Don't I?

pulsates
gyrates
head aches

crick in the neck
what the heck
speck

a sensation
half the head tingling
bursting

can't bear
can't hear
even if others feel the same
what do i care?

don't I?

नानी का पेट दर्द

एक समय की बात है। एक थी कहानी। नानी माँ के मन में रहती थी। नानी माँ रहती थी एक छोटे से घर में। घर एक पहाड़ी के ऊपर था। कितनी सुन्दर थी वो पहाड़ी। कोमल हरी घास, जैसे कालीन बिछा हो मखमली। छोटे छोटे गुलबहार के सफ़ेद फूल। मानो हरे कालीन में किसी ने हाथ से कडाई कर के प्यारे प्यारे सफ़ेद फूल बनाए हों।

नानी माँ रहती थीं अकेली। रोज़ सुबह उठतीं ठन्डे ठन्डे पानी से स्नान करतीं, एक लोटा पानी भर के, उगते सूरज की तरफ मुंह कर, आँगन में तुलसी को जल देतीं। फिर कहीं खाने पीने का ध्यान करतीं।
नानी माँ खुश थीं। लेकिन सिर्फ एक तकलीफ थी। रह रह कर उनके पेट में दर्द उठता था। डॉक्टर, हकीम, नानी माँ की वो सहेली जिनके पास हर मर्ज़ का घरेलू उपचार था; सभी को दिखाया लेकिन कोई फायेदा नहीं हुआ। नानी माँ ने अपने नेवल में हींग लगाई, सौंफ खाई, जीरे वाला पानी पिया - लेकिन कुछ फर्क नहीं पडा!
अब नानी माँ सब से यही कहतीं की ये दर्द तो अब मेरे साथ ही जाएगा। इसका और कुछ नहीं होने वाला। ऐसे ही रहने लगी नानी माँ।
फिर एक दिन की बात है। नानी माँ बहार आँगन में धीरे धीरे टहल रही थीं। पेट का दर्द हौले हौले बड़ रहा था। तभी उन्होंने एक गाडी की आवाज़ सुनी। देखा तो एक बड़ी सी मोटर कार आँगन में आ खड़ी हुयी। दरवाज़ा खुला और एक जाने पहचाने से मुख वाला पुरुष बाहर निकला। बोला, "मां"। नानी माँ हक्की बक्की रह गयीं। ये उनका बेटा था। आज पूरे दस साल बाद आया था। यूँ ही। अचानक। नानी मां बोलीं, "बेटा"। माँ और बेटा गले मिल कर रो पड़े। तभी नानी ने देखा गाडी में से दो और लोग उतर रहे हैं। बेटे ने कहा, "मां, ये तुम्हारी बहू है और ये तुम्हारा पोता"। नानी मां की तो ख़ुशी का ठिकाना ही ना था।
उन्होंने सबके लिए फटाफट नाश्ता बनाया, और परोसने लगी। लेकिन पेट दर्द तो था ही। बीच में ना चाहते हुए भी मुंह से आह निकल ही गयी। बेटे को बहुत चिंता हुयी। बोला, "मां हम कल ही डॉक्टर के पास जायेंगे"। नानी मां ने कहा, "मैंने सब कुछ आजमा लिया है। लेकिन कोई फायेदा नहीं। अब कल सोचेंगे। तुम आराम से खा लो। मैं अपने पोते को सुला देती हूँ"। नानी प्यार से अपने पोते को अपने कमरे में ले गयीं और अपने बिस्तर पे लिटा दिया। पोते ने कहानी की रट लगाई। कहानी तो नानी के मन में घर कर के बैठी ही थी। नानी ने झट से सूना दी। बस क्या था, जैसे ही नानी ने कहानी सुनायी, पेट दर्द हो गया छू मंतर!

शैतान सूरज

प्रायः ही यह टीस उठती है;
हाँ, कभी उन्नीस बीस होती है।
कभी आते हैं बादल काले घने;
बूंदों की आशा, उस पल आ बने।
पर फिर वो झांके, सूरज शैतान;
बादल कैसे हांके - करे हैरान!

Conversation with my poet friend

Friend:
Bowing to the pressure of the times
my verses take on a brand new form
seeking the spirit of brevity, these rhymes,
called twerses shall be the latest norm

here is my tribute to twitter and tweets

new poetic form called twerse

in 160 characters

Me:
the world is hypertexted now
google rules the roost
facebook keeps the world in love
twitter gives the boost

Friend:
wikipedia is the modern source
of all that an individual knows
all human thoughts, opinions' force
are there in blogs, joys and woes

Me:
oh yes it's all about wiki

even the dumb can be cheeky

for all you need is mouse

to visit wiki that all does house

BLOG

ruminations abound
the self is at the centre
noses in PCs all around

i know about ME
so i put it all out there
for friends & foes all to see

what happened?
is universality dead?
will SOMEONE an ear lend?

ऐसे भी और वैसे भी

सूखी धरती, समुन्दर हो जाती
दुःख हरती: फूली ना समाती

नदी पर, गयी भर
इतना क्यूँ , पानी झर झर
गिरते पेड़, इंसान थर थर .

ऐ प्रकृती देख, तेरे ये खेल अनेक
कोई न समझे : कोशिश कर ले चाहे और एक!

The cookie jar and the haircut

I am writing this piece for my daughter who is 5 years old. She is lying beside me on the bed post dinner and before the customary story for the night is read out. I am writing verbatim the story as dictated by her...

When I was small, I was very very nice. But I did not like my hair. One day, I was very hungry and the cookie jar was kept very high. When Mama was not there, I pulled a chair and kept it in front of the cupboard. I climbed and took the cookie jar. It slipped from my hand and fell on the floor and broke! Then Mama came back and saw the kitchen full of cookie crumbs and jar pieces. Then she went to my room and saw me thinking what will I do. Then when I saw Mama, I said, "sorry". She said, "now you have to clean the kitchen". Then I cleaned the kitchen. My mother was happy and she took me to the kid's parlour the next day. I sat on the small car and got the haircut. I also saw a cartoon while my hair was being cut. I got a beautiful haircut and I was very happy! After my haircut, I got a chocolate too!

An excuse?

I am convinced that people who are great writers, have great memories or at the very least, they must be walking round with a paper and pen jotting down everything that strikes them. There are innumerable occasions when an ordinary incident touches me or a happening seems extraordinary; they get captured in words and I can construct a whole story that would appeal to everyday readers like me. However, when I sit down, all set to put it down for posterity, with a pen and paper or my fingers all ready in eager enthusiasm over a keyboard; my mind is as blank as the crisp virgin sheet of paper just extracted from a new freshly unwrapped ream of A4 sheets.

How did Wordsworth remember the Daffodils when oft on his couch did he lie? It must a pretty commonplace picture, the gentle slopes of the Lake valley ablaze with a carpet of delicate daffodils. Men and women, children and those at the brink of adulthood - with even more romantic inclinations - all must be witness to this wonder of nature. How is that all of them didn't remember it long after and pen down equally inspiring lines?

Is this thought just an excuse? Is it just the presence of a Muse that makes all the difference? In the case of Wordsworth, we assign that lofty position to Nature. For Shakespeare there may be a debate on who, but the existence of one is not debated. Our very own Gurudev who it is said could ascribe each burst of creativity to a new Muse. Is there any amount of control that can be exerted on being inspired in this manner? Or is it something that pulls at the strings and heedless of what one may consciously think or want, the work of art takes shape of it's own accord - just as some other basic instincts that most life on earth has to give into. Giving into some needs may be termed biological and brings Humans at the same level as any other animal - to be measured on the same scale. But this other kind of instinct, the one that forces Art to take form, does it then lift the same species to another height, a little step closer to the Creator of all this?

And he went away

The Tree Pie flew down close to the old woman. Gingerly she lifted her right hand, the forefinger and the middle held close together. It was a weathered hand that had touched and been touched in a million different ways. The bird seemed to understand that the experienced hand would be as good a perch as any. The weathered face moved a tiny bit attempting a semblance of a smile - like the first few words uttered by the baby that are only approximations to what is intended. But Oh so beautiful they are! Even more than the well articulated word.

She sat like a mannequin in a store window not even blinking her eyes. The Tree Pie cocked his head from side to side surveying the area till he spied a juicy treat, a spider hanging head down from his web that was glinting in the Sun. A magnificent swoop and the spider didn't even realize when he had become the bird's snack. She blinked then, and her heart suddenly skipped a beat; she felt a constriction in her throat that she found hard to describe. It was a similar feeling that she had felt that night when she accompanied her son to the airport and when he hugged her and pulled away. He turned, and took quick long strides towards the Check-in counter, not once looking back. Her hands felt that they were useless suddenly, an appendage she did not know what to do with. They hung at her sides, lifeless. The rest of her body obeyed and when her son's friend said, "Aunty, let's go.", she turned around mechanically and each foot moved as if the controls were in someone else's hands.

to you

in your words there is beauty

in your thoughts there is truth

love, life and gravitation you talk about

never scared of sounding philosophical or uncouth

with you through conversations & silences

with you through life and death

i'll always choose you of all poets

and love you till my last breath

there have been a few times of war

and many moments of fight

to tell the truth, in my thoughts

you have almost always been right

yes, many a times, we are on different planes

but to make a piece of glass beautiful - one needs many stains...

मुझ जैसी

बस खाली

मुंह पे अब सिर्फ गाली

दूध में शक्कर नहीं डाली

रिश्ते में प्यार भी जाली

फूल हैं पर नहीं माली

गर मैं भी होती ऐसी, साली

हर किसी ने हुई होती, मुझ जैसी पाली

Karthik

he comes
riding his mother's waist
grins and shows
his already darkening teeth
one, two no three
amulets tied on black & red threads
hang around his tiny neck
kohl that would have sufficed
me a month
is all there
making him look
like a kathakali performer
the black dot to ward of evil
can not be missed on his forehead
his hands clutch
at the orange ice-candy
he snatched from his elder brother
runs for the bright red
anthurium in the pot
as soon as mum
puts him down
"no, no" say I
he looks at me
with a lopsided grin
his mum is sweeping the garden
dust rises up
all around
his ice-candy is melting
down his arms
instinct makes me pick him up
and then
I gauge
I think
I put him down
where his mum
has finished sweeping...

कोशिश की कोशिश

कहती है मेरी सहेली
छंदों पर ध्यान मत दे
खुद बा खुद जो आये
वो भी काम कर जाए
करती हूँ फिर एक कोशिश
फिर एक चेष्टा
जाने क्या होगा
क्या मंद मंद मुस्कुराहटें होंगी?
या होगा ठट्टा?
कोई नहीं
अब जब डाला है सर ओखली में
तो देखें
सर बचता है या हम?

सीटी

शब्द कुछ, चुप्पी थोड़ी
दोस्त तुने, ये चुभन क्यूँ तोड़ी?

वो टीस, महक मीठी
हौले से , तुम्हारी सीटी.

चल उडें

मैं हूँ
खूबसूरत एक ख्याल
अब ना कुछ उत्तर
और ना कुछ सवाल

पैदाइश से ही लड़की
दुनिया ने बनाया अबला
दिल से जब हूँ भड़की
तब बनी हूँ सबला

बनी डॉक्टर इंजिनियर
टीचर तो थी ही सदा
जरूरी हो गया कैरिएर
दुनिया हुयी फ़िदा

सबला को मिले हैं पर
आफिस है और चौका
साथ दे या न दे ये नर
उड़ने का है मौक़ा

Uh...uh...

Notions. Preconceived. Images. Prejudices. I had them all. For years fifteen have I known her. She looks the same still. Four feet nothing. The 120/- rupee synthetic saree with unrecognisable print and colour. The ear-rings hanging from holes that can probably fit the whole ear-ring in. The imitation mangal-sutra tied up in places with strings less it comes apart . The blouse, much too tight at the arms; the flesh bulging a little as if to protest against this unnecessary cruelty. the petticoat peeping out from under the saree - another nondescript undescribable colour though completely different from the saree. The toes with the silver toe rings - shining cause they get washed every day with the feet. The feet themselves relating the tale of the 60 years that they have lived; the 5 years of working in a field; the 10 years of working on a construction site carrying bricks up the scaffoldng of a premier science institute being built; the 10 years of sitting on her haunches on the soot spread kitchen floor of a college making chapattis for 500 reidential students and the 20 years of trudging through the roads of aundh in her hand-me-down fit-me-not slippers to work in other people's homes - cleaning their bartans, washing their clothes, shining their floor everyday.
She was busy. Getting the washing of the bartans over with. Busy with my morning cup of tulsi and lemon grass embellished tea and the newspaper, I pay her no attention. The backdrop noise is one I am used to. "I think I will finish early and go today", she says. "What?" "There's a sakharpuda - my aunt's aunt's daughter-in-law's sister." The tea and paper forgotten - impending disaster. "But why do you need to go for your aunt's aunt's daughter-in-law's sister's sakharpuda?!"
In a low voice, without meeting my gaze; "uh... uh... she is getting married to the son of the man I was engaged to in the village". "What! you were engaged to someone else besides Nana!" (the nana you have been married to for the last 48 years! Even gentler "yes". "Why did you not marry him?". Hoarsely "he refused to marry me". "Why? Why would he refuse to marry a 12 year old?" A whisper "because I hit him on the head with a stone". 'What?!"
"I hit him on the head with a stone and he was bleeding." "Why did you do that?!" "I was always playing with boys and we used to roam the whole village looking for trees with tamarind, mangoes, chikkus and figs. I was the quickest to climb and I also had the sharpest aim with the catapult. They used to call me Tulsa the viti-dandu champion of five villages. My mother could never keep me long enough in the house to teach me any of the house work. I would eat in my friends' homes if she refused to give me food when I did not do my share of the work in the house. That day, a month or so after my sakharpuda, me and my friends had decided to rob the mangoes from the most coveted mango tree in the village. But there was a dog in that house and we could not climb the tree. So I decided to throw some stones and try our luck. I was raining stones while my friends were collecting the falling mangoes on the other side. My eyes were only on the mango tree. I heard a scream and all the boys ran away. I went to see what the scream was about and realized that the man to whom I was bethroed was coming on the cycle and had been hit on the head with the stone. He was very angry and told his family that if this is what she is doing now, what will she do after the marriage. My brothers also thought I was too forward to be married to a boy from the village and found me a guy in Pune instead."
"Jaaon kyaa?" (can i go?) Pin-drop silence. "Otherwise he will think i did not come because of that." "Uh... uh... of course... of course... you must..."

i need you

i need you today
to weave your magic
to take me to the stars

i want you today
to give me your hands
to lend me your lips

i ask you today
to shed your care
a dream to share

i hate it

do i hate you or do i hate myself?
the sun or the burning sensation?
the heat or the perspiration?

do i hate the thought or do i hate the act?
the person or the moment?
the laid back or the fervent?

do i hate this or do i hate that?
the embraced or the shunned?
the real or the imagined?

My new friend

i've known you for long

i came to know you today

i've been your friend's friend

i came to be your friend today

tell me what your heart desires

tell me what you want

tell me what you need me to do

tell me even what you can't

come give me your hand

come let me wipe your brow

come let us write in the sand

come let us forget tomorrow

To Gauri

Friend

You made me see

The play of light

All that was in your sight

Girl

You made me feel

The smell of sweat

A neighbour's breath

Muse

You made me wonder

What was discussed

My thoughts in this verse - compressed!

8 June 2010

Soon,

Boon;

Monsoon !

First

This is a first.

In this electronic age,

A dream I had nursed;

Of using paper and pen.

At last, I too am part of the rage.

No point, I reckon.

So here, I lay bare;

my thoughts, my words, my worlds,

Oh! do I dare?