The immortal teaset

My grandfather had a beautiful teaset that he treasured a lot. He would clean it dilligently, keep it safe and was very possesive about it. He often told my father to be careful with it and he himself handled it with extreme care. My father remembers this distinctly!

Many years ago, my grandfather died...sometime after his death, my father noticed the teaset - safely perched in the almirah, secure and well kept. Father felt a sense of rage looking at it. He thought of the man who cared for it all his life, but was no more now...the immortal teaset stood where it was...father remembers this distinclty.

Memoirs pinned on a wall

Reminiscences, of a tiring mind,
they come and go, leaving none behind.

I wonder what, my heart would say,
to memoirs pinned on a wall of clay.

From love and song, to sorrow utter,
like sticky notes, in the wind aflutter.

I see, one trying to break away,
the wind too strong for it to stay.

My heart believes, that after all,
it must be pain, that leaves the wall,

For all the love, I got from thee,
my wall; a collage of tragedy.

Some shall be gone, some here to stay,
memoirs pinned on a wall of clay.

Nadeem....

The last cowboy

It was late afternoon, when he came out of his tent dressed in a blue jeans, boots, a checked shirt and a large, warm brown jacket. He had a red kerchief around his neck, a slight stubble and of course the unmistakable hat. He stood outside the door, looking at the sprawling pine forest in front of him. It had snowed, so the the forest was a mix of green and a pure white. His horse stood in a corner, quietly in a corner. The silence got louder with a light snowfall starting again. He stretched himself, put out the fire, and then walked towards his horse, untying him. In a jiffy he was atop the pale white, shy looking animal he called "mystery".

Mystery started with a canter, heading slowly towards the forest. Once inside, he looked from side to side; there were pines; huge pines; trees with pointed, snow splattered leaves...he continued to canter through them. Somewhere in between, when he could see neither the road behind him, nor a way in front; he stopped...the stillness in the air, was unbearable.... He looked around, and then directly above him...the sun was slowly going down. He looked straight ahead, but did not move...mystery was confused, at his master's ways.

His mind went back to the universe he had left behind...to his love...his friends...and to her........
He stood there motionless, in the company of the pines and the slow shower of snow...the warmth of what he had bid adieu to...behind him....way behind him....he couldn't even see the road behind...

The gentle splash of a trickle falling on his hand, startled him...and snapped him out of his dream. He was in the forest...deep in the forest. He buried his face in his hands.....

This was enough....he said suddenly....he had allowed himself to indulge too much....!

He wiped of the tears, adjusted his hat, and then galloped away into the sunset...he was the last cowboy...after him there would be none...

Rainbow in the sky

I stood by my window looking out at the lush pastures that had seen a cloudy and wet day. The sun was making it's way out, peeping through the gloom, trying hard to make it's presence felt, but it was smothered by the clouds. I looked on the other side and saw a most magnificent rainbow! Violet, Green, Yellow, Red, splashed on the horizon...emanating from nowhere and ending in eternity. It was a splendid sight! My spirits soared, and my heart roared in delight...and amidst all the excitement, I wondered if it was the gloom I must thank for, after all. Ah! The cycle of life, I thought to myself...morn after a dark night, a rainbow after a damp squid...guess it all has a meaning....

Resonance...no more

What if...

What if I was another man, born in another world...what if I was not what I am...I wonder sometimes! I would belong to another religion perhaps, or perhaps a different caste or maybe I may not be a believer at all.... How different would that be? Would it still be me, is what I ponder hardest about! What I think, how I think, would that be any different from how I think and what I think today - being what I am...today.

Would I still want to sit under the shade of a tree, near a placid stream and pen down my thoughts, as rhyming couplets? Would my poet still be alive? I hope he is...is that one thing I most wish for.

How would I view the world, or my own country? Would I look at it differently? Would I be indifferent to those many things, that I feel strongly about today? Would being born in a different world change that? I hope not...!

If it were to happen, I hope someone in that world, is able to recognise me as the same man I am today, who thinks and feels the same way and not as someone who is from a different world...

Dew

Few drops of moisture, few drops in the morn,
are they tears from a night, that has long forgone.

The still of the morning, has answers none,
to pleading questions, the night had sprung

Quietly in a corner, I am forced to see,
what I had once thought, was my destiny

I wait for that light, for something...a clue?
To hear what is said, by the morning dew...

Nadeem....

When you have the answers...

Peace of mind, as cliched as it may seem, is the one thing that humans most look forward to. A disturbed mind and it's effect on the body and soul, in the very least, can be disturbing. I seek my own tranquil stream...my own peace. Ever so often, I realize that the disquietude, as chaotic and fragmented as it may be, seems to have vanished in a jiffy! It feels light...and a feeling of unadulterated happiness fills my heart. Sometimes I forget to even ask myself, how it happened all of sudden...too relieved at having got, what I wanted. Sometimes though, I do manage to pose that question. Each time the answer has been the same...when I have the 'answers', that I most wanted to 'hear'...I have peace of mind!

Who decides?

Often in the comfort of a quiet room, and a sunny day, my mind starts to wander to dangerous places. What is right and what is wrong I ask myself. Is right always right and can never be wrong? Can wrong never be right? Who decides? What decides? What about emotions? Is pain, happiness, love also to be defined - who should feel what and when? Or is one free to experience these emotions unabated, unrestrained? I wonder...

Of these emotions, love confuses me the most. If love was a constitution I would abide by it. I see it more as a free spirit...which can go wherever it wants and to whosoever it chooses to. Are we anyone to question it's motives? Are we to tell this free-spirited emotion..."go away, you don't belong here?" Does it go away, if you do so....or does it come back to you? What if you embrace it? Is that right or wrong...and who decides?

Run like a child

Hmm...not a very sleepy night...still I feel fresh, with a spring in my stride and all set to face what this day has to throw at me. Stepped out of the hotel only to be met with a thunderstorm, having walked 5 minutes. Had to dash back, running home like a child....not complaining about that either! Something in my heart...something that makes me smile over and over...makes me want to run like a child in an open field. Don't care about the dampner outside today for some reason...just want to run like a child!

Peele scooter wala aadmi

"Peela scooter kyun chalate ho?"...the question that haunted him all his life! A jaundice at birth proved a stigma for the rest of his life, when his father at the instance of the village quack insisted on him having at least one yellow coloured artifact with him, all his life, to keep the jaundice away! Yellow coloured shoes, yellow trousers, to yellow tables and chairs...the creative father found ways to keep the deadly disease away, from his loved one! Growing up with yellow excesses wasn't easy, as friends did not quiet see the point of the silliness. The culminatíon of this embarrassment came when he was forced to choose between a yellow coloured scooter or a manually towed vehicle...and from that day on he forever became the "Peele scooter wala aadmi"..................Why he chose to keep the scooter, long after his father's death is something only he knows!

(Synopsis of the recollection of a hindi play)

End notes

It is late in the night, and the lights in my room are dimmed. Done with day's work, emails, news...I sit back in my bed, listening to "Hum jo chalein, to tum bhi chalo saath, phir kya khabar, ke din hai ke raat" from Silk Route; eyes closed. The words sinking beautifully into my heart, the melody into my soul...Am I waiting to sleep now...or am I waiting, and asleep now? I can't tell. "Dil ye kahe baitho hamare paas, aao idhar ishara kare raat........".........zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Habib Tanvir

Many years ago, I saw a movie called "Prahaar". One of the characters was that of an old man, played by someone called Habib Tanvir. Few years later, I was in Bombay, when I heard about a theatre festival coming to town that was dedicated to Habib Tanvir. I recalled the old man from Prahaar, when I saw the promotions and I searched for him on the internet, only to realise that he was perhaps the greatest living theatre legend in India! How could I have been so ignorant I thought. I bought tickets to two of his plays - "Agra Bazaar" and his magnum opus "Charandas Chor". I watched "Agra Bazaar" and came out of the theatre almost awestruck! What creative brilliance - an entire "bazaar" and at least some fifty people, packed onto a small stage, creating the aura and conviction of an old market in the pre-independence era, complete with hawkers, folk songs, street fights, dancers, street performers...! It didn't seem like theatre, it was "Agra Bazaar"! Someone had managed to conceive this - the detailing, the language, the music, the interactions and made it so real, so unbelievably real - that was Habib Tanvir. I saw him in the theatre, an old, bespectacled man of eighty plus years, taking notes...I wondered what he wrote! I was already in awe of the man.

I had read that "Charandas Chor" was his best work till date, and that he would also be acting in it. However, something happened, and I could not make it for the play. I regreted missing it, but I told myself, I would certainly watch it at the next opportunity...or so I thought.

Habib Tanvir died today...and I will never see "Charandas Chor" with him in it!

The Bell

We passed by a church each day, on our way to work - me and a friend. At exactly 9:00 AM the church bell would start ringing, "DING", "DING","Ding"......."ding".....! Many times we did not notice it and just passed by, sometimes talking to each other, sometimes quietly. One morning, we were passing by the church and the bells started to ring as usual. My friend asked me - "do you know what the bells mean?". I did not know, so I tried to guess. "Time to pray", "To remind people that God exists", "For people to communicate with God" - I made some mundane guesses. "The bells are meant to remind people that life is not permanent and that one day it would end, just like the fading sound of the bell", my friend remarked. He said, he had read it in an article somewhere. I went quiet for a while, thinking about what he had said. It seemed so true...I don't know if it really is, but it seemed so true! I also wondered, how something as simple as a bell, could explain the meaning of life and death, with such gravity!

Faceless, nameless...

I hear a quiet in the quietness...I start to converse with it, and it turns into a stranger in the darkness. I realize, that it was the missing piece in my puzzle. What was in the heart, poured out; uninhibited, uncensored, uncut, presented the way it should have been...but to whom? A friend, a close one or a faceless, nameless stranger perhaps! For he hears what your heart has to say, without a bias for what you were or are today!

Footprints on the snow

Walking on freshly laid snow, I often look back to see my footprints, my trail on a beautiful white blanket. It gives me a thrill of sorts, though I know it would soon be covered with more flakes of slow-falling snow. Leaving this beautiful, arctic wonder after three and a half years, it feels the same. When I look back, I see moments, happiness, sadness all impinged on my trail. It doesen't thrill me anymore, but I know it will stay there and with me, for a long, long time. I bid adieu to Finland, with some sadness in my heart, but I take with me a lot of very happy memories!

Umeed-e-Sahar

It was a quiet week at home, with a lot of time to myself. I decided to watch "Firaaq" a movie reflecting the mindsets of people affected by the post-Godhra massacre. A classic, according to me; the movie asks many questions that have some not-so-easy answers. The bit about an inter-faith marriage where the guy is forced to conceal his identity out of fear, was the most touching. The week ended with me listening to Faiz Ahmed Faiz's "Umeed-e-Sahar". Somewhere "Firaaq" and "Umeed-e-Sahar" seemed connected...! Perhaps the "Firaaq"(Search) ends at an "Umeed-e-Sahar" (Dawn of Hope)?

Hitting a wall!

I think everyone at some stage in their life, comes to a point, even if it is momentary, when they think they have hit a wall. Solutions, ideas seem hard to come by and it can be frustrating if the situation prolongs. I have hit a wall too few times, but the last month or so I have been hitting one very regularly - three times a week to be precise; and believe it or not, I am loving it! The only difference this time is that I have a squash racket in my hand and boy does it feel great when you get that perfect straight line shot right. Yes, I am 'squashing' my worries away these days. For that hour and a half that I am on the court - work, problems, stress is all forgotten. All my energy, all my attention and all of me is focused on one and only one thing alone - hitting a wall!

Oulu

It's been more than three years now, since I moved to Oulu; a small, quite, snowy, cosy and very homely city in Northern Finland...200 KM from the Arctic Circle. I still remember my apprehensions and those of my family when I decided to travel to this part of the world on a work assignment. Lets face it, Finland is not an America or a Britain or France, one of those 'magnificent' places you grow up hearing/reading about and always cherish a desire to visit. My only fleeting recollection of Finland before I was asked to travel there was in 6th grade during my Geography class. The text about "6 month summer and 6 month winter" was all that stayed and I still cannot remember if it was Finland or Norway that was under discussion. Plus there were these stories about how cold it can get there, how you had to drink alcohol to survive in that country (me being a teetotaller) and Polar bears in the Finnish jungles.

Thankfully most of the predispositions have proved to be untrue! All except the cold weather. It can get cold, yes very cold in Oulu. In my first year itself I experienced -30 degrees temperature in February and the experience was one to remember. Frosty eyelids, frosty hair, blue lips and frost-bitten lips is not something you expect from a 10 minute walk after all. Over time I started to enjoy the cold weather though and specially the abundance of snow (Oulu sure has lots of it). Seasons changed and the winter turned to spring, to summer, to Autumn and back! Four disctinct, but beautiful seasons of Oulu.

Qasid ke Aate Aate

Qasid Ke Aate Aate, Khat Ek Aur likh rakhoon,
Main jaanta hoon, jo wo likhenge jawaab mein.
....Mirza Ghalib

[Let me be ready with my reply, before the postman arrives,
for I already know what she would have written in response to my letter]

Ghalib the Master! Makes me wish I knew Urdu better, if only to understand more of his work. A rarest of rare poet. How subtly he portrays the relationship between two lovers, through the unread, undelivered letters carried by the postman. Hats of Sir!

The Solitary Glove

On the great expanse of a frozen sea,
lay a solitary glove, for all to see.

Left behind by a soul, with a mind depressed,
four fingers, a thumb, on the snow impressed.

The ice, the wind, what misery, what plight,
motionless...in a fading, blue light.

Once, the sun was out and the grass was green,
and he had felt the touch, of his darling queen!

All that was past...she was gone...she was lost,
leaving behind the pain and frost.

He had pined for those hands, he had longed for her love,
screamed the deafening silence of the solitary glove!

...Nadeem.

Imagination

Many years ago, I wrote a poem about the vivid details of a few dead leaves, stoked up by the wind. My leaves danced, they sang and were silenced together. They were like paint on a golden canvas and spoke more than I had expected to say with the piece. I had not seen an autumn till then, neither had I seen my leaves...sometimes the mind can travel to unknown places...to a few dead leaves!