Baaja le aana masjid se churakar,
Khuda ke gunahon pe ghasalein sunani hain.

मैं था हर कहीं और नहीं भी था

सफ़ेद कागज़ पे काले अक्षरों से गड़े

वोह कलम के  धब्बों  के  बीच 

अचानक  ज़ाहिर  होते  मंज़रों  में 

मैं  था  हर  कहीं ,

और  नहीं  भी  था .

चूने  पत्थर  की  बजाये , टेडी  मेडी लकीरों  से  बने ,

उन  दीवारों , उन  कूचों , कभी  न  खत्म  होते 

गलियों  के  गलियारों  में 

मैं  था  हर  कहीं 

और  नहीं  भी  था 

रंगीन  कांच  से  बनी  इमारतें  वोह 

की  जहाँ  नंगाई  दिखाने  को  भी  चादर  ओड़ते हैं  लोग ,

शाम ढलते ही,

साफ़   कांच  में  बदल  जाने वाली  उस  ईमारत  में ,

मैं  था  हर  कहीं 

और  नहीं  भी  था 

पहन मुखौटा  उसका  जो  वो  थे  न  कभी 

खुद  को  झुठला  कर 

दोहरी  ज़िन्दगी  जिए  जा  रही  उस  भीड़  में 

मैं  था  हर  कहीं 

और  नहीं  भी  था 

बस  इक  ऊँगली  के  इशारे  पे  रंग  बदलते ,

हँसते  सूरज  रोते  सावन  के  बीच ,

जिन्न  और  परियों  की  मदहोश  दुनिया  में 

मैं  था  हर  कहीं ,

और  नहीं  भी  था 

के  तभी  किसी  ने  अचानक यूँ ही 

उस  अँधेरे  कमरे  में  उजाला  कर  दिया 

की  मैं   लौट  आया  उस  जहान  से  जहाँ ,

मैं  था  हर  कहीं 

और  नहीं  भी  था |

-Anonymous

Morning Alarm

कि ज़िन्दगी क्या ज़िन्दगी वो जो घड़ी के कांटो सी,
बेरंग, गुमराह चल रही है सफ़र पे,
हर रोज़ वापिस वहीँ लौट आने को|
करते हैं इंतज़ार सुबह को ऐसे,
कि भर दे चाभी कोई शाम तक सफ़र की,
उम्र गुज़र गई सफ़र में पर,
फांसले तो अब भी कुछ कम नहीं |

Towards Eternity....

February 29th , 2008


After a hectic day and a sleepless night the morning sun seemed to be shining brighter than usual and as Rohan stepped out into the corridor of his college, a perturbing anxiety overtook him. While his physical self started moving towards the Computers Department, his Mental Faculties fought the dilemma that his soul threw at him. The Computers Department of KMIT was beaming with activity as the TCS On-Campus was going on. Tata Consultancy Services, a name that inspired some while for others it was just a chance to prove their mettle while others really wanted to step on the corporate bandwagon but a single thread bound them all... They all wanted to get selected and amongst this milling crowd of familiar faces Rohan still sought solutions to his answered puzzles. Although he was done with the interview process the previous day but the sheer hope of finding solace in this chaos had brought him back. Finally the results were announced and although he had managed a seat for himself he wasn't quite happy. Some of his friends had failed to get through and with this mixed feelings he couldn't understand how to react. In the evening when Rohan moved out with friends to party the college-goer had now become a would-be executive and his walk felt as effortless as it never had been before. With the final selections over, the journey had concluded for some while it was just the mark of a new beginning for others.



January 21st, 2010

Finally, after a lot of wait and anxiety, as Rohan stood at the gateway of a new life he tried to peep into a world that held a lot of promises and finally as he entered the office for the first time the transformation was complete. From being a college dude to the would-be executive and finally a working professional he was fast climbing the steps to his growth.



March 31st, 2010

After a month at the office the sunrise brought with itself the news of his first salary. An elated Rohan just lept up from bed and he felt his feet springing into a dance as he found his lips humming the tunes of his favorite singer. After about 2 months of toil and rigorous training he finally had received his first salary. He had now moved a step further, from a being a liability to his family he was finally an asset. The growth was complete.



January 24th, 2048

One could hardly recognize Rohan, as he was being showered with blessings he managed to smile through his withered face as his colleagues wished him all the very best for life. This was his last day at TCS and he retrospected on the exhilarating journey he'd been through at TCS. As he stepped out of the office, he turned around to take a glance at the gleaming silver structure and images from the past flashed through his eyes while he reflected upon what he'd gained. It all seamed like a family now, leaving office was like leaving home, you always wanted come back and since he knew he had to leave, a tear rolled out of his wrinkled eye.

The Ordinary Man

The sun rose over the sub-urban town somewhere close to a major metropolitan in India and the hustly-bustly but a nascent neihbourhood came out of its slumber. Somewhere deep within its tall structures as the ball of fire disturbed the sound sleep of the eternally tensed common man, he got up. No name, no identity, just one description and a tag "The Ordinary Man".

Is he loosing his identity or has it been long enough that now it siezed to exist or is it just that there wasn't a place for him in our society? There doesn't seem to be an answer to this eternal question of his existence and yet every morning he gets up and rushes through his chores to reach office just in time. He uses the pathetic public transport of the suburb not because he's enlightened but because the small paycheck he recieves for the 9 hour toil that goes through daily is not too big to let him own a conveyance or even be convenient. Yet, through years and years he keeps on working in the same place, in the same conditions. Hopeful that the pleasant lustre of the nearby metro will one day light up his own dark neighbourhood as well.


And one day the skies are cloudy and as "The Ordinary Man" leaves for work he is engulfed with water and lo he's drowning. As he sinks deeper in the water the air flushes out of his lungs as the water gushes into his nose leaving him blinded. While this "Ordinary Man" struggles to survive in the harsh expensive world of a suburb he looks back at feels that to he's lost a lot. The life he leads is all a big illusion and the psychedelia he's going through is nothing as mystical as the future he'd foreseen before he took up the sojourn which has now become an eternal journey. Just when he's ready to give up the last puff of air he was holding in his lungs he finds a pocket of air deep inside the drowning pool. "The Ordinary Man" catches his breath and as he opens his eyes he feels atonement and as he feels al the more powerful he takes the last breath and surges back up the stream with all his might. He reaches the surface and tears it apart, landing on a foggy road. The road which no one ever took and whose destination was a mystery. "The Ordinary Man" started down that road and as he took a step ahead he just disintegrated into thin air. "The Ordinary Man" was no more there, the soul of that sleepy village which tranformed to a sub-urban town was no more there. The soul of the suburb had disappeared into thin air.

The Fading Light

Through the untamed eyes of me,
Staring in the festivity.
Faroff something glows slight,
to talk to me comes a fading light.
In old shakles and plight,
apparently it can't shine bright.
With the passive casuality of an urbanite
I ask, "Oh poor light!
what is wrong with your hue?
Trust me and be true"
With wet, red eyes as deep as sea,
This is what it said to me:

"Oh my brother urbanite,
All these years i've fought with all my might.
But now I don't feel my worth is here
when all of us are naked and bare.
My brothers have forgotten me
and lost the true meaning of festivity.
While you just see how much you gain
the poor home I am in, goes for days without even a single grain,
but apparently noone sees their pain
as values have been long slain.
While your lights just go brighter over years,
you never give a thought to your poorer peers.
the life of whom is getting harder and harder
with zest for living being darker and darker.
I don't want you to stop living
but like you to discover the joy of giving.
This is all I ask of you,
Whenever you do
get the glimp of a light,
just remember in your hind sight.
There's someone in the darker alleys
Desperately struggling for two square meals."

With this the it started its journey back
fading slowly without a slack.
As I bent down to pray
the fading light had gone away.

The World's Best Retirement Solution

Today when most of us are working in some organisation or the other... One thing never hits our mind... Technically speaking aren't we all working for someone else??? Aren't our efforts being used for someone else's betterment??? BUT, then it all comes down to one reply... that everyone else is doing just the same and we are being paid hefty amounts of cash for it... so half the world can't be wrong, isn't it?
But even the poor momo/dimsum vendor, which can be located in almost every street corner of any developed town of Asia, seems to be more aware of the gravity of it all!!! WHAT???? Are you trying to say that he's smarter than us professionals with fancy degrees and six figure salaries?????? Well may be not educated as well as you are but yes that poor man selling a serving of dimsums for a mere 40 cents is much more practical than most of us.
If you are living in these parts of the world, you might be amazed by the pace at which these dingy stalls are coming up in towns... The Reason: Most of these people were probably working as some low grade chefs in some restaurants or mobile vans getting to do all kinds of work they weren't meant to and still having a fixed pay packet.
Fedup of the work he leaves the job and starts his own stall... Although he just earns as much as he used to do before or maybe even less but the long time returns and satisfaction are much better. This is what most of you corporate executives are probably thinking about these days, but somehow, money and security take precedence in your case and thus you don't leave your job to start your own little venture.
Although I am not against working for big business houses what I want to say needs you to be in a particular state of mind for complete understanding and that is what I think you should be in by now.
So THE WORLD'S BEST RETIREMENT SOLUTION....
Most of you who are reading this are probably working for some corporate giant in your respective industry and probably are married with minimal savings and suddenly have stumbled upon the fact that you don't have much of your productive years left and hence start saving. But before I begin I must tell you this solution is not going to tell you about equity and real estate but something more important. So let's start with a story of a pair of twins: Tim and Tom. Tim and Tom are a pair of twins born to a farmer in country side of Scotland. The farmers wife is an Asian and the family ties are pretty strong among the four. For some reason, Tim is sent to study and is supposed to stay away from home for nearly 25 years. During these 25 years he maintains no contact with his family and poor Tom is left without anyone to play with. Bored and alone he resorts to playing and spending most of his time with his mom while his dad works in the fields. As the years pass by Tim learns a lot and moves a lot in life while Tim is constantly pampered as well as nagged on every little activity whatsoever. As a result tom gats extremely irritable at being constantly realised by his parents that how much has been done by them for Tom and his brother. After 25 years, when Tim returns home all rich and educated, he is unable to believe his eyes. Inplace of the small house there lays a palatial bunglow right in the middle of a sprawling lawn and an enviable garage with fast and luxurious cars. Happy for his family he enters the complex and is greeted by his brother Tom. He sits and asks about the parents but Tom goes silent. On persuasion Tim is told that Tom started a business and was extremely successful yielding 400% growth in the first year of its inception and thus he continued with the project he erned enough to build a place like this for himself and a buy a new apartment in downtown London for his parents. But all those years of nagging had left him emotionally devastated and he could no longer bear the brunt of living in with his parents. Tom used to send them money every month and visited them every quarter. Tim ,although was not that rich and living in a two room apartment on the outskirts of London earning just 1000 Dollars a Month, wanted to make up for all the years of parental love he had missed upon was determined to live in with his family. So he got down to London and took his parents to his apartment and lived with them struggling for money for some time before getting a nice job and a handsome packet.
What was it that made Tom leave his parents and Tim take them home... Well almost 90% of the parents bring up children and invest in their studies, requirements and demands thinking them to be their retirement solution. He is treated not as a person but as an investment machine and just to safeguard their interests they constantly foster the child with the ideas of how much they have sacrificed for their children and how many hardships have they faced just to make the children what they are. This leaves a very bad impression on the young minds and they always bear the thought of giving back all the monetory and physical resources that his parents spent on him as a child. This deprives the family of the ssential feeling of love and belonging and hence he takes on an independent path. So all you parents who want the love and affection of your children when you grow old, its time you telling them what all you sacrificed for them and how much you spent on them and its time to tell them how much you love them. Because, Yes! Children sure are the best retirement solution but if not properly maintained, they might turn out to be the worst one as well!!!