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Wednesday, December 21, 2005

rosary

tazaad
petals on bed
ecstasy
gul b'sung
hirasat


tarazoo
just law
equality
insaaf
andha


love I
for him
disturbing
m'ray lyay
munasib


love II
me, you, him
no, no, no
maiN, tu, woh
na, na, na


words
understood
effective
mubhumm
bay a'sar


seasons
change
we should, don't!
tabdeeli
mufeed hay


tazabzaoob
you God?
me too!
tu khuda hay
phir main kauN


dichotomy
in the country
law of the jungle
bayabanON main
shehri qanoon?


gOl Duniya
to shake off West
head East!
farar
baysood


monkey see..
sub haNsay, hum haNsay
sub rOaye, hum rOaye
sub m'ray, hum bachay

tears
soul diamonds
priceless

fusion
melting identity
fission

Saturday, December 17, 2005

------ki yaad maiN

ehsasaat e ghum e douraaN
manjhdaar maiN zouf e na'khuda
high way per kaaroN kay hujoom
maiN phansay muztarib chehray
rind o zaahid shareek e safar
sehan maiN khailtay bachchay sub
ak's e aaeena e haqeeqat

tasawwur e manzil aik aik
ak's e manzil juda juda
hazar khaab o khahishaiN
aur ik gar'd aalood aaeena
kay milta hay jahaaN sub ko
apni apni pasand ka ak's

jub dukhoN ki manzil aik hay
tou yeh judagana rhaiN
kaisi aur kyun hum na danista
zindagi kay is azli raq's per
youN saathi bantay rehtay haiN

karaiN tou kya karaiN

shehar sunsaan
dil fasurda
hawa thami hui
garmi maiN garmahat
hay na chah maiN chahat
karaiN tu kya karaiN
ja'aiN tou kahaN ja'aiN

Thursday, December 15, 2005

breaking ball*

desert heat
...................dust
stifles flexure visions
...................mirages

under scorched sun
steam rising from cracks
in half baked clay

crumbling sand hills
..................oases propelled
into horizon's helix

***

in the kuchcha mountain path
cambers and trends, up and around
fallen rocks, trees, streams, rivulets
..................accost

over at the top visible frozen sighs
floating around, crashing into peaks
peaks beyond which lies a shangri-la
journey long......... life l o n g
...................curve laden

***

in the plains smile streaked strives
with oases - rapport pauses
interminable travails of broken bends
temple to cheekbone, 'round eyes, lips
hourglass bents, rondure derriere
heaving and sinking round every curve
..................a new vista waits
meniscus palms propelling prayers
..................to conquer, cross, ignore

peace
...................ever elusive, whirling
straight, given, nor curvaceous

________________________________________

*breaking ball: noun: a baseball thrown with spin so that its path curves as it approach the batter

tou maiN kya karooN

suraj ki roshni, barish ki cheetaiN
is ki muskurahat, oos ki bakwas
sub per yeh bila tafreeq girti haiN
jaisay m'ray khuda t'ray bhagwaan
ka ehsaan chamkay ya giray azaab

guRR ki sui

"From Thursday afternoon to Friday afternoon we expect : 20-30 cms of snow.-the weather network"

______________________________________________

guRR ki sui

hota thaa jub karachi maiN
mausam a'ber aalood tou hum
school aur college bunk ker kay
saahil per nikal jatay thay
.......................ya
lihaaf, pakoRay, doodh-patti
kay khaaboN maiN kho jaatay thay

laikin aaj subah say zeh'n maiN
ghoom rahi hay guRRh ki garam chai
kuch mausam aisa hay, kuch chah hay
talab hay tou srif guRR ki chai ki

HMV gramaphone player per
ghoomti sui zeh'n may youN atkee
kay sotay jaagtay her lumhay maiN
hadd e nazar aatee haiN nazar
pyaliaN hee pyaliaN

aur budnaseebi dekhiyay kay
doodh hay, patti hay, guRR nahiN hay

doosra gilaa

na tujh say gilaa hay ab janaaN
no hay oos eh'd e wafa ka pass
ab is barafistaaN maiN tu hay, maiN hooN
aur humari qurbat kay chund samar

raj hay yahaan credit card ka
daulat - srif ik dast e khut ki marhoon
hus'n - srif ik muskurahat ka talib

m'gar
woh matyala paani, woh gar'd aalood fiza
woh apnoN ka hujoom, sheeren bol bazaar kay
yahaaN kahaN

na tujh say gilaa hay ab janaaN
no hay oos eh'd e wafa ka pass

doctor said / doctor nay kaha

doctor said
"take some tylenol
plenty of juices
and rest
you'll get better!"



ascertaining temperature, blood pressure
using stethoscope day and night
has removed you from my world

your perception has failed you doc
this is no cold that you can treat
only a lost smile is its cure

***

dakter nay kaha
"juice pio
tylenol khao
aur karo aaraam
theek ho jao gay."



doctor tumhari in nab'z shanaas nigha-ouN nay
ghalat ki hay tash'kheesh, yeh aur nazla hay!
shayad tumhari hikmat, raftar e qal'b jaaNc'hna
dauraan e khoon ta'tolna, din raat ki yeh kaavish
lay gaee hay tumhaiN do'or duniya say m'ri

yeh tapish, yeh jalan nazla bukhaar kahaN
na hay is ka eelaaj juice, tylenol, aaraam
yeh tumharay bus ki baat nahiN
is ka eelaj tou ik goom-gushta
mooskurahat hay!

to gods / aye khudao

to gods
re-possess, take back the assurance to breathe ---
don't decipher the meaning of this trust
who requested it? when?

re-possess, take back the assurance to dream ---
un-controllable, visionless dreams who requested it? when?

re-possess, take back the assurance of peace
what use is that peace weaved out of destruction
wrought on the lives and dreams of others?

just smile, once that elusive smile
for that --- here reposess this life

aye khudao
cheenh lo, wapis lay lo amanat saans ki
aakhir kaisi hay yeh aazaadi-e-nafís
kub, kis nay maangi thee

cheenh lo, wapis lay lo amanat khaab ki
bay-qaaboo o bay-ikhtiar khaab alooda armaan
kab, kis nay maangay thay

cheenh lo, wapis lay lo amanat a'munn ki
kiya faida oos chain ka kay shaamil hou jiski taa'meer maiN
au'rouN ki shikasta duniya kay saaNs aur khaab

srif mooskurah dou ikbaar woh jaan-leva mooskurahat
lo, jaan haazir hay humari

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

likhaiN kaisay tera naam

mo'al'luq baadalouN per
parindouN kay parouN per
samandar ki maujON per
aandhiouN say uth'tay
bul khatay ghubarON per
lehratay jhoomtay subzay per

(muskurahtay labouN per
patli kamar reshmi raan per
mulaem pindliouN per)


kahaaN say paooN woh bijli
woh ghunn garaj, woh taRap
likh sakhooN jis say t'ra naam
dil per, dimagh per, fizaa per

phir aata hay yeh khayal

phir aata hay yeh khayal
hay jub woh muskurahat
paas m'ray tou likhooN kyun
woh naam kay hay jo youN naqsh
her safha e zaat per m'ri

almiya

naee roo'touN kay tazkaray
purani roo'touN kay labouN per
jehad baad e mukhalif say
aandhi toofanoN say takkar

oosool e murawwijah say
bila wajah bagahwut
shiddat say chahat, nafrat
shiddat say inkaar, iqraar
soo'n samajh ker an-suni karna
paich o taab e soz e darooN
nahiN tou kya hay bataiyay

aur phir wohi almiya
purani roo'touN kay labouN per
naee roo'toun kay tazkaray

Saturday, December 10, 2005

premonition / pesh aa'ga'hee

premonition
who knows the lurking secrets
behind the newborn's smile
that hides yearning nor strive
no doubts of autumns to come
no greed nor any lust --- yet

perhaps that newborn has
premonitions of some
destructive blast --- blast
that will wipe us all away


pesh aa'ga'hee
jaanay kitnay raaz pinhaaN
haiN tabassum e tif'l maiN
na justoojoo e shauq abhi
hay na andaisha e khizaan
na har's ayaaN na hawas
shayad kay ho woh maa'soom
aagah kisi hOlnaak
...............dhamakay say
dhamaka kay jo hoga
gharat gar e duniya e kul

limit / hudd

limit
the limits of LoveSupreme
from the specs of dust to
the voids of the black hole
is there anything hidden
from man's probing eyes?

in pleasures immersed they
forget lessons imparted
save absence of adherence
it must be their playfulness

hudd
intiha e shauq
azz zarra e khaak
taa khila e siyah
posheeda kya hay
naz'r e insaani say

ranaee maiN jub ghar'q
hoti haiN yeh aankhaiN
bhool jati haiN asbaaq
...............maa sawai
la ta'aullaqi kay
kya hay yehi nazar
...............ki jaulaangah

ashraf ul makhlooq

ashraf kaun hay? tum, maiN ya woh
daimee haqeeqatouN ko
jo aur naamouN say jaaNtay haiN
tazoobzub ki is nadi maiN
haiN ghota-zun hum kaun kis say
hay behtar batao humaiN

b'qol aap kay ger insaaN hay
behtar tau insaan kaun hay
............tum, maiN ya woh
aur kyuN insaniyat kay naam per
tabahi machatay haiN log

Thursday, December 08, 2005

dawat

aao kay shub ko seh'r kar daiN
aao kay is shub ko seh'r kar daiN
aao kay is tareek shub ko seh'r kar daiN
...zoolmut kay andhairoN ko
...such ka chiragh dikhaaiN
...yassiyat ko itminaan
...jeh'l ko such ka noor daiN
...kaali ghata-ouN say
...sehraa ki piyaas bhujha daiN
...jung aur barbadi kay registaan ko
...khoos hali ka nakhlistan bana daiN
aao hath baRhao
kay shubb guzri jaati hay
aao qad'm oothao
kay poo' phatna chahti hay
jo hum na qad'm ootha’aiN gay
is doori ko na mitaiNgay
tou sub hamaiN choRh jaiN gay
buhat peechay choRRh jaiN gay

aao kay shub ko seh'r....

(written for a banglore meet)

waq't ne kya kiya haseen sit'm

Ah the magic of movies, bioscopes as they were called in the early days of the silent movies. There were traveling 'companies' that would roam from village to village, propping up white bed sheets for a screen. A 'mushki' a water-carrier stationed himself behind the screen. In the sultry summer heat the screen was liable to catch fire. His job was to moisten the screen to prevent it from heating up.

Sometimes, a team of musicians accompanied the bioscope to provide live musical interludes. The popularity of the medium soon made way for permanent cinema houses. First open air, then enclosed, then with fans billowing, followed by air-conditioned theatres and finally completing the cycle, the drive-ins.

The 'silent' were followed with 'talkies', then colour, cinemascopes, which is the norm now. Don't know if any Todd-AOs or 70mms, or 16mm or straight-on-video were attempted.

Dadasaheb Phalke is generally acknowledged as the Jinnah of Indian Cinema (thought I would throw it in and check your pulse.) He made the first feature film Raja Harischandra. Ardeshir Irani's Alam Ara (1931) has the distinction of being the first talkie. The first colour film is a toss up between Mehboob Khan's Aan and Sohrab Modi's Jhansi ki Raani.

(As a purist of sorts, I dislike the term Bollywood. I like Indian classics. Hence Bollywood---- mid 80's onwards has diminished relevance for me----for the moment.)

There is magic in them old stalwarts, V. Shantaram, A.J. Kardar (Pakistani Cricket Captain A.H. Kardar's brother or cousin?), Sohrab Modi, Mehboob Khan and others.

German art noveau surrealism of the mid to late 30's appeared in late 40's in India. If you watch some of the movies made circa 1950, you will notice their impact. Guru Dutt's Kaghaz ke Phool epitomized this trend. For the song sequence Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam (Sung by Geeta Dutt:Music by Sachin Dev Burman: Lyrics by Kaifi Azmi) Guru dutt had half the roof of Mehboob Studios knocked down to get the exact light and shadow effect. Attention to detail, mastery over direction and excellent cinematography are the hall mark of this period.

My biggest criticism of Indian Movies is their unrealistic story lines. Here I would have to concede that some movies made by the 'alternate' film makers, dubbed as art films, in the eighties and nineties have much more realistic story out lines.

But even the best of these somehow fail in comparison with the best of the rest in world cinema.

I would be hard pressed to compare Yimou Zhang's Raise the Red Lantern (with Li Gong), Fellini's Amarcord or 8 1/2, Henri Clouzot's Diabolique, Kurosewa's Seven Samurai, Rainier Fassbinder's marathon 930min long Berlin-Alexanderplatz, Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers, Luis Bunuel's Golden Age, Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thief, or even little known gems such as Patrice Leconte's Hairdresser's Husband, Gabriel Axel's Babette's Feast or action movie like Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot with the best in Indian Cinema.

Why? I will be honest. I don't know the answer. Can only speculate. Perhaps it has to do with culture. Movies are a reflection of their surroundings. Suspension of disbelief, someone once said of movies. Shall have to do some more soul searching.

Here is my list of favourite classic Indian Hindi/Urdu movies. This list surfaced first in Veeresh's articile. This is a partial list in no particular order.

Balraj Sahni:...................Garam Hawa
Nargis (Fatima Rashid):.........Mother India
Nur Jehan:......................Anmol GaRRhi
Gulzar (Sampooran Singh):.......Maachis (film)
................................Mirza Ghalib(teleplay)
Guru Dutt (Padukone):...........Kaghaz ke Phool
Mehboob Khan:...................Mother India
Madhubala (Mumtaz Jehan):.......Mughal-e-Azam/Barsaat ki raat
K (Karimuddin) Asif:............Mughal-e-Azam
Dev Anand (Devdutt Pishorimal Anand):..Guide
Waheeda Rehman:.................ChaudhwiN ka Chand
Meena Kumari (Mahjabeen Bux):...Dil ek Mandir/ Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam
Raj (Ranbirraj) Kapoor:.........Jaagte Raho
Amitabh Bachchan:...............Sholay
Muzaffar Ali:...................Umrao Jaan Ada
Dilip Kumar (Yusuf Khan):.......Devdas or Ganga Jumna
Shabana Azmi:...................Ankur
Satyajit Ray:...................Shatranj ke Khialri

Honourable mention: Shyam Benegal, Nasiruddin Shah, Smita Patil, Nutan, Sanjeev Kumar, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Nanditi Das, Ashok & Kishore Kumar, Shashi & Shammi Kapoor, Kamal Haasan, Om & Amrish Puri, Mani Raatnam, Nana Patekar, Givind Nihilani.

And now, some drum roll please...am torn... between Garam Hawa, Kaghaz ke Phool, Mother India, Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam, Umrao Jaan Ada and Mughal-e-Azam.

Help!

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

life / zindagi

life
if
life were easy
who would
write poetry

if
life were easy
who'd capture lovingly
in word rosaries
cold sighs, misty eyes
lover's quarrels
spontaneous smiles
love, climax, anger, hatred
death and destruction

zindagi
zindagi
ger aasani say
guzar jati tou log
sha'eri kyuN kartay

zindagi
ger aasaani say
guzar jati tou sar'd aah
pur num aankh
dabi dabi shikayatain
bay saakhta muskurahat
chah, hungaam, ghussa, nafrat
qat'l, barbadi
kaun qaid karta
chahat say in jazboun ko
haroof kay motiouN maiN

first love

to love is to give in
a hard lesson to learn
when in receiving mode

zehra film clip

fade in

On the same set where Anarkali (Madhubala) danced to Jab Pyar Kya to Darna Kiya.

Camera pans back from the chandelier, till the whole durbar is visibly: next the camera turns slowly towards the throne.
28 secs

Malka Zehra, on the throne.

Camera goes past a profile of the queen and turns around to focus on a messenger curtseying.

(M): Malekah-e-Moazzam, Bulbul-e-Hind, Noor-e- Ishq banda jaan ki amaan paa'aye to kuch arz karay.
(Q): Ijazaat hay. Kaho kiya baat hay?

(Rising, clutching printouts from Chowk, addresses the Queen)

(M): Malekah-e-Aalam, (waving Yasser's poem) maaf kardijiyay, naadaan hay.........

(Camera pans across the coutiers and comes to focus on a meditating Queen.as the messenger is heard in the background)

(M): .....Woh aitraaf kar chuka hay ...yeh oos ki pehli nazm hay. Jazbaat par qaboo naa paa sakha bechara. Dil kay haathouN tou log baRay baRay kaam kar jaatay haiN. Is becharay nay tou sirf oos aah ko naz'm ki shak'l di hay.

(As the Queen emerges from trance like meditation, and slowly memories of some distant incidents stir on her face, the camera cuts to the messenger. Messenger, hands folded across the front, head slightly bowed waits.)

next cut

(Q): Jaao, oo'say khush khabri suna dou kay Malika-e-Hind nay oos ki khata maaf ki. Aur (she claps her hands, and a courtier discreetly appears from behind the curtain carrying Webster's unabridged, Roget's Thesauraus And the Oxford Companion to temporal's poems on a tray) hamari tarif say yeh tuhfaa bhi oos ko poh'chaa do.

fade out

(Note: a response on yasser's one and only qawwali poem)

bard blaming a bird

peering through foggy eyes
weaning off his hangover
blaming a bird a bard
weaves, flutters this hope-less bard
reflects bird-in-mouthis

Friday, December 02, 2005

begum hamidm ko khat

botherm:

...not today...it's one of those mornings when i don't find a target in focus... and am miffed at whoever drifts into my line of firing...i am miffed at you...how can a confessed merlot lover (as Jawahara is a witness - what is the plural of johar anyone? or is she named after that Lady's lover....what's his name?... Pinky's Dad's mentor?)...merlot?.. yeah....how could you switch to cheapies from Scotland...damn what happened to the believer's pride...breaker of idols and ideals... not to mention taste and aroma....pittance sake...you insult Carlin...whatever happened to fine single malts?...are you broke or saving up for the trousseau....worry not they will look after themselves...and thank you too...your fine daughters... it is that woman i am worried about...

***

begun hamid:

...maaf kijiyae brehum hamid, sorry Begum Hamid:

...baad khairiyat kay ittelah hay kay...nahiN yaar itni gaRRhi Urdu itni sub'h sub'h nahiN boli ja sakhti hay....

...haaN tou hum souch rahay thay kay hum ko aap say kabhi kabhi (zoare kabhi kabhi per hay) buhat humdardi hoti hay...kyuN bhala? Hum aur aap , Allah ko beech maiN laaye baghair, kabhi milay nahiN, kahiN door ki bhee shinasaaee nahiN (zoare bhee per hay)...

..yaar yeh baat kahaN say shru ki thee? Aur kis nay? Aur kyuN?

...haaN yaad aagayaa...bhayee humara khayal hay kay aap buhat achchi MaaN aur Biwi haiN (two out of three ain't bad hamidm ... you know that definition of a perfect woman that if given here would hurl fatwas from that cute asif's brigade)...aray kahaN hay woh Shankar ka bachcha ... bolta kyuN nahin hay? Jawab bhee ghayab... khair dafa karo oos ko...tou bibi kya hi achcha hota kay aap achcha khana bhee banana seekh laiN?

....daikhiyay, yeh humari zehni leap hay...agar hum oochcal kar ghalti say talaab oo'boor karnay ki baja'aye beech keecheRR main gir ga'aye tou maaf kardiji'aye .... hum pehlay hee ailaan kar chukay haiN itni sub'h sub'h hum raat jaga kay baad hee souch sakhtay hain aur raat ko kya h'ua yeh batataty huaye thoRRi si shram si aati hay...khair woh alug qissa hay....

...tou naik bibi achcha khana banana seekh ja'aye...

...hum logouN per ihsaan hoga...buhat ihsaan hoga...

...aap ko koi il'm nahin aapka na'kaarah aur naa'laiq shohar bhook aur kharab pakwaan ki boo ko zeh'n main sajaaye yahan jub aata hay tou baghair kisi tafreek o imtiaz kay apni resham maiN laptee jhaRRoo say her kus o na kus ko aisi maarta hay aur aisis sunata hay kay samajhnay walay tou samajhnay wala hum jaisay na-samajh bhee mehzooz huaye baghair nahin reh sakhtay...

...kabhi kabhi tou (zoare pehli kabhi per hay) humain bilkul aisa lagta hay kay jaisay din insaan kay liyay aaya hay na kay oss kay bur ak's isi tarah humari is chowk ki duniya kay ehmaq srif is liyay banay gaaye haiN kay hamid ki reshsmi chapat seh sakhaiN. Maantay haiN yeh andaaz-e-fikr zara kamzore sa hay .... warna humaiN yeh souchnay say koi kyuN roke sakhta tha kay astaghfirullah Woh humaray liyay banaya gaya hay hum Ooskay liyay nahin...yaa aap hamid kay liyay aur hamid humaray liyay... chaliyay is sanjeeda mas'alay ko hum kashmir kay baad hul karlaiN gay...is may khaasi paycheedigiyaaN haiN...laikin andaisha hay... yeh baad wali baat tou kisi na kisi tarah hum hull kar hee laiNgay .. laikin woh pehli wali baat ik ghambir mas'ala hay... jo shayad humaiN bhas'm na karday ik din...

...ummeed hay bacchay khairyat say hongay. (This despite or in spite of Hamid — check with Carlin and let me know – am not sure of the usage this early..)

...thank you for kindly listening to me....i am sure there was a purpose in all this...if i find it by the evening I will call you....

Yours (heck can't say truly: how about well wisher.. NO, that would cause friction between the two of them... how about that standard GOP deal clincher...your most obedient servant...nah too archaic .. besides...faithfully... NO... if i use that I would hear not only from her but HER as well and her too...nah too messy....how about simply yours...nahin yaar ...banda appears liberal ... oh sorry urs ... pseudo-liberal.....but he may mind....so how about the neutral raaqim ul huroof... but you are keying in ....can you create keying ul huroof... perhaps....is there a grand baba of Urdu here...till then how about simply sincerely...but others brag you are insincere....aren't you.... no those are unsubstantiated rumours by disgruntled friends...phir kya...just say ijazat and sign away...hmmmm....yeh theek hay.

ijazat,


temporal bin temporal bin temporal

(There was a paucity of first names in our village just like former Sec Gen's Boutros Boutros Boutros'....)

partially on love: pyaar aur nafrat

Pat:


Thank you Pat. As a life long student of the aberrant behaviour of the Devi I can share many a insight. This is a wide canvas. Need to narrow it down.

If I were to take all available descriptions of Love, personify it, and arbitrarily divide that person at the waist into two, this is what we may find in the top half.

I love my car. Takes me to the gas station. She loves gasoline. Once filled, she takes me where I want to go. And back so I can indulge in other loves.

I love words. Look for them in books written with love and passion or hatred and fury by authors who have experienced the various manifestations of love.

I love moderation in excess and hate hatred, also in excess. And I find the latter-- hatred --- not excess rather troubling at times.

I love peace. Peace and tranquillity enable me to reflect on other things I love. Nature and its mysteries. Why there is so much hatred overflowing in us desis. To twist an old dictum -- where there is hate there is love? Only here it seems we are mostly awash in Hatred not Love. But I keep probing for the elusive love here. And often, and unexpectedly I succeed in finding it here.

I love friends in the narrowest sense of the word. Am lucky in that I do have a few of them. Could not dream of living without their loyalty, concern, affection, thoughtfulness and support. Could not thank them enough. Thank you M! Thank you others. You know who you are. I depend on you.

I love plants. They exude pleasure and peace of a different kind. They are serene and unobtrusive, undemanding and uncomplaining. They give off oxygen. And they depend on me.

I love my neon tetra. She has an attention span of fifteen seconds. It intrigues me to think about what she may be thinking as she swims in the aquarium from end to end. Perhaps it makes sense that she has short attention span. Or existence may be unbearable for her. I also wonder if she is capable of loving me back. Or of thinking.

Allow me to share a secret with you. Sometimes I love being left alone. Mainly so I can indulge in a lifelong nurtured passion of doing nothing. As if I have this innate urge to be called a lazy bum. Sometimes I steal a moment or two on a secluded beach in the Caribbean from Mother Nature and usually gloat over those stolen moments for a long time after returning to the frigid North.

Pat, these are some hurried observations of the Love I have felt and experienced from the waist up in the allegory.

As for 'hmmpphh!' can I associate this with a certain horizontal noise made by animate and inanimate objects? This kind of love, intrinsically but not totally experienced from the waist down, has intrigued me since early teen years. (Oh, don't be alarmed. Experts tell me it is normal!) And have been personally collecting lustful and climactic experiences, observations and impressions for the past many years:) In this never-ending quest I have come to certain conclusions that modesty prevents me from properly and adequately sharing here.

pyaar aur nafrat
nashaa pyar ka nahiN kum
nafrat kay nashay say

ik chuckki kay paat haiN
nafrat o pyar
gardish maiN bun jatay haiN
mujassim e mohabbat e as'l

aa'mayzish hay yeh mohabbat
--sa'hara, saa'ya, saath,
qurbat, chahat, zaroorat,
garmi, beemari, yaktaa
milaap, andaisha, lum's
mooskurahat, shar'm, soorkhi
lakh roop haiN
aur jaan? ek hay woh!

digressions on poetry, elitism and more ...

to drumz and HN and sammi

...elitist...there is that word...no... do not think am an elitist...but wait...perhaps i am...for i do not tolerate the trite and the imbecilic musings...does that make me an elitist?...am i not within my rights to be selective?

...i am not a diamond person...so what do i know of jewels;)...but wait...yes there are diamonds and jewels...some cut and some uncut...some raw and some polished on this site...so what is the point?

[..."My only gripe with poetry is that its soooo elitest...]

--there is that word again!...elitist...poetry?...well i see how it could be construed as elitist because it does not have mass appeal...hmmmmmm...but then so is shoe polishing...other than when it is done professionally we do not see shoe-shining clubs or fraternities...but am sure there are folks out there who love shining shoes...what am saying is appreciating and enjoying a given chore or activity is usually restricted to a few folks... and it is wrong to fault everyone for not following a certain chore or activity...

...past week there was a programme on cbc radio about this alberta or calgary poet who is translating and popularizing Hafiz to english audiences in north america...Gibran has been a perennial favourite of certain readers in the west...

...poetry appeals to the reader's heart and intellect...though am not sure if it does so simultaneously or even ought to do so simultaneously...though must admit to the strong possibility of a cross-over...

...the lovers swaying under full moon could be listening to what others may describe as mumbo-jumbo...and yet the same folks under a different mood and time frame may be knocked off by gibran or rumi or hafiz or ghalib...

...the point is it is all within...it is we...we open the portals within our selves...and make ourselves receptive to shades and meanings of words, lyrics, thoughts to hit us the way they do...i do not know how else to describe how some words hit me one day...or occasion and not so effectively felt on another...

[..."MOST (again MOST) poets don't say things that are too meaningful. Their skill lies in the ability to give an ordinary thing deep meaning - through eloquence and articulation. The people I mentioned take the deep meaning out of the words and put it in you. They cause the words to guide you to a deep and meaningful place. In essense, they are guiding you to your soul...]

--yes...agreed...take this from another pov...most people talk...converse...municate daily...how much of that communication is deeply meaningful?...

...poetry is no different than everyday writing...their range is from the trite and ordinary to eclectic and soul stirring...but the point i shall emphasize is the reception one's inner self gives to those words...which inner portals are left open by us to receive those messages...remember chancey the gardener in being there?...his words of wisdom were ordinary perceptions and words mostly dealing with weather and garden...given an altogether different meaning by his listeners and benefactors...

...this could be the coincidence factor also...

[..."Poets simply masquerade a regular thing in verse. For some odd reason they take pride in being VAGUE AND USING WORDS UNAVAILABLE TO THE COMMON PERSON!!!!!!...]

--not necessarily...though it does happen...

...to properly ascertain we got to see who is saying it...is it a sophomore poet out to impress his date...or a serious poet who mulls over every single comma and word... take the three poems on this board...harish's...suheil hammad's and the cyberlynching one...and tell me about the word usage...which words are vague and not available to the common person?...actually i would say a common poetry reading person!...

...to me one has to be in a certain receptive mood to receive the poem...admittedly these are three different poems and for me they do not appear to use archaic or difficult words...

...hope this helps...


****

more digressions on poetry

...what is poetry...a verbal snapshot of a moment or feeling...this needs elaboration...

...using an automatic, disposable, manual, cheap, semi-professional or professional camera with or without the use of filters, shades, lights and using a fast or slow film any photographer can capture an object or expression, portrait or landscape on that film...

...assuming that the results turn out fine...that snapshot would show an object, or landscape or a portraiture as captured by that photographer at that moment in time...essentially an unalterable fait-accompli of that photographer's perception, imagination, intuition and feeling...to be conveyed to us thus...

...with appropriate substitutions we can say the same of an artist...using different mediums an artist conveys his intuitive imagination and feelings about the subject matter to us in the form of a canvas or sculpture...

...once the creative process is completed in a photograph, painting or sculpture the creative artist moves on and work of the reader or viewer starts...

...if the reader or viewer is moved by the piece and experiences 'nearly' the same or even 'similar' feelings as that felt by the original creative person than the conveyance and transference is achieved…but it seldom happens this way...

...it is difficult to quantify feelings...and i am discussing this in terms of an individual's response to a creative effort...mainly perhaps each individual reacts differently...but we are moved...that cannot be denied...be it a mysterious smile painted or a looming storm over the horizon or battlefield heroics or a still life or a sunset or a crowded bazaar scene...we are moved...and therein perhaps lies the success of the creator...he has succeeded a transference of some of his original magic...

...now back to poetry...a verbal snapshot of a moment or feeling...

...a poet captures his intuitive feelings in words...he may utilize any of the existing forms available...naz'm, ghazal, mathnavi, musaddas, qaseeda, marcia, eulogy, sonnet, ballad, haiku, blank verse, free verse...and having captured his thoughts in words he may sit on it for ever, sell it, send it to a publication or share with his audience...

...(we will leave why or how the creative force strikes for another time...:)...

...if...the poet has shared his work...and even if he hasn't but is long dead and his work surfaces later...the written word enters the public domain...and once there almost anyone can and do express their views on the written work...

...if their poetry has magic...and this is very difficult to describe...but let me give you my interpretation of magic...their intuition, inspirational outburst, word usage and ideas have a certain universalism...that effusive enduring appeal...the original magic has found resonance with the present reader...this magic transcends space and time...(digression: sir muhammad iqbal...see the article on him by zafar anjum elsewhere...wrote saaray jahaaN say achcha hindustaaN humara...it is sung by school kids in india with emotion and fervour but it is ignored by kids and teachers in Pakistan...to give you a perspective, drumz...it would be as if an American or Mexican poet had penned 'O Canada...'...same easily understood words that evoke diametrically different emotions!...)

...the finished work assumes a life of its own...

...time is the most relevant critic of art...

...when a writer creates...the initial catalyst is NOT a betterment of society, human beings or any other noble ideals...he just wants to a capture a passing magical feeling or thought for eternity...if that is possible…this is simplified as art for arts sake!...

...then there are writers with agenda (read conscience, political or social motivation)...they want to create art with a message...(read social or political awareness)...

...around the second quarter of last century in Urdu literature a movement was born...Taraqqi Pasand Tehreek....(progressive writers movement)...in a nut-shell they wanted art/literature to become subservient...to serve a purpose...what is the use of pen if not used to defend the poor and down-trodden...they asked...why write at all if we cannot ameliorate the conditions of the poor...this new movement acted as a catalyst...and naturally had its proponents and opponents...the latter dusted off the old argument of art for arts sake!...

...both the arguments had some merit...

see...extremism is dangerous even in literature!...and consequently 'moderation' should rule...yeah!...

...i agreed and said the same thing in different words...'They all wrote deep, meaningful works which needed introspection to understand...' we got to keep all internal windows open to let deeper meanings in...and when we do that sometimes even the simplest words assume significant meanings...the diamond comment was in response to 'recognise a jewel...'..

...yes...we must find the truth everywhere...but you missed the point of the imbeciles...once you have observed and learned from someone's mistake (not crossing the road when the traffic is flowing)...you have learned and filed away that lesson...you cannot re-learn the same lesson from another careless jay walker...time to move on to other truths...that was my impatience with imbeciles bit...

...and we are all marked bulls in the arena of life...or pebbles on the shore...or pawns in the eternal chess game...or... call this a learning experience!...

...and HN...universal truths...delisting old brahminical values...changed times...agreed with your observations...minor disagreement with personal word-usage...most people do speak and write differently...personally when i write the usage depends on who is being addressed...sort of like in a chess game one's level rises or sinks unconsciously to the level of the opponent...but have the feeling you are deliberately sitting on the fence...understand that...but would appreciate your and other folks views on the magic and universalism in them old bards that transcends time and space...

a related digression...
May 14, 2001

[... I object to your assumption that commentaries are made to order....An opinion may not require imagination yet it can create a "storm in the sea of gray cells". I apply the same standards for poetry as I do for my columns, or vice versa: that is, regurgitate the inner demons, which are invariably lodged in the mind due to external stimuli, overt or covert....A 'deadline' discipline is akin to waking up at night to jot down urgent and persistent thoughts that do not leave us... the fresh gush has a different resonance altogether ...]

...well...have already admitted my admiration for you and others who excel at newspaper deadline work...and while i take nothing away from those efforts...i think we are talking about two different aspects of writing...first off...will agree that resonance at finishing a piece is one of the great rewards of writing...and there is no denying that...but i was alluding to...if i may...that hard to describe literary impact....longevity? freshness? sac's rawness factor?...(and yes, i agree that is not to be taken as the sole test of any literary effort!)...years ago i read an essay The Onion Eater...unfortunately have forgotten the writer's name...but the impact of that essay still resonates...years ago JFK was shot dead...or Armstrong landed on moon...or Dr. Bernard did the aashiqs of the world a grave injustice by actually transplanting somebody's living throbbing heart...just a random mention of three events that perhaps shaped our lives...now...i recall the events vividly in my mind...but...hard pressed as i am...i cannot recall a single newspaper or magazine writer's news report, article or essay from that time...

Thursday, December 01, 2005

iqra

iqra
I
We are receptive!
we are receptive not!

II
read not, hear not, see not
'ven when it is neon-ed on the hills
(capitol, hollywood, marghalla)hills
in the bound of perception
you and i are dumb not, clever
perceptive
we put words and ideas to pasture
selectively
....................read them to others
....................we do

III
..........................then books
heart-beats conveying from the yore
thoughts troubling, soothing,
..........................straight
from the heart-mind
they wrote - what survived
ravages of desert winds
fires, hooves, apathy
..........................we love
love their vibrant honesty, reach and
wisdom that strikes a chord
words that whirl with the beat
resonate when silence is folded

IV
worship words
no surprises there, my friend
they are our X t a s y
a pursuit of a pursuit that delivers orgasm
what do whirling dervishes know?
but they know, they know!
for merrily they go round and round
..........................and round
..........................whirling to
word-music reverberating
succumbing to the magic
..........................of word-ecstasy


V
friends? what friends? that one? hah!
pass me the napkin please
..........................no
..........................not you!
(is this a poem he is writing?
yes, this is a poem, ask joan!)

but yes there are friends
with whom one hesitates not
to share a grave
...........................or a thought
love them, ensconce them, value them
...........................worship them!


VI
the mate i embrace nightafternightafternight
...........................through decades
...........................worship her
...........................more
more than
any soul
for she puts up with all my idiosyncrasies
worship her
...........................intensely


VII
amidst all this worshipping
God takes a back seat

VIII
but
if truth be revealed
(for whom? He knows!
....................knows what is in the heart
....................how can i be so audacious?)
i do love Him
....................most
now this may be mortally confusing
for the bystanders
i love Him more
....................but worship Him less

Sadia Afroze Ali

Sadia Afroze Ali:
An apology to Bangladesh



Hum kay theh'ray aj'nabi itni mula'qaa'touN kay ba'ad
Phir banayN gay aash'na kitni muda'raatouN kay ba'ad


Strangers we remained despite meetings aplenty
friendship will develop after how many (more) rendezvous?


Faiz Ahmed Faiz at Dhaka on his first visit to Bangladesh

_________________________________________________________________

Dear Ulloo:

Surprised? Must have been 25 years. Back then, when we corresponded regularly you and I were both single.

Yesterday, while searching for something I can across some pictures. One of them showed a show-cased, demure, bejeweled dulhan. I forgot what I was looking for and retreated to this PC to capture some thoughts.

Occasionally when such urges overwhelm me, my partner in crime M ensures I am left alone. (Yes I am married and have three, no two sons now.)

The only ones I recall from those days are Apa and Nafisah Bte. Mohammad besides yourself. When I move to Alexandria Va. in ‘71 I kept up the correspondence with you at Dhanmondi R.A.

You introduced me to Jeanette or Janette U. from DC. Cute, vivacious and intelligent. Once she visited my townhouse when Pervez was staying with me. He 'drooled' after her. Don't know where she is now. We only met a few times before I moved North. Half the time we would talk about you.

We continued to exchange correspondence after Bangladesh came into existence. But not with the earlier intensity and warmth. Things were left unsaid. Then we got married. And gradually our correspondence faltered and then ceased altogether.

This photo has rekindled those memories and some.

Without going into didactic or dialectical discourse, let me say unequivocally, I apologize.

I could start with Mohammed Ali Jinnah's Paltan Maidan, Dacca speech in '48 declaring Urdu to be the national language of Pakistan, and continue with the policies of successive governments' blatant discrimination against the Bengalis. I could cite the Der Spiegel report of April 19, 1971 describing attacks on the villages by Pakistan Armed Forces, including use of napalm by the Air Force. Or I could describe the injustices perpetrated by the 93rd Infantry Brigade at Mymensingh, or the 53rd at Feni, or 117th at Comilla, or 91st at Rangmati, or 202nd at Sylhet, or 313th at Maulvi Bazar, or 27th at Brahmanbaria, or 205th at Khetal, or 34th at Nator, or 107th at Jessore, or 314th at Khulna.

I could go on. But that is not the point I want to make today.

I was a young student who had no part in the crimes committed. You and I were both in the same boat. Yet I want to own up to that responsibility as mature people must.

I render this overdue apology on my behalf. And if it were in me, on behalf of my people and my government for all the injustices perpetrated since '47 and continuing up and until the birth of Bangladesh. To you and through you to every single Bangladeshi.

with love & profound regards,

temporal

The Bombing

Hum muwah'hid haiN hamara kaish hay tark e rasoom,
MillataiN jub mitt ga'een ajzaa e eemaaN ho ga'een
Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib

Believers in one God, rituals we renounce,
Creeds. when dissolved, merge into one Faith.
Trans: K. C. Kanda

____________________________________________________________________________________



MONTREAL, March 20, 2020. Abdullah had this thing for the fresh fragrance of bodies. As they returned to his apartment after dinner at the Bistro in Old Montreal, he headed straight for the shower. Andrea, his current Chilean flame knew about his penchant. As Abdullah came out she went in, her bosom brushing ever so slightly against his.

Abdullah smiled. He was not quite 22 yet. And learning fast about the idiosyncrasies of relationships with femme fatales.

He was born on that day back in 1999, when the then U.N. Secretary General held a new born baby in Sarajevo, Bosnia declaring the infant to be the six billionth baby on earth. Abdullah was born at Surat, India to a family of the former Nawabs of Surat, and was named after an illustrious ancestor of his who had reputedly translated the Holy Qur'an in blank verse.

He was sent off to Dehra Dun for schooling and later to McGill for graduate studies. As he waited for Andrea to emerge he flicked on the remote. The News Network anchor was leading in with the breaking story live from Riyadh, Republic of Arabia. Abdullah saw Andrea emerge from the bathroom, look him in the eye and ever so non chalantly let the robe slip off her body. Simultaneously he heard the anchor report about the unconfirmed bombing of the shrines at Mecca and Medina. He felt his whole body go limp.

Within the hour the Network had confirmed that the shrines were obliterated by a lone Israeli airman. Abdullah went on the net and booked himself on a flight back to India the next day.

TEL AVIV, March 20, 2020. Major Uri touched down at his base in the Negev desert and surrendered quietly. 72 minutes earlier he had take off from the same base. 72 minutes that would change the world. 72 minutes that would be debated forever.

Uri was a six billionth baby too. Born that same 12th of October, 1999 when Kofi Annan held baby Adnan in his hands. He was born at Mt. Sinai hospital built on the site of the Deir Yassin massacre. His mother Naomi was an Ashknazi jew and father Orfe was a Shephardim. They had first noticed Uri's extra ordinary gifts when he was barely a year old. He could read fluently by the time he was three and could solve high school mathematics problems when he was only 4 1/2.

Israeli Defense Forces education unit took him under their wings. He became the youngest Major in the Israeli Air Force. Tall, well built, but a loner. No steady girl friend. Or boyfriend either. He suffered from mild case of temporary impotency. And was too shy to discuss this treatable condition with doctors.

Upon his return he was taken to an isolation unit and grilled for days on. Other than the technical details he did not have much to tell them. They kept asking him a variation of the same question: why, why, why? And he kept telling them he had to do it.

Almost two years to the day he was sentenced to three consecutive life terms in solitary confinement by the Supreme Court. Naomi sobbed upon hearing the sentence.

RIYADH, March 20, 2020. In the hours before the bombing the American Ambassador tried to raise President Omar. A sleepy Omar refused to take the call. Later it transpired that even if he had heeded the Ambassador's warning, his Air Force could have done nothing to prevent the lone Israeli's attack on Islam's holiest shrines.

President Omar bin Tahrir was another six billionth baby. Born at the Feisal Maternity Hospital, on the outskirts of Riyadh to Habeeba, her third child. He was destined to become a Royal Guard. Omar had met Abdullah briefly when he was sent for a short course to McGill two years earlier. They got along famously.

Omar's tribe had given refuge to Abdul Aziz ibn Saud when he was fleeing from Hejaz to Kuwait.

Upon his return and consolidation of power, Abdul Aziz rewarded the tribe by inducting all their able bodied men into his Royal Guards.

Following the death of the last of the Sudairi Seven, Saudi Arabia was thrown into turmoil. The powerful and shrewd governors of the Eastern Provinces and Hijaz had conspired to install a weakling grandson of Feisal as the new King. Infighting further reduced the ability of the young King to govern. Capricious rumours that the young king had a harem of young boys made rounds in the souq.

The officers of the Royal Guards could only turn a blind eye for so long. There was a restlessness among the junior cadre that they found hard to ignore. One anniversary day an year earlier Colonel Omar found the inebriated King making advances at him. In a fit of rage he shot the king dead. A comedy of errors ensued.

Kenneth Walsh the veteran News Network reporter was waiting in the ante chamber to interview the young King. Instead he got the scoop of his life. He rushed in with his crew and minutes later he was transmitting live reports of the assassination. The world saw a very excited though outwardly calm Kenneth Walsh in the parking lot beside his communications truck report to the world about the death of the King. The visual showed a towering Omar, still standing with the pistol in his hand over the slumped body of the king. Omar had gone into shock at his action. His dazed look appeared stately on television screens. Kenneth in his excitement made one slip of judgment and identified Omar as the new President of Arabia. Vice President Romero Hibachi of the Southern States called in as did other world leaders. Arabia still had lots of oil left. And all this was duly reported on the News Network through out the day.

At the end of the day, commanders of the Air Force, Navy and Army conditioned to pledge loyalty to the ruler found themselves bowing and kissing the right hand of the new ruler, President Omar bin Tahrir. Thus was born the Republic of Arabia.


LONDON, April 13, 2022.
It was now nearly two years since what was now universally referred to as the bombing. The world was still in an upheaval. 1.7 million dead in Mecca and Medina, split equally between the locals and the pilgrims from the rest of the Muslim World. 800,000 dead in India, primarily in New Delhi, Calcutta and Mumbai where the fire set to the American embassy and consulates spread and engulfed entire neighborhoods. Globally the death tally had exceeded 4 million, including over 57,000 Americans. And there was no end in sight.

ATLANTA, May 30, 2029. Things were returning to their normally chaotic ways prior to the bombing.

United Nations was still talking of stream lining its bureaucracy. World Trade Organization was still trying to smoothen relations between first, second and other worlds. World Court was still trying octogenarians for war crimes committed over 35 years ago. CARS, the Confederation of American and Russian States, showed signs of exasperation in its ability to deal with Islamic resurgence following the bombing.

Majority of the learned scholars in Islam after crying themselves hoarse were resigned to the inevitable. The extirpation of the shrines failed to motivate the worldwide Muslim Ulemas to any consensus. There was an influx of Muslim visitors to Al Quds and Karbela following the bombing. But that was no Haj.

Al Azhar scholars argued for reconstructing Ka'aba and the Prophet's Mosque a safe distance away from the cratered sites. Republican Arabians, still under the lingering influence of Waha'bism strongly opposed them. Other Ulemas in Asia and Africa seemed to be paralyzed with this dilemma. President Omar, however, secretly admired and funded his Montreal friend Abdullah's organisation Simple Islam.

Abdullah, now known as Mujaddid Doyem Saani, proselytized about Rotating Haj. The day after the fateful bombing he left McGill and Montreal for the seminary School of Learning, Lucknow only to drift from there to a Sufi Halka in Phulwari-Sharif. He learned and meditated a lot. His reputation spread and in a few years he founded Simple Islam. It was not clear if he had assumed or had been accorded the title of Mujaddid.

His organization Simple Islam argued that Haj basically meant a Congress of the Muslim Ummah once a year. The place, the city could be moved from east to west and north to south. This will have twofold benefits, he argued. First, it would offer the local Muslims a better chance at performing the obligatory Haj and second, this arrangement would spread the social and economic benefits universally. Through Simple Islam he paved the way to return to Islam's original appeal and simplicity --- the regard and tolerance for fellow beings in a spiritual and worldly context without compulsion or fear.

Two years earlier, Mujaddid's group had initiated a Haj at Fez, Morocco. About 18,000 Muslims attended. A temporary replica of Ka'aba was recreated for the occasion. Last year it was resurrected at Mashad, Iran. Over 236,000 attended. This year it was at Padang, Indonesia. Over 2,300,000 attended.

Next year the consensus was for Multan, Jinnahabad. The growing popularity of Simple Islam was noted not only by entrenched Islamic scholars but also by CARS. SI's rational approach was fresh air in an otherwise stifling atmosphere created by the vested scholars. Soon it swiveled to a flood. Globally, ordinary Muslims at once understood and followed the basic and simple appeal of the Mujaddid.

PHULWARI-SHAREEF, July 10, 2029. Mujaddid Doyem Saani was ambushed and shot mid noon. Some blamed the senile Hindutva leader Bha Bhagoray. Others pointed fingers at Darul Islam leader Maulana Daagh. Yet others talked of a collusion between the Pope and CARS.

Writing, Madness, Despair - rohit chopra

Writing, Madness, Despair


Rohit Chopra



Imagine a world so messed up that schizophrenia is the only response to it.

That world might exist. It's the world you, I and the guy next door might be living in.

It is a disconcerting idea: one that immediately raises hackles. As controversial critic and psychoanalyst R D Laing would no doubt have discovered when he suggested, a good 20 odd years ago, that perhaps madness was a perfectly logical response to a century that had seen two world wars, a Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an Auschwitz and a Dachau and countless other instances of horrific barbarity.
Needless to say, in the last two decades, the madness has not abated; genocide spreads its nasty reach across several continents. From Bosnia to Indonesia, the bloodshed drives home the message that there are very few things one human being will not do to another. Closer home, one only needs look at the morning paper to lose faith in humanity.

The resistance to accept such a thesis is understandable.

For no matter how much we curse our zeitgeist, no matter how rotten things get in the State of Denmark, we hold on to the idea that the universe we inhabit is fundamentally normal, if a little frayed at the edges. We save our discussions of surrealism and alternate realities for a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Madness is best kept at arm's length, as is everything that madness is a metaphor for: the dark side of humankind, the killer around the corner, the beast within, the monster of history and the shameful past.

But there are those who choose this madness and despair, or perhaps it chooses them. Writers and poets who look into the heart of darkness and tell us what we are most scared of knowing. That there is no God and no Justice. That evil exists in its purest, most malevolent form, and gets away unpunished. That there is no hope and no salvation. That claustrophobia and nausea is all there is to existence. That wherever the light reaches, the dark has already reached and is there waiting for it, impatiently tapping one foot.

It is not a matter of sheer chance that madness and its familiars -- despair, desolation and darkness -- are among the great themes of 20th century writing. And while it is a literary sin of sorts to confuse the life and biography of a writer with the writing, it is surely more than a coincidence that some of the most significant writers of our century have been depressive or even suicidal.

Many of them suffered nervous breakdowns. Some died mad. Some, if nothing else, retreated completely into themselves, and lived out their days as asocial reclusives. Some took to alcohol and wrecked themselves. Others let drugs do it for them. T S Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Bruno Schulz Kafka, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, J D Salinger, Robert Pirsig, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Yukio Mishima, Kurt Vonnegut, Philip Larkin... the list goes on.

It should be said here, however, that the figure of the writer at odds with society is not a particularly new one. In the specific context of English literature, the idea of the writer as a tormented genius sprung from the Romantic worldview.

The Romantic poets, especially, gave us the image of the frenzied seer who, in his trance-like state, was privy to truths that lesser mortals could not have access to. Obviously, this meant an isolation of sorts from the teeming mass of humanity: a privileged loneliness which was the burden of the artist, at once a curse and gift.
Yet, this isolation was not necessarily an alienation. Shelley could still stridently proclaim that poets were the unacknowledged legislators of mankind. For that alienation -- for the shrinking of the poet's voice to zero -- one had to wait till the beginning of the 20th century for a poet named T S Eliot.

Eliot, through his poems, The Love Song Of J Alfred Prufrock and The Wasteland, made a statement about the relationship of the writer to contemporary society. No longer was the writer someone who could confidently make a statement about the world he lived in. The image that Eliot forged of the writer was based on the vision of a different sensibility -- the writer was someone who, through his work, was holing out against an inevitable corruption of the soul. Sometimes he succeeded, but equally he failed.

Of course, not all the great tormented souls of the 20th century created wonderful literature simply by virtue of the fact that they were depressive. Of course, not all writers who write on madness, despair and all that is dark are necessarily depressive. Of course, not all great writing on madness and the bleak underbelly of life is unremittingly pessimistic; often, as in the case of Heller's classic Catch 22, it is more than generously laced with the kind of black humour that elevates and uplifts the spirit. Stories of emptiness are often stories of salvation as well: in Eliot's Wasteland, redemption lurks on the horizon, in the words from the Upanishads, "Give, sympathize, control."
But there exists, at the same time, a kind of writing where it is always darkness at noon.

Where a clinical nihilism forces one to reach out for a sun that has gone dead. Such writings ring with a strange, prophetic truth: it is the shriek of a blind man whose insight has been purchased at the cost of his eyesight. More often than not, interestingly, writing of this sort does not concern itself directly with the horrific -- it takes as its domain the metaphysics of the human condition in a godless universe.

The high priest of this is Kafka, arguably the single greatest writer of the 20th century. If you want to experience failure and desperation in their most unadulterated form, read The Castle. At once fable -- which Rushdie counts as the central literary form of the West -- allegory, theology, novel and poem, Kafka's masterpiece is the story of a man, K, who attempts to breach the bureaucratic set-up of the castle in order to meet an official. He fails to make any headway whatsoever and his efforts disintegrate into a classic tale of impotence: he is completely reduced to a cipher. Philip Roth calls The Castle a book concerned at every level with not reaching a climax. It is true: reading The Castle is a frustrating, choking experience, like being wrapped in a shroud and not being able to breathe.

The same relentless despair is manifested in Kafka's famous short story, Metamorphosis, where a man turns into a cockroach and slowly finds himself alienated from all those who, seemingly, cared for him earlier. To call it a classic tale of alienation is to use a phrase that has been sullied by excessive undergraduate pseudo-intellectual angst, but that is indeed what it is.

The other classic nihilists of our century are the existentialists. Fascinatingly, the metaphor of repeated failure appears in Camus as well. In his collection of essays The Myth Of Sisyphus And Other Essays, he invokes the mythical figure of Sisyphus to describe the pointlessness of the human condition. Sisyphus' task is to roll a boulder up a hill till he reaches the top, but he fails every time and is condemned to keep trying till the end of time.

Camus was a far more gifted thinker and writer than his fellow-existentialist, Sartre, who often used his fiction to mechanically illustrate philosophical points. However, Satre produced at least one literary masterpiece -- the play No Exit. In it, the deathtrap moves from the metaphysical to the physical. In a memorable, damning line, the play leaves us with the talismanic anthem, 'Hell is other people.' It is a pointedly frightening thought, for what else but the social circumscribes the ambit of meaning in our trivial lives.

The Beat writers -- Kerouac, Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg among others -- were another group of writers who flirted with relentlessly apocalyptic visions that were based on a nearly total rejection of all that society, as they saw it, stood for. Openly contemptuous of the bourgeois world, they used drugs to tango with the very fabric of reality.

While their experiments with mind-altering substances were nothing new -- they had honourable predecessors in Coleridge, De Quincey, Rimbaud and Huxley -- their conviction about the poverty of the normal and the ineffectuality of representing the 'real' through conventional literary forms marked the Beat ethos as original. Though they often sound like prophets of doom, the Beats, it must be said, do not share the stance of pointed resignation and defeat that mark the other great literary pessimists of the century. Kerouac, easily the most talented writer of the lot, often explores a sort of redemptive mysticism in his work and Ginsberg's work often displays a Whitmanesque ecstasy.
Yet, the Beat worldview is not always positive and negative in balanced measure. Sometimes, like Old Testament prophets, they damn with rhadamanthine judgement. The best example of this is the Ginsberg's talismanic anthem, Howl. The first four lines serve as a comment on the signs of the times. They may also, with equal relevance, apply to the figure of the contemporary writer:

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the Negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night. . ."
No less damning is the poet, Philip Larkin, who once famously said that depression was for him what daffodils were for Wordsworth. Larkin was, to his credit, not a chronic pessimist though he came pretty close. After all, he is the man who gave us the lines, "What will survive of us is love," and "Sexual intercourse began in 1963/Between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles first LP." Yet, in another poem, This Be The Verse, Larkin in his droll way can be more nihilistic than perhaps any poet in the last half century. I haven't read a more angry, bitter statement.

The poem is reproduced here: make what you will of it.

They f--k you up, your mum and dad
They may not mean to but they do
They give you all the faults they had
And add some extra just for you
But they were f---ed up in their turn
By fools in old style hats and coats
Who half the time were soppy stern
And half at one another's throats
Man hands on misery to man
It deepens like a coastal shelf
Get out as early as you can
And don't have any kids yourself

the fire

the fire
should remain lit
raging we live

warna zindagi
ik la-mat'nahi
sehraee barafzar
ban jaaigi

bringing up babies

jane & indira

this exchange brought smiles and memories

but first a digression: if we are a higher animal form, then should not parenting be instinctual?

khair

when we had our first born and brought him home he did not sleep in his room the first week...motherhood instincts of M got the better and we placed him beside us on a portable carry on 'bed'... wrapped in blanket, face up...

"don't do this, he will get a flat head." commented a visiting couple…what did we know about parenting...so son was turned over on his tummy...

"don’t do this with the poor baby, he cannot burp," said another couple...so we.....

during the course of the next several days poor the baby slept on his back, stomach, facing one side, facing the other, wrapped tightly, wrapped with one hand out, unwrapped...

being educated...(take this with a sack of salt)...we started grading unsolicited advice...if the couple rendering advice had two children their well meaning words acquired more weight than a couple with one chil...who had more weight attached than a couple with no children...

one day we got diametrically opposite advice from two folks who both had two kids each...dilemma....i rang up my mother...explained the problem...she excused herself saying..."betay, it has been so long for me i have forgotten what i did with you guys( in a similar situation)..."...

...then we discovered benjamin spock's bible:)

update: today the son knows everything...between him and God, they have everything cornered...to be truthful he was eight when he uttered the fateful verdict "you don't know nothing dad," ...and i winced...not sure whether it was at the double negatives flaunted in the speech or the allusion to knowledge acquisition of his parents...

proof: am no god

in memory of begum akhtar - agha shahid ali

by Agha Shahid Ali


IN MEMORY OF BEGUM AKHTAR
(d. 30 October 1974)


1

Your death in every paper,
boxed in the black and white
of photographs, obituaries,

the sky warm, blue, ordinary,
no hint of calamity,

no room for sobs,
even between the lines.

I wish to talk of the end of the world.


2

Do your fingers still scale the hungry
Bhairavi, or simply the muddy shroud?

Ghazal, that death-sustaining widow,
sobs in dingy archives, hooked to you.
She wears her grief, a moon-soaked white,
corners the sky into disbelief.

You've finally polished catastrophe,
the note you seasoned with decades
of Ghalib, Mir, Faiz:

I innovate on a note-less raga.


3

Exiling you to cold mud,
your coffin, stupid and white,
astounds by its ignorance.

It wears its blank pride,
defleshing the nomad's echo.
I follow you to the earth's claw,

shouldering time's shadow.
This is history's bitter arrogance,
this moment of the bone's freedom.


4

One cannot cross-examine the dead,

but I've taken the circumstantial evidence,
your records, pictures, tapes,
and offered a careless testimony.

I wish to summon you in defence,
but the grave's damp and cold, now when
Malhar longs to stitch the rain,

wrap you in its notes: you elude
completely. The rain doesn't speak,
and life, once again, closes in,

reasserting this earth where the air
meets in a season of grief.

(for Saleem Kidwai)

sheema

SPECTRES

Cold faces
in/stare in empty spaces
segmented emotions
drawing on blood
choking on tears
the bitter taste of it
washes away the illogical notion
of what once was love
or was it even love?

confused demented thoughts
borderline insanity
a degration of self
of selfishness of acceptance?

the circle cast
The paths truged
the begining to the end
and the end to the begining
once more
frustrum of foolishness


*****

d: Unspoken and unheard

U passed me by softly
Like a silent summer breeze
Sighs of yours in silence
Expressive and emotional
Tears apart my trajic soul
Dotn touch me
Dotn tear me
Transform me in your silence
Unspoken and unheard
U passed me by softly
Like a silent summer breeze
Sighs of yours in silence
Expressive and emotional
Tears apart my trajic soul
Dotn touch me
Dotn tear me
Transform me in your silence

******
TEAR DROPS IN WINTER
The shimmering crystals in my eyes
Catches a rainbow
The reflection of my mind
And scatters it carelessly
Into a thousand colours of emotions
Upon the winds of time
And once again I remember
My tear drops in the winter

***

MOURNFUL SOUL


Tonight the sun sets
But in a lost horizon
In an ocean of flames
The dying embers gaze
Across the shadowed sky
It fills the painful isolation
Of where I lie
Cold and naked
As the day I was born
Alone I lie, alone I decay
Redemption of my worldly sins
A release from my pitiful birth
A sudden drift of wind
Carries your laughter and a faint scent of your life
Across to where I lie
It dissolves in the air above
But does not reach my silence
In my silence I sigh
You feel a sudden chill, but shrug and walk away

away from
long forgotten mournful soul


I dotn liek the ending.. its incomplete.. i never wrote after the
"walk away" part...



standing silent
in deep waters
watching, around me fall
leaves in wintry weather
seven seasons passed by
the joys sorrows and all regrets
are but a drop
falling soft and silent
in deep waters
8/27
**

eternally entwined
your hand in mine
a stale reminder
of unspoken promises on pursed lips
beaded and threaded
with a thousand empty dreams
diffused colors of emotion
entwined eternally
like your hand in mine

8/27

lapse of reason: simply comlicated: one face - fm


Lapse of Reason

F-M
February 12, 2004

Eternal promises,
Forever in warmth,
Both realize,
Us cannot be.

She runs away,
Amidst soul
Deafening clutter.

He stays back,
In seclusion,
Fighting conscience.

In vain time brings,
Tear beaded smiles,
Words of hope,
Dreams of silver.


Her pale, vacant face,
Knowing,
Eternity he offers,
Consequence he suffers.

His dark, sunk eyes,
Observing,
Pain she tempts,
Redemption she seeks.

Making love at midnight,
Crackling wood in silence,
Flames lashing blindly,
Mocking reality.

Both fearing,
Rays of morn'
Birds of dawn
Parting of ways.


Simply Complicated
f-m
January 21, 2004

It was early in the morning. Sunlight was peeping through the windows and reflecting against the white walls of the room. I open my eyes expecting the warmth of my own room to welcome me with its rich mahogany colored bed, the maroon-red curtains, the candles, the sweet smell of potpourri and incense sticks. But instead I wake up to be stared at by the stark white floor, the naked walls, the bare windows and an empty room echoing with the sound of chirping birds outside. It's cold. It makes me shiver for a split second. This is as alien to me as I am to it. In a state of limbo I realize that I'm on vacation.

Vacation seemed like a good idea to me a few days back. I was exhausted by my work coupled with the hectic schedule of my day. Nights were always dreamless for me. I was emotionally and physically drained which not only decapitated my reasoning a few days before I came here but also severed my relationship with people who are important to me. And now that I'm here, I must admit with all this time on my hands, it seems like thinking is all I do which eventually leads to some good and most not so good realizations. Something is missing from my life. It is an abysmal feeling of a huge void some where deep inside. I'm missing. I think I lost myself a long way back somewhere during the time when I was conditioning myself to become a better suited person for my sake and trying to make a career for myself.

Sitting cross-legged here in the far corner of this empty room, with the laptop in front of me I can feel the cold floor under me. It feels like the floor itself is draining away the very energy I need to process my thoughts. My thighs have almost lost sensation and like the rest of me have become numb. My head throbs with a dull ache. I need to feel warm again. Noticing the window, I realize that this is the only beautiful inviting feature about the room that can bring me back to positivity. The walls around it, standing proud and erect, throw back at me everything I say to them. They seem to lack substance like so many other things in my life. I need to filter them out from my sub-conscience. I go out quite often, to feel the parching heat gradually thaw its way through my frozen self which seems to have completely overtaken me lately, to feel the wind blow against my skin and tingle my nerves to life again and to feel my hair fly away promising in the least a hint of life and vitality. It makes me feel alive, even if it is just for a while.

Smoking is something, which I was thinking of quitting for a long time. And now that I think about it, that is probably the only thing that I've done persistently over the past seven years or so. In the past seven years my `home` changed, people I thought I loved changed, my priorities took a sharp turn, friends came and went, sisters grew up to be individuals in their own right, moreover I changed. Everything that is now wasn't then except for me smoking. Its funny that I still do it after so much resistance from not only my own rationality but also by those around me. So many deterrents came and went. People told my of how girls are considered second grade if they smoke, friends warned me of my `bad` repute in college because of it, co-workers elaborated on 'what so and so thinks about me', parents were devastated, sisters stunned, some guys I knew fascinated (mainly because not many of my gender are as blatant about it) and others who claimed to be serious about me were conventionally unconventional. Alas! Wanted me to quit! Thus known as a perpetual charsi by the ones left.

I've just had a smoke. I like the way I can inhale a cigarette; deep and unrelenting, not caring of the consequences it bears. It spreads, ever so slowly, coaxing every muscle in my body to relax. Aware of all moralities rather immoralities related to the issue, it becomes inevitably evitable to smoke one cigarette.

There are incidents in life best if forgotten. There are things in life best if not possessed. There are emotions in life best if neglected. There are people in life best if kept far from. I've never believed in any of the above. I remember `everything` that happened, possessed everything that fascinated me, did everything that I felt like doing and lastly have been with all those people who were worth it. If something or someone ever disappointed me once, I gave it another chance, if again... I threw it away. I don't believe in holding back or holding on. Sound so selfish right now. May be I am, or may be that is how I've evolved in the past five years. You eventually become practical about things that turn bad and start to taste bitter. Sehgal and Umer were two people in my life who taught me this in their own way. I'll always be thankful to them for it. I was always the sort who thought that I could make 'it' go right. That nothing was as bad as it seemed. That no matter what happens, if I hold on to the good things and hold back my innate and at times skeptical feelings about them, everything would go right. I was proved wrong. Made me bitter. I learnt the facts…then moved on.

Life should ideally be categorized into black and white. It never can be. The grays are always predominant. I never know how to deal with the grays. Do I use my brain? Do I use my feelings? Or do I just let things be and see where it takes me? Though I know in the end it all simmers down to 'right and wrong'. I wish it were that simple.

One face: A Thousand Masks
f-m
September 30, 2003

Vania looked beautiful standing in the kitchen, the early morning sun reflecting through her hair making them look like strands of dark brown sea weeds with hints of honey lining them. She had a tall handsome figure. Slightly broad yet stream lined and toned to perfection with the regular workout she managed in her busy schedule. Her olive brown skin would give off a slightly rosy glow when she laughed.

Umer admired his wife in many ways. She was not only beautiful but sported a classic much wanted combination of 'beauty with brains'. One could describe her by using words such as elegant, graceful, refined, cultured…simply exquisite. The couple was five years into their marriage and both were very content. Both had planned their future together in early college days. Children were still a few years away.

Vania had a habit of detaching herself from her surroundings at times. Umer knew better than to bother his wife during these short and infrequent lapses of 'quiet'. Times like these she would strain on understanding the constant dialogue going on inside her. Today was one of those days. 'Baby I'll be a little late from work today, the big boss has called in a meeting over dinner'. 'Hmmm…ok…'. He kissed her neck and was going out the door when she called to him: '…but ill be all alone for the day and there's no-one to watch TV with me after lunch'. He looked back and saw his wife pouting like a small child with hands on hip. She looked so adorable, so innocent. 'I'll try to make it early..I promise'. 'Please bring chocolate for me on your way back'. He smiled and walked out.

She missed his company so much at times. Her mind was swamped with memories of her being alone all day when both her parents would go off for work and massi was busy with the housework. Tears were clouding her eyes and she sat down on the floor. 'I want to eat chocolate and watch Cinderella. I cant even find that Barbie which Amma gave me on my last birthday'. The voice inside sounded like a little child. A little, lonely, sad child.

Looking at the cup of tea in her hand she knew she wasn't supposed to have tea. Amma said tea wasn't for children…milk is what they are supposed to have. Standing up she pulled up her tracks like she used to when ten years old. She poured some milk into a glass, switched on the TV and gulped it in 5-4-3-2-1 seconds. Feeling better, she thought ' Vania stop sulking around like a baby, get up woman you have chores to do'. Ofcourse she did! She wanted to surprise Umer today with her new sari she had bought. The beautiful black chiffon sari that she would wear with her new backless blouse. He would definitely be shocked at that! She smiled to her self.

It was seven in the evening and Umer had called earlier to tell her he would be home in about an hour. She rushed to the washroom to take a shower. She always enjoyed a long steamy bath. It was there in the mistiness of her washroom that she would look at herself in the mirror and admire her body. Her long smooth back, her never ending legs, the firmness of her body, the roundness of her thighs…all of which Umer was in love with. She was all dressed up for him by the time he came back.

When he unlocked the door he saw a glamorous looking woman clad in a clingy sari which showed off her height…her waist…her grace…her perfection. Office had been tiring today and this was exactly what he needed to wind down. He could sense a change in his wife. A spark in her eyes. A glow on her skin. A seduction in her gestures. A smile on her face. A warmth in her touch. A peculiar charm in her movement. A moment later they both forgot about chocolate.

Later in the warmth of their bed, she never remembered asking him to bring chocolate for her. She told him how she had milk in the morning today instead of the regular cup of tea. Sharing these small things was what kept them close, involved and interested in each other.

It was a few weeks later when both of them were cuddled on their favorite couch watching 'Friends', when she jumped out of his hug, 'hey c'mon lets play snooker!'. Smiling at her abruptness and unexpected comment he teased her, 'darling I'd love to but I'd have to teach you first…and we both know that's not happening in this life time at least!' Vania was not much of a 'game player' in any sense. Card games she could manage, anything other than that was too much to ask for.

'Oh yea! Buster…I bet ill beat you in the first round…we take best of three...deal!' A little surprised at her persistence and confidence that she would win he took up the deal and took her to a nearby club. In all the five years of their marriage, she had never once touched a cue in front of him. Today she stunned him by winning all three games. He was amused, surprised and shocked. On their way back he was quiet and so was she. 'I never knew you could play snooker…wasn't it ever important enough for you to mention that you are a pro at it!'. 'I've always loved snooker darling and always won!' Either she was just teasing him or was testing his 'Vania-IQ'. He was still too surprised to persue the topic and so decided to let it go.

Next morning when she was alone she could hear it again. 'if I'm so good at snooker I might as well get into some tournament and earn some money!' 'You must be kidding yourself Mrs. Umer, you have never touched a snooker table all your life' 'that's not true, you won all three games from Umer yesterday didn't you?' 'I didn't win them you did!' 'I'm you too, you have to realize that' A little louder she went on, 'How can that be! I am Vania --- Vania Umer, have never played snooker, and don't know how to!' the other voice raised higher too, 'I am a part of you, stop pretending I don't exist!' the voices were getting louder.

She paced hurriedly from the lounge to the kitchen and back. Her breathing was getting heavy, hands rolled into a fist, eyes narrowed into slits of frustration. She pulled out her shirt and opened the first few buttons, tied up her hair, everything was suffocating her. Talking to herself she went to the washroom to wash her face and clear her thoughts. She looked at herself in the mirror. What was she doing with her life? Why wasn't she working? Why wasn't she independent? Why wasn't she pursuing her career? Why wasn't she competing in the world of professionals? Why wasn't she examining her patients? Why wasn't she operating on people? She felt inundated by the whys.

She turned around to see someone staring at her open-mouthed. Something inside her told her it was 'him'. Must be the husband. 'Vania? Whats going on?' 'Nothing is going on… I've been thinking of taking up my work again'. Not a question or confused wondering and certainly not open for discussion. It was a statement. She had to set herself up straight. She had wasted too much of her time already. Vania loved her husband, but she was overcome with emotions for herself. Umer couldn't understand what he saw or heard. Lately she had been rather enigmatic. She looked almost vicious right now and he didn't want to provoke her.

Later that night as Umer was lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, she turned to him and began to cry without a warning. She cried uncontrollably clinging on to him tightly. She was inconsolable, hitting his chest with her closed fists. He got up to fetch her a glass of water to calm her down.

When he was gone they were all screaming at her. Accusing her of being weak. The little one wanted attention. Vano wanted to go to snooker. Veena wanted her to gather herself up and make plans for her future. Vani wanted her to take a shower and make love to Umer. And Vania was perplexed listening to all of them.

So much noise and clutter. All of them talking at once. Glowering at her. Accusing her. She had to run away. When Umer walked in she was lying on the soft green of the floor with blood oozing out of her wrist.

A few months later when Vania had fully recovered, she was diagnosed with MPD-Multiple Personality Disorder. Umer was always by her side. He'd spoken to all of them. They all loved him. Loved him for being there, for saving her, for understanding them, and for accepting the little one, Vano, Veena, Vani and most of all Vania.