विदर्भ से तेलन्गाना तक

एक

एक बार समुद्र लिखा था
दस मिनट तक
फिर रेत भर थकान
बस्तर, लोकतंत्र वगैरा

इस बार
असंख्य कपड़ों की दूकानों के बीच
राह बनाती
महानगर की नंगी सड़क

कपास के बियाबान में
बूँद भर बारिश की लिखत

कौड़ियों से ज़िन्दगी बुनती
अपने मटमैलेपन में अदृश्य
पांच साल की बच्ची 'देऊ'

इस बार
मेरा सफ़र बनती
बाबुल - गाँव से हैदराबाद तक

दो

जैसे रेंगना सीख रही हो
जैसे तैरना
सड़क के बिलकुल बायें
जैसे साइकिल चलाना

रेलगाड़ी के दरवाज़े टिकी
आँचल भर लकड़ी समेटे
वह अस्सी बरस तक कुछ नहीं देखती
जैसे विदर्भ भर फैला
गोबर का काला निर्वात

सफ़ेद कपास के अबूझ विस्तार में
जैसे नदियों का खो जाना
और लापता बारिश

अपनी तय सृष्टियों में मशगूल
मैं लगातार भूलता हूँ
तेलंगाना की बसाहट का स्वर

तीन

आत्रम कुसुम राव
चौपन-गुड़ा का किसान है
वह अपनी एकड़ भर ज़मीन में
कपास के बीज बोता है

जून से दिसंबर तक
वह देना चाहता है
और नहीं दे पाता
बादलों को एक निश्चित आकार

ज़मीन से आकाश
आकाश से बाज़ार
बाज़ार से देह
मैं उतारता हूँ कमीज़

पीली दीवार में
बेरंग थकान की तरह
खूंटे पर टंगी है
कुसुम राव की ढेढ़ किलो ज़िन्दगी


चार

यहाँ उसने खोले
अपनी किलक के सारे भेद
बताया हरे को हरा, नीला, पीला
बनाये अक्षरों के सैकड़ो जोड़े
और टांग दिया उन्हें
अंतरिक्ष की गलियों में

पहाड़ की सबसे ऊंची चोटी पर
उसने बनाई बारिश
तलहटी में जमा दिए सागौन के पेड़
जिससे थोड़ी दूर बसा था उसका घर

घर से आगे
माँ, बाप, भाई, बहन
जब खेत की मेंढ़ पर खड़े
अपनी फसल निहारते

वह बनती ज़मीन
और खेलती
धान के साथ
हवा का आदिम खेल


इन दिनों

एक

घर के ऐन बाहर पान की दुकान थी
वहाँ भी
यहाँ भी

वहाँ
बिना मात्राओं का नाम
पलटन

यहाँ
ऑफिस जाते - आते
मिलती नज़रें

पलटन के पान ठेले से
हैदराबाद के खोमचे तक
फैलती स्मृति

इन दिनों
पता चला
दोनों लौट गए
मृत्यु में

दो

इन दिनों
दस्तखत किये
सुना
कहा
देखा

पहले भोपाल से गाडरवारा
फिर भोपाल से शाजापुर

कैमरे में कैद की
गोपी की फसल
तीरथ की कुम्हारी
खैरी और रयलावत की गलियां

इस वक़्त शायद
europe की बाज़ारों में
बीत रही होंगी
ये तमाम जिंदगियां

किसी विदेशी चैनल पर
इश्तहार की तरह
छप गया होगा मेरा सफ़र

तीन

इतना मैं पहले भी जानता था
कि पैसे बहुत कम हैं
गरीब की संज्ञा नहीं दी थी
हिम्मत नहीं थी

इन दिनों मैंने देखा
इनकी मदद को खुलती अजीब दिशायें
विदेश से देश तक
पगडंडियों को सड़क बनाने के कारनामे
किसानो को खेती सिखाने की हैरत में
मैंने गुज़ारे पिछले तीन साल

इस बीच, शायद नहीं देख पाया
रंगीन तकियों की ढेर से
चादर तान कर
अपने घर में
कहानियों को सुलाती
अपनी बच्ची का बड़ा होना

महजिद के सामने
बन्दूक दुकान के पेवठा ऊपर
माड़ी खजुआत मरबो राज
जम्मो रस्ता यहिंच्च ले जाथे

Biceps, Nirala and etc

I met this farmer in January. He touched my feet, as did many others, believing us to be people who help them.
We (I implicitly include myself with my organization) recently claim to have helped them by establishing an 'Ecocenter' at their village.
A demonstrative project, so to say, which emphasizes on optimum utilization of cow dung & urine for sustainable agriculture.
Thats another say whether I believed in this.

But as I looked into his eyes
I could see

Pains and pleasure
are not helped

He knew it, as his breaths

Worked on my leisure to remember him here

और उसके बच्चे
माँ माँ कहते बिखर गए आकाश में

Two

A little of yellow
As it melted from the sun
And a few brush-sticks

She announced a dawn
To my still sleeping street

For thousand years now
I can imagine
Her sounds

Smudging me
In yellow streaks
Of wakefulness

Old women
With brush sticks
Never cross my street anymore

I resign
To nauseous machinery
Of rainless sleeps

I am not in a run

In between
When she asked for more
I looked out
And there they were

Thousand nights
With a single star

The writing was clear
On the wall

Black ants overtook the red

Drunk

Antagonizing is simple, at least in thoughts. As is listening before hearing.
Comrade,
when do we learn from the river
which flows
all the time

Less than a month

Its generally this time around a year when my stars shine. Alternatively, I assume them to shine. And its an assumption with years of conviction. Its the time when I approach Holi. Not the corollary. I approach Holi with such a premeditated redundancy that its almost like enacting a dejavu.
I see the sounds we smear ourselves with over those unbridled nights. Days are more like walking as shadows through a world which immediately seems so intimate and distant. Afternoons happen, evenings lean on it, I remember I wrote years back on such a day.

Its just not the imagery I indulge myself in that called me to write. In fact, I can escape myself for now by saying that this writing happened as a part of my approach. But apart from the euphoria, there's also something cathartic I create for myself around Holi.

I keep telling myself - its almost a re-incarnation. I believe that most of my problems reach solutions around this time. Even if I have a bad stomach ache which reminds me of malignant tumors or an imminent economic crisis, I deify Holi to erase any forebodings.

Not that all along the approach, I never get depressed. I do. But somewhere behind, I sense an unquestionable security. Its just a month away, I would say to keep myself happy.

And does this work? Are my fears allayed?

That would be the last thing I would bother about.
Comrade as we said then and now, they happen and I see them happening.

Mac Pro

I managed to buy a Mac Book Pro. And I am happy for myself. Next on my cards is the 16 X manual lens for Canon XL series. And still later it has to be some portable lights & sound accessories.
Meanwhile I also need to have some registered NLEs for Mac.

Reading

Reading has been restricted to the Sports page on Hindu for half a year now. The last book I read was somewhere in last July -(dont remember the time exactly) - It was the Sea of Poppies by Amitabh Ghosh.
I enjoyed reading it for the first time. But then I have this habit of immediately re-reading a thing I like. This book didnt allow me so.
The language with Amitabh Ghosh becomes too English. And though this book has a contextual relation to Britons, still I would have relished a different flavor. When I say - English - I do not intend to mean that the language is something like how writers from England would script - but rather as something of an Indian writer who overtly owes his allegiance to all that the word ENGLISH encompasses. Ghosh's affinity to the traditional English lingo (may be academic jargon terms it more Oxfordian) is apparent throughout the book despite using a much researched vocabulary on Indian colloquials on nautical terms.

Having said that - I recommend it a 'should read' for all. Especially for the story telling and for some fortunates like me who have quite recently come out of opium addiction.

UNTITLED

Someday if I become a writer, whose writings get published and are read by others, I will write differently.

I will have more money

A new big house perhaps

Lots of things to stuff in in that house


May be I will be a better human being than what I am now.


Till then I remain insensitive, self-centric, and perhaps criminal




me: the other day nantu was telling that his co. might just take abhijeet

Runa: hmm when?

me: on sunday

I mean he said that on sunday

Runa: did he talk to someone?

Coz abhijit is loosing confidence now

me: he said he was not getting the time - but got reminded by our talk that he is supposed to talk to someone

i told him that - losing confidence

Runa: ok

and what did he say then?

me: he is waiting for a propitious time I guess

Runa: who is waiting?

me: such things need a specific setting - time mood etc

Runa: meaning?

I am not getting you

me: i mean he cant just go and talk to any related person for a reference - there must be some corporate protocol for it

Runa: oh ok

like that

hmm may be

me: or else if its out of his way - that is it doesnt come under his scope than he will create such a space to deliver

I dont know though

Runa: but how does nantu da know that convergys might take abhijit when he has not spoken to anyone yet?

me: i didnt say he hasnt s[oken to anyone

he must have thats why he gave that feedback

Runa: oh...I assumed

:O

hmm ok...so it is looking a little positive from convergys then?

me: i get three such calls per day - i will forward them to abs

Runa: hopefully it converts well soon. Poor abhijit.

me: all for tech writing

Runa: yah do

Sent at 10:19 on Thursday

me: I ate a valium ten today after years

Runa: good

how are you feeling?

me: elated

only cough

Runa: ok

me: But otherwise i & my family is getting tensed with this over-lengthened stay of guests home

Runa: but then bhabhi was the one who was all gungho about getting rekha bhabhi to come to your place

me: not really tensed but apparently my wife is getting driled

thats the irony with women

of her class

Runa: not with women

in general

haan right of her kind

me: i tend to correct

Runa: who are not really clear as to wat they want and what they like

me: exactly

Runa: and just kill themselves trying to please everyone around

me: right

i wrote years back

Runa: what?

me: Rasoi me umra banati aurat ka dharma hota avasaad

avsaad means pain

Runa: hmm

me: I had a series infact

Sent at 10:25 on Thursday

me: and while I engaged in an acerbic exchange of comments regarding your blog on feminism, I cried helplessly for having got misunderstood

remembering so manhy of my such writings

Runa: when?

me: your feminism blogs - to all my male readers

Runa: hmm

me: lets talk over it at some other destined hour

Runa: haan

right now I am stuck with this time consuming, yet fruitless task

Sent at 10:28 on Thursday

me: the last statement (just in case you might forget) which I will take up in the next fracas-prone chemically catalyzed, partly-musical, partly-selfentertaining session would be a construction of yours in one of our last chats -

Runa: construction of me?

me: As I learnt of feminism - you commented - I would need clarifications on that - for my knowledge and information

Runa: I am confused and it will eat my head

so you better ask right away

because in the past few occasions you seem to talk more nonsense when drunk than I do

so better you don't ask it then

me: no no its not anything important - atleast in comparision to earning money

Runa: hmm

Sent at 10:32 on Thursday

me: the only nonsense I talked last time was about geographical distances

Runa: yah

Sent at 10:38 on Thursday

me: I was hurt by a fact that your analytical acumen prevented you from feeling a simple point that you were speaking something to a person who was emotionally charged due to a hurt inflicted his father , and to add to you seemed to be rationalizing the hurt, by comparing it to similar and definitely more grave assaults that have happened to your family by the same inflictor,

my reaction was emotional

Runa: yah...true...so was mine

me: so why were you condemning my outburst

against raju mama

Runa: I was also not liking the fact that though raju mama is what he is....your whole family was trying to play under the tag "we are helpless save us..."

which I find bullshit

me: so what alternative does my family have

give me one

Runa: deal with it like adults of the family

me: and specifically what is that

Runa: like others have done

me: what have they done tell me point

Runa: Ignore it

Ignored

me: how many times

Runa: since we all know he does not mean it.

my father has done it for very many times

but then again, it is a choice. he ignored it coz he still loves him

me: right and my papa doesnt - is the corollary right

Runa: but there is def no love when it come to raju mama, suchi nani equation

no....bade papa had it been left alone to him...would have forgotten it

me: at this point of time all have forgotten it

I am not at all bothered abt it now

Runa: yah....

me: I am bothered only about your choice of analytical lines which become egocentric to the extent of being called insensitive at times

this will show up in the arrangement of words

Runa: The thing is tukun da, for you all your behavior is to be excused on lines of emotion and blah...but sadly it does not come to be applied to us

me: Bottom line - I fault

AGREED UNCONDITIONALLY

Runa:

me: NEXT TIME YOUR FATHER IS HURT (GOD FORBID) I WILL SPEAK REAL VENOM AGAINST HIM

Runa: hmm

do that if it helps you....

me: JUST TO CHECK YOUR RATIONAL JUDGEMENTS

NOTHING HELPS ME THAN ME

Runa: just for the record....I never spoke any venom against bade papa. All I said was pitched against you and others like suchi nani, mina nani

me: AND MONEY FROM WHOMESOEVER I GET

Runa: To be sure, you can check with bulu and abhijit, if I ever said anything against bade papa.

Sent at 10:52 on Thursday

me: No need for that - i am an old dope so probability of distorted recollections are more with me

just happy to know that i am still a poet at heart ,

Runa: yah be happy.

me: thats cyclical

Sent at 10:54 on Thursday

me: i will let papa give you a call once

and let him narrate

Runa: It is....cause thing with you seen from my perspective is you always apply millions and zillions(exagerating)of conditions for yourself to be understood and not misunderstood and we are supposed to understand that and work accordingly. But when it comes to me, you do not take anything into consideration, that may be I was drunk, may be I was hurt by suchi nani and mina nani's overprojected pain....

me: I agree to that

Runa: Let Bade papa react naa...why is the whole family reacting I do not get this. I understand you all love him and all....but then let him deal with it.

Now, if I have a fight with bubloo and he abuses me ....are you going to fight for me?

me: at the first instance its not plain abuse

well lets not get along more

I take your point - if papa has a problem - let him react

I incarnate Indifference

Runa: no...that is also not what I mean

All i mean is, complain crib, be angry everything is fair....

me: How far did suchi nani & meena's cribbing reach -

Runa: but in doing all this be a little careful to not make out the other person as a monster

Bania para, our families,

especially in a place like raigarh, it matters what x, y, z is hearing and thinking

me: and how many such news do you have of raju mama's sledging towards suchi nani

Runa: if it was a bigger city relations fade...

Did I ever say that if raju mama is doing it it is fine

I am only telling you suchi nanis part, coz you empathized with them...and coz perhaps you could have a say there

when it comes to raju mama you or me have no say

and I do not have a person like you to whom I can let my venom (as you say) out

me: but these are different weapons of outburst - raju does it in ganja chowk , at public meetings, even at family drinks with us, with papa's friends in isolation - suchi meena and their kind do it in baniya para\

Runa: yah which is publis enough

public

and both of them are doing it in their capacities, in their circles

me: And who started it all

Runa: both

me: You mean to say suchi nani began speaking against raju mama some time in past to which raju mama reacted

Runa: for me both of them look playing equally cheap shots

me: Didnt I tell you the last time that - the line of we are helpless was coined by me

Runa: thing is When it comes to Suchi nani side of story there are more irritating characters attached to that side of the story....liek mina nani, which makes it more dirty....

me: Irritating to you

Runa: Yah, I know....and that is why I reacted....otherwise I would have choosen to look down on it,,,like I do most times

but I found it disgusting that it was one of your emotional liners

me: Ok fine - I took a practical decision - of snapping ties

cause there are better ways of living

Runa: yes....

do that if you think you can get even like that

me: I will give my try and effort

God has already blessed me - its for the world that the remaining blessings are left

Runa: yah if you think severing your ties with Raju mama and family is a good loss and help you personally then do it

me: Not with me

I am emotionally attached to that person

but on practical ground I will request him to severe ties with my family like he did it with Delhi ma's

Sent at 11:09 on Thursday

me: I might me wrong - But the crux of all this discussion brings me back to the feel of that day - you are defending a person who repeatedly threatened to hit my father with shoes

Runa: hmm yah good idea....if nothing comes out of it, atleast this will happen ki people who love some people from both the families, would be releaved of the whole tension in future

I am not defending or offending anyone

for me I love both of them

me: you are not intending to

Runa: I repeatedly said that day and repeating it again today, I reacted only against Suchi nani, Mina nai

nani

me: but you never know the effect an utterance in words - meanings metamorphose the moment they form words

But all this while I wanted to gain some information on your learning feminism

just that you commented on my talking nonsense over drinks that i drifted to this topic

Runa: hmmm and then you say I get egoistic

me: yes i feel that

Runa:

when you could not take one sentence well and started drifting

me: a day earlier when we still were having the same topic at your home and then at abs

your tone and constructions were different, and abhijeet uttered that he would have grown violent at such a situation while I didnt

Sent at 11:16 on Thursday

Runa: you did not?

oh not the day when we were drinking?

me: He was talking abt the incident betn raju and papa

no

Runa: hmm yah yah

No, I am sorry if you got a hint ki I have problems with you reacting

going forward, I will keep mu mouth shut when it comes you, suchi nani, your wife, and your kid.

When it is about bade papa i will speak personally with him

me: so when I was drunk, and the incident again started and I find someone who is trying to rationalize the hurt, I got hyper, and that perhaps made me talk all nonsense

Runa: No it is alright. I should not comment on anyones reactions....except my own....it is foolish

me: may be

Runa: especially, when it is about your wife and suchi nani you do not take it well at all

me: until it stops enriching your experience,

Runa: and about bhabhi I speak never with malice but only with concern

me: so do i

i love her out of pity

Runa: but then I caan understand you reacting emotionally

me: my mistake was - i should have understood your drunkenness that day

Runa: but then....I am reacting no different today as well

right

me: thats why i am talking this way

we could have wound things up by calling it an alcoholic mayhem

and enjoyable too

Runa: i think....it would be intelligent of me not to comment on Suchi, Mina, and your wife....you get all mixed up and extremly emotional

me: but you accused me of talking nonsense - and for most parts of my introspection i find you right

i wanted to chalk down a plan for the next session of drinks - but maybe I dont qualify

Runa: why?

me: Wasting alcohol on talking sense is not my forte - anyday

at the end of the day - let the gods decide

Runa: it is no bodys just a clarification

hmm

me: will now post this conversation on my blog

good one

Runa: hmm

Sent at 11:26 on Thursday

me: At times I feel - being so self-centric (as suggested by your comments here) how have I managed to write - may be its all a fluke for the last 25 years

all writings without a soul

Runa: You can really manage to piss me off.

me: why

Runa: because, you can use words against anyone(stressing on anyone) without any remorse, but for most of me...I cannot do that with you...

me: this again indicates another serious malfunctioning in my capacities - that of comprehension - I might have miscarried the element in your words here

Runa: Talking about soul....yes you do have one....but you sure are very self focussed....which for me is not a bad thing

but coming back to how one can be many things in one lifetime

coming back to your words "everything is temporal."

You could be both...withouth really showing any personality disorders

me: But underlining structures for others to understand me and evading all preconditions in understanding others is criminally authoritative of me

Runa: it is

so, what about it?

me: An endless hibernation

may be bharat chacha knows more of it

Runa: hmm

Sent at 11:33 on Thursday

me: I lost my already depleting confidence after this chat - not just out of self pity and remorse - but as an organic feeling - I resign to find myself a sinner against mankind

Sent at 11:34 on Thursday

Runa: very well

and I resign as one who is guilty of making a saint feel like a ghost

me: ok

different destinies

Runa: saint feel like a sinner

Sent at 11:37 on Thursday

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Revisiting Democracy

There are various definitions of democracy I learned over my years as a student. I never paid much attention to any of them. Conversely they remained rather boring and ignored texts in my school books. On some occasions, I heard my friends debate over it and managed to discern some definitive features to the word. At another time, another day, I became helplessly forgetful. With worlds of beautiful things happening to my age then, it would have been foolish to attach more time to the understanding and defining of democracy. I wasted luxuriously in the company of women, music and dreams.
Fifteen years hence, at this age today, I learn of Barack Obama winning the US presidential elections. ‘Change has come to America’ one of the headlines flashes on a browser before me. My office buzzes with the breaking news as does the world, or so it seems. We start exchanging views, engage in speculations, get back to work. I think of ‘change’ and remember the word democracy.

Although a universally acceptable definition for the word is still contentious (and rightly so to be in the democratic spirit), there are a couple of principles inclusive to all its allied concepts. First that all members of the society have equal access to opportunities and second that all members enjoy universally accepted freedom and liberties. Fair enough, one must say because what’s more valid than a free society. That is to speak of a society where Mangal a sweeper sips his tea in the same hotel as Raghav a brahmin. Or Kaneez a girl studies in the same ranks as Omar a boy. Or in the same sense, Barrack Obama, a black becomes the president of America.

The change has certainly come in, I think before I write. My thoughts take me home, to that serpentine alley in Ganja Chowk, Raigarh. In the room facing the street, my daughter plays with her friends. Aged between 3-5 most of them belong to the same neighborhood. A heap of toys gathers at the center with children weaving their lives around it. At a distance, near the threshold stands Ria, our maidservant’s granddaughter. She reluctantly makes it to the swarm of children and manages to touch a plastic locomotive from the heap. A little later when all the kids are made to sit in a row to share the Puja Prasad, she involuntarily takes an obscure corner.
Born to a lower caste and relatively poorer family, Ria explains a different childhood to me. Once again I think of democratic rights.

This time the image is that of my student days. Back then in college, we generally noticed the scheduled tribe and scheduled caste students, making groups among themselves. It was noticeably rare that one of them shared time or space with us. Though theoretically we did possess the equality, but it usually felt as if we belonged to different worlds. I clearly remember the dementia of those times when during the anti-Mandal commission uproar, faces from the other world bore an expression of utter fear. Once when my girlfriend asked me about the Mandal commission and the entailing disturbance, I jokingly said – ‘it’s preventing that lovely black girl from snatching me from you’.

My girlfriend might just have supported the anti-reservation antics but coming back to my joke, I find it all the more serious. It remains a fact that for centuries the dominant class has fringed its binary, being both grossly exploitative in its intent and shrewdly manipulative in its approach. The past few decades of laissez faire have served well to widen the divide. Today in India we have fourth highest number of dollar billionaires in the planet and simultaneously we rank 126th in the Human Development Indicators which means its better to be a poor person in Bolivia (the poorest nation in South America). CEO salaries recorded an all time high last year while we have 836 million people living on less than Rs 20 a day. A new restaurant opens everyday in some city of the country, while in the last five years we added more newly hungry millions than the rest of the world. Our economic growth rate is said to attain envious proportions and yet farmer indebtedness has doubled in the last decade, from 26.2% in 1991 to 46.3% in 2001. Inequalities are bound to rise with unbridled capitalism and lack of a firm political will.
It’s as a result of this long-term uni-polarity of power that my maidservant’s granddaughter understands life from a window my daughter perhaps would never choose to peep through. Or in that case black girls would never ever snatch me from my girlfriends.

With Obama’s historic victory, the promise for a change has been agreed upon by many to arrive. My limited resources of intellectual capital prevent me to analyze the magnitude and nature of this deemed change. Secure within the laziness of a careless writer, I barely get to understand that he stops the misadventures like restoring democracy in Iraq and Afganistan and attends to rather urgent calls like re-structuring the American farm bill, where a reduction in subsidies to the cotton farmers alone could feed a million children more in Africa. Off late, sledging America on various grounds has been an order of the day in the developing world. May be the president takes account of such voices, and explores why in the first place did they arise? In short, he could re-visit the word democracy, and apply it with honesty.

As far as India is concerned, we have so many Americas within us; need to sort those out first. We need to ascertain that across the country in our homes, children like Ria have a stake, we need to gather that eyes of black women have dreams too.