ke fasana bangayi hai meri baat chalte chalte

This is a fun and fantastic song. It’s about an older person falling in love. Interesting thing is that Gulzar (dude who wrote the song) himself is 73 years old now. When I grow up, I want to be like Gulzar.

There’s a line in the song that really got a hold of me. But it turns out that it doesn’t mean what I had wanted it to mean. At 1:55 into the song:

kisko pataa tha pehlu mein rakha, dil aisa paaji bhi hoga
hum to hamesha samajhte the koi hum jaisa haaji hi hoga

The lines are in reference to his heart. How he had thought his heart was always guarded and gentle and it turns out that it’s actually pretty ‘naughty’ (that’s how most translations on the net have translated ‘paaji’).

hum to hamesha samajhte the koi hum jaisa haaji hi hoga, the context here is the heart, where ‘haaji’ means gentle/gentleman-like. But the way it is said, ‘haaji’ can also refer to ‘one who performs hajj/pilgrimage’. A pilgrim. A person who journeys and wanders. That’s what I wanted it to mean.

hum to hamesha samajhte the koi hum jaisa haaji hi hoga, I wanted this not only to be in reference to his own heart, but also to refer to the person he was falling for. I wanted this translated as: I had always thought that she would be, like me, a pilgrim.

Still a good song, nonetheless.

try
           harder
and          harder
           until

you
           notice
your          patterns
of         irregularities
           repeat.

Sometimes we have difficulties separating what is true from what we want to be true. Most of those mentioned above use similar techniques. Some of them use exactly the same techniques. Yet the belief ranges widely and oddly.

To demonstrate, here is one of my absolutely favourite magicians performing an effect. This exact effect was performed by David Blaine on one of his specials. It’s interesting to note the leverage and the pull each magician gets out of his performance. Here’s David Williamson:

He’s doing more than just performing magic there. There’s a lot of interaction going on — a lot of it impromptu, some of it disgusting… hahaha. He does a lot: the fake moustache/beards, the high fives, the insulting his audience, etc, etc. But don’t let his crazy demeanour fool you, this guy has created some amazing magic. Basically, he’s super awesome.

Here’s David Blaine doing the same effect on one of his specials. Note Blaine’s audience here and also how he plays his personality into the effect.

David Blaine’s show reruns on TV every so often and he rakes up millions of viewers and millions of dollars. Same effect. David Williamson’s TV appearance was probably a decade before Blaine’s. Some folk will swear by Blaine’s magic. “Yo, did you see him float in the air!!!”, hahahahaha. Seriously people, it’s television. Superman ain’t really flying either.

This is not to down play Blaine’s technique. He’s got chops, for sure. But Williamson is in a whole different league. Williamson is of the magicians that create the magic magicians like Blaine and Copperfield perform. Williamson also has a fantastic sense of humour.

Here’s Williamson making a fun video clip during a magic conference:

Haha, so much fun.

I think I’ll want to do some actual analysis of some magic videos in the future. David Stone, Gregory Wilson and David Williamson as some of the magicians to analyze.