Revive

I penned this poem years ago. Revival is not only inevitable but it is necessary as well. Everything stagnant rots. Shedding off emotional baggage is an important step of this process.

गुफ्तगू

नीम  शब्  बेहोश चाँद  और एक ग़मज़दा  दिल 

आज  ज़िन्दगी  को  गुफ्तगू  करने  बुलाया  है ...

Lockdown

अपनी छोटी सी मुट्ठी में एक टुकड़ा धूप पकड़ती 

अपनी ललचायी आंखों से अपनी भाइयों को निहारती 

उस गेंद को उनसे ऊपर उछालना चाह्ती हुई बच्ची

वो मैं ही तो थी 

अपनी थकी हुई माँ के साथ चूल्हे के पास सिकती 

शाम होते ही खेल छोड़ घर भागती वापस आती  

अपनी दादी के साथ मंदिर सत्संग में बैठी हुई 

वो मैं ही तो थी 

स्कूल में सहेलियों के साथ पीछे की बेंच पर, धीमे हंसती 

घर का फ़ोन नंबर मांगने वालों को शिकायत का डर देती 

बूढ़े टेलर से अपनी स्कर्ट को बार बार और नीचे सिलवाती हुई 

वो मैं ही तो थी 

एक ही रास्ते से चुन्नी लपेटे चुपचाप कॉलेज आती जाती

बनारसी साडी में शर्माते हुए चाय समोसे की ट्रे लाती 

एक अजनबी से ख़ुशी से सात जनम जुड़ती हुई 

वो मैं ही तो थी 

अपने बेटे में अपने अधूरे सपने छुपाने वाली 

अपनी बेटी के लिए चुन चुन दहेज़ जोड़ने वाली 

खुद को भूल सबकी पसंद को पूरा करती हुई 

वो मैं ही तो थी 

वो खिड़की, वो मंदिर, वो पीछे की बेंच 

वो सीधा रास्ता, वो टेलर, वो रसोई

मैंने तो हर तरह के 'lockdown' देखे हैं

तुम्हारे लिए ये सिर्फ एक नया शब्द है

जिसने तुम्हे परेशान कर दिया है 

पर मैंने जाने कितनी सदियों जिसे हर रोज़ जिया है 

Philosophy Series Sketch No. 05: Arthur Schopenhauer

This work is done in HB and pencil on A5 paper.

This is the final sketch of my Philosophy Series. He is my favorite philosopher and one of the very few western thinkers who understood and weaved Eastern philosophy into his works. He was an exponent of Vedas and Upanishads. Also, I think his aphorisms are really good. He was a pure vegetarian and an animal lover. The name of pet poodle was ‘Atma’ a Sanskrit word for ‘Soul’.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 –1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation, wherein he characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind and insatiable metaphysical will. Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant, Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism.

His work has been described as an exemplary manifestation of philosophical pessimism. Though his work failed to garner substantial attention during his lifetime, Schopenhauer has had a posthumous impact across various disciplines, including philosophy, literature, and science. His writing on aesthetics, morality, and psychology have influenced many thinkers and artists. Schopenhauer saw his philosophy as a continuation of that of Kant, and used the results of his epistemological investigations, that is, transcendental idealism, as starting point for his own. As a consequence of his monistic philosophy, Schopenhauer was very concerned about the welfare of animals. For him, all individual animals, including humans, are essentially the same, being phenomenal manifestations of the one underlying Will. The word "will" designated, for him, force, power, impulse, energy, and desire; it is the closest word we have that can signify both the real essence of all external things and also our own direct, inner experience. For this reason, he claimed that a good person would have sympathy for animals, who are our fellow sufferers.

Schopenhauer died peacefully on September 21, 1860, in his apartment in Frankfurt at Schöne Aussicht 16. He was 72.

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

Caravan

I keep your warmth tangled in my tresses

Like the wispy clouds entangle the moon

Trapping its silvery halo in dewy softness,

Like a seed within some fleshy ripe fruit

I carry your gaze in my wide open eyes

In them it quietly floats instead of sleep

Like mist over two far-off mountain tops

Like long dead stars on a placid lake

I keep your smell filled in my breath

Laden with old woods, untamed seas

Moss covered rocks on soaked earth

Like a mouthful of winter breeze

I keep your touch locked in my fist

In my palms that I stare night & day

Guessing which line may lead to you

Like a traveler trailing his caravan

That he knows well too, has long gone…

Philosophy Series Sketch No. 04 : Baruch Spinoza

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Sephardi origin. One of the early thinkers of the Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism including modern conceptions of the self and the universe. He came to be considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy. He was born a Jew but at 23, was expelled from his community and shunned by his family for his philosophy and revolutionary ideas. He was a trained lens maker and polisher and earned his income from this craft.Spinoza's magnum opus, 'The Ethics' was published posthumously in the year of his death. The work opposed Descartes' philosophy of mind–body dualism, and earned Spinoza recognition as one of Western philosophy's most important thinkers. Spinoza argues that the way to 'blessedness' or 'salvation' for each person involves an expansion of the mind towards an intuitive understanding of God, of the whole of nature and its laws. In other words, philosophy for Spinoza is like a spiritual practice, whose goal is happiness and liberation.

RIP Irrfan Khan

An artist never dies. He just moves to a different world🙏
Rest in peace the versatile and inimitable Irrfan Khan. You are in a better place now. You will always be alive through your work in cinema🌼

Self-Portrait