thephoenixglides

[thephoenixglides]

बेहतर

तेरे बंजरपन से बेहतर बंजारापन मेरा| तेरी आवारगी से बेहतर अफ़सुर्दगी मेरी| तुझे मुबारक तेरा जहाँ और सलामत मेरी सरजमीं|

[thephoenixglides]

My Many Indias

On the eve of Republic Day a friend gifted me a CD containing a haunting, goose-pimpling rendition of Jana Gana Mana as arranged and conducted by A R Rahman and featuring Shiv Kumar Sharma, Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Amjad Ali Khan, Lata Mangeshkar, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Jasraj, Jagjit Singh, Parveen Sultana, Bhupen Hazarika, and a galaxy of other stars, from all over the country.

I've never thought of myself as a particularly patriotic person only by listening to songs glorifying my country but that music, played against a backdrop ranging from Ladakh to Kanyakumari, moved me as few things have done: it were as though the country of which I am a part, and which is an inextricable part of me was singing of itself to me. What did I think of when I thought of India? What random impressions conjured my many Indias?

India is a vast space; space to accommodate the clamour of giant cities, teeming with the seething energy of millions and the silence of empty solitudes. India is a space; space to include the pilgrim and the politician, the poet and the revolutionary, the street urchin and the merchant prince, ahimsa and nuclear might, 3,000 years and the 21st century.

India is the express highway thundering with traffic and the slip road beside it with the sign 'For camels, elephants and bullock carts'. India is mega dams and factories, call centres and shopping malls, and the voices raised in protest against all these and more.

India is a colour TV, garlanded with marigolds and a picture of Lakshmi on top, playing MTV while grandmother counts the beads of her 'mala' and grandchildren dream of US green cards. India is the roar and tumult of democracy and the forgotten face of a forgotten neta on an election poster stuck on the crumbling mud wall of a village deserted by all but the ghost of hunger.

India is the faceless anonymity of cities where neighbours don't know the names of neighbours and it is the 'Ram-Ram' as a timeless greeting exchanged by strangers who pass each other on a lonely path.

India is the smell of incense and ancient stone, of parched earth when the first drops of rain fall, of the dust and sweat of rattletrap buses, of the sweet, milky tea served in an earthen bowl by a 'chai, chaiwala!' on the whistle-stop railway stations of night.

India is the crowded bazaar where two dozen languages and half a dozen faiths negotiate the day-to- day transactions of buying and selling, and haggling and cheating, and quarrelling, and, above all, always above all, living together.

India is the cadences of Nehru's 'Tryst with Destiny' speech, and India is the minimalist squiggle by the cartoonist Ranga which in a single unbroken line captures the iconic essence of the greatest Indian of modern times, and India is Husain's portrait of the faceless face of a woman draped in a white, blue- bordered sari.

India is Awara hoon! playing on a scratchy, wind-up gramophone. Dev Anand in a rakishly tilted Jewel Thief cap, the carthorse's hooves going clip-clop in rhythm with Dilip Kumar singing in Naya Daur, it is Madhubala and Nargis and Waheeda Rehman, and Guru Dutt and Madhuri Dixit and Shah Rukh Khan leading the women's hockey team to victory and the Big B and the two-storey-high traffic-stopping Bollywood poster in Trafalgar Square, London.

India is much more than a million mutinies now; it is a billion-plus narratives of itself, waiting to be told. Not just once upon a time, but once upon a future.

[thephoenixglides]

Age

And yet again You sit there Staring into my dark. Scavenging a journey Long abandoned Never again to embark. You, a predator Crafting a move And planning a kill. Me, an outlawed prey Praying solemnly For death - tranquil. Let me join, oh The extinct world And turn into a fossil. May be a dig into The ruins decrepit Will offer me to heal.

[thephoenixglides]

वेड्यागत मोजत बसायचे काळ्या निळाईतले तारे दिवसा सावरलेला शहाणपणा अन् रात्री आठवणींचे पसारे

[thephoenixglides]

लढा

समजुतीच्या पलीकडे शहाणपणाचं गाव आहे तिथल्या एका घरावर अजूनही माझं नाव आहे. थकल्या पावलांनी सांजवेळी घर आपलं शोधायचं वादळावर दार लावून मग निश्चिंत पुन्हा झोपायचं. छप्पर नसलेल्या घराला आभाळाची माया मिळते वैराणावरच्या वादळाची भल्या पहाटे काया कळते. आश्वस्त घराला कुलूप लाऊन पुन्हा बाहेर पडायचं जिंकण्यासाठी रोजच्या रोज एक नवं वादळ पेलायचं.

[thephoenixglides]

Senses. And facts.

[thephoenixglides]

सवाल

पूछते हैं हमसे कि कैसी अजीब आशनाई तीरगी से सोते भी हो या नहीं रात में ? अदना सा जवाब रहा हाँ जब रात इजाज़त दे दे और आँखें एतराज़ न करें

[thephoenixglides]

हाँ हाथों को छ��ड़ रही हूँ और बातों को तोड़ रही हूँ चीख़ें छुपी है चुप्पियों में अमन दिल का जोड़ रही हूँ तुम अंजान रहो मेरे रास्तों से मंज़िल मैं अपनी मोड़ रही हूँ यहाँ तक़ल्लुफ़ अब किसी राह से नहीं सफ़र किसी और जहाँ का दौड़ रही हूँ

[thephoenixglides]

आज जगदिश खेबुडकर आणि ग्रेस यांचा जन्मदिन. त्या प्रीत्यर्थ:

#JagdishKhebudkar ani #Grace अशी असावी कविता सुंदर जसा अंगणी सुवर्णचाफा परी न यावा भुजंग तेथे फणा काढूनी टाकीत धापा! अशी असावी कविता सुंदर जसा गुलाबी फुले ताटवा मधूमक्षिका तेथे न यावी सहज खेळण्या गनिमी कावा! अशी असावी कविता सुंदर कशी असावी, कशी नसावी आवड माझी, निवड जगाची साधी सोपी सरळ दिसावी! अशी असावी कविता सुंदर जन्म तिला मी देऊन जावे, शब्द-भावना-अर्थांसाठी तिच्यातूनी मी जन्मा यावे! - जगदिश खेबुडकर ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ अलभ्य फुलला सखे घनवसंत हा मोगरा विनम्र लपवू कुठे ह्र्दयस्पंदनाचा झरा उन्हात मन शिंपिले पळसपेटला पारवा कुडीत जळतो जसा मरणचंदणाचा दिवा कुशीत जड अस्थिला नितळ पालवीची स्पृहा भयाण मज वाटतो रुधिर अस्त गांधार हा उदास भयस्वप्न की समिर येथला कोवळा गळ्यात मग माझिया सहज घातला तू गळा सुगंध दडवू कुठे गगन वैरिणीचे वरी तुडुंब भरले तुवा कलश अमृताचे घरी जळात जरी नागवी सलग इंद्रियांची दिठी विभक्त जणु कुंतिला शरण कर्ण ये शेवटी - ग्रेस

[thephoenixglides]

परिपुर्ती

थिजलेले शब्द, भिजलेले डोळे

श्वास अडकलेले, काहीसे ओले

दिवसभर कविता किती शोधली

सांज सरताना ती मला आता भेटली

अबोल पण काहीशी बोलकी,

मनांत प्रश्नांचे काहुर पण डोळ्यात एक जाणकार भाव,

भान हरपलेल्या पक्ष्यासारखी स्वच्छंदी झेप पण विवेकाच्या कोपर्यात पुरेल इतकाच ऊजेड देणारी एक अचल दिवटी.

ती कविता आज गूज करू पहाते तिच्या घराशी,

तिला मोकळेपणानं रमू दिलेल्या त्या आलयाशी.

तर एक रात्र अशीच सरणार.

अाणि बघता बघता कवितेची एक पहाट तिच्या वहीच्या कुशीतच उमलणार!

[thephoenixglides]

A companion

When I am with you, we stay up all night. When you’re not here, I can’t go to sleep. Praise God for those two insomnias! And the difference between them.

~ Rumi

[thephoenixglides]

Look inwards. And find.

[thephoenixglides]

Sound of Thoughts

Have you not ever known Have you not ever heard Have you not ever felt Sound of thoughts Overwhelming That crawl into your shadows? And a journey begins Of stillness Stillness of the night Stillness of the emotions Flooding in your heart Stillness of the blur That your eyes Do not want to blink off.. Lay still and listen Burial of breaths In sheets clouded That weave music Of ruffles chimerical Slowly A stir happens Unhurriedly Clearing of spaces Dawns a calm Nonchalantly. Do you see its colour?

[thephoenixglides]

Sometimes the biggest gift you can give someone is to be completely honest. Be vulnerable, make someone happy.

[thephoenixglides]

मुद्दतों बाद ये रात, अपनी लगी है हुई खुद से मुलाकात, नयी लगी है किसी और नक़ाब में, मिली है ज़िंदगी फिर भी आवाज़ में लिपटे हुए लफ़्ज़, वाक़िफ़ लगे है

[thephoenixglides]

The search ends.

Sometimes, plans fizzle out. And sometimes, so do people. It is easy to get bundled up in mundaneness and lose sight of yourself even when you're looking right at yourself. It is at such times that milestones and happy moments from the life you have had will shine through the layers and become the eyepieces of looking glasses that will show what you once were, and what you can be one more time. Sometimes, you run out of places from which to seek inspiration and that is exactly the time to turn to yourself,  the best inspiration you can have.

[thephoenixglides]

It is not real they say  I create it, they feel  How can it be  A choice that I make  When all I seek  Is a sincere escape  Unsaddled horses  I am trying to tame  Exhausting game  Endlessly begins False evidences  Appearing so real  Fragmented truths  Denied existence