ज़िंदा रहने की रस्म अभी जारी है

सुबह आँखें खुलते ही ख्वाब भूल जाने की,

राह चलते किसी अंजान को देख के मुस्कुराने की,
गाने आए या ना आये, रेडियो के साथ गुनगुनाने की,
और किसी भी बच्चे को रोता देख उसे चुप कराने की रस्म अभी जारी है,
ज़िंदा रहने की रस्म अभी जारी है...

 

किसी नकचढ़े अफसर के लिए काम करने की,

चंद कागज़ के टुकड़ों के लिए नींद हराम करने की,
'आज घर जल्दी आऊँगा' ये कह कर भी देर से आने की,
और दिनभर अपने बच्चों की बदमाशियाँ ना देख पाने की रस्म अभी जारी है,
ज़िंदा रहने की रस्म अभी जारी है...
 

शहर में एक आलीशान बंगला बनाने की,

माता-पिता को विदेश यात्रा पर भिजवाने की,
बहन को दहेज में बड़ी गाड़ी देने की,
और बीवी को अगले जन्मदिन पर हीरों का हार देने की कसम अभी जारी है,
ज़िंदा रहने की रस्म अभी जारी है....

इस साल करूँगा ऐसा कुछ...

माँ-बाप करेंगे मुझ पर गर्व, इस साल करूँगा ऐसा कुछ.

परीक्षाओं के समय दिल लगा के मेहनत करूँगा,
गलत ना समझो, पुस्तक नहीं सूरत-पुस्तक (facebook) का अध्ययन करूँगा;
किसी ना किसी अमीर कन्या को मेरी स्तिथि (status) ज़रूर भा जाएगी,
परीक्षाएं गयी भाड़ में, अमीर ससुर मिल गया तो ज़िन्दगी सुधर जाएगी.

और मैं तो एक नहीं दो-दो लड़कियां पटाऊंगा,

एक को पापा और एक को माँ से मिलवाऊंगा.
पापा कहेंगे वाह बेटा क्या माल पटाई है,
माँ कहेगी वाह, इस लड़की ने तो मस्त चाय बनायी है.

पर अपनी किस्मत पर मुझे नहीं है अधिक भरोसा,
इसी लिए शायद सब कहते रहते हैं "तेरा तो कुछ नहीं होगा".
अमीर लड़की ना पटी तो सरकारी नौकरी का चक्कर चलाऊंगा,
माँ के मामा के दोस्त के भतीजे के जरिये बड़े अफसर को घूस खिलाऊंगा.

गलत ना समझना, मुझे नौकरी-चाकरी से नहीं है अधिक सरोकार,
लेकिन पैसे ना कमाए तो माँ-बाप बोरिया बिस्तर सहित कर देंगे फरार.
पर कब तक साहब (boss) के सामने काम का ढोंग करूँगा,
वो मुझे निकाल दे इससे पहले मैं खुद ही त्याग-पत्र दे दूंगा.

पर कोई फ़िक्र नहीं, इस देश में बेरोज़गार को भी कुछ ना कुछ काम मिल ही जाता है,

सीधी ऊँगली से बात ना बने तो ऊँगली टेढ़ी करना हम सभी को आता है.
नौकरी से निकाल दिया तो boss के ऊपर ही भ्रष्टाचार का आरोप जड़ दूंगा,
अन्ना की team के साथ मिल कर, उसी दफ्तर के सामने धरना-प्रदर्शन करूँगा.

मुझे फिर गलत ना समझना, मेरा ईमानदार बनने का कोई इरादा नहीं है,
India में ज्यादा ईमानदार बनने का वैसे भी कोई फायदा नहीं है.
मैं तो बस इमानदारी का ढोंग कर अपने boss को blackmail करूँगा,
और सब plan के मुताबिक चला, तो पुरानी girlfriend के अमीर बाप को भी भ्रस्ताचार के लपेटे में ले लूँगा.

बस फिर क्या, ससुर के पैसों से घर पे ऐश करूँगा,
कभी-कभी office जाकर secretary के साथ romance करूँगा.
माँ कहेगी बेटा तूने बहुत होशियारी से पैसा बनाया है,
और पापा कहेंगे, धोकेबाज़ी से ही सही पर तूने खूब नाम कमाया है.

माँ-बाप करेंगे मुझ पर गर्व, इस साल करूँगा ऐसा कुछ.

मम्मी आज आया बहुत मजा

Today was 'Bring-your-kids-to-work' day at Infosys, Pune. Watching the kids scream and jump in the otherwise gloomy office, I penned down this small poem in office today.
Enjoy :)


मम्मी आज आया बहुत मजा,
मैं आज पापा के office गया.
Bus में मिले महेश uncle और हैरी,
और मेरे बगल में बैठी एक दीदी बहुत प्यारी.

Gate पे थे Police वाले uncle खडे,
बडी सी मूछ और थे लम्बे चौडे.
उन्होने मुझे एक badge दिया,
उस पे मेरा नाम लिखा और गले में लटका दिया.

सबसे पहले हम गए food court,
इतना बडा मम्मी जैसे हो airport.
पापा ने खाया गरम समोसा ,
और मुझे दिलाया मैसूर मसाला डोसा.

सब हँस के कर रहे थे shake-hand,
लग रह था आया हूँ Disneyland.
फिर मम्मी हमने खेले बहुत से games,
और winners को मिली बडी सी chocolates.

मम्मी Infy का campus है बहुत बडा,
कहाँ घूम रहे हैं पता ही नहीं चलता.
और पापा की building तो सबसे अनोखी है,
दूर से तो मुझे लगा कोई spaceship है :)

फिर पापा मुझे ले गए अपने cubicle में,
मैने कहा बाप रे, इतने सारे लोग एक ही building में.
मम्मी पापा के सब दोस्त थे बहुत अच्छे,
पर ऐसे देख रहे थे जैसे पहली बार देखें हों बच्चे.

Lunch के लिए फिर सब साथ गए food court,
और हमने खाया ढेर सारा pizza from Dominos.
मम्मी मैं वहाँ दूसरे बच्चों से भी मिला,
और दिपाली का तो मैने mobile number भी ले लिया :)

बाद में पापा ने पूरा campus दिखाया,
हाथ पकड़ के सारा Infy घुमाया.
हमने देखा fountain और cricket stadium,
फिर घूम-फिर के वापस पापा की building में चले गए हम.

दोपहर में हम एक meeting में गए,
Conference room में सब आ के बैठ गए,
बडे से phone पे सब बात कर रहे थे,
काम कम मस्ती ज्यादा कर रहे थे.

मम्मी शाम को मिले पापा के boss,
उनका room था अलग, बडा ही खास.
मम्मी boss uncle हैं बहुत बात करते,
पर पापा पता नहीं क्युं हैं उनसे इतना डरते :)

6 बजे जब घर जाने का time हुआ,
मेरा तो वहाँ से आने का मन ही नहीं हुआ.
मम्मी मैं अगले साल फिर पापा के office जाऊँगा,
और अगली बार अपको भी अपने साथ ले जाऊँगा.

मम्मी आज आया बहुत मजा,
मैं आज पापा के office गया :)

I wish I could...

Splash some sea on the hedonist sun,

Grill some happiness with a toasted bun,

Humble an eagle for a friendly ride,

Watch the universe from the other side.

Pushing the wall...

Munch and drool and spit out the pain,

Drench my soul dry in a far-fetched rain,

Kick the wind to a resounding applause,

Play a Beethoven with an eternal pause.

Burning the ashes...

Ran like hell in the streets of wisdom,

Stumbled upon a few solitary kingdoms,

Steered my life with a fantastic crew,

Loved, and loved by, a precious few.

I pushed the wall and burnt the ashes.

Dubloo Mess: 2 Life Changing Experiences

It was in 2002, if you follow the Christian calender, when I landed at 18 degrees latitude and 79.58 degrees longitude on the face of the earth. You guessed it right, I was in Warangal, abbreviated as W (read Dubloo), at the uber-popular (ok ok, quite popular) National Institute of Technology Warangal, lovingly abbreviated as NITdubloo.

It was my first outing away from family, and boy - what a place for outing!! It was the Gulti-est place in the world (if you know what Gulti means, that is). And apart from introductions, missing girls, ragging, bragging and 132 other such things, there was one thing which bothered us the most during those initial days - Mess. This word - 'mess' - came into popular usage from 'a messdeck aboard ships' where military personnel used to socialize and eat, possibly leaving a literal mess for janitors to clean-up. And hence the ritual of keeping the place filthy and obnoxious continues all across the globe, probably on other planets too.

There are a few things special about any mess – 1: The odor inside is always consistent no matter the time or cuisine. and 2: The faces of boarders and servers (not the computer server) never change in 100 years. 2-Corollary: The way people eat in a mess also doesn't change in 1000 years.

Usually, discussions about any college mess can be consummated into a book, and NITdubloo mess was no different. However, there are two personal life changing experiences from our mess that I’d like to talk about – The Sunday Palak Paneer and The Sqaure Cut (which is incidentally a proof for 2-Corollary above).

The Sunday Palak Paneer: There is something about Indian paneer that people never seem to get bored of. And if you are in NITdubloo, you seem to eat its new breed every Sunday. Every Sunday afternoon, we were served with a bowl full of what they’d like to call as palak gravy. But wait, there was no paneer in it. You see, paneer is such a precious commodity that only the worthy are served with. It’s like the Nobel Prize which you earn and value as a prized possession, all 2 pieces of it. Yes, after proper deliberation, police verification and background check all done by the mess supervisor, we were served with 2 pieces of paneer, cuboids in shape with dimensions 10mm x 10 mm x 30 mm. 30 mm comes last because you treasure it so much that you are never able to finish it. And if you reach late, you don’t get any, just like Nobel Prize, which is never awarded posthumously. Though nobody liked it, fights often ensued to grab each other’s share. Spongy like the Flubber and cooked in filthy grey-colored grease, those paneer pieces made us realize the worth of good food and millions of students like us who live without it. It left me with so much penitence and grief that I pledged not to eat paneer ever again.

I continued my pledge for four years, thanks to the equally bad paneer at IMT, though of a different genre. I have started eating paneer again recently after I joined Infy.

The Sqaure Cut: Witnessing 2-Corollary in NITdubloo was the second life changing experience for me. The Square Cut, as we code-worded it, was a peculiar style of eating rice, patented by none other than the Gultis (also known as Madrasis in north India). The Gultis rarely eat Roti, never if it is served in mess like ours where Rotis (known as Phulka in our mess) were made once a month and stocked till they last. Gultis love rice, in all flavors and colors – yellow, white, green, purple, black, brownish-red, magenta et al. And they eat it as if no one is watching. Put lot of rice in the middle of plate, pour 1 jug of sambar, 1 jug of rassam, 2 bowls of curd, fold your sleeves till shoulders and attack. Even with so much of viscose stuff flowing around, a true Gulti manages to make it into a ball, rolling and tossing it around, and then gobbling it. He continues the process with learned concentration. Then the moment comes when there is no rice around and plate is left with unsolicited yellowish semi viscose fluid. With long practiced perfection, the Gulti spreads his hand straight as an arrow, elbow at 90 degrees to the shoulder with palm facing west and places it on the plate. With one master stroke of right speed and momentum, the Gulti caresses his hand capturing the fluid in hand and dropping it in mouth with lightening speed. He doesn’t even spare the unapologetic drops of fluid dripping down the arm and lick it right up through the palm. The whole process takes a nano-second and would put Dravid’s square-cut to shame. This age old method of finishing rice is many times rumored as the inspiration of Sqaure Cut in cricket - and hence the name.

Grieving with my inability to perfect this technique, I pledged not to eat rice with hands ever again. Thankfully, God made spoons and saved me the embarrassment. I eat rice only with spoons ever since.

Story of ‘Spoon’

Another nonsense story. Leave your IQ aside and read on…

One fine day, Kumma woke up to an unfamiliar voice. As he stepped out to check, he saw a transparent angelic creature, strangely draped in too many clothes, running away. It left no footmarks but dropped something with dangling sound. It was metallic, with a small oval end and a long stick attached to it.

Kumma was a prehistoric man living in Kuku tribe in Africa. Kukus were sure of one thing: everything in the world is either created by their ancestors or God. And God had ways of gifting them new things, He always sends such angels to deliver them. So just like earlier gifts, this too must be special.

It was still pitch dark outside, so Kumma went back to sleep. And as expected, God appeared in his dreams to tell something important: This new article is titled ‘Spoon’, has five uses, and it was Kumma’s assignment to figure all of them out.

Kumma woke up with a puzzled mind and a heart laden with responsibility. “Five uses! This must be God’s greatest creation”, Kumma felt special. He went straight to the Head Of the Tribe (HOT) who, though a little scared of the Spoon, performed the mandatory rituals. Now Kumma must get down to the task immediately. And until he’s done, nobody else should touch the Spoon.

The first use came instantly. As he was looking it from all sides, flipping up and down, front and back, he suddenly saw a reflecting figure. He held it upright, looked closely on the concave side of the oval. He could figure out that he’s watching himself, though inverted. “Voila! That’s one down. Now we don’t need a pitcher or go to the pond to look at ourselves”, he was excited. He turned it upside down expecting to see his face correctly, but alas! It wasn’t so. The Spoon had magical powers.

He hung the Spoon from the roof so that he has his eyes on it at all times. Passing it by one day, Kumma carelessly glanced at the oval from the convex side. “Dear God, what a fool I’ve been. The second use was just a flip away but I was so ignorant. Now I know that the Spoon can be used to see myself straight and inverted”, Kumma told himself. “I must carry it always if I have to find the other three uses”, he agreed.

One day he took it to lunch expecting some new discovery. Kukus used the darker side of their fingers to lift food and put into mouth. “Can’t the Spoon work as my fingers?” he quizzed himself. And with just a little difficulty, he was able to load the food on the convex side and push it into mouth using the handle. “Great, that must be the third use. Just two more to go.”

A few more days went by with no more discoveries. Kumma was getting restless. He went to the HOT asking for guidance who condescendingly called on the spirits for intervention. After the rituals, he asked Kumma to keep his doors open in the night and the angels will come to his remedy. The same night Kumma was awaken by a startling noise. He opened his eyes to find a wild cat standing on his belly. He quickly moved his hand searching for a weapon and shoved the first thing he got his hand on into the cat’s neck. The cat died, bleeding on the floor, with the Spoon piercing her neck. “The fourth use: a killer weapon. This was a tough one”, Kumma felt relieved.

Days-weeks-years-centuries went by but nobody could find the fifth use of the Spoon until someone found out that it can be used to drink from the concave side. Though we only know the fifth, the legend of four uses discovered by Kumma lives on.

"क्या लगती हो "

(एकदम original है, और फ़ोकट में पढने मिल रही है.... इसलिए पसंद आये या ना आये, दाद ज़रूर दीजियेगा :) )

पलकें उठें तो दिन, जुल्फें गिरे तो बारिश,

News channel पे मौसम की जानकारी का program लगती हो |

Party पे बाहर जाने के लिए जब बन-संवर के आती हो,

तो December के महीने में Gateway of India की शाम लगती हो |

Office से थक के घर आने पर जब प्यार से "ए जी" कहके बुलाती हो,

शाहरुख़ की film की mantinee show ticket का इंतज़ाम लगती हो |

गुस्से में तंतानाये हुए बड़ी-बड़ी आँखें दिखाती हो,

तो IIT-JEE में Mathematics का exam लगती हो |

मेरी आदतों से तंग आकर जब छोड़ जाने की धमकी देती हो,

तो निर्दोष मुजरिम पर लगाया हुआ झूठा इल्ज़ाम लगती हो |

आधी रात को जब अँधेरे में romantic गाने सुनाती हो,

तो विविध भारती पर चित्रमाला का program लगती हो |

और जब सामने बैठे घंटों मीठी-मीठी बातें करती हो,

तब क्या कहें, बस दिवाली पर दस-हज़ार लड़ी वाला bomb लगती हो ||