The Angel...

The angel....

It feels like getting everything when you see your daughter opening her eyes for the first time. I felt the same, when I realized that an angel had suddenly entered my life – my daughter. I suddenly came to know what it feels like to be a father when I took her in my arms. Her lips slowly stretched to smile, and her elfin feet started kicking the air. When her petite hand struck against my cheek, I realized I’ve got nothing more to ask from God for myself. I went through thousands of dreams flashing off from her wide opened eyes. Within a few moments I had made countless number of commitments to myself and innumerable promises to her.

All my commitments slowly started giving shape to my dreams. My daughter studied in the best school of the city for her primary education. I tried to fulfil all her wishes before she could ask me, because one of my promises was to give her the best I could.

When she stepped in the age to choose her career, she chose her future as a doctor. And again as I’d promised, she was in the best medical college of the city and the state. All my exhaustion could kneel down before me, all I needed was to see a smile on her face whenever I returned back home. I never needed to put any exclamation mark to her demands or question mark to her steps.

The hands of the clock of my life are now at a position where I can see half of its mission fulfilled. My daughter has become a doctor today. The wetness in my eyes quickly makes me realise the immense pride that a father feels when his daughter establishes an identity of her own, and achieves something in her own right.

Today she told me about the love of her life. I can easily deem the seeds of the new dreams born in her, as a sign of the inexplicable expression on her face. And again it is the time to adhere to my commitments and serve the seed of this new dream.

Today where I am standing is the marriage of my daughter. The more I pray for time to dawdle, the faster it goes. And now my daughter is standing right in front of me, to say a good-bye. How can I afford to see a drop of pain stroll down her cheek? How can I cry in front of her? No, this is the time to wear a mask. I don’t allow my eyes to get wet until she is out of my sight. And there she is, finally walking away from me. Nothing else but a stream of tears starts its endless journey. All my compromises with life now seem to be worthless and life itself seems hopeless. What do I have in the end? The angel of my life, my daughter, has left me. Was she destined to?

The sands of time kept running remorselessly, and now, here I am: sick and desperately needing someone to get me a glass of water. But what I receive is a text message from my daughter:

“Dad I am sending you the cheque for this month. Really sorry couldn’t visit you this time. Have to go for an urgent medical tour. Take care. Miss you :(.”

Only those smileys can help me drag my life by a few more breaths, and wait for her to come. ‘If the angel could reappear in my life...’ is my only dream now that keeps me alive.

Sochta hu...

एक आम आदमी, जो ज़िन्दगी और दुनिया से जुड़े हर पहलू के बारे में सोचता है, समाज को हर तरह से साफ़ करना चाहता है, सिर्फ प्यार से रहना और प्यार ही बाटना चाहता है. मगर सिर्फ सोचता ही रह जाता है. ये कविता शुरू से अंत तक सीरत एक आम आदमी की सोच बताती है.

जो चलती है ठंडी हवा सोचता हु,

जो होता हु खुद से खफा सोचता हु.

की ढल जाती है रात बस सोचने में

मगर फिर से अगली सुबह सोचता हु.

मै लिखता हु हर दिन फसाने नए से,

और हर रोज़ कविता नयी सोचता हु.

है शब्दों की दुनिया मगर उस फलक पे.

मै गिर क ज़मीन पे यही सोचता हु.

क्यूँ रिश्वत की दलदल से तन यु सना है

कभी देख अपना मकान सोचता हु.

हिला दू जो बुनियाद अपने ही घर की,

तो जाऊंगा फिर मै कहाँ सोचता हु.

दरारें हैं इन्सान के बीच की जो

क्या मज़हब उन्हें नाम दू सोचता हु.

मगर खून का रंग तो एक ही है,

तो हम सब में क्या है फरक सोचता हु.

मै करता हू पूजा झुकाता हू सर को,

हू इन्सान मै गर्व से सोचता हू 

मगर देखता हू जो ईमान को बिकते,

कहाँ खोयी इंसानियत सोचता हू.

क्यूँ मरते हैं लोग और जलते हैं घर भी,

मिटा दू मै ये सरहदें सोचता हू

मगर दर सा जाता हू अगले ही पल जब

'अकेला करूँगा भी क्या' सोचता हू.

क्यूँ दुनिया से अब प्यार खो सा गया है,

बदल दू मै सारी दुनिया सोचता हू.

जो हर पल में मुझको है इतना बदलती,

क्या बदलेगी वो दुनिया सोचता हू.

मै ये सोचता हू मै वो सोचता हू.

मै हर मोड़ पर कुछ भला सोचता हू

मगर रात ढल जाती है उस सोच में ही,

और मै फिर से अगली सुबह सोचता हू.

Disunity in Unity...

"No problem is such that it has no solution!"

Who the hell says this? The solution to every problem itself becomes, or creates a new problem. No problem has a true solution. There is only a compromise. I can make you know many of them. Right now let me tell you the most common ones.

To start with, let me talk about population control. What solution can you come up with? Lets say single child policy. And yearly tax to be paid if no. of children born to a couple exceeds 1. All the illiterate and poor people, who contribute to 33 percent of the total population of India, will revolt back. All the non-ruling political parties will stand in favor of those illiterates and those poor, opposing the ruling political party, because all they are concerned with is number of seats, or votes. That is, in fact, what they get from these people : votes. And they make it very easily, because we, the so called sophisticated and literate people are concerned with ourselves only. We don't like, better don't want to get into trouble, and so we stay away from all this drama (that is what we call all these issues). The ultimate fate is increment in the no. of seats of the new party (coz we, the literate ones, are too busy to vote) and again a sort of compromise with the present situation which in no way helps in alleviating the problem.

Now one of you say you have a solution and you post it here in my blog. But does that really solve the problem? Because like me - like every common man - you know that the corruption level in the country is almost incalculable. So you believe that there is no 'one man army'.

So here any solution is bound to become a problem itself.

Now take the second one. We don't need to go too far. Look at ourselves. The present committee for the coming fest of our college took almost two complete days and nights just to decide how many second yearites they have to keep in the committee. And unbelievably the no. of students is around 160. The north Indians want at least 45 of their juniors, the localites say that they want at least 30 of theirs, likewise south Indians want their juniors. But still while discussing this goddamn thing with my friends, they advise me to enjoy my self and forget these existing problems. They say that I really can't do anything, and that I should just lie back and enjoy the remaining two years of my college life. Since I am not going to be in this college two years from now, I'd rather enjoy my 'today'. What solution can you come up with? Scrape out this regionalism????? Do you think that all of us are ready to do that? More than half of us are not. They support this cheap system, forgetting that the full form of their college NIT is 'National' Institute of Technology. If we feel no shame in dividing Indians to Rajasthanis, Gujaratis, Biharis, etc. in our college, how can we expect India to be united? The greatest feature of our Incredible India is not Unity in diversity, but disunity in that unity, coz I've seen with my eyes, the height of rivalry, the inexplicable and pointless jealousy between "Entru-Meet" and "Autofest". We are united as long as we are not doing anything creative. We are united on the pitch of 'Manoj Memorial cricket tournament' to support our hostel team. We are united when we cheer a band performing on the stage of Rattle and Hum. But when it comes to the vote for the HS of a hostel? Are we united when asked to choose the deserving junior for any post? No. Then all our unity disintegrates into the petty regionalism that is in our blood. This is called the concept of 'Disunity in unity".

Therefore, I challenge you to come up with a solution for at least the problem that is close to us - the problem of regionalism in the college. If you do come up with a solution, then you will have refuted my premise of no problem having a true solution.

Abyss

Here I am... 2000 feet above the earth on a cliff. A cliff from where I may end up, losing everything. A cliff which possibly could become my final destination. The cordial climate here is making me remember my friends whose presence in my life made everything possible, everything easy. Who slowly became an eternal part of my life. But they never made me realize that the road I was walking on, would lead me where I am now. The gentle touch of this cold and yet strangely comforting wind makes me remember the pleasure of your touch, the touch that I once believed would caress me forever. But you were determined and destined not to be with me anymore. The vague sound of the night is making me remember my passion - my music, my guitar, which has always been my best friend since I was born. But this beautiful relation with the most beautiful thing in the world was again destined to break someday, and so it did. The half visible moon on the sky is making me remember the night I made my decision to choose engineering as my career. Later I became sick of imagining machines and their parts. I became frustrated of the new books every semester I was supposed to mug up. I was discouraged by the 40 exams I was supposed to give in every four months. And In the end I was disheartened on leaving college without any job. So here I am... Finally knowing what is my next step, which would take me down, back to the earth within a few blinks of my eyes. And before raising my foot off the rock, I remember my mom and dad, who have always loved in spite of all my mistakes, whose sole aim was to see me as a successful human being. But I shattered their dream. Mom, I know it would be very hard for you to accept this, but I can't take the burden of this motiveless life anymore, and can't become a burden on you as well. And finally before I fly in air, I want to wait for someone's voice, 'Please come back for me.' But here I am... moving freely under gravity. No signal to stop me, no border to confine my movements, swinging to the force of the winds, here I am, saying my last good-bye....

A letter to be read someday...

Someday,
When I'll be no more with you,
and you'll be in pain,
You'll miss an sms appearing on you mobile screen,
"You're not well! What happened?"
When you'll be on your bed
Ready to enter the world of dreams,
you'll miss hearing a good night with a musical yawn,
you used to laugh at.

And someday,
When you'll see me incinerated,
only my ashes will receive a few drop of you tears.
Then someday,
When you'll find me observing you from the sky,
you'll know that my feelings were incorruptible and my love was incalculable.
Then someday,
when you'll see my dreams shattered before your eyes,
and my hopes and wishes shackled by your obstinacy,
you'll miss two jobless arms to be clinched by and weep.

But someday,
when you'll wake up,
you'll fear if this dream could be a reality.
Then you'll give me a call and say,
"I am sorry yar, please come back!"
I'll wait for this day.
Because if it didn't come,
then someday,
when I'll be no more with you,
and you'll be reading this letter,
you'll only regret that life wouldn't have been so caustic,
if only you'd have known me before reading this.

-Yours
Laalu

Seems like it was yesterday when I and Ravi were standing in a line and waiting for our no. to be called out. It was the day of room allocation in our new hostel for second year. And like day before yesterday, when I was weeping in my room, and some of my friends, Anup, Saransh, Saurabh,etc. came to console me, as that was the first day in college and I was missing home. And like a few moments ago when we were busy with the preparations for our end semester exams. And a moment ago, when I, Anupam, and Somak were celebrating the end of exams in SNS (mind you, the celebration was only for the joy of the exams getting over, doesn't matter how they went).
A long journey of two years ended almost with a few blink of eyes. I am still quizzing myself, 'Really? Am I 50 percent engineer now???' Right now my feelings are a bit of thrill and a bit of fear. Thrill because half of my engineering is completed. And fear, because half of the golden period of my life is completed. In all the bitter experiences I had in my life till now, the best one was my training, though I withdrew with it in 10 days, but it made me know that life after this college sucks. There was a newly employed engineer in the company, from NIT Warangal, who, from nowhere seemed to be a college guy. Busy with a computer system with the preparations for the weekly presentations, having no time even to smile. Whether MBA or B.Tech, the fate of all of us is going to be the same. Like a great poet has said:

कुछ लम्हे किस्मत फिर कभी नहीं दोहराती है,
कुछ चेहरों की बस एक तस्वीर साथ रह जाती है,
कुछ हंसी, कुछ आवाजें, कुछ मुस्कुराहतें,
बस याद बन कर ज़हन में पल जाती हैं.

वक़्त गुज़रता है और उन तस्वीरों पे धुल सी लग जाती है,
उन लम्हों की जुस्तजू भीड़ में कहीं खो जाती है,
वो चेहरे वो आवाजें, धुन्द्ली पड़ जाती हैं,
फिर एक रात के साथ सारी यादें ढल जाती हैं.

फिर नयी सुबह क साथ ज़िन्दगी नयी रफ़्तार पकडती है...
फिर भीड़ में चलती है धुप से लडती है.
पर बीती घड़ियाँ किसी कोने में आज भी चुभती हैं,
और कुछ हसरतें दिल के दामन में ही जल जाती हैं...

Oh yes, your guess is absolutely correct. The great poet is Saurabh Lalwani... But anyways true...... And we all have to manage at that time anyway. So let's live the two remaining two years of our college life to the full....