डॉन आज बहुत खुश है, क्यों कि आज वह पूरे चालीस बरस का हो गया. लेकिन उससे बैर मत मोल लेना. उसकी बंदूक का निशाना आज भी बरकरार है…होशियार!

Don Aaj Khush Hai, kyonki aaj vah poore chaalees baras kaa ho gayaa. Lekin usase bair mat mol lenaa. usakee bandook kaa nishaanaa aaj bhee barkaraar hai…hoshiyaar!

I woke up feeling I should be singing Kishoreda’s “Main Hoon Don” aloud on completing my 40th year this morning. Didn’t myself know the rationale behind this desire. Not to forget, rehearsing Kishoreda’s 11000 volt songs is not possible in my neighborhood anymore, which is more congested these days as compared to what it was 18 years ago, when we moved in. The next door apartments and windows that did not exist to stare at me then, and neither were those shops lining up next to my balcony, are firmly placed around my home today. Some of these came years later thanks to some under-hand-deals between the authorities and builders. Apart from housing blocks, the number of kids went skywards as well – some elders have taken a break from this world as well, but about that later – and those loitering around in those years have started taking up various roles in today’s life.

Gone are days when you could reenact Kishore, Rafi and Mukesh without ever being conscious of its ramification. Only a handful of buffaloes and stray dogs perished next to my home listening to it silently. Of course, the kids of my household enjoyed being part of my reenactments, but they have been compelled to go busy as well due to ageing. There is a new entrant, an eight year old niece of mine, who still finds it worthful to play innocent. But, most of the time I have to remind her how Kishoreda was different from his own copycats. She may still find Himesh Reshamiya’s “Ek Haseena Thee” more hummable though, as compared to Kishore Kumar’s, I strongly suspect!

Therefore, reciting KK’s original wasn’t my plan of ideas this morning, but blogging about the same was indeed, so here we go now: the mark of 40 can be unique in a man’s life. On one hand, you are not that much old that you should start to think about your retirement plans, but at the same time, you wouldn’t live as blindly either as you would have done a decade and half ago. Many notions that might have been part of your conscience then would either be gone today or be highly infeasible to carry on with. You would have fallen in tandem with the ways of life by this age, and adopted newer ideas to make it sound more complete. This enlightenment of yours may not be known to others though. They might still examin you from their own beliefs, nothing wrong with that either. But, they should also know – from someone who recently turned 40 and was more awakened – that they shouldn’t be messing around with him now, and also who the real boss was in their visinity and behave accordingly…the real Don resides here…lol…

I didn’t know turning 40 could bring DON-HOOD upon you, until I became one myself! Here is KK’s own DON bite to have a toast on this occasion!