...for these handful of dreams

When you told me
without knowing
that…
there is no home!
…not for me.

I looked at you
trying to read your eyes....
They were sincere
understanding
and frank…

I was not surprised.

I had this feeling

…that
Home is a myth
created by the frightened cavemen…
…that
it is the ideology of
of the lost traveller…
…that it is the dream
of a crippled child….

And I had also known…
…that a part of me
is frightened, crippled and lost…

maybe...
I need a home more than you…
maybe...
I can also afford not to need it…

So
let us, my dream,
face together
this dreamless world…

...even if,
to face it
I have to crush my dreams…

Maybe
it is for these handful of dreams
that
I want to defy the world.

- Sept 29th, 1976 (Lucknow/ Kanpur)

आदि-अंत सब भूल चूका हूँ, ये कैसी उर-गति पहचानी ?...

आज अधूरी वही कहानी
यदि अनन्त यति मिटा सके तो
हर युग नें दोहराया जिसको
बात सुना दे वही पुरानी....

स्वर यदि जब बैरी बन जाए
मौन नयन ही कह उठते हैं
उर को जो है कथा सुनानी...

उर रोता तो नयन भीगते
बन जाती अभिव्यक्ति स्वयं ही
लिख देता आँखों का पानी...

नहीं कहीं दीपक की झिलमिल
भटक-भटक कर बना रहा हूँ
खोयी, अदिश, राह अनजानी...

ये पुकार किसकी आती है
आदि-अंत सब भूल चूका हूँ
ये कैसी उर-गति पहचानी ?...

- Dec 8th, 1973 (Lucknow)
***

Adios!... to a friend I never "met"

I have lived a sort of 'virtual' / parallel existence for almost a decade and half now (being an early convert to the Net) - in a virtual reality, where I have met and made friends with many wonderful souls, with whom I keep interacting, learning and sharing - but whom I have never met (and will perhaps never meet).

Most of them appear to be there for years to come... so, when this news about the departure of an e-friend (and an alumnus of the institute which has sheltered me for more than 2 decade) came this morning - it sort of shook up the sure, secure world... virtual friends, people you never met, but were part of the journey, too move on!!

The mail said:

"The end was quick; his heart just stopped. And he moved on..."

Yes, that had to happen!!... in a way, one knew it coming. He was suffering from multiple sclerosis... Out of the blue, a couple of years back he had called me up (that was my sole encounter with him in the 'real' world), had shared what he was going through - and that no! this is not "life-threatening" - that he will pull through... (one believed him then)

A few months back, a common friend had posted about his organs failing... and about doctors taking a decision to keep or pull-back the life support systems...

***
We had never met in person, but were co-conspirators when I was trying to build the alumni network on yahoogroups (that was back in 99-01), and he was among the first ones to become the co-moderator for his batch group... together we, mostly him, dug out MIAs, and got them into the group (many of his batch-mates, connected as they are today, perhaps would recall that great act of bringing all together)... Off and on, we had exchanged mails, as he moved from Chennai to Dubai and then back...

I carry an image of him as person who was full of life, could reach out, connect, and give.... though, I don't even know what he looked like...

His departure kept echoing in my mind today...
...and so I thought the least I can do to celebrate the life of this person whose path inadvertently crossed mine, is to scribble down these random memories...

Good bye, Bharath 'Brat' Chandran!!

मैंने देखा था उन दिनों में उसे...

... 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!

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...

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..

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!

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

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…

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

...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..

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

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)

recurring memories...

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...

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...

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

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....

स्वप्निल सा था साथ तुम्हारा...

स्वप्निल सा था साथ तुम्हारा
कोहरे में,छिप गया अँधेरा,
धुंधला धुंधला,
भीगा भीगा,
तारों पर मखमली बसेरा..

हाथ पकड़ कर
साथ चले तो
पग-पग धरती पर उतरा
सपनों भरा यथार्थ हमारा...
(Jan 12, '77 - Lucknow/IITK)

सूखे अधरों, भीगी पलकों, में ही जीवन का सत्य छिपा...

a slice of life back then... as it was happening/ unfolding...

सूखे अधरों, भीगी पलकों
में ही जीवन का सत्य छिपा...

कितनी आशाएं हैं मन की,
फिर भी परिभाषा जीवन की,
मिटती प्रतिछवियों में सोयी,
बन गयी रिक्तता जीवन की...
...जो बोझ बना खालीपन से,
ऐसा हमको अमरत्व मिला ||

राहों के काँटों से बिंध कर
जो अपने थे, उनको खो कर
पग विवश हुए, बढ़ते जाते,
मन में झूठी आशाएं ले कर..
...अनजान डगर में भटक रहे,
ना राह मिली, ना लक्ष्य मिला ||

- Sept 23, '73

कि मंजिल मिल सके शायद, मेरी भटकी हुई तालाश को...

Looking back 40-yrs at that self-in-making, I guess such random verses were a way of finding that precarious balance and meaning in life, specially when one was still grappling with so many imbalances in an unpredictably unfolding life... and one was so very unprepared for it!

नहीं बढ़ कर कभी मैंने, किसी के हाथ को थामा,
नहीं मुड़ कर कभी मैंने, चली उस राह को देखा,
है फिर भी क्यों खिंचा आया, मेरे संग ये कोई साया,
ये कैसी आस है, जिस पर कि मेरा ह्रदय भरमाया,
ये कैसा गीत है जिसको कि मेरी सांस सुनती है,
ये कैसा स्वप्न है जिसको कि मेरी आस बुनती है,
किसी के होठ में पाने, किसी अरमान के साए,
छुपाये प्यास को दिल में, कदम बढ़ते चले आये,
कि खोया था कहाँ क्या, आज तक हम जान ना पाए,

बसाए जिस्म का खंडहर, उखड्ती सांस की लय पर,
ये राही बढ़ रहा है - अब कहाँ जाये, किधर जाए...

जिधर भ्रम हो गया, मिल जाएगा अपना अधूरापन
...उधर ही बढ़ चले पग,
बाँध कर, दिल में सुहानी आस को,
कितने जनम की प्यास को,
कि मंजिल मिल सके शायद,
मेरी भटकी हुई तालाश को...

- Dec 14, 1972 (Lucknow)

कुछ सम्बन्ध... जो जीवन-परिधि के परे होते हैं...

कुछ सम्बन्ध ऐसे होते हैं
जो जीवन-परिधि के
परे होते हैं,

और उनका भावनात्मक समीकरण
धातु-जगत का कोई भी तर्क
कभी भी
नहीं सुलझा पाता....

कुछ सम्बन्ध... जो खोटे सिक्कों की तरह

Even though, since those 30-odd years, when I wrote these lines... I have been able to convert some of these counterfeit coins into cherished memories of life (if not dreams)...

कुछ सम्बन्ध ऐसे होते हैं,
जो खोटे सिक्कों की तरह,
मेरी जेब में पड़े रहते हैं -
...उनका खनकना मुझे अच्छा लगता है,
पर उनसे
एक मुट्ठी भर सपने भी
खरीदे नहीं जा सकते.... |
- July 1, 1980

कुछ ऐसे भी पल होते हैं...

Those were the days, when one lived (and discovered life) through songs, poems and stray comments/ quotes and phrases...

This was one such song... which helped making sense of another part of life which was happening somewhere inside...

(It was an archeological find to discover this song today - so made a video around it, with sketches/ paintings/ photographs I had created...)

कुछ ऐसे भी पल होते हैं - मन्ना डे

और मैं निरुत्तर हूँ...

Bal Swarup "Rahi" used to be my "resident poet" - someone with whom I could resonate, and who would articulate what I could not then (that's back in the early '70s)... ...some of his verses I (re-)discovered today:

कौफी के प्याले में, कब तलक डुबोओगे,
अन्तरंग कडुआपन,
मुझसे यूं पुछा है उकताई शाम नें,
और मैं निरुत्तर हूँ...

***

धुंए और धुंध भरे इस युग में,
आओ, हम अर्थ की तलाश करें,
चाहे वह व्यर्थ हो...

***

शब्द जो तिरिस्कृत हैं,
अर्थ जो बहिष्कृत हैं,
लाओ, हम उन्हें नए गीतों में ढाल दें...