The Fear

Something new I am trying (For the new readers, no its not the romantic. I have been doing it for a long time. And please, no speculations about my love life based on that), but I am trying imagery and a poem in free verse. Please I need responses on this one.

A veil behelds the two lovers
and the fear of their thing
falling apart
holds them both still
sitting in the laps of time
waiting for the truth
and truth is not the veil
neither is the distance
Truth is only the fear
That behelds them
fear of being fake
of all this being
just a lie
fear of not knowing
the person without the veil
the fear of getting hurt
which keeps them away
from being happy
Yes, even my dictionary tells me
'he' and 'she' are far far away
but beyond the fakeness
that just 'might' exist
lie 'they'
which is their only way
and though they dont know it
true love can always wait
the mesh may just limit it
but remember
you are still visible.

A thing of beauty

I don't know why but today I am recalling John Keats' poem "A thing of beauty."Keats called a thing of beauty eternal. He said that its something which gives you happiness.
Happiness? True. Eternal? I am not sure.
Everything in this world is susceptible to change. The loveliest flower would die within a day or two. A cute kid would maybe grow up into a hard core metal fan(No offence to the metal fans but I think they may look rebellious but not beautiful). A sky full of stars has to turn into a cloudy or a scorching day within a 24 hour cycle. Even beautiful feelings like adoration and love which can also instill happiness in an onlooker gradually wane with time and then dies with the person.
Then I get the idea that probably Keats was talking about the 'ideal' thing of beauty which may not exist. But unlike 'ideal love' to which we may approach, ideal thing of beauty may just be a myth.
Thus comes my final realisation.
Do we really need a true thing of beauty? I mean look at an undisturbed lake or falling drops of rain and yeah some may like to see a metallic band playing, whatever. The point is these things may not instill a happiness that is eternal but certainly they are so many around to stay happy for a lifetime. Even the odes Keats wrote, neither is the song of nightingale eternal, nor is any autumn. But they gave him a feeling that took him to a world away from all his pain and suffering though not indefinitely.(People who have read Keats and about him may understand better)So final conclusion - find your things of beauty and escape to a world of your own design.

You owe me

The dark doors of heaven were open for him. He had imagined a lot of white light coming out to greet him but there he stood, still wondering how he got there when a voice rose from the dark, “You owe me” and this was always the last part of his dream. He woke up sweating. Even after a year, the voice still haunted him.

Five years back, Nikhil Taneja wasn’t the most eligible bachelor that he is now. He was just an ambitious guy, rapidly rising the steps of success. But unlike now, he wasn’t single. He had a girl who loved him, whom he loved. But as human nature goes, we ignore what we have only to run after what we don’t. But it wasn’t his ambitions that were a problem. The problem was that under no circumstance could Nikita become a priority, even when she needed him the most.

It is said that nothing compares to the ego of a newly successful person. The same ego widened the crack to the breakage point in their relationship.

Though Nikhil didn’t repent his actions at that moment but four years later, at the top of his career, he was ready to give up anything to have Nikita back to him. But she was married for two years now and people said they had a very happy married life.

Today, Nikhil wakes up again from the haunted dream to fight against the people he hated the most. He wants to repay what he thought he owed. Today is the moment of truth and he had an alternate plan if all didn’t go as he wanted.

The phone had rung a year back at his place and as soon as he picked it up, a voice transported him to another world where he always wanted to be. It was Nikita.

The sorrow that the perfect Nikhil wanted to feel didn’t show up when he heard about the death of her husband. Shobhit, her husband was an intelligence officer who was supposedly a martyr in line of work. But Nikita had found proofs collected by her husband that could convict a few politicians in a case of high level corruption involving billions.

“The people who killed your husband won’t mind harming you. I don’t like the idea and I think even Shobhit would not have liked you risking your life for something that he lost his life to.”

“Nikhil, I know you love me and I have loved you since the day we first met but this is something I need to do to get justice for my husband. I know you are the only one I can trust to protect me and I know you would help me as much as you can.”

Though most of the people would have felt elated at hearing the first part but these words instilled shame and guilt in Nikhil for thinking of starting a new relationship at the brink of her husband’s death.

He arranged for her to reveal her husband’s killers on a live TV show the next week. During this time, despite of the guilt he felt, he still cherished every moment he spent with Nikita. He felt complete with her. Every time she smiled, he pledged to do anything to keep her smiling for the rest of her life. He was in love and he knew it was something even more than what he had felt for her in the past. It was something divine.

That dreaded day, they went to a market. Nikita made him try some hats and she was laughing for the first time in these few days. Suddenly she fell into his arms. It took Nikhil a moment to realize that she had been shot. One out of the two was dying but it was the other who let out a cry of agony. Nikhil realized Nikita was trying to say something. “You owe me…..,”  she could not complete. Those were the last words Nikita said and the only words that mattered to Nikhil. That day, people saw the most successful businessman of the year, cry on the footpath with a dead girl in his arms.

Today, Nikhil walks towards court with the file in his hands, on the judgment day.

The proofs were enough for him to prove the politicians guilty but even the false witnesses, setup by Nikhil could prove them to be Nikita’s murderers. But that was all that mattered to Nikhil. So he had an alternate plan ready.

With Nikhil’s fortune, it was not difficult to bribe a few Jail guards to poison her lover’s killers. He arranged for them the most painful death and as soon as he got news of their deaths, he took an overdose of sleeping pills himself.

Before dying, while in sleep, Nikhil heard and saw Nikita dying but only this time she got to complete her last sentence. She said, “You owe me the chance to see you happy. Find happiness for yourself for me to rest in peace,” and that was the moment. Doctors are still amazed how a tear could trickle down a person who is in comma because of overdose of sleeping pills but it didn’t matter to the world as 3 minutes later, everything flat lined. The world lost an evolving business tycoon, or so did the world felt.

The world remember that Nikhil Taneja died on 11^th February 2011 but he died the day he left Nikita, only to be reborn again to die a death that nobody deserves, a death that was painless in the physical sense but agonizing for his soul as he died but he still owed her.

A six sentence story

The World was at his feet when he decided to leave it all behind and then came the moment of revelation. The glow of the first light of the day blinded his senses into believing something that did not exist to a normal eye. Nobody knew what he saw when he decided to surrender all his success to live in a time that was not real. Some say that he had seen the god while others told that he had seen the ghost of his dead lover. A few ridiculed him but the most laughed at his sanity in the world of insane but everyone was jealous of the state of contentment he lived in. Though no one knows how he experienced that bliss, but the only thing that could be established as a fact was the date and time of his death which was quite irrelevant as the smile on the face of the dead transported everyone to that unaccounted world of joy where time ceased to exist, at least for a moment.

My collection

जीत में खुश हो के गम को भुलाना सीख लिया
और गम में झूठी ही सही पर हसी बनाना सीख लिया
पर गैरों की ख़ुशी को अपना बनाना जाना नहीं
हसना तो सीख लिया पर मुस्कुराना नहीं

 

ढलते देखा सूरज को आज, बदलो को ओअत में
राज़ दबा है उस रंग का, कुदरत के नरम होठ में
फूल देखे, तारे ताके, दुःख और ग़म की चोट में
भूल गया मतलब इनका, ढलती ख़ुशी की सौत में
डूब सा गया हो अब से मैं , इस रंग के स्त्रोत में
जलता पाया खुद को मैंने, इस कुदरत की ज्योत में
भुज गयी यह ज्योति भी तोह आज मेरी मौत पे
पर खिले फूल चमके सितारे, आज मेरी चौथ पे
पर खिले फूल चमके सितारे, आज मेरी चौथ पे

इन अँधेरे रास्तो पे जीत का साया नहीं
हारने पे हस दिया लेकिन मैं मुस्काया नहीं
सीखने को ज़िन्दगी से सीख लिया है सब कुछ
पाने को दुनिया से मैंने कुछ भी तो पाया नहीं

इन हरी हरी वादियों का हो जाने को जी करता है
इस खुले आसमान के साए में सो जाने को जी करता है
वोह तो हम बस इस ज़िन्दगी से बंधे है वर्ना
आज सब कुछ भुला खो जाने को जी करता है

पैरो को ज़मीन पर रख कद को बढाओ
कंधो की सवारी तो कोई भी कर सकता है
अगर उच्चाई से ही जीत का फैसला होता
तो आज पंछी भी हमें दाना दाल रहे होते

 

 

 

क्या हुआ मेरे देश को ?

ना देश अपना ना लोग पराये

अब किस चोर को कोतवाल बनाए

अब जैल भी लगती है नेताओ को सुहानी

और जान प्रतिनिधि को पोलीस पकड़ ले जाए

गाँधी का यह देश है मेरा और अहिंसा मेरा धरम

रोक दिया जाता हर कोई जो करता अपना करम

यहा कसाब को जमाई बनाए और अन्ना को मुजरिम

बोल उठेगा देश सारा उबलेगा हर खून गरम

पैदा हुआ भगत जो जल्लियाँवाला मे खेली होली

अब डाइयर भी बोले हिन्दी तो हुकूमत भी यही बोली

उठे हत्यार देश के खुद पे ऐसा कल ना आएगा

पर एक दिन ऐसा आएगा जब भगत खड़ा हो जाएगा

आज़ादी पे बंद गयी पट्टी देश हुआ अनदेखा

लोकतंत्र मे लोकपाल ही लगाएगा सब पे रेखा

फिर से आए नेहरू गाँधी फिर से चलेंगे दांडी

आज़ादी ना देखी तो क्या संग्राम तो मैने देखा

आज़ादी ना देखी तो क्या संग्राम तो मैने देखा

Are we narrow minded?

Today while travelling in metro, I was reading a portrait of the artist as a young man by James Joyce - Perfect combination for someone to get philosophical. It was then that a thought struck my mind. Movement of everything, from as big as heavenly bodies like stars and planets to as small as atoms and molecules, is bound by a certain law. Then lets act the way Heisenberg did and say world is symmetric. So if the movement of planets is bound and so is the movement of atoms, then why can’t we say that our movements are also bound by a certain law which may be too complicated to be understood by us?
Well certainly this theme has been explored earlier also by movies like ‘Pi’ but think of it this way. If such a law really exists, then can things like numerology, astrology, fortune telling, crystal balls, etc etc etc may be various approximations to that law thus ‘calculating’ the future to some extent. Then maybe everything we call superstitions are just because of our narrow mindedness. Should it be called superstition that our mind tends to accept only things that have been proven? Then how are we better than all those people who refused to accept that earth was round and those who denied the concept that earth went round the sun?
A few people who may have read Joyce may say he has got to my head and probably they are right. Maybe I will forget about the narrow mindedness of not accepting future predictions by tomorrow and continue to be a ‘rational’ person but now writing my thoughts out may keep it in my mind for some what a longer duration of time.
Expecting quite elaborative discussions.