शामँ...

मैं दरवाजे पर आस लगाये खड़ा हुआ था...

दो घूँट पानी और एक प्याली चाय पीकर अभी उठा था...

गुज़रते धूप की कुछ छींटे,

कहीं कहीं पर गिरी हुयी थी...

कुछ पंछी यहाँ-वहां पर बैठे हुए थे...

घुलाम अली के कुछ चुनिन्दा गानों की धुन,

कुछ यादों को दोहरा रही थी...

" ये दिल... ये पागल दिल मेरा...क्यों बुझ गया... आवारगी॥"

हाँ, ये पागल दिल ही तो है,

जो ज़िन्दगी को हर वक़्त नए रंग में रंगता रहता है...

कभी लाल, कभी नीली, कभी काली और कभी बिलकुल सफ़ेद;

जैसे दिन के पहर बदलते रहते हैं...

हर शाम एक सी नहीं रहती...

कौन जाने आज शामँ का रंग क्या होगा?

ये सोचता रहा मैं, और ना जाने कब,

शामँ दबे पाँव मेरे गलियारे में चली आई थी...

धूप की वो छींटे, जो कहीं-कहीं पर गिरी हुयी थीं,

वहाँ-वहाँ से सिमट रही थी...

वो पंछी, जो यहाँ-वहां पर बैठे हुए थे,
वो इधर-उधर अब उड़ने लगे थे...

चाय की प्याली, खाली-खाली सी पड़ी हुयी थी...

मैं मेरे छोटे से घर में,

भटक भटक कर घूम रहा था...

कोई आवारगी-सी थी इस मौसम में,

घुलाम अली के गाने जैसी...

उसकी हर चाल समझ में आती नहीं,

पर एक रिश्ता सा पाता हूँ...

ठीक वैसे ही, जैसे उर्दू के हर शब्द समझ नही आते,

पर कुछ तो बंध जाता है दिल के अन्दर...

जब वापस आया दरवाज़े पर,

खिड़की पर रंग-बिरंगी शामँ को सिमटते हुए पाया था...

एक अँधेरा-सा छा रहा था वहाँ आसमान में...

जैसे बुझा दी हो किसी ने बत्ती वहाँ...

तभी याद आया, मुझे घर में रोशनी करनी थी...

कभी-कभी बाहर की रोशनी ख़त्म होने पर ही,

अंदर के दिए की याद आती है

... not in my house!

I hate pigeons!

Well, that’s quite a negative statement to start with. But that’s the truest statement too. So I reaffirm the true hatred – I hate pigeons!

Now, the obvious question – Why? To which my obvious response – Why not? Would you like if somebody stays in YOUR house without YOUR permission to your extreme dislike and treats it as his? I won’t. And so I hate pigeons! They live in my house – my kitchen, my balcony, my bathroom, my drawing room and at times my bedroom, all around. And they not just live; they shit, they pee, they cry and they shout. This is me who can’t wake up even if my phone rings in full volume more than forty times and my doorbell rings 100 times but the same ‘me’ wakes up on the first wing-flapping of this bird in my balcony or on the window and run to close it all. I have to jail myself to be free from the discomfort of existing with this bird.

The other evening I opened the door to my bedroom, and guess what, I found a broken egg on my window and a pigeon on my bed. One can’t expect such a welcome after a day’s long work. I looked at it angrily and was stunned to be stared back with two red, angry pair of eyes. It needs guts to look into someone’s eyes. One can do that only in three circumstances; first - when one is not guilty and knows that, second - when one is guilt but doesn’t care and third - when one is ignorant about the mistake. I hope with this bird, third was the case and I took the redness of ignorance and unknowingness as misbehavior of insult imposed upon me.

“What the fuck!” I ran towards it to make it run out of my room. Instead it flew a little and sat on my non-revolving fan. I jumped onto bed with a stick; it flew down and sat on the cupboard. I ran towards the door and stood there for a second, my body and mind shaking with anger. “Fuck you!” was all I could say. I sighed and thought, “Bloody hell! This is my bedroom and only I have the right to produce children here and not some filthy pigeon.” I know that’s a strange thought, but trust me, the situation was no less strange – That bloody pigeon couldn’t fly well, in fact not much. And here, it was in my bedroom and I at the door with a stick in my hand.

I am a person who doesn’t like even clean, nice pets (not that I hate animals, but I firmly believe I can’t coexist with them in my place of living. I really don’t mind them existing outside it). And I was supposed to catch hold of this filthy bird!

“Oh, god no,” I screamed in my mind. I guess the scream had originated in head and had gone to god, up there. The door bell rang and when I opened the door, I found my flatmate standing out. I thought, “God, thank you for sending him in this moment. He has walked in as an angel,” I smiled.

“What happened?” he asked.

I pointed towards the bird that had flown down the bed and was sitting in the corner of my bedroom. He smiled, looked at me, and his smile exploded in a profound laughter.

“Asshole, don’t laugh and please takes it out!” I screamed, open and loud. ‘Asshole’ and ‘Please’ are two words I can’t imagine going hand-in-hand in a sentence, except when you don’t really care what you are saying and to whom; what mattered in that moment was I wanted him to take the bird out of my room. When he walked in, I walked out of the room to let the room be an open ground for the catch-hold-throw game.

He jumped up and down and left and right. In around five minutes, the bird was in his hands. I looked at him in appreciation or relief, I would not know. He looked at me and smiled. How would I know the reason behind his smile? How was I supposed to guess the angel had turned into a devil in those five minutes? People I say! It’s difficult to guess what plays in each one’s mind. He started walking towards me rather than to the window. He forwarded his hand in a gesture to release the bird and said, “Take it.”

Before he could actually throw the bird at me, I ran into the other room and locked it from inside. Once sure that I was safe, I shouted, “Man, you are mad! What the fuck you think you are doing? Why can’t you simply put that shit pigeon out of the window? You know I can’t… I just can’t stand this bird! Please yaar, take it out.” Hearing no sound from the other side of the door, I assumed that he did what I asked him to and to confirm this I slowly opened the door. And before I could realize, he pushed the door open with and threw the bird on me. I was so bloody freaked out that lost my control and almost fell off on the floor. The bird tangented over my head and went to sit on the CPU. The dude ran to catch it and was successful. He then placed it out from our balcony. In the background, I was screaming and shouting, “You asshole… you fucker…@#&*$” and he was laughing his guts out.

At times I think, “Why cant these birds, or for that matter any other living being, live in their own space. I don’t intrude in their then why do they do in mine?” I know it appears childish to think that way, and to an extent, it is. I know we, as human beings, have intruded in anyone’s and everyone’s space and have eaten up their share. I know that these creatures can’t differentiate between a ‘Rohit’ and a human being who trespass in their area. But all this gyan doesn’t appear my mind in situations like this. The only thing that plays in my mind as a stuck record is – I hate pigeons and can’t love them, not in my house.

The Healer

He couldn't get a sound sleep last night; had a bad altercation with an office colleague. He was angry; and confused and disturbed. “I don’t know if I was right when I shouted at him. I don’t know if I am right now when I repent about my shouting.” He wondered. The night had passed in turning from one side of the bed to another, looking at the fan and such activities.

It was 5:00 AM, early Saturday morning. He got out of his bed, logged into his computer, opened the web browser and keyed in www.google.com in address bar and hit “Enter” key. Once the home page appeared, he typed “Was it my fault?”

He read through the first few results. Then keyed in “Am I ok?” And hundred such questions. He didn’t know what he was seeking. Sometimes we do not know where we want to go, how to reach there, but a random running around helps. At least this way we at times get to know where wedo not want to go. In his random searches and umpteen typographical errors, he keyed in “Khaled”.

The first result was “Khaled (musician) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”. He opened and read. “Interesting,” he told himself. The next search result was a Youtube video. He opened it. He didn’t understand the song much but by the time he figured out the word “didi” in the song, he found his fingers playing an orchestra on the table. As the song progressed he allowed his feet to dance. With hands and feet, he slowly moved his shoulders. Hey keyed in “Khaled Songs” and there was a whole list of Arabic songs. He got up from the chair and closed the windows. The sun was yet to appear in the sky which was turning to purple from black. He put his left leg forward and then dragged the right one from window to the computer in compliance with the rhythm of the song. He pressed to F10 key to increase the volume to fullest of its capacity, then lifted the chair up in style, and pushed it back. Now with his legs, his whole body was dancing… to the tunes of Khaled, from one to the next song of his.

In that room then, there was no pain and no painful afterthoughts of an altercation. There was no hurt, agony, anger, or repent. It was full of dance and music. He felt every move of his body – how his hips shook, how his hands moved from left to right and back, how he jerked his head, moved his looks and how shook his legs. He was not present in the room, but was absorbed in his moves and was living in the flow of the music. When you find a connection with the sound, the words do not matter, it seems. Despite not understanding much of what was being sung, he could feel the music, piece by piece, tune by tune. And in the process, his sadness was gone. What remained was a soul full of life.

It was 6:30 AM when the doorbell rang. He dropped himself on floor, rested his body by placing his arms back. He could feel the pinch of a small pain and he founds a hint of a smile when he moved his face from ground to the fan up on the ceiling. He then got up suddenly and ran to open the door. The milkman was about to leave, after putting in the milk packet in the bag on the door. He called, “Good Morning, Shyam Bhaiya.”

“Arre, Good morning, sahib,” the milkman greened. “Too early today, you got up! Going to office?”

“No bhai, today I got up not for office but for life.” He smiled and said bye to the milkman.

When he closed the door, the speakers were still singing… from the few words he could only understand “Allah, Allah…” On his way to kitchen, he looked in the side mirror, smiled and moved forward, dancing with milk packets in his hands. His wound was healed by a doctor he had never known before, by a medicine he had never thought could work as a medicine.

Today, What are you escaping from?

I walked out of office last night at around 8:30 PM and called for a rickshaw.

“Bhai, we will have heavy traffic on the way. Today, it’s Ganesh Visarjan.”

“No problem. Have to go. Can’t help. Chalo.” I could hear painfully loud music on streets.

A few meters ahead, I saw a troupe with a Ganesh idol. It was a beautiful idol. I love the craftsmanship involved in making of these idols. Yesterday was the fifth day of Ganesh Mahotsav and in Mumbai it’s more than a festival. If I say its madness, It won’t be wrong.

But then madness about what? One case could be that these people are madly in love with this god and its time to rejoice about their love. To justify this I looked a little closer to their faces and listened carefully to sound of music. But I neither could see nor hear love. All I could find was a celebration of our escapist attitude. I felt that the dance was not for Ganesh but for them.

Ever wondered why do we have endless list of festivals in India? Can it be a reason behind us being escapists? Are we the people who need to run away into something else to suppress the boredom of routine life or to fight our sadness?

We celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi or Durga Pooja and dance to the tunes of “Bidi Jalaile jigar se piya… jigar ma badi aag hai”. We celebrate Diwali and loose ourselves in noise pollution from crackers. We celebrate Holi and cover our faces with loads of colors so that for at least one day no one can see our real faces.

I appear cynical about our festivals? Ok then. Lets check out some other mode. Say Bollywood? The biggest hits in our country are movies like Hum Apke Hain Kaun and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge and a Raincoat or Zakhm would be floored on the box office. Why? We love to watch happiness; grand, out of the world happiness. We enjoy this second hand happiness because we not only think but strongly believe that we can’t live that kind of happiness. We are genuinely sad people.

More arenas? Lets talk Cricket. We have proved ourselves as Cricket-crazy nation. The maximum watchers of this game in the world are from our country. But the best players of the world? Beyond a Sachin or Kapil Dev, no we can’t produce such people. That’s not our breed. We are the people who sit back and admire good things in life but are coward enough to try making it happen to our own life.

So the point is – we need a reason to be happy. We don’t think that our very existence in this world is a reason to happy. Our existence is so routine, so unimportant that we seek for some special occasion to be happy. And it has been routed in our society so deeply that if we find some genuinely happy person, we can go to the extent of calling him or her MAD. We need to be told by someone else that when can be happy. A Pundit says that Ganesh Chaturthi is on so and so date. We choose that as our date for happiness. A movie director decides that our country should be happy and makes an ultra stupid movie. We choose that as our medium of happiness. The match fixers decide who will play good in one particular match. We choose that as our reason for happiness.

And it’s not only that we fix our days of happiness. We also fix these days for “Cannot be Unhappy”.

I remember from my childhood days that my sister would always complain about me being sad on every Diwali. I could never understand the reason what used to happen and why. She would tell me, “Today is a day of happiness. Be happy.”

I believe that the festivals have the sole purpose of identifying an event, cause or issue. And it’s upon us how we associate with that day. So when I was told to behave in certain way on a certain day, I would always wonder how one can BE HAPPY if he is actually not feeling so, just because it’s a day that the society assumes it to be a day of happiness? Why can’t the day I choose to be happy be the day of my happiness? Why can’t all days of my life be the days of happiness?

And I still do not understand this.

The bigger pain point is – now I try to escape from the reasoning as, at times, its unavailability makes me sad and at other times, I am not too sure of its availability and authenticity. So from this context, everything that I said above remains an idea or a thought and not a logically or mathematically proved theorem. So, you can go ahead and celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi for the reason you want to. Even if the reason be an escape from something that you desperately want to.

Happy Ganesh Utsav!