...

तुम्हारी छोड़ी हुई,
स्याह सी रात को,
हम ऊँगली थामे,
सहर तक पहुंचाते रहे..
और दिल में दबी हुई,
अनकही ख्वाहिशों को,
 फ़साने बना, उसे
हर पल बहलाते रहे..
जब लगी बुझती हुई,
दूर चमकते सितारों को,
सपनों का देश बता,
उसे हौसला दिलाते रहे..
पर एक रोज़ थकी हुई,
छिटक कर इन हाथों को,
बोली सहमी सी, कांपते हुए,
'क्यूँ यूँ तनहा चलते रहें?
आज यह तम्मना हुई,
ढूंढ लूं उस चाँद को,
जो रोशन सफ़र करे,
राह मे मेरा  हमकदम रहे...
हर लम्हा कम होती हुई,
इस मुख़्तसर ज़िन्दगी को,
झूठी किस्से कहानियों से,
कब तक यूँ  बहलाते रहें?'
नादानी से भरी हुई,
सुनकर उसकी आरज़ू  को,
भरकर अपनी आगोश में,
देर तक उसे समझाते रहे..
है किस्मत तेरी  लिखी हुई,
चांदनी न समझ खुद को,
डरना क्या अंधेरों से,
हम तो उन्हें भी दिल में समाते रहे..
और फिर हारी हुई,
अपनी तनहा सी रात को,
लेकर अपनी बाँहों में,
उस पर प्यार बरसते रहे..

absence...

The glistening pointed church spire,
like a warrior's sword raised higher,
among the dark billowing clouds,
to rend the sombre menacing shrouds..
The timid, tremulous, powdery rain,
the lacy weave on the window pane,
steaming cup of coffee, freshly ground,
endless words, tepid brew, quickly downed..
The joyful liberated dance of trees,
the quest for freedom, of the leaves,
the gush of wind, music in the rush,
nature in motion, hearts in a hush..
The ballooning umbrellas, feet in a hurry,
the trepidation, the nostalgia, the glee,
all of the creator's power makes sense,

all replicated, but for you, as audience...

कल रात शमा से पूछा, यूँ ही,
है किसकी चाहत की जिसमे जलती हो तुम
कभी साहिल को देखा भी नहीं
फिर भी रात पार करती हो तुम..?
अँधेरे के दामन में छुपी हुई
किस उम्मीद को बहलाती हो तुम,
जबकि है साथ सिर्फ तन्हाई
फिर भी नाचती रहती हो तुम...?
कच्चे  से धागे से बंधी हुई
किसके इश्क में तबाह होती  तुम,
जबकि मिली है सिर्फ बेवफाई,
फिर भी यूँ लगन लगाती हो तुम...?
मोहब्बत का हक अदा करती हुई
कभी यूँ ही सहम जाती हो तुम,
आंधी जो आगोश में भरले कभी
वफ़ा की मिसाल ही कहलाती हो तुम...?
आज क्यूँ तुमसे मिलकर लगा यूँ ही
की जैसे जूनून की हो पहचान तुम,
मेरे जानिब भी हो ऐसी आशिकी
फना हूँ जिसपर, जैसे होती हो तुम...

...Lost for words...

Amit calls me an 'agony aunt' because of my ability to make people trust me with all their woes and worries and I have always prided myself on my 'higher than average' empathy factor which gets people to confide in me. I have also thought that I have the ability to listen impassionately though not insensitively and offer a logical and easy way of dealing with 'situations'. And yet today, I wished I could have been like most people around me, that I did not have this emotional-accessibility factor. Something happened which stopped me dead in my track and I have been feeling lost ever since...

There is a customer of my branch, an old lady, a sweet and gentle soul always full of cheer and kind words,  a little waif of a person, so small and delicate she actually looks like a  fragile china doll. She invokes such a protective feeling in me and for some odd reason she has taken a great liking to me and insists that I must take care of all her banking needs even though I am in another department and have no reason to do so. She never forgets to send me a cake for Christmas or Easter and has me forever indebted to her for all the love and affection she showers on me.

There is something strange I have noted about her ever since the time I have known her and this has also been a cause of concern for me. Every single time that she visits the branch she has one or the other bone broken! It is either the right leg, the left one, the wrist or the elbow..it goes on but I have never seen her whole and well. I have often suggested that she should visit a good ortho to have the problem examined but she laughingly passes it off as 'the side effects of old age' coupled with the  mishaps resultant of living alone (she is a widow).

Today, like all other times, she called (to confirm if I was free and available) and then dropped in to my office. One look at her and I knew she was in excruciating pain, so as I escorted her to a chair, I jokingly asked her, which one is it this time. Unlike her past answers, this time her reply was subdued as she said it was her ribs. Like all the previous occasions, I again entreated with her to visit a good doctor about the fragility of her bones, even offering to accompany her, if required. And then the unexpected happened - she started to cry!

I was stricken by remorse that maybe it was my casual approach to her ailment that caused the reaction and I tried to comfort her but it was as if a dam had burst. After a while, as she calmed down, she said words which ring in my ears even now; she told me that all the accidents of the past times, all those broken bones, had been caused- not by a deficiency or physical weakness- but was the handiwork of her daughter(!) who lived with her and was a spinster, who blamed the mother for her single status and thrashed her mercilessly at the slightest provocation.

It was at that moment I wished, albeit selfishly, not that she was elsewhere, safe and comfortable, but, that I could have been elsewhere or someone else. I wished it were possible to 'unhear' those words because today I lost my ability to remain impassioned and offer logical advice in the face of her reality. What solace can one offer to such a mother who only prays every single day 'that her own child would take what she wants but atleast leave her capable of fending for herself in her old age'. How does one offer logic to a helpless old lady who waits on her only child despite her broken bones, despite the pain and the injury, in the fear that she may be inflicted with even more, should she be caught slacking her pace. She, who has so much of love and affection to shower on a stranger, who speaks a few kind words, is treated like dirt by her own progeny? There are those who pray to the almighty to be blessed with a child and here, before me, was a woman who beseeched the lord each day, for deliverence from one...

As she got up to leave, I was numb and though I escorted her to her cab, she has stayed on in my heart and always will...

artistry?

A conversation on the go…a friend tells me that he thinks that artists of any kind must be such content people. They have the luxury ofnot only venting their desires in their art but also the privilege of seeking their fulfilment in its expression. This would make them truly content people as they wouldn’t have any expectations from a relationship beyond the one they share with their art. The freedom to create from their current state of mind or heart, without having any judgement made on them. So you could paint a grey picture or write a sad song or create a twisted sculpture in your blue moments and still cherish that as your creation, without remorse or guilt. Or you could pick the most vibrant hues from your palette and randomly throw them on a canvas, strike the highest and lowest notes and string them into an incredible symphony and raise it up as the expression of your most joyous moments. “If only we had a special skill too..”


A pause and my response..who says we can’t, each one of us, be an artist too? We have been given a canvas called life and a palette full of colours called time and each one of us can paint a picture every day, all the days of our life. True, sometimes the picture would be just sepia tinted(when life is stuck in rote) or plain old black & white (to reflect our sombre moments) , at others a charcoal sketch (emanating from sad thoughts) and sometimes a radiant depiction of our inner joy. But we do have a choice to do with it as we want to; To be able to feel the luxury of being the creator of our own story, to find fulfilment in the honest expression of our responses to each of destiny’s (?) twists and turns..

Perhaps where we go astray and lose this sense of wonder is when we start looking to others for confirmation of our own needs and desires. The Physical interdependence of society or family can not be negated unless one chooses to be a recluse but the emotional dependence is often the albatross around our neck. Our palette loses color and our skills fade away when subjugated to the needs of others. It is here that the two mischief mongers of guilt and anger step in and start the process of creating discontment or resentment. By this, I do not mean to imply that one needs to be totally insensitive or self centred but yes, there is a line beyond which only the self remains and in order to be truly content, it is my belief, that each one of us needs to draw and respect our commitment to that border.

And it is possible to remain an artist, content and fulfilled, if one knows that secret place where one can retreat and paint as the heart feels or create as the eyes see or write as the mood comes..sans remorse or guilt..for each such creation shall then be mine and worth being proud of and shall liberate me evermore..

"Wonderland?"

I am a self- confessed book addict; the aroma of a book, the feel of the paper in my hands, the sound of the turning pages are enough to transport me into another world. And fantasy has been my favourite genre , ever since I laid my hands on my first Enid Blyton. Till today ‘Alice in wonderland’ ranks amongst my most favorite books ever. I read with equal fervor all the tales of vampires and werewolves etc. that my daughter is currently hooked on. But there is one particular series to which I have never been able to subscribe, no offence meant to J.K.Rowlings, but ‘Pottermania’ has completely and totally eluded me.

Of late though, I have started feeling as if my body is behaving like a Harry Potter spell gone terribly wrong. Lets start with the events of about a year ago – I have always prided myself on being blessed with a fair share of the grey matter but Really! Does my brain have to make such a statement about it?! In an average human being there is a certain volume of Cerebral serum fluid which is produced which keeps the brain fertile and balanced. In my case, the brain, suddenly finding itself totally and utterly ignored and unused decided to take matters unto itself and started producing more than twice the volume of CSF giving me a disease called ‘Benign Intercranial Hypertension’ (quite a mouthful – but as my friends say , ‘anything less complicated would not suffice’). This means that the doctors have to stick a needle and pipe into my spine and drain out the excess fluid and keep me on medication until it is possible to do so without surgical intervention (which would require a shunt being placed in the spine to do the job- My daughter’s take on this is ‘after you’ve had your gall bladder and appendix removed now you’ve started having stuff put in instead?!’)

Descending from the brain, lets move to the eyes. Having seen enough of the world around them and since I was not providing them with much variety in any case they suddenly decided that they had seen enough and gave up the ‘vision’ one fine day, leaving me (and my doctors) clueless. There were so many vials of blood taken out for testing so many possible diseases (some found even in the African jungles – must be a carry over of some previous lifetime or a lesser evolved state)that I think it would have been enough for entire body blood transfusion of a needy soul. And after all that when they could find nothing (having even suspected cancer and drilling into my various bones for biopsies) they simply shrugged it off as an ‘auto immune disorder’ with the possibility of recurrence at any given time. And I say Thank You Science!

During the above mentioned period of darkness they pumped in all kinds of steroids into my body and though my system handled it all bravely (other than for the fact that I started resembling a gas balloon ready for take off at any time), it did have its own aftermath. My intestines have now decided that they have had enough of digesting all those bitter pills that are my daily bread and need some fresh air and change of scenery! So they are threatening to step out of my stomach at any given moment of time and are required to be kept under close observation and near starvation lest they find that extra burst (!) of energy.

It doesn’t all end here though because adversity forges its own bonds and my ilia (the leg bone) and the hip joint have become great friends in these times so much so that they have broken all the distances that separated them and though im glad to see this show of solidarity, it is awfully painful for me when I want to indulge in normal human activities like walking or even turning over in my sleep.

And now I wish I had the magic wand of Potter and could mumble some jumbled up words and set it all right, as it were once…or maybe that was my fantasy too..

the karma chameleon

'The travails of life are a part of the travel of life' has been my credo and therefore, I have always believed in putting my best foot forward and moving on from the here and now, without wasting my thought on the how and why of untoward incidents.


And yet there are times when one is overwhelmed, by the regularity of mishaps and there comes to the mind the question about the relevance of ‘Karma’. If all events in life are a function of ones actions, past or present, one’s karma, as they say, then why is it that the conscious mind does not register such a plethora of negative actions which might be the cause of the spate of bad luck.

 We can, perhaps, then extend the karma to stretch to previous lifetimes, the cycle of life and death, which may be resulting in the ill fortune that strikes one. If it is the endeavour of the evolved soul to terminate this cycle in this lifetime, through the medium of one’s actions, then it also transpires that this fact would register somewhere in the so called eternal ledger of actions and their outcomes.



This could be the reason that one suddenly feels that there is an overflow of bad luck – because it has been registered in the Cosmos, that in the case of this individual, it is time for the vicious Circle to come to a stop and the good deeds notwithstanding, the karma of all bad deeds, past or present, therefore, has to be borne out in this one lifetime.

 The night then seems darkest because sunrise is  a little way away, on the other side of the horizon. Or maybe this is the wishful thinking of an eternal optimist….