मौला

कैसी लिखी तक़दीर मौला
पानी पे खिंची लकीर मौला

हँसते-हँसते भूल गया वो
अश्कों की तासीर मौला

मुझ में, तुझ में, सब में वो है
गाता गया फ़कीर मौला

जितना बाँटू, बढ़ता जाये
दिल तो बड़ा अमीर मौला

26 बरस की सीधी गुड़िया
आँखें बड़ी शरीर मौला

अबके बरस वो मिल जाये मुझको
कर कुछ ये तदबीर मौला

in moments like these

i wrote this in my diary, this Saturday morning. haven't edited it much :)

it is a grey Saturday morning. there is a faint drizzle going on outside for the past two hours or so. i'm waiting for her at home and we've a lot planned up for today.

her phone is unreachable because of the daily worsening Tata network and i've no idea by when she'll be arriving. till then, it is quite a lazy beginning to the day. just had my tulsi-ginger tea and as had been my 'ritual', was searching for Vikram Seth's book of collected poems to savor it with. Swati's Gulzar book caught my eye, but i wanted to read something in English. couldn't find Seth, but found a collection of Tagore's poems translated in English. the first and only one that i've read till now (its been half an hour) is titled 'Gift'. it is about the poet thinking about a true gift to give to his love, his friend. he thinks about many options, like a morning song, an evening light, flowers, gems, but then he feels everything will wither and lose its charm eventually,

"...And fall forgotten to the dust 

To turn into dust"

later, he finds a solution in nature and offers fleeting moments of epiphany's as gifts to them because,

"Truest treasure is fleeting

It sparkles for a moment, then goes

...No hand, nor word can reach it

Friend, whatever you take of it, 

On your own, 

Without asking, without knowing, let that

Be yours.

Anything i can give you is trifling

Be it a flower, or a song."

(you can read the complete poem on my other blog, here) 

it was this poem that prompted me to record these moments here. moments of Shiva's hymn playing in the background (gifted by a dear friend), of green wet parrots creating a ruckus outside in the faint sunshine of a rainy morning, of warm tea and careful unwrapping-wrapping of a packet of biscuits lest they get stale, of a hundred things to do that are now coming back to my mind as the magic of the moment fades but most of all, i wrote here today, for the beauty that carefully chosen words create, as a thanksgiving to God to be allowed this experience and somehow (i don't know how it all connects!), and somehow to tell her, that i love her, that her love is a miracle which i feel coming true in moments like these.

Feb 16th 2009

Last night, I was going through my old files and found this in my diary. So many things have happened in a year and yet it seems nothing has changed. It seems like a beautiful thought, but perhaps it is not.
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21:57 Monday, February 16, 2009

(I’ve missed writing here, these 10 odd days.) Lots of things swirling in my mind. Just finished Murakami’s ‘Dance Dance Dance’. You gotta dance baby, follow the rhythm, go with the flow, the world will take care of itself. When reading a good writer or a poet, I feel connected to the world. To the soul of the world. This happened with ‘Snow’. With this one too. I was barren without words. And these writer’s, writing about their world, were like silent rain falling on my parched surface. I wanted more, to be drenched, to be alive once more. Perhaps I am. Last night, a poem came to me. And I knew it from heart. Two more, half complete, three more, yet to start.

So, am I back with, amongst words again? Maybe, maybe not. I’m not feeling quite right. Something within, I want to work, but so many things are held up at the office that working seems a distant possibility. We all are just going through the motions. There is a wait lingering in the atmosphere these days. Something is going to happen. But nothing happens. “Nothing never moves”, she says.

All the things are one, all the ones are multiple things.

Don’t know what to write, what to say, what to think.

Yesterday was Sunday. Seems so far off now. Had a very good day with her. We roamed around in Kamla Nagar, did little bit of shopping, had lunch at the new Subway, then I went to see her off near her place. After that, emptiness.

I was standing near the ground level window, beside the Media Mart outlet at the Kashmere Gate metro station. There is a window overlooking a little green patch of turf and then the metro premises boundary cuts off the mayhem of Kashmere Gate bus adda. I could see a whole world of people moving about on the other, far side of the window. Going on with their lives, buses to catch, things to sell, talks to talk, and I, with a cup of coffee in my hand observing them, from behind a window. Closer to me, on the glass surface of the window, another lot of people were going on with their lives. Trains to catch, things to buy, talks to talk. But these were ghosts, moving about on a piece of glass.

Or was I the ghost, standing there between the worlds, one real, one unreal and one very real world behind the unreal. I didn’t matter for anybody. Everybody mattered to me. Only she makes me feel alive. When she is around, nobody matters to me. The world is then, as unreal as a phantasm wandering amongst the many alternate worlds.
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And then, she has to leave again. The cycle continues.

22:19
…

after you leave / तेरे जाने के बाद

तेरे जाने के बाद
वापस चल के आता हूँ
उस पूरे रास्ते
जिस पर साथ चले थे हम अभी, थोड़ी देर पहले
एक-एक कर बिखरे लम्हे उठता हूँ
और जेबें भर लेता हूँ अपनी
यहाँ, हम हँसे थे, बिना किसी बात के
यहाँ भाग के सीढियां चढ़े थे, और साँस फूली थी तेरी
और ऐसी ही किसी सीट पर बैठे, कंधे पे सर रखा था तूने मेरे

तेरे जाने के बाद
छोटा सा कमरा खाली लगता है बड़ा
वो जो नहीं पहनी थी तूने खुशियाँ
तह कर के रख देता हूँ वापिस
वो जो लफ्ज़ रह गए थे अनकहे
फिर से टेबल पर सजा देता हूँ
और जो ख्वाब अभी नहीं हुए हैं पूरे
निशाँ लगा के रख लेता हूँ, आगे काम करना है उनपे अभी

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.
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तेरे जाने के बाद
आज भी पलकें भीग आती हैं कभी
उस दिन के इंतज़ार में
के जब तू आए, तो तेरा जाना न हो


after you leave
i come back the whole way
which we crossed
a little while ago
picking up scattered moments
i fill my pockets, one by one
here, we laughed, for a reason without
here, we ran up the stairs, and breathless you were
and sitting on a seat like this, you'd put your head on my shoulder

after you leave
this small room, turns big and empty
i fold and keep away
the joys, you didn't wear this time
i keep on the table, once again
the words, that were left unsaid
and bookmark the dreams
that are to be worked upon

.
.
.
after you leave
the eyes still well up sometimes
in wait of the day
when you'll arrive, not to leave again