...islands in the stream

Something reminded me of this chance-encounter which had happened more than 3-decades back. I had recorded it in some other context 5 years later...

so dug it up today... (going through old diaries throws up new insights about oneself :)

This is an excerpt from a long post dated 3/4/'80 in a diary - more a letter than a diary-entry then... it had another personal context

"...It was the late evening of 7th Nov '74. I was sitting on my hold-all on the Kathgodam station, waiting for the train, which would take me to Lucknow. There was still some time for the train to come to the platform, and there was the last page left in my diary which contained my experiences of love, disaster and recuperation... I took out the diary. I wanted to complete it before I leave Kathgodam and Nainital, and reach and start anew in Lucknow.

I was flipping through the pages when I heard a voice addressing me. It wa a small boy, begging me for two rupees. He was wearing a khaki knicker and half-sleeve shirt, which was half outside his belt. His hair were dishevelled, and his eyes were genuine and hopeful.

Why do you need money, I asked him. he wanted ot buy a notebook for his study. I asked him about his parents. The mother was dead, and the father was a sweeper.

He repeated his request. I felt that I had humiliated him by asking questions. I gave him two rupees and he ran off.

I looked at his fleeting figure, and suddenly, I was out there - looking at this encounter beween me and a faceless, nameless kid...

(I was born in Lucknow - the youngest son of a government officer. In May '74, my father was posted in Nainital... In the last week of Oct, my father had fallen ill and I had to rush back to Nainital, escorting my mother.I had intended to return to Lucknow on the 4th, but had fallen ill, and had to postpone my return journey)

...From the event of my birth to the postponement of my return journey to Nov 7th, countless event had transpired to force this encounter between me and this kid. It had turned out important for me (considering that I still recall and record it even now, more than five years after it happened). Maybe it also contributed to his life.. Maybe!... I'll never know...

And as I watched this encounter, I could see the arbitrary-ness of the whole episode, irrespctive of its value. The image of islands in the stream floated before my mind - and touched and got transfixed upon the core of my being...

...and so, human relationships became a product of spatio-temporal proximity, bound within a zone of probability; friendships became the sociometric cliques; and love became a hypothetical construct...

... It was an important 'critical incidence' of growing-up - though, it took me some more years to discover that there is so much meaning and richness in that "arbitrary-ness" of life's unfolding... in those moments when the islands in the stream touch each other in a random encounter....

Splinters...

From the hindsight of a 55+, this 20+ romantic was perhaps taking a stock of his life and relationships - past, present and unfolding then - (as he has kept on doing since then) as he was moving to another stage in life...

Those were emotionally turbulent times, when one had to deal with so many changes happening in one's life... one's own growing sensibilities; (clumsily) grappling to take ownership of one's relationships; coming to terms with becoming "adult"; trying to define the meaning of life, love and ideology for living; dealing with the excitement and trepeditions about a future which was to unfold (for which one was frankly ill-equipped then)...

Amongst all those happenings in life then, these verses were written on 27/04/'76

To M...
When I was a child
I had carved a rainbow
of glassy dreams
It stretched from me to you
- or was that your image?
Then one day you came, and I said:
let us climb to the apex of our dream.
My dream was fragile,
and collapsed from the weight of our individual realities

And today when we meet,
the splinters of my colourful dreams
pierce our breath.
We look at and pass each-other
in nostalgic silence...

To A...
Do you remember!
...that glass-house of dreams
that we had built?
It had wings
and we used to fly...
Then one day a gush of breeze
brought us down.
Our palace of dreams
crashed on the rocks...
The splinters flew around
and got into our eyes.

Now, we look at each other
with distorted vision,
and our common memories
irritate our injured eyes!!

To you...
Do not say, love,
that I am surrounded
by glittering stars.
These are splinters
of my crushed up past.
They do not shine,
but reflect the moonshine,
you bring with yourself.

But do not approach me,
you'll bruise your sole.
Wait for me,
and I will reach you one day...

I am learning to fly!

Adios! Shantanu Banerjee... a friend, an amazing person

well.. as life goes on, one learns to say those final "good-byes"...

I had met Shantanu first time in early '90s, when he used to be with Telco (now Tata Motors); I had joined XL then... he used to come to take sessions in our MDPs at XL. I remember him as a warm "whole" person (dont know how else to articulate this)...

He left Jamshedpur and joined Pepsi... then headed the HR for other organisations (Electrolux, Bharti Airtel, Steria, etc.)... and off and on we kept in touch for one reason or the other...

I had known that he was the guitarist of his batch - but it was only when the '81 batch came down to XL for their "Silver Jubilee Reunion" in '06 - when I (and many other who were on the campus then) realised that here was a talent who could play 11 instruments with same ease sitting on the JLT... he just flowed!

Some months back someone had called up and had told me about his growing cancer - and it seemed surreal to believe - and yet one knew...

So, when yesterday afternoon, Shruti da's (his batchmate) call came from Blore to say that he will perhaps last another day or two, one just kept one's fingers crossed...

... and then early this morning's SMS said:
"Shantanu Banerjee passed away early today at Bangalore. His body is being brought to Kolkata for the final rites."

... well, that's how it will happen to all of us - one way or the other...

So Adios, Shantanu - it was good touching base with you when you were here...

God Speed and God Bless!...
you will remain one of those voices/lives, I will carry with me...

ऐसा भी तो हो सकता था...

Last evening, I had posted this pic on my photoblog, which I had taken on a beach of California... it was a romantic/nostalgic capture of a precious moment of some unknown lives which crossed mine...

While posting it, the caption/ a phrase "ऐसा भी तो हो सकता था..." cropped in my mind. Apparently it triggered something in mind - and so after almost two decades, today I penned-down/ keyed-in some verses...

So now I can claim that I am once-a-year-poet for last two years :)... the last one too, was stimulated by a phrase a year back - 'गर रहे सलामत ये पागलपन...

anyways... here are the random meanderings

ऐसा भी तो हो सकता था...

फिर एक हवा का झोंका आ कर मेरी यादों को छूता,
औ' बादल का एक टुकड़ा फिर से मेरे आँगन में रुकता
गाता फिर से वो राहगीर, जो एक समय साथी मेरा,
दिल रहता वही भिखारी, मेरा मन भी बंजारा रहता...

ऐसा भी तो हो सकता था...

वो बच्चा जो गिनता रहता, बूँदें बिजली के तारों पर,
कुछ सहमा-सा एकाकीपन जो खोज रहा छोटा सा घर,
उस जीवन के छितरे टुकड़े, जो कभी-कभी मिल जाते हैं,
'ग़र जी उठते वो खोये पल, तो फिर वो पागलपन होता..

ऐसा भी तो हो सकता था...

इक पगडंडी जो टूट गयी, इक राह कहीं पे छूट गयी,
कुछ रिश्ते आगे बढे नहीं, कुछ साथ चले पर चले गए,
ऐसे डगमग से जीवन में, लोगों से, यादों से सीखा
चलते रहना, चलते जाना - शायद जीवन यूँ ही बहता...

ऐसा भी तो हो सकता था...

गीत बन आई अधर पर, सोनजूही याद तेरी...

We met - first time - back in '72 (seems so long back - yet it feels as if it was just yesterday), when we connected in the University (Lucknow)...

some of my friends (some of them are not there now - or I can trace back) would recall him as "Santee Joe"

A poet by heart - an army man by vocation now... (life takes us to destinies where we never wanted to go in the first place - at least in our generation)

we still talk once in a while and I visited him almost decade back...
... being a chronicler of lives which crossed mine, has some advantages of recalling people who contributed to my growing-up...

गीत बन आई अधर पर
सोन-जूही याद तेरी...

शाम यूँ लहरा रही
मानों प्रणय की याचना में
मौन साधे -
गुनगुना दे
ज्यों कोई भाषा हृदय की...

छिप गई गहराइयों में
वेदना सी
डबडबाये नयन की अभिव्यक्ति अंतिम...

सांस में अंधड़ समेटे
चिर प्रतीक्षा में थके पग

राह पर फिर ठेलती सी
आंसुओं से लिख गयी वह
जो ना कह पायी अधर से
याचना प्यासे ह्रदय की....

जाने क्या सोच के ऐसा ना किया...

Looking back though a haze of memories, this song/lyrics by Jaan-Nisar-Akhtar gave meaning to many of us... as we (my co-travellers - Sumu, Lootu, Santee, Nuppa, etc.) were coming to terms with our newly-discovered sensuality/ libido in our early/mid-teens then...
...and these lyrics took those impulses/fantasies to another orbit... (Sigmund Freud be damned for calling it "sublimation" :0)

[I still recall the lyrics and the song, in my mind... but would still like to listen to it once again... Manna Dey...

प्यास थी फिर भी, तकाज़ा ना किया,
जाने क्या सोच के ऐसा ना किया...

बढ़ के हाथों में उठा लेना था,
तुझको सीने से लगा लेना था,
तेरे होठों से, तेरे गालों से,
मुझको हर रंग चुरा लेना था...
....जाने क्या सोच के ऐसा ना किया...

हाथ आँचल से जो टकरा जाता,
एक रंगीन नशा छा जाता,
तेरे सीने पे खुली जुल्फों को,
चूम लेता तो करार आ जाता...
....जाने क्या सोच के ऐसा ना किया...

दिन हसीं रात में ढल सकता था,
मेरा अरमान निकल सकता था,
तेरा मर्मर से तराशा ये बदन,
मेरे हाथों में पिघल सकता था...
....जाने क्या सोच के ऐसा ना किया...

Indian Business History.. or so I think/found as it happened

some 5-6yrs back, I had started this quest to find the roots of "Indian Business History"
.. could never complete it, since life took another direction, and I realised that

"business" may or may not be about "management" (still researching why all "management" schools started calling themselves "business" schools:)

as an HR professional, there is 93% Human Resource outside the corporate/business boundaries (which contributes to 60% of GDP... whichever way it is calculated), and so there are more professional "HR" skills required to make them more productive..

...and so, my plan to convert this 2-session presentation into an elective, went for a toss. I still do it for our induction program, though
... but also know that I will never go beyond this... so thought that it may be a good idea to let it loose...
:0)

Indian Business History - Madhukar Shukla, XLRI Jamshedpur

जीवन भर के नाते हैं सब....

Those were the days - many, many years back (somewhere in late '70s) - when one was madly in love with life as it was unfolding, with someone in one's life (and who later departed to occupy some other universe)... and with life in general

...when I had scribbled these verses

...even though perhaps the "जीवन भर के नाते हैं सब...." doesnt hold in some ways/ anymore now (having said farewell) - and life moved on in its course...

बोलो प्रेयसि! किस पथ जाएँ
सारे ही पथ भाते हैं अब...

लहरों पर हंसती प्रतिछवियां
सागर में खोती सरिताएं
आज सभी से शब्द चुरा कर
अधरों पर अमृत बिखराए
गीत चिरंतन गाते हैं हम....

कविता बन जाती स्मृतियाँ
चाहे कितनी भी सूखी हों
बीती ऋतु की मधुर कहानी
पुस्तक-पृष्ठों पर मुरझाये
सूखे फूल सुनाते हैं अब....

जीवन की भटकी पगडण्डी
उल्हझ गयी तेरे केशों में
हम चंचल, मोहित दो राही
पलकों पर कुछ स्वप्न सजाये
जीवन-दिशा बनाते हैं अब....

तुमने जो माँगा है, प्रेयसि!
वो तो है अधिकार तुम्हारा
बाहों में आ कर रो लें या,
थक कर आँचल में सो जाएँ,
जीवन भर के नाते हैं सब....

पर क्या खोया?... पर क्या पाया?...

Those were the pangs of growing up back then... and trying to (not) commit my "terms of engagemnts" with the world around me, as I was growing up then....

...these verses were jotted down on Jan 27th, '74 (I was around 19yrs old then) by a person (the other "me"), who I hope to meet one day - once again...

...insha-allah

जब-जब राह मिली तब-तब,
अपने पर बंधन सा पाया
जब-जब भटका मैं तब-तब
कुछ खालीपन सा घिर आया!..

प्रेम मिला, स्वीकार सका ना,
दायित्वों से भाग उठा,
प्रेम-रिक्त जीवन से लेकिन
पल ही भर में उकताया!...

किसको खोजूं? क्यूँकर खोजूं?
जीवन के आधार कहाँ हैं?
प्रश्न बुने, कुछ पल फिर मन को -
बहलाया... या, भटकाया?...

सत्य बना हर पल की सीमा,
हर पग मंजिल का परिचायक
सांस बनी जीवन का दर्शन,
पर क्या खोया? पर क्या पाया?...

Teacher's Day: The Last Lecture

In a few moments,it will be another Teacher's Day...

(while teaching/preparing-for a course on "Cross Cultural Management" I realised that Japanese' term for "I/Me" actually means "between the people"... we carry thousands voices and lives as we live, grow and learn... The Web of Life, in Capra's terms)

...and so, this post is for all those (so many) from whom I learned and continue to learn:

• ...some who sit/sat through my classes...
  
  
• ...some whose classes I sat through (cursed them then, but value what I learned from them - now! - not necessarily what they taught!)..
  
  
• ...some who pass(ed) on the road below my balcony - and also those little ones of the XL community, who play in the basket-ball court beyond the road..
  
  
• ...some who I encountered in a brief ephemeral moment of this Brownian Motion, called Life - and inadvertantly, they left a thought, an image, an idea... to germinate, grow - take shape...
  
  
• ... some I grew up with, and they helped me to find my bearings in this topsy-turvy world - and also
  
  
• ...some friends and co-travellers, who took the other fork on the road, and went to inhabit another prophesy...
  
  
• ...some who support(ed) my life - the lady who cleans the road and the staircase, the 'bahadurs' in the campus, Rahila "Chachi", Nanki who would buy and cook for us then in late '70s ...
  
  hmmm..well... the list can go on infinitely... but to add one more
  
  
• ...some whom I "met"/came to know about in this virtual world of blogs, Ryze, Orkut, Facebook, YouTube, etc...

One of those virtual encounters, back in 2007, was with Randy Pausch - never met this Carnegie Mellon Prof... who gave his "Last Lecture" knowing fully well that he will not last more than a few months (he expired on July 25, 2008)

...and yet in some ways, I "met" him (and learned much from him)... yes, this vibed with me since I had known another teacher/ friend/ co-traveller in my life, who too in her own way articulated The Point of it All before she took the other fork on the road...

So this post is to celebrate life of another of my teachers
[...er - this is the original 76min video - not the Oprah Winfrey show kind, which too is availblle somewhere on YouTube - definitely not meant for the ADD junta :0)]

But if you can spare 76 / 34,164,000min of your on average life (65yrs), this is worth watching - and will be a tribute to a person


Randy Pausch: The Last Lecture

yup! "we can't change the cards we are dealt; just how we play the hand!"

...Life being the greatest teacher of all!!

मेरे मौन गीत..

er...the fact that now I make my living by blabbering around with a GoG ("Gift of the Gab", for the novices) has nothing to do with these verses - मेरे मौन गीत - written almost 40years back (39 to be exact:)...

..but then that was another time, another era (though hopefully, not another person)


साँसों की सरगम पर
ह्रदय की ताल पर
मर्म के शब्दों को
संजोया, पिरोया मैंने...
बस यही हैं,
मेरे मौन गीत!

जीवन के समतल पर
समय की हलचल पर
शून्य की शान्ति में
तैरते-उतरते से
भटकते रहे,
मेरे मौन गीत!

प्रेम के आँचल पर
जीवन के अस्थिर मेघ पर
तेरे स्वर का सहारा
खोजते-खोजते
स्वयं खो गए,
मेरे मौन गीत!...

[Oct 17, 1971]

...of Meena Kumari, Harlequin Complex and the "year of '72"

...that was when I was just 17yr old, back in '72!

... I was still trying to come to terms with my life (and with the vague awareness of a 'sense' of death/ that it will not last... was trying to grapple with the inconsequentiality of being/life, Harlequin Complex... with trying to be twice-born - a द्विज)...

...and that was when an idol, Meena Kumari (for me, and many of my other co-travellers) then - died. Gulzar came out with a book of her verses, and HMV with - I Write, I Recite

That spurred many poems from many of us then.
these were mine...
...as I used to sit idle on a chair in the varandah of B-52, Mahanagar, Lucknow, looking at the setting sun (thankfully, I had a family who let me "be" - though, not sure if I was allowed to 'be' me - by 'design' or by 'default'...not that it matters anymore :)

...in any case, these were the few verses from that year, that era...(recovered from from some old diaries)

--
शाम घिरती उदास राहों पर
मेरा सफ़र निढाल हो जाता
दूर से इक पुकार आती थी
वो भी खामोशियों में खो जाती
धुआं-धुआं-सा मेरी कायनात में घिरता
घुटी-घुटी-सी दरख्तों में कली मुरझाती
कफ़न में और मुझमें पास फासले होते
डरा-डरा सा ढूंढता हूँ अपनी परछाई

***
थका-थका सा बदन
कदम कुछ बुझे-बुझे से हैं
सांस भी बोझ बन कर
जम रही है सीने में...

...लग रहा जिस्म टूट-टूट बिखर जाएगा
कैसा माहौल है ये
बेसुरी ख़ामोशी है

उफ़! किसे ढो कर मैं लिए जा रहा हूँ
ज़िन्दगी की लाश है
या साँसों में जकड़ी मौत!

***
साँसे रह जाती सीने में
धुंधली सी ग़ज़ल बन कर
धड़कन भी बुझती सी तार छेड़ जाती है
जिस्म डूबता-सा है
दर्द भरी लहरों में
ज़िन्दगी एक कसक बन
रह जाती है दब कर...

शाम एक खामोश-सा
साया बन घिर आती...

...ऊबे हुए दायरों में
धुआं-धुआं छा जाता,
ख्वाब की खुमारी सा...

...तभी,
कोई नग्मा
रात की अंगड़ाई का
सूखे दरख्तों में कलियाँ पिरो देता...

और मैं हैरान सा
खोया-खोया
खोजता-खोजता
खुद ही खो जाता हूँ...

Remembering "me" - then and there..

Sometimes, I would like to go back in time and meet this person - an earlier "me"- who wrote these verses, when I was 21-yr old/young...


चिर-यज्ञ की समिधा-सा जलने को आतुर
एक वेदी ही तो मांगता हूँ,
या - अपना यज्ञ-कुंड भी, मुझको ही बनना होगा
अपनी ही अग्नि में, अपने ही कारण जलना होगा ||

शाम के सूरज की पिघलती परिधि-सा
मेरा अस्तित्व
पेड़ो की चोटी पर खिंचे,
सूरज के पीले पद-चिन्हों से
पूछ रहा पश्चिम का पथ...
..या अपने ही जीवन के अस्तांचल मैं
मुझको पिघलना होगा...

कितनी सीमाओं के केंद्र-बिंदु बिखर गए
धरती पर,
बांधते परिधियों में धरती अम्बरतल को,
लगता है रचना ये, बंट-बंट कर टुकड़ों में
बिखर-बिखर जायेगी...

...टूटे अस्तित्वों को,
बाहें फैला कर के
घेरे में भरना होगा...

कुछ सोच कर फिर, पाँव मेरे रुक गए...उल्टी दिशा में मुड़ चला|

There were 3 of us at one time - though (one of us not there anymore)... but we grew together,
and I grew with them...

I still remember the date - July 8, '70 - when we three met - by some quirk of fate -for the first time in Colvin College, Lucknow

For me that meeting became a long journey - a sort of journey to self-discovery in which we provided images to each other to chase/challenge/explore/...to find

...as we discovered our evolving selves...

This was poem, which in some ways blended with Siddhartha (the movie and the book), which I was growing up with then...

प्रेम का चंचल पवन
सुखमय सुवासित
और कुछ मदमत्त सा,
था चल पड़ा
पीड़ित उरों की टोह लेने के लिए|

देखे हमारे दो नयन
थे मूक, थे दयनीय
प्रेम छलक रहा था अथाह

उस मूक वाणी में कथा
वे
सब व्यथा की कह गए |

...सुन चल दिया तन
कुछ तुच्छ सा, कुछ हीन सा
समझा, स्वयं को रो पड़ा |

"आ, छाओं में कर ले शयन |"
कैसी मधुर आवाज़!
...मैं बढ़ता गया

कुछ सोच कर फिर
पाँव मेरे रुक गए,
उलटी दिशा में मुड़ चला |

[ps: not mine obviously (but written by one of us 3 who still is around...]

Of no account!...

...one keeps discovering one's roots... lines/verses which molded one's sensibilities to the nuances of those 'romatic'relationships, as one was growing up

I discovered this poem - of no account! - today (by someone called Mamta Chaudhry - don't know/remember where it was published), which I had jotted down in one of my diaries back in '74 (I must have been 19yrs than)

...but I can still resonate with her depth - and expression (as I must have, when I had scribbled down these verses)...

Last night I sat down,
to tabulate our love sheet..

You gave me:
Seven sidelong glances,
a magic walk in the rain,
the skylark in your hair,
the stars in your voice.
Many moth eaten moments...
A few misty promises.
intervals of interest,
before the curtains fell.

I gave you:
My out of focus sunsets,
the song which I could never sing.
the ritual of not caring,
that crumbled under your kisses,
that part of my mind
marked "No trespassers"

And in my will,
I left you the world
you still owe me:
A lifetime of loving,
a sorry you cannot say,
for being my tomorrow,
as you were my yesterday.

Reading it today after so many, many years, I could relate to me/us-then-in-that-time-and-era as we dealt with the issues of growing up... it had helped making sense of certain relationships then...

...though I really dont know if these verses resonate with those who occupy the space now...

रातों के साए घने...

long time back in '73.. I had asked a girl (who I had known during '62-'65, when we used to be in the same school) if she knew this song - she did and sang.. and so we became life-long friends... she became my मुह-बोली बहन, my soul-mate (we shared our bdays too)... later, she was a sort of "guardian" in Bhopal when I joined my first job (and we exchanged the roles a couple of years later, when she had her life-issues)...

...well, the Saturday-Night nostalgia :0)
as life goes on... and one remembers the people one grew up with who are not there around any more...

सफरनामा...

It is funny, how things fall in place in life!

My last post - about a fortnight back Shifting Base... random, useless musings was about moving on......

...and though I have just about shifted my office after 15 years or so - that too on the same floor of the building - ... it was also a shifting of a "base" in life - discarding many artifacts in life which one had kept "just in case", even as my interests and priorities have changed since then.

It was also re-discovering some lost artifacts in life, which one had forgotten about - which fell into place like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle one calls life...

One of them was this poem which a friend of mine (some of my old friends of that time will recall him as Santee Joe) had sent to me a few years back - we had met first time in 1972 in Lucknow University, had studied together, had participated in each other's life, loves/longings, falterings, hopes, failures... we went our ways too - me where I am, and he in Army etc... we still keep contact, talk to each other once in a while, and some years back I had visited him and stayed with him with my daughter in Ooty where his wife teaches now....

Since he had sent me this hand-written poem - and knowing him I know that this would be the only copy of the poem - सफरनामा - I had kept it somewhere safe... to be discovered today!...

..reading it today again was that moment when things/memories/images.. (so many of those stories which we live) fell in place, where lives intertwine in ephemeral moments - and somthing starts making sense in a very intuitive, tacit sense....

In any case, this is what I re-discovered... (as if he wrote 10-years back for me for today):

उम्र के हर पड़ाव पर कुछ तो
रुक कर लिखना है सफरनामें में

I
राह में कौन सी सराय पड़ी,
कौन चश्मा था मीठे पानी का?
किस परीज़ाद की सुराही से
छलक कर जाम हाथ में आया?
कौन अपना नहीं था यूं तो पर
वख्त बे-वख्त मेरे काम आया!
मैं भला कौन था, कहाँ का था?
किसके आशीष से परवान चढ़ा?
और डगमग कदम-कदम कर के
मील-दर-मील में गया चलता..
कभी सहराओं में भटकता था
कभी तूफ़ान से उलझता था -
मेरी यायावरी का था मकसद
मेरी मर्ज़ी बने मेरा रस्ता....
मैं बियाबान का, खलाओं का
निविड़ एकांत का पुजारी था...

II
फिर सुबह बादलों के पीछे से
मुझ्को सूरज ने झाँक कर देखा |
मैंने अंजूरी में रौशनी भर ली
और मन में उसे उतार लिया
जब चली सर्द हवा तब मैंने
धूप को सूद पर उधर लिया
धूप का क़र्ज़ यूं रहा मुझ पर
शाम मैंने उसे उतार दिया ||

III
घने जंगल के उस किनारे पर
एक दहके अलाव की बात!
और मैं एक मेज़बान बना -
मेरी हमराज़ बन गई वह रात ||
इक खजाने की तरह थी वह शब -
थी किसी चांदनी का नगमा या...
किसी के सोये हुए दर्द का राज़ |
वो कोह-ए-नूर का फ़साना था -
पर मुझे और कहीं जाना था...

IV
राह पर रंज-ओ-ग़म अकेले थे
भीड़ थी, दिल जलों के मेले थे |
मयस्सर थीं तमाम वो खुशियाँ
जिनको पाने से पैर बांध जाएँ |
और ऐसी बनीं मानस्थितियाँ
कि ख़ुशी से जहान रंग जाए |
झीनी चादर पे कोई रंग चढ़े
पर ना था रंग इबादत सा कोई |
प्यार का रंग रौशनी सा था
खुशबुओं का इन्द्र-धनुष सा था |
इसी महक से सरोबार था मन
अब भी इस फ़िक्र का ग़ुलाम हूँ मैं |
आने वाले पलों कि झोली में,
यही अबीर डाल दूंगा मैं |....

V
सजी थी बज़्म चाँद-तारों की
अंजुमन एक कदरदानों की |
धुल जब नाच उठी सहरा की
झड़ी सी लग गयी सवालों की..

"कौन है जो हवा में शामिल है?
कौन वो जिसकी आँख का मंज़र
इक इशारे से बांधता पुल है?
किसका हर हुक्म एक लम्हे में
ब-सर-ओ-चश्म बजाती है हयात?
सूबह से शाम खुशबुओं में पेज
बीज बोता हुआ हवाओं में -
क्या वो मौसम का कोई माली है?
या गुलिस्तां का वो भिखारी है?
या है ईसा का कोई रहबर
बांटता जो ज़कात राहों में -
दर्द-मंदों को बक्श दे जो शफा
इश्क ने नाम दिया जिसको वफ़ा?"

इसी के आस-पास मेरा वजूद
वही ग़रीब-नवाज़ मेरा रसूल |
मैं फ़कत खाक-ए-इश्क का कतरा
मैं उसी आब-ओ-हवा का दाना..
तलब चमन-तराश की मुझ्को
पारा-पारा मेरा सनम खाना!

रूह में बाँध ज़फर की अजान
यूं लिखा जीस्त का सफरनामा ||

[written on 06th May 2001, Mysore. Sent to MS on 06 Oct 2003 from Thanjauur - Santee]

Shifting Base... random, useless musings

Rationally, when I look at this, it is a stupidest, maudlin kind of feeling... It is, after all, just shifting from one room to another... on the same floor, same building...
...and this is/was just an office... not that I came here often...

And yet, this seems like a major shift in life... I have occupied this room for almost 10-15 years (don’t even remember when I shifted to this room...). It was/is a nice room, tucked away in a corner in XL.. A kind of personal space, where I could be
...I have/had a room - like my life - piled up with all sorts of useless clutter... which are also fond memories of people I met and came to know (project reports/ PLPs which helped me to learn the dilemmas/aspirations of another generation/ random artifacts of events in this institute which became my life.... blah, blah)... And even if I carry them, somehow they are - and will remain - tied to this room...

I will remember this room where I had some of the most amazing conversations/ fights/ bondings/ got the opportunity to know and learn of a generation who will occupy the space in time to come....

The place where I will shift is actually larger, more spacious... has more windows and is better "equipped"....
...in some ways, I look forward to this - and, yet, will miss this private corner I had...

Oh, yes!.. I will carry the table which I had accidentally "inherited" to my new abode!....

...and in the next one week, this room too will become a fond memory of life lived....
well!....so be it!... life goes on...

Fringe-benefits of... well, living my life!

There are a number of fringe-benefits of being in teaching profession - most importantly, one learns something everyday.

There are other fringe-benefits too (specially, if for someone who has stuck around in the campus for now 2 decades): e.g., one meets some of the brightest, most talented - and weirdest - of people in the class, and gets in touch with real "Lives in Progress" (an old book by Robert White, which used to be my favourite back in 70s); one learns the changing values and perspectives across generations (and learns to accept the feeling of having played one's inning); one learns to live and underand the consequence of one's actions over years; and in one of routine days, one gets a chance of getting that snuggly-warm feeling for being remembered by someone whose life one touched inadvertantly, completely out of the blue...

That's what happened to me this evening, when I received this mail. Though I know the exercise which he mentioned, but frankly, I don't even recall if I ever used it in XL... Maybe I did, or maybe he mistook me for some other colleague... In any case, the very fact that after almost a decade he still remembered something which he learned during an hour of interaction with someone - me or someone else - made my day :).

This is the mail I received:

=========
I am sure you won't know me - I joined BM(D) in 20xx, but discontinued after completing a year. Since then, it has been pretty much a tumultuous but enjoyable journey for me. Right after dropping out from XLRI, I took the entrepreneurial plunge and co-founded XXX in 20..., a test prep providing company. It had been a great learning story there - we pooled in all our savings, launched our products, incurred losses in the 1st year, faced death, raised angel investment, bounced back and now it is growing at about 100% every year.

I moved out of XXX in 20..., and went solo. I founded YYY, a technology enabled test preparation solution provider for Aus, UK, Ireland and New Zealand tests. I had assumed my prior experience of XXX would make the 2nd round of entreprenuership easier, but I realized that labour pain is as painful the 2nd time as it is the 1st time. The 1st year in YYY was equally tough. However, we have now crossed that blink-and-you-die phase, and slowly but surely moving towards stability. We are now a 38 strong team, and growing pretty fast.

Sir, I wanted to mail you to say a big THANK YOU. I did not have a chance to attend your courses, but you took an one hour session for our batch in the initial months. While you were discussing a lot of things, the seniors were preparing for the dunking phase of Bxxxxd :) [die-hard Xlers of recent years will know what the 'xxxx' stands for:0)]. You made us play a game that explained how we human beings have a great sense of timing, hence speed, but a terrible sense of direction. (You had asked us to guess the time, and also the north direction. While were were spot on about the time stuff, our sense of direction was wayward).

Many of the last 8 years I spent was in the wilderness.

That small game helped me understand how important it was to set a direction, and work towards it. And, that is one exercise that I share with all my team members.
==========

So, what was my learning for the day?

Many actually, but perhaps most importantly...

That, in the Brownian movement of our "lives in progress", those mindless hello-goodbye encounters keep reverberating in some other lives for many years...

That, there is an in-built responsibility to other lives in all our interaction, connected as we are - and will remain connected...
and

That... life is sure worth it - actually a blessing - with all its inadequacies and contradictions - its joys, sorrows, guilts, elations, frustrations, longings, losses, fulfillments... In its ups-and-downs and myriad hues....when one fine evening, you suddenly receive a mail from an almost stranger ("stranger" being an artifact of my own clouded/cluttered memory) you had met almost a decade back, with a subject line "To Sir, With Love"

In any case, it is a snuggly feeling to have, when one hits the sack! :)

Omar Khayyam & Me - 5

XXIII
And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend--ourselves to make a Couch--for whom?

My Translation:
हम, कलिका बन खिले -
धरती ने प्रेम दिया
गगन ने गीत दिया,
और हम निखर गए...

सूरज ने तपन दी,
पवन ने झझकोर दिया,
और हम बिखर गए,
धरती के आँचल का श्रृंगार बन कर...

कि हम, खिलें, महकें,
अपनी ही सुरभि में,
झूम-झूम बहकें,
और बिखरें धरती के आँचल पर...

...बनायें एक और आँचल
कि
हम पर गिरें जो पंखुडियां...
उन्हें चोट ना लगे

Omar Khayyam & Me - 1
Omar Khayyam & Me - 2
Omar Khayyam & Me - 3
Omar Khayyam & Me - 4