Words

On the upcoming Ayodhya verdict

posted by adee on 30/09/2010 in India

A tense, nervous India is waiting for the Ram Janmbhoomi-Babri Masjid land title verdict today. Unprecedented security measures have been taken by the governments at both centre and state levels, political parties have urged their supporters to maintain peace and respect the law of the land, media is spreading messages of peace and brotherhood continuously. Nobody wants a repeat of what happened in ’92 and afterwards.

It is an important day for India. Let us remember we are Indians first and then only a Hindu or a Muslim. And as a poet, as a person of faith, as a human being, let me share with you what Kaifi saa’b wrote years ago. More than any day, this nazm is important and relevant for us today…

सोमनाथ
बुतशिकन कोई कहीं से भी न आने पाए
हमने कुछ बुत अभी सीने में सजा रक्खे हैं
अपनी यादों में बसा रखे हैं
दिल पे ये सोच के पथराव करो दीवानों
के जहाँ हमने सनम अपने छिपा रखे हैं
वहीँ गज़नी के खुदा रक्खे हैं
बुत जो टूटे तो किसी तरह बना लेंगे उन्हें
टुकड़े-टुकड़े सही दामन में उठा लेंगे उन्हें
फिर से उजड़े हुए सीने में सजा लेंगे उन्हें
गर खुदा टूटेगा हम तो न बना पाएंगे
उस के बिखरे हुए टुकड़े न उठा पाएंगे
तुम उठा लो तो उठा लो शायद
तुम बना लो तो बना लो शायद
तुम बनाओ तो खुदा जाने बनाओ क्या
अपने जैसा ही बनाया तो क़यामत होगी
प्यार होगा न ज़माने में मुहब्बत होगी
दुश्मनी होगी अदावत होगी
हम से उस की न इबादत होगी
वहशत-ए-बुत-शिकनी देख के हैरान हूँ मैं
बुत-परस्ती मेरा शेवा (आदत) है के इंसान हूँ मैं
इक न इक बुत तो हर एक दिल में छुपा होता है
उस के सौ नामों में एक नाम खुदा होता है

-कैफ़ी आज़मी

Somnath
Let no idol breaker arrive ever
a few idols are preserved in my heart
and in memories old
Before you cast a stone on my heart, o believer! remember
that the hiding place of our loves
and of the God of Ghazni
is the same
Should these idols break, i will recreate them
pick up the pieces, hold them in my arms
and establish them again, in my once vanquished heart
But if it is God that breaks, there will be no re-creation,
and no picking up of the pieces
You, however, may be able to pick up the pieces
and create a new God
But God alone knows of the God you will create
God save the world should He be like you
There will be no love in our world,
Just a lot of hatred, a lot of enmity..
I will not be able to worship that God
I am amazed at this madness of idol breaking
Idol worship is my habit, for a human i am
because every human heart houses an idol
one of the million names of which, is God
-Kaifi Aazmi
thanks to ‘How Do We Know’ for helping translate it into English
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meri aawaz hi pehchan hai

posted by adee on 28/09/2010 in Uncategorized

a compilation of 140 songs as a tribute to Lata ji on her birthday.

 

you can watch these songs right above, though they’ll look better here: http://ht.ly/2L5Rq

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A day in pacific rim

posted by adee on 27/09/2010 in Uncategorized

“The sounds of silence!” 


first i thought, i’ve seen all of this umpteen times on Discovery and NGC, why now. but then i realized one major difference, that there was no narration here, nobody telling me this and that and what is meant to be what!


it is a 12 year old film, so the quality is a bit jaded, but do watch it just for the silence it cocoons you in and then you’ll realize how beautiful our world becomes when we let nature speak for herself.

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

posted by adee on 20/09/2010 in Uncategorized










“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/

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in moments like these

posted by adee on 14/09/2010 in Uncategorized

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.
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झूठ / the lie

posted by adee on 09/09/2010 in Uncategorized

अभी-अभी
तुझसे झूठ बोल कर हटा हूँ मैं
नींद का बहाना बना
फ़ोन रखवाया ही है तेरा

सच तो ये है
के नींद भरी थी तेरी आवाज़ में
और मुझे भी है इंतज़ार तेरे सोने का

जब सो जाएगी तू
तो चाँद की खिड़की से तुझे रात भर निहारूंगा

have just
lied to you love
feigning sleep
asked you to keep the phone down

the truth is
brimming with sleep, your voice was
and i too was waiting
for you to doze off

because when you do
fall asleep
i’ll watch you the whole night
from moon, that window steep

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इंतज़ार / the wait

posted by adee on 30/08/2010 in Uncategorized

वो बैठा-बैठा
रात के तालाब में
सितारे फेंक रहा है

बहुत बरस हुए अब
रात भरने को आई
मगर इंतज़ार
ख़त्म नहीं हुआ उसका

तुम किसी दिन
सुबह जल्दी उठकर
चूम लेना माथा उसका
शायद,
उसकी थकी आँखों को
सुकून आ जाये

sitting there, on the edge
of the pond that is the night
he picks and throws stars, one by one

its been ages
the night is now brimful with stars
but the end of his wait
is still afar

if some day
you got up early
and kissed his forehead sweet
then,
maybe,
his tired eyes
will find some relief

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metropolis

posted by adee on 20/08/2010 in Uncategorized
they, who have loved this place
are long since gone
leaving behind, empty shells
hungry, moving freely around
many others, rush in daily
pouring in this overfilled void
and so many, eventually
seep underground
she welcomes all
to her still loving bosom
now poisonous with
the filth that surrounds
not anymore this is
the city of hearts
but of a lust for power
that knows no bounds
the poet laments
his eyes run dry
waiting for the time, when
what was lost, will be found
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a tribute to Mohammad Rafi

posted by adee on 30/07/2010 in Uncategorized
tomorrow is Rafi Saab’s death anniversary. here is a compilation of 60 of his most well known songs. i’m sure there are many favorites that have been left out and no single compilation can do justice to the versatility and talent of this amazing playback singer and a truly human, human being.

 

 

you can watch all the songs here in the post itself. though they will look much better on the big black screen here: http://goo.gl/SHvMf

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अपने घर का

posted by adee on 27/07/2010 in Uncategorized
न रहा नामो-निशाँ अब अपने घर का
अजनबियों से पूछता हूँ, पता अपने घर का

इश्क ने मुझे दो जहाँ की दौलत वारी
आफ़ताब* अपने घर का, महताब** अपने घर का

अजब लोग इस शहर के, अजब आशनाई^
वक़्त पर न खोला किसी ने, दर अपने घर का

हर एक शख्स की चाहत अपनी, इबादत अपनी
शेख^^ अपने घर का, रिंद*^ अपने घर का

ज़मीन पैरों तले और आसमाँ ऊपर
बस यही है रक्ब^* अब अपने घर का

ये न समझे खुदा, के भूला हुआ हूँ मैं
मुझे पता है असली, पता अपने घर का

तुझसे मिला जब, महसूस हुआ मुझे
पूरा हुआ है ख्वाब, अब अपने घर का

*आफताब- सूरज, sun ; **महताब- चाँद, moon ; ^आशनाई- मेल-मिलाप, cordiality ; ^^शेख- धार्मिक व्यक्ति, religious individual ; *^रिंद- शराबी, drunkard; ^*रक्ब- क्षेत्रफल, area

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