Working On Sundays is another another opportunity to unwind.

Standing high and looking down on the town – the trackters,  cattle, pedestrians, roughing away the dust, ubiquitous in our town.  Here I am , taking a break from work, watching the Soul of Gurgaon through the huge glass wall, midday. The sunlight decieves the winter hiding around. Lying infront of me amidst the sahrubs and Bricks is Gurgaon… and Up there is an Eagle, relaxing in the warm winter air, assertive, pushing the heavy air further down, gliding and crowing above itself everytime it flips, standing taller eachtime.

The eagle,  like all of us rising higher at the cost of the city. And the city, hiding away its alien soul, changing its crust completely for the Nomads that come by. Its as if trying to grow Roses in a dessert that could never see anything but Cactus.  Its dust has as if covered everything, even the city’s heart and the tide of its emotions.

The city has grown a lot,  suddenly. Hehe.  Its like some get it gradually, some like her are forced to get a Botox done. Meanwhile,  the poet breathing  in the warm  shared auto still awaits her graceful comeback!

This is a write up for the play ‘Ghalib is NewDelhi’.  It was about how Ghalib takes another birth to see how the new generations recognize his value more than his own. Ghalib had himself remarked during his lifetime that although his age had ignored his greatness, it would be recognized by later generations. But as it turns out in the play, his art was timeless and passion too overwhelming to be appreciated enough by any generation.

Here are a few lines dedicated to him..

Ghalib ki shayari Ghalib ka kalma
Woh Naazon ki barish
Adaon ka nagma
Na Ghalib padh sake, na Duniya

Woh ashkon ki saadgi
Woh khwahishon ka  dariya
Woh hawaon mein udti
khushbuon ki dastaan
Na khud Ghalib padh sake, na Duniya

Us Shayari ki waadi ke saare phool
Bikhar chuke the
The Wohin par tadap rahe the
Unki roohon se aah bhi niklee
toh aakhri gooftagu yahi thee

” Hazaron khwahishen aisi ki har khwahish pe dam nikle

Bahut ikle mere armaa leki phir bhi kam nikle

Nikalna Khuld se aadam ka sunte aaye hain lekin

Bahut beaabraroo ho kar tere kuche se ham nikle

Muhobbat mein nahi hai phark Jine aur marne ka

Usiko dekh kar jeete hain Jis kafir pe dam nikle

Khuda ke waaste parda na kaabe se utha zalim

kahin aisa na ho, yaan bhi wohi kafir sanam nikle

Kahan maikhane ka darwaza ghalib aur kahan waaiz

par itna jante hain kal woh jaata tha ki hum nikle “

Hai unki Ghalibi aisi  ki har ik shayari pe dam nikle

Bahut aaye aur gaye, par Aap jaise kam nikle..

The ancient Indians and their remarkable sense of civic society gave rise to 4 varnas, on the top of which stood Brahmans.
Varna: (Sanskrit) A social class based on guna (attribute) and karma (activity).

The society then was very genuinely and thoughtfully divided into 4 varnas. But why divide a society by varna in the first place?
A simple answer is may be they saw that a prolonged division would give rise to ‘Domain Specialization’ and yes it does. The varnas that formed as a result were :

the Brahmans – people meant to have knowledge,religious & spiritual prosperity
the Kshatriyas- meant to have administrative and political prosperity
the Vaishyas -meant to have business talent & economic prosperity
the Shudras- meant to be implementers and have karmic prosperity

Although my descriptions are more analogical, they relate to the present society in a secular manner.

As I was browsing about the Brahmans, I tripped on this:

From Bhagavad-gita 18.42:

śamo damas tapaḥ śaucaḿ kṣāntir ārjavam eva ca |
jñānaḿ vijñānam āstikyaḿ brahma-karma svabhāva-jam ||

“Peacefulness, self-control, austerity, purity, tolerance, honesty, knowledge, wisdom and religiousness — these are the natural qualities by which the Brāhmaṇas work.”

According to Upanishads, Brahman means ‘Supreme Self’. Being a fan of Ayn Rand I can’t ignore this. The ‘Self’ is be the object of worship and should be nurtured for ‘Supreme’ Karma.
‘
One becomes or is called a ‘Brahman’ because of her Guna and Karma. Its not in the blood .. it is in the Spirit. Brahman – born out of Brahma is supposed to be a creator- of Vicharas(ideas), of Gunas(attributes), of Gyana, of Laws , of Consciousness, Spirituality and Existencialism.
A Utopic Brahman would be a Universe that can not only create Life and Psyche but also absorb and annihilate Entropy generated out of the clash of infinite possibilities and ideas inside her.

p.s. with information taken from Wiki

Its another of Ian Fleming flicks? Yes another James Bond movie, Pierce Brosnan .. But the big deal about it is that it is a BOND movie and carries the same flare..ahead of times.

The movie is a story of a ingenious  soldier in the British army, one of madam M’s heros, just like Bond – 006. He wants to avenge the death of his parents who died due to the neglect and ruthlessness of the British High command and plans to do it using the ‘GoldenEye’. It’s a device that is a key used by Russia to command their nuke deploys to fire to the commanded location. After a lot of Bond action, James stops 006 from firing the last one and in the process 006 dies. Meanwhile we go some exaggerated action, some single-minded hacker stuff( must have been intriguing at that time), emotions of friendship,the cool car stunts,typical hindi dialogues, the neat of the cold war and the sexy, slim B(l)ond gurl giving rise to some outrageous lovemaking..

It is predictable and over done yet, the James Bond thing charms me in a way.. and many others.

Inshah Allah, I’ll come up with some research on this series some time.

Till then.. Bond Forever…

A MAN IS A UNIVERSE..
To  see the world in a grain of sand…
Out Of Bounds – A play one can’t imagine would exist in such
a fantastic way. A series of plays by Feroz Abbas Khan being hosted by Epicentre ,Gurgaon. Out of Bounds was one of them. Enacted by Rajesh Gopie , the play had around 15 characters in it and Rajesh – the only ‘Actor’ in the play.

The heart of the story revolved around Lal, a boy belonging to an Indian family settled in a struggling, apparthied South Africa. The plot begins with a lesson that a teacher gives to his students; the one that through the ” apaharan of Sita by Ravana” conveys to the students that crossing boundaries has its own pitfalls. A lesson very realistically proved in the play. The family had left its ethnic boundaries of India.  Initially the poor, nuclear family fought to survive in Durban, phoenix and moved on. Later the ambitious lil boy narrates how he hated the hoch-poch of the conjusted family n how he always wanted a room and privacy for himself.

It is a sarcastic, dark humour presented beautifully and very naturally.  The tremendously powerful enacting by Rajesh made it equally realistic, as if we had gone back to the time the play was written. This man, Rajesh played 10-15 different characters, nonetheless no better justification could have been done to each one of the character.  The way he pampered each character could only be witnessed to believe.  I realised at the end that a man can be the whole universe some times.  Controlling and nurturing as well as being every character.
He was the God of the play.  Notwithstanding the fact that he spoke glibly for 1:30 hours, he was tireless.  His enthusiasm filled the auditorium.At the end, he received a standing ovation. This feat can be achieved only by a person who ‘lives’ the play.
Not only did the play have lessons to teach, the audience was entertained out of bounds. A very meaningful, humorous and classic play indeed. The quakes will shake your consciousness, check out the epicentre in Gurgaon!

Somebody up there must have laboured hard for this whole set up…
Bringin me here..:) to  Pune.
When I stepped in Pune, we were a bunch of guys(who didn’t know anything about pune) and one girl(me). Fortunately,a far off relative had arranged for temporary stay… a small wooden 18th century hotel, flanked by coconut trees , located virtually on the edge of the railway track. Although technically very unsafe.. it was our first hideout. U must know what it feels like getting a shelter @ 1 Am in a new city..

Finding a place was like all we wanted to do for ourselves then. We took to the streets, calling, drudging, laughing.., sometimes tense..going from place to place in search of that one, where we r now. For some of us the search ended in a few days. For some like me, i got a temporary(a better temp this time )one. After 3 months i settled in
on where I am rt now.
People here are great yaar. My first project was awesome.I even started learinin Marathi a lil.  The team was mostly as young as me,irrespective of age. Work was all same,work till 2, 3 am , come bak, leave in the mornin again. After 5 months, it ended- it was short term and power packed..hehe. My Second project was like any other project but things started changing. I had moved to a flat, started doing a certification on weekedns in Mumbai, commuting on weekends,

working more on weekdays… wooofff. It was one hell of a time. Since the certification was on my topic of interest, I basically lived the whole week in those two days-sat & sun 9 to 6.. and smoking the mumbai wind afterwards, deep into my lungs..and abdomen. Pune @ dat time became a roomate, who is good to live with on weekdays, but at the end
of the week it was mumbai that I turned to. Actually bcoz I had to.. bt enjoyed like i wanted to. It was a rapchik rush hour- those 5 months.  The biggest technical gliche of my life occured then. At the end of 3 months, we were given a
few projects( for which we wre supposed to work on vmWares) . Guess what, I was proudly & partly an owner of a lovely flat in an awesome society, but sadly of my laptop too- Noel.
Noel is pretty tough,ignorant, stunted(hardly 30 GB HD) & earlier belonged to Alzheimer(256 MB). Shez a great friend but not at all a techie. I had a pretty hard time doin my projects..That was one time realized that I needed an upgrade more than Noel….;)
But I did it , u know ‘beg , borrow, steal’- always works.

Gradually, everything settled down around me.. we, who came here together became friends, good
friends now.Got bindaas roomates.  Last coupla months I was released from the project. It was horrible in there, same
stuff, things changed everyday, lotta confusion.. & to survive u had to copy paste in a new way everytime..hehe. Or at least I could not make sense of it all, I had drifted to the other side of the sea by then.. Not anyone’s fault.

Pune was such a home to me by now. No testimonials in its praise.. Its like a very hot girl whoz not crazy… unbelievable. You can see her, feel her & talk about her. Cant write about her…Shez just awesome. Pune has the best climate I have ever experienced..Its like being cozy on the breasts of a saree clad ‘Girl’- always .. comforted and warm. Everybody around is so young,adventurous; never low on ’spirit’ – , sometimes its like a Utopian world… More than
that a place with a Soul… jus like those of our villages.. long lost.
What’s bad about it? Commuting  & Houses could be expensive, even food.
But dude, its the best place for wanderlusted souls, artists,ppl having a hobby, to study, hangout; in short Creative & Earthly and a Great place to live and have fun! Whoever wana revitalize must breath in here.. hehe.

Now you know why I wrote the first line… seems like someone intentionally arranged the whole fantasy called ‘pune’ around me just so that he could disrupt it all or take it away from me and be happy about it.. Oohh what saddist fun..Bet its been just as tough for her to make me leave Pune as it is for me to leave it.  Or may be dat someone is me …love you – Pune.

Suddenly a lotta statesmanshipz on the deck.. Can’t believe the senior politicians of India, some are busy raising the dead,others are busy dis/honouring people posthumously.  And the media, the clouds of pandemic, jus got something to hit Swine flu with..

I appreciate the fact that these were the guys who challenged the dynastic rule of the Congress, fought and won for once. But, all this shows, how politically incorrect and flawed they got,on the issue..By going against the book and the idea, they also disagree that Congress, their anti, was equally responsible for the partition. Heh.. They are supporting their competitors and going against Jinaah who doesn’t exist and alas exposing the gaping crevices in the party to one and all..Congress is good, journalists in Pak are happy, what about BJP?

Now coming back to reality.. Half of Pakistan is burning & rest of India is head on heels. How does it matter? To any of us.. History isn’t fact.. Its an interpretation. A thousand things happened in 1947, politically and socially; but none of us is concerned. Believe me if any of those stallwarts came to the 20th century and saw all this hoopla for nuthing, they might go back realizing that we are not worth their blood and sacrifice.

Just look @ the bigger picture.. Countries like the US have been free for 300 years now. Fortunately we got united into a nation by the British(whatever their motive). We are hardly 60 years old and competing with US, UK and China. Even countries as small as Japan, destroyed to pieces by WWII, made a
glorious come back.. Remember the tiny dot called Singapore, thats shining bright. And where do we stand? We are intellectually and Spiritually at par or even better than these nations, why should we waste our energy over issues as good as void? We must find new ways to strengthen our economy and innovate our way into the future.

And a line for all the parties here- Religion should follow Character, not vice versa.

wen sb said ‘life badi kutti cheez hai‘ they wanted to turn it this way but turned it that way;
the irony is, both ways its the same.

it makes you hate it n never let s you realize that you are hating it, rather u crap out thinkin that it sb you hate.the more you know this bitch, the more you hate it..& I hate it all the more wen  i don’t know the ‘hatest’ words. You hate it less, when you possess the derogsome lexicon, coz  then the hatred flows away with words. There are all these bloody intellectuals, canny foxes, stingy hounds that ar e already stiching the coffin and then there are these silly goddamn words that twist it all the more… like as if shit was not enough & the lexicon came up with bullshit again jus like life came up with swine flu wen flu had done enough.

words & words that add glamor to this baneful world
keep hanging by
like a pain in the a**
if life is an asshole
gaping wid open
jst for the words
to make it worse

i would have killed life, if it already wasn’t dead.
would have spread pain, if it wasn’t already spilling all ov’r.
would have eaten a cow, if its baby didn’t kill her already.
brought all the stars down to burn the peace on earth,
if it wasn’t already a  mess.
would have drunk the lava,
if the earth hadn’t wen we were born.
would destroy myself again,
if i ever found pieces of me by my grave…

if you h***  the lines above, its because you are supposed to.. B’lieve me you’ll come back to it some day..

PS: sb = somebody

Since childhood, they(teachers @school) taught us that hinduism follows idol worship whereas other religions like Islam do not.It was when I saw it while growing, suddenly our religion(hinduism) started seeming so ordinary, so base, so primitive. ‘ Why was it not matured like others..?’ I always argued that it was because Hindus could never come around the shapelessness of God(or the power, or of the unseen), that they created ‘idols’ to ‘depict ‘ God as if God could ever be confined to stones in shape of creatures..And  you would also be reminded that people acting /posing  to be Krishna, Rama, etc worsened the feeling. Hence, if there was one thing about Hinduism, I would have objected to, it was idol worship.

But while the beauty of a flower is visible, its nectar can only be discovered by a seeker. Inspite of this understanding in me, I often went to temples.. the aura there has always been tranquil & devine… just as it has been in case of gurudwara or a dargaah(could never visit a mosque). I was pondering over this view point lately when I realized it is mostly and only Hinduism , that still has an elborate space for idol worship, all others mostly don’t.  Seems good, their will to define the formless power succeed , but hindus…, they succeeded
in defining their will.

There is no cat fight here.

If any of us have studied Ayn Rand this should be clear.i believe that he aryans , from the very beginning were very conscious and spiritually mature humans.Since, religion should  give direction, the depicted God as idols. Mostly, idols resembling humans since, it is the human who is the pinnacle of ultimate power, mental & spiritual, the sublime realms. May be they wanted her to realize that the fountain of creation rests on human shoulders, and although nature itself i s supernatural, the whole game of worldliness & spiritualism revolves around her and evolves around her conscious.So , the focus to God is actually focus on her and hence the power depicted in her form. This should always remind her that there is no other power she should try to incline on, its her. Because, when she transcends
herself is when she becomes.. the power herself…

 These are few verses written by a friend of mine. I hv tried to keep evry spelling n case intact. This is too less an appreciation for such poets.neways,Dont go literally just by the words, read between them to understand.It luks plain and opposite, but there lies the rhetoric.

I wish …

I am not a perfect person

But I wish life was easy

For it keeps me on my nerves

Running all the while

So little time to breathe

Yet living discreetly

Panting like a shot tiger

Just when i feel my feet.

I am not a perfect person

But i feel so weak

For light keeps leaving me

Over to darkness

..

For the greater good

The December wind passes through me

And oh, it so cold

Cold like a dead phoenix

The child inside feels cold

And so does the soul

For all they could do now

Is wait for the light to return

I am not a perfect person

But I wish i was sinful

For I couldn’t care about my whiteness

The pureness inside me

Dying all the time

Playing with the lusty heart

Sometimes it goes wild

Disturbing the open sky

Painting it white again

For all it wants

Is a pure world again

I am not a perfect person

But I wish i could stop trying

Resting for sometime

To get myself together

Relaxing my tired bones

And paint a free river again

Which flows through every moment

That I have been throough

Reminding me of everything found

Everything lost

Every turn with a funeral

And every twist with a boy at hair shedding ceremony

Everything that smelled like camphor

And everything that had the fragrance of jasmine

Every single drop of tear that spoke

That sunk deep into the heart

That dried in the eyes

Every found penny

And every lost diamond

Every found love

And every lost one

Every longed phrase

And every silent word

For all I want is my happy world

My longed happy world

I am not a perfect person

But I wish

I wish …