A life woven around couplets and poems...

Today, I (re-)discovered a very very old diary, which I used to keep, when I was growing up - and in which I used to scribble down things - quotes, poems, couplets (शेर ) which I would come across (in books, magazines, conversations with friends/co-travellers of my life, songs, etc.), and which would help me to make sense of my own scattered life...

Reading those, I also realised the influence they had on my mid/late teenage mind, and - for good or bad - molded me as a person... at least, gave me a sense of meaning to those numerous things which happen to you when you are - with very inadequate capabilities- trying to find 'what the hell this is all about!'

Some, I still remember, but many of these personal roots I had forgotten till today I re-discovered them...

...in some ways, this post is to acknowledge those many unknown poets/ शायरs who were with me when I was growing up

Here are some - maybe 2-10% - of those couplets (from amongst the hundreds, which are there in the diary)... in no particular order - each of them was a part of 'sense-making' :

उगां कि मुझ ग़रीब को, हयात का ये हुक्म है,
समझ हरेक राज़ को, मगर फरेब खाए जा।
***

मंजिल मुझे मिले ना मिले, इसका ग़म नहीं,
मंजिल कि जुस्तजू में मेरा कारवां तो है।
***

कुच्छ ग़म नहीं कि उनकी निगाह-ऐ करम नहीं,
हम भी अलग हैं, अपना मुकद्दर लिए हुए।
***

एक बार ही जीने कि सजा क्यूँ नहीं देते,
गर हर्फ़ गलत हूँ तो मिटा क्यूं नहीं देते।
मोती हो तो यूं पास ना रखने का सबब क्या,
पत्थर हूँ तो रस्ते से हटा क्यूं नहीं देते॥
***

जो सोचिये तो बहुत सिलसिले, बहुत रिश्ते,
जो देखिये तो जहाँ में, हर आदमी तनहा।
***

कहना चाहा तो मगर बात बनायीं ना गयी,
दर्द को शब्द में पोशाक पिन्हाई ना गयी।
और फिर ख़त्म हुयी ऐसे कहानी अपनी,
उनसे सुनते ना गयी, हमसे सुनाई ना गयी॥
***

गए हैं हम भी गुलिस्तान में बारहा लेकिन,
कभी बहार के पहले, कभी भार के बाद।
***

भटकने कि आदत सी कुच्छ पड़ गयी है,
कई बार मंजिल ने हमको पुकारा।
***

ऐ मौजे हवा! दे इनको भी,
दो-चार थपेड़े हलके से।
कुछ लोग अभी भी साहिल से,
तूफाँ का नज़ारा करते हैं॥
***

डूबने वाले ये किनारे पर क्यूँ-कर है,
मौत आई तो किनारे पे भी मर जाएगा।
***

मेरी ज़िन्दगी वोह मसल्सल सफ़र है,
कि मंजिल पे पहुंचे तो मंजिल बढ़ा दी।
***

ऐ आसमान, तेरे खुदा का नहीं है खौफ,
डरते हैं ऐ ज़मीन, तेरे आदमी से हम।
****

पुरानी और नयी रौशनी में फर्क इतना है,
उन्हें मंजिल नहीं मिलती, इन्हें साहिल नहीं मिलता।
***

हमें खबर है कि हम हैं, चिराग-ऐ-आखिरी-शब्,
हमारे बाद अँधेरा नहीं उजाला है।
***

अगर जाना है तुमको पार
बहुत है तिनके का आधार।
और मत सोचो मेरे मीत,
कहेगा क्या तट से संचार॥
***

रागिनी एक थी आंसू की मेरी उम्र मगर,
रही जहाँ भी वहां, रौशनी लुटा के रही।
और जब ख़त्म हुयी मेरी कहानी जग में,
आधी दीपक नें कही, आधी पतंगे नें कही॥

... and of course, that was also an age when it is natural to keep falling in love :)... so there were an equal number of romantic couplets too :0)... in some other posting later...

A tele-conversation which made my day... :0)

My bank and credit card company (both same) are very generous and gracious. They keep telling me what a 'jolly good fellow" I am to the banking industry in general and to them in particular....

...and so, I deserve to be rewarded for having an account with them.

Everyday send me a couple of SMSs - and call me up on phone - with magnanimous offers of un-solicited loans and/or low EMIs against my my meagre bills on the card...

Though I am grateful to them for making feel part of the debt-ridden "India Shining" story - but even though I have the option of ignoring the SMSs, their "offers" on phone sometimes do become a distraction.

So I was well-prepared today with a "counter-offer strategy" today when the call came. Here is a rough transcript of our conversation:

Caller: Sir, I am Amit calling on behalf of xxx cards. Am I talk to Mr Madhukar Shukla?

Me (M): Yes, what can I do for you

Amit: Sir, I am happy to inform you that we have identified you as one of our Preferred Customers, and would like to offer you...

Me: Oh, really? - thanks!.. er - can you please hold on for a minute.

And so I went around the house, stood on the balcony looking at nothing - timed my absence for 3 minutes, before I came back... The poor soul was still there.

Me: Oh, sorry for keeping you waiting... What did you say was your name?

Amit: Amit, Sir!

Me: Yes, Amit, you were saying...?

Amit: Sir, you are one of our "Preferred Customers", and have been paying your bills on time. So we are happy to offer you...

Me: Offer? Thanks, Amit... Btw, you have a nice and polite voice...

Amit: Thanks, sir.. As I was saying, we are happy to...

Me: How old are you, Amit?

Amit: Sir!!?

I could imagine him looking at the script on his screen with bewiilderment...

Me: Amit, you seem to be such a nice person. How old are you?

Amit: uh... er.. Sir?

Me: how old are you, Amit?

I was playing safe - knowing something how the BPOs work, I was sure that he can't abuse me and hang-up on me - the "preferred customer", ahem! :0) - his supervisor (who may be listening - or can listen to the tape) would have fire him!

Amit: Sir.... why? (and then broke into his script) I want to inform you that you are our preferred customer, and we would like to offer you...

Me: Amit, how old are you?

Amit: 25 yrs, sir!... As I was telling you, you are one of our preferred...

Me: Amit, are you married?

Amit: er, no, sir!...but I wanted to inform you that you...

Me: That's great, Amit - I guess, you must be getting a decent salary for making these calls?

...and who can say that s/he is getting peanuts for spamming other people's phones, when his company is listening to him/her...

Amit: yes sir, my company looks after me quite well [I admired him to be able to say something besides parroting from his screen] but as I was telling you...

Me: Oh, that's great!... Amit, why don't you get married? You are such a nice polite young man, and have bright future ahead of you. I have a nice girl I know, who would be just right you

Amit: ...[silence]

Me: Amit, I too have an offer! - I can get you married!... Please do send me your bio/cv

Amit: [l....o...n...g silence] Yes sir, Can I call you later sometime. We are happy to inform you...

Me: Sure, Amit - it was nice talking to you..
------------

Disclaimer: the above conversation is imaginary - us, b-school profs are a serious lot, and we don't play such pranks on those who are toiling hard to increase India's GDP from the "service sector"

Dis-Disclaimer: it was one great fun of 5-min entertainment today - made my day!! :0)

losing a life, and regaining a 'lost' life - on the same day!

Life has enigmatic ways of compensating... On the same day, one can lose a life, and one can also regain (in some ways) another lost life

On the day when Manu succombed to the Pune German Bakery blast, I was drafting this posting, which was left incomplete at that time...
(and realising that it is important to close the loops/ 'windows' in life - if only for oneself - today, I sat down and completed it)

==================
Some months back, when Yahoo! had sent out a mail informing that the "free" Yahoo! Geocities was going to be closed down on Oct 26th, '09 - with an option to transport one's site to a paid Yahoo! domain, I was in a quandry:

I had a Geocites site which I had created to preserve some cherished memories of a person - not just for myself, but also for many others who had valued that life. Creating that site was an act, not only of celebrating a life, but also of sharing - of creating a 'commons' for all those who were part of it.

Yahoo!'s mail told me that suddenly, that 'commons' had got usurped by the 'markets' - which required one to pay to share memories (the issue not being how much to pay! - but the fact that one has to pay!)...

Underlying this belief was also an understanding of the original architecture/rationale of the Internet - of an era, when "Hackers" were the "Heroes of the Computer Revolution" - the good guys, who built the Net, and when the "Nerds" represented the dark forces of narrow commercial interests.

In 2005, when one of the greatest Hackers of his time, Tim-Berner Lee - the scientist who invented the World Wide Web, had started his blog, he had written in his first post:

"In 1989 one of the main objectives of the WWW was to be a space for sharing information. It seemed evident that it should be a space in which anyone could be creative, to which anyone could contribute... Now in 2005, we have blogs and wikis, and the fact that they are so popular makes me feel I wasn't crazy to think people needed a creative space."

While downloading the files from the Geeta's site, which I had made, I had wondered if there can be a way to download all sites - and preserve not just what I had created, but also what all others had created to share. Not being a techie/"hacker", I did not know how that can be done - though knew that it can be done!... I had felt helpless, and had mourned the demise of the efforts of so many millions of people to share...
(Btw, being selfish, I did also opt for Yahoo!'s option to pay to maintain that site - paid the money, booked a site-name - but have not heard anything from them since...)

...so today, while searching for something else, my belief in the essential - though forgotten - "Hacker Ethics" of the internet got vindicated, when I chanced upon a website:
http://www.reocities.com/...

The person did this herculean Samaritan task was obviously the quintessential hacker, as defined by Eric Ramond:

"Hackers solve problems and build things, and they believe in freedom and voluntary mutual help. To be accepted as a hacker, you have to behave as though you have this kind of attitude yourself. And to behave as though you have the attitude, you have to really believe the attitude."

I loved and admired the Open Letter to Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo! from the "hacker", Jacques Mattheij, who had taken the pain and effort to keep a monumnet of collective efforts alive - hats off to you, Jacques!.... He articulated a thought which I had when I received the mail from Yahoo! - but so much more cogently... So let me quote:

"When the Taliban decided to blow up those antique statues a while ago there was worldwide uproar. Thousands upon thousands of people spoke out against it, recognized that what was lost here was a unique statement of the cultural state of mankind, a sense of loss was felt by all.

In the name of religion, culture was destroyed.

And now, perhaps unwittingly, Yahoo! has committed a similar act. When those statues were blown up it was clearly an act of vandalism. That we are not in our lifetimes going to travel to Afghanistan to see them is a small detail.

But Yahoo! GeoCities pages were a monument too, and were accessible to (and accessed by) millions from all over the world. It was not just a business unit, it was something that mankind made, that Yahoo! had custody over.

It was a monument that stood as testimony to the birth of the World Wide Web, something that will surely occupy the scholars of the future. To Yahoo! it may have simply been a bunch of bits on some hard disks. But to humanity is was much more than that.

In the name of commerce culture was destroyed."

Thanks, Jacques!... for...

...for reaffirming that cultures/civilizations grow and develop through the conversations/contribitions of ordinary people - and not through commerce and Intellectual Property Rights...

...for saving a large portion of a collective endeavour of millions of those ordinary people to share and create those conversations...

...(on a personal/ selfish level).. For restoring the website - Remembering Geeta

------------
Postscript:... And just to add, the original "hacker culture" is thankfully well and alive... I also found that someone (don't know who) created http://www.oocities.com/ - restored the page at http://www.oocities.com/geetas_page/ too!

क्या जीवन का ध्येय यही है?...

I guess, I was lucky to have some remarkable co-travellers in life, when I was growing up - poets, activists, romantics, thinkers (as much as one can be one is in one's teens)... essentially us, who had this "sense of destiny" then...

Here are the verses written by one of them, I had met first time - I still remember the date, July 8th, 1970 - in the corridors of Colvin Taluquedar College, Lucknow... This became one of those cherished relationships, which has lasted a life-time - I attended his daughter's wedding this December - and realised that time flies... and one day we too will sail out of the Middle-Earth!

anyways, the verses:

जीवन के आगे जीवन है,
जीवन के पीछे जीवन है,
पर जीवन की खोज मृत्यु हो,
क्या जीवन का ध्येय यही है?...

जीवन कहाँ शांतिमय होगा,
जहां शांति है वहाँ ना जीवन,
पर मैं शांति खोजता फिरता
आदि शांतिमय, अंत शान्ति है,
शांति मध्य में भी मैं ढूँढू
क्या जीवन का ध्येय यही है?...

जीवन के तो अगणित पथ हैं,
हर पथ के अगणित राही हैं,
एक पथिक बन मैं भी जी लूं,
क्या जीवन का ध्येय यही है?...

वृक्ष एक बढ़ता जाता है,
नीचे एक पुष्प कुसुमित है,
वृक्ष कहे बढ़ाते जाना है,
फूल कहे जग महकाना है,
एक दूसरे से वोह पूंछे,
क्या जीवन का ध्येय यही है?...

पास बही जाती हो नदिया,
शीतल, चंचल, गहन सौम्य सी,
मेरा मन हो विकुल प्यास से,
पर मैं प्यासा बैठ किनारे,
बात जोहता रहूँ मेघ की,
क्या जीवन का ध्येय यही है?...

इधर हमें कर्त्तव्य पुकारे,
उधर ह्रदय कहता, जीने दो,
चीख-चीख कर आस कह रही,
मुझे बचाओ टूट रहीं हूँ,
मैं सुना, अनसुना सब कर दूं,
क्या जीवन का ध्येय यही है?...

जब आँखों से नीर बह चले,
और हूक सी उठे हदय में,
तब अपनी अमूल्य पीड़ा को,
भेंट चढ़ा दूं मुस्कानों की,
क्या जीवन का ध्येय यही है?...

जिस विशाल नभ की छाया में,
बाल्यकाल है अपना बीता,
जिसने भेजा चन्द्रकिरण को,
भरा हमारा अंतर रीता,
उस विशाल मंदिर को ताज कर,
विचरें इक छोटी कुटिया में,
क्या जीवन का ध्येय यही है?....

दो आँखे हैं, दो आंसू हैं,
चार नयन हैं, दो मुस्कानें
झुटला कर इस अटल सत्य को,
उतराऊं झूठे दर्शन में,
क्या जीवन का ध्येय यही है?...

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?...

Hangover... of a life!

Waking up
with a cramped body,
and a foul smelling mouth...reminiscent of last night's whisky...
processed with cigarette fumes

- which left,
a sticky taste,
and glued me to bed...

This morning, a meeting point:

...of countless threads,
from eternity to today

...of the last evening,
when we touched each other
with raw words,
stretching from one peg to another

...of an evening a week back,
when at a speed of 60kmph,
I travelled from love to loneliness

...of a year back,
when I embarked upon a journey,
to meet my hedonistic Shadow

... of a decade back,
when I looked inside myself,
and was overwhelmed, and inspired,
by its naive incompleteness

... of a life-time back
when pushed out of the womb,
I suffered my fall....

Events conspired:
... to weave the inevitable,
and I was born
...with a numb memory
of a dim, faded, unspent communion
of the evening before!

(26/01/81- IBP Guest House, Korba)

...and next day, I walked to the post-office and sent a telegram..

this is a part of the continuing Operations "Life-Upload" :)

almost 30 years back, on a lonely rainy afternoon in Bhopal - in a dingy flat in Arera Colony- , I had scribbled these verses... they also marked a crossing of threshold for me.....

आज फिर,
एक उन्मत्त स्त्री
सरीखी वर्षा...
और एक सिहरन
जो मुझे
इस घुटी हुयी सीलन भरे कमरे में,
झझकोर देती है॥
..और पास आ कर बैठ जाती है, पूछती है,
"तू अकेला क्यूं?"

...और मुझे याद आता है:
कई साल पहले
मैंने इन्ही पन्नों पर लिखा था:
"क्यों की मेरा जन्म
अकेले हुआ था,
मरने पर
साँसे मेरी रुकेंगी,
मेरी
अकेले!"

और याद आता है
मेरी आठ साल की उम्र के परिवेश
से
उठता हुआ यह गीत:
"जोदि तोमार डाक शोने ना कोई
एकला चलो रे॥"

और उस सिहरन
का वो प्रश्न
मेरी यादों के साथ
उलझ कर
एक गाँठ बन जाता है...

शायद ये अकेलापन
ये अकेले रहने की आदत,
ये अकेले रहने के विवशता
स्वयं एक गाँठ है,
जो मैंने
अपने अस्तित्व की खोज में
अपने पर डाल ली है...
और अब...
ज़िन्दगी के साथ किया ये समझौता
जीवन की सार्थकता से दूर,
एक बेमाने की विवशता बन गया है....

शायद,
सार्थकता और विवशता में
केवल समय की दूरी है...
शब्दों में बुनी अपने अस्तित्व की प्रतिछवियां:
- किनारे बैठ कर, लहरें गिननें वाला.. कवि
- कभी ना रुकने वाला... अकेतन
- जीवन की परिधि पर बैठा... कहानीकार...

... और इनकी तह में छिपा
एक मासूम खोजता एकाकीपन।

ये सब,
स्वयं को आंकने के,
स्वयं को मापने के,
स्वयं को पाने के...
...प्रयत्न थे
...जीवन के उन पलों में सार्थक थे....

लेकिन आज, जब
- कवि तैरना चाहता है,
- कहानीकार, जीवन की परिधि से उतर कर... जीना चाहता है
- और वह भटकता पथिक - अकेतन - थक चूका है....
और किसी झोपड़ी के दीपक को
अपनाना चाहता है...

तब यह सार्थकतायें,
यह प्र्तिछावियाँ
एक जंजीर बन जाती हैं...

...शायद,
ज़िन्दगी के साथ किया ये समझौता
मिटाया जा सकता है,
शायद,
कोई और समझौता किया जा सकता है,

...क्योंकि, यह अकेलापन
अब सागर का शांत किनारा नहीं,
साबेरिया का निर्मम परिवेश है,॥

जिसे छू कर,
मेरे अन्दर एक सिहरन उठती है,
..और पूछती है:
"तू अकेला क्यूं?!"

..and next day I walked to the post-office and sent a telegram: "Leave it all, come, let's live together..."

स्वयं को खोया, स्वयं का सार पाने के लिए - २

स्वयं को खोया स्वयं का सार पाने के लिए - १...
स्वयं को खोया,
स्वयं का सार पाने के लिए...

जब प्रणय की अर्चना में
कामना के गीत उगते,
जब कृत्रिम जग की प्रथा में
सांस के पग जा उलझते,
जब ह्रदय की वासना
जीवन-दिशायें खीचती थी,
पूछती थी अर्थ अपना,
व्यर्थ-सी स्मृति उभर के...
...क्या चले थे हम यही संसार पाने के लिए...

भटकने देते स्वयं को,
उस भटकने में दिशा थी,
उलझती पगडंडियों में
भटकना जीवन-प्रथा थी,
मार्ग ही गंतव्य था, चलना
स्वयं में ध्येय था,
मिलने-बिछुड़ने की अधूरी
तृप्ति में, संत्रिप्ता थी...
...भटकता था प्यार भी जब प्यार पाने के लिए...

Goodbye, Holden Caufield!...

....for someone who grew-up as an uncertain, nervous, ill-at-ease apprehensive adolescent... books and authors - Richard Wright, Albert Camus, Sartre, GB Shaw, Ayn Rand, Oscar Wilde, etc.... - were a comfortable and safe reality to relate to.

I realised that, during last one week - while I was busy with the SE Conference, two of them with whom I grew - Eric Segal (Love Story... still wonder why it turned out to be prophetic) and JD Salinger... and who contributed to my growing up, left the planet.

JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye - and Holden Cuafield - were one of such anchor for me then...

So, I dug out this register from IITK days ('76 roll number 610062 :), where I had scribbled some of the conversations of Holden Caufield which made sense to me then - and still do:

========
Conversation between Holden Caufield and Mr Antalini:

“It’s this course where each boy in the class has to get up in the class and make a speech – you know Spontaneous and all. And if the boy digresses at all, you’re supposed to yell “Digressed” at him as fast you can. It just drove me crazy. I got an F in it.”

“Why?”

Oh, I don’t know. That digression business got on my nerves. I don’t know. The trouble with me is, I like it when somebody digresses. It’s more interesting and all.”
========

Conversation between Holden Caufield and Mr Spencer.

Mr Spencer: “What’d he say to you?”

“Oh… about life being a game and all. Andhow you should play it according to rules. He was pretty nice about it. I mean, he didn’t hit the ceiling or anything like that. He just kept talking about life being a game and all that, you know.”

“Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to rules.”

“Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it.”

Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it is a game, all right – I’ll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about it? Nothing. No game.
======

Mr Antolini to Holden Caufield.

“The falI I think you’re riding for – It’s special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit the bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement is designed for men who, at some time or the other in their lives, were looking for something their environment couldn’t supply them with… So they gave up looking. The gave up before they even got started.”
=======

and this last one, which is sort of "scripty"

Holden Caufiled to Phoebe:

“…I keep picturing all these kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s is around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I am standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean, it they’re running and don’t look where they’re going, I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s I’d do all day. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy.”

Amen!

Omar Khayyam & Me - 4

LXXII
And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,
Lift not your hands to It for help--for It
As impotently moves as you or I.

My Translation:
सुने आसमान पर
हाथ उठा कर
मिटा रहे हो कौन सा गम...

उल्टा खाली प्याला
जो अधर में ही रुका है
जिसकी मदिरा का
हर कण सूख चूका है...

उतना ही असहाय है,
उतना ही नपुंसक है,
जितने तुम और हम।

a thousand songs back again...

These verses were part of the growing-up phase - had fallen in love with them...and then had forgotten them...

I am not sure, why I was trying to locate these verses (by Pritish Nandy) since last few days/weeks... but did finally find them scribbled in a diary today:

I have been freewheeling, double dealing for too long,
rambling, gambling chasing a song: It’s been
long since I met myself, after weeks and weeks
of hanging around. It’s been long since I paid my dues
and headed homewards searching for you.
It’s time you came and took me back,
a thousand songs back again...

Omar Khayyam & Me - 3

Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat: XLVI:
And fear not lest Existence closing your
Account, and mine, should know the like no more;
The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has pour'd
Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.

My Translation:
मरने के बाद भी,
हम मिटेंगे नहीं।
आने वाली पीढ़ियों में
हमारा अंश होगा...

...इसलिए नहीं कि हमारी आत्मा उनमे होग़ी
याकि वोह हमारी संतान होंगी... ।

बल्कि इसलिए
क्योंकि पानी में बुलबुले
उठते रहे हैं
..और उठते रहेंगे॥

...और सब बुलबुले
एक से होते हैं...

Omar Khayyam & Me :0) - 2

here's one more

Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat: XXXV:
Then to the lip of this poor earthen Urn
I lean'd, the Secret of my Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd--"While you live
Drink!--for, once dead, you never shall return."

My Translation:
झुक कर जीवन के प्याले से, माँगा मैंने अपना परिचय,
जब अधर हमारे टकराए, तो छलक गया बोला मधुमय,
"वो घूँट तुझे जो बहका दें, वो ही तू है, तेरा परिचय,
पीता जा जब तक साँसे हैं, फिर तू होगा ना तेरा विस्मय।"

Omar Khayyam & Me :0) - 1

Omar Khayyam's "Rubaiyat" was a great discovery when I was growing up (still am :)... but then I was 16-17yr old), and one of the goals was to translate it into Hindi.

Well, I did try - though all the translations were in different meters/rhythms... here is one:

Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat: XXII:
For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to rest.

My Translation:
कुछ प्रेम मिला, सौंदर्य मिला
कुछ जीवन की अभिरुचि जागी,
साँसों की मदिरा पी-पी कर हम,
मदमस्त हुए हम अनुरागी

कुछ घूँट गले से उतर गए
कुछ यूं ही बह कर बिखर गए
फिर छोड़ चले खली प्याला
चुपके से मधुशाला त्यागी...

Passing lives.. Mrs Keti Jilla - RIP

I guess, one needs to get used to such passing of seasons/lives...

Keti - a very chubby, exhuberant and efficient - person... Geeta's first secy, when we came to XL in 1990.

She retired in mid '90s - and since then I think I must have met her maybe only once or twice - but each meeting was a warm occurance, a kind of continuation of conversations from the past..

...and so this morning, when I received this mail from Director's office, the flow of time stopped for a moment to take a note:

"We have received the sad news this morning that Mrs Keti Jilla passed away this morning at TMH. The funeral will be held this afternoon [January 18] at 3.30 pm in the Parsee cemetery.

For those who do not know Keti, she was a Secretary of XLRI since 1968 and took early retirement on 11/10/95. Keti was very hard working and sincere in her work. She has worked for 4 Deans during her tenure: Prof. Joe Philip; Fr John Prabhu; Prof. Sudas Roy and Dr Jittu Singh. "

Keti's funeral took place today the same place, where some 17-18yrs back, we had gone to say our goodbyes to her young son...

...but today, I could not make it say bye to her!

so in some ways, this posting is to say: Good to have known you, Keti...good-bye, and may you RIP...

A page in life which does not exist anymore...

From a website which I made for her, which too does not exist anymore...
---------------

This was uncanny, and I have no explanations. Around the time when Geeta had written that poem, I was writing, what I thought would be my first novel. As a 20 year old, I thought I will become an author (the fact that I ended up writing managment books is the kind of compromises one lives by...)

Ashoo's story was to be narrated as a flashback to this beginning (ending?) - but the story never went beyond this point...

...or maybe it did - though I never penned it down...
-----------

It was in her last days, when gripped by a sense of deja vu, I dug it out from my old papers... it still puzzles me why and how I wrote it...

This, perhaps, is the longest night of my life. There are moments which do not sum up, do not form the continuity we call the life. All around me I can see the fireflies of flickering moments - disjointed, engaged in a Brownian movement... and the night is so long and unending. Maybe it is an eternity where nothing happens, but everything has happened, or is about to happen. There is no present, but an irrevocable past, or a future that never happens - that’ll never happen... a gnawing sense of emptiness...

Maybe that’s where she has gone...

It is a night and I should be dreaming. But I remember throwing away my dreams in the calm and benign waters of Ganges this very evening. Can there be a night without dreams? Can day break without night passing away? Will there ever be a dawn now?... I can still feel the sensation in my palms. The priest had asked me to take handful of ash, as he chanted the mantras, and throw it in the river. It was now, just a cluster of ash, which knew no past, no future. Ash, which has the destiny to flow with the river, making the outline of a sad dusky procession the calm ripple of the waters. There was no way in which I could trace its past... what was that ash? where had it come from? where was it heading to?... There was a total silence. there was no answer.

And then, as if mechanically, I had bent down and picked up a handful of ash in my hands. Maybe it was hot; but heat has a tactual connotation. What I felt was more than tactual. The touch went deeper than the skin, the nerve fibres, the cerebral cortex. What I was holding in my hands was not ash, but the burning, hurting, splinters of what I had known to be my dreams... once. My handful of crushed dreams. Or whatever had remained of them. They pierced me right through the skin and cut me in that immense depth which I could not measure in my body - yet, which was my own. And on the rhythmic chant of mantras I threw them in the flow of the mute river. And silently watched them being indifferently carried away, away from me.

The phone call had come in the afternoon. She is dead, someone, who did not know the meaning of his own words, had informed me impersonally. Is death so sudden?... I had wondered... so accurately and conveniently assessable in the course of time? I had seen her dying in bits and pieces, for so long. And a part of her is still within me, fighting for a life, and gradually losing itself to an oblivion. People do not die all of a sudden. They fade away, gradually. Gradually, they start fading out for themselves, and then also for others. Death is a slow consumer, like python. Only python is not everyone’s destiny, but death is. Is the whole process of living, a process of dying, of fading away gradually?

Or was it my own death - my own process of fading away - that I was fighting against in her death? Was she dying in me - or was I dying in her death? “A part of us dies in everyone’s death, anyone’s death”, she used to say. I never agreed with her then, but maybe she was right. We live in others; we die with them. How would we know the feeling of “I am alive”, if we do not see other people living, if we are unaware of what it is to feel that “they are alive”? Life, I have often felt, is a relative concept? Europidese was right when he said, “who knows life is death and death is life”. Maybe this process of living, which is a process of dying - of decaying, and of fading away - is actually the process of living, of growing... Maybe we do not die a death in each parting, with each person. Maybe we grow and expand in each death, to fill up the void that is created by the departed soul. Maybe each death is an opportunity for us to grow and grasp the rationale of what once was life. Maybe...

Isn’t one’s own death different from other’s death?

I often try to imagine other people’s death - what would I feel if one dies? But I can never imagine my own death. The situation is meaningless. All feelings, imagination, awareness, cease with one’s own death. That “he or she is not” is a qualitatively different phenomenon that “I am not”... what, then, is the rationale of one’s own life?

What, I wonder, was the rationale of Ashoo’s life - or of her death, if you please - for herself? Could there be a part of her self, which was beyond her death, and which could experience, could know the rationale? In her last days, I had often tried to seek an explanation to these querries in her eyes. But somehow in the opaqueness of her lifeless smile and empty eyes, I could fathom no depth which could answer me. She used to sit and gape at me with a smile - which was another name for non-recognition. Often I felt myself non-existent in front of those unseeing eyes. The doctor always tried to be helpful, “This often happens in tumors,” he would tell me. “Such disorientation and impairment of memory is usual in such cases. In fact, the growth of tumor tissues often hampers with the sensori-motor functionings. She may not even be aware of your presence due to impairments in occipital and frontal lobes...” as if this could compensate for a void I could see developing in her. Maybe he was right - in fact, I am sure he was.

But wasn’t he forgetting the Life, in order to save it? With all his jargon, he could not tell me what had happened to her life - to the memories of those events - which constituted her life.

He agreed that her consciousness of herself, of her memories of her life, was clouded forever... What, then, was she now? Of course, she was alive, because her heart was still beating, her blood still feeding the cells which would consume her. But could she be aware of her existence? Could she with any authenticity feel her being-ness? If she couldn’t recognise me, could she, at least, recognise herself? Was she lost to herself? Forever?...

Life being blown out breath by breath..

Remembrance...

अब मुझे कोई इंतज़ार कहाँ..

आँख के एक गाँव में / रात को ख्वाब आते थे,
छूने से बहते थे, / बोले तो कहते थे,
उड़ते ख्वाबों का एतबार कहाँ...




These pics of mine had to wait for this song to get woven together...

हम सब धुंध भरे कमरों में...

हम सब
धुएं भरे कमरे में
अलग-अलग बंद
कुच्छ भटके हुए सार हैं
जिनका सन्दर्भ खो चुका है..

ओझल हाथों से
पथरीली दीवालों को टटोलातें हैं
कि शायद कोई शिलालेख मिल जाये;
...लेकिन ये दीवारें नयी हैं,
इनसे सिर्फ हाथ पर चूने की सफेदी लग जाती है


...कोई चिन्ह नहीं, कोई उभार नहीं,
जो हमें हमारी खोयी आकृति वापस दे दे


शायद यदि एक दूसरे को छू पाते,
तो कुछ मिल जाता


...लेकिन यह कमरे बंद हैं, अलग हैं...

कुछ सुराख़ हैं, जिनके धुंधले दायरे से
एक दूसरे का निशाना पा जाते हैं


...और तब लगता है की हम
अकेले नहीं हैं...


...और भी बहुत से हैं,
जो अलग-अलग
अपने-अपने
धुंध भरे बंद कमरों में
अपना सन्दर्भ टटोले रहे हैं!...

उस शाम से, इस शाम तक...

These two poems were written some 32 & 33yrs back - around this time of the year...
well... everything returns, when you watch the river (even though you never step into the same river twice!)...
-----------
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 पर
धरती पर उतरा
सपनों भरा यथार्थ हमारा...
.....
A year later:

हाँ, याद है कोहरे भरी वोह शाम
सहमा सा अँधेरा
बर्फ की चादर सरीखा
ठिठका हुआ, उलझा हुआ, रुकता धुंआ
जो तार पर थम, सांस में घुलता रहा...

कुछ शब्द जो सहमे हुए,
बह कर अधर से रुक गए
जडवत लटकते शून्य में...
संदिग्धता थी ,
टूट जायेंगे सभी यदि गिर पड़े...
... मासूम से वे शब्द जो सहमे खड़े थे मौन में...

पर अचानक एक आँचल ने समेटा,
आह बन कर सांस दी
वो जी उठे...

कुछ शब्द जो तुमने कहे, जुड़ते गए
पग, पग बढे, पाते, स्वयं को खोजते
स्वर-शब्द के स्पर्श से
स्पर्श तक
पग-पग मिले, मिलते रहे...
उस शाम से, इस शाम तक...
-----------
20-21 years later, it was the same time/month of the year... and the winter and mist took an entirely different meaning...

The Journey of the Sphinx/ "twice-born"

There are some journeys which are difficult to narrate/ explain.... here is one which I took (or which took me!) back during mid-'87... I had tried to sketch it as it was happening





















Around the same time, I had written these verses:

The solitary migratory bird
with a fire in the heart
burns itself out.

And so,
I tell myself:
learn a new way to fly,
a new way to sing...

For,
how long,
how often
you will re-enact
this eternal drama
of
rising from the ashes...

...and thus, I guess, around that time, I became a "twice-born"/Dwij... in the sense as William James described in his "The Varieties of Religious Experiences"

"The once-born souls go through life with an un-self-conscious attitude, happily ignorant of their own human frailties and mortality. They accept life as it comes, and suffer and prosper without pausing to reflect on forces - within them or outside them - which chart their destinies. The twice-borns, on the other hand, have experienced the taste of death, and emerged wiser and humbler to face life. Having become aware of their own mortality, they are accutely conscious of themselves and as separate and alone ... they consciously reflect upon, and critique and question their own choices."

amen!...