Ugliness in Death

Where do you desires go when they die?
When they are all mottled up and shrivelled,
Mutilated beyond redemption;
When we have confused them with our needs
And made them vital to our survival?

Do they hide in the recesses of our dreams,
In the yellowed pages of a long forgotten journal,
To be the waning life force of hope and ambition,
Only to make an appearance on a sunny day?
Or do they become the remnants of an emotional baggage,
Abandoned in the face of tears, dejection, or reason,
That keeps dragging us down into the depths of despair?

Does hope gasp for breathing space
As the graveyard of longings comes to be littered
With the tombstones of our failures?
If they had ever found refuge in our benevolent minds,
Who nourished them like their own,
Do we wish on a false star by hoping to stay the same?

I suppose one could hide in a corner,
Like a moody dog who jealously guards his bone,
Casting a suspicious eye on his own reflection,
'Til the effort of playing sentry to our hearts
Wears us thin and we scoop out the last bit of dignity
Into the cup of surrender,
To be served at a moment's notice
To the demons of self-pity.

I suppose one could learn to forget,
Try to heal a damaged self,
Even beguiling it into knowing respect...

I suppose one could keep waiting on that miracle.

Saki

चार-तीन कुछ छंद पढ़कर, हाय, भटक गया मैं भोला भाला, गंतव्य समर्पित कर चुका हूँ, बन गया हूँ मतवाला। विचलित मन है मेरा अभिशाप, तन और धन का भी बोध नहीं, रीत जगत की भूल चुका हूँ, शरण तू ही है, मेरी मधुशाला।। अलग अलग पथ बतलाये सबने, पर खाली रहा मन का प्याला, भूला-भिसरा मैं थक-हार के, जा पंहुचा अपनी मधुशाला। अवश्य, मदिरा के प्यालों का जी भरकर सेवन किया है मैंने, परन्तु हर बार मेरे प्रश्नों का उत्तर देने से रही कतराती मधुशाला।।

'और पिए जा, और पिए जा', उकसाती रही मन-मोहिनी साकीबाला, तोह फिर उसके मादक कर कमलों द्वारा क्यूँ न मैं चखता हाला? षण भर प्यास शांत हुई जो ज्ञान हुआ परिस्थिति की विषमता का, अब हार मानकर छुपा हुआ हूँ घूंघट में मैं तेरे मधुबाला।। मदिरालय में कब से बैठा हूँ, सखी तोह प्यार जता कर चली गयी, असमंजस है - 'और, और' की रटन लगाऊं या छोड़ चलूँ मैं मधुशाला। स्वयं विवश हूँ, मंत्र-मुग्ध हूँ, अब तोह बस कर इतराना, साकीबाला, वश में तेरे सब लुटा चुका हूँ, रहा न कुछ अब देने वाला।।

दूर खड़ी एक विचित्र मृगतृष्णा सी लगी हमेशा मुझे मधुशाला, 'आ आगे' कहकर हर बार होंठों से हटा लेती वह मेरा प्याला। निराशा के इस घनघोर तम में वोह भूला विश्वास कैसे ढूँढू मैं, और भी हैं पीनेवाले, उनका मनोरंजन करती है अब मेरी मधुबाला।। समझ में आया है अब जाकर कभी नहीं था मैं पीनेवाला, कुछ पल दोष तेरे सर मढ़कर बूझ गया मैं गलती अपनी, साकीबाला। पर हिम्मत रही न कि बढूँ मैं आगे, न साहस है कि फिर जाऊं पीछे, अंतिम जाम है, होंठ से अपने अंकित कर खिसका दे विष का प्याला।।

Ek Harqat

तुम्हारे एक इशारे पर ज़िन्दगी पर लगाम सी लगा थी हमने
ठहर गयी, थम गयी, अफ़सोस ना सूझा, हम भी रुक गए।
मोड़ पर खड़े हुए हम तुमको नए फ़ासले तय करते देखते गए;
दिल को बहलाते रहे कि साथ हमारे भी चलोगे कभी।
(उफ़! क्या नज़ारे थे। आख़िर आरज़ूएं हम में भी बेपनाह थीं।)
फ़िर लोग जो हमसे आगे निकले, उनसे ज़िक्र क्या करते?
आख़िर तुम ग़ैर भी तोह ना थे।

चाहत हमेशा रही कि चाल तुम्हारी भी थमे ज़रा, रुक जाएँ कदम
पर अलफ़ाज़ होंठ पर आते-आते दम तोड़ देते थे।
(और फ़िर तुमने भी इशारे कभी समझे थे कहाँ!)
हालत ऐसी है कि इस ठहरे पानी में सिर्फ़ आंसुओं से लहरें मचलती हैं
ख्वाहिशों के मकान भी सुनसान खंडहर बन कर डूब चुके।
तलाश है एक हरक़त की, शायद तुम पुकारो, कोई आवाज़ दो कहीं से;
आख़िर चलना मज़बूरी हमारी भी है।

Aadhe Adhoore

ये आधे अधूरे सपने, ये आधी अधूरी मुस्कान
एक आधी अधूरी हरक़त, कुछ आधे अधूर अल्फाज़
चले पड़े थे एक पूरी रात के आधे अधूरे सफ़र पर
उस दूसरे किनारे की कुछ आधी अधूरी तलाश में
आये, और चले गए तूफ़ान, कुछ नए और कुछ पुराने
कुछ बिताये, कुछ बीते पल, सब आधे, कुछ अधूरे
पर कुछ बात तोह है उस जिद्दी ख़ुशी में भी क्यूंकि
हम रहे हमेशा आधे ही, उस अधूरी मंज़िल की फ़िराक में।

The Wall

(and a somewhat coherent attempt at explaining the flimsy reasons for its untimely existence.)

I find it rather strange to note that most of the people I know or claim to ‘once’ have known have either spent some time abroad, are planning to, or are staying over there right now. You will realise how spooky (read uneasy) it can get for a person like me if you manage to reach the end of this personal rant. These are the people have had the chance to experience an alien culture and value and belief system that are so fundamentally distinct from ours that they are bound to arouse curiosity even in the most indifferent of people. They have been able to cross over to the other side and find out for themselves what the hoopla is all about. Do you think they have some interesting insights to share with us? Some myths to bust or reaffirm? Grass is always greener on the other side, right? What can we learn from them not by way of imitation but through comprehension and assimilation? Granted, some of these people are pretty much ignorant of the singular nature of their experience and have reduced their good fortune to planning on buying an Audi. (And this is when I am not even trying to sound condescending.) But I am pretty sure even their sub-conscious has registered the obvious and I am willing to bet that that natty bastard is smug in the secret knowledge of it.

We all grew up in a country that has been ‘trying’ to shirk off the burden of its colonial past. But since it has always been in the process of doing so, without quite managing to pull off the feat, I believe this colonial hangover has imbued us with a vague longing for western ideals and culture – those bastions of modern civilisation, forward thinking, secular progress, and (often unsustainable) development. Most people, realising the inherent complications that the fulfilment of this particular desire entails, have come to exact satisfaction not through a pound of flesh but by means of weekly ‘trips’ to the now ubiquitous malls and multiplexes, ordering their pizzas and tacos in English even when the cashier is perfectly well versed in the vernacular, and splurging obscene amounts of money on Levi’s jeans and P.T. shoes that the guys on the other side call sneakers. Others have assimilated into their lives some of the very pertinent (and not so relevant) lessons that such an exposure, vicarious or otherwise, should teach us. They talk of liberty, equality, and brotherhood. Fewer still are the people who have managed to translate this vague yearning into concrete reality. They swear to the fact that their experiences have opened up their minds and helped them grow into more mature individuals. This is all very good since it helps them sleep peacefully at the end of the day. Isn’t that what ultimately counts as important?

Afflicted by a chronic case of indecision and conflict in almost every aspect of my life, I have been, however, unable to determine which way my loyalties lie. For instance, I consume literature and all sorts of media in English, find it difficult to express the most intimate of my thoughts in Hindi, and know more about western demographics than the intricacies of the Hindu caste system. And yet, I look upon malls as ‘modern melas’, treating them with suspicion for being the torchbearers of capitalism, and insist that consumption is evil. On someone’s 25th birthday, I had enunciated the relevance of the various ‘ashrams’ in our lives, as if the well worn Hindu grooves of studentship, marriage, and late-life detachment make perfect sense to me. You are probably going to say that assimilation has always been the hallmark of our civilisation and that I am proceeding along the right track. I shouldn't have any problems as long as I try to analyse everything through the lens of reason (which, I must confess, is definitely a very western construct.) But this is where I must digress.

My dilemma is exacerbated by the realisation that I have had just about enough of every kind of vicarious experience. One is likely to agree, right? I masturbate to videos of strange women I have found on the internet, I claim to love someone who lives 10,000 miles away, and, hell, I am dictating my thoughts to the tantrums of a language that wouldn’t make sense to nearly 90 of the 100 people living in this country. Second hand goods make me feel like I am aping blindly. Is it even possible to comprehend what lasting impression something as complicated as an experience, a place, or a culture can have on you without knowing it first hand? No winder, this, that in the presence of such duplicity, I feel like I have donned the garb of an impostor. And the one thing that I have tried doing consciously all my adult life is to keep myself from being pretentious. Which brings me to what triggered this diatribe.

Every time I come across people I know regaling the converted with tales of places they have been to, people they have met, and insights they have come across as genuine, I feel the walls closing in on me very quickly. There is a strange sense of unease that originates without reason, pretends it has one in the vague longing I talked of earlier, and soon prevents me from listening to anything. It’s spontaneous, untamed, and very effective. I keep hearing; the words go in, and make sense. I even mumble all the right things at the right places. But I fail to relate to them. Things would have been manageable had this status quo been the norm. But the same discomfort assumes the guise of a guardian whose only duty is to protect me from the wiles of these second hand narratives. It whispers into my ears, “You can’t know them and there is no way you can ever be a part of them. You will always be an outsider looking in. Why let yourself be tortured by others because of this unfulfilled craving?” These real or imagined voices compel me to maintain my distance from agents of social evil, like awkward telephonic conversations, ‘trips’ planned by friends, facebook, and practically every other form of social interaction. I sequester myself from all kinds of contact and communication, deeming myself to be safe in the ignorance of my isolation, although I know better.

I concoct this fragile peace and seem to depend on it for my sustenance. It is, I guess, the easier way out, the way of an escapist. I wish I could categorise my feelings as envy or jealousy, but such emotions have a sharp sting instead of this dull ache that has found home in me. An ache that is aware of the price I have to pay for this delicate truce. Conscious of the things one loses in the fire. As another brick in the wall is quietly pushed into place and I feel one of my turns coming on, I wonder whose interests my self-appointed guardian is looking after. I don’t build the wall, no. but I keep myself from tearing it down and that, dear strangers, makes all the difference. When it comes to the tricks our mind plays on us, it is all smoke and mirrors.

[And here's a more roundabout way of saying exactly the same thing.]

Where is my Red Pamphlet?

The opulence of this place is suffocating. It is a world inside a world, barricaded from the filth and the dust outside by men and women who must return to the filth and the dust outside at the end of the day. We are spoilt for choices. There is enough food here to feed a village and yet we sniff at it, scowl, and move on. Make no mistake, I am not a communist weeping over the death of a dream. I enjoy walnut brownies. (I ate one too, although I had trouble managing a fork. It would crumble to pieces before I could bring it to my mouth. A telling sign, perhaps of what my life in this world would be like.) But the excesses lavished on this gathering are a bit too much for my taste. I realise, much to my consternation, that I have seen people die of hunger while I am wondering what "hummus with pita bread" is supposed to be. Life is never without a sense of irony.

People can get used to anything. To having the doors of their cars opened for them. To the company of light music softly floating down ghost jukeboxes hidden from view in the labyrinthine, immaculate washrooms. To mineral water and generous helpings of pineapple for dessert. Getting used to is not the difficult part. (She tells me I must be more open to new experiences. Well, I have never really been able to explain to her my fears. Better safe than sorry, you see) Soon, they begin to expect their asses will be wiped for them. They will turn up their noses, make a face, and sport a grimace every time the stench gets too strong. The excesses and the opulence become a fact of their privileged lives and they are loathe to relinquish this vantage point. Why should they? This life is good. Hell, it has good manners, paper towels, and caesar salad.

That is when I stop empathising. Fuck, that is when I begun to ignore. (For empathy is too loaded a word and whoever knows the heartache of a lover spurned without having suffered herself.) I see but do not notice. I hear but do not listen. So run away. Don't let the comfort of these cynical words turn into an excuse for inaction. For time is running out and there is no place to stand. The voices are closing in and they are murmuring strange, dark, tempting secrets in my ears. They will have my soul and I won't even know it.