Darakht

गहरी है उनकी बाते
और उतने ही गहरे अंदाज़

दरख्तो पे बैठे अक्सर वो आँखे मुंद के बतियाते है
मानो अलग ही तिलिस्म में फाक्ता हुए जा रहे है।

सालो से ऎसी ही बातो का फलसफा दोहराया ,
दिन ब दिन
रात बे रात।

आज जब बगल से गुजरे,
तो  ध्यान आया की
कभी श्रोता थे हम भी उनके ,

दरख्त किनारे बैठ के,
बगलो में हाथ ठासे 

पर अब,
वक़्त नहीं है कह कर निकल जाते है।

बगलो में फाइल दबाये
चार बाय चार के मैदान में
चक्को में बंधे दरख्तो पर बैठने।

Mushaheed

शाम ढल कर ,
आफ़ताब को किनारा किये,
पर्दो की सँकरी गलियो से,
सर्द  झोंको के छींटे उड़ाये उड़ाए जाती है ।

बिन झांके
और ना दंभी किवाड़ सरकाये।

ऎसे मौके,
मुझे दो वक़्त की सोच देते है।

ऎसी  शांति,
बेहद क्षीण, कर्कश, बेमतलब, उधमी, बेसीदे
लेकिन बेमिसाल ख्यालो  को,
पलभर के लिए ही सही,
पर जरुरी साँसे लेने देती है।

किस्मत के इन छोटे,
इन अभागे,
इन बदनसीबो
की एक काबिलियत फिर भी कमाल  है!

के उन चंद पलो में भी
वे मुझे मजबूर किये जाते है।

और अपनी  जिजविषा से,
इस ठहरे हुए पानी से,
पहला बहाव बनाते है। 

Somewhere distant

There the bike was parked
Just beside the road.
I walked ahead alone
Putting one foot against another

on the gravel pathway.

As I jumped to another stone,
Few threads blew over me
Like tiny drops of water

They fell,
And slipped,

back at the bottom
with the wind.

Like falling curtains,
Graceful not to brush the stained stones.
Remained stuck to the high cables,

There many worn out kites flapped
cohered to the same cables.

They all had their enjoyment
the threads and the kites
now they waited for their remains to be blown away.
Far from here.
Somewhere distant.

Good Will Hunting (Park Scene)

There is a scene from the 'Good Will Hunting' which showcases the brilliance of an experienced life.

Its one of my favorite conversations that I read or listened to. In this article I have written the conversation for you to have an awesome read.

There are two characters in it.

1) Sean (Robin Williams)- Aged around 50 Years. The one who is assigned the job of making 'Will' realize and respect his immense intellect.  

2) Will (Matt Damon)- A teenager who is a child prodigy. A genius mathematician. But he is cocky and has no respect for his talent . 

      The conversation takes place in a park just  after the break of day. Its after the first meeting between  the two characters (which didn't went well). Will is brought to Mr. Sean so as to make him understand his talent and respect it. But right at the first meeting, Will takes his cigarette out and smokes it in Sean's office and there he sees a small paining hung on the wall. The painting depicted a man roving a boat alone in the storm. Will then asks few questions to Mr. Sean about the paining. When he gets his answers he concludes that Mr. Sean feels alone in the world. Probably because he married a wrong woman. This makes Mr. Sean furious and he leaps forward and grabs Will by his neck and pushes him against the wall. Then He warns, "Don't you disrespect my wife".

When Mr. Sean breathes his anger out, he releases Will's neck and allows him to go. After that, they meet on the next day. Early in the morning, in a park. The  conversation that they have in the  park is written here.    

Good Will Hunting ( Park Scene) :

Sean ( Robin Williams) : Thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me… fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and haven’t thought about you since. Do you know what occurred to me?

Will( Matt Damon): No.

Sean: You’re just a kid, you don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talkin’ about.

Will: Why thank you.

Sean: It’s all right. You’ve never been out of Boston.

Will: Nope.

Sean: So if I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I’ll bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. 

If I ask you about women, you’d probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy.

 You’re a tough kid. And I’d ask you about war, you’d probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, “once more unto the breach dear friends.” But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help.

 I’d ask you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet. But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. 

And you wouldn’t know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms “visiting hours” don’t apply to you. You don’t know about real loss, ’cause it only occurs when you’ve loved something more than you love yourself. 

And I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you… I don’t see an intelligent, confident man… I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you’re a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart.

(Pause)

 You’re an orphan right?

[Will nods]

Sean: You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally… I don’t give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can’t learn anything from you, I can’t read in some fuckin’ book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I’m fascinated. I’m in. But you don’t want to do that do you sport? You’re terrified of what you might say. 

Your move, chief.

One Finished Book

With a stroke of the nip

Dots lined up to make a ray,

Over the pages of an open book,

Lying above the plateau there,

Made of, marbles and sand.

In the window less room

On this piece of land.

The inverted wheel,

Waiting to fall with its mighty strength,

Pushed many lifeless breezes over my head.

They curl together,

And everything twists with them.

Turns,

And they flips around,

Like sack of hay.

The dry, but zephyr, arose and fell,

As many, reincarnating waves.

Un-dying spirits they were,

Kept flattering the pages.

From the open book,

Lying over the plateau,

Made of, marbles and sand.

One page was turned

Then, another.

The gentle wind

Breathing at the pauses,

stopping at the periods too,

Remained curious,

Like one child of talent.

And it read on

Till it comprehended them all.

But the last page remained there

Composed

Untouched

Un-rattled

And ever so graceful.

Resembling the same charming ray.

And it stopped here.

Here, at this page.

The book was over

And the pages were complete

But the flash sustained   

It had to no arrow at the end.   

The book was over

And the pages were complete

But the lesson sustained

It had no fin at the end.

I RAN INTO A STRANGER

I ran into a stranger as he passed by
"Oh, excuse me please" was my reply.
He said,"Please excuse me too; wasn't even watching for you."
We were very polite, this stranger and I.
We went on our way and we said good-bye.

But at home a different story is told,
How we treat our loved ones, young and old.
Later that day, cooking the evening meal,
My daughter stood beside me very still.
When I turned, I nearly knocked her down.
"Move out of the way, "I said with a frown".
She walked away, her little heart broken.
I didn't realize how harshly I'd spoken.

While I lay awake in bed,
God's still small voice came to me and said,
"While dealing with a stranger, common courtesy you use,
But the children you love, you seem to abuse.

Look on the kitchen floor,
you'll find some flowers there by the door.
Those are the flowers she brought for you.
She picked them herself, pink, yellow and blue.
She stood quietly not to spoil the surprise.
And you never saw the tears in her eyes."

By this time, I felt very small
And now my tears began to fall.
I quietly went and knelt by her bed;
"Wake up, little girl, wake up." I said.
"Are these the flowers you picked for me?"

She smiled," I found 'em, out by the tree.
I picked 'em because they are pretty like you.
I knew you would like'em, especially the blue."
I said,"Daughter, I'm, sorry for the way I acted today;
I shouldn't have yelled at you that way."
She said,"Oh, Mom, that's okay, I love you anyway."
I said,"Daughter, I love you too,
and I do like the flowers, especially the blue."

---------------- Anon.

To be Somebody, Remain a Nobody

Following is an extract from an article written by Mr. K. S. Ram.

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Prominent among the urges that inspire and drive a person in life, is the urge to be somebody. It is quite human, especially in the early stages of life to want to do something to win laurels and admiration of all around. There’s a pitfall though – the very process of becoming a somebody may subtly reduce you to a nobody.

American poet Emily Dickinson, who lived in obscurity, has an interesting poem on this theme. “I’m nobody!” she declares, with apparent pride.

“Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?”

Why should anybody be happy about being a nobody? The poem explains:

“How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!”

The word ‘bog’ is significant. When you become a somebody, you invite adulation: this then begins to bog you down. The moment you think you have arrived, you begin to stagnate, or worse, your downside begins. An endless list of writers, artists, sportsmen, politicians…fit this pattern of personal history.

To sustain your development in absolute terms, to become a true somebody, it is important to remain a temporal nobody. Even if destiny makes you a temporal somebody, you should be able to see yourself as merely an agent of a superior power; no more. This requires an exercise of will. You have to constantly watch out and talk to yourself morning and evening. Rahim, the Hindi poet, one of the jewels of Akbar, was a pious ^(religious) man, always keen to help the needy. He made no noise about it, but his fame kept spreading. When praised by people, Rahim would shrink back in discomfort. He wrote a couplet on this.

“Denewala aur hai, bhejat wo din-rain.

Log bharam hum par kare, neeche howat nain”

“The giver is someone else; He showers His gifts through day and night. People mistake and extol ^(admire) me. My eyes, abashed, are lowered!”

In more recent times Gandhiji, perhaps, is one who assiduously ^(diligently) brushed aside adulation to remain a free ‘nobody’. At the Congress session when he, the star of the session, stunned everybody by cleaning up the latrines, his act was calculated to purge Congress workers of their false sense of status, and so to return the movement of its down-to-earth roots. The point of guarding against becoming a self-defeating somebody applies to the upbringing of children as well. Doting ^(Devoted) parents often stunt the natural growth of their children through excessive adulation. Commonplace acts and utterances of the child are praised and quoted beyond reason. Talent that otherwise might have flowered under proper training, is lauded to the extent of killing it.

John Stuart Mill’s education and training began very early. At an age when many kids can barely lisp a few word, he had learnt enough Greek and Latin to read the classics in the original. Before he was five he had read more than what many scholars normally read in their career. Did this make the child John feel heady? No! Because, he tells us, his father (who was also his tutor) always made him believe that there was nothing extra ordinary about his achievement: that he was doing only what anybody is capable of doing. Mill was made to believe that other boys of his age had, in fact, grossly underestimated their capabilities and were wasting their years striving for too little.

The sequence of somebody – nobody holds true, in a way, in respect of institutions and nations as well. C Northcote Parkinson, enunciating one of his famous laws, has tried to read the pattern in the case of great empires worldwide. He connects the raising of imposing palaces to the beginning of the empire’s decline.