रंगमंच

कैसा न्यारा कैसा अनूठा 

है नाता रंगमंच से रंगकारी का

वो रुझाव वो खिंचाव 

जो रहे परस्पर नर और नारी का 

कभी गर्वित माता के भाँति 

निष्ठावादी को सराहती है

कभी शिक्षक बनके वो 

अहंकारी को गिराती है 

कलाकार का मंदिर है मंच

वही उसका इष्ट भी है

वही उसकी पहचान बने है 

कभी बने उसकी पृष्ठभूमि है 

ऐसी करुणा की गाथा

हमने सुन भी रखी है 

जीवन की साँसों का लय भी 

कलाकार ने मंच की आँचल में ही तोड़ी है 

आशा का स्तोत्र है मंच

प्रेमी, माता, प्रभु यही

एक बार जीवन मंच से जो जुड़े 

आरम्भ भी वही 

अंत भी वही 

My diamond

Once i was sharp and i was bright

Someone broke me into shards of light

Each shard then burnt just as bright

Each shard became pinpoints of light

maloom hai mujhe

बाक़ी के पास तो वक़्त नहीं
इतनी ख़बर है मुझे
तुम्हारे पास आई हूँ
पता है
आज भी हर दिन में
कुछ पल मेरे नाम कर रखे हैं तुमने 

mil jaao agar kabhi

कभी अगर तुम मुझसे मिल जाओ
तो ज़र्रा नवाज़ी की उम्मीद तो ना रखोगे मुझसे
में मसरूफ होंगी
तुम्हारे हर ज़र्रे की नवाज़िश में 

duvidha

दीया में बैठी बाती हूँ
सोच रही हूँ
लौ बनूँ कि नहीं 

zinda hain abh bhi

ज़िन्दगी सूखे पत्तों के मानिंद है
भूरा, भुना, चुरमुराय सा
सिर्फ ख्वाहिश की ज़िद से शाख से लगा हुआ
यूँ तो कोई हरारत, कोई हरकत नहीं
पर माज़ी की हवा जब चलती है
तो शाखों से गिर,
हाल के क़दमों के नीचे ही
उनकी ख़ामोशी टूटती है 

faislon ka kya hai

दिमाग़ के फैसलों का
दिल के रवैय्ये पर कहाँ कोई इख़्तियार है
फ़ैसला तो हमने भी किया था
तुम्हे याद न करने का
तुम्हारा नाम तक न लेने का
यह जो भूल बैठे थे 
कि दिल की धड़कनों का लेय ही
तुम्हारा नाम है 

wahin...

नज़र हट गयी
ज़माने गुज़र गए
हवा का रुख़ भी बदल गया
अब तो अपना वोह उम्र भी
किसी और की कहानी लगती है
पर फिर भी
जब कुछ पल
इस ज़िन्दगी से नोच निकालती हूँ
तो मन की आँखों में
तुम्ही  को पाती हूँ
अब भी महसूस करती हूँ
तुम्हारी हाथों के स्पर्श को
अपने शरीर के छाप में
तुम्हारी आँखों की उस नज़र को
देख सकती हूँ अपने मन में
तुम्हारी आवाज़ के लय में
मेरे नाम की स्मृति
गुदगुदाता है मेरे अंतसतः को
एक बार
बस एक बार
फिर से याद दिला दो
उस हसीं का कारण
फिर कर दो बेदम
फिर उखाड़ दो मेरी साँसें
फिर समा लो मुझे अपनी आवश्यकता में
मेरी याद ने तुमको ऐसा अपनाया है
की तुम्हारी ही होके रह गयी हूँ
फ़र्क बस इतना है
कि में भूल सकती नहीं
और तुम जानते भी नहीं 

to love as it is meant to be...

To love with abandon. That is to say, to abandon oneself to love the other. so that all that remains, is the other, with the YOU becoming an amorphous thought, flowing in and out. to love with a clawing hunger, which makes the stomach turn into itself and the heart plummet into the depths of longing. the fumes of passion rising to the head and making it light headed. the desire to be owned clawing the mundaneness of existence and propriety. to be utterly and shamelessly dependent and needy. and to be held for that. is to love as it meant to be. 

How do i know i live?

it has been a while since words crystallised my thoughts....it is not like i have not been thinking...no, anything but. my head is abuzz with the zipping around of my thoughts, banging into one another. not crashing and destroying each other, but providing each other with that impetus, that push, which propels them into greater speed and higher frequency.

it is not like life is empty and therefore thoughts abound. each day rushes by, the sound of it zipping by almost throwing me off balance. yet, sometimes, life just swirls around me in its hurry, while i seem to be rooted at one spot. a hunger, a deep gnawing kind of hunger is consuming me these days. a desperation is eating into my innards, making me feel almost faint with the vacuum that it creates. a hunger for passion, for an all consuming ownership, to be occupied in thought and in feeling. nothing consumes me lately. nothing has. and i dont seem to be consuming anyone. A life where something does not consume me, or i do not consume someone, is a life that is like a placid body of water. no ripple. no movement. no sign of life. there is a madness that is my own, that i own, that needs to own me. life needs to make me breathless. it needs to make my heart skip a beat, it needs to roughly pull me into its arms and own me. rough me up. hold me close. disrupt my breathing. quicken my heartbeat.

make me feel alive. 

badalte hain

आज फिर कुछ जागे हैं हम
फिर मन में एक धधक उठी है
एक चाह जगी है
कि कुछ निशान छोड़े हम
जहाँ बैठें, वहाँ एक हलकि सी खुशबु छोड़ जाएँ
जहाँ उठ खड़े हों, वहाँ ज़मीन पर एक छाप छोड़ जाएँ
जहाँ चलें, वहाँ अपने क़दमों से नए रस्ते बनाते जाएं

बहुत महसूस कर लिया सूरज कि तपन को पीठ पे
अब मन है ठन्डी हवा के थपेड़ों को मूह पे महसूस करना है
दीवार पकड़ पकड़ के चलना, बस अब और नहीं
थोड़ा  गिरना,थोड़ा लड़खड़ाना, पर अपने दम पे चलना है

अपनी पहचान को न खोना चाहती हूँ
न अपनी कोई कोई नई पहचान बनानी है मुझे
अपने इस वर्त्तमान पहचान को और मज़बूत बनाना चाहती हूँ मैं
इसी पहचान को मान देना चाहती हूँ मैं

सिर्फ जीना तो बहुत कर लिया मैंने
वोह कला तो मुझे आती है खूब
पर अब इस जीवन की छवि को थोड़ा बदलना है
थोड़े भरने है इसमें उत्तेजन के रंग
थोड़ी डालनी है इसमें क्रांति की धुप

you shall not change me

Is that me?
unsure and timid?
cowering in the dark
at that slight sound
a shadow

Is that me?
Relieved that i do not travel alone?
In the city that i have grown up in?
Being told to be back home at eight?
feeling relieved when i get into my car
And shut out the world?

Is that me?
rolling up my window at night
haven't felt that wind on my face in so long
haven't tasted freedom
since you decided when i should step out
and when i should not
i was unbound
till you told me where my limits lay
i was wild and spirited
till you told me i needed to be punished

Is that me?
as defined by you...

but i promise, you shall not change me
i promise that i shall reclaim my being
my body
my world
my space
my city
my 'ME'

there shall be one day
when i shall roam as i used to
when i shall be as i used to be
when the world will again be my oyster
when my life will be the blessing i used to see it to be
and when a girl being born in this world
shall not curse her fate
for being born so

you shall not change me...

happy? new? year..yes!

So...i waited for one week...then the second week started...and it has ended...i waited for all this while to be able to decide whether i can truly wish my near and dear ones a happy new year...i waited to see if this year was going to start atleast any differently, considering the angry way in which last year had ended...After two weeks, things are just the same. Women are still unsafe. Apathy is still the most widely experienced mental state. The fervour dies out, like every fervour does. status quo is the most permanent state of being, people continue to be obnoxious and insensitive and people like me continue to refuse to settle down.

it is now, after two weeks, that i have finally realised what is that i truly want to wish everyone. I do not want to wish anyone a passive HAVE a happy new year. i think it is time we wish each other to MAKE a new year..happiness shall follow...

Let's make this a year when we dream of things not dreamt of, when we refuse to be passive recipients of things good and bad, instead become actors in what happens, when we struggle and fight and light fires that show new paths and test new strengths. Let's make this a year when we stop waiting for movements to happen that we can become a part of and become movements in ourselves. Let's make this a year when we stop clicking our tongues sitting before TVs and laptops, but take our words and connect more of us together and make MOVEMENT happen. Change might be a while in happening, but i am in no hurry. i have my whole lifetime. i dont want to be at the receiving end of the change. i want to be a part of the change. i want to make it happen.

Hence, on this 16th day of January, 2013, i am pledging to start a movement - iAWAKENING...i am be willing to be called a charlatan, a trouble maker. i am also admitting that i do not know what the movement will do. all i do know is that i am first reaching out to you. reach back to me. wherever u may be and then, let us become pall bearers of a time we wish to end and harbingers of a time we wish to begin. whatever we think we want to do, we have to pledge our lifetimes to it, so that atleast i can look myself in the mirror tomorrow as a mother worthy of her word, as a sister worthy of rubbing shoulders with other sisters and a woman who did truly believed she and others such as her deserved better and was willing to snatch it away from those who came in the way.

By this movement, by first endeavour shall be to connect all of us. Then I want to us to think of ways both online and offline by which we shall insist that we are heard...be it through organising groups that go and speak with schools about sex education and about social education that teaches boys and girls to respect each other, or organising a flash mob like the 1billionrising on the 14th of February, as being done in many parts of the world, or be it other more creative means. I know it for a fact that when all of us get together, ideas shall abound, energies and shall push and milestones concurred.

are you with me? would you wish yourself to MAKE A NEW YEAR?

In Search...

‘Though the journey seems hard
And the road unknown
My eyes see not the rubble
My mind heeds not the hurdle
For in my mind’s eyeI see the distant shores
Of tomorrow
I see the risings
Of the castle built with the sand
That slips through my hands
I must walk on
Before the sands run out
Of my tightened grasp
I have not anything
But the dream I see each day
And fear losing if I stay still anymore
I must be the road
That winds its way to hope
I must be the road’

silenced oneness

A blank white screen faces me...there is so much noise inside me, yet nothing seems to come out...there was a time when you spoke and words would come unthinking out of my head, into your being...now there is no talk, only noise...nothing that makes me find the thread to string together the incoherence and make it into a melody you once thought was beautiful...my voice is so rusty from having not been heard, that sometimes when i speak, i cant even recognise it as being mine...havent heard it so long, dont even know if i still speak the language of others...dont know if i miss speaking more or miss being heard more...silences speak while speech is silenced...but is that me that is silenced or is it because you are silent? atleast here, we seem to merge into one another...

Missing..

Sometimes, i miss you...mostly, i miss me..

Dear MMM

Dear Much Maligned Married,

Read a well written blog about smart, successful, single women...women who change bulbs on their own, take unilateral decisions about their careers and their carriers ;-) who relocate to new cities and manage settling down on their own...good read.very good read...specially for someone like me, who was single & successful (dont know about smart) till very very recently and is now not-single and successful (success is a subjective state of being...and i still dont know about smart!)...it made me think and feel this great urge to look at the status of those who are 'not-single'...

since the only status that seems to have changed for me is 'single' i shall restrict my comments to just that word...and i find myself wondering which state is tougher and could do with more encouraging 'slaps on the back'...

Packing ones bags and relocating to a new place, you does even as a 'not-single' woman & this time, not necessarily of a place unilaterally decided, and therefore not necessarily of your own choice...independence of managing your own life has been pushed and pulled into managing your own life and your owns' lives ;-) you still dont need help in changing the light bulb and still get to the airport at 3 am on your own...but yes, before you leave for the airport, you have to figure out how the house will function once you have left...you still change bulbs single-handedly (no big deal) and also wash clothes, cook food, keep a clean house, give medicines to the ill....and finish your office work!!

You must miss some of your friends who have decided to walk on, it must get lonely when all your friends from your earlier life, who are footloose and fancy free make their plans and you are unable to join in, but it also makes you more considerate and responsible for those around u....and through all this shines your intense affection towards those who are now joined with your lives...you can, but do not take unilateral decisions, since they affect more lives than just yours...

i admire your sensitivity and care towards all those who's lives now are joined with yours..i admire how you balance your varied and numerous identities and demands...may you continue to be as strong as you are discovering you can be...grow!

hmm...

if for a long stretch of time, it feels like you've been getting up from the wrong side of the bed, maybe the truth is that you have been getting into the wrong bed!

Itni to humari yaari na thi ki milne chale aaye

Par taqdeer ki bhi majboori thi

Aakhir koi to bahana chahiye tha

Tumse milneka

An overwhelmed minds knows not a sensible sentence...

On-the-spot running does not get anyone anywhere....

The whole real estate industry survives on making people invest their todays in dreams, beliefs and imaginations, visualisations as far removed from real(i)ty as possible and as close to realty as possible..

I am dis-oriented...does that mean i am off all things oriental?

indelible

the eye

unfocusses

on presents

clouded by

images of the past

chimeras in the mind

arguments

counter-arguments

wins

losses

noises in the head

drowning out

weak

watery

shaky

assurances

the number game

One I

sidled up

tried hard to snuggle

into

One YOU

but

one YOU

did not

want me TOO