Tag: memory

  • ABOUT THIS NIGHT

    ABOUT THIS NIGHT

    Something about this night is melancholic. It feels like a thirst, of something that never went down my throat. It feels like missing a place that I never visited. This night makes me yearn for something that never took place, but my imagination engraved it deep in my consciousness, which now feels more like a memory than a dream.

    This night is fickle. It whirrs like a broken projector, throwing out random images, which feel like were once being played on the curtains of sight. But I am not sure if they did. It must be the night, blurring the wisp of the edge between what I never saw but I wished I did, and what I saw but doesn’t matter if I did.

    This night is quiet. It has left the noise of the scribble, the rough sound of the nib of my pen, scraping over the coarse paper to be the music of my choice. It seems to be the only music that can soothe my heart tonight.

    This night is alive, and I have caught its fancy.

    So, I know. It is going to be a long night.

  • FLOWING IN THE DREAM

    FLOWING IN THE DREAM

    It all fades away.

    The reality of the memory slowly gets evaporated into nothingness, all thanks to the dry winds generated by the moving hands of the clock. We keep the chunks escaping the sieve, and define those memories again, rewriting the nuances that suits our narration.

    We fuck reality the way we want and give birth to our hallucinations.



  • RUB OFF

    RUB OFF

    Now when I find myself in a situation where I actually feel could possibly influence a few younger souls around me, knowingly or unknowingly, it makes me think hard what kind of influence would I prefer to be. I went through the memories of the teachers who taught me to the date, and a few stood distinctly out.

    Shashi Ma’am. I remember her from my KGs who taught me my Hindi letters. She always told my mother that I’ll make her proud. Thank God she never said around what age. That would have been an embarrassment. But her belief was something that still stumps me and fills my heart with gratefulness altogether.

    Naqvi Ma’am, my second std. class teacher. She taught me that the first step of answering a question is knowing the complete question. We had the story of Alibaba and the Forty Thieves in our English syllabus, but it had an abrupt ending. As kids, we knew better than being hung on the ending, like we did later after Inception. We didn’t know that it covered just half of the story. So she took an extra period just to tell us about Scheherazade and the thousand tales, because she believed we should know it all to grasp the true learning from it. Or maybe because it was too fun.

    Saxena Ma’am, English teacher in the senior secondary school, who even after knowing that English as a subject is my strength, always kept focusing on the looser parts of it. Never allowing me to be complacent about the fact that the English exams which people dreaded for never having ample time to solve, were wrapped up in half time by me. (Yeah I am a snob here)

    But the teacher I think I would prefer to imitate, or the one who had the greatest impact on me would be Mr Brucey Parera, 8th std. class teacher. He was the man.. masculinity personified, maybe even with the hint of a certain toxicity. But what I would want to copy from him, would be his ideology of what should be taught to whom. He said to me once, “You might be a very good academic student, and sorry if me telling this hurts you, but you don’t have any practical awareness. Life lies beyond the books. Learn what you do not know.” He said, “I cannot teach what I do not know. But if I do not teach everything I know, what’s the point of teaching? So try to learn whatever I ask you to.”

    At this point, I think I’ll throw in everything I know. Even if one right thing rubs off to someone in the right way, I would have done something right. Right?

  • “याद तो तुम्हें मेरी आती ही होगी” – Poem

    “याद तो तुम्हें मेरी आती ही होगी” – Poem

    झुठलाना मत
    याद तो तुम्हें मेरी आती ही होगी।

    घाट की आड़ में जब चाँद चुप छुपता रहा,
    तारों की चादर से लिपटी नींद भी जाती रही,
    तुम थीं, मैं था, रात थी खामोशी के संग साथ में,
    लफ़्ज़ों का क्या काम था जब सांसों के संग सांस थी।

    कदमों का रुख उस डगर हो
    जब टिमटिमाती रात में,
    झुठलाना मत
    याद तो तुम्हें मेरी आती ही होगी।

    वो समंदर का किनारा रेत के टीले तले,
    और तुम्हारी अंगड़ाइयाँ उस तपन की छाँव में,
    शाम का मंजर सुहाना, रात बारिश की हुई,
    हम वहीं के रह गए वहीं, तेरे तकिये के सिरे।

    गर कभी सपनों में अचानक
    फिर मेरा दीदार हो,
    झुठलाना मत
    याद तो तुम्हें मेरी आती ही होगी।

    कहने को छोटी उमर थी इस सफर की पर मगर
    दम उड़ानों की नीयत में वक्त से आगे की थी,
    ज़िंदा है अब भी चिंगारी, फिर भले ही खुद जले
    आग अब भी है कि जलता ज़िन्दगी भर दिल रहे।

    तुमसे शुबहा ना शिकायत
    मैं ही ज़िम्मेदार हूँ,
    मगर झुठलाना मत
    याद तो तुम्हें मेरी आती ही होगी।

    लिखने का कुछ शौक सा था, कुछ अनकही अनसुनी,
    अब है लत, ये हाथ स्याही की तलब के मारे हैं,
    रोज़ का इनका मचलना, रोज़ उपज एक नज़्म की
    ना मायने अदब-ओ-ज़बान के, हर किस्से कहानी तुम्हारे हैं।

    माना तुम हो दूर इतनी
    मुझसे कोई नाता नहीं,
    झुठला दो फिर भी इस झूठ को
    क्योंकि याद तो तुम्हें मेरी आती ही होगी।