गुफ्तगू

नीम  शब्  बेहोश चाँद  और एक ग़मज़दा  दिल 

आज  ज़िन्दगी  को  गुफ्तगू  करने  बुलाया  है ...

Death Of Conscience

I read about the elephant last night and ever since there is an unsettling eerie feeling within me. I am pained, saddened, ashamed and disturbed in equal measures by what the locals in Kerala’s Malappuram did to that poor pregnant elephant who was scrounging for food. Who on earth, in his right mind and with even an iota of conscience could do a vile thing as to feed it pineapple laced with crackers. The crackers burst into her mouth and she died standing in water. The attempts to rescue her went futile probably she was too heartbroken to ever trust humans again. 

This incident is not the only one and not will be the last one but it is another noose that has tightened its grip on our collective humanity and conscience. I am way too depressed even as tears fill my eyes as I write this, I demand harshest punishment for those monsters and a radical change in animal protection laws in India. Sadly, the priorities of Indian government are can make this seem like a very distant dream. We are currently obsessed with changing the name of everything- cities, stadiums, roads, or even the country- from India to Bharat after the great king Bharat, a step closer Hinduism. In the whole drama that plays on the national stage along with many other pointless ones, we have forgotten that it is collective ethics and morals along with a robust justice system that make a country great, and not just assuming the name of a king once called great in some mythology books. Real life needs attention and care and more respect than mythology.

It was a gruesome murder not only of an animal but of humanity too. Human stupidity and cruelty is boundless. It is a shame. Sadly, TV channels, instead of raking up this ghastly issue to shake the people’s conscience, thought it more important to please, we all know whom.

Read@ https://bit.ly/36UyWKC 

भूख (Hunger)

बदला बदला सा है लग रहा वो शक़्स क्यों  

के भूख नहीं जानती तहज़ीब-ो-अदब कोई 

शहर से जा रहा वो छाले लिए पैरों में 

के उसे बुला रहा गांव का टूटा घर कोई 

Last night I saw a very disturbing video of a migrant laborer eating a dead dog on a highway in Rajasthan. He must have been terribly hungry and destitute. This is the story of our laborers who leave their villages for cities to earn bread & butter. Cities have proved them wrong; there is no love for them. Employers have not paid them their dues and government is busy in blame games. The poor migrants are going though a very rough patch. That video shook me somewhere deeply and these poems came out. I applaud people who are helping them. At the end of the day, it is people supporting each other only.

The translation –

Why does that person seem different these days?

For hunger knows not of any manners & etiquettes

He is leaving the city with blisters on his feet

For that tattered hut in his village is calling him

Phantom- A Short Story

“There you are, standing here again!” I screamed at his face with eyes skewed in disgust but he stood there nonchalantly like nothing affected him, like he was a fossil carved in stone- rigid and unalterable.

“You know how I feel. Sometimes these nights make me so miserable that I get drunk on my sadness but you never bother. Even when I ask you just stand there watching my misery with a detachment that makes me feel so helpless,” I screamed at him but no words escaped his pursed lips. A silence spread in the room like fog and the cool breeze outside swaying the branches and making them dance could do nothing to calm me down. I blankly watched my silk curtains rustle like dried leaves. I was burning alone in my room after a long tiring day at office. He always said I loved setting myself on fire and that I would spill the milk just to have something to cry upon. I detested him for that but he would be adamant, coldly silently detachedly adamant.

“Remember how that hag would humiliate me?” I screamed at him.

“I do. She would call you stupid, said you were no good and that any investment on your education was a sheer waste of your father’s money,” he said.

“And when she slapped me twice, overlooked me at the school’s annual function and made me stand outside the class?” I said with a sadness seeping inside me like dampness in a wall.

“Yes, and she jeered at you and even made the class students do so. In that annual function, she pushed her own son onto the stage and got your performance cancelled,” he said.

“See, how much humiliation I had to suffer. I would not brood if there were any fault of mine but there was none. I was just a child of twelve and I needed support and love from my class teacher but no, that witch would hate me with all her heart. Oh, it makes me so depressed,” I muttered with my shoulders dropping down like a huge penalty was imposed upon me. He remained quiet.

“Remember, when at my cousin’s wedding that uncle would touch me lasciviously with innuendos? Ah! Till date I feel a surge of hatred towards him,” I cried cutting the thin veil of silence before it could grow thicker.

“Yes. I remember everything, nothing ever escapes my record. That uncle would stare at you with hungry feral eyes. He even gave you a long unwanted hug,” he said.

“I could have done something different. Couldn’t I?” I asked him, trying to flutter off my tears ready to rush out like a rowdy unchained pet.

“Weren’t you only fifteen? You did what you thought was best by your experience that time. You avoided him like plague and told your father about him. He sensed all that and didn’t come near you. May be you scared the hell out of him,” he said but without a tinge of sympathy in his tone.

“I did but that incident still makes my blood boil. He shouldn’t have done that,” I thumped the table with my fist.

“But he did and it is a fact,” he replied.

“I do not like recalling that wedding at all,” I grieved.

“Then why do you ask me to repeat it?” he asked.

“Because you are here right in front of me with all the indelible records and memories,” I cried. 

“Remember, when my first love left me, how badly I wanted to hang myself? I felt as if it was the end of the world. I never felt so cheap, so disgusted in my life. I loved him truly but he just wanted to have fun,” tears rolled down my cheeks.

“He did play with you, bandied your name around and made acerbic remarks about your looks but you moved on after he ditched you,” He said.

“I could have moved on earlier too but I was being an emotional fool. The bastard took me for a ride,” I lamented.

“You could but you did what a girl in her early twenties could have done at that point. You showed grace and accepted that he didn’t desire you. A quiet break up had followed,” he said

“Whenever I recall time spent with him I feel like I should have taken a befitting revenge. He dumped me like I was a mere piece of junk. I still want him to suffer; I know him, he must be dating another girl and I wish she does what he did to me” I let a curse out under my breath.

“You always ask me about him and I always repeat how he ditched you in love and that you were just a step away from an emotional breakdown,” He said.

“So what if you have to repeat? Let me figure out how I could have taught him a lesson,” I snapped back.

“But what is the logic? Even if you do figure out, you don’t know where the hell he is now and with whom. You find a pleasure in revisiting your green wound that you do not wish to stitch and I bear the blame of the pain you inflict upon yourself,” he said.

“Oh, come on,” I rolled my eyes and lay down on my cozy bed. I was alone with him for I liked to summon him in privacy, usually late post suppers so that no one could disturb our conversations.

“Let me be honest, I feel like leaving you forever. Understand that I need to rest in my depth and your life is full of beautiful days that are yet to come. However, I am tied to you and cannot escape. I have to come whenever you summon me,” he said with a mild irritation.

“Why are you so annoyed?” I was curious.

“Because I am simply fed up of repeating the same incidences over and over like a deranged parrot. These are painted upon the canvas of your life and will never change. If you find them ugly, change your angle of looking at your canvas. Only you can do that,” he said.

“But I have much blank canvas left,” I argued.

“Then why do you keep brooding about the small patch you find a bit off color. Haven’t I told you, it can never be repainted or modified in any way? You did your best but now after years you find a million new faults,” he said. For some moments, we sat in an intense silence pregnant with bitterness.

“My first boss stole my ideas. Remember?” I asked with a heavy heart like I was chanting a requiem.

“He did. Later he presented them by his name and won a promotion, kicking you out of his way,” he said.

“I could have told the management,” I stated firmly.

“But you didn’t. You chose the most feasible option; you could not afford to cross him at that precarious time,” he said.

“I mean things could have been much different. What do you feel?”

“I feel like banging my head against a wall. Sadly, I have no head to bang in the first place. What am I after all? I am just a spirit, a phantom of your past. I hold all the secrets in my bosom, like young lovers in theirs. All the past is stacked within me and I lie as dormant and still as skeletons inside graves till you beckon me and I appear with all that which has been there but now it isn’t, and will never be. You explore me every night to find something new; you feel the same pain, go through the same agony many times for pain is the drug you have got addicted to. You indeed are drunk on it. Your blessings outnumber your hurts yet you ask me to retell all those incidences every night and then rue yourself to sleep,” he said stoically.

“Just shut up!” I yelled. You make my life pathetic. I cry every time I recall all that which I never wanted; all that which could have been so different. All this past of mine is like that aftertaste of a vomit- disgusting but hard to define. I could have handled things differently. If only I were a bit wise, if only I were a little cunning, if only I were more outspoken. Oh! Phantom of my past, tell me why do you come and make my life so wretched?” I wailed but he stood unperturbedly.

“Tell me, who summons me every night?” he asked looking at me in the eye.

I found myself grappling for an answer.

***

Book Review- Crime and Punishment

Title               Crime and Punishment

Author           Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Translator     Constance Garnett

Pages              584

ISBN              978-93-8653-805-5

MRP              Rs 250

Publisher       F!ngerprint!  Classics

Rating            4/5 Stars

Exactly a month back when I started reading this intense psychological thriller by the famous Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) little did I know that this work will recast my notions about crime as well as punishment. As the name suggests, the novel revolves around the very concept of crime and the consequent punishment imparted for it. Without superfluous tracks in typical Dostoyevskian style, it questions a very basic thing- if one kills an epitome of the evil, a vile vermin to save hundreds of innocents, how can it be called a crime and who can decide the befitting punishment for the same?

The protagonist Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov is a tall and handsome 23 year old former university student who lives in a suffocating cupboard-like rented room in St. Petersberg, Russia. He publishes an article describing his theory on crime along with a hypothesis relating crime and a high fever. Months later, he shockingly finds himself compelled to brutally murder an old pawnbroker who he considers to be a den of iniquity and a venomous insect. Despite poverty, fever and dilemmas, he comes out unscathed and manages to duck everyone. From police to his intellectual best friend, Razhumihin and from his shrewd landlady to his over-analytical doctor, everyone believes him to be innocent. However, it is his own conscience that he relentlessly grapples with. One day at a cheap tavern, his path entwines with that of a bankrupt alcoholic clerk Marmeladov and later with his dignified but consumptive second wife Katrina Ivanovna (she has three children from a previous defunct marriage) and his religious and timid twenty year old daughter Sonia from his late first wife. When Sonia destroys herself in providing for her starving step-siblings, he bows at her feet, much to the shock of everyone.

The novel also has other important characters like Svidrigailov, a 50 year old pedophile all set to marry a 15 year old, Luzhin, a devious narcissist and Dounia, the erudite and charming older sister of the protagonist, fighting her own demons. Raskiolnikov, till the end stays clear and unsuspected yet it is his inner voice that constantly bothers him and he ends up taking odd decisions in order to run away from his own crumbling self. His way of perceiving things is complex yet he manages to convince the reader into agreeing with him. Twists and turns keep the reader on the edge and the ending gives a nice closure to this powerful work. This novel also throws much light on the then Russian society and culture.

Not just another run-of-the-mill fiction, ‘Crime and Punishment’ requires contemplation on the reader’s part. It takes one inside the frenzied but brilliant mind of Raskolnikov and argues upon the fundamentals such as of crime, what defines it, who can be called a criminal, what the meaning of punishment is, who actually deserves how much of it in any society, in an era and who deserves to rule the masses. This book breaks old moulds of notions and makes one reflect, that too profoundly. It undoubtedly is a timeless classic.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

PS-

*I found this translation to be a bit confusing and messed up at many places hence it is better to get another one from the many available ones.

*The scene of Katrina Ivanovna’s depressing death later in the story, literally shook me up and made me cry.

Scar

Wound

With one callous gaze she cut him deep

As tide cuts the shore in a single sweep

No, he did not lament nor weep

Just muttered with a dismal breath 

“This wound will bleed me to death”

From 'You Must Be Around- 80 Poems on Love, Life and Longing' (2016)

Tell me

Tell me what pinched you more

That I refused to be sorry

Or did so with a nerve?

Somewhere Deep...

Somewhere deep within my bones 

Your last goodbye still echoes...

Haiku Horizons- Coin

This is for Haiku Horizons and this week's prompt is 'Coin'

5-7-5

मेरा ग़म तो सिर्फ मेरा है...

 एक रोज़, ग़मज़दा चाँद ने एक टिमटिमाते तारे से पूछा -

यूं अंदर ही अंदर मरते भी क्यों ख़ुशी जताते हो?

तो तारा बोला- ये राज़ तो सिर्फ मुझे पता है

उन्हें नहीं जो रोज़ मुझसे उम्मीद लेते हैं;

जो रोज़ किसी अपने को मुझ में देख कर जीते हैं

मेरा ग़म तो सिर्फ मेरा है...

Translation-

One night, a sullen moon asked a twinkling star

"Even when you are gradually dying from within,

Why do you keep this facade of cheerfulness?"

The star replied- "This is a secret no one knows

I shine for those who take hope from me every night

And for those who see their late beloveds in me every night

This pain is mine and mine alone."

Haiku Horizons- Taste

This is for Haiku Horizons and this week's prompt is 'Taste'

Love, from my eyes flows

This bitter silence of yours

I taste soreness 

5-7-5 pattern

The blurred line...

Love, poems lie curled up

Within my heart, reluctant

They don’t claw to come out

And, the words breathe curses

Before fading away as echoes

Coming from a far away past

That lies on the other side of

The blurred line that splits

 Dreams and reality...

Shadows...

What are these shadows,

That as if, burn me with

Gazes as cold and grey

As graveyards at midnight

That, in all their eerie quiet

Accuse me with chapped lips

And make the time stare

As an indifferent passerby

While I try to slay demons

I once left long ago behind

What are these shadows that pass me by,

Every time I close my eyes...

Words Linger All Around...

Love, my words linger all around

From dim crevices of my mind,

To green wounds of my heart

As I struggle to arrange them

Into some sort of a poem

Clear and meaningful enough

To make you understand

How vague and meaningless

 Life has become…

Thy Depth

The One

Like The Sun

Letter

“That's one more for you, Colonel; 

If only I knew your address up there...”

Sighed a war widow, kissing a letter.

For Magpie Tales 

Mag 308

ज़ख्म

क्यों छुपाएं हम कुछ रिस्ते ज़ख्म
क्या महताब का एक रुख स्याह नहीं होता

Why should I be ashamed of my pain?

Even the moon has a dark side

क्यों न मानें के वो भी मुन्तज़र हैं हमारे
दिल बहलाने पे कोई इलज़ाम नहीं होता

Why shouldn’t I make myself believe that he too longs for me

For one can’t be blamed for beguiling one’s heart

जब चाहा छूना आस्मां का दामन,
जाना हर परवाज़ शानदार नहीं होता

When I tried to soar and touch the skies

I learnt not every flight is destined to be grand

किस चाह मेँ कटती ज़िन्दगी हमारी
अगर सितारों के परे कोई जहाँ नहीं होता

I would have spent my life in vain

Had I not known there is an afterlife

(Because of pain, she is looking forward to afterlife)

Source: hdwallpapers