An advertising writer’s status update

Answering facebook’s perennial query of “What’s on your mind?”

I’ve on my mind ‘The Secret of The Nagas,’ book 2 of the Shiva Trilogy which a colleague is not giving to me as I finished his copy of book 1 ‘The Immortals of Meluha’ in 4 hours (i.e. too quickly for his comfort) while I was in the middle of the ‘River of Smoke’ and now that I’ve cabbaged my boss’ ‘Kafka on the Shore,’ I can’t wait to begin it but can’t because I’ve to start work on a campaign which is to be delivered tomorrow.

Written at 8pm on a December evening in office. And not updated as a status.

कल शाम मैं इक़बाल भाई से मिला

अजब शक्शियत हैं इक़बाल भाई भी. हिन्दू होते हुए भी मुसलमान सा नाम रखते हैं, मुफ़लिस होते हुए भी दिल बड़ा रखते हैं. कभी लन्दन में फ़ाकामस्ती, कभी कानपूर में जूते घिसाई, कभी हालीवुड की बेवेरली हिल्स के आलिशान बंगले में ऐश, कभी वहीँ के किसी होटल में वेटर की नौकरी, बड़ी दुनिया देखि है इक़बाल भाई ने.

उनसे किसी का दर्द सहा नहीं जाता, तभी तो चौथी मंज़िल से कूदी और साल भर तक प्लास्टर ऑफ़ पैरिस के सांचे में जकड़ी उस अनजान गोरी महिला से रोज़ एक घंटा निकाल कर मिलने जाते हैं. कभी अपना पेट काट कर किसी के लिए दवाई लाते हैं, तो कभी अपमान सहने के बाद भी किसी की दिली-तमन्ना पूरी करते हैं. पैसे से उन्हें कोई लगाव नहीं, झूठ बोलने से कतराते हैं, पर फिर भी गुरु-बाबा बन लोगों को रिझाते हैं!

अजब शख्स हैं इक़बाल भाई भी. मेरे अपने न होते हुए भी बेहद अपने नज़र आते हैं. कल शाम मैं उन्हीं इक़बाल भाई से मिला.
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इक़बाल भाई, कुर्रतुलें हैदर की कहानी 'कलंदर' के मुख्य किरदार हैं. कभी-कभी किसी किरदार से मिलकर ऐसा ही लगता है न कि सच में किसी शख्स से मिलें हो हम?

Revolutions that are still unpaid for: On reading 1984 and Kaifi Aazmi, together.

"One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

Sept. 19, 2010, sometime near the clock reached 1pm


A reader, reading a text is a unique phenomenon. That is, there is no other equal for this act of reading a particular piece by an individual followed by and preceded by some other text or sensory experience. For example, this morning I finished reading Orwell's masterpiece '1984'. But last evening, while I was coming to the book's end and while my mind was already abuzz with a lot of 'doublethink', I was craving to read some poetry also. While going through a number of volumes in my collection, I picked up the collected works of Kaifi Aazmi titled 'Sarmaya'. By the time I completed '1984', I also went through more than half the verses of this collection.

In other words, what I meant by my opening statement was that, I'm sure I'm the only person in the world who has read or started reading '1984' after reading the poetry of Faiz and Gulzar; and ended it while reading Kaifi sahab's poetry. And this is what makes my reading 1984 (or any other text) a truly unique phenomenon.

Same is the case with any reader who picks up a book, following and preceding any experience that only s/he could have had. So any poem, novel, play, essay does not remain what was written by the author. Every reader brings a part of him or her to the table. What was written by the author continuously changes shape, color, texture, and intensity as per that individual reader's past and future experiences.

Reading Kaifi Aazmi with 1984 was rare even by these unique standards. While on one hand, Orwell denounces any type of oligarchy, whether socialist, nazi, or western-capitalist, Aazmi on the other hand is an avowed socialist. More than half of his book is filled with verses of/about revolution, of failures of the then current political order and of dreams of a common brotherhood.

I, on my part didn't read much of the revolutionary verses. It is his other work, about the position of man in this hierarchical society, about Hindu-Muslim unity, and a few poems with a touch of romance was what I liked more. Kaifi the poet is disillusioned, but still hopeful of a revolution, of a better, equal world. Though I stopped myself at his disillusioned best.

Orwell, the author gives a warning, a forever timely one, that the world at any moment could slip into the hands of those few who might have more power, more control over humanity than it has ever been attempted before. He is the voice of the 'negative utopia', wherein the very revolution that the poet Kaifi dreams of, has dehumanized, debased, degenerated the common men and women it was supposed to raise to a better level.

Reading these two together I realized that they both are talking about the same subject, though one has dreams of a better world 'before' his revolution; the other has nightmares of a worsened world 'after' that revolution. The sad part is, that the people on whose behalf they dream or the people they want to warn, those people will always remain in the same state of affairs, whichever side the coin falls.

"कोई तो सूद चुकाए, कोई तो जिम्मा ले

उस इन्किलाब का आज तक उधार सा है"

"At least somebody step forward and pay the interest
of the revolution that is still unpaid for"

by the way, you can read this complete gazal at my other blog, here: http://dhaiaakhar.blogspot.com/

heaven only kows why we love it so - revised

"We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live alone in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes. We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep- it's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, are slowly devoured by some disease or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more.

Heaven only knows why we love it so."

from the novel, 'The Hours' by Michael Cunningham.

i talked about it here and the movie adaptation, here. do read it if you have time.

yesterday was a holiday and i spent all of it reading, writing and dreaming. after so many months, a day happened when nothing mattered but loads of solitude and the book in my hand. all through the day i did nothing but read, wrote an unfinished piece of prose, one story that is waiting to be formed and one poem that refuses to come to an end; and god i was so contented after all of it, and heaven only knows why i love it so.

zindaginama

"If you only indulge yourself, write only about yourself, then its appeal for readers would be limited. You won't be reading a collective consciousness, you won't be presenting a collective experience. You'll just be talking to yourself."

- Krishna Sobti, in a 'freewheeling chat' with First City, January 08 issue. By the way, I LOVE this magazine. One of my essential reads over a month.