Madhukar's Musings

...आज बता दे तू मैं क्या हूँ, मेरी परिभाषा परिचय क्या?

2012-05-25T09:15:00.000-07:00

Those were the heady, perplexing, intense days in life. You are just something 20+, thrown out in a world which is both enticing for all the freedom and option to carve out what you can be - and puzzling as to how to put it all together to make sense. As the whole life awaited to unfold itself, the sense of fading away of moments and memories made the issues of dying - and finding the meaning of Life - so very crucial/real then.

जीवन की अगणित राहों में
एक राह पर पथिक बना मैं
ढूंढ रहा था सार स्वयं का
वर्षों से था भटक रहा मैं

साँसों में आशाएं ले कर
संजो ह्रदय में स्वप्न, लक्ष्य का
पग-पग में पाने को आतुर
सार, सत्य-सौंदर्य-मृत्यु का

प्रश्नों की उलझी रेखाओं
में कितनी ही बार उल्हझ कर
जीवन के अर्थों को मैंने
खोजा था, हर पग में प्रतिपल

किन्तु सभी प्रश्नों का उत्तर
मिला अधूरेपन का अनुभव
जीवन मौन रहा, खली सा
बना रहा सांसों का उत्सव

***

एक शाम जीवन के तट पर
सारहीन भटकन से थक कर
उदासीन बहती लहरों से
उल्हझ गया मेरे उर का स्वर:

"इतने युग तो बीत चुके हैं
किन्तु अपरिचित है तू अब भी
तेरा लक्ष्य नहीं क्या कोई?
दिशाहीन क्या तेरी भी गति?

तू शाश्वत है, तेरी इन
लहरों में जीवन का अर्थ छुपा है
फिर भी मौन, निरुत्तर सा तू
उदासीन बहता रहता है

क्या मैं यूँ ही भटक-भटक कर
किसी एक पल मिट जाऊँगा?
तेरा इक उपहास-मात्र मैं
एक निरर्थक स्वप्न स्वयं का?!

तू जीवन, मैं जीवित हूँ, तब
यह तेरा मुझसे अभिनय क्या?
आज बता दे तू मैं क्या हूँ,
मेरी परिभाषा परिचय क्या?"

पूँछ लूं मैं नाम तेरा...

2012-05-12T10:12:00.000-07:00

पूँछ लूं मैं नाम तेरा...
मिलन रजनी हो चुकी, विच्छेद का अब है सबेरा...

जा रहा हूँ - और कितनी देर अब विश्राम होगा -
तू सदय है किन्तु तुझको और भी तो काम होगा
प्यार का साथी बना था, विघ्न बनने तक रुकूं क्यूँ?
सम्हझ ले, स्वीकार कर ले, यह कृतज्ञ प्रणाम मेरा...
पूँछ लूं मैं नाम तेरा...

और होगा मूर्ख जिसने चिर-मिलन की आस पाली -
'पा चुका, अपना चुका' - है कौन ऐसा भाग्यशाली?
इस तड़ित को बाँध लेना, दैव से मैंने न माँगा -
मूर्ख इतना हूँ नहीं मैं, इतना नहीं है भाग्य मेरा...
पूँछ लूं मैं नाम तेरा...

श्वास की हैं दो क्रियाएँ - खींचना, फिर छोड़ देना,
कब भला संभव हमें इस अनुक्रम को तोड़ देना?
श्वास की इस संधि-सा है, इस जगत में प्यार का पल,
रुक सकेगा कौन कब तक बीच पथ में डाल डेरा||
पूँछ लूं मैं नाम तेरा...

घुमते है गगन में जो दीखते स्वच्छंद तारे
एक आँचल में पड़े भी अलग रहते हैं बिचारे
भूल में पल-भर भले छू जाएँ इनकी मेखलाएँ -
दास मैं भी हूँ नियति का, क्या भला विश्वास मेरा!
पूँछ लूं मैं नाम तेरा...

प्रेम का चिर-एक्य कोई मूढ़ होगा तो कहेगा
विरह की पीड़ा न हो तो प्रेम क्या जीता रहेगा?
जो सदा बांधे रहे वह एक कारावास होगा -
घर वही है जो थके को रैन भर का दे बसेरा!
पूँछ लूं मैं नाम तेरा...

प्रकृति है अनुभूति, वह रस-दायिनी निष्पाप भी है,
मार्ग उसका रोकना ही पाप भी है, श्राप भी है,
मिलन हो मुख चूम लें; आई विदा लें राह अपनी -
मैं न पूंछू, तुम न जानो क्या रहा अंजाम मेरा!...
पूँछ लूं मैं नाम तेरा...

रात बीती, यद्यपि इसमें संग भी था, रंग भी था,
अलस अंगों में हमारे स्फूर्त एक अनंग भी था;
तीन की उस एकता में प्रलय ने तांडव किया था -
सृष्टि-भर को एक क्षण में बाहुओं ने बाँध घेरा!
पूँछ लूं मैं नाम तेरा...

सोच मत 'यह प्रश्न क्यूँ जब अलग ही हैं मार्ग अपने?'
सच नहीं होते, इसी से भूलता है कौन सपने?
मोह हमको है नहीं, पर द्वार आशा का खुला है -
क्या पता फिर सामना हो जाये तेरा और मेरा!
पूँछ लूं मैं नाम तेरा...

कौन हम तुम? दु:ख-सुख होते रहे, होते रहेंगे;
जान कर परिचय परस्पर हम किसे जा कर कहेंगे?
पूछता हूँ क्योंकि आगे जानता है क्या बदा है -
प्रेम जग का, और केवल नाम तेरा, नाम तेरा!
पूँछ लूं मैं नाम तेरा...
मिलन रजनी हो चुकी, विच्छेद का अब है सबेरा...
-अज्ञेय

The Theosophist who loved Parry Mason novels...

2012-05-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

There are memories/ histories and recollections which need to be written down.

This is one of them… a sort of ongoing process of (re)discovering – literally, as one excavates those memories - how one became what keeps on becoming…

One of the significant (and implicitly moulding) influences in my early teenage days was my grandfather.

An ardent Theosophist (someone who hobnobbed with Annie Besant), a teacher. His career (as we call it now) ranged from being private tutor to the JK Singhania’s son to being the Principal of the Theosophical Society School, Kamachha, Varanasi… (he resigned from the Singhania’s tutorship because he resented being treated as an ‘employee’ and not as a teacher – a parallel which I find in my father’s resignation from being the Modi’s personal physician in ‘40s!)

My grandfather’s principles also led to his rather shaky career path - and apparently, from what I could gather, also resulted in some tumultuous/ insecure upbringing of my uncles… some who never forgave him for that!)...

In any case, he came into my life when I was around 12-13. My grandmother had expired in ’63; he had stayed with one of my uncles in Delhi, and then came to stay with us in Faizabad/Lucknow in late-‘60s/ early-‘70s, where my father was posted then.

Babuji – as my grandfather was called – had lost his eye-sight by then. Looking back, I always think that this can be the worse thing which can happen to a teacher, whose only life-line has been what he reads.

But he picked up with life as it unfolded for him – and with a gusto!

His only contact with the rest of the world was a transistor/radio… and through that he picked up and mastered things/ events which were quite alien to his previous life…

… we used to have a peon, Tulsi, who was deputed to take care of him (ah, the feudal bureaucratic set-up!).. and Babuji, who would intently listen to ‘Krishi Darshan’, and will have pretty educated discussions on agriculture with Tulsi...

… for a person, whose life was pretty cognitive/ideological, Babuji picked up (through the commentaries on the transistor) the intricacies of positions in cricket (e.g., mid-leg, gulley, etc.)… and the mysterious ways in which tennis scores are counted in Wimbledon…

I learnt all these from him – from a blind person, who had never known these spheres of life (maybe have despised them too!)

I used to be his ‘personal secretary’ then. I would read out the letters (so many!) he would receive, and take dictation (on postcards and inlands) to respond… that ‘peek-in’ to his life, relationships and conversation too was a learning for life

As his ‘personal secy’, I remember, I also used to read out novels to him – chapter-by-chapter/day-by-day….. and that’s how I guess I ended up reading up so many Parry Mason novels when I was growing up!

Babuji used to love those... ...and the letters which he would receive (and I would respond to)... his life-line to his life

Somewhere in mid '70s those letters stopped coming with the same regularity... dont know why

One day, in Jan/Feb '76, he said/ told me something like - the world/life is going on; there is no reason to live (OK, not exactly, but something like that as remember) ... and then he let go his life...

...his internal life-support systems let go (maybe he allowed that)... I still recall a call from my elder brother on (I think) April 2nd from KGMC/Lucknow, that it is over more than 30+yrs now,

that he is not there anymore!... or maybe he is!

in any case, this post was a tribute to that Theosophist who also loved Parry Mason novels on his 125th birthday - today!

...शून्य बन कर ही रहूँगा ||

2012-04-24T09:25:00.000-07:00

I guess these verses, back then in '73, came out of that sense of growing out of childhood into being an adult.. when one experiences so many parts of oneself dying...
(and it takes a few decades to discover/ realise that in the 'river' nothing remains the same - and everything returns...)

मृत्यु में ही मुक्ति मेरी,
...शून्य बन कर ही रहूँगा||

भोर आंसू की कहानी
जलाती दिन की जवानी
थका, ऊबा शाम का तन
रात, दुःख में डूबता मन
है यही जीवन अगर तो,
भार कब तक सह सकूंगा...
...शून्य बन कर ही रहूँगा ||

चीखतीं साड़ी दिशाएँ
झटक देती हैं हवाएं
भटकता हूँ, मार्ग ओझिल
घेर लेते सिसकते पल,
खो गया पथ, दिशा धूमिल
भटकता कब तक रहूँगा
...शून्य बन कर ही रहूँगा ||
- Dec 3, '73 (Lucknow)

तेरे बिना ज़िन्दगी से कोई...

2012-04-22T10:56:00.001-07:00

It is funny, how life comes a full circle…
oh, OK, OK!… it actually doesn’t, really!!...
(but it does make sense to believe that it does)

.. and so today, while “YouTube-surfing” this evening, I (re-)discovered song, it brought back many memories…

This was the 2nd movie we – Geeta and I - had seen together… her 2nd after almost a decade..

…that was back in ’75, and we all (from MA-Psy, Lucknow Univ) had booked to see “Andhi” in Mayfair (that too does not exist now!!)

I do, vaguely, recollect the movie… but do recollect this song quite vividly... even though, the 'filters' of this clip have evaporated now... and what was a night scene looks so very different - such being life

मैंने देखा था उन दिनों में उसे...

2012-04-18T09:56:00.002-07:00

... as one navigates through the journey...

ख्वाब ये है कि वो हकीकत था,
ये हकीकत है कोई ख्वाब था वो

A search for belonging... that'll never end!

2012-04-08T09:29:00.004-07:00

A tear, that couldn't quench
the heart's fire.
a lifeless urge,
an unknown desire..

A song, that vanished
in tearful sighs,
a dream that never
opened its eyes...

A hope that stole away,
all solaces,
A memory,
that left some hurting traces...

...And a life, cruel ordeal,
- that none can defend,
A search for belonging...
that'll never end!
- 16th Feb, '74 (Lucknow)

Death...

2012-04-07T09:52:00.004-07:00

A poem, she wrote in '75...

The night wind sighs, in tall dark trees,
Kissed by a half-hearted moon
The stars gyrate in perpetual gloom
In a nameless cosmic freeze.

And I look up at the trees, to find
A loving thought, a faceless name
Oft repeated in a fruitless game
With myself, with rules I have defined.

I am the night wind, I am sighing.
An unwanted, foresaken force,
Of a pain borne of lifeless chores
In a barren, cloudless sky I’m dying...

...In endless years an endless death,
Life being blown out breath by breath.

- Geeta Saxena
****

one more autumn... one more batch..

2012-04-03T11:15:00.008-07:00

The rhythm of life and the cycles of seasons, sort of, cog-wheel...
..as they have been doing, since last couple decades...

This is the time of autumn and, from my balcony, I see the trees shedding their leaves.. folks leaving - saying goodbye to the campus
..every year!.. after year

and each year, I watch this caravan passing by... (mostly below my balcony)

..and I wait for June/July when the monsoons will arrive... and the trees will bear new leaves. And a new crop will arrive in the campus... and from my balcony, I will, once again, see a green campus... and see lives going back and forth...

- below my balcony!

तो यह जगह तुम्हारी है...

2012-03-13T08:27:00.004-07:00

अगर नींद से प्यारा है सपना,
और ज़िद के साथ ले सकते हो जोख़िम
तो यह जगह तुम्हारी है...

अगर शुरू कर सकते हो अकेले,
और बढ़ने के लिए नहीं ढूंढोगे सहारा
तो यह जगह तुम्हारी है...

अगर भरोसा है खुद पर,
और अविश्वास नहीं है जग पर
तो यह जगह तुम्हारी है...

अगर चल सकते हो अनथक,
और छाव का इंतज़ार नहीं है
तो यह जगह तुम्हारी है...

अगर भूख लगे और याद आए भूखा,
और प्यास पर, तालाब एक सूखा
तो यह जगह तुम्हारी है...

अगर आँख नहीं है पर दृष्टि है,
तन का एक भाग नहीं है, पर मस्ती है
तो यह जगह तुम्हारी है...

अगर नहीं चाहते आग लगाना,
और चिंगारी है एक मकसद
तो यह जगह तुम्हारी है...

अगर नींद से प्यारा है सपना,
और ज़िद के साथ ले सकते हो जोख़िम
तो यह जगह तुम्हारी है...

- अंशु , 1/1/12

32-yrs back... an anniversary of sorts...

2012-02-29T08:52:00.005-08:00

March 1st (that’s tomorrow!), some 32yrs back, was a major transition in my life… I had joined my first job….

At that time I had dreams of retiring at the age of 50 - and to have an Ashram (a dream which got buried when I wrote this auto-biographical piece a couple of years later: Aseem - A Night without an End)... and to live in an “apple orchard” (don’t know now, though, why this seemed to be so important in life then).

A couple of years later, I had tried to capture my experience of this transition in a piece “The End of Heroism”… some excerpts:

***

(a friend advises me)“Decide very carefully. You may get other offers, but once you get into a job, it is very difficult to get out of it.” I know, If I get into this job – any job – that would be the final end of Utopias and Ashrams>.

...But inwardly, I know that it is the final goodbye to dreams. I am very distinctly aware of the choice-point, the choice to mould my destiny.
Nevertheless, I accept the offer.

I accept it because it is a door to an active, pragmatic life – a life which I despise, which I look down upon contemptuously as mundane and ordinary. I accept it because I want to meet my Shadow, because I want to grow out of my excessive reliance on introversion, on speculations… it is possible that the challenge of going against my inner propensity which is so attractive.

I accept it because in the previous months, I have often felt myself facing a black, opaque, futureless wall, and I am insecure. I have felt alone in an adult world, with no anchors to tow me on. NPC is security and an escape.

I accept it because it is an opportunity for G. to prove her worth to herself, to test her life and its foundations, to try out her wings, to achieve her freedom, her independence.

I accept it because my karmas outweigh any other alternative.

On 1st of March, I come to Bhopal.

…I try to put my prophetic zeal in my training programmes. I tell my participants, “Why should we wait for someone else to change in order to be happy. Our happiness is our responsibility.”

But I sell dreams, dreams of Utopia, on industrial democracy, of participative management, of profit-sharing, blah, blah, blah…. “But darkness, hot, sweltering life has become us. Our soul is buried in coal-dust. How can we believe in your ideals?” one of them queries one day, and I perceive the human gap between the verbal Utopias and the experience of one’s own frailty.

The days of the foaming prophets and their wide-eyed adherents are gone. People I meet are godless, hollow men, conscious of their accidental existence, men without creed or faith, except for their superficial commitments to a pointless process we call living. And living for them, is less a matter of will and pleasure, and more of a compulsion. I am again and again reminded of my favourite belief: man is more a potentiality than an actuality. Now I see a gaping abyss between the potential and the actual. Living contradicts life.

….Return of the prodigal son? Settling down? The end of Heroism? Conformity to social convention? Maybe, yes!

…depends on how one looks at it.

…Perhaps hero myth is not a part of my collective unconscious. Icarus, Perseus and Daeulus were free beings, unbound by the cycle of karmas> - but to my oriental consciousness, perhaps, they are alien, lacking the continuity of Life. Besides, intimacy can be as meaningful as ideology>. To grow and share with someone can itself be a fulfilling experience.

I may not hope for an ashram, but there is still the apple orchard.

One is part of the movement. No one betrays the movement, only grows beyond its “focus of convenience”. The movement goes on - individuals only make their contributions to the collective cause, to the purpose of life-force.

I have fulfilled my role in the collective growth. The ideological hero is dead. In its place, a mundane, romantic hero is born…

****

Looking back, through the haze of 32-yrs, perhaps Life has not been such a bad deal.

I don’t have an apple orchard, but I live in a place where I can see the seasons change

I don’t have my Ashram, but I have my balcony, below which lives flow by……

… and so life goes on…

the stories we tell, the stories we live....

2012-02-25T08:01:00.010-08:00

Many many years back, in a book (which now has been eaten by termites - don't even remember the title), I had come across this story...

Whenever there was misfortune in the land, the great Rabbi would go to certain parts of the forest. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and miraculously the misfortune would be averted.

When the great Rabbi died, his principle disciple carried on with the custom. When the misfortune would strike the land, he would go to the same place in the forest, and say: "O Lord! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer." And again, the miracle would happen.

Still later, when the disciple died, his own appointed pupil would go to the forest to save the people of the land. He would say: "I do not know how to light the fire, and I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this should be sufficient."

And then it fell on the newest rabbi to overcome the misfortunes. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: "I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient." And it was sufficient.

God made man because He loves stories.

This made so much sense, since just around that time I had come across this quote/wisdom from Henry Miller - and it has remained with me:

"I am a man telling the story of my life, a process which appears more and more inexhaustible as I go on. Like the world-evolution, it is endless. It is a turning inside out, a voyaging through X dimensions, with the result that somewhere along the way one discovers that what one has to tell is not nearly so important as the telling itself."

To me - then - it boiled down to a simple understanding:
we are just a story/myth we tell to ourselves, and live (as much as we can)...

...which led to collecting the quotes/wisdom who knew that life is a story to be lived and told...
sharing

The ability to see our lives as stories rather than unrelated, random events increases the possibility for significant and purposeful action.
— Daniel Taylor (Author,Tell Me a Story: The Life-Shaping Power of Our Stories)

When you’re conversing with coworkers, customers, or investors, the richness and meaning of your story is what people really buy.
- Tom Durel (former CEO, Ocenia)

It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it, is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the new story.
— Thomas Berry, Theologian, Philosopher, and Cultural Historian

A great brand is a story that’s never completely told. Stories create the emotional context people need to locate themselves in a larger experience
— Scott Bedbury (Author, New Brand World: Eight Principles for Achieving Brand Leadership in the 21st Century)

Great stories agree with our world view. The best stories don’t teach people anything new. Instead, the best stories agree with what the audience already believes and makes the members of the audience feel smart and secure when reminded how right they were in the first place.
— Seth Godin (Author, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us)

I had to know and understand my own story before I could listen to and help other people with theirs.
— Barack Obama (44th President of USA)

Those who tell the stories, rule the world.
- Hopi American Indian Proverb (Also attributed to Plato, Greek Philosopher)

Humans have been storytelling for 100,000 years around the campfire; the media is now our campfire.
— Gloria Steinem, Feminist icon, journalist, and activist

There is no greater burden than carrying an untold story.
— Maya Angelou, Poet

Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.
— Hannah Arendt, German Political Theorist

Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives — the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change — truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.
— Salman Rushdie, Novelist

The highest-paid person in the first half of this century will be the storyteller. All professionals, including advertisers, teachers, entrepreneurs, politicians, athletes and religious leaders, will be valued for their ability to create stories that will captivate their audiences.
— Rolf Jensen (Former Director of the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies)

By refusing to have our stories bounded by race, belief, ideology, nationality, and even by time, and by grounding them in our awe of the universe, we choose to enact a larger, more hopeful and more positive story of humanity.
— Michael Bogdanffy-Kriegh (Architect and Past President, New York Society for Ethical Culture)

We live in story like a fish lives in water. We swim through words and images siphoning story through our minds the way a fish siphons water through its gills. We cannot think without language, we cannot process experience without story.
— Christina Baldwin (Author, Storycatcher: Making Sense of our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story)

Some stories, I realised (as I lived through them) also have no ending or resolution... Martin Gardner, the mathematician wrote once:

"There are only two stories in the world: someone goes on a journey, and a stranger comes to town"

... I am still trying to figure out if I am soaring eagle, or homing pigeon

...not that it matters, really - does it!!?...

कुछ सम्बन्ध, एक असहाय बच्चे सरीखे

2012-02-24T07:40:00.003-08:00

कुछ सम्बन्ध
एक असहाय बच्चे सरीखे
किसी सहारे की तलाश में,
अपनी परिभाषा की खोज में,
भटकते रहते हैं...

उन्हें
एक पौधे की तरह
सींचना
...पालना..
आवश्यक होता है...

और ये पालना
सामजिक परिभाषाओं में आंकी हुई
स्वाभाविकता
के परे होता है...
- 09/07/80
Bhopal

...that missing 3rd line of the poem...

2012-02-21T07:28:00.004-08:00

...many many moons back, somewhere in mid 70s...

...when in one's early 20s, one was struggling/ balancing between various "Yins and Yangs" in life

...I had come across these lines of a poem by Keshav Prasad Pathak, one of my "resident poets" with whom I grew - even though I never met/heard him, but who helped resolving/ making sense of many issues in life then...

This was one poem which I still partly recall - but for the missing 3rd line...

रख दिए तुमने नज़र में बादलों को साध कर
आज माथे पर सरल संगीत से निर्मित अधर
.....?????
बांसुरी रखी हुई ज्यों भागवत के पृष्ठ पर...

I had scribbled these in one my diaries then - but now, I can neither recall the 3rd line, nor can find that diary!! :((

Yup!!... in some ways, as one moves on...

एक खिड़की खुली रह जाती है..

hmm, yes!... its part of The Journey

2012-02-19T07:48:00.000-08:00

Each meeting -
a new life...

Each parting -
a small personal death
... a loss
of a part of myself,

... a lonely vaccuum
demanding to be filled up.

But then,
Death
is only a bump
on the road...

It shakes me up,
brings it back to me...
that
I am on a journey!

- 06/06/1987, Jaipur

life's dangling legs,...in the dark silent valley

2012-02-11T07:32:00.000-08:00

This was scribbled some quarter of a century back, when I was going through my own process of becoming "twice-born"/ द्विज

I survived - and grew as a person!
--------------

Even though I'd like to live
and walk a man in search of sun;
and pass through blossoming apple orchards,
with a song of love and joy in eyes...

And ride the clouds to touch the rainbows,
and write poems on the sands of river banks.

I'd like to listen to the birds of life
and kiss the lips of opening buds
and dance with the whithered autumn leaves
on the music of the breezy winds...

BUT on my shoulder
is a mourning vision:
Life's Dangling Legs
in the Dark Silent Valley

- 11-12/06/86 (ISABS/Jaipur)

of desert-wind, sand-dunes.. and life

2012-02-02T09:53:00.000-08:00

Many years back, when I was exploring the fascinating nuances of what is called the “Chaos/ Complexity Theory” (or why and how events in life and nature unfold, and follow their own course), I had come across this intriguing and insightful analogy/ metaphor of the non-linear interplay between the sand-dunes and the desert-wind…

“when the desert-wind blows, its direction is influenced by the sand-dunes on its way. But then, as it blows, it also shifts the sand-dunes from one location to another – which again change the direction of the desert-wind…. this interplay continues ad infinitum…”

…in this non-linearity/unfolding, there is no “prediction/ certainty”

Many years later, I came across an analogue to this interplay of forces in human life: “human beings create the technology, and then the technology changes the human life”

…which made sense – since human beings created technology (automotives, cameras, computers, cellphones, etc.), and then these technologies changed the way we live/ relate/ work…

Over the years, this metaphor sunk into my personal life as I kept looking back (which I do often) the road travelled, and many happenings started making sense (even if the life did not happen as ‘planned’)

many, many eons back I entered into a relationship… as we moved on with our lives (together and individually), we changed/shaped that relationship and the relationship changed us as persons...

some 3 decades back, I took up my 1st job (those were the times when there were no “campus interviews” – and one had to find a job for oneself), since that was the only option for me then. I did what the job required me to do – but it also gave me a platform to move my life into other directions...

some year later into the relationship/marriage, we decided to have a kid.. the way we brought her up shaped her in some ways, but bringing her up also changed our life...

as a teacher, my interactions with folks in the class and campus influence them in someways - but those interactions have also changed me as a person...
etc. etc...

and so the life goes on... unfolding and uncertain
…like the unfolding interplay of the sand-dunes and desert-wind…

recurring memories...

2012-01-09T08:12:00.000-08:00

More than a decade back on this date… one knew that this was the beginning of the end!

Actually one knew, but it had not registered/ was not acknowledged, so to say… even as one dangled between “request for euthanasia” and “denial of an impending reality”

She had belched out black liquid the whole night, while I had tried to clean it as much as I could – numbed – a defense- in my ability to experience emotions

… and then somehow/ from-somewhere, these two angels had arrived… as medicos, they had taken over the charge to see her go peacefully, without pain. They had hosted the drip on the wall above our bed, had taken responsibility to be there – shift-by-shift…
… till she departed

Two days later from today:

- An 11-year old kid had gone to the terrace to perform songs to an imagined audience – to be called back to say the final ‘good-bye’

- An alumnus/student from ’93 batch had visited us, and had said “.. can’t imagine this!!” – he had called and informed many others

- That night an EL-top wet-night had suddenly got disbanded on the sound of the ambulance, which was to carry the body to the morgue

- Many friends had come to just be there/ support – but had stayed back knowing that I needed them then

- I had gone to my balcony and had shed a tear... and uttered a prayer…

- etc…

Lives happen…

this has been mine!

जब दीवार से कलेंडर गायब होगा...

2011-12-31T00:12:00.000-08:00

जब दीवार से कलेंडर गायब हुआ...
...तो कुछ खिड़कियाँ खुली रह गयीं थी
रस्सी पर सूख रहे कपड़ों में अभी भी नमी थी
अलमारी के ऊपर की धूल झाड्नी बाकी थी
गमले की मिट्टी को सींचना भूल गए थे
कुछ खतों के जवाब अभी देने थे
कमीज़ में अभी भी कुछ बटन लगाने रह गए थे
आधी पढ़ी किताब, मेज़ पर उलटी पड़ी थी
कुछ पुराने दोस्तों से एक बार फिर मिलना था
चंद कहानियां अधूरी थीं, पूरी करनी थीं...

जब दीवार से कलेंडर गायब होगा
तो कुछ खिड़कियाँ खुली रह जायेंगी...

from sublime to absurd...

2011-12-27T08:29:00.000-08:00

When we - the trio (now just duo) - were growing up as teenagers in early '70s, we were grappling with finding/ extending the bandwith of life in our existence... an existential freedom to be able to live across the sublime-to-absurd

One of us (not me) had set the agenda for us...

मुझमें है मष्तिष्क, हृदय है,
मझमें काम, क्रोध, और भय है,
जो अपना है उसे दबा कर,
रूप देवता का कर लूं मैं,
क्या जीवन का ध्येय यही है?...

he had also written these verses:

उस शाम, हल्के-हल्के कोहरे में तैरते हुए
तुम और मैं, न मालूम किन ऊंचाइयों को
छू लेने के लिए, पहाड़ के संकरे रास्तों पर
बढ़ते जा रहे थे...

और मैंने एकाएक ठहर कर, जोर से चीख कर
हर एक छोटी को, हर एक घटी को
तुमारा नाम दोहराने पर मजबूर कर दिया...

मेरे बचकाने-पन पर, तुम हंस पड़ी थीं...

और नाक का एक टुकड़ा, तुम्हारे होठों के ऊपर
आ चिपका था....

तुम बेखबर हंसतीं जा रहीं थी
और मेरी आँखों में तुमारा हँसता चेहरा
धुंधला होता जा रहा था...

... और जब नाक की एक लिज्लिली पर्त ने
तुम्हारे सारे चहरे को धक् लिया
तो मैंने रुक कर
नीचे दूर तक गयी उन घाटियों में
(जो शायद अब भी तुम्हरा नाम दोहरा रहीं थीं)
उलटी कर दी!!

hehe!... I did warn you :0)
... we were searching to find "our existential freedom to be able to live across the sublime-to-absurd"!

to.... a past which pays no dividends anymore....

2011-12-20T10:54:00.000-08:00

What should I do with a past
which pays no dividends anymore?

That face which haunted the lonliness
of my childhood days?... which grew and vanished,
fading like the evening sunrays...

What should I do with those dry whithered leaves,
of a long forgotten spring,
which flow into my house
with the atumn breeze?

... they knock on my door, rustle on the floor
twist and swirl, unfurl the scars
of a mental crease...

I had once collected the days and years
in verses and proses,
I had once been my antique-collector,
I had painted ghosts, and sketched lost souls...
...had redrawn lines on fading figures.

I had tried to capture my past -
- intact, classified - in multi-coloured jars...

I had althrough tried
lighting old stubs for a smoke,
and got stale taste in the mouth
and almost choked.
I learned the futility and let the past fly,
fade fro the eyes...

But now,
in a new spring of life
the autumn past
sends it reminders...

of decay and dying of certain memories.. within myself...

2011-12-20T09:59:00.000-08:00

These were some verses which I had scribbled when I had visited my alma mater - IIT/ Kanpur, some 6-7 years (SEpt '87) after I had moved on.... re-discovered them today in the pages of an old diary... as one keeps discovering such/these memories....
all written during "IIT/K, 29/09/87"

I.
To come back
and to find
that things have changed...
Time cheated you
while your back was turned
and stole away
certain unknown moments
of hazy possibillities
from your life
and left you
insecure, unsure, lost, alien
in you momentary nakedness

II.
Innumerable possibilities
whose warps and weaves
create that magic carpet,
which flies towrds the lofty aims
and goals
.. like the archetypal soap bubbles,
which would burst in the mid air
and dump me
back
into the reality
which I chose to disown...

III.
Disillusionment with a past
which somehow
always assumes a glitter in the memory
to be soiled
when you come in contact with it...
by
a yellowing palm-leaf in the pot
a tube-light which twitches and flickers
a tattered patch in the roof
unkempt grass patches
and cobwebs in the corners
... all signs of decay and dying
of an external reality
which is also a projection of a process
of decay and dying
within myself
of certain memories....

... जी नहीं, बस भीड़ में अकेले हैं!

2011-12-19T09:15:00.000-08:00

आप बड़े दुखी हैं,
बेचारे,
सहानुभूति के आकांक्षी!
क्या महंगाई के मारे हैं?

बेकारी से बेज़ार
दुखी दांपत्य के भोक्ता हैं?
क्या स्वाधीनता-संग्राम में,
आपने बहुत कष्ट झेले हैं?

"... जी नहीं
बस
भीड़ में अकेले हैं!"

- दिनकर सोनवलकर

We are the lost one’s, who never fought...

2011-12-18T10:30:00.000-08:00

oh well!... I was just 19-yrs then :)

The journey of this lost soul is a never-ending sequence – of enlightenments and ennui, of paroxysms and dullness, of staggering and determination… Nothing achieved, nothing lost. The compulsion of living is the only justification – is any!

Some arbitrary elements of fate, some random components of this purposelessness – and the life is summarized as a poker-faced personification of mockery on us.

The awareness that we live sometimes pricks the ego, and we find that there is no meaning, we live to die… we *are* dead, walking tombs, breathing corpses, engulfed in a cadaverous substance that we call the “vitality” of life…

Let’s lie in the green grass and let the fleeting shadow of clouds trample over us. To forget time, to forgive life for all its torture – and watch!.... and watch the empty men fighting for their different vacuums, and justifying themselves.

Let’s watch them boast redundantly of their burden – and console themselves. They deceive themselves, because they have been deceived, used as a puppet, to satisfy the whims of their own mind…

…Let’s forgive them for their compromises, for their catering to the desire to live, to be happy (Happiness is a consolation – an extrapolation on the hypothetical side of the reality).

Let us walk no more, but lie under the shade of the tree till autumn comes. And then leaves will fall one by one, leaving a naked skeleton of dry wood. The sun will burn our skins, the snow will freeze our bones. But let’s walk no more – there is no escape. Let’s not fight for different vacuums.

Let’s pretend to be sages and act as ascetics. The world will bow to our feet and we will laugh at the back out tongues. We will be god-heads, and become a star…

… and when the sun will go down, when the dark clouds will swallow up the moon, we will show the travelers their path to their grave…

Because one lives to die, one walks to fall – and never get up.

Let them lie on the flower-bed, when they get tired of their disparate fight…. For when the seasons will change, they will be lying on a bed of stinking twigs…

Let’s keep cool and maintain a dignity at the face of this life. Let it not deprive us of our serene and indifferent attitude.

We are the lost one’s, who never fought. Because it is useless to flutter your wing when there only vacuum… You can’t fly!

गीत बन आई अधर पर, सोन-जूही याद तेरी

2011-11-26T08:28:00.000-08:00

No, I did not write this poem... though, I did grow with these, when Santee-Joe scripted these verses
(we were 20-something then... and life was both an upcoming romance - and a challenge..!

गीत बन आई अधर पर,
सोन-जूही याद तेरी
शाम यूं लहरा रही
मानों समय की साधंना में
मौन साधे...
गुन-गुनते ज्यों कोई भाषा ह्रदय की...

छिप गई गहरायें में
वेदना सी
दबदबाये नयन की अभिव्यक्ति अंतिम
सांस में अंधड़ समेटे
चिर प्रतीक्षा में थके पग
राह पर फिर ठेलती सी
आंसुओ से लिख गयी वह
जो ना कह पाई अधर से
याचना प्यासे अधर की...

राह पर फिर ठेलती सी
आंसुओ सी लिख गयी वह
जो ना कह पाई अधर से
याचना प्यासे अधर की...