Freedom Paradox!

Last year in June, in one of our discussions about absolute freedom in life, a friend of a friend, who is an artist cum school teacher living in solitude for quite some time made a statement : "What will be absolute freedom -You get up in the morning with a thing that you want to do and there are no distractions - body-related, friend-related, bills-related, resource-related i.e. anything else but the task/tasks you wanted to do." I reciprocated with the unlikeliness of such a scenario and incomplete meaning of freedom as it becomes circumstances dependent rather than you-dependent. I thought you could choose to be free if you so desired, you could choose not to fall prey to the distractions that stop you from doing what you got in the morning for. The reason we pay heed to these distractions, prove that we choose them over our intent, again using our freedom of choice.

However, it is causing major upheavals inside my neural tissues right now. I got up today, with psychology on my mind - I wanted to view some lectures/listen some audios/read some books, wanted to drown in it. However, my brain keeps getting pre-occupied with my friends getting together in CP, wanting me there, my pup wanting to grab my attention, my next-door close-friend wanting to spend some time together, my mom wanting to make some chit-chat, my country wanting me to go out and vote, my body wanting to soak in water and get cleaned, my mind wanting to be somewhere far, alone and reflecting on so much that skips my eye and my blog wanting to be blemished by new paradoxes in my life. I could understand all this as breach of my freedom, as all of these would be stopping me from doing what I really feel like. On the other hand, all of these activities are things I enjoy and love. And hence by choosing to do any of these, though I lose my freedom to pursue my primary interest for time-being, I might also be using my freedom of not being tied up by my primary objectives and being free to follow my other interest as and when I like. On the contrary, if I choose to do divulge into psychology without paying any amount of time to the other activities, I have my primary sense of "freedom" intact but I might risk loosing a good time with my friends or missing an antic of my pup etc. So, my head is already calculating and extrapolating the graph of risks involved vs. worth of my primary objective; this act itself distracting my focus from the primary goal to now its "worth". So, now even if I choose the former, I have a divided mind - not a free one. So, whatever I choose, I still lose my freedom in some way or another!

Chapter 1

Like a few of the interesting people I've met in my life, a constant desire of locking the breezy turns into words so that one day a book could be churned out, has often crossed my mind. Probably there were never enough breezy turns visible that could hold the writing; or probably there were never enough words to hold up the breezy turns. I could never really begin. Not that now I have both, but someone I know for quite a while now has made me deft in picking up the pieces of broken mirror and see a million things more than a single mirror could ever do. But the story doesn't begin with him.

May be it begins with a girl, 3 yrs. old travelling in a school bus somewhere in the 1990s West Delhi roads, having good knowledge of her stop, but not sure of it, she waits for the conductor who seemed more intelligent age-wise. He doesn't drop her at her stop, but a few stops later. She gets down, still knowing that it is the wrong stop, but has no courage to tell the conductor any better. The world, just a few streets away from the familiar looked so alien, it excited and terrified her at the same time. With a throbbing heart shaking her speech and her tiny frame, she shows her I-card to an absolute stranger expecting and asking him to drop her home. He does that, scolds the father for the sheer irresponsibility of the school. The father puts her into a new school the very next day.

May be, that wasn't the right beginning, it looked a bit lacking. It was not that huge an event, nothing damaging actually happened (I almost sounded as if I regretted that!). But the truth is, I could never forget that day. It led to an life-long distrust in my own memory and my fear of getting down at the wrong stop. 

May be, we should try something chronically misaligned. We could begin with her playing with a few street children in a garbage dump, it starts to rain, the lights go off. She starts to feel as if rain could cleanse her inside out. But even a child's mind is full of some secrets that can't be washed out by just the rain. The secrets that underlined her emotions, secrets that ranged from deep hatred to extreme passion, emotions that kids her age didn't have, or didn't show. 

Jamoora

एक झुंझलाहट सी है,
जो जाती नहीं.
एक उलझन में है
शायद मन.
और वो उलझन है, ये बात
मन की समझ में आती नहीं.


लगता है कुछ
हमेशा ही अधूरा रहेगा.
चलता रहेगा ये तमाशा य़ू ही
मन देख ले चाहे दुनिया,
फिर भी, एक सड़कछाप जमूरा रहेगा.

कहा था न!

कहा था न!
कि ये सब फसाद है,
कि चल पड़े हो,
पर रास्ते बड़े बर्बाद है,
कहा था न!
तुम बदलने निकले हो,

तुम खुद ही ग़ुम हो जाओगे.

घुटने टेक दोगे,

थोड़े और गुमसुम हो जाओगे.

कहा तो था!

पर मकसद फसाद से परे है.

रास्ता बर्बाद सही, पर ऐसे न जाने 

कितने रास्तों से रिश्ते हुए गहरे है.

कहा तो था!

पर ग़ुम होके ही कुछ अब हासिल होगा,

बदले न बदले कोई,

पर गुमसुम दिल बेवजह न रूकावट-ए-मंज़िल होगा!

Getting to know someone!

Getting to know someone intimately is like undressing someone.. layer by layer.. though there's an air of ecstasy of finally unfolding the mystery; there's always a chance of loosing interest mid-way seeing the flaws and intricacies.. making you vulnerable to the thought of being known and exposed yourself in the process of knowing someone.. making you sleepless at nights that could have been beautiful, had you not ventured into it in the first place!

Turning 25

The air's moist with yesterday's rain,

amidst this much love, pops up a pain,

A lot undone, a lot to be done,

and yet someone turns 25 again!

संगम विहार

आज कल कुछ ऐसे परिचय कराया जाता है,

नरक को नरक नहीं कहते अब..

संगम विहार कहके डराया जाता है.

७ रुपैये में रोलर कोस्टर ऑटो वाले भैया,

इन मशहूर गलियों में गालियाँ यूँ दौड़ाते है,

कुछ एक हड्डियाँ, कुछ एक पसलियाँ,

और कुछ एक मूड के टुकड़े,

गटर की नदियों में बहते चले जाते है.

रोज़ एक नए गड्ढे पे,

दिल को झटके देके मरवाया जाता है,

हाँ जी अब, संगम विहार कहके डराया जाता है.

सैकडों साइकिल, लाखों लोग,

चंद घड़ियाँ ट्रैफिक की हवस में.

बदहवास शोर, अन्दर भी, और बाहर भी.

सपनों में भी है बहरे होने का डर,

जी करता है, बन जाऊं नेता, खा लूं कसमें,

कुछ तो बदलूँ, एक रोड ही बना दूं,
फ़िज़ूल ही खून गरमाया जाता है,

कि अब, संगम विहार कहके डराया जाता है.

Dedicated to the potholes, stagnant sewer water, perpetual traffic, honking, ancient roads and drainage system at Sangam Vihar!... and also to the bravery of the people who are living there, knowing that if one day an ambulance/fire brigade is needed at that place, it might take 'quite a while' to reach..