The shadows of my faith

“Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler”- Friedrich Nietzsche

What do you do when effaced with conundrum of thoughts, each rivaling the other, all confusing, rattling your brain in the night dead beyond midnight? Definitely, you can’t sleep and thinking logic is the capacity you lost last summer while jumping off, the cliff of your rationality.

Why this to me, is what I have always wondered, why am I forced to cling on to the drifting rafts every time, scared of every tide of feelings that emerge from the ocean floor. At times I am optimistic, I think almighty has been really kind, for, I still float while the others drowned. I feel good. My faith in the eternity of my yearning to live, tells me that the shore is not far, while at the other I am drifting away to the vast unknown, having accepted my defeat. Every thought is defeated, every inch is lost.

In between there are memories of that childhood friend, with whom I never shared my candy, the girl next door who walked around with the disheveled hair, the crush which got crushed beneath the expectation of perfection. All these appear and vanish, while I cling to the drifting raft floating in the ocean of my thoughts. Indeed, I have to choose, choose the perfect or something which is nearly perfect, or that which is perfect while I drift away. I wonder what forms the shadow- My feelings or my thoughts. The light comes from my faith.

“In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't”.- Blaise Pascal

वो रात कुछ अजीब थी

वो रात कुछ अजीब थी,

कुछ यादों, कुछ बातों को समेटे हुए;

उन उमड़ते जज्बातों को थामे हुए,

उन अनगिनत लम्हों की कश्ती पर सवार I

वो रात कुछ अजीब थी,

जिसमें कुछ पल बीते, कुछ ठहर से गए I

कुछ यूँ गुजरे, के बस, गुज़र से गए-

कुछ यादों, कुछ बातों को समेटे हुए;

उन उमड़ते जज्बातों को थामे हुए,

उन अनगिनत लम्हों की कश्ती पर सवार I

वो रात कुछ अजीब थी,

जहाँ सन्नाटा था, वो दूर मुस्कुराता चाँद था,

और सन्नाटे को चीरती, बेकल लहरों थी-

कुछ यादों, कुछ बातों को समेटे हुए;

उन उमडते जज्बातों को थामे हुए,

उन अनगिनत लम्हों की कश्ती पर सवार I

वो रात कुछ अजीब थी,

जिसमें तुम थी, तुम्हारी बातें थी,

तुम्हारी खुश्बू थी, तुम्हारा साथ था;

जिसमे कुछ पल बीते, कुछ ठहर से गए;

कुछ यूँ गुजरे के बस, गुज़र से गए-

तुम्हारी यादों, तुम्हारी बातों को समेटे हुए;

उन उमडते जज्बातों को थामे हुए,

उन अनगिनत लम्हों की कश्ती पर सवार I

वो रात कुछ अज़ीब थी....

उस गली का कुत्ता रोया था..

जब रंग बिरंगी बोतल ने
वोट तुम्हारा बदला था,
जब पेड़ पर लटके लोटन ने
देख तुम्हें रंग बदला था,
तब देश तुम्हारा सोया था;
मगर उस गली का कुत्ता ज़ोर ज़ोर से रोया था।

वो ग़रीब किसान का बेटा था;
था वो मा का एक सपूत
निडर, अभय, लड़ा वह युद्ध महान..
एक काफिर गोली ने जब भेदा उस सीने को,
बात कफ़न की आयी तब;
सबने खाया, सबने पचाया,
फिर खाया, फिर पचाया,
तब देश तुम्हारा सोया था;
मगर उस गली का कुत्ता रोया था.....।

कल गीदड़ की टोली ने नर्म मांस पर भूख अपनी मिटाई थी,
कल इसी सामज के ठेकेदारों ने फरमान अपना सुनाया था,
कल यहाँ की बेटी ने अपनी जान गवां दी थी
तब देश तुम्हारा सोया था,
मगर उस गली का कुत्ता रोया था....।

पंडित चिढ़ा अज़ान से,
मुल्ले को मंदिर की घंटी न भाई।
बंदूकों और कट्टों ने,
रक्त की अविरल गंगा बहाई।
तब देश तुम्हारा सोया था,
मगर उस गली का कुत्ता जोर जोर से रोया था..।

भूखे नंगे जंगले में,
जब मिला एक खदान नया,
सिक्कों की झंकार पर बिका देश का सम्मान वहां,
मिटटी के सम्मान की खातिर,
धनुष उठे,
घर बार उजड़े,
रक्त की इस क्रांति में लोग जुड़े,
अपने बिछड़े..
तब देश तुम्हारा सोया था,
फिर भी उस गली का कुत्ता रोया था...।

This world!!! a topic for endless discussions and no conclusion!!!!!

Here I am, in this beautiful world ;once again..after a long time but with a firm belief that my absence is accepted and appreciated, for somehow, I came out unscathed, inspite of, my adventurism of jumping into the greatest debate of this civilization-THIS WORLD....!!!

I have often wondered and pondered over the definition of perfect world, a world more sane than the collated sanity of its inhabitants, where the mind is free and the head is held high!! inspite of the fact that when I talk about the head being held high, there is someone within me that says that my head should be held higher than my neighbour and if that is not possible then either the ceiling should go or the neighbours head!I have infact failed miserably in understanding why we have this habbit of dreaming of perfection when none of of our intentions and actions  corroborate to our preachings?

We make lot of hue and cry over the corruption in our society. We go to the extent of castigating a poor guy whose attempt to follow the rules of the game made him a ssocial convict. And no, he was not pronounced cconvict by the court but by our evolutionary malady of classifying everything as either right or wrong leaving no scope for not so right or not so wrong cases! everything is either black or white, there is no scope for the shades. Hardly anyone appreciates the beauty of imperfections. When I say this I am not being the devils advocate of taking sides with corrupt practices, but just wish to throw some light on the evolutionary trait of man that has major contribution in the emergence of this human civilization as the most powerful species and naturallly we have not displaced the other species from the power hierarhy by playing fair!Tiger population in India is around 1411, tusker population is dwindling, oceans have beccome graveyards of fishes, mighty rivers have reduced to canals and seewers....are we being ethical? Is it not corruption? Mighty corporations are colluding with their govts. in the name of progress in raping earth of its resources. Powerful states are bombing the have nots in the name of fictious weapons, children are dying of hunger while plans are in advanced state to aquire new generation weapons, still we decide to be silent, is it not corruption on our part, or do we have different parameters for different people? We are all fair until we are caught.Actually, we are afraid of our own shadow that glimmers when the sun shines, full and bright. We have reduced ourselves to a civiliztion of hipocrites who can play different tunes but fail to create symphony.Nevertheless, our quest for perfection has continues and we are actually deliberating the face of the perfect world without the clarity over what we can attribute to be perfect.

someplace_else: my welcome note....

someplace_else: my welcome note....: "This blog is one of the many ways I have tried to reach out to the great human civilization beyond the confines of my solitary existence. So..."

success mantra continues.....

So, I was trying to reason out what is success and can we afford to chuck out the unsuccessful, hapless souls. Thomas Alva Edison kissed failure many times before laying any claim on success. Imagine our world, if the great inventor of electric bulb had Edison been thrown out of the right to live after say, a string of failures!!! Here I am not an advocate of unsuucessful being but just wish to underline the fact that failures are eternal components of this complex existence of our civilization. In fact success is a relative phenomenon. I cant count myself as successful, unless there was an unsuccessful soul a bit less enterprising than me.......so let us not make so much of success stories as the only treasure house of accumulated wisdom....there is an excellent treasure of what not to do with an unsuccessful guy that needs to be valued.

Success mantra...

I am an utterly unsuccessful man at least to this date and I dare to propound the success mantra!!! Yah, this is me speaking from the borderline of being boastful! yet I have never hesitated to submit my piece of mind..so the habit fails to leave the facet of my being. People have different notions of this all together ambiguous proposition. Some find success as the cherished outcome of a relentless labor, but I really wonder, can we propose that those who were kicked out did'nt labor or to be frank can we call millions of unsuccessful mortals repeatedly failing in getting slotted in the cramped case of success, lazy, laggard beings, not more than liabilities on this resource scarce planet? I fail to believe that this planet will be any better with all the successful people around. Imagine all the successful fidayeens getting life back!! what will happen to all other successful people jostling with tiding over the fiscal policies at White House!! what will happen to the gay crowd at chowpatti in mumbai? or the sunday crowd at Cannaught place, New Delhi?