Halcyon Days
Float back to the days... Where the days were long and the nights were longer Times when we were young and the nights were younger To the days where our thoughts were free Times when the breeze was cool and so were we! Bottles emptied through the night A minor argument, a big fight Things that went wrong and those that went right Endless movies and highway rides Guys who spent hours in front of the mirror admiring their looks Guys who slept through the night while others sat with their books Guys who topped, yet others who flopped It all comes back when you walk down that lane A drink in your hand without bothering who pays Beautiful memories……..those Halcyon Days
साया
लिखने की चाहत तो बहुत है जाने क्यों कलम साथ नहीं जज़्बात सियाही से लिखे लफ़्ज़ नहीं मेरे बेलगाम बहते अश्क़ बयां कर रहें हैं अभी तो बैठे थे फ़िलहाल ही लगता है पलट गयी दुनिया कैसे ये मालूम नहीं जाने वाले की आहट भी सुनी नहीं सर पे से अचानक साया हठ गया है वो जो ज़ुबान पे आ के लौट गयी वो बातें बाक़ी है अब कहने का मौक़ा कभी मिलेगा नहीं हाय वक़्त रहते क्यों कहा नहीं कुछ दिन से ये सोच सताती है अल्फ़ाज़ बुनता हूँ मगर उधड़ जाते हैं ख़यालों जितना उन में वज़न नहीं डर भी है ये विरासत कहीं खोए नहीं मगर यक़ीन-ए-पासबाँ भी मज़बूत है लिखने की चाहत तो बहुत है जाने क्यों कलम साथ नहीं जज़्बात सियाही से लिखे लफ़्ज़ नहीं मेरे बेलगाम बहते अश्क़ बयां कर रहें हैं
रिश्ता-ए-उम्मीद
उम्र भर निभे ऐसी ही दोस्ती हो कहाँ और किस किताब में लिखा है गरज़ और ग़ुरूर के बाटों के बीच हर रिश्ता कभी न कभी पिसा है कुछ कही तो अक्सर अनकही आदतों हरकतों का भी असर बड़ा है कहते एक दूसरे को लोग कम मगर ख़ुशहाल रिश्ते के आढ़े अरमान खड़ा है बुरी आदत है ये उम्मीद रखने की कमबख़्त कौन कभी इस पे खरा उतरा है आइने में खड़े शक्स को भी ज़रा टटोलो कौन सा वादा उसने भी कभी पूरा किया है
विश्वास का दीया
खुली हवा है वो आज़ादी की शीतल करे जो जब मध्धम चले एक ओर जो हो हावी तो बने आँधी कैसे तूफ़ानों में कोई दीया जले अलगाव की चिंगारी कहीं दामन ना लगे मिल के बढ़ने के लिए दिल भी बड़े रखने होंगे दूर अभी हैं वो मंज़िलें जहाँ ख़ुशहाली मिले कटे तने से चलने से कैसे ये रास्ते तय होंगे इरादे नेक वही जो अमल में आएँ कथनी और करनी को अब मिलाना है तेरे मेरे के ये फ़ासले चलो मिल मिटाएँ विश्वास लेना देना नहीं कमाना है
फिर मिलते हैं
कोई तो है जहाँ जिधर तू आबाद है इधर तो तेरी हँसी तेरी बातें तेरी याद है मिलते होंगे वहाँ पर भी सालगिरह के मुबारक तराने अपने भी मिल गए होंगे दोस्त कुछ नए पुराने जितनी हमको है आती तुम्हें भी तो आती होगी फ़िलहाल तो इतना यक़ीन है तुम से फिर मुलाक़ात होगी
कश्मीर
रौनक़ लगाते रौशन गली गलियारे सजते थे सूखे चिनार के पत्ते सड़क किनारे बर्फ़ की सफ़ेद चादर ओढ़े होते सर्द सवेरे फ़िरन तले गरमी देते कांगड़ी के नर्म अंगारे सिराज बाग़ में सजे लाखों फूल वो प्यारे दल पे हौले सरकते छोटे बड़े सुंदर शिकारे हरी हरी वादी के यादगार लुभावने नज़ारे सैर सपाटे शांत बहते जहलम किनारे हुस्न जिसका हर मौसम अलग निखारे यूँ ही नहीं कहते थे इसे लोग जन्नत सारे फिर मौसम बदला गूँजने लगे नारे बिखरे अचानक ख़्वाब जो संवारे मुट्ठी भर की ज़िद ने हज़ारों मारे खेल खेलने लगे सियासतदाँ हमारे पहचान हमारी जो है हमें झमूरियत पुकारे ज़रूरी है के जब देश जीते कश्मीरियत ना हारे
Roots
How important is it to have a town that you could call yours?
Someplace which would always be home…
You can’t always explain this feeling but one does get attached to places..more often than not these are places where you grew up..despite all their shortcomings some corner of your heart always craves and wishes that you could find your way back.
The point I’m trying to make is that it’s not just about the house you lived in..there’s so much more associated with a hometown…it is what lies beneath the surface..the people you know, the kids you played with and those you went to school with, the evening hangouts and the neighbourhood store…those quaint places..streets and corners with anecdotes associated with them… always knowing the best place to find most any thing that you could think of..food, shopping for clothes, you name it. I guess this is what constitutes your roots.
You might spend half your life away from your hometown but it’s always a special feeling when you are back. And no it’s not something that lasts a day or two I’ve noticed that it continues even after you leave..of course with knowledge of the fact that you’ll be back again. But what if you knew that the next time you are back there would be no place you could call home?? If you had to stay overnight in a hotel or at a friend’s or relatives place?
The word that closest describes that feeling is uprooted!!!
And to close a few lines from this classic by Jerry Lewis
The old hometown looks the same As I step down from the train.... ....It's good to touch the green, green grass of home. The old house is still standing Though the paint is cracked and dry And there's that old oak tree that I used to play on Down the lane I'd walk ... It's good to touch the green, green grass of home. ...Then I awake and look around me At the gray walls that surround me And I realized that I was only dreaming..
Unforgettable
Have you ever felt guilty for having forgotten something? Something that in normal course would never ever have escaped you.
Perhaps forgotten is not the apt word, perhaps not even the right word but in a strange sort of a way it is the word that you’ll use to chide yourself.
It is an uncanny feeling when you know that there is something brimming underneath the surface but its not front and centre as far as your conscious mind is concerned. All day, you try figuring it out but you can’t.
And then, like a bolt from the blue it hits you; BAD!! The realisation is like a ton of bricks crashing down on you.
Question is; what is your reality?
The fact that you knew something was coming, you thought about it, yet when it actually came you were not even conscious to it.
So does that mean that our conscious mind builds these memorials and in a foolish sort of a way holds on to feelings of pain and angst whilst our sub-conscious mind takes a more practical approach and treats these occasions more matter-of-factly?
I reckon there is merit to the argument that if time is the best healer of wounds and if, with passage of time you reach a stage where the only memories that remain are the happy ones, then, not remembering an occasion in effect is a part of the healing since the reason you primarily wanted to remember the occasion was an unhappy one.
There is no point building memorials, they never are happy places. Sometimes its just good to forget. Its our minds way of telling us that we have indeed moved on.
All that is required is perhaps a remembrance and it comes in that fleeting moment of quiet acknowledgement. The real deal is mustering up courage to embrace reality.
So here’s to our sub-conscious mind doing its bit for keeping our “Happiness Quotient” up.
Fact of the matter, there are somethings you don’t need to remember, invariably they are also the things you cannot forget.
To end, in good old fashion a few lines from a song made popular by Nat King Cole
Unforgettable, that’s what you are
Unforgettable though near or far
Like a song of love that clings to me
How the thought of you does things to me
Never before has someone been more
……Unforgettable in every way
And forever more, that’s how you’ll stay…
Ek re-take milega kya?
It was a friends anniversary a few weeks back. It was also a day spent reminiscing. It was a day spent wondering what it would have been like.
How many times have you come across people with the capability to live in the moment…no matter what..? More often than not these people have the capability to inject that bit of enthusiasm into dullards like yours truly.
The words “Chal, kuch kartein hain…” (come, let’s do something) keep ringing in my ears time and again. How do you not think about a person who has pretty much been a part of the start of everything in your life…sport, eating out, partying, rock music….love. The chal kuch kartein hain has been responsible for many a thing and more often than not getting us into trouble!!
Shakespeare famously said and I quote
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages…”
Feel as though the script went horribly wrong somewhere. The curtains came down much earlier.
Just one thought though…”Ek re-take milega kya??The Thin Line
Emotions like everything else in life are a part of a continuum. They do not appear in discrete packets. There is an intermediary stage before irritation turns to anger, a smile turns into a laughter, between pulling someones leg and being mean and when assertiveness becomes stubbornness. Most of these observations, if I may add, are from the perspective of the watcher than the do-ee (I picked this from Everybody Loves Raymond)
So the question now is whether there’s a thin line separating these stages, how many degrees separate these stages and who owns the line? My guess is, its most always the watcher.Brings me back to the fact that everything that we say or do today is driven by perceptions (good or bad, right or wrong). Though we’ve made great advances in Communication Technology what has taken a beating is the Inter-personal communication. We are too shy or too proud to go ask people what they think about what we are doing, have done or plan to do. Resultantly, we assume a reaction of a certain kind and go ahead with whatever we wanted to do…”I ate the entire chocolate because I thought you did not want it” or “We went and watched the play..didn’t think you’d be interested” There are of course zillion such examples.
Coming back to the thin line…. Is there a way to set the bar? Can we actually define words like anger and come to one common understanding on what it means and when it actually sets in?? If we actually did, I bet we’d wipe out the entire man-woman poking around gig. On second thoughts, life then wouldn’t be too much fun either.
Guess the only way to get around this is, that as an individual, much like an umpire in cricket we have to display consistency in our interpretation of the rule and call that delivery a wide or a no-ball at exactly the same point every time and regardless of who.As the saying goes in cricket “The line belongs to the umpire!”