose souls keep lingering on earth until ‘it’ gets even with the one, who caused the trap on earth.

Couple of years ago, I hardly used to miss the Ghost Hunters, a reality TV show [now it gets aired on AXN]. A program made by two British guys, geared up with all the state-of-the-art equipments to catch the invisible souls in the camera, trying to find the existence with evidence of a haunted souls - ghost.  

Let me tell you here one thing, Britishers or the ones, who fear most with the ghost and think their house is being haunted and they believe it more than other nations. Its maybe that, when they do that kind of survey, they do not even think of the country like Nepal and India, if they do; then they will take a deep sigh saying my God, we are not alone; who fear from the invisibles.

The interesting point of this show is that, unlike Indian babas or sadhus, who do this without knowing what they are doing with the person or haunted house; this reality TV show allows us to see every bit of their investigation, almost from the beginning. Normally, it start from the complain they get, from the haunted house owner and the team leaving their office to be at the scene to do the investigation, which takes place mostly at night and their reporting of the findings with solid proof, which they captured on TV.

Some souls are really very disturbed and they don't want any investigators including house owners to stay in the house, they have been living and they keep telling them to leave the place with their own way; surprisingly some are very cooperative and meekly respond to the question and give a clear sign that they are their.

I picked this story from Learn to Live - 2: This was reported in a newspaper Pune. An eight year old boy was suffering from the torments of a disembodied spirit. The rich father  spent a lot of money to cure him of the scourge, but in vain. They heard that in the Dattareya temple of Narasobawadi such scourges were cured. The Parents took the boy and stayed there for two months. They offered worship to the deity, offered prayers. Finally, the ghost revealed the secret of how he came to possess the boy. “I was walking on the road, this man slung a noose around my neck and killed me, and robbed me off the five hundred Rs. in my possession. I turned into a ghost. For the past seven lives, I have been into a ghost. For the past seven life's I have been searching for my murderer. I caught him at last. I will not give him up”. The father, who was greatly worried about his son said, “I am prepared to return your money with interest in any manner you suggest, release my son from your hold”. The ghost said, “he killed me, I am bound to kill him”, the ghost never let go the boy, soon the boy was dead.

After reading this story, I went in deep ponder to think and think real hard, who was victim of revenge and hatred ?  The boy who died or the the ghost who could not free himself from hatred, that took him seven long lifetimes, in search of the person ? We all hate one or the other to some extent, some may hate bit too short and some may hate too long but the big question is how much one should hate someone ?

In the first case the findings is captured in the television and some sounds recorded in audio instruments too, they confirm to the house owners, that there sure live some unseen power[s] then, they leave the place with the confirmation. The house owners and now they also get the invitation from the big corporate houses across the Britain and at times some army barracks also have started inviting them to see the reasons behind the unsolved mystery that resides in the house or within the periphery of the premises.

At the end of every the Ghost Hunters show, my mind never stop asking me one question what next ? What is the use of finding and confirming  some invisible living in the house, other than the house owners. What should be the next step by the owner ? Leave [sell] the house now ? Just then, I some what seem to be appreciating this illogical, irrational and insane sounding solutions, when they say, “donate the purple shawl, to the diseased”, coming from our eastern babas, sadhu or at times our very own priest to offer peace puja, so that the trapped souls may find peace or at times even find freedom from the situation. Sometime, maybe we need to be just compassionate, rather than trying to find some rational reasoning and answers to something beyond the power of human beings.  How can we deal with invisible powers like souls ?

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note : This story was first published on Nepali Advocate on October 16, 2012

What we need to understand ?

 It was rumored that Amitabh Bachchan was signed for a 100 million deal for a season of 2012 KCB. Does this surprise anyone reading this or watching KBC for many years now, this year the prize money is raised to 70 million, before that it was 50 million. The year before that it was 20 million and when this show [ KBC ] had started in 1999 a franchise of ‘who wants to be a millionaire’ winning money was 10 million only.

There is new buzz in Bollywood with a ‘100 million club’ which has a direct relation with the box office result of any movie by any actor or director. Rohit Shetty is on top of the list with 200 corod for making the mark of straight two of his movies in shortest time. Taran Adarsh who is famous movie critic of the industry has posted that on his tweet. Salman leads as an actor with three straight movies back to back for making more than a 100 corod each. But before that there was a buzz in the industry that Salman Khan gets paid a whopping 10-12  corod for a movie, so does the Amir gets paid almost the same amount of money for the movies he does. The list goes on if I keep writing each by name.

It is said that Mr Bachchan makes almost 10 corod from his brand endorsement dealings only - its bit old news I mean more than a year old- every year. Likewise its speculated that Kareena, Priyanka and katrina makes almost 5-7 corod from their brand endorsements. Entertainment magazines and channels keep making buzz like this. Tom Hanks was paid 12 million dollar for his role in the Da Vinci Code. Julia Roberts used to get paid 15 million  dollar and now the news is doing that Jennifer Lopez is roped in for the news season of American Idol at 17.5 million dollar to return in the show.

Sheryl Sandberg second-in-command, Chief Operating Officer was with Google prior to her posing in Facebook's. She makes multi millions dollars not to mention she is also a celeb writer of a book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, which made her rich by  91 million dollar. Although, its not disclosed her salary but everyone knows she gets paid very handsomely for the her current position.

 

Fifty Shade of Grey made the writer richer by 85 million pound in the year that hit the book stall. We also keep reading and watching Lance Armstrong used to make 75 million dollar a day during his heyday, which lost after he was barred from taking part in any competition due to his doping charges. Tiger wood used to make a billion dollar from endorsement signing amount only apart from his major championship in golf. All the star player makes good money in sports and music, movies, corporate houses, science and technology.

I have never ever heard in my life, here in my country that so and so person is paid this much for a movie, for a music record, for a book deal, for a top position in any company or name anything.  All those negotiations are a top most secret deal and it should never ever see the light of sun. It should remain in between the person and the company. Because, its so small figure that the one who signs the deal do not want the rest of the world to know it; because it has power to make the artist or creative brain feel small in front of pay they get.

At this very moment, I remember a line reading some where, you get what you pay for. But why is so. I keep reading in papers that Americans keep bragging about the pay they pay to get so and so person in their bandwagon, whether its movie, music records, TV shows or corporate hiring. They just brag like anything. Even Indian movies has started bragging and now the box office record is another meter to that brag point.

But this is not the same case here, pay to any one is not a reason to brag for, those rates are top secrets. The question is why ?

Couple of years ago, I have read one story about in a book confession of an advertising man by David Ogilvy about a Japanese doll, which was made in such a way that every big doll could fit inside it smaller dolls of the same shape and design. David Ogilvy the man behind the O&M advertising company have opined that, if hiring becomes this way, this only makes any company, a company of dwarf, which bars the growth of a company. To grow in life, one must hire a person who is brilliant, smarter and who can help make more money to company than squeeze a penny, until penny begs for mercy.

There is another story, which I remember at this very moment. This is a real story of about a man who lived in a village in Africa Kiribati island. I Read this in Reader's Digest many years ago. In this village like many in African culture, the family of groom normally gives cattle to the family of bride as a settlement deal. Therefore, this man was a matter of laughter in the whole village, for he paying about a dozen healthy cattle to the father of a girl he wanted to marry. Who was not even worth a cattle or two, that too sick or at least, that's what the villagers thought about her. Everyone laughed at him for so long; for he being fooled by the father to pay such number of cattle for his ‘invisible and unworthy’ daughter; and it had become the living legend of that village. But, all this did not affected in anyway to this man and he was happily settled with his wife. One day the writer of this story went on to see this man, he was surprised to see his confident, well poised wife who welcomed him at their house. She was full of self pride. That was so opposite of what he had heard about her when he had entered the village. She was not the girl anymore who was worth only a couple of dying cattle, instead she had become the woman with many dozen healthy cattle. The way she carried her told a lot about that deal, her poise and walk  with confidence and exude her self-esteem has a lot to teach us.

She is the living example of the saying that goes, you get; exactly what you pay for.

What heroes teach us ?

 Movie industry is the best place to learn lessons of life. Lead actors do give us more powerful story through their life  a huge part to enlighten us with their relentless effort or work, which do not have anything to do with story they love to tell us on screen. What you see on screen and what they tell you with their lifelong work is so different. Here are some such story, which I find a lot more interesting than the movies they do or make.

Persistence : watching Mr Bachchan on sets of KBC is simply awesome and a kind of mesmerizing power he has over Indians or the people around the world. But what has power to pull me towards him to be look up to is, noone in the movie industry has seen the kind of ups and downs as Mr Bachchan had seen. He had lost almost 10 corod in a single night, which made him bite dust; and it sure took time for him to recover from his bankrupt. As a result he had to nod his head to do the television show which until then was regarded demeaning to do for a star which height had power to tower over bollywood. Who knew then, KBC would be the most watched show in the history of Indian Television.  It has been said and believed, that the ‘who wants to be a millionaire’ KBC in India made Mr. Bachchan millionaire than anyone else on the show. It sure helped him to clear all his old dues. his story tells us the failure is temporary only. Failure is temporary to those who persist in life and permanent to those who quit and never try again.

Let your work speak : Sanjay Dutta was charged for being a part of Mumbai explosion in 1993 for keeping the kind of weapons, which was used for exploding Mumbai city. This explosion not only shook Indian but the whole world with the kind of brutality it carried with it. If they say they had evidence to prove it; they must be right ! But then, I had seen this special documentary on an entertainment channel about his life. During that time he was recovering from drug addiction, and his father was new in politics. There was chaos in the city, his mom was muslim and father was Hindu. A reason for mob to attach them anytime, so he kept the weapon for self protection, which he said repeatedly in his defence. But what forced me to change my mind about him, not to take him as a bad guy is, if he was really that bad guy, who could blew off the city and take life of hundreds of innocent people, then why was he accepted by the decent people; who work in the movie industry ? No, I am not reasoning why director took him as a lead character, but how come his co-stars got comfortable to work with the man, who was regarded such bad boy by media ?  

They too could have avoided him as bad boy.  In that document one reason, for why he was sent to jail was given that, it was due to political rivalry his father facing    politics. That's why they say dirty politics ! The document also revealed that, when he was released from the jail after serving 18 months under the TADA court, harsher criminal act, he straight went to see Balraj Thakre’s home, before even heading to his home, to thank him for the support he had shown him during all the time when he served his time in jail. No one should forget that his parents bother were also a yesteryear’s star of Bollywood, his father was with him through the thick and thin. His story tells us, what is seen should not be believed as real truth.

Stubborn Determination : I have read in one of those movie magazines back in ‘80s that Zeenat Aman’s English was very poor when she was in school but she was determined to improve it anyway and sure she did it. When I read this, she became my role model to take this matter in my hand, so when people compliment me today about my English and some even ask where did you study ? your English is so good ! Times like that, I forget to thank Zeenat for instilling the desire in my mind to improve my own poor eng against all odds.

Dignity : Years back, when I was still in school, I read in a movie magazine about a small incident about Dev Anand. That magazine had mentioned, how Dev Anand had tackled an uneasy situation with one of his team member while shooting for a movie. He had said in a calm voice, “don't shout, I also can raise my voice.” I was growing up in Bal Mandir, when I read this, which changed my entire attitude about shouting and presuming this is how we should make our point clear. Truth be told, I grew up in a shout culture and everyone shouted at each others and thought they made their point clear that way. Without raising a voice, it was considered that the others would not grasp our viewpoint fully and shouting was the only way to make her/his point clear.  

I saw so much truth and power in that simple sounding line. Honestly speaking, it totally changed my attitude about raising my voice to make my point clear, as well as the way I view about the actor. I have to admit, he was never my favorite actor, but  he will always be remembered as a pure gentleman. Because of him, I know that, I don't have to raise my voice to make my point clear, even though I was growing up in a society; which practiced the shout. Firmness and quiet tone has a lot more power to emphasize on said words than the raised tones. I have learned it by now, only weak people shout, strong one don't have to raise their voice to to be heard.

Working as a team : Everyone who is in this industry, knows about it, movie industry is all about a team work. But what I am saying here, working only with the person you are comfortable with, is also bring better result than teaming up with all stars with whom you share no compatibility. David Dhawan made movies mostly with Govinda and their team did have a power to break the box office records, even if the ‘pundits’ predicted it will bust out in box office. Their movies used to prove wrong to all those pundits. When they were a team, they were a winning team; when one is not around the other is lost in the allies of changing lane of industry. Adam Sandler teams up with Rob Snyder and we know it, their team is winning team. I can tell the movie made by Gary Marshall just by seeing some familiar faces it it, which works best for him.

Leonardo is on the top list of movie maker Martin Scorsese and together they have been a part of success movies. Rohit Shetty teams up with Ajay Devgan, Shahrukh Khan is favourite actor amongst the bollywood movie powerhouse, Yash Raj Movie. Likewise, every one have their own team of songwriters and singers and whole camera crew to work with. Jay Leno works with same creative team and TV crew for last seventeen years. Paring of Maha jodi is also one of success story of working as a team. Everyone has their favorite team to work with, and if it works for you, stick together.