Battle does persist?

 

Pic Credit: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2202574/Missionary-photos-early-1900s-life-China-years-imperial-rule.html
Serene: A boat sails down a river in the Jiangsu province of China in 1946. The placid scene belies the rebellion, occupation, civil war and natural disasters of the previous half-century

Though have passed by, these moments of the distant past
Linger at times, entwined on the streets of my heart.
Neither do I lament over the loss; nor do I regret.
Yet they creep in, reminding me the impossible retreat!

Maybe some battles can neither be won, nor forever lost.
Emotive and shattered would I used to be haunted by thought.
Am I victorious? Indifferent, least bothered now to resist.
Or are the visits still on; deep within the battle does persist?

हमारे चाँद पे, दाग़ है खून के*

हमारे चाँद पे, दाग़ है खून के
ये फ़साने नहीं, किस्से है ज़िन्दगी के.....

तब तो साथ थे आँगन हमारे,
हम जीते थे एक दूसरे के सहारे ।
छूट गए वो किनारे, खींच ली लकीरें,
अब रोज़ तडपाते है मौत के इशारे ।

हमारे चाँद पे खून के दाग़ है,
सुन सको तो माँ की लोरी में चीक है ।
मत पूछो हमसे कब से ये दाग़ है?
डरते है हम, कही दिलों में अब भी आग है...

*The title of the poem and the thoughts in it are inspired from Rahul Pandita's brilliant book "Our Moon has blood clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits"

What do I say, what I see in their eyes??

Learning experience: Children of the community 

What do I say, what I see in their eyes??
Isn't it in them, that the essence of life lies?
There is a lot to it than mere words can capture.
Pure hearts, pure souls and like pure rapture -
Flow they through life's tough terrains to conquer
The spirit of survival and savor its splendor!

Sometimes...

Picture Credit: http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1239/5120822354_cea72a07d4_z.jpg

Sometimes, I savour the serenity of solitude. 

Sometimes, I lament the lackluster loneliness. 

Sometimes, I cry in the dark - all alone, engulfed by fear.

Sometimes, I find solace only deep within the darkness. 

Sometimes, I feel I was terribly betrayed 
                             - my love never reciprocated.

Sometimes, I understand I was the one 
                             who betrayed many innocent hearts.

Sometimes, I think I have been wronged 
                            - the world has been very unkind.

Sometimes I realise I am over sympathetic 
                             to myself and harsh to mankind.

Sometimes, I break promises I made to 
                            my most loved ones and to myself.

Sometimes, I keep promises to them, 
                           whom I once considered insignificant.

Sometimes, I dance to the melody of a 
                           non existent rhythm in the noise.

Sometimes, I complain of a pseudo noise 
                           in a flawless random rendition.

Sometimes, I push myself in to that which,
                I have over the years avoided to venture into. 

Sometimes, I toil to pull myself out of that into which, 
                I once very enthusiastically plunged. 

Sometimes, I pursue that which,
                  for years I have consciously avoided. 

Sometimes, despite having arrived at the destination 
                 I passionately pursued for long, 
                I choose to walk into the wilderness of uncertainty.

Sometimes, I wonder if it is all a dream. 

Sometimes, I am reminded it is all a life.

Love: Selfish or Selfless?

The angel and devil were contemplating on the nature of love -
"Being in love is selfless," said the angel.
"Being in love is selfish," retorted the devil.
"When you love someone, you live your entire life for those loved ones and not for your own self. You give up on your individual identity."
"All during your life, you love to satisfy your own need of being loved. Striving simply to satisfy a selfish psychic drive."
"When you love, you take up the responsibilities of those you love."
"As you love, you limit your responsibilities to only those you love."
"You have never experienced true love, that's why you know not what it is."
"As if you have experienced, true love is only a perspective, never in existence."
"Come, fall in love, discover how the self looses itself in the universe as does the drop in the ocean."
"Come, fall out of love, discover how the self was blinded by its assumptions of the horizons of the universe."

Stay forever?

Before her smile, turned into laughter
She was compelled to shed a tear.
Will her innocence stay the same ever?
 
Then a smile, now in pain - a cry.
Again shall she surely jump in joy,
'Cause that is how fast time does fly.

The queue

"Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,
and farewells him with hooting,
only to welcome another with trumpeting again."
                                                                           - Khalil Gibran

          The afternoons were usually bright and sunny in this part of the city. But it was different on that fateful day decades ago when I last saw the sky. As if the sharp sun rays had signed a pact not to pierce the dark clouds, the afternoon was gloomy. I entered the office enthusiastically and joined the queue of my fellow citizens. Each had his own reason to stand in the queue - land registration, rehabilitation, pension, documentation, certification. The rich and the poor, irrespective of their social standing in this modern day of civilized existence, I thought, had come to claim what was depicted their right from the finest institutionalized structure - the state.

       I stood wondering whether to rejoice being part of the greatest revolution in the evolution of political structures - the democratic revolution or simply accept that this too is a farce and our dreams of an egalitarian existence was still a dream far away. I hoped the corridors of power would reinvent themselves into cradles of responsibility. At least, that was the common dream the proponents of democracy had wished for when they placed their faith in the 'will of the people'. But on display was the most traditional abuse of power - 'to make one wait unreasonably' for what rightfully belongs to him!
       The queue stood almost static, as if a long snake lying nearly dead, only the tail restless. We at the end of the queue were told the clerk had been for lunch. And it seemed as if he took ages to have his lunch. After each hour, I asked the fellow who stood before me if the clerk had returned. He asked the one before him and the question travelled a long distance to and fro, before we got our answer in the negative.
     The quintessential clerk - he was the citizen's first point of contact with the state. To us, at the rock bottom of the social pyramid, he was the door out of misery, which never opened! Yet deep in our heart, the window of hope never closed, because we were told we lived in a democracy, which was supposedly destined to empower.
     As life came to a stand still in the queue and my eyes wandered around, I felt all that everyone and everything did there was to wait. Though the minute hand of the clock, as usual took sixty seconds to move, it felt as if the wait of sixty seconds was a wait till eternity. The desks too waited, maybe for years now, to be dusted. The files on the desk would have died long ago, but they were alive as once in a while they would be moved from one table to another. Many cabinets and cupboards waited, waited to be opened so that they could get a fresh lease of air. Maybe every thing in the office waited to get rusted and be replaced. Not much had changed, though the world outside had changed beyond recognition, it was still the same Kafkaesque world inside.
    My wait extended from days to weeks and as we waited, weeks turned to months. Though the hierarchy of unresponsive power could make us all wait, time never heeded to any power however mighty. Accustomed to make their own brethren wait, had the insiders too waited instead of reforming the system with changing times? Had time simply overtaken them all and they still stayed frozen in the past, asking us to wait till the past overtakes the present!?
     Now, the act of waiting no more seemed to be a pain, for our existence itself was a pain and a life accustomed to pain could find neither justice nor solace complaining of pain. Months had rolled into years and years into decades. The queue, I had failed to notice, changed with time. Many left the queue, few joined it. I too was told that the queue need not be the only way. There were alternate ways, each had its price. But I argued we had paid all price to bring in the revolution of democracy and the only justice was in adhering to the will of the people. In reply the watchman who monitored order in the queue told me - "Only two kinds of people adhere to the rules and join the queue - one, those stubborn foolish idealists like you, who believe in the rules and two, those who cannot afford anything else, but the queue."
       After decades of wait, I finally got to the clerk. He looked at my request and said I had applied in the wrong form. But I retorted that it was the right form, the only form of request available back at the end of the queue. The clerk, his characteristic unyielding self, informed that the forms were changed by the government when I waited in the queue and the form I submitted was no longer valid. I felt betrayed - betrayed by my own brethren, stabbed straight in my chest. The thought of getting the right form and waiting in the queue all over again terrified me. But these long years of wait had reduced me to a position where I could not afford anything else, but the queue alone.
       Frustrated at my plight, as I walked back, I wondered aloud "What is my fault? Why am I tortured to get what rightfully belongs to me? What is wrong here?"
        The watchman heard me and said - "I can answer your last question and all other questions have their answers in it."
     "Go on," I begged, " What is wrong in here?"
     With an ironic smile, he replied back with conviction - "the will of the people!"