कबीर के दोहे

दुःख में सुमिरन सब करे सुख में करै न कोय।
जो सुख में सुमिरन करे तो दुःख काहे को होय ॥

One always prays when in trouble, but seldom when one is happy. The one who prays through happiness, is seldom unhappy.

बडा हुआ तो क्या हुआ जैसे पेड़ खजूर।
पंथी को छाया नही फल लागे अति दूर ॥

So what if you are as tall as the date tree. You are unable to provide adequate shade, and even the fruits are far away.

लाली तेरे लाल की जित देख तित लाल।
लाली देखन मैं चली मैं भी हो गयी लाल॥

The more the redness of your red is seen, the redder it seems. When i went to see the redness, i became red myself.

बुरा जो देखन मैं चला बुरा ना दिखिया कोए।
जो मन खोजा आपणा तो मुझसे बुरा न कोए॥

I ventured to look for vice, vice i could not find. I searched my mind and found, no worse vice than mine.


पोथी पढ़ पढ़ जग मुआ पंडित भयो न कोए।
ढाई आखर प्रेम के जो पढे सो पंडित होए॥

Reading and more reading never made a learned man. The one who manages to read the two-and-a-half letters of love, is the true scholar.

माला फेरत जुग भया मिटा न मनका फेर।
कर का मनका छोड़ दे मन का मनका फेर॥

Eras have passed whirling the rosary, and yet the mind has known no peace. Let the rosary be, and instead rotate the beads of mind.

दिल ही तो है ना..

दिल ही तो है ना संग-ओ-खीसत
दर्द से भर ना आये क्यों?
रोयेंगे हम हज़ार बार
कोई हमें सताये क्यों?
देर नहीं, हरम नहीं,
दर नहीं, आस्तन नहीं
बैठे हैं रह-गुजर पे हम
ग़ैर हमें उठाये क्यों?
जब वेह जमाल-ए-दिल्फरोज़
सूरते-मेहरे नीम-रोजे
आप ही हो नज़र-सोजे
पर्दे में मुँह चुप्पये क्यों?
दश्ने-ए-गमाज़ जान-सीतां
नाव्के-नाज़ बेपनाह
तेरा ही अक्स-रुख सही,
साम तेरे आये क्यों?
कैदे-हयात-ओ-बंद-ए-गम,
असल में दोनो एक हैं
मौत से पहल्रे आदमी
गुम से निजात पाये क्यों?
हुस्न और उस पे हुस्न-ए-जून
रह गयी बुल्हावास कि एस
हर्मपने पे एतमाद है,
ग़ैर को आजमाये क्यों?
वन वेह गरुरे-इज्ज़-ओ-नाज़
यां यह हिजबे-पासे-वज़न
राह में हम मिलें कहां
बज़्म में वेह बुलाये क्यों?
हाँ वोह नहीं
खुदा परसत
जाओ वेह बेवफा सही
जिसको हो दिनों-दिल अज़ीज़
उसकी गली में जाये क्यों?
घलिब-ए-खास्त के बगैर
कौनसे काम बंद हैं?
रोईये ज़र-ज़र काया?
कीजिये हाय-हाय क्यों?

मिर्ज़ा घालिब

Wings of Victory

Once in the bright red sun,

Soared a gull from its fun

Of a joyful dream,

Where this gull, in nature,

Soared way above his stature,

Being the best of flight around and found,

That he was best left to sleep,

For fishing around in the deep

Was not his way, but of the others,

Who cared, loved and abandoned him.

He found himself

On hard, cold earth,

His way of life reinstated,

For on this very hard, cold earth

He found what he most wanted.

This gull, though famous

For his dismissal from the flock,

Returned in the morning to the dock,

Where nestled were the others,

Who cared, loved and abandoned him.

Another day, another try,

To what most gulls call “revolting”,

To find for himself a life of flying.

Than for fish, bolting.

Aiming for perfection

Was what he wanted most,

His thirst for the knowledge of flight,

And to prove to those

Who banished him forever,

That there was much beyond the food.

So this seagull

Abandoning all pretence

For the dull, routine life of a gull

Proved in the end, to them

That perfection comes to those

Who have the will to learn.

----------Arunjit Singh

The Desert

I maybe silent,
Full of sand,
And here and there
A weary band.

People won’t live here,
Trees won’t grow,
Water won’t flow here,
But I still survive.

Hot sun during day,
Cold winds at night,
As dry as a bone,
But I still survive.

You write and I swallow,
You fight but I win,
You curse me in pain,
But I still survive.

You hold my sands
In your cupped hands
Alas! It falls!
Yet you try again, and fail again

Again you fight,
Again I win,
Again you curse me,
Again I survive.

--------------- Arunjit Singh

An Open Book

“Since before History,

Writing and drawing were.

But before History,

Books never were.”

Sang an open book

But that’s not all, it continued

“Luckily there were those,

Who wanted their writings stored.

Giving thoughtful looks,

They wrote then in books.

“It continued for centuries,

It continues today,

It'll continue tomorrow,

It'll continue till the last day.”

“Men live on blood,

I live on ink.

Men depend on me,

I depend on them.”

“Men can only reach me

With a quill and a pot of ink.

Although I reach men

With an invisible link.”

“It continued for centuries,

It continues today,

It'll continue tomorrow,

It'll continue till the last day.”

--------------Arunjit Singh

और फिर एक दिन

नीली नीली पत्तीयों पर
आसमानी रंगों कि एक तितली
छोटी छोटी काली आँखें
सून्गती उडती
सोचे कि वो आज़ाद है
स्वरूप से मिले उसे पंख
थर्थाराये हुए झूमे वो
अपने छोटे से जग में बहुत खुश
क्या जाने वो पगली
पंख हैं उसके बहुत छोटे
पंछी नहीं तितली है वो
उड़ ना पाये वो कहीँ दूर
चार दीवारों में कैद न सही
हवाओं ने, मह्कों ने उसे रोका है
छोटीसी दुनिया देखी उसने
जग की क्या उसे परिभाषा है
हरी डाल पे बीज तो फूके
झींगा उस तितली का स्वरूप है
निरा निर्विकार उसका जीवन
सुन्दर उसका मोल
पगली समझे खुद को अनमोल
उड़े वो उस ऊंचे आसमान की ओर
और जाने ना उसकी ऊंचाई
जाल बिछें हैं गुलशन गुलशन
और फिर एक दिन
आया ज़मीन से बुलावा
उन छोटी छोटी काली आंखों में
जागी फिर अन्वेशना।

Caliban

Caliban, Caliban; wherefore arte thou?
tu me manque
I see you everyday
you make eyes at me
and I should feel afraid
I should detest your look
I really should
stay away?

I see you when you're not looking
when the moon is too high
and you wield your stick
I can see the sweat on your bare back
the deliberate movement of your hands

I see you everyday when you see me too
and you make eyes at me
I shouldn't turn back to look at you
and I don't
yet I can see you looking at me

I can see you when you're not there
you, the freckled whelp, born of a hag
you, who dishonour the human shape
you, with your knotty trails
which tremble me in my sleep

I can see you when they think you have disappeared
into the bowels beneath
I see you again and again
without averting my eyes in disgust
and no despair

but he has seen you too
you filthy abhorred slave
you hag dependant on our mercy
you, on the street
never supposed to be seen

........................

And I see your cold countenance
turning glazy
I see the sweat freeze
I see your eyes still on me
and I'm afarid

I see you though you've gone
I sense your eyes follow me
everywhere behind my back
all that's left of you now
And I finally see thw flame turn to smoke.


15/4/07 1.00AM
Eve of the Shakespeare paper

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


....MY MAN:Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

The tyranny of the big over the littler souls
Is never a thing of the past
Harmony in nature?
Perhaps the world’s most forceful paradox

Laws permit the lion to gobble the sheep
The cattle to feed on the lush green leaves
then there are always miscreants to weed
and the unsuspecting titans, the mighty and prickly cacti

What disgrace and what wounds might they suffer
When the mighty mango tree falls on its succulent tender limbs
Those bodies that withstood the stoic June heat
The August rain and the dry, chilly new year
And innocently look forward to a serene virginal spring

Those that have braved the spells of drought
And have sharpened their veins to keep the enemy at bay
And then…all of a sudden…
Crushed under the weight of the cracking cut branches
How selfish is the mange tree now-
No more the beauty of fruit or shade
Now, its minutes are numbered
It blushes greener, fells the cacti anyway

Both lie there now, grasping for a life, cut short
Wait, there is still gasping
Restoration is yet possible
The keepers lament the loss, and plug the final strings
Too difficult to maintain the unchaste cost

In the name of the lord, the father, the creator
The joyful and caring planter, the gardener,
Who too fatal fate didn’t spare
Harmed? Never; displaced? Never
Now impudent hands (and feet)
Carelessly and willingly mangle and trample

Hope not, however, to blame the mango tree
It murdered, but fell to the knife too
Price to harbor pestering and festering unruly elements
Now writ is the new old law of nature
The tyranny of the big over the lesser souls
Will be re-iterated again n again n again.


4/12/06
On the day when the neighbors cut down their tree and let it fall upon the cactus rockery. In spite of being home, there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Silenced, by the bigger men, she shouted but could not be heard.

Matched

By the day that had to be the day
The clouds began to scurry away
Light seated itself in every dark corner
Halted upon a lonely wanderer.

Two pairs of eyes looked at each other
Turned away, then glanced together
One of two hearts began to flutter
Second one though could have done better.

Then two faces gleamed in the sun
Shy smiles stood in lines to run
Self-conscious route they took
Stopped for lunch, playing by the book.

All to win and nothing to lose
One tongue did hurriedly cruise
In spite of attempts desperate to catch up
The second one just couldn’t match up.

One had fun, needless to say
The other’s heart had been stolen away
What was to happen who knew
A story was set aside to brew.

What put in doubt was a pause
Waiting a while for a cause
Patience drew a fair reward
“connecting” wasn’t that hard.

Gone are the days of papered letters
Technology has ushered in digital letters
“balance” squandered, fingers swollen
no more passing time through “bowling”.

Heartbeats synchronized with ring tones
Tingling nerves to butter bones
Word exchange etched a bond
Egging to go, to carry on.

A day special, nothing went wrong
It was then that feelings became strong
Expressed, one did with confidence
Second affirmative, no repentance.

The rest they say is history
Even though not always hunky-dory
A flame once burnt cannot die
Hope on for, a never good-bye.

Of hearts that matched n footsteps too
Embark upon a journey new
Fresh emotions were hatched
As two bodies, two souls, had been matched.

(04/11/05)

Last Ride Forever

It was their first ride together
Her slender arms around his tough waist
This close he hoped they’d be forever
Happiness, his heart, filled in haste
Adrenaline rushed through his coarse veins
The sun beat down in joyous rage.

Naught to sixty in less than a minute
He zipped around the curving streets
Going well beyond the freedom limit
Too sharp was the turn; he had to concede
Skidding. She went down timid
The white haze compelled to accept defeat.

He lay sprawled on the sun-caked road
In an instant things had gone awry
Pain filled every cavity like a load
Like a baby’s, his eyes went teary
One movement and break he would
Oh God! He felt so, so sorry.

Along came a truck loaded heavy
The sun screamed right at him; his way lay bare
Negotiated the turn rather shoddily
Caught in a daze he hurried on
Crack went something under the wrong wheel
All agony ended; right then, right there.

The concrete was wet and coloured red
Richness oozed from a watermelon burst
Scattered shell and seed and flesh
A rhombus eye writhed by cursed
Hair yesterday, gone today
No more would mind or body sway.

Smell of food touches hungry bellies
Flies and insects throng in throes
Such feasting rare, eat more and more
A canine rallies, with head cast low
Paying tributes to a master no more
On this road; which will forever sing his lore.

LA MAMA MORTA

The opening renders my heart hollow
My mind in earnestness listens
Mournful melody fills my lungs
Gasping for breath, I hardly swallow

Urgent words go rushing past
Sighing notes soar towards the sky
Eyelids flutter and lips quiver
My heart loses weight terrifyingly fast.

Of dancing times spent under the willow
In hail or snow or sombre gusts
Parting then was a distant thought
And now are moments with tears on my pillow.

Treading down a lonely path
Quickening my pulse, ripping my bearings apart
Thwarted soul hangs in shadows deep
Fervent cries against destiny draft.

Loving in truth, and faine in verse my love to show,
That she, dear She, might take some pleasure of my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe;
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Inventions stay;
Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Studies blows;
And others feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throwes,
Biting my trewand pen, beating myself for spite,
Fool, said my Muse to me, looke in thy heart, and write.
.........................Philip Sidney (Sonnet 1: Astrophil and Stella)