ऐसा अपना जीवन होगा….

Those were heady, confusing, searching-and making-sense-of-life kind of day!...

That was 1971, and I was around 16yr old/young, and was grappling with life – in all its immense confusions. The life was undergoing tumultuous transformations – both within and without… and looking back I was sort of “babe in the woods”… completely clueless ‘what it is all about’!

It was a quirk of destiny that I found two other friends, who too perhaps were undergoing similar existential crisis of growing up – and we somehow tacitly/unconsciously understood that making sense of life which is perpetually unfolding,  is not a logical – but a metaphorical – process…

…and we shared the love of poems/ lyrics

So we would pick up a random line – and then write verses around that line… and then share with each other. That was our teenage way to get to know each other, and to explore life’s emerging horizons…

These verses were written around one such line, which I discovered in one of my diaries a couple of days back… I feel grateful/ awed by that young person who had written it then - which I can now claim to be mine

(… though sadly, I am not sure if I can legitimately claim that as the offshoot of the same very “young person”, I have done justice to keep alive those sensibilities…

maybe one day I will touch base with him again…)

(उस से…..)

 

मंद पवन सा मेरा जीवन

बहता है जो धीरे-धीरे,

कली सरिस तू मेरे पथ में

महकेगी जब किसी सवेरे,

तन या रूप नहीं चाहेगा

महकेगा पा रज-कण तेरे…

सुरभि-पवन सा अपना प्रियतम,

पावन वो आलिंगन होगा।।

ऐसा अपना जीवन होगा….

 

(तुम से…)

देख, प्रिये! मैं तो आया था

जाने को ही तेरे घर में,

जाऊँगा मैं इसीलिए बस

नहीं रुका हूँ कभी सफ़र में,

जो आया, जायेगा; कोई

डूबेगी ग़म के सागर में,

रोती एक विरहिणी होगी

चलता एक अकेतन होगा |

ऐसा अपना जीवन होगा…

 

(कविता से…)

सुरुभि उड़ी जो मेरे उर में

तूने बन कर पुष्प संजोली

सब साथी हैं मिटते तन के,

मृत्यु परे की तू हमजोली

यह जीवन जग को दे मैंने

मृत्यु बाद की आस संजोली

मेघ-पवन से विचरेंगे हम

टूटा तन का बंधन होगा

ऐसा अपना जीवन होगा….

 

(तन से…)

मुझे कैद कर रखा तूने

इसीलिए है तुझमे जीवन

मुझे मार कर तू जीवित है

मुझ पर तू बन छाया बंधन

पर मेरे जीवित होते ही,

मर जायेगा तू, मेरे तन!

मैं स्वछन्द उड़ूगा पर तू

जलता बना अचेतन होगा

ऐसा अपना जीवन होगा….

 

(मृत्यु से…)

आ पलकों का चुम्बन ले तू

ऊब चूका हूँ इस जीवन से

आ अब काट सभी बंधन तू

छुड़ा मुझे माटी के तन से

मेरा जीवन तुझमें ही है

जीवित कर अब आलिंगन से

मृत्यु! छुड़ा फिर दूर चलेंगे

मुक्त जहाँ पर कण-कण होगा

ऐसा अपना जीवन होगा…

यादों के बादल में सोये, माज़ी के कुछ प्यारे लम्हे...

धुंधले, धुंधले, तिनके, तिनके
यादों के बादल में सोये
माज़ी के कुछ प्यारे लम्हे
जाने क्यूँ इक दिन जग जाते हैं
जो एक कहानी मुझको लिखनी थी इक दिन
जिसको लिखना मैं भूल गया,
जो वादा था मुझसे अपना
उसको फिर याद दिलाते हैं...
- Blore, 21/12/12

Organisations as Defenses against Anxiety

This was one of my favourite piece in my first book, "Understanding Organisations: Organisational Theory and Practice in India" (Chapter 11, Section D), where I could slink in my existential concerns...

-----

The most popular view of organisations is that they are socio‑economic entities, which are meant for producing goods or providing services in the most efficient and effective manner. Moreover, so pervasive is their influence in our lives that one tends to unquestioningly accept their existence as almost natural and given. In accepting this view, however, we neglect the basic truth that, organisations are man‑made, simulated, controlled and ‘artificial’environments, which also serve some deep psychological purposes in the lives of their members (managers, staff members and workers).

At the most obvious level (as we noticed in Jefferson’sobservation about the Shell executives), organisations, with their emphasis on rationality, reliability, control, etc., provide excellent mechanisms for warding off uncertainties and ambiguities of human condition. They help people to regulate their lives, to experience a feeling of predictability, and to derive a sense of mastery over themselves. In this sense, they serve as useful psychological defenses, which are often quite functional (in a task‑related sense) as well. Menzies (1960), for instance, described how the depersonalised work systems, procedures and practices related to a nurses’ job (e.g., strict“professionalism”, structuring work in precise routines, referring to patients as “bed number”, etc.) are aimed at increasing their interpersonal distance from the patients. Such psychological distancing may also be necessary for the nurses to do their jobs effectively.

The fact, nevertheless, is that organisations do provide legitimacy to defensive behaviours, and so help people to avoid coming in touch with their deep‑seated emotional or existential anxieties and dilemmas (Jaques, 1970; Chattopadhyay, 1986). Kets de Vries (1980) noted how people create structures and roles to avoid coming in touch with their deeply experienced feelings of alienation and emptiness. Behind the conscious concerns with tasks, responsibilities, obedience, etc., may lie the unconscious interpersonal anxieties aroused by close contact with people. In fact, Morgan (1986) showed through his analysis of the life of Frederick Taylor, the father of scientific management,how the unconscious concerns for controlling one’s impulses can get translated into socially legitimate aims of controlling organisations (see also Chowdhry and Kakar, 1971). He points out how Taylor’s life provides:

...a splendid illustration of how unconscious concerns and preoccupations can have an effect on organisation. For it is clear that his whole theory of scientific management was the product of a disturbed and neurotic personality. His attempt to organise and control the world, whether in childhood games or in systems of scientific management, was really an attempt to organise and control himself.

At a much deeper level, the very construction of organisations can be seen as a social defense against the anxiety of death. In his book, The Denial of Death, Becker (1973) argued that all the efforts of mankind (religions, ideologies, institutions, culture, etc.) are aimed at denying the finite and transient fact of human existence. The fact that we will all die is a fact which makes our existence devoid of any permanent meaning, and creates anxiety. In building organisations and institutions, and in identifying with them, we create something which is more durable and larger than life. Our roles and work activities, give us a sense of continuity, and make our existence real to us. In the introduction of their book, In Search of Excellence, Peters and Waterman (1982) quoted Becker: “What man really fears is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignificance... Ritual is a technique for giving life.” They go on to say: “In other words, men willingly shackle themselves to the nine‑to‑five, if only, the cause is perceived to be in some sense great.”

The implication of this defensive nature of organisations, is again for the accuracy of the perception of reality. If the involvement of the decision‑makers and organisational members is based on the unconscious motives of warding off deep‑seated anxieties, then they are less likely to accept psychologically threatening realities. Janis (1982) pointed out how decision‑making groups develop filters and shields (illusions of invulnerability, stance of self‑righteousness, stereotyped perception of the problem and the “enemy out there”, etc.), which do not allow the members to come in contact with an unacceptable reality, and reinforce a process of groupthink. Similarly, Argyris (1970) noted how in the organisational change process, managers tend to neglect, deny, and distort dissonant information:

...the clients may tend to forget controversial information suggested by the interventionist and recall in its place the information from the past substitutes for the controversial 0information. It means clients will expose themselves to learning the information that maintains their present degree of self‑acceptance... (and) will tend to interpret relatively threatening information in line with their values...

According to Pauchant and Mitroff (1992), these distortions result from the bounded emotionality of the managers, i.e., from the defects in their capacity to feel and experience certain emotions. They found that these inadequacies in the emotional capacity of the decision‑makers (i.e., their faulty and unhealthy mechanisms of dealing with their own feeling and impulses) were significant contributors in making organisations crisis‑prone. One only has to look at some of the major industrial disasters and organisational failures (e.g., Bhopal gas tragedy and the Challenger shuttle accident) to realise that in all these cases, there were individuals (sometimes, even everyone involved) who were aware of the possibility (or certainty) of the crisis, but somehow they “decided” to ignore it. What is also significant is the fact that these defenses are, by nature, unconscious, and do not yield (in fact, often become more rigid) in the face of crisis and failure. As Starbuck, Greve and Hedberg (1978) noted:

Denials that crises are developing and that strategic reorientation is needed arise, to no small degree, from sincere conviction... (managers) really do believe that they should act only on the basis of reliable information and that communi-cations should flow through channels... it is a normal human characteristic to adhere to one’s prior beliefs, inspite of evidence that they are incorrect.

cross posted @ Alternative Perspective

उस एक पुरानी चादर के, उधड़े से ताने-बानों में...

उस एक पुरानी चादर के
उधड़े से ताने-बानों में
बाँधी थीं मैंने कुछ यादें...

कुछ-एक अधूरी कवितायेँ
भूली-भटकी कुछ आशाएं
कुछ कही-अनकही सी बातें...

....पर लगता है ये चादर भी
अध्-लिखी कहानी-सी जैसी
हर रोज़ उधडती जायेगी

यादें, कवितायेँ, आशाएं..
जो इसमें खेला करती थीं
धीरे-धीरे खो जायेंगीं ||

Omar Khayyam & Me - 6

XXVI
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to
Scorn Are scatter'd, and their mouths are stopt with Dust.

My translation:
तुम जिन शब्दों में
जीवन का ज्ञान देते थे
इस लोक से परलोक जाने का
सामान देते थे...
वे शब्द,
हवा में बिखर कर खो गए,
और तुम भी इसी लोक की मिट्टी में
दब कर सो गए...

Omar Khayyam & Me - 1
Omar Khayyam & Me - 2
Omar Khayyam & Me - 3
Omar Khayyam & Me - 4
Omar Khayyam & Me - 5

ये मामूली-सी सड़क...

घर और पार्क की दीवार के बीच पड़ी
ये मामूली-सी सड़क
अचानक, रात में खंबों से रौशनी ले कर
ज़हन में एक बार फिर जी उठती है
अपनी सुनसान सी दिशाओं में
कई क़दमों को याद करती है...

पूछ लूँ मैं नाम तेरा!...

अज्ञेय - Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayana “Agyeya” - was also one of the many of the "resident poets/authors" when I was growing up...
...the kind who reside in one's mind and help making sense of life when one is growing/struggling to make sense of what the hell this is all about in one's teens and early 20s, and mould the templates/scripts through which one continues to view/ live/ interpret life for decades to come....

पूछ लूँ 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 तुझ को और भी तो काम होगा!
प्यार का साथी बना था, विघ्न बनने तक रुकूँ क्यों?
समझ ले, स्वीकार कर ले यह कृतज्ञ प्रणाम मेरा!

और होगा मूर्ख जिस ने चिर-मिलन की आस पाली-
पा चुका, अपना चुका-है कौन ऐसा भाग्यशाली!
इस तडि़त् को बाँध लेना दैव से मैं ने न माँगा-
मूर्ख उतना हूँ नहीं, इतना नहीं है भाग्य मेरा!

श्वास की हैं दो क्रियाएँ-खींचना, फिर छोड़ देना,
कब भला सम्भव हमें इस अनुक्रम को तोड़ देना?
श्वास की उस सन्धि-सा है इस जगत् में प्यार का पल-
रुक सकेगा कौन कब तक बीच पथ में डाल डेरा।

घूमते हैं गगन में जो दीखते स्वच्छन्द तारे,
एक आँचल में पड़े भी अलग रहते हैं बिचारे!
भूल से पल-भर भले छू जायँ उन की मेखलाएँ।
दास मैं भी हूँ नियति का क्या भला विश्वास मेरा!

प्रेम को चिर-ऐक्य कोई मूढ़ होगा तो कहेगा-
विरह की पीड़ा न हो तो प्रेम क्या जीता रहेगा?
जो सदा बाँधे रहे वह एक कारावास होगा-
घर वही है जो थके को रैन-भर का हो बसेरा!

प्रकृत है अनुभूति; वह रस-दायिनी निष्पाप भी है,
मार्ग उस का रोकना ही पाप भी है, शाप भी है;
मिलन हो, मुख चूम लें; आयी बिदा, लें राह अपनी-
मैं न पूछूँ, तुम न जानो क्या रहा अंजाम मेरा!

रात बीती, यदपि उस में 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-भर बाहुओं ने बाँध घेरा!

सोच मत, 'यह प्रश्न क्यों जब अलग ही हैं मार्ग अपने!'
सच नहीं होते, इसी से भूलता है कौन सपने?
मोह हम को है नहीं पर द्वार आशा का खुला है-
क्या पता फिर सामना हो जाय तेरा और मेरा!

कौन हम-तुम? दु:ख-सुख होते रहे, होते रहेंगे,
जान कर परिचय परस्पर हम किसे जा कर कहेंगे?
पूछता है क्योंकि आगे जानता हूँ क्या बदा है-
प्रेम जग का और केवल नाम तेरा, नाम मेरा!

पूछ लूँ मैं नाम तेरा!
मिलन-रजनी हो चुकी विच्छेद का अब है सबेरा!
- अज्ञेय

ज़िन्दगी जीना सिखा ही देती है..

ज़िन्दगी जीना सिखा ही देती है..

कभी कहती है इतनी राहें हैं,
उन्ही में रात की सियाही दे,
अध् खुली आंख के अंधेरों में,
थपकियाँ दे सुला भी देती है...

किन्ही लम्हों में इक कहानी बन
कई सपनों को सांस देती है,
और फिर याद के समुंदर में
भूल जाती, भुला भी देती है...

इस से मेरा है क्या रिश्ता?
कभी समझूंगा शायद मैं
ये अजीब सी जोगन
कभी रोती, हंसा भी देती है...

- Jamshedpur (Sept 23rd, 2012)

..as has been happening last many years...

...as has been happening last many years,
once again
tomorrow morning
I will wake up
...and pack my bags, in a voiceless silence
and lock the door...
...which (so I tend to believe/imagine) will say 'good bye, have a safe journey!'
to me...

.. from the taxi, which is the first-leg of another journey
I look back at my balcony
... and will see the shadows of many voices/ smiles/ waving hands of yesteryears...

..till - I return some days later,
and turn the key in the lock of the door again -
turning the key clock-wise, when I left
and turning it anticlock-wise when I returned
... there is a symbolism there for me...

..and the door - mute, voiceless - will open, once again
giving me a feeling that I am welcome back home again!

..as has been happening last many years...

Reflections Before The Morning Tea

The morning milk van rattles down the road. Almost simultaneously, my bedside alarm-clock rings its shrill reminder of the harsh realities of life. The effect is jarring on the nerves and unaesthetic to the senses. Nevertheless, it executes my swift transfer from the world of dreams to that of the reality (I have this cat-mouse relationship with this term 'reality' - I catch and play with it, with the intention of destroying it; the reality, however, always escapes my grasp).

I put on the electric kettle, pull a chair to the balcony and settle down, ritualistically waiting for the whistle. Like always, I covet this five-minutes interlude before yielding to the pragmatic compulsions of living. The routine of living, I have always felt, Life betrays living, and these few unaccounted moments have always offered some compensation.

I try to decipher the morning sun through the smoky vomit of the factories of the suburbs. The sun looks pale and seems to be disparately trying to disentangle itself from the shadows of industrialization. In one of my pagan moods, I have often found it embarrassed and ill-at-ease about its waning glory. When my progenies grow up, I reflect philosophically, their reality of the sun would be different from mine. I think about generation-specific experiences, and the creation of conditioned meaning by the forces of history.

Down below are the slums, the dwellings of people who are less equal than the others. According to the census, these people live below poverty line. In terms of my reality, they live below my balcony, across the road, and their quality of life eludes the economists' charts, graphs and numbers. I wonder about these people's experience of life and its meaning. Or maybe for them, the necessities of living have altogether done away the concepts of meaning and purpose. Perhaps, it is too painful and humiliating for them to ponder over the purposes and meanings while living amidst the starving squalor of the slums.

I shudder and guiltily escape by looking at the aged, retired morning-walkers on the street. They look tragically serious in their morning drill, moving with purposeful strides, as if trying to keep pace with life that keeps slipping away. I feel that these people do not actually like walking. They do not enjoy the cool morning breeze, the tranquil loneliness of the roads, the gradual, almost mythological awakening of life and humanity in the city. Rather, they walk because they are, by nature, consumers, and want to barter health and longevity for their morning exercises…

The kettle whistles me back to the mediocrity of the routines. I get up to mechanically have my tea while shaving, and glancing through the newspaper. Then I'll get ready, and go through the programmed actions of catching the bus, reaching the office and so on…. till the bedside alarm once again wakes me up tomorrow morning.

- Sometime in 1980-81, Bhopal

Each meeting - a new life; Each parting - a small personal death

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....

- 1987, Jaipur

... on being a "management professional"

Some years back - 25-yrs on into the “management profession” – I gradually realized three things:

1. the term “management school” got hijacked by “business school” during last couple of decades in India. This critically reduced the scope of what the “management professionals” can do in terms of managing/leveraging resources to make a meaningful contribution to society

2. other “professionals”, e.g., doctors, lawyers, etc., remain professionals even when they move out of their chambers (you still ask for their advise when you meet in a party, etc.)… but not so with “management professionals” – they become just like any ordinary citizens, once they move out of their chambers/ narrow corporate campus/roles

3. besides the two meanings of “profession” – (1) mastery over certain specialized skills or body of knowledge, and (2) membership to a community who possess those skills or knowledge – the fundamental and distinctive meaning of the term “profession” (and specially in the context of people-focused helping professions) revolves around the self-acknowledged “public/social role” of the professional. The term “profess” is made up of the Latin prefix pro, which means "forward," or "into a public position," and fess, which derives from the Latin fateri or fass and means "to confess, own, acknowledge."…i.e., the original meaning of profession is "a personal form of public acknowledgment." OR being a professional is public role

… this realization raised some soul-searching questions – and led to a course called Intro to Social Entrepreneurship..

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

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...

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...

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 ||

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...

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...

... 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
****