...तो अच्छा होता

जब कभी दहलीज पर खड़ा होता
या कोई वाकिया गुज़रता है
तब कभी ये ख्याल आता है
साथ होते तो अच्छा होता....

अगर होते तो अच्छा होता,

नहीं हो तो भी अच्छा ही है,
एक पतवार से भी नाव चलती है
दूसरी होती तो अच्छा होता...

Unfinished Tales -1 (A Fruitless Existence)

(written sometime during 1980-82, Bhopal)
On Saturdays, the office gets over after lunch. Today is Saturday, and there is still almost half a day left before I can hit the soft oblivion of the bed. I dread these afternoons for their unstructured-ness. Sundays are somewhat more tolerable; I can always find a list of things to do to keep myself busy and useful, like washing clothes, stitching buttons, rearranging my room (and how many arrangements can you make out of a bed, two chairs, a table and an iron trunk), shopping for the necessities. But Saturday afternoons are different and dull. They place me with a large chunk of time at my disposal, and I am forced to take a decision about it.

I am one of the senior clerks in the office. If you go by my personnel file, I have twenty years of experience working this organization. The way I look at it is that I have one month of experience, which I have repeated two hundred and forty times. Two hundred and thirty eight to be exact. It is like the myth of Eternal Recurrence: every week I spend five and a half days in the office, and fumble around with the remaining one and a half. For the last two decades, this pattern has remained much the same, except for a few times when I had fallen ill, and once when I had gone to my native village to cremate my dead mother, the last of my roots. Of course, there have been changes. Nowadays, there are better photocopying machines, more educated peons, more frustrated bosses, more indifferent colleagues, and more arrogant customers. Over the years, the prices and disillusionment have increased, and contentment and intimacy have gone down. But these are only minor fluctuations in the looming background of my personal anonymity, which has remained perennial like some cosmic principle.

I loiter towards the Coffee House. A piece of sunlight is leaning against its door, ogling at the pedestrians like some street-side loafer. I push the door, and it falls flat on the carpeted floor. I enter, trampling over it, triumphant and privately delighted about my delinquency. Inside, it is dark, and a soft ubiquitous murmur pervades the room. I grope my way to a corner table, gradually getting accustomed to the darkness.

The room is littered with countless human islands, each characterized by its peculiar fauna.  There are islands of the literary people, engaged in their private battle of words and wits; of the city-bred intellectuals, gauging the trend of the contemporary world; of the disillusioned unemployed, struggling with their common sense of futility; of the young college-goers, enthusiastic about their frivolous exploits; of the young lovers, wooing each other in soft murmured tones. Beneath this heterogeneity of motives and directions, I feel there is a common striving for one's life and future. Probably, that is why I find this place so comforting, its involvement with life so very consoling. If so many people can be serious about it, then, apparently there must be something more to life than a series of ineffectual events bounded within the paradigm of periodicity.

The waiter passes by my table three times, feigning a busy indifference to my presence. I feel an affinity towards him and his indulgence in his contrived sense of purpose and importance. Since I am in no hurry, I abandon my fruitless efforts to attract his attention, and start scanning the room once again…

As usual, my eyes move towards the table at the far end of the room, just next to the window with the glazed brown glass. I realize that it has been so many years since I have sat there…

उम्र जलवों में हमेशा तो बसर होती नहीं...

मैंने जज़्बात के ज़रिये ही दुनिया देखी....
उम्र ढलती रही औ’ रास्ते गुज़रते गए
एक माज़ी - वो आँखें जो मुझे देखती हैं
उनका गुनहगार तो हूँ मैं फिर भी
मैं कहूँगा कि मैं भटकता रहा, लेकिन फिर भी
मैंने उजड़े हुए मंज़र, भटकी हुईं गलियां देखीं...
उम्र जलवों में हमेशा तो बसर होती नहीं...
मैंने जज़्बात के ज़रिये ही दुनिया देखी....

ढूंढते रह गए कुछ ख्वाब जो अपनी मंजिल
ख्वामखाह जीने की कुछ रस्में निभाते रहे
हाँ, सही है कि कुछ ले के चले, भूल गए
मगर ये पगडंडियों कहाँ से चलीं, और अब कहाँ लाईं
इनकी सोहबत में मरुस्थल में भी कलियाँ देखीं...
उम्र जलवों में हमेशा तो बसर होती नहीं...
मैंने जज़्बात के ज़रिये ही दुनिया देखी....

इक समन्दर की लहर जैसी ये दिल की हलचल
क्या पता किस भंवर में एक दिन सम जायेगी
फिर भी कोशिश तो करी थी उछल के छूने की
आसमां को - मगर न बाँध सके आँधियों को पर फिर भी  
उन चंद लम्हों में छिपी सी कई सदियाँ देखीं...
उम्र जलवों में हमेशा तो बसर होती नहीं...

- Jamshedpur (Jan-March, 2014) 

...the magic of those yesterdays

those were the days (more than four decades back) when we in our late-teens were struggling to find/ guess what the life would be like... term like 'career', 'job', 'life-style', 'salary', etc, had not entered the lingua-franca in conversations with parents and among peers in that era
....

one of the co-travellers had written these blank-verses, which make much more sense now than they did then (or perhaps they did - and that's why I had preserved them)...



"When I go into the library of my life,
And see rows and rows of yesterdays
Neatly arranged in shelves
Yearwise - catalogued,
I always pick from just one shelf;
Oh, those volumes are all thumbed now
and there isn't a single experience
that I haven't lived each night...
And yet
Such is the magic of those yesterdays..
...that I come out
A wiser man!"

- Amitabh Lal

मगर ये साल गलत लगता है...

मगर ये साल गलत लगता है...

मार्च आया, पर बंयाइन की बाँहों से
आज भी पसीने की गंध आई नहीं
मेरी खिड़की के परे आज भी बादल बरसे
ढूंढ कर गरम मोज़े मैंने पहन लिए
लग रहा है कि धरा ने बदल ली करवट
लग रहा है कि मौसम बदलने लगे
... मैं चला जाऊँगा कहीं कुछ चंद सालों में'
छोड़ जाऊँगा जहाँ मेरी गलतियाँ भी थीं

शायद इसीलिए...
ये 'रोमांटिक' मौसम  कचोटता है
 

सोचता हूँ एक दिन ऐसा भी होगा...

सोचता हूँ एक दिन ऐसा भी होगा
खुद से मैं कह सकूँगा डूबती सी यादों में
अब न इंतजार, न मंजिल की तलाश
ज़िन्दगी गूंजती है कायनातों में...

और सोलह साल बीते जा रहे हैं...

और सोलह साल बीते जा रहे हैं...

जानता था, समझता, झुटला रहा था
एक परदा गिर रहा था, धुंध जैसा
और मैं सहमा हुआ सा, याद करता...  
एक पगडंडी जहाँ हम-तुम चले थे
साथ थे, पर तुम्हारी राह अपनी...

और मैं चलता चला आया यहाँ तक
जानता, इस दौर में मेरे कदम भी

एक दिन मिल जायेंगे वहीँ पे ...

पर मैं ये भी समझता हूँ... कि हमसब बुलबुले हैं
कारवां आते रहे, जाते रहे हैं...

उजाले अपनी यादों के, हमारे साथ रहने दो....

many, many years back, this couplet (don't even know/remember who wrote this) had a very different 'romantic' meaning in my then "life-in-progress" (as it is now), when one didn't know how life will unfold:

उजाले अपनी यादों के, हमारे साथ रहने दो
न जाने किस गली में ज़िन्दगी कि शाम हो जाये

..and December comes and the random disconnected images of Dec 1997 keep on cropping up...

hmmm... life happens! so be it!

मेरी बालकनी के नीचे से... हर साल एक कारवां गज़र जाता है

मेरी बालकनी के नीचे से
हर साल एक कारवां गज़र जाता है...

चहकती हंसी, उम्मीदों भरी बातें
थिरकते पैरों में बनती कई यादें
जो ज़िन्दगी भर इन मुसाफिर को
हंसांएगी, रुलायेंगी - कुछ बातें, कुछ यादें...

...

सोचता हूँ, इक दिन मिलूं तो पूछूँगा
कहाँ किया है दफ्न सपनों को
ये पत्थरों का शहर कैसा है
जहाँ  शीशे में सब बंध जाता है..

तुम्हारी अपनी दास्ताँ भले ही सही
ग़र बता दो कि ये  कैसे किया
रूह से फैसला वो ख्वाबों का
जो उभरने से पहले बीत गए...

ये दास्ताँ भले तुम्हारी है
मगर...
मेरी बालकनी के नीचे से
हर साल एक कारवां गज़र जाता है...

...for these handful of dreams

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

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

I was not surprised.

I had this feeling

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Sept 29th, 1976 (Lucknow/ Kanpur)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

एक दोहरी ज़िन्दगी जीते रहे....

एक सुलझी डोर से दिखते रहे
एक उलझी सी कहानी बन गए
एक दोहरी ज़िन्दगी जीते रहे....

हाथ बढ़ते ज़िन्दगी छूने लिए

पर सहमते, रास्तों के मोड़ पर
ठिठकते पग ख्वाब की दहलीज पर
दो कदम आगे बढ़े, फिर मुड़ गए
एक दोहरी ज़िन्दगी जीते रहे....

एक अंतर में धधकती आग थी

ज़िन्दगी में उलझने की चाह थी
मगर वो किरदार जो अपना लगे
दास्ताँ में खोजते ही रह गए
एक दोहरी ज़िन्दगी जीते रहे....

एक मुझमें ही कोई था अजनबी

कभी अपना था, पराया था कभी
कभी मिलता, फिर चला जाता कहीं
खुद को उसमें ढूंढते ही रह गए
एक दोहरी ज़िन्दगी जीते रहे....

इक कहानी जो सुनानी थी हमें

अपनी ख़ामोशी के खंडहर में कहीं
ज़िन्दगी के हाशिये पर, लफ्ज़ कुछ
बनके बस आधी लकीरें रह गए
एक दोहरी ज़िन्दगी जीते रहे....

जानता मुझमें खुदा, हैवान भी

ज़िन्दगी की सांस भी, शमशान भी
महज़ इक कतरा मैं, औ’ ये कायनात
इसमें हम बहते रहे, बहते गए
एक दोहरी ज़िन्दगी जीते रहे....

... और तू बेवजह भटकता रहा, चलता रहा

हमने सोचा था कि दो-चार कदम चल लेंगे
और ये  दास्ताँ कहाँ से चली
मोड़ के रास्तों की भटकन में
ढूंढती-ढूंढती कहाँ लायी..

ये वो  मंजिल नहीं, जहाँ के लिए
हमने सौदा किया था साहिल से
मगर वो बांवरी सी कुछ लहरें
हमें फुसला के फिर यहाँ लायीं ...

कभी लगता है कि ये ही मंजिल है
कभी लगता कि ये पड़ाव के क्षण
एक दिन रूह फिर बताएगी
मैं यहीं थी, यहाँ आई

... और तू बेवजह भटकता रहा, चलता रहा
 

Journey - from Franz Kafka to Organisational Theory...

Some posts on FB told me today that today is Franz Kafka's birth anniversary (I didn't know that!)

- and thus these meanderings of times gone past...

and this post...

Many, many years back, when I was in late teens, Kafka, Sartre, Camus, Fannon etc. used to be the staple diet - breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner - of life...

and then life took its own turns, and took/led me elsewhere through its own mysterious designs and destinies...

 

But vestiges linger, and "everything returns".. so when wrote my first book (on Organizational Design) Kafka came back.. and this is how the book started:

Chapter 1 Interpreting Organisational Reality

The (anti‑)hero of Franz Kafka’s The Castle is a wanderer, searching for a sense of identity. His name is K, no more than that. Wishing to escape from his lonely rootlessness, he tries desperately to seek acceptance from the ambiguous authority structure of the castle. But his attempts to make a meaningful contact with the authorities turn out to be frustrating. He is unable to fathom the vagueness and ambiguity, not to mention the stark impersonality of the echelons of the castle. Their procedures seem arbitrary, devoid of any humane, or even meaningful, content. At times he feels he is being unfairly treated and so responds with ineffectual defiance. But a more common feeling is of self‑doubt, a sense of guilt, that it must be his own fault. If there is a rule, it has to have a rationale, some meaning, even if one finds it difficult to comprehend it.  In his isolation and his inability to make a confident response, he senses that the problem must be with him only, not with the authorities.

He feels indecisive, and that he must keep on trying. There must be some way of satisfying the unclear requirements of the authorities, to behave satisfactorily so that they will accept him. If he could only figure out the rules, he would follow them.

In many ways, the allegory of The Castle is an archetypal version of the contemporary individual in an organisation. Of course, organisations are not as unpredictable as the castle. But they are complex enough systems to create a bewildering array of inconsistent images, and bring out our most deep‑seated anxieties, predispositions and biases. For K, unable to comprehend how the authorities of the castle functioned, the castle became the canvas on which his personal inferiority, his need to belong, his loneliness could be projected; like most of us, K lived in a world of his own making; more so, because he (again, like many of us) lacked the conceptual options of viewing and interpreting his world in any other manner. The tragic consequence was his loss of individuality and an abject dependence on the authorities. This probably is the single most important reason for any practising or potential manager to develop an insight into the organisational reality.

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

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

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

The mail said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good bye, Bharath 'Brat' Chandran!!

Life as "The Glass Bead Game"...

Herman Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game is a book which I never read – at least, never read in full, cover-to-cover -  and yet in many ways it served as a reflection – and resolution - of much that was happening within as I was growing up. One conversation between Joseph Knecht and the Master remained relevant over years...

---

"If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn't there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?"

The Master had never heard him speak so fervently. He walked on in silence for a little, then said, "There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht — I can see they have already begun."

एक तसवीर साथ रहती है ...

न ये रूकती है, न थमती है कभी
ना ठिठक कर के सांस लेती है
इक अधूरी-सी दास्ताँ में गुम
भूली यादों के साये में छुपी
एक तसवीर साथ रहती है ...

एक छोटी-सी वो कहानी थी
जाने क्यूँ खो गयी - पर वो कहते हैं
जैसे दरिया मिला समंदर में
हाँ, मैं जानता हूँ पर फिर भी
एक तसवीर साथ रहती है ...

एक मैं..और बहुत सी परछाईयां हैं

एक मैं
और बहुत सी परछाईयां हैं
कुछ पुरानी, कुछ नयी परछाईयां हैं ..

और कुछ सहमे हुए से
बादलों की सेज पर
स्वप्न जैसी ये कई परछाईयां हैं

... आज जब गंतव्य में हूँ
खो गया जो सूर्य पश्चिम में पिघलता
याद करता हूँ ..
बहुत परछाईयां थीं, बहुत परछाईयां हैं

खो गयीं कुछ,
कुछ अभी भी ढूंढती रहतीं हैं
मुझको
ढूंढता रहता हूँ मैं उनमे अपने आप को
कुछ पुरानी, कुछ नयी परछाईयां हैं ..
 

कौन गाता? कौन गाता?....

It is an exhilerating (and unsettling) feeling when you suddenly got connected to (to use a cliche) a long lost friend, philosopher and guide... when you rediscover a long lost poem by one of your "resident poets" of the time you were growing up, as a teenager.

Today I found/rediscovered this poem by Keshav Prasad Pathak:

 

सहज स्वर-संगम, ह्रदय के बोल मानो घुल रहे हैं
शब्द, जिनके अर्थ पहली बार जैसे खुल रहे हैं .
दूर रहकर पास का यह जोड़ता है कौन नाता
कौन गाता ? कौन गाता ?

दूर, हाँ,उस पार तम के गा रहा है गीत कोई ,
चेतना,सोई जगाना चाहता है मीत कोई ,
उतर कर अवरोह में विद्रोह सा उर में मचाता !
कौन गाता ? कौन गाता ?

है वही चिर सत्य जिसकी छांह सपनों में समाए
गीत की परिणिति वही,आरोह पर अवरोह आए
राम स्वयं घट घट इसी से ,मैं तुझे युग-युग चलाता ,
कौन गाता ? कौन गाता ?

जानता हूँ तू बढा था ,ज्वार का उदगार छूने
रह गया जीवन कहीं रीता,निमिष कुछ रहे सूने.
भर न क्यों पद-चाप की पद्ध्वनि उन्हें मुखरित बनाता
कौन गाता ? कौन गाता ?

हे चिरंतन,ठहर कुछ क्षण,शिथिल कर ये मर्म-बंधन ,
देख लूँ भर-भर नयन,जन,वन,सुमन,उडु मन किरन,घन,
जानता अभिसार का चिर मिलन-पथ,मुझको बुलाता .
कौन गाता ? कौन गाता ?

- Keshav Prasad Pathak

लम्हे...

वो छोटे से लम्हे, वो मासूम लम्हे
थकी ज़िन्दगी में, सुहाने से लम्हे
गुज़रते हुए कारवां के वे लम्हे
हंसाते-रुलाते मचलते वो लम्हे

वो आधी कही इक कहानी के लम्हे
पिघलती हुई जिंदगानी के लम्हे
मिलन के वो लम्हे, बिछड़ने के लम्हे
भुलाने के लम्हे, निभाने के लम्हे
कोई आस ले कर लुभाने के लम्हे

कभी खो गए, मिल गए थे जो लम्हे
न जाने कहाँ खो गए थे वो लम्हे
पकड़ से फिसलते गए वो लम्हे
हथेली में ले कर चले चंद लम्हे
फिसलते रहे उँगलियों से वो लम्हे...

वो सपनों के लम्हे, वो आंसू के लम्हे

वो हंसती-हुई भीगी पलकों के लम्हे
न जाने कहाँ खो गए वो लम्हे

वो लम्हे याद आते हैं...