मूँह की बात सुने हर कोई,
दिल के दर्द को जाने कौन
आवाजों के बाज़ारों में,
खामोशी पहचाने कौन !!

सदियों-सदियों वही तमाशा,
रस्ता-रस्ता लम्बी खोज,
लेकिन जब हम मिल जाते हैं,
खो जाता हैं जाने कौन !!

वो मेरा आईना हैं,
मैं उस की परछाई हूँ,
मेरे ही घर में रहता हैं,
मुझ जैसा ही जाने कौन !!

किरन-किरन अलसाता सूरज,
पलक-पलक खुलती नींदें,
धीमे-धीमे बिखर रहा हैं,
ज़र्रा-ज़र्रा जाने कौन !!

Listen it here

जगजीत सिंह (February 8, 1941 - October 10, 2011)

शाम से आँख में नमी सी है,
आज फिर आपकी कमी सी है,

दफ़्न कर दो हमें कि सांस मिले,
नब्ज़ कुछ देर से थमी सी है,

वक़्त रहता नहीं कहीं टिक कर,
इसकी आदत भी आदमी सी है,

कोई रिश्ता नहीं रहा फिर भी,
एक तस्लीम लाज़मी सी है.

Listen it here

P.S. – Its impossible for anyone to pick the most favourite gazals from his collection … the above two are those which came to my mind first .. Rest in Peace Sir !

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” ~ Stanford University commencement address, June 12, 2005.

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” ~ Stanford University commencement address, June 12, 2005.

P.S. – I am writing this blog post on your Macbook, Steve … Rest In Peace !

उसे ये फिक्र है हरदम नया तर्जे-ज़फ़ा* क्या है,
हमें यह शौक है देखें सितम कि इन्तहा क्या है।

दहर* से क्यों खफा रहें, चर्ख* का क्यों गिला करें,
सारा ज़हां अदू* सही, आओ मुकाबला करें।

कोई दम का मेहमाँ हूँ ऐ अहले-महफ़िल,
चरागे-सहर*  हूँ  बुझा चाहता  हूँ।

हवा में रहेगी मेरे ख्याल कि बिजली,
ये मुस्ते-खाक* है फ़ानी*, रहे रहे न रहे।

~ शहीद-ए-आज़म

* ( तर्जे-ज़फ़ा – injustice; दहर – world; चर्ख – sky; अदु – enemy; सहर – morning; मुश्ते-खाक – a handful of dust/human-body; फ़ानी – fragile )

दरबारे-वतन में जब इक दिन सब जानेवाले जाएंगे,
कुछ अपनी सज़ा को पहुँचेंगे, कुछ अपनी जज़ा* ले जाएंगे !

ऐ ख़ाक-नशीनो, उठ बैठो, वह वक़्त क़रीब आ पहुँचा है,
जब तख़्त गिराए जाएंगे, जब ताज उछाले जाएंगे !

अब टूट गिरेंगी ज़ंजीरें, अब ज़िन्दानों* की ख़ैर नहीं,
जो दरिया झूम के उठे हैं, तिनकों से न टाले जाएंगे !

कटते भी चलो, बढ़ते भी चलो, बाज़ू भी बहुत हैं, सर भी बहुत,
चलते भी चलो के अब डेरे मंज़िल ही पे डाले जाएंगे !

ऐ ज़ुल्म के मातो, लब खोलो, चुप रहनेवालो, चुप कब तक,
कुछ हश्र तो उनसे उठेगा, कुछ दूर तो ना”ले* जाएंगे !

~ फ़ैज़ अहमद फ़ैज़

* ( जज़ा – prize; ज़िन्दानों – prisons; ना”ले – noise )

And here is a brilliant video about the recent Egyptian revolution, do watch it … one particular sequence in this video [ starting at 6:14 ] where the parallel is drawn between the famous Tank Man and people of Egypt will simply give you goosebumps ! Long live Gandhian Principles … Long live Democracy !

I’m sure that I will always be
A lonely number like root three(√3)

The three(3) is all that’s good and right
Why must my three(3) keep out of sight

Beneath the vicious square root (√) sign
I wish instead I were a nine(9)
For nine(9) could thwart this evil trick
with just some quick arithmetic

I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality
When hark! What is this I see
Another square root of a three (√3)

As quietly co-waltzing by
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer
Rejoicing as an integer

We break free from our mortal bonds
With the wave of magic wands
Our square root signs (√) become unglued
Your love for me has been renewed

~ David Feinberg

किसी ने कुछ बनाया था, किसी ने कुछ बनाया है,
कहीं मंदिर की परछाई, कहीं मस्जिद का साया है,
न तब पूछा था हमसे और न अब पूछने आए,
हमेशा फैसले करके हमें यूं ही सुनाया है…

किसी ने कुछ बनाया था, किसी ने कुछ बनाया है…

हमें फुर्सत कहां रोटी की गोलाई के चक्कर से,
न जाने किसका मंदिर है, न जाने किसकी मस्जिद है,
न जाने कौन उलझाता है सीधे-सच्चे धागों को,
न जाने किसकी साजिश है, न जाने किसकी यह जिद है
अजब सा सिलसिला है यह, जाने किसने चलाया है।

किसी ने कुछ बनाया था, किसी ने कुछ बनाया है…

वो कहते हैं, तुम्हारा है, जरा तुम एक नजर डालो,
वो कहते हैं, बढ़ो, मांगो, जरूरी है, न तुम टालो,
मगर अपनी जरूरत तो है बिल्कुल ही अलग इससे,
जरा ठहरो, जरा सोचो, हमें सांचों में मत ढालो,
बताओ कौन यह शोला मेरे आंगन में लाया है।

किसी ने कुछ बनाया था, किसी ने कुछ बनाया है…

अगर हिंदू में आंधी है, अगर तूफान मुसलमां है,
तो आओ आंधी-तूफां यार बनके कुछ नया कर लें,
तो आओ इक नजर डालें अहम से कुछ सवालों पर,
कई कोने अंधेरे हैं, मशालों को दिया कर लें,
अब असली दर्द बोलेंगे जो दिलों में छुपाया है।

किसी ने कुछ बनाया था, किसी ने कुछ बनाया है…

~ प्रसून जोशी

*

Going out for a movie is kinda special occasion for me. Consider this fact – I have been in NCR for past two years but till this Monday, the number of movies I had watched in these two years hadn’t touched the double-digit number, just like India’s GDP growth rate !! In most of the hollywood movies I can’t catch the english accent easily and being a victim of OCPD ( Obsessive compulsive personality disorder), it irks me like hell to miss even the single dialogue in the movies. So I better watch them on my laptop with subtitles. And in bollywood movies there is hardly anything NOT-to-miss kind of content, so its better to miss the whole movie ! Having said that, there are definitely many holly/bolly-wood brilliant movies which are if watched on laptop, that too downloaded from some pirated torrent, it would be a dishonour to the hardwork behind the movie. This year till now I had only watched ’3 Idiots’ in hall. And being a fan of Christopher Nolan, I was waiting for Inception since its first trailer came out last year and going by the so ‘convincingly’ written little status messages on FB about the awesomeness of this movie, I had to go for this movie.

So there I was with three of my friends holding excitedly the ticket for the morning show of Inception. But George Ritzer was damn correct when he wrote about ‘The McDonaldization of Society’ and since we had about some 10 minutes before the movie had to start, we decided to have a quick breakfast at the restaurant with famous ‘M’ its mark ! Despite the warnings of my OCPD compulsions that I need to watch the movie right from the first scene, in which they show film producer’s logo, Warner Bros in this case,  still we entered the hall when Leonardo was already in conversation with some old man and by the time we were on our seats the conversation between them was completely over. Nevertheless movie drama was so gripping that until that same scene came again in the end of movie, I had completely forgotten about it ! The movie ended and if somebody had looked at my face at that point, then surely would have noticed  Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ on my face and like the painting, I was too mute. I wanted to scream “wow” but it just didn’t come out. I thought its better to make sure first that if I had understood the movie plot atleast or not. And that irkness of missing the first scene pinched me hard as it was also the last crucial scene of the movie and I thought definitely my understanding is missing something very crucial point about the plot. I didn’t dare ask any of my friends that if they were in the same state of mind as mine or they too were going to update their status msg’s with spectacular ease – “awesome movie” ! Nevertheless, we soon were in a discussion regrading whose dream, whose subconscious it was, what was limbo, how can Saito be so old in limbo while Fischer was young, was there actually a fifth level of dream and many more such technical aspects of concept. And I managed to pretend successfully as if I had got this much enough that I can understand their doubts, while my own subconscious was lost somewhere in the limbo of movie. By the intensity and enthusiasm of the debate among us, for a moment I thought that was I actually there to ‘enjoy’ a movie or I had come into some brainstorming sessions on the time-dependent perturbation theory explaining the lamb shift of fine line spectrum of hydrogen atom using theory of quantum electrodynamics !!!

*

But thankfully, we soon took a break from all this and two of my friends left for home. But I was determined not to be an example of famous Hindi idiom “ghar ke buddhu, laut kar ghar ko aaye”. I thought if not Inception, I can definitely understand Udaan. I had seen its trailer and I found it pretty interesting. And Amit Trivedi’s music along with the really beautiful lyrics after a long time, was simply awesome. Plus most of the reviews had given this movie a high rating. And I had never watched two movie back to back, so that was another bonus for me.

Soon we had the tickets and my OCPD this time made sure that I happen to be in the seat, right from the beginning of the movie. And then I waited, and waited, and waited, and still waited for next 2 hr and 20 min, for finding out what was there in the script in addition to what I saw in 2 min 20 sec trailer of the movie. I agree that it was not meant to be a typical masala bollywood movie but then if not much, atleast justify my  160  bucks. As it turned out, it proved to be the ‘Intellectually Stimulating movie# 2′ of the day for me.  I seriously had to think hard what the movie was trying to show me but I simply couldn’t  match the level of director and script writer. Except a few cute scene of the small kid Arjun, there was hardly anything I could get in the movie.  Back at home I read all the reviews of Udaan again, whether the writers were sarcastic in their writings or there is some problem with my comprehension abilities. Nevertheless the music was still enjoyable. To pick up a favourite will not be easy. But just quoting few lines from two songs -

Nadi mein talab hai, Kahin jo agar, samandar kahan door hai,
Damakti garaz hai, sone mein agar, To jalna bhi manzoor hai !

and

Subah ki kirno ko rokein jo salaakhein hai kahan,
Jo khayalon pe pehre daale woh aankhein hai kahan,
Par khulne ki deri hai parinde udh ke jhoomenge,
Aasman aasman aasman

But the day still had something really special for me. Twarit, my college friend, was in transit of his journey to home and it was more than about 18 months, since we had met. So I rushed to the New Delhi railway station by 9:30 PM and had a good one hour bakar session with him. The day ended on a positive note and so should this post !

*

Before saying the last word about these movies, first honestly tell me do you get anything out of the next statement I am going to write – statement 1: “The commutation relationship of position operator along an axis with linear momentum operator  in same axis,  gives you iota times h-cross” ? And what if I tell you its nothing but our simple old dear Uncle Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle, which many of us have already read – statement 2: “The product of uncertainty in position with uncertainty in momentum is equal to h-cross by two.” Both statement 1 and 2 are true, but then I would like the one which puts little pressure on my nerve cells ! The artificial difficulty introduced in the statement 1 has killed the actual beauty of this beautiful law of mother nature. Something similar has been done in both the movies I think. Both the movies were far different than the usual stuff. They tried to show something really interesting, but presentation was more difficult than required, something like statement 1. Some beautiful examples of statement-2-kind are – The Dark Knight – pretty much interesting but simple enough as well. Another example – Taare Zameen Par – somewhat similar kind of basic plot  as of Udaan but brilliant treatment of issue.

Definitely, Inception is not ‘The Dark Knight’ – not even close to it.  But if you haven’t watched Inception yet, go and enjoy this one for its visuals and thrills, even if you don’t understand ‘precisely’ whats going on in the movie ! Afterall people can still dance to the Punjabi beats without even understanding a single word of the song !

PS – Can somebody explain me the concept of ‘Limbo’ in details – any mathematical derivation explaining this shared space-time phenomenon is the most welcomed !

It had been more than a year since I had spent a week long vacations & doing almost nothing, at home. And especially, its been really really long time since I have spent time at home around ‘this time of the year’. And you even value this more, when you have come home from a place called Delhi after spending May and June there. And the bonus of  ‘this time of the year’ is the king of fruits – Mango. Not sure how many of you would have actually tasted those small-sized-mangoes which only consist of juicy fibrous seed, without any significant pulp and you can have the full seed inside your mouth in one go. The number doesn’t count, only heaps do count. Its like we turn into a mango-seed-churning machines ! Not even Alphonso can match their taste for me !

To have icing on the cake, there was a day’s trip to Shimla as well. Since I can remember from my childhood days, Shimla has been the regular ‘picnic spot’ for my family. Hardly there had been any vacations when I haven’t visited to Shimla. And still everytime I go to this place, I fall in love with this place all over again. Its not that its the most beautiful place I have ever been to but its just that I have got connected somewhere to this place. It rained heavily the moment we reached there and though I was cursing myself why I didn’t come atleast in full sleeves shirt, but I was enjoying every single shiver going through my body.  Overall a day well spent !

Click to view slideshow.

One more activity, which I enjoy at home is ‘TV-Channel-Surfing’. Its mostly my mom who rules the prime time and its been since the days of ‘Kasauti …’ and ‘Kyunki …‘ that I have to bear this all. At one point of time I had a good account of how many marriages did Prerna had in that serial . But this time I was glad that finally mom has said bidaai to her favourite serial ‘Bidaai’ and now she is more interested in ‘Do Hanso Ka Joda’. I was amazed that mom had changed her taste to National Geographic Channel. But all this proved to be a mere illusion when I found out that this was nothing but some far relatives of Ekta Kapoor had rechristened ‘Humans’ to ‘Hans’. But anyways a little of sentiments with mom always work and soon I had the full control of TV remote, all at my discretion.

Talking about World Cup football, its like George Bush’s famous quip, “Either you are with us. Or you are against us.” You can love football or you can hate football, but certainly you can’t ignore it ! And being a great fan of Gandhiji and his philosophy, I decided to love rather than hate this game. My hostel friends better know how I had been transformed from not-even-the-12th-player of the football team to the one who played in their team in our final year  – for others it may  sound childish  but for me it was an achievement ! Watched the quarter final games, was a bit sad after Messi-Maradona combination couldn’t even put a fight against Germans and also when Ghana couldn’t convert the penalty in the dying moments. And somewhere I realized that me too was started developing those characteristics of  ‘Frivolous Football Fanatics’ [ as per the classification given by  my dear friend Mr. Mohneet Singh Ahuja ] like screaming ‘Goooaaaaalllllllllll’ everytime I sensed that there could have been a potential goal.  Watched Wimbledon too, but it was a bit boring without Federer there !

But the most interesting thing was – like Colombus ended up in America accidentally, me too ended up with a serial named ‘Mahi Way‘ on sony while surfing all the channels. I guess its already finished but I saw its repeat telecast every morning.  Simply loved the attitude of Mahi – the female protagonist in the serial. She knows exactly what she has, what she has not, what she wants and what she can have. The best thing about her is that although she hardly succeeds in her attempts to fulfill her dreams, almost everyone around her teases her except her two-three good buddies but she never seems like a frustrated or a sad-soul-kind of person. She enjoys whatever she is blessed with and always keeps her spirits high. For her, a piece of GulabJamun can offer more pleasure than anything else on this planet despite knowing that it will only add to her tires on her waist. Her dialogues and thoughts has always that sense of ‘wanting-something’ but still they never turn into ‘frustated-statements’. In short a total bindass and adorable character !

Thats how I spent my last week. I wish if I could have stayed up at my home for always. May be I can sell some fruits and vegetables for my living ! But for the time being I am back in Delhi again and was relaxed to know that finally heavens have opened up here as well. Sitting in my balcony, watching the farms and trees of Pusa Agriculture Institute, listening to the sound of rain, enjoying ‘garam pakoras’ and updating my blog – indeed a pure bliss !

*

I am a small kid sitting in the front seat in my classroom in ’2nd’ standard. My English teacher, is teaching us a new topic in the class. The name of the topic is ‘The Cow’. She is making us write ten sentences about the cow – ‘I have a cow. Its colour is Black. … … … I love my cow.’ The class is coming to an end and now ma’am is announcing about the written test of The ‘Idiot’ Cow  in the next class.

This is evening time. My parents are busy with the construction work of our new house. I am sitting in my room. I am little worried about the tomorrow’s test. I am trying to fit those ten lines about The ‘Stupid’ Cow somewhere in my cerebral cortex, but my neurons are showing a clear deficiency of  potassium ions. Suddenly Edison’s bulb has got lightened up in the north-west corner outside of my brain. I am taking out my rough notebook on which I know I’ll write tomorrow’s test and will show it to the ma’am. I am sharpening the lead pencil to make its tip needle-sharp. And now I am copying The ‘Moron’ Cow from my class notebook to my rough notebook but with a very light outline of the words – so as to make them pretty comfortable for the next day when I’ll over-write them again in the class !!!

Its the next day. I can see the stick in the my teacher’s hand. She is making us sit at a distance from each other. I am getting into a seat towards the corner of the class room. I can clearly see the light shades of words on my rough notebook. I am making them dark now. Ma’am has already started ‘handling’ those who are not able to write anything on their notebooks.  I have completed writing my ten lines about The ‘Dumb’ Cow and now I am showing my notebook to ma’am. She has awarded me with ‘very good’ on my notebook. I am again back on my seat and can see some other students  getting good ‘dose’ from ma’am. I am relieved I am not one of them. The day ends !

*

That was me when I first time cheated in any of my exams or tests. The classes went on and tests/exams kept on increasing BUT fortunately I never did cheating in exams ever again – well, provided you agree to me that asking the person sitting next to you in the exam hall is not called exactly cheating – thats just ‘doubt clarification’ .. isn’t it !!! The school got over and I was in college to find out that the rat race was still on ! I saw some of the really brilliant people around me using the most innovative techniques of ‘clearing’ exams – awesome use of  technology which may still be missing in latest iPhone OS 4,  the mind-blowing calligraphy techniques which probably can set a new records to write whole Ramayana into a small piece of paper, the strategic  placement of friends and foes in exam halls which will leave even the pieces on chess board of Anand look boring, the  heart wrenching melodramas with professors giving a strong competition to Ekta Kapoor’s talent and ofcourse not to forget the ‘symbiotic’ relationships among students which is after all natural phenomenon !

Me too was tempted to take advantage of some social bondings in exam to add a few extra points to 2nd  place of decimal of my CGPA. In 3rd sem of mine during the mid terms I patched up with some friends of mine and  yahooo got a few more correct answer in my sheet than what I actually knew ! But I believe I am a bit lucky that God has his own ways to make me teach lessons. In same semester my SGPA gone down from 8 point someone to 7 point someone.  And some misplaced sense of self-righteousness creeped inside me, adrenaline rushed in – to avoid such measures again. Many times I happened to offend my friends because I was not able to help them in exams,  many times I felt helpless when I couldn’t move my pen further in the exam while everyone around me was doing the ‘things’ comfortably, people used my own 3 MP mobile camera for their exams but I couldn’t use it except for looking at the remaining time in the exam. I made it a point to my ego that I won’t take any such help further. But to be true I tried to restrict these things mainly not due to my ego but it was more due to the fear of getting caught doing these things in exam. [In the lonely corridors of our department you can still clearly listen to the horror tales of our professors.] Because had I been really honest, I would have shown these traits while doing those assignments, those practicals and those projects as well.  And yes there were also many people around me who were far more honest than my own standards.Well mighty Joker guy proved right again here “You are only as good as the world allows you to be.”

*

This is the first time I have ever shared the dark secret of that 6-year-old kid in 2nd standard to anyone. Though as I said I wrote this post mainly for sharing my experience but still I’ll correlate my thought process a little with what I started with. There is a contrasting similarity between the  mentality of  6-year-old kid and these suicide cases. Think about it – when only ten line about an idiot-stupid-moron-dumb cow can make a 6-year-old kid learn how to cheat for the first time, definitely those ten subjects in a single semester can make some 20-year-old guy take those drastic steps ! When I did this in 2nd standard my fear of getting caught while cheating was minimal in comparison to the fear of getting a big zero in my test. When I was in college the fear of getting caught was more prominent than getting ‘poor marks’. But had it been the case of fear of ‘failing’ in the exam, surely even the horror tales of my profs wouldn’t have stopped me taking such helps.  These students restore to the the drastic steps like suicide because our education system seems to have created such haunting atmosphere where even fear of ending one’s own life seems nothing in comparison !!!

P S : To all my college friends, I have no intentions to define anything right or wrong  about these exam clearing techniques! And yes I may have taken help at few other occasions as well, other than what I have mentioned above …. but no more than ‘doubt clarifications’

P P S : Maa, in case you are reading this … please … I am sorry …

Verse 34, Chapter 6, The Bhagavad Gita.

This has been one of my favourite shaloks since I was in 9th standard. It would have been more  meaningful if only, I could have realized it earlier. As you grow up, you start realizing things more often. And now I am looking for an answer to it, which is seen nowhere around me. But there is one golden rule – to know the answer, one must first understand the problem clearly.  This is first step towards the solution or just another futile attempt to control it ? I wonder if this all is nothing but just too much of philosophy only. May be I can just try to sit back and chillax – sounds like a paradox !!!  The literal meaning of this shalok goes like this -

Arjun says : The mind is restless, Krishna. Its turbulent, obstinate and very strong, and to control it is, it seems to me, more difficult than controlling the wind.

Arjun was damn lucky to have a saarthi like Krishna …