Aesthetic Blasphemy

My attention span lasts a millisecond.

2012-01-28T20:38:00.001+05:30

Attention please, this is a pretty outdated post that was written at time when some people who now are dead, were alive, and when things which I have missed in this post, had not happened. It was the time when this mutating hormone of ‘Paper Patriotism’ had sprung up after a long time, so strongly that I had to absolutely give it an honest hearing and make notes while it ranted. I had made efforts to keep this hormone in seclusion and to achieve this I had unsubscribed to newspaper and all the News Channels, employed strict filtering in my browser to block any news site and got ear plugs. But when the house maid just carried in the newspaper of the out of town neighbor and left it in my house, the sick little hormone was unleashed, yet again. Luckily, I had the notes from the last time which I halfheartedly tried to update to make this post look a little more contemporary to the time it is being revised to. I hope it is not outdated before you finish reading it. Time is strange, I don’t blame you, it flies faster than light and we’re still snail paced. Strange times, there goes nothing.

It was six men of Hindostan,

To learning much inclined,

Who went to see the elephant

(Though all of them were blind);

That each by observation

Might satisfy his mind.

Reading the newspaper gives my patriotism a great boost. I go through the newspaper, see India shining, and feel my blood curdling (Though excessive curdling may cause it to precipitate into a gelatinous type of substance and cause health hazards, hence I don’t do that often, reading the newspaper that is). I see India making it into the fourth position on the world’s list of most dangerous countries for women, way to go people. We are already in a bid to topple China in the population race, and the armament race between the two neighbours has already taken the two to become the world’s fastest evolving war material stockpile. No wonder smoking should be strictly prohibited lest a little spark results into a disastrous inferno. I don’t quite remember how many Diwali rockets just go kaput but I’ll have to trust the claims the war pundits make because, the only way to be sure, is to put the product to use, but only one out of the whole lot is tested, which obviously now sleeps with the fishes in the depths of the Bay of Bengal, (The only working one, I pray? Perhaps not, just for cautions sake). Talking of quality, I read that a ‘Tested OK’ Water Melon blew up like a bomb and that too, on a dining table? That Water Melon was seriously sick and was given an injection. But we believe in, “the bigger the better”, don’t we? Bigger houses, wider roads, bigger cars, bigger pockets, bigger lives, bigger melons, bigger problems, right? Did I say bigger problems? Oh, sorry, bigger problems are for the smaller people, we need bigger bail outs. And we don’t like Fat fat.

Reading about safety and all these incidents of rape and brutal killings and day light murders, where do we think we are living? Now I have three theories about these unabated and shameless happenings. One, we have started taking the “World Ending in 2012” blasphemy seriously, and are letting the animal instincts take control (Actually, animal instinct tends to drive animals out of danger, so that term needs some serious brainstorming and subsequent revision). I saw quite a few facebook statuses stating that the Armageddon is inevitable, owing to the recent turn of weather events, like heavy snowfall in places which received it last more than half century ago, and I wonder what is wrong if God is overwhelmed with nostalgia over past and just trying to relive them? It isn’t abnormal to have things which used to be pretty normal a few years back, show up again. Maybe all the conservation efforts are bearing fruits this winter? (Though I’d merrily side with the Armageddon theory given the kind of nature we have, the frail human nature.)

Back to safety issue, Theory number two, it all has been happening ever throughout the timeline but was never reported, but this does not explain what makes today different from any other day. Why report today, if you didn’t report yesterday? Making amends? That is nice. There are quite a lot of other things too that require amendments and probably a complete overhaul. It’s all about ratings I guess, more the rage in the event and more sensitive the issue, the better are the ratings, better the ratings, more is the readership and viewership, more audience means more advertisers, more advertisers mean more revenue, more revenues mean more avenues, avenues to grow more revenue and repeat. I don’t like seeing death scene repeated again and again and its autopsy being narrated with ample spice and sadistic mirth like enthusiasm on a news channel, while there are many other good and important events that get sidelined. Journalism of courage (Pointing at the whole bunch, not just the one who uses it)? Hah! What do I want, go back to Stone Age? I am afraid not, but there can always be a better way, unless you have the best, which definitely is not this one.

Third, people are turning into followers of Gaddafi and his likes and carrying out his orders of free pillaging, rape and murder. Gandhi’s out, Gaddafi’s in. Otherwise how do you account for a 15 year old and a 17 year old attempt rape and murder? They cannot be politically motivated, it is different. Curiosity cannot throw us overboard to such extreme steps in the first attempt itself, we are used to the easy ways. He’s dead anyway, want to follow suit?

I read reports how incomplete and dysfunctional hospitals are being inaugurated overlooking a pile of construction material behind the tent house, of how funds are being embezzled into private accounts and I get into thinking of all the reforms that could be made. I read how newly born life is just waning away because there isn’t enough infrastructure in hospitals? That too in a country where the political power reins is in the hands of women who are mothers too? Have you been into a line to get a medical slip, or a test done, or anything like that. Won’t you want to get past all of them, by some means and get your work done faster? Well everyone there wants to do that. How many times we’ve used references to get a work done faster or used influence to get gains.

Although Berlin wall might have fallen some time earlier than it was really supposed to due to a little miscommunication on the part of a senior congressman, but mistakes are not deliberate. But these days, I feel that Political parties are not interested in Good Governance, they are just interested in ‘Governance’, and being in power. Some are sending money orders to people to buy votes, circumventing the Electoral Procedures and shamelessly violating them, while others are simply giving away beer and wine (They know how to woo people now, don’t they). A politician whose credentials are often mocked at on facebook when compared with the desi RTI guy like the numerous annoying SMSes that we receive as ‘Forward this or else’ and ‘Think about it’ compliments people of a state that they are doing a pretty good job even in foreign nations whose farming would be so dull had it not been for these people. And the opposition, very crudely twists the compliment into a comment, that what does he want, that Indians should get back to doing labour? A really commendable job Sire!

There are people who've witnessed what online forums and blogs and sites can potentially do, topple an anarchist, start a revolution. I wonder why is this itch then, to censor the internet. Are the lawmakers feeling left out that internet did not create wonders in their country? Or probably, Armageddon is for real, when we tear ourselves apart, and it starts like this only, in a disguise to prevent it from happening. Ah! The possibilities, it makes me giddy.

We apparently are showing a dismal performance in ‘Cricket’, which is a synonym of ‘sports’ to many, overlooking the good performances in other, minor sporting events. Someone asked me yesterday if I was sane. I don’t know for sure, but there is a possibility that I am. This makes me wonder about something. Our brain is capable of handling many things, like sports, cars, arts, literature, sports, adventure, politics, business, science, maths, and etcetera. And there is a study that claims that an average human uses not more than 5% of the total brain in the entire lifetime. Looking at what I have written above, what would anyone infer of it? Too much facebook, perhaps? Anyways, I am digressing. But it is such an irony that even I have highlighted nothing more than what everyone’s talking about, the negative. But I have reached the end perhaps.

Like many others, my patriotism bubbles through me and when I am done reading it, burp! (and trust me, I gave up drinking cola just because of the afterburner burp it delivered). Gone, just like that.

And so these men of Hindostan

Disputed loud and long,

Each of his own opinion

Exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right,

And all were in the wrong!

~ John Godfrey Saxe

Random Wanderings.

2012-01-21T20:09:00.002+05:30

(1)

जलना तो इस काफिर दिल की फितरत है, तुम्हे किसी और के साथ देख कर जलता है, तुम्हे कोई और देखे, तब भी तो जलता ही है | आज तक समझ नहीं पाया हूँ कि उस घड़ी का रंज करूँ या दिवाली मनाऊं जिस घड़ी तुम्हे देखा था | उसी घड़ी से आज तक दिल तिल-तिल कर जलता बुझता रहा है | कभी लगता है कि पहले का वह आवारापन ही अच्छा था जब तुमसे नहीं मिला था, जब दिल और नज़र बस किसी पर भी आ जाते थे, और जैसे ही नज़र फेरो, दिल भी फिर जाता था | अब खूबसूरती मापने का पैमाना मिल गया है, बड़ी मुश्किल है |

पूछता हूँ, "इतना क्यूँ सताती हो?", तब मुस्कुराया मत करो, क़त्ल होते हैं !

***

(2)

Some girls are like Hermione. Some say, they have an attitude problem. While the ones who have been with them for a while know that - they - are the solution box. Like a master key. You don’t look unto them for relationships, or maybe you might, but that is solely your discretion, but you cannot do without them. A friend at workplace, a childhood friend, or someone you just happen to know from a time you don't remember. You may or may not acknowledge it, but it is a fact that there are always some girls around you who inadvertently make your life easy as a part of their nature and not even break a sweat and would never ever talk about it. You just stand back and say, WOW.

Who says good boys end up last, even good girls do. I think it is the general class, ‘good’, that ends up last in these matters. But not for long, they are meant to lead the best lives, and be wonder (full) women, if not super women. It’s such a shame that they find it in the end, when their’s should be the first.

Some voices never die.

2012-01-14T19:58:00.000+05:30

To err is human, to forgive divine.

Much too often we’ve made mistakes which knowingly or unknowingly we are going to repeat, and yet promise not to make the same mistakes again. One of the mistakes that I often make and which I’ll correct here is to generalize what applies to me alone. Henceforth, I speak for myself, there is only ‘I’ and ‘me’ and no ‘we’ when making claims. Hence.

Much too often I’ve made mistakes which knowingly or unknowingly I am going to repeat, and yet promise not to make the same mistakes again and loop.

Some mistakes are imbibed with birth, and are made when all other mistakes are being committed in succession and things are falling apart like the domino effect accompanied by a train of ‘Oh Shit!’s and curses.

To err is in humans bred,

Doubt and fret, than to seek instead.

The wisdom of our ancestors was passed down in undiminished quantities through our genetic code. We have the combined wisdom of what our mothers and fathers had while our seeds were sown, and the wisdom that we gained thereafter on our own. It’s not forbidden to have it, but it’s never too apparent either, it takes a little something to decode a code, the piece of Eden some desperately seek.

I plucked the finest roses from the gardens,

Stuck them in pages and laid them on dry tombs,

While poets struck in them the finest tunes,

I in my naiveté merely hummed along.

I gaze at the prose and pieces written by poets and sit helplessly in amazement and wonder, with little success what might have prompted them to write something that continues to live long after their creators are sleeping cold, and what influence? They are subtle, powerful and the influence is still unabated.

The ciphers from distant lands,

Travelled far and wide,

To land up in unworthy hands,

For all their efforts despite?

In the simple nuances of the forgotten poets do I find the clues holding promise to be the key of what I seek. What I seek, is something I am not too sure of, it is like looking across a waterfall and that is why I want to know it all.

Masters scrambled the words to conceal,

Roads leading to the treasure’s post,

Plain as the nature is, needs but plain sight to see,

The wisdom long gone, was never lost.

I’ve met people, I’ve liked people, and I’ve disliked people, formed opinions with what they looked like or behaved like. I like to believe that most of us live many lives, and seldom the real life. Even when alone, we are trying to mould ourselves, in a bid to outdo ourselves and become something that we think would make us better, but would regret sooner or later do to loss of intrinsic nature. But then again, I’d only want to talk for myself. I live like that. Part apologetic, part hypocritical, part proud and part self mocking. People mock me, I mock people, and sometimes wonder what made me like that? A little thing of beauty that semiconductors have taught me is that once they are doped, they become more conducive to be operated upon. They conduct more, and hence, react to little stimulus in a way they would have when subjected to their extremes when in their intrinsic states.

The cause of fall of Eden,

Just because of a tree?

That feels just so wrong.

They tell me to depart from mediocrity if I am to shine, and allow my heart and mind to judge, the feel and the sense. Don’t get me wrong if I hush myself after vehement blows. It’s not subjugation or diffidence; it’s not surrender, at all. I repair myself when no one watches.

To err is human, to forgive divine.

(Redundant, rhetorical.)

आवारा !

2012-01-07T15:56:00.000+05:30

सर्दियाँ आ गयी हैं | रोज सुबह रजाई से बाहर निकलते ही इस बात का पहला एहसास मकान का ठंडा फर्श दिलाता है, जब मैं अर्धनिद्रा में पैर कि अँगुलियों से चप्पल तलाशता हूँ | यकीन मानिए, कितनी ही बार उस अलार्म घडी को तोड़ देने का मन करता है जिसने इतने सारे लोगों की सुखद नींद को समय का गुलाम कर दिया |

पर कहानियाँ सुनने में रुचि है मेरी | और घर में पड़ा टेलीविजन रोज एक सा राग अलापता है, उसमे कहानियां कहाँ आती हैं आजकल? उस से तो कब का ऊब गया हूँ, उसकी ओर देखता हूँ तो एक उदासीन भाव से | बरामदे में आज भी कबूतर दम्पति में अनबन हुई है शायद, एक कबूतर बार बार घर आता है, और दूसरी उसे डरा कर अपने घरोंदे से बहार खदेड़ देती है | मुझको दोनों बरामदे के दो किनारों से ताकते हैं, आपस में फिर भी बोलचाल नहीं करते, ऐसा लगता है जैसे ठंडी आहें भर रहे हों |

कहानियां घर से निकलने पर शुरू हो जाती हैं | चलते चलते कोई भी व्यक्ति मेरे होंठों पर कोई धुन छोड़ जाता है, जिसे फिर मैं दिन भर के लिए गुनगुनाता रह जाता हूँ | संगीत भी एक सफर की तरह है, कितने असंबद्ध तार जोड़ देता है, बस यों ही | और जब सफर रोज का हो, कुछ अनजान राही जाने पहचाने अजनबी हो जाते हैं | रोज दफ्तर से घर निकलते समय विपरीत दिशा में जा रहे राहगीरों को क्षण भर के लिए देखता हूँ |

“उनसे नज़रें जो मिलीं, रोशन फिजाएं हो गयी, आज जाना इश्क की जादूगरी क्या चीज़ है...”

कुछ चेहरे नियमित रूप से दिखते हैं | कोई रोज आपके सामने से गाना गुनगुनाते हुए गुज़रे, तो क्या समझोगे? यदि धुन पकड़ने लगो तो यह तो न सोचोगे के तुम्हारे लिए ही गा रहा है?

“जो मेरा हो नहीं पायेगा, इस जहां में कहीं, रूह बन कर मिलूँगा उसको, आसमान में कहीं...”

कितने राहगीरों को पलट कर देखा होगा मैंने कि कहीं वे पलट कर मुझे तो नहीं देख रहे, कि देखो! सरफिरा पागल जा रहा है, बेसुध हो गुनगुना रहा है | कभी ऐसा होता भी है, और मुझको हंसी आ जाती है | नज़रें चुराने में भी कितनी ही कहानियां बन गयी होंगी | बस ऐसे ही धुनों का लेन देन चला रहता है हमारे बीच | उनमे से कुछ पथिक वही गीत ले कर घर पहुंचते होंगे | संगीत संक्रामक भी है |

“सुहाना सफर और ये मौसम हसीं...”

फुटपाथ पर चलते हुए क्या सोचते होंगे लोग? मैं ज्यादा नहीं सोचता, अपितु खेलते हुए चलता हूँ | फुटपाथ सीमेंट के सांचों से बना रहता है, और खेल का नियम सरल, हर सांचे में एक ही पग रख कर आगे बढ़ना होगा, और यदि बीच में दो सांचे टाप सकें तो बोनस अंक | मेट्रो कब पहुँच जाता हूँ कुछ पता ही नहीं चलता | मेट्रो तो और भी रोचक जगह है, परन्तु उसके बारे में अभी नहीं, आजकल ठण्ड बढ़ने लगी है, ओस भी गिरने लगी है | ठण्ड से ज्यादा ओस हानिकारक है | घर देर रात से पहुंचना ठीक न होगा |

दीवारें बुलाती रहीं...

2011-12-24T14:12:00.000+05:30

दीवारें बुलाती रहीं, मैं ही अनजान था,

जो तलाश में निकल पड़ा,

लौटा, तो घर कह उठा,

तुम बिन घर, घर सा नहीं लगता |

समझ नहीं आ रहा कहाँ से शुरू करूँ | क्यूँ गया था समझाने की कोशिश करूँ, या अपनी अनुपस्थिति को नज़रंदाज़ कर दूं मानो में कहीं नहीं गया था? शायद यही बेहतर होगा | समय कहाँ मेरे लिए रुका था, जो में समय बीत जाने का हिसाब लगाने बैठूं | बस इतना समझिए कि इस बार मैंने समय से अपने लिए कुछ समय अलग से माँगा था, अब पूरा हो चला है|

घर लौटना अच्छा लगता है न? भले ही किवाडों पर नौ मन के ताले लगा कर क्यूँ न गए हों, एक छोटी सी आशा का दीप मन में जलता है, घर में कुछ नया मिलेगा |

कितना समय बीत गया है, कोई बताएगा मुझको? मेरी स्मृति क्षीण हो चली है | क्या कोई आया था मेरी गैरहाजिरी में यहाँ पर? यह दीवारों पर क्या कुछ लिखा हुआ है? जब तक यह बस्ती बसती थी, तब तो यहाँ ऐसा कभी नहीं हुआ? बेसुध तो में था, लोगों को क्या हुआ?

मैंने तो सुना था कि मजारों पर मन्नतें मांगते हैं, यहाँ तो कब्र खोद कर नाश हुआ है | कौन जिम्मेवार है? दीवारें भी चुप चुप सी हैं | दोषी जब अपने आप पूछे के दोषी कौन है तो प्रताडित क्या जवाब देगा |

आज दीवारों से काई पोंछते हुए एहसास होता है कि घर में भी जीवन होता है | दीवारें, दरवाज़े, खिड़कियाँ, चौखट, परदे, पलंग, सब, सब सांस लेते हैं, हमारे होने से उनमे भी सुकून सा होता है | दीवारों से लिपट कर रोए हो कभी? दीवारें मुझ से लिपट कर आज रोई हैं | पर जब भी में पूछता हूँ कि उनके ऐसे हश्र के लिए कौन उत्तरदायी है, तो चुपके से मेरी ओर इशारा कर देती हैं |

“तुम!”

First signs of withdrawal: Boredom!

2011-10-01T15:03:00.003+05:30

If no one knew anybody, or if everybody knew everybody, then I believe, no one would have to eat alone tonight.

Nor would anyone need to search for a face in the crowd. I somehow feel strongly that the first case might work out much better than the second one.

I've walked the distance, I paid my dues and tried to have a go at what I thought I knew was real,

held no appeal.
I've been to places, I've seen the tidings,
I bought a book of rules for every coin that I could steal
And so I came to gaze upon the stars, when they were yet unborn
And consequently, tear at my old scars, and the mask I had outworn

~Roses (Poets of the fall)

Of late, I've grown weary and bored. Of listening, and talking, and listening, and talking still. I want to slow down a bit, get off the train, and walk some distance on the two parallel tracks, barefoot. I want to sit on a bench and watch the world go by, doing what it does everyday, running.

I want to lie down and watch the stars run on their routine course throughout the night and wish, that tomorrow they start from the west. I wish to unlearn what I have learnt, and learn all over again. I wish to read literature and learn to write, again. And I just don't wish to wish anymore.

I've heard the rumors, started fires, I sowed a sordid lot of plays for keeps for what I need,

behold the demons that I freed.
I've tried my best at wearing the hard hat, but healing doesn't seem to happen when you hide away the seed
And so I came across the medicine man, and he showed me what I'd forlorn
For if I'm stayed it happens by my own hand, and my own voice full of scorn.

~Roses

What did I just write? Nothing that was mine. I'm just breaking off from the yardstick straight line and headed out for a while. I have been bored for too long. Nothing happens, now might.

कौन है तेरा यहाँ, मुसाफिर अकेला था, अकेला रहेगा |

2011-09-23T19:13:00.000+05:30

मेरे खटखटाने का जवाब आना बंद हुआ,

बस इतना ही था,

मेरा उस गली में जाना बंद हुआ ||

यह तो थी मेरी बात |

--------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------

किनसे पूछें रुकने का फलसफा यहाँ पर,

सूरज चाँद भी अंधेरों में घूमे जा रहे हैं,

एक मोड़ का फासला तय करने की हिम्मत जुटा,

हर मोड़ पर नयी मंजिल बना रहे हैं,

किनसे पूछें जीने का फलसफा यहाँ जब,

सभी जिए जा रहे हैं,

कोई आखरी मोड़ पार कर कभी रुका है क्या यहाँ,

उसी मोड़ पर पहुँचने को, सभी जा रहे हैं ||

It takes a lifetime to grow a good friend.

2011-09-16T10:45:00.000+05:30

I’ve been growing a plant lately. A money plant. If you ask me why, well, it’s because it grows green leaves. And then if you ask me what is so dear about the leaves being green, I’d quote to you from some scientific research that green is the most perceptible color to human eyes, stimulating the rods and cones alike.

Green leaves give pleasure to eyes, have such a fine granular surface and are at their best when fresh and crisp. And happy eyes mean a happy me, right? So, I’ve been growing a money plant lately. A money plant with green leaves. The best part is that it doesn’t merely grow, it climbs. I am so tempted to stand as its support, secretly wishing that it would climb on to me and reach my head, but then I feel, it’s already inside my head.

Trying to be a nice gardener, I graft it a little so that it can grow more rapidly. And behold! it spurts even more. Who said happiness grows when shared. It's these green leaves when spent.

It is sun shy, does not need to see much sun, or else it just withers away. Putting it out in the sun, where every one can see it is the rarest of all events. It suffices and thrives in closed rooms, small rooms.

People come and go, and everyone has something to show. We all love preaching. The other day someone told me about fertilizers. He said it works faster than any grafting technique. He almost had me there, I was tempted as hell. But when I added a pinch of it, I saw my plant's root cringe and shrink. He said it was okay, I tried to believe him too, but the fading color of my plant only heightened my apprehensions.

I never saw that man again. I will never use those fertilizers either. I'll grow a money plant!

With half of my heart, that has never loved anything.

2011-09-09T20:48:00.000+05:30

I’ve been borrowing sessions on laptops from friends lately. And all the while, while I am not on the laptop, I am meticulously chalking out the requirements that the Laptop that I buy is supposed to conform to. And all the while I am doing this, I am weighing my options of calling my old pal, my desktop, to come and stay with me. I’d pieced it together like a bouquet with flowers handpicked from diverse gardens with the best fragrance I could have afforded in my meager budget. It never let me down.

Somehow, I find customized things more appealing than any branded thing. An assembled computer, a custom built Lamborghini or well, we’ll talk about that in a few moments from now on.

I see faces everyday while I stand in a queue over the dining area, and I see them in plenty. Some repeat over day, some don’t. Then I have friends around who keep me updated on the directions where I should be facing. Meanwhile, there is a lot going on in my little head. I see a face, and I like its nose, a thin ridge line culminating on a pin point with just the right slopes on either sides. I remember reading somewhere that there are 14 types of noses in this world and I try to validate that claim. The other side of my brain sends SOS signals and forces me to abort the database scan. I see another one with kohled eyes so mesmerizingly beautiful that I am sure that they must have taken someone’s life in the past. Suddenly I am drawn to the upward curve of pink lips (neither too dry, nor too wet) too close not to notice. She’s smiling at some message in her inbox and merrily typing away the reply standing in the nearby queue. There’s another with the best cheek bone I’ve seen and there are a few more unnoticed faces I might not see today, the ones with figures many of their gender would envy and crave for. Then there are a few who are the best company anyone would want to be in, for life. And all the while they happen to pass along, I am trying to calculate a composite picture, borrowing the best feature from each one of them and putting it in its place in my mental picture. What am I doing there? I have an empty plate, and an empty stomach to fill and a little brain in a much bigger compartment where it is bouncing around.

So the bottom line is that I like assembled things customized as per the taste. Only that I don’t have any tangible approach to God. But there is another catch even if I had some. It’s probably too late to be ordering something from way up there. Why? It’s simple. I send in a request, and even if I am a high priority and my order would supersede every other pending order, designing takes time. The whole framework has to be built just perfect. The process development cycle is a long and risky process. He needs to do it first time right, and He just cannot compromise. Even after the architecture has been released to manufacturing for the single piece to be made, the gestation time between the first stage and the delivery phase is still nine months, which by today's standard would mean obsoleteness even before it is released. Plus, the company of two to whom the rights to ownership are being granted until the product is mature enough to be sent off to the one who ordered it, has to be trustworthy, because mishandling of such delicate things can lead to defects and finally refusal. Plus security is also a concern, because virus is a common term inflicting many things today and who knows, something that I had ordered is stolen from their place?

Even though all of that was possible, no Horlicks or Bournvita or any fountain of youth would miraculously turn her into a compatible age group. Which means, by the time the product is ready for delivery, the one who ordered the make would be obsolete. What options am I left with except to make myself happy in branded things, built as per the market strategy and not the true needs? Is this why there is an idiom that

we'll always regret buying a computer, mobile and having a girl after a few days of having them just because something better would come along due to evolution? Now I think that the one who started this whole concept of marketing and economics long ago must have been working in close collaboration with the Almighty. He must have been God’s recruit, his Angel, sent on deputation to this purgatory to make necessary arrangements for avoiding future complications. In addition, God ensured that we get a little idea (only a little and not exact) of what we want only after crossing a certain age threshold so that no custom orders are delivered just after we entered this world.

And what do I expect after exposing such an intelligent trick that has been played upon us all by no one other than God? You never know, He’s after all a mischievous kid who always has tricks up his sleeves. He just might offer me something I can’t deny? He’s full of surprises, hides peace at the core of every storm.

P.S. : Don't be offended if the girl is being compared to a product and man to it's eventual owner or customer. And if you are still miffed, let 'I' be you (ladies) and 'She' be 'He'.

Hallelujah! I've nothing to offer, Dear Reaper.

2011-09-02T22:11:00.000+05:30

Blindfolded by the darkness of a moonless night, I slipped into an unnamed alley in a bid to find something of which, I had never been seeker. It was curiosity, just like the other day when I had heard some people use the word. ‘I’ve been touched/ hurt/… in the soul’ and things like that. It is something that I haven’t quite felt in mine (soul).

So, I lured myself into that alley and made sure I left no trace on the ground, no footsteps. Walked on paved grounds, without light and support of the confining walls. All I could feel was the spiraling of the steps and the descent. I lost count of time and sensation of direction. I was just going down, and down, into a dark place. I sensed liquid down there, flowing, it was in the air. Yet I found none.

After a while I was parched, though moisture was all around, humid, deliquescent, and a melodic turbulence. I found nothing, no soul, no elixir, only tiredness. I backed down. I returned.

But while I returned, I felt light, because if it exists, it is still white. Unstained, too deep for me to seek, for now. And if it doesn’t, I’ve never had anything worthwhile to loose, eh? So, I return to a place where I wear a blindfold of blinding lights.

Hey clocks, won't you run on your legs when I set you on fire?

2011-08-26T20:42:00.000+05:30

Only if some night, I destroyed all the clocks of the world that maintained good time. Only if someday, everyone woke up to the chirruping of the birds or the gleam of the sun than to the annoying alarms.

Clocks have been grossly misunderstood and utterly misused, ever since the idea of keeping time sprouted in someone’s mind. He/She must have been under a seriously funny spell, and then like any other poor joke, this too was shared and spread. ‘Keeping Time’? What is that supposed to mean? Time is supposed to flow; it is an entity in the space-time continuum, why would anyone even want to ‘keep it’?

Time is supposed to keep us, it’s a one way street, and any entity trying to be on the reverse route is enroute to oblivion. Yet we tend to run on this conveyor belt in the opposite direction, seldom making progress, only to be prematurely being overcome and overwhelmed by its speed. Like dry sand through hands, time slips away.

Time, it is meant to be aware of something that is passing away, gushing by, like a rivulet. And yet, the gauge that was meant for mere gauging has been bred into an unforgiving master, whipping us, skinning us and we like slaves crawl on bleeding knees, in quagmires of time. The concept of ‘late’, though well established now, should not have been there in the first place. And now, we are too busy trying to avoid the repercussions of being late. Why do we want ourselves to be bound by the idiosyncrasies of time-keeping, routines that grow more mundane, the more rigorously and religiously we follow them?

I too am bound by these like many, only that I’d love to curve out and do something that I’d love to when I’d want to. (Though it is true that most of the time I want to do a thing that I don’t quite know how to do, nothing.) Other times, like days as today when a beautiful person (just because he/she can talk my subject with awe and spellbinding enthusiasm and glee, I’d call the person beautiful. They are like gardeners watering my zeal), I realize that I can never hate the subjects I chose to pursue and would want to give all my time to read them no matter how poorly I had done in past examinations, and yet I merely sigh, I am too engrossed, I have no time. Need to manage more time. And then I wonder, how can I do this to something I have come to love, there is time, and always will be, for everything my mind can crave for and desire for.

I believe, time is meant for historians. To maintain a chronicled list of events, that is all. For us, time should only be to flow with, in continuum. And as far as keeping time and punctuality are concerned, with the exception of commitments already made, I’d love to forget the watch.

You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain!

2011-08-19T20:28:00.001+05:30

If I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed:
I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.

Before I begin to wrong anyone by my utterances and before anyone form a view about my deliquescent views, no matter how right or wrong it might be, I’ll just say, if you think it is for you, then it is for you.

O Beautiful Ladies, you confuse me to the core. It hurts me to see those dark circles under your eyes due to the life of a mule in the corporate that you chose to live in a bid to outdo others. It isn’t right that you sacrifice the vital hours of sleep and strain those beautiful eyes. This just isn’t fair. And yet you say you enjoy what you do, and I am silenced.

Still, I won’t like you sitting in one place doing nothing and adding layers of fat little by little, on body and in brain, day by day. No, I don’t want you to let your beauty while away, the innate beauty.

No, I don’t have any problem with you working, or doing household work with equal dexterity, and trust me, I’d want to help a few of you, a very few. Please do. But then I wonder if beauty was to be kept unused in this way then what is it meant for anyway? Acknowledge it? What then?

You confuse me inside out.

What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I'd have him love the thing that was
before the world was made.

~ William Butler Yeats

I am not done yet.

It'd be lonely to be the only one who's holy.

2011-08-13T08:13:00.000+05:30

It’s funny. The mind wanders in erratic directions drawing mind numbing projections as I lay my head down after the day is done. Dangling in between states of conscious and dreary sleep, I am jolted upright by a thought stream I start to ride on.

Immortality! I dream of a man unto whom God appears and gives a boon that God would come and defend him if any kind of enemy tried to harm him. There isn’t much background that was given at the start of this reel about the kind of person he was. And at first, everything was normal, until the news spread.

It’s funny. Often we burn, not by what we lack but with what others have. He had a piece of Eden, now everyone wanted it, all of it. Hence started the volley of attacks, one after the other, and another, everything and everyone seemed to be the enemy now. And amidst all of this, while he was cowering behind God’s grace, he felt broken.

Alas, what a loss he had incurred. An irrevocable loss! Every time he was defended, he found himself on a ship that drifted a little further from where he had lived all his life, from all who he had believed to be his people. He wanted to leave all of this now, so he turned to his Master again and requested Him, ‘Take me away, I don’t wish to see any of this anymore’.

Brought back to my present state, I stared at the clock, and ‘it’s funny’, I thought. I barely manage to jot down ciphers that would reconstruct it later before the swing of drowsiness takes me away again, and I don’t remember when I woke up again and it was all white again. I let out a hysterical laugh. It’s funny, isn’t it?

Forever black?

2011-07-29T21:16:00.002+05:30

My Naani's place has a dog. His name is Blacky. He's definitely not the one in the pic but bears close resemblance. His predecessor was also named Blacky. His predecessor was Jacky. And I think his predecessor was Rocky. But let the ‘key’s be in the locks and the ‘ky’s’ be in the adjectively chosen name’s suffixes because I am digressing.

So I was wondering as to why his hair doesn’t turn white even as he ages. I want that formula. He's always black. Jet black! And no one can do anything about it. That’s it.

On a different note, I am off the hook for a few days now. My Mathematics teacher used to tell us how he’d just shut out everything and would go away without phone or any intimation where he was. Let’s try that on a controlled and confined scale. Let’s be lost for a few days.

Vacations!

A stranger in a strange land.

2011-07-22T15:56:00.000+05:30

बहुत बार मन करता है |

फिर अपनी परछायी से कहता हूँ कि कुछ क्षणों के लिए मेरी जगह ले ले | कुछ देर के लिए मुझे विपक्ष में बैठ कर जम कर अपनी ही आलोचना करने दे | मुझे मेरा सबसे बड़ा विरोधी बनने दे कि जो विरोधी हैं भी उनको भी अपने विरोध में विरोधाभास सा होने लगे, शंका होने लगे कि उन्होंने अगर विरोध किया है तो मैंने क्या किया है | एक बार ही सही, मुझे अपने खिलाफ ही पक्षपात करने दे | कुछ देर के लिए ही सही, मेरी जगह संभाले |

परन्तु यहाँ कौन मित्र है?

परछायी? ज्यों ही सभी दिशाओं से प्रकाश बिंदु मुझे मंच पर प्रदीप्त करते हैं, त्यों ही परछायी मेरे नीचे से खिसक कर उसी विपक्ष में जा बैठती है जहां मैं उसे अभी अभी अपने आप को देखने कि लालसा के बारे में बता रहा था | वहाँ से वह वही आलोचक बनने की चेष्ठा करती है जिसकी कल्पना अभी मैंने की थी | बन भी जाती, अगर मुझको ठीक से जानती होती | पर यहाँ कौन किसी के बारे में इतना जानने का इच्छुक है | मेरी आस बस आस बन कर रह जाती है, और मैं?

जूझता हूँ |

Countless times I’ve wished I’d vanish from the center stage and leave my shadow behind, so that I can sneak into the dark shrouds of the opposition that surrounds me. And while my shadow stands there, I play my greatest rival; I lend a heavy hand on myself, so harsh that even my critics would look at their own words against me with doubt if they were enough. It’s wishful thinking. No longer that the spotlights flood my existence on the stage, the shadow deceptively sneaks out to get comfortable in those dark corners and tries to do what I had wanted to, to myself. It wouldn’t fail, had it known me.

All I can do is shrug, listen and wish, another time.

Drawing Parallels.

2011-07-15T11:28:00.002+05:30

"The only situation in which it would be justified for me to kill a man who was trying to kill me would be if I were incapable of killing a man. Any man."

"Only then, of course, I wouldn't be able to kill him."

~ Aseem Kaul

“The only situation in which it would be justified for me to point a finger to a man’s mistakes would be when I made no mistakes myself.”

“Only then of course, I would not want to point fingers to that man. Any man.”

All in a game.

2011-07-08T19:07:00.002+05:30

For once,

let us just pretend,

everything to be all right.

And while we pretend to forget,

the pain lets for once, forget,

to pretend.

Was it a dream? A photograph of you and I.

2011-07-01T21:41:00.000+05:30

It was a long time ago that there was one fine summer evening, about fifteen years back. I and my brother were playing cricket on the terrace. We played 10-10 wicket matches, and I seldom got a chance to play as India, I am the younger one. And I preferred Australia as a result. So it was this fine summer evening that we were still fighting over a petty LBW. No matter who was bowling, my brother was the first, second and the third umpire along with the whole Indian Cricket team, and the commentators too. I liked to bat more and bowl less, though on that field, the situation was always the opposite. I always had to bowl more and bat less, rather fight for the bat. So we were fighting as usual when my father came on his scooter and parked it on the terrace near the solar geyser, the place where it had always been parked. But that day, he had a little wooden apple crate with him, placed carefully in between his legs, where otherwise one of us would get to stand while going to school. That apple crate did not have any apples, but rags of cloth and a little woolen ball coiled up inside in once corner of that little box. It looked like a tiny cat. It was a 15 days born orphan leopard cub whose mother and other new born brothers had died. It was a survivor, it had to be. Such an evening never happened again.

I was quite young that time, and I don’t much remember what time I got to spend with him, but one thing is for sure, he had a room all for himself, and a little house in that room too, though it seems strange to have a house in a room, but it was this way for him. We still slept with parents. And he was fed with milk in a bottle, like babies, while we had started to drink in glasses. There isn’t much to my memory except for a few incidents which I think I would not forget, nor elaborate.

He grew quickly in size and had to be sent to a place where he’d be taken better care of, for a vegetarian house could not feed his growing appetite of meat for long, and that too cooked. So it was this last day he spent interacting with the world on camera, much, much more shyly than his natural self, except for a few instants with his companion. He loved kids, liked to play, only that other kids would start crying the moment they saw him approach (In the video he makes a run once, towards a kid and his parents, not in the camera). You’ve all seen human babies cry for milk, probably puppies too, I’ve seen a leopard cry for milk and hold the bottle like any human baby would and I find it adorable.

It was after two years the later part of this video was taken, and he remembered us, even after a long long time.

And there is one thing, that he could teach anybody, speaking for a very diverse family, the wild life.

They are not humans, they remember things, relations, families, loyalty and love, and give it back no matter how much time passes in between. They are not hypocrites. They, are our true brothers, under the sun.

P.S. The video is the result of a one day fiddling with Adobe Premiere and Encore on the video extracted from a dying Video Cassette, and I know if I had given it more time it could have been better. Maybe I’ll work on it in a while and share, but at present, it’s not the video, but the voice of dying animal life that we should be concerned about.

I wandered Lonely as a cloud.

2011-06-24T18:25:00.000+05:30

One night when it was sunny outside, I fell asleep running around in a playground so unfamiliar and unknown that I felt at home. I tripped over a ledge into the lap of a big mountain that had a face of a man I knew and did not remember who. I stretched out and crashed in a feline stance while the shrubs around lifted their bushy bottoms like skirts and rushed away on their woody toes, huffing and puffing throwing angry stares on me for disrupting the decorum of the place. I fled. I fell. And it wasn’t sunny anymore. I heard a siren call out and children rushed to play. My feet grew lighter as the walk turned brisk and I would never touch the ground again, but no one seemed to notice. The siren grew like silence as I started running while the rains started wetting my feet. I stopped and the silence was gone, the siren was gone. Now it was a distant familiar voice waving from a distance, calling out to me, ‘would you want some tea?’ I shouted back ‘Surely!’ and the voice was gone saying ‘be here in five’, but I don’t think I heard that. There was no playground now, and I was looking at myself from my back and sometimes from the front and side while I meandered the narrow tread onto a mountain placed in a place where it should not be, or had never been before. I was not thinking, just trekking it with ease, and yet the one who was watching my back, which was still me wondered that this is not supposed to be the way it is. And while I trekked on to the summit, the me left behind took my eyes off me and looked around and absorbed the striking similarity of the places I have been and the undecipherable amalgamation of all of them into what I was in. I was again in sight, now on top, when I blurted out, this isn’t real, it is a dream, shout, shout out loud, snap out of it, shout damn it. And while I tried to shout, my shouts were stifled and muted. There was this siren again, filling the place all over again, blurring everything, wanting me to jump, calling out loud. And while I did, the place starting folding like a crumpling paperwork, from between crevices of the mountain, from the plains, everywhere, and I fell, and yet…It wasn't night anymore.

I pressed a button to turn off the snooze while Ma called out that tea was ready. Now I knew.

Being Krishna - 3

2011-06-17T15:14:00.000+05:30

To read previous parts, click here: Part 1, Part 2.

To read this post in Hindi, click here: Read in Hindi

To read the English translation: Read in English

To read Hindi-English transliteration: Read Transliteration

Read in Hindi

“केसर, जल्दी नीचे उतर, वर्ना बहुत मार पड़ेगी”, माँ गुस्से से पुकारती | सांझ के समय माँ, ताई जी, बुआ जी और गांव की अन्य महिलाओं के साथ बरगद के पास के हैण्ड पम्प से पानी भरने आती | जब केसर नीचे उतरने लगता तो माँ का कलेजा मुँह कों आ जाता, विनती के स्वर में केसर से नेवेदन करती, “बेटा धीरे, संभल कर उतर, चोट लग जाएगी |” ज्यों ही बेटा ज़मीन पर, माँ उस पर फिर से हावी | माँ के भाव और व्यवहार की विपरीतता देखकर केसर भी विस्मित हो हो कर रह जाता | एक ओर तो माँ बेटे कों दुहाई दे रही है, डान्ट रही है, कर्कश शब्द सुना रही है, वहीँ इतने कोमल स्पर्श से नदी के पानी से उसका मुह धो रही है, कहीं चोट तो नहीं लग गयी हो, ध्यान से केसर कों परखती है |

केसर कहता है “माँ, मैं ठीक हूँ, कहीं चोट नहीं आ...” इतने में ही माँ उसका मुँह अपनी चुनरी से पोंछने के बहाने बंद कर देती है | “बड़ा आया तू, अपनी माँ कों बहलाने वाला, देख तो, धूप में रह रह कर कैसा काला होने लगा है |” नन्हा केसर यह सब काले गोरे का भेद नहीं समझता | उसके मन में केवल एक ही विचार ज्वार की तरह उठने लगता है, “पर माँ, कृष्ण भी तो काले थे |” माँ अट्टहास कर कहती है, “बेटा वे तो भगवान हैं, जो चाहे करें, उनके बस में तो सारी सृष्टि है, पर तू तो मेरा केसर है ना |” बेटा नहीं समझता, नानी की कहानी मे तो... खैर, मन ही मन केसर खुश होता है, “कान्हा भी काले, में भी काला”

*****

नानी ने सुदर्शन चक्र के बारे में बताया, और इस दौरान हर बच्चे की उँगलियों पर बारी बारी से जूट की टोकरी का ढक्कन रख सुदर्शन की तरह घुमा दिया | केसर के शस्त्रागार में आज एक और अस्त्र जुड़ गया | स्कूल में अग्रजों कों कॉपियां घुमाते हुए देखा था | जब घर में उनका अनुसरण करने कि कोशिश की थी तब पिता जी ने रोक कर समझाया था कि किताब, कॉपियों में माँ सरस्वती का वास होता है | यदि विद्या का अपमान हो, तो पाप होता है | उस दिन से केसर ने कभी ऐसा नहीं किया | बुहत देर तक ढक्कन से खेलने के बाद उसने ढक्कन वापिस रसोई की टोकरी पर रख दिया | एक बार जब माँ के साथ राह में कुलचे वाले से कागज की तश्तरियों में कुलचे खरीदे, तब माँ से पूछ बैठा, “माँ, दुकान वाले ने किताब से पन्ना फाड़ कर उसमे खाने का सामान बेचा, क्या उसने विद्या का अपमान नहीं किया?” माँ आश्चर्यचकित हो, निरूत्तर रह गयी | कितनी पुरानी बात आज कहाँ उठा कर पटक दी, माँ भी स्तब्ध थी |

नानी बताती की कैसे कन्हैया ताज़ा सांझा हुआ माखन मटकों से चुरा कर खाते थे | कि किस तरह यशोदा मैया ने उन्हें स्तंभ से बाँध दिया था | यह भी बताया की जब गोकुल की माताओं का घरों के फर्श पर माखन के घड़े रखना कन्हैया ने मुश्किल कर दिया, तो किस तरह उन्होंने मटके छत की कड़ियों से बांधना शुरू कर दिया, और कैसे कृष्ण ने युक्ति निकाली | केसर भली भांति जानता था कि चोरी बुरी बात है, इसलिए भोजन के समय ही माँ से रोटी में मक्खन लपेट कर देने का निवेदन करता | फीके मक्खन में कोई विशेष चाव न था, इसलिए उस पर थोडा नमक डाल कर खाना उसे स्वादिष्ट लगता |

केसर की छुट्टियाँ अब खत्म हो चली हैं, वह शहर लौट जाएगा | पर उसने एक मीत पाया है, कान्हा में, जो हमेशा उसके साथ रहेगा | केसर कुछ हद तक कान्हा जैसा बन ने की कोशिश भी करेगा, पर अंततः भूल जाएगा उस बचपन वाले कान्हा को | यह कहानियां जीवित रहेंगी, उसके अन्तः मन के किसी कोने में, सुशुप्त, अप्रत्यक्ष, लेकिन केसर के बदलावों में कहीं न कहीं सहयोगी होंगी | यह कहानियाँ जीवित रहेंगी, समय के साथ फिर से आएँगी, जैसे हमेशा से आती रही हैं |

इती शुभं ||

Read in English

Read Transliteration

Being Krishna - 2

2011-06-10T20:42:00.002+05:30

Read Previous Part Here. Being Krishna Part -1

If You wish to read in Hindi Script, click here: Read in Hindi

If in English: Read in English

If in Hindi-English transliteration: Read Transliteration

Read in Hindi

माँ दोपहर का भोजन करने के बाद सोने चली जाती | केसर भी थोड़ी देर सोने का नाटक करता और प्रतीक्षा करता माँ के सोने का | कभी कभी तो नाटक करते करते उसे नींद आ ही जाती | पर अन्य दिन मौका मिलते ही घर से निकल आता | गांव के बच्चे अपने पशुओं कों चारा कर इस समय नदी किनारे पानी पिलाने ले आते और स्वयं या तो नदी में पानी से खेलते, थोडा नहाते थोडा अपनी भैसों और गायों कों नहलाते, वर्ना बरगद के नीचे विविध प्रकार के खेल करते | केसर और कुछ अन्य लड़कों कों पेड़ पर चढ़ने में रोमांच आता |

रोज ही माँ कों चकमा दे कर केसर भाग निकलता | बचपन की मासूमियत भी बड़ी अनोखी होती है | अपनी आँखें मूँद लेने से समझ आता है कि कोई दूसरा भी हमें नहीं देख सकता | छल तो धूर्त प्राणी करते हैं, बच्चों कों अपने खेल और उसके प्रति निष्ठा के इलावा और किसी बात से क्या ताल्लुक? माँ कों सब पता है, फिर भी कुछ ममत्व के कारण तो कुछ सवेरे से काम करने की थकावट के कारण बरामदे में चटाई पर लेटी केसर के प्रस्थान की आहात सुनती है | मंद मंद उसके भोलेपन पर मुस्कुराती है, थोडा अपने कों भी झिडकती है कि भरी दोपहरी में घर से जाने दे रही है |

वहीँ केसर घर से निकलते ही ऐसी सरपट दौड लगाता मानो उसके अभाव में नदी सूखी जाती हो | बरगद की शीतल छाया और नदी का ठंडा पानी उसका स्वागत करते | आम तौर पर बड़े लोग नदी में पशुओं के पानी पीने के स्थान से कुछ हट कर, तट पर कुछ ऊपर की ओर नहाने धोने का काम करते हैं | पर बच्चे इन सब प्रबंधनों कों नहीं समझते | भैंसों की पूँछ पकड़ कर नदी में नहाने उतर जाते और उसी मट मैले पानी में खेल कूद करने लगते | केसर शहर से आया है, और बहुत छोटी उम्र से ही उसे स्वच्छता के उपदेश मिल चुके हैं | पर गांव में न जाने कभी कभी क्या हो जाता है, वह भी पानी में मस्ती करने उतर जाता है | माँ कों शायद इस बात की भनक नहीं पड़ी अब तक |

नानी कहानी में बतलाती हैं कि कृष्ण ग्वाले थे, ढेर सारी गायें लेकर रोज जंगल में चराने जाते थे, और हाथ में होती केवल एक बांसुरी | बांसुरी की धुन में केवल गाय ही नहीं, अपितु गोपियाँ भी खिंची चली आती थी अपने कान्हा कों देखने हेतु और कान्हा किसी ऊंची डाली पर बैठा, अपनी ही सुध में बांसुरी बजाता | बांसुरी की कमी यहाँ के यारों की एक तकनीक ने पूरी कर दी | उन्होंने केसर कों मुँह से सीटी बजाना सिखा दिया | अब तो रह रह कर पंक्तियाँ याद आती हैं,

यह कदम्ब का पेड़ अगर माँ होता यमुना तीरे,

मैं भी उस पर बैठ कन्हैया बनता धीरे धीरे ||

(-सुभद्रा कुमारी चौहान)

बच्चों की कल्पना पर कोई लगाम नहीं होती | कच्ची मिट्टी की भांति रूप परिवर्तन करती रहती है और यत्र तत्र सर्वत्र गतिशील हो जाती है | केसर भी नानी के व्याख्यान सुन कर पुलकित हो उठता | कान्हा ने अपनी लीलाएं बहुत पैदा होते ही शुरू कर दी थी, पर नानी की कहानियों में न जाने ऐसा लगता कि कृष्ण केसर की उम्र जितने ही होते होंगे जब की यह कहानी है | अंततः केसर अपनी कल्पना में नानी के हर पात्र कों चेहरा देता जाता | अपनी स्मृती से कहीं यशोदा का किरदार अपनी माँ कों सौंप देता, कहीं गोपिओं के पात्र में कक्षा की सहेलियों कों देखता, और आप तो जानते हैं न की कृष्ण कौन बनता?

क्रमशः ...

Read in English

Read Transliteration

Being Krishna.

2011-06-03T22:23:00.004+05:30

Please Note: All the three versions of this post, viz. Hindi, English and Hindi-English Transliteration are there in the post. The default visible script is the Hindi script in which it was originally written. To read in English or the transliteration please click on, 'Read in English', or 'Read Transliteration' respectively. If however the sections still don't become visible, the same are provided in the comments sections.

Read in Hindi

जब उत्तराखंड राज्य का जन्म हुआ तब हिमाचल और उत्तराखंड के मध्य की सरहद यमुना जी के बहाव ने आप ही निर्धारित कर दी थी | उत्तराखंड की राजधानी देहरादून से टेहरी क्षेत्र की ओर जाते हुए, यमुना की तीर पर एक गांव है | यहाँ से कुछ मील ऊपर से सपाट भूमि आरम्भ हो जाती है और पानी की गति मद्धम होने लगती है | कृषि प्रधान क्षेत्र होने से, धान और सरसों की भरपूर बिजाई होती है | भले ही दून से समीपता हो, और उत्तर की ओर अचल पहाड़ हों, गर्मियों में यहाँ भी आग बरसती है | साक्षरता का दिया प्रज्वलित हुए अब काफी समय बीत चला है, पर बरसों से चले आ रहे तौर तरीके यकायक ही तो नहीं छोड़े जाते | आधुनिकता का राग सुनना मानो भैंस के आगे बीन बजाना | फिर भी, धीरे धीरे यह क्षेत्र भी बढ़ रहा है | निकट में एक नगर है, जहां के दूध की अधिकाँश ज़रूरतें इस गांव के ग्वाले पूर्ण करते हैं | नदी की कगार पर एक प्राचीन बरगद का वृक्ष है | इसके ठूंठ के चरों ओर एक बड़ा सा चबूतरा बना है | पंचायत की बैठकें पंचायत घर में न हो कर यहाँ होती हैं, जैसे की हमेशा से होती आई हैं |

देहरादून और अन्य क्षेत्रों के विद्यालय ग्रीष्मकालीन अवकाश के चलते बंद हो चुके हैं | केसर, अपनी माता के साथ थोड़े दिनों के लिए अपने ननिहाल आया हुआ है, इस गांव में | केसर करीब नौ-दस साल का बालक होगा | चंचल स्वभाव, और देहरादून में पला बड़ा | ग्रीष्म काल की लंबी छुट्टियों में परिवार के सभी जन गांव आया करते हैं | परिवार में एकता और स्नेह इसी प्रकार बना रहता है, जब सभी लोग कुछ दिन अपनी व्यस्त दीनचर्या से निकाल कर एक दुसरे के साथ बिताते हैं |

उसकी नानी उसे रोज रात को खाना खाने के पश्चात पौराणिक कहानियाँ सुनती, कुछ पंचतंत्र से, कुछ जताका संग्रह से, तो कुछ हिंद अध्यात्म से चुनी हुई | मामा और मासी के बच्चों के साथ केसर भी इन कहानियों का लुत्फ उठाता | उसे सभी कहानियों में से कृष्ण और प्रहलाद की कहानियाँ बहुत रोचक लगती हैं |

क्रमशः...

Read in English

Read Transliteration

P.S. I had been fiddling with the html code to embed all three versions in one, so the results could be nasty on different browsers. Please do bear with me, I'll revert back to original format if its too troublesome for me too.

P.P.S. Maithili has awarded me with her custom made award for 'Thought provoking Blogger'. Many thanks to you, and here are the answers. The award has been added to the hall of fame. And, the award is lovely. Thank You again.

1. What is your most cherished gift?: Friends.

2. Which is your favorite color?: Black.

3. Beach or hillstation?: Hill Station.

4. Book you like to read again and again.: Not encountered any yet.

5. When is your birthday?: Last day of November.

Twisted Logic.

2011-05-26T23:25:00.000+05:30

There are moments where you just hold your tongue, not because what the brain wanted you to spew out would have been horrendously wrong, but because the situation demands that the third party caught up in between the heated debate between the left and the right lobes of the brain should remain oblivious to their naivety and the friction that they have caused between the two faculties of mind. One side, the creative one says, ‘Go on, let him have it’, while the logical one tries to reason, ‘You do this, and yourself step on a live mine’. It helps sometimes, keeping them in ignorance of their ill-perceived superiority from other species. I just wished they someday considered us to be of the same species, the higher one. The other times, I really wish my neurons’ synaptic gaps were not so far apart, so that the impulses and prompt replies reached in the time frames when they would have the greatest punch in them. Presently, they are too slow and any disturbance that they try to cause in my voice strings just ends up in either hiccups or a short cough.

Being students, we have been up close with the Godly creations (pun intended), which the entire world sometimes refers to as one pillars of the nation. Now I don’t know how many other pillars are there and in what health, or what other classes of people are given this herculean task of holding the structure of nation intact like Atlas holds the firmament but I do know that the magnificent pillars are either worn out, or are too few, and they are the ones who really bear the burden of quality maintenance. The newer ones, most of them if not all, are standing on infirm foundations, are almost hollow and need constant replacements lest the machinery might crumble like a stack of domino. I sometimes wonder, who ever coined that term, the pillars thing, either never actually went to our classes, or he was wise enough to coat sarcasm with some sugar, realizing the modern egotists getting into this profession. Probably, he was a diplomat par excellence or was suffering from acute shortage of good grades.

********

Being from an engineering background, one thing that has been gifted to me is the wisdom of scientists and the results that will work in the form of simulation programs and of course, the computer. Gone are the days of Thomas Elva Edison, when one had to do the experiment one thousand and one times to finally cause the bulb to glow successfully and stably. Now, before the actual implementation of any design, or even before investing in the hardware, we simulate. This simulation habit is sinking into our personalities such that we often simulate situations on the whims of whatever little imaginations we have. And we’re not alone. It is intricately related to creativity, though on a different scale.

When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.

Abraham Lincoln

So while I was preparing for my hardware project presentations, these question were echoing again and again from an unknown source in my head.

Q. Why does this thing look so ugly?

A. Have you ever seen a man or woman without skin? Does that look pretty to you? Does a skeletal look pretty to you? I don’t think so, and this, Sir, is yet to get its frame.

Q. Does it look beautiful to you?

A. Of course, I created it with time, toil, and money. Ask your mother or father how beautiful you are, though I am tempted to tell you otherwise, Sire. Did nobody tell you before? Oh I am really sorry.

Well there could be many bifurcations or trifurcations or many distributions and a whole tree of possible questions could be framed, but let’s not get into details folks, just have the cream, and the chocolate.

********

Of all the other things that are expected of a good teacher, two are of utmost importance, as I have come to realize. First, a fairly good sense of humour is a must. No, it’s not that a teacher should come to class dressed as a clown or crack jokes instead of doing what he is being paid to do, but he should not mind laughing with the children he’s nurturing rather than bearing that unyielding look of a tormented soul. And secondly, well, this should be the Firstly, but well, let it be the way it is for now. So, secondly, a teacher should not have a mind that minds, and should not seek revenge upon the hapless dependants who barely stumble to tell the real truth about him/her. A tamed ego is what I am talking about.

Excerpt from the memories of words said and unsaid in a presentation.

Q. What do these R and L stand for?

A. Right and left.

Q. But according to convention and being an electronics engineer it looks more like Resistor and Inductor?

A. How un-engineerly of me. I'll surely make the suggestion to the author of the book I referred. I'll urge him to strictly abide by IEEE norms. But dear Teacher, the initials in your name, its R C written here, what does it stand for? Oh well, being an electronics engineer, it looked more like Resistive Capacitor to me. Why do You seem to be all charged up, Teacher?

How I wish my evaluators had a good sense of humour, or at least they should ask a damned technical question if they are so adamant on quality. But it seems they are more concerned about presentation syntax and semantics than engineering. Half filled pots make too much noise. I am not even a quarter full, but if you don’t know something, keep mum. Why ask a stupid highly uncorrelated question that will only prove the fact that you don’t know it. What happened to, ‘Once a student, always a student’, huh? Well, a restraint on the tongue gave me good grades, so no damage done, no issues, no ill-feelings. I shall speak no more, for now.

Look at us, running around. Always rushed, always late. I guess that's why they call it the human race.

~Wally Mars (The Switch)

War of the Words.

2011-05-21T23:34:00.001+05:30

The Sentencing goes blithely on its way,

And takes the playfully objected rhyme,

As surely as it takes the stroke and time,

In having its undeviable say.

~Robert Frost

Word, formed by the elimination of an ‘l’ from the world, in no mannerisms should be considered just a Word. A few words are all that takes to destroy a temple, faith or a world, personal or otherwise. Much in the same way, a few words would take you from rags to riches.

We hear people say things, and we think we are not listening. Alas, if the human brain was so comprehensible to the humans, then we’d have achieved the ‘Zero Kelvin’ perfectly ordered state long time ago, perfect sync, harmony. The Creator knew it. He made the laws, of entropy and of mass and energy alike. The entropy is ever dynamic, and ever increasing.

Let’s take the famous work of Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. How many years did Julius spend, and how many wars did he partake to reach the zenith of his power? What did it take to topple him? Just a few words of doubt and misguided reason on the part of Cassius, and the history stands testament to how easily Caesar bled. How those three words, “Et tu Brute?”, gained such prominence to be used in every situation of back stabbing and deceit. How many words did it take Brutus to win over the Romans, and how many did Antony take to torch Rome in flames of mass upheaval and mutiny? Perhaps, only a few. Why? Because, these men recognized the powers of interjecting just the right words in the appropriate places.


Courtesy: Google

Words are like arrows, once released from the quiver, will have their devious say, some time or the other. Martin Luther King planted a seed, by the mere words which are ever immortal now. ‘I have a dream’. Everyone, who listened him speaking those famous words there and then had a dream, his dream, his ambition. But these are the examples of instant action that are written upon the pages of history. But that’s not all to the words, they are doing what they were made to, or intended to, everyday, to everyone, slowly, stealthily and steadily. On one hand they are breaking friendships, relations, factions, ideologies, beliefs and bringing down empires, on the other hand the leaders of the states are honing to their lying skills, to woo the public.

John Galt said it just once, that he’d stop the motor of the world. He did it and how? What did he do? He himself admitted that he did not do much but slowly starve the society of people whom it depended heavily on, and yet shunned them as ruthless, immoral industrialists who had no sense of moral responsibility who thought only of filling their personal coffers. Slowly, over a span of many years, he did it, and yet he did nothing, but planted the seed in them. When they were ready, he reaped the crop. Words are one of the most powerful weapons that Man could have invented in all times. I believe there are only a few things that are immortal. Words fall in these few things. Words could be like a virus, they are entombed deep in the subconscious of the host, aloof, alive, and dormant. No remedy can ensure that the malady never thrives or sprouts.

There is this particular friend. Rather, there is this general friend about whom particular friends had been talking about. When I defended his stance, they gave me reason after reason to make me see the other side, which they called the real side. They tried to prove that he was a shrewd planner and a cunning man, who had this inner circle of a very few for whom he’d snatch opportunities from other outer circle friends, including us. While I believed him to be different, they tried to show me the other way around. I realized something that day, and I shared it with those particular friends, the same thing I’ll share with you too. From that day, I would not be able to look at him and his deeds the way I used to. Because, even though I vehemently defended him, and still had faith in him, but it is a natural tendency to test the truthfulness of the claim from time to time. His every action questioned, and every move dissected to find traces of the alleged real intention, just like we’d try to find traces of nicotine in a reformed drug addict. I told them that due to what had passed that day, I’ll never be able to trust him the way I did. What harmed me if not words?

But these are just a few manifestations of a much larger force at work throughout the entire world. The War of the Words, it began the day we started using them. It looms by and large and we all are just playing by the words so many architects ingrained in us. Does it await culmination? The horizons are still too far. But it is just the negative part of it, focus on the other one too sometime.

If I’d only carefully show you the kinks in my armour, even if I draped it in mirth and humour, the thought would still pop up in your mind every next time you’d read something I wrote. Go on, deny it, and I would not argue, I too did the same and would continue to do so. I think I have done what I had to by a mere mention of what I intended not to. I'd write more, sometime later, but when I could show you more clearly how it works.

But do you still think it would require going down three levels deep into a dream to make possible espionage, to plant the seed, inception?

Raindrops for the sunshine.

2011-05-13T23:15:00.000+05:30

It has been raining relentlessly since the past four hours, raining like the skies ran out of storage space to accommodate more water. It is supposed to be mid April, summers reigning mercilessly over the plains. And yet it has been raining today. Such change in weather has been seldom seen, especially since the last few years, when even the monsoons flew past unnoticed, parched skies. The skies had been prejudiced against any color in sky that could bring even tiny hopes of quenching the land and its people below. Fluffy whites had lingered in desolation and dispersed for many months now. Overwhelmed and overrun, the gates had broken giving way to the pent up release. Almost sharp and hard hitting arrow like droplets had been incessantly showering in an attempt to sink deeper into earth’s skin.

Ever since the opera of the skies had started the performance with loud bass and rumble and a crackling shoot now and then, she had been fixed to the edge of her seat by the wide window. She hadn't talked all this time, not even once. Nothing seemed to bother her, and her eyes were attentively seeking something on the mist slowly hazing the entire breadth of the window. Her eyes had been performing a sort of ritual following any random droplet that started to crumble and slither down the wet pane, cutting through the haze. She kept on gazing through the misty panes, tracing patterns with her eyes. She seemed oblivious to the faint sounds of the television that was playing in the far end of the room, nor did she hear the abruptness with which the channels were being switched or the sounds let off by her little boy expressing his boredom in moaning yawns.

She did not see him too, along with the rest of the things; he had been sitting about an hour when he saw her drawn away by the rains. And yet, he saw her. In fact, she was the only one he had been seeing all this time, lost in her, oblivious to the world, just like her, only that he watched the locks of her hair breaking and oscillating for a while to eventually break down into stillness, somewhere over her tender face. His eyes moved with her curls just like her’s followed the droplets. He wasn’t in a very comfortable posture. Arms folded on the thin rim of the chair and the chin resting on his arms, he observed her inquisitively, never minding his tired arms which might have started to hurt because of the pressure of the narrow rim. Watching her at peace mysteriously brought a bright smile on his face of which, even he wasn’t aware of.

Rain on the window and sunshine is her face,

Her gleaming radiances’ such ,am transfixed in my place,

The golden locks sneak out, to glimpse her beauty,

As they gingerly swing, tending to her grace.

A break in the spell of the rains brought her out of her reverie. He had no idea how long he had been looking at her, without blinking. Even if he blinked, he did not remember if he did. When she moved her head and looked at him, she saw his gleaming smile. She smiled back quizzically and that broke his spell too.

“Even Mona Lisa would have shied away today”, He flirtingly said without recovering from his leaning posture. She smiled slightly and turned to the other side, hiding her smile from him. “And?” she was still listening. “And, and Michelangelo would have surely dumped her as subject for that masterpiece.” It worked! She laughed loud and slowly came to him, never looking away while their eyes talked in mischief. She lovingly ruffled his hair, whispering coyly in his ears, “but honey, Mona Lisa was painted by Da Vinci” and headed for the television where her son was constantly clicking the remote control.

He scratched his temples lightly in an attempt to hide his face and bit his tongue lightly before breaking out into a wide smile. “Coffee?”