Once upon a time when i became a shayar...

Hi, some are inspired by love, others are broken by separation and the remaining few become shayar in their bid to defeat boredom...I don't know what encouraged me...Love cannot be the reason because the biggest reason to fall in love is still anonymous and as there is nobody for whom I can write romantic sher(s) therefore the question of separation has no meaning at all. The third reason is probably the best which can justify my rendezvous with shero shayri...So, in the absence of any other meaningful subject, today I'm posting my few sher(s)...Forgive me if I'm humiliating ur intellect...

Warning:- Any induction towards unintentional slumber might occur while reading these items. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

(ugguh ugguh)[Throat clearing activated]-Haan to arz kiya hai---

1.) "Tanha Tanha, Lamha Lamha, Arsa Arsa sa lagta hai,
Jab saari Saari, raina koi, Tarsa Tarsa sa jagta hai..." (bolo waah waah)

2.) "Unhi kahin kisi khwaab mein kabhi kabhi milna ho jaaya karta tha,
"Fir kuch aisi saazish ki is zamaane ne, ki din dhalta hi nahi hai ab...."

3.) "Kuch is adaa se dekha aasmaan ne samandar ki aankhon mein,
Ki samandar ko aasmaan se mohabbat hi ho gayi,
Aur mohabbat bhi is kadar huyee,
Ki samandar ki aasmaan si rangat hi ho gayi..."


Now a poem-- "Rukhsat"

Note: The protagonist of the following poem is 'individual freedom' especially that of women--

"Raaste poochne se kya hoga,
Jab manzil ka hi pata nahi.

Din dhal jaane ka kya faayda,
Jab khwaabon ke liye koi jagah nahi.

Subah ka intezaar main kyun karun,
Jab andheron se koi gila nahi.

In aaeenon ka main kya karun,
Apna chehra to kahin mila nahi,

Ibaadat hi ab main kyun karun,
Jab zannat sa kuch bacha nahi.

Thamti hain saansein to tham jaane do,
Yahaan to zindagi ko zindagi ki hi parwaah nahi."





Actually, there are few more but i believe that one must always avoid an overdose of love and poetry. The former is injurious to the heart and the latter is not good for head!! Till, I start writing something sensible, I'll continue with my cruel attempts to deprive you of your sensibility...Bear with me and please don't curse me !!

The Drawing Room Revolutionary

“Stop honking will you.” Aditya sneered as the driver of the car behind him was hell bent on deafening others with his high decibel car horn. Aditya was caught in yet another traffic jam. He looked around and tried to figure out the problem. The root of this jam was quite obvious. The road width was just enough to accommodate a fluent traffic but then Munna automobile repair and spare, Pyaasa Juice Corner, Akbar Mutton Roll Hut, Bajrangi Chaat stall, Sunny fast food center and a lot of their brethren too had their claims on the road. Too make the things worse, the no. of cars had increased considerably and the poor road built years before, was bound to crumble under the wheels of the ever increasing number of the i10s, Ikons, Scorpios and the ubiquitous Marutis. “Why don’t they do anything about it?” he spewed out along with a few four letter unmentionables.

After a couple of kilometers he took a left turn to leave the busy road and the huge swarm of vehicles with it. He took a sigh of relief, changed the gear and started accelerating. Just before he was about to thank God, he yelled “Holy shit”, as his car had just jumped over a nasty pothole right in the middle of the street. “When are they going to repair this bleeding road?” was all he could spare in the praise of the lovely dimple present on the face of that smiling street.
Finally, he reached his home where his wife was waiting with some guests in the neatly decorated drawing room of his house.
“Welcome, Adi…we all were waiting for you”, his wife, Divya, chuckled.
“Hey, Amit and Shreya…nice to see you, I didn’t know you were here.” He wanted to exclaim with joy but all he could manage was a faint and fatigued smile.
“Yeah Adi, it’s an off for Amit tomorrow, so we thought to see you guys.” Shreya smiled as she replied.
“Doing a lot of work these days, buddy…is next appraisal round the corner?” Amit asked, pointing at the clock.
“Ohh..no..no that is not the case. It’s that creepy traffic jam which eats my day,” Aditya looked at his wrist watch, “almost two hours today.”
“Ya..dude..the traffic of this city is in deep shit. I don’t know why anyone isn’t paying attention to it. Our leaders are too busy with the ‘issues of national importance’.” Amit added as they both placed themselves comfortably on the sofa.
“I’ll prepare some snacks for you”, Divya sensed that the discussion was heading towards politics so she preferred to head towards the kitchen and signaled Shreya to accompany her.
“Don’t call them leaders. They are just politicians who are too involved in politics. They have no time for governance.” Aditya fired.
“Even the bureaucrats! All they care is to please the party in power. No one is doing anything. I sometimes wonder who is responsible for all this.”
“Actually, it’s the illiterate junta of this country which is responsible. They vote these reckless leaders into power and then we all suffer.”
“Yeah…I agree but you can’t help it. This is India and we have a democracy and in democracy it’s the majority which matters.”
“I just pray to God that this time the company sends me to the States. I vow I’ll never come back to this hell” and as soon as Amit finished his sentence, a power cut plunged them into darkness just to insinuate him that hell can be a little more hellish.
“Divya…why isn’t the invertor working?’ Aditya yelled.
“The power cut has been too frequent throughout the day. The battery is not charged. Wait! I’ll bring the candles.” Divya screamed back from the kitchen.
“Look at it…the future superpower has no power for its own capital.” Amit smirked at his pun.
“And no one cares…. Wish I could also leave this place but I have parents to look after and Dad will never leave his motherland. I wonder why he is so fond of this place. The roads are pathetic, government schools don’t have teachers and government hospitals don’t have doctors, terrorists are transforming this country into a mine field, farmers are committing suicide, share markets are stumbling, people are losing their jobs but no one is willing to do anything.” Aditya grew impatient.
“What can anyone do about this country, Aditya? No one can help it”
“No, actually a lot can be done if people start voting seriously and sensibly. It will force our leaders to mend their ways. The bureaucrats are reckless because the leaders sitting on them are insincere. Once the leaders wake up, a lot can be done…believe me…a lot” Aditya spoke with a newly discovered sense of conviction. He wasn’t looking at Amit. His eyes were fixed on the far corner of the drawing room and his face had the solemn expression of seriousness. He felt that the silent revolutionary within him was speaking. This sense of patriotism elevated him.
Amit was a bit startled but even he got excited and added, “Yes, once the legislative and the executive of this country start working honestly everything will change. We will have a better law and order system, better infrastructure, more industries; more MNCs will chip in thereby creating more jobs for us.”
Suddenly, the power got restored and Aditya sighed, “Finally…the power is here”.
“And the cold drinks are here too.” Divya announced.
“Leave it yaar. There is no point in burning our blood. We cannot change this country. No one can change anything as long as the people of this country do not wake up. Let’s have the snacks.” Aditya said and leapt forward to pick up a glass filled with cold drink.
“You are right. By the way we both are going to Manali on this weekend. Why don’t you guys join us?” Amit’s voice was full of excitement.
“Manali ! I would have loved to go there but what’s the point in going there just for two days. It will be too hectic.”
“Why only two days? Tuesday is a holiday. Take a leave on Monday and we can get a four day off. What say?” Amit explained.
“Tuesday…holiday? What for?” Aditya was surprised.
“Start watching some news channels buddy. We have an election on that day. It’s a holiday for everyone in this city.” Amit replied.
“Oh…yes…how could I forget? That’s great…what an opportunity. I’m in…we’ll start on Friday evening.” Aditya exclaimed.
“Hey! This time I was planning to cast my vote. I mean I haven’t exercised my voting right ever. We didn’t go even for the last time because of that silly cricket match of yours.” Divya complained.
“It wasn’t silly…it was India VS Australia…down under. Huh…you will never understand. By the way why are you so keen about it? It’s not so easy especially in this summer. There is a long queue out there. It’s no where close to a picnic. You won’t enjoy over there. Moreover, elections come after every five years. We’ll go next time. Who knows, we might not get another opportunity to have a holiday with Amit and Shreya. Amit will soon go to the US” Aditya snapped back.
“Actually, Sonal voted last time and she was flaunting that mark on her finger nail so snobbishly that I decided that even I’ll vote. Anyways, you are right. We can go next time. We four will have a great time together.” Divya turned to Shreya, “Shreya we’ll shop tomorrow. I need to buy some warm clothes for Manali.”

Suddenly there was a power cut again and amidst the darkness someone grumbled, “No one can change this country… No one can help it.”

Re start !!

Hello! Right now I am highly perplexed on how to begin and therefore I‘ll begin with an apology for not posting a single alphabet for the past few weeks. There is no reason or excuse behind my self imposed exile from this blog space. It was pure, hard core, unrelenting (and aahh blissful) laziness, glimpses of which are present in most of my earlier articles. Yes, it was laziness; it was that strong and great feeling of actually doing absolutely nothing which prevented me from writing but now I’m done with it. Thanks to my brother who has sort of forced me out of my ecstasy of inactivity. Actually, with a rare exception of some signatures and few notes on office related matter, I haven’t written a single word after my last article. It was after he forced me to write something for him, I actually discovered or rediscovered the joy of creation. Having finished the text meant for him, I just went through it again and again and with every passing word I just felt excited and probably happier (actually it was a strange tickling mixture of joy, pride, zeal, anxiety and adventurism, single word for which is unavailable in my limited lexicon). So, it was last night that I have decided that I’m going to write once again. I know I’m not the greatest writer, may be I’m not even half as good as many others whose blog I have read (No! I m not playing modest) but still, I feel that I should write. So, I request all of you who have been visiting my blog spot to keep visiting it and encourage and enrich me with your comments. In fact, it would be great if you could help me to improve so that my articles may become more worthy of your valuable time.

Elections are coming, so I have decided that my next series of articles will be based upon the biggest problem of Indian politics- The voters. I will soon post the first article of the series. Wait, ‘soon’ is a very deceiving word and it is actually providing me an ample scope for procrastination. So, let’s decide the exact day. Sunday evening, yupp…I’ll post this article on Sunday evening…just a second…even ‘Sunday evening’ provides the couch within me an escape… which ‘Sunday evening’ must be mentioned. So, Sunday, 9-11-8, by 10 pm I ‘will’ post it. Till then- good bye!

PS- If you are a believer then you can help me a lot by just praying to God and asking Him to provide me with a few kilograms of determination. Thank you!

THE 'RIGHT' VS THE 'CORRECT' (Last part)

Human beings are strange creatures. Unlike, other living things, nature gave them an ability to think. Like other living things even they needed food, water and air for their survival but their thinking brain was not satisfied with survival alone. It demanded a justification for that survival. It demanded an explanation for the surroundings. It forced them to think. It cajoled them into believing and thus beliefs were born. By the term ‘belief’ I don’t mean religious beliefs. A belief can be any reflection, belief in oneself, belief in God or belief in any ideology. This belief is a strange thing. It is our greatest strength…and biggest weakness. It can bring the Mahatma out of a Mohandas and it is this belief which can unleash a Hitler on a planet. Human beings live and fight and die for their beliefs. Are they born with their beliefs? Well, going by my mother, the only belief I was born with, was to cry the hell out of my throat and deafen my mom and the poor nurse attending her.

Imagine a situation, somebody coming to me and saying, “ Akbar was the most selfish ruler whose greed for the expansion of his kingdom was so much that he made alliances with the infidels. Aurangzeb was the best; he fought against the infidels throughout his life to establish the will of God.” What would be my reaction? Simple- “Are you nuts? Akbar was one of the greatest because of his religious tolerance and Aurangzeb was an orthodox.” Now I react like that because I have a particular belief, formed during my schooldays, that secularism and religious tolerance are great virtues. We all have a set of such beliefs because most of us are made to believe in those beliefs during our most impressionable years (i.e. 3-21 yrs) or during a crisis.

Similarly, the extremists (not only those who fight in the name of any religion but all those who have resorted to violence) have been made to believe in certain ideologies. As long as this belief stays, their struggle will stay. Thus, to break the struggle, you have to break or modify the belief which I feel is not possible by any war. Wars, themselves are great stimulators in the formation of those beliefs. Then how to do it?

“Alright, enough of this nonsense,” our Mom would intervene, “Now tell me the problem.” Thus, she would sit and sincerely listen to our stands and then would calmly explain to us why and where ‘the right’ or ‘the correct’ was wrong. That explanation would cool us down because it not only solved the issue but it also helped us to rethink and modify our notions, our beliefs. Now, why did this approach work? There are two reasons-
First- because we both had respect and regard for our mother. We knew that she was impartial, sincere and knowledgeable enough to settle our dispute. Second- because there was an open dialogue in a conducive atmosphere where each of us spoke our mind without any inhibitions.

Well, that is exactly what we need today. We need a dialogue. We need a knowledgeable, sincere and impartial arbitrator. We need an open discussion on our beliefs. Wrong notions, of either side, must change. Wrong beliefs, on either side, must be dumped. Going back into time, as far as my history syllabus allows me to go, I can recall hundreds of wars and battles fought in the name of religion or belief but I cannot trace a single sincere dialogue held to sort out the difference in the belief. May be that is where lies the problem and the solution?

THE RIGHT VS THE CORRECT… (Part 2)..

Disclaimer- This post is not at all humorous by any stretch of my imagination (I’ll be utterly surprised if someone still finds it so.) Please do not go ahead if you are expecting a light hearted permutation of words meant to generate humor...

Next month the global war on terror will grow seven years and some thousand corpses old. In the past seven years some of the strongest nations have invested an unprecedented amount of resources in tackling terrorism but where do they stand today? I reckon the war, instead of weakening the terrorists, has simply strengthened their resolve and number. Disastrous out come? Why and how?

It has happened probably because the war lords fighting the war on terror couldn’t observe that those whom we call as ‘terrorists’ consider themselves as proud ‘mujahideens’. They were unable to recognize that unlike criminals and mafia, these are fiercely motivated people with a strong sense of morality and righteousness. For these ‘mujahideens’, we the members of the modern and civilized society are much more immoral, inhuman and unjust, than they are for us. One may annihilate them physically in a battle but no one can crush their resolve and therefore in spite of winning a few skirmishes here and there, the ‘war on terror’ can never be won.

In my previous article I have mentioned that my brother and I fought relentlessly when both of us believed in the appropriateness of our positions. Similarly, here we have two sides, both of them strongly believing in the virtuousness of their actions. None of them is wrong in its own eyes. One is ‘rationally’ correct and the other is ‘ideologically’ right. On one hand, we have our society i.e. people who follow the law of the land, believe in its constitution and have defined human rights as the basis of justice. On the other side, we have people who follow religion as law, believe in their holy books and have defined ‘the will of the God’ as the basis of justice. Thus, the two sides have different morals and different notions of justice. For eg- for us, killing is a crime but killing a deserving criminal, through a proper channel of law, is justice. For them things are a little different. To begin with, their perception about crime is different and once the crime and criminals have been identified, their idea of justice is once again different. When they bomb a busy market place they are not committing the crime of killing innocent people, they are simply executing the punishment which an ‘unjust’ society comprising of ‘infidels’ deserves.

Questions galore! What makes them think so bizarrely different? Is it their faith or religion? Is it some holy book, as propagandized by some of our warlords? The answer from my side is the strongest ‘no’ I can utter and I have reasons to do so. It can’t be the religion because when I look around I find a plethora of intellectuals, writers, doctors, scientists, engineers, businessmen, artists and friends who belong to the same faith, who believe strongly in their religion and still are great contributors to the development of the society we live in. Well, if the faith is not responsible for the problem then who actually is? Is the question too complicated?

Hmmm…the length of the article has once again exceeded the safe bearing capacity of the reader and therefore I would like to stop it here. I will try to finish this discussion in the next article which I’ll publish tomorrow. There I’ll put up my idea regarding the cause of this problem and a possible solution based upon the methodology which was used to resolve the conflicts between me and my brother.(to be continued…)

THE RIGHT VS THE CORRECT…

My younger brother has always been like a good friend to me. I share with him all my weird ideas. He is a good guy to hang out with but at the end of the day he still remains what he has been destined to be - my brother!! So like many other siblings we do maintain a fierce(and sometimes violent) sibling rivalry. During our teenage years, quite often our humorous discussions got transformed into howling disagreements. There were times when he was wrong and I was right and there were occasions when he was right and I fell on the wrong side of the argument. In the former case, I used to defend my self-righteousness with all the zeal and vigor I could manage but there were occasions when I knew that I was wrong but I still tried to put up a brave fight to shield my self- inflated ego. To my frustration, I always lost in the latter case because somehow somewhere in my heart, I knew I was wrong.

The worst scene occurred when I believed that I was right and he knew that he was correct. These were the most fiercely fought battles in which neither side gave up and sometimes things became so ugly that we utilized all the newly acquired WWE tricks(twisting arms, pulling hairs and peeling off other’s skin) to prove our respective points. Hearing to the cries and clamor, our mom would come running and separate the two entangled bodies but neither of us surrendered because none of us was wrong- I was right and he was correct.

Well, all this crap is being discussed here because I find a strange and striking similarity between our tussles and current global scenario. We’ll talk about it in my next article…(to be continued…)

PS- Slowly I have started believing that I have this disease of discovering and sometimes inventing similarities…what say??

GOD and politics...

Disclaimer—this article is not intended to hurt anyone’s religious or political sentiments. Please, go through it only if you can handle crap without taking it too seriously…



Hello world! Due to some unavoidable (and highly personal) reasons I couldn’t write (or rather think) anything worthy of a blog on the past two Sundays. Though, I reckon that not many people visit this page but even then I believe it’s my responsibility to apologize.

So the story goes like this--- Once upon a time, during the twenty first century, God decided to incarnate himself one more time. This time he decided to adopt a more contemporary way to demonstrate the ‘right path’ to the erring humans. He consulted his secretary and deduced that democracy is the order of the day-latest and the most popular form of governance. He therefore decided to contest an election and set an example by becoming an ideal leader. Since, India was the largest (rather the most populated) democracy, he chose India as the region of his operation. He came to India just a year before the general elections and went to the office of one of the upcoming popular political parties of the country. There a man, in his early seventies, was interviewing the possible candidates for the party ticket.

“Your name please?” the man asked.

“Awww….Bhagwan Awatar”, God thought for a while and replied.

“Good name…will appeal to the rural and some of the orthodox voters.” The man smirked and continued, “So why do you want to join politics?”

“I want to do something for the humanity.”

“Nice answer…it will impress people… but you don’t have to pretend anything here…you can speak the truth. Anyways, let’s check your credentials…have you ever committed any crime in your life say killing anyone?”

“Yes…I do take lives…but I don’t think it’s a crime if I do it.”

“Good! You have some attitude”, the man exclaimed, “How many?”

“Well…I don’t remember exactly. It is my secretary who keeps the record.”

“Great…you have a secretary for this purpose...but why did you kill so many people?”

“I reckon their time was up; I had to bring an end to their lives…That is how the things work.”

“No remorse! Superb! We want such type of people…In politics you cannot waste time on repentance and all.” The man spoke nonchalantly. He started again, “So, let’s move on. Have you ever faced any punishment?”

“Yeah…once upon a time, some men tried to crucify me…”

“What...and you survived?” the man was a bit surprised.

“Yes…It’s no big deal…” God said with a smile.

“Great…We want tough people…” the man looked impressed, “I hope you can divide people on the name of their castes if it serves your interest?”

“No…I have never done such a thing”, God was surprised.

“Hmmm…no problem…I hope you can certainly divide them on the name of religion?”

“Blasphemous….why would I do that?” God was shocked.

“What? ...Ok…have you ever done a scandal…manipulated public money?”

“Sorry, but it’s against my dignity…”

“Oh! I hope that at least you are good at forgetting your promises?” the man snapped in. He looked a bit irritated now.

“No…I have always fulfilled every promise I have made to my followers.”

“You have followers…a public base…good…how many?”

“Well…not many these days but in good old days I had a pretty decent following.” God said with a sigh.

“Look dear…being in politics is not easy…People will come to you with lots of expectations and complains…”

“Yeah…some of them do come even nowadays…” God interrupted.

“Let me finish…you have to listen to the people but never take them seriously. Console them, be polite to them but never take any petitioner too seriously. In this country people come to you only when they are in trouble; once the trouble is over they forget their leaders. Keep on fooling them with your kindness and try to extract maximum advantage out of them. Most of us are successful because of this trick.” The man explained sternly.

“That is not possible for me…I always listen to each and every prayer with uttermost sincerity and do take necessary actions. It’s a law for me, I cannot violate it.” God was exasperated. He went outside and checked the board hanging on the parapet. It read—XXXXX political party. He returned to the man.

“What happened? Where did you go?” the man looked annoyed.

“Huh…for a moment I felt that I was at the wrong place but the board says that it’s not the devil’s workshop. Are you really a politician of this country?” God used his power and forced the man to speak the truth, “Fess up…I think you are devil’s agent…come on…tell me the truth…”

The man was terrified, “I’m no devil’s agent…please…believe me…I belong to the XXXXX party.”

God read his eyes. This time he was speaking the truth. God decided to go to some other party. He had heard of one more party which was very popular in India. “This one must be following the ethics…I’ll join it.” he said to himself.

He entered the office with a positive frame of mind. The first question was asked to him, “How many successful scandals are to your name?” ….