Poessay: Takht, Takhta and Takhti

A writer friend is writing another book. One morning she said she is heading out of her house to the Borders to write - a change of surroundings.

(fast forward to late after noon)

Hello from Borders...

That set off this digression: I wrote her - I've written...poems mainly...in planes, in waiting rooms, in kitchens, in cars...you name it...but never in a book store

why not? it's quiet, the coffee is decent, everyone around is reading....i find it quite inspiring. u should try it sometime...

Guess amidst all the great writing, the decrepit weak little words dare not descend down from the yonder...ho sakhta hay woh sharma jaatay hoN...I mused...but it might work for others

that's right. but with wireless internet i can actually work here...sometimes i get bad cabin fever at home...

Wireless internet? hehheh...you know where my mind wanders off to? takthi....it is the wooden slate rural desi pre schoolers use to learn to write alphabets on...usually a wooden board about 8x12 inch on which they practiced writing with wooden qalams...

why does your mind wander there?

Am intrigued with the irony of extremes...takhti...so primitive and the wireless internet...so hi-tech...anyways...mind works in strange ways...I thought of takhti because some years back at The Art Gallery of Mississauga at the Mississaugua Convention Centre there was an exhibition-tribute to Zahoor ul Akhlaq who was murdered in Lahore the year before along with his very gifted dancer-daughter, Jehanara...his wife Sheherzad Alam who is a talented potter in her own right organised this tribute exhibition.

She handed out a takhti to all the invited participant artists...asking them to write or paint their thoughts on the takhti...later those takhtis were exhibited at the Centre.

Ah hah...well it's nice to chat while i am working...so there! that could be a poem...the takhti in the time of wi fi...

hmmmm...

the takhti in the time of wi fi

shahinshah ka takht
mayyat ka takhta
bachchay ki takhti
ik laf'z kay phair say
kahaaN say kahaaN
baat nikal jati hay

hazrat pehlay hee farma ga'aye haiN
aankh jo dekhtee hay lub per aa sakhta nahiN...
oos daur maiN thi takhtee
is daur maiN hay PC
likha takthi per phir mita dya
idhar PC kay gali koochON maiN
mudfun rehtay haiN hazaraha raaz

haan ik baat hay
takhti ka daur lOtay ga nahiN
PC ka daur aaj ka daur hay
aanay wali kal ka bhee shayad

peepul ka darakht, chatai, takhti, qalam-dawat
bijli, thanda kamra, keyboard, PC, internet
kahaan woh duniya jo beet ga'ayee
kahan yeh duniya jo beet ja'aye gi

waq't kay taarON say bandhay yeh rishtay
yaad kay saharay zinda haiN, rahaiN gay

***

the takhti in the time of wi fi

wood makes a fine throne
table in the morgue
an innocent's child's takhti...

the poet has written
seeing is believeing
but he also laments
what he sees is unbelievable

there were sixty seconds
in the minute then
but they went by s l o w l y
the takhti words were wiped clean
but the PC words haunt an eternity

the yellow stickie
a straddler of the takhti era

- under the peepul tree, mat, breeze and takhti
not to forget the zee nib, ink and pot
now the climate controlled room
PC, keyboard and wi-fi
that time passed us by and with the same certainty
we can say this time too shall pass by

***


Niilofer Farrukh, art historian and writer who covered this event