Preet

Jo tum todo piyaa main naaheen todoon re,
tose preet tod "krishnaa" kaun sang joduun re?

Aab-o-hawaa

Khumar-e-gham hai mehekti fizaa mein jeete hain,
Tere khayaal kii aab-o-hawa mein jeete hain,

Bade tapaak se milte hain milne wale mujhe,
Wo mere dost hain terii wafaa mein jeete hain,

Firaaq-e-yaad main saanson ko roke rakhte hain,
har ek lamha guzarti kazaa mein jeete hain,

Na baat poori hui thhi ki raat toot gayii,
adhoore khwaab kii aadhi sazaa mein jeete hain,

Tumhaari baaton main koi masihaa bastaa hai,
haseen labon se barasti shafaa main jeete hain...

~Gulzar

Two soggy eyes ... and an emptiness...

I Love You

I do not love you as if you were the salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this,

where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep...

~Pablo Neruda (Sonnet XVII)

Saddest Poem

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her.
To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.
That's all.

Far away, someone sings.
Far away, My soul is lost without her.
As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.

My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.
Someone else's.
She will be someone else's.
As she once belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body.
Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.

Love is so short and oblivion so long.
Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.


~Pablo Neruda

Us roz...

Log kahte hain, hui thhi baarish us roz,
unhe kya pata, gham-e-hiz mein roya thha koi,

yun saaye dekh kar khush hote hain sab ghafil,
unhe kya pata kal dhoop mein soya thha koi,

qatra qatra kar ke muskurate hain sabhi,
unhe kya pata chashm-e-tar mein soya thha koi,

manzil-e-aakhir ko ab chalte hain raahil,
unhe kya pata in raahon par soya thha koi ...

Tum to nahin ho?

Sun li jo khudaa ne woh duaa, tum to nahin ho?
darwazey pe dastak ki sada, tum to nahin ho?

Simti hui, sharmai hui, raat ki raani
soi hui kaliyon ki hayaa, tum to nahin ho?

Mehsoos kiya tum ko to, geeli hui palkein,
bheegey huey mosam ki ada, tum to nahi ho?

In ajnabi rahon mein nahin koi bhi mera,
kis ne mujhey yun apna kaha tum to nahi ho?

Duniyaa ko baharhal , giley shikvey rahenge,
duniyaa ki tarah mujhse khafaa, tum to nahin ho?


~ From "Tum to nahin ho" (Jagjit Singh)

Sabse peechhe hum khade...

Zara nazar uttha ke dekho
Baitthe hain hum yahin
bekhabar mujhse kyun ho
Itne bure bhi hum nahin ...

Zamane ki baaton mein uljho na
Hai yeh aasan jan-na
khud se jo agar tum poochho
Hai hum tumhare key nahin

Teri aankhon ka jaadooo
poori duniyaa pe hai
duniyaa ki is bheed mein
sabse peechhe hum khade

Mehfilein aayiin aur gayiin
log aaye or gaye
tum jo aaj aaye ho
dil mein ho bas gaye

Muskura ke baat taalo na
fir miloge jo kahin
dekhna yahi kahoge
itne bure tthey hum nahin

Teri aankhon ka jaadoo
poori duniyaa pe hai
duniyaa ki is bheed mein
sabse peechhe hum khade...


~Silk Route

Lilting tune ... Mohit Chauhan's voice ... magical words ... B-L-I-S-S ...

Kabhi yuun bhii to ho

Kabhi yuun bhii to ho,
dariyaa kaa saahil ho,
poore chaand ki raat ho,
aur tum aao...

kabhi yuun bhii to ho,
pariyon ki mahfil ho,
koi tumhaari baat ho,
aur tum aao...

kabhi yuun bhii to ho,
ye narm mulaayam thhandi havaayein,
jab ghar se tumhare guzrein tumhaari,
khushboo churaayein mere ghar le aayein,

kabhi yuun bhii to ho,
sooni har manzil ho,
koi naa mere saath ho,
aur tum aao,

kabhi yuun bhii to ho,
ye baadal aise toot ke barse,
mere dil kii tarah milne ko,
tumhaaraa dil bhii tarase,
tum niklo ghar se,

kabhii yuun bhii to ho,
tanhaai ho, dil ho boondein ho,
barasaat ho,
aur tum aao,

kabhii yuun bhii to ho...


~Javed Akhtar


Heard this beautiful song on a lonely, balmy night on radio, while still in college and yet again found myself ensconced in the warmth of Jagjit Singh's voice. Finding a favourite song on air, made me feel as if I have yet again met myself ...

A house for Mr. Singh (With apologies to Mr. Biswas)

"Kya baataan karte miyan tum? logaan 25-25 mein mehndipatnam le jaate"
.
"Unke saath kyon nai jaate to?"
..
"tees mein chalte kya?"
..
"baithho"
.
.
.
And so I boarded the auto(rickshaw), and thus started my wild goose chase for the elusive apartment of mine, upon which I have built countless castles (castle over apartment??!!!). Castles of cane chairs, a low slung bed, hanging lamp shades, of guitar evenings in the balcony and my own golden retriever. And I hadn't ever thought this will turn out to be one of the greatest struggles and a learning experience too of a city caught in a time warp. A bastard born out of consummation of cultures.
Hyderabad is growing like a cancerous tumour, riding of course on the much hyped IT wave. Adding to my woes, was my fake hyderabadi accent, the autowallahs looked straight through it. From crampy ghettos, allegedly being rented as "apartments" to plush De-luxe apartments, I have had a look at all of them, muttering to myself how Noida was gazillions of realtorical galaxies ahead of Hyderabad. The ultimate goal of course is to find a satisfactory balance of commuting distance, bathrooms (I am at my finickiest best, when it comes to loos!), and the moolah that I'll shell out as rent, the entire course of optimization theory I took, seems to be going down the drain.
But foraging through the city , I see a city, living, kicking, smiling, shuffling ... a city haggling for rickshaw fares, a city seated in air conditioned Accords, a city hanging from ramshackle buses, a city celebrating "Pravasi Diwas", a city holding hands vying for their share of privacy, a city clad in the hijaab, a city savouring "haleem" , a city revelling at Abid's .... and countless other cities packed in the lanes and the sprawling IT campuses. Which of these cities am I looking a house in? And will the house ever be home?....

kahin chhat thii deevaar-o-dar thhe kahin,
milaa mujhko ghar kaa pataa der se,
diyaa to bahut zindagi ne mujhe,
magar jo diyaa vo diyaa der se ...

... still wondering, how long my golden retriever will have to wait?

The flick that I am

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Rendezvous!

Shivika .... All the 13 years spent growing up together rolled past my eyes, right from the first day I stepped into school to the last day I left it. Who would have known that we would meet after all these years and that too in Infy. She is as graceful as she used to be. One of the nicest and best women I've known. Well, the world is indeed a small place.

Baat

Faqat ik baat hai...
boldene ko kuchch khaas nahin...
sunne ko kuchch nahin...
farmaane ko aaj nahin...
lamhein fursat ke dhoonte hain,
aap aur hum...
din-o-din bahut hai jeene ke liye...
baithh kar magar gungunaane ko kuchch aaj nahin...

~Rohini Mehra

I am leavin' on a jet plane.

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go
I'm standing here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say Goodbye
But the dawn is breaking it's early morn
The taxi's waiting his blowin' his horn
Already I'm so lonesome I could die

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
'cause I'm leaving on a Jet Plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe I hate to go

There's so many times I've let you down
So many times I've played around
I tell you now they don't mean a thing
Everyplace I go I'll think of you
Every song I sing I'll sing for you

Well now the time has come to leave you
One more time please let me kiss you
Then close your eyes and I'll be on my way
Dream about the days to come
When I won't have to leave you alone
About the times I won't have to say Goodbye...


~John Denver

Tao Wa!

Name : Ding Defen, Nickname : DingDing , English Name : Jessica! And she is one of my sweetest friends that I met in Infy. We met amidst a lot of confusion and due to a strange situation that arose, reaffirming my faith on the the dictum that you meet the best people/friends in the strangest of situations. We hit it off like a house on fire, and the endless chats peppered with food both Indian and Chinese were always the highlights of our rendezvous. Inanities and banters reached the summit of course, when we had Zhu "the rabbit" with us, our common friend. We are each other's windows to our respective countries and cultures for each other, and probably that's why we gifted each others' snapshots of our cultures. She gifted me a "Tao Wa" and me a "Ganesha" figurine to her. A "Tao Wa" is what a nested doll is called in chinese. "Tao" means "nested" and "Wa" means "Doll". Like layers pf people, whom who get to know with time, layer by layer.Unlike these dolls though, you never get to reach the "core" of a person. You never stop discovering people, even those whom you think you have "known" for years. That can be the worst and the best part of them as well.
Adding to all the confusion is the fact that, it's not important how long have you known somebody, but how that person has made you feel for the time that you have been together. Ding now is in a different city and soon I'll be going further away from her, and I don't know whether we'll ever see each other again. But as they say, life is too big a journey and the world too small a place to live in. Amen!

Now that's what I call an Evening!

SE with the CEO

It has been, as it should have been, first NRN and then Nandan. I would have said Mr. Nilekani but we are supposed to call everybody by their first names. The occassion was Infosys Excellence Awards 2005 and Nandan had descended to Mysore, by choice as he said. A very friendly and nice person to talk to, he makes you feel special while talking to him. He corrected me when I called him a "9 pointer in college" and said that on the contrary he was a "much relaxed" guy and nowhere near 9.

I am all ears!

I further asked him the same question which I had asked NRN, and as expected the reply wasn't any different, though laced with his trademark humour. He obliged the all the autograph mongers, choc-a-bloc with their names and a personal message. No wonder why NRN handed over the reigns of the firm to him.

Mobbed by the junta

The award function followed, with all the DCs videoconferenced. Shabana Azmi was the guest of honor at Bangalore. Having topped FTII and won every award for acting in India at least thrice, she was a befitting candidate for the honor. The awards rolled in, and it was IVS all the way ending up as the most decorated department. And it had to be ... it's my IBU afterall!

Before

The high point for the crowd of course was the free dinner and the DJ which followed, and Boy, did it rock? So with two more days to go for the New Year, it seems a nice run up the Eve before I bid adieu to Mysore.

After

It happened one night.

My craving for music is insatiable, and for some days I've been trying to search sites which can play Indian songs online with windows media player support, because I can't install real player or other software on the PCs here. I knew a couple of such sites, but got really bored listening to the same songs again and again. And guess what, I struck gold. I found this site which has this collection of old hindi film songs, some of them rare ones. I didn't like old hindi film music when I was a child, which is natural because it needs mellowness to actually enjoy it, and it has like soft moss, slowly but steadily, grown upon me over the years. Most of these songs were played overnight, again and again (much to our chagrin!) from the carefully assorted cassettes in the dashboard, during the long car journeys to MP, when Pop used to drive, Mum by his side and all of us, sleepy or agog trying to make sense of it all.
So I started the day(night?) with "yeh mera prem patra padh kar", a song reverberating with the innocence and the pureness of first "love" and brought back the images of the days when "love letters" were written, torn, thrown away and sometimes with much audacity, left on "the person's" desk to be bemusedly found when she returned. Not to mention the storm and the gossip rounds which followed as a result of such gallant acts. While I was smiling all by myself, the track changed and came along an all time favourite, "Ajeeb dastan hai yeh". There's something about this song ... Lata's voice, the lyrics, Meena Kumari, the melancholy, the guitar notes, the pain of unrequited love ... I wouldn't know what. Perhaps all of these in small unmeasured doses, recreating that sweet magical feeling. The songs kept playing ... "rasik balma","woh bhooli dastan, lo fir yaad aa gayi", "khoya khoya chaand","gumnaam hai koi","jab chali thhandi hawa" and many more, each came with a special moment, forgotten to be remembered ... frozen by time, thawed by the warmth of these magical renditions, keeping me snug while the night kept rolling by swiftly ...

Smoke!

A young Amrita Pritam, madly in love with Sahir, once wrote his name hundreds of times on a sheet of paper while addressing a press conference. There's was a profound, though strange relationship.They would meet without exchanging a word, Sahir would puff away; after Sahir's departure, Amrita would smoke the cigarette butts left behind by him. After his death, Amrita said she hoped the air mixed with the smoke of the butts would travel to the other world and meet Sahir. I just wish that now, that she has herself become smoke ... she can be one with Sahir in some other world.

Annie's Song

You fill up my senses,
like a night in the forest,
like the mountains in springtime,
like a walk in the rain,
like a storm in the desert,
like a sleepy blue ocean,
you fill up my senses,
come fill me again...

Come let me love you,
let me give my life to you
let me drown in your laughter,
let me die in your arms
let me lay down beside you,
let me always be with you
come let me love you,
come love me again...


~John Denver

I've been itching to put this beautiful song up on my blog for some time, so beautifully rendered by Denver. It is all over me and I have been humming it right from the pot to the pool. What better day than this to put it on ... Yuletide, eh?

Hallelujah!

It is again that time of the year, the time for carols, time for festivities, for presents and loads of fun. I love the spirit, and absolutely nothing religious about it. I regret that we didn't celebrate Diwali, like we are celebrating Christmas, probably because all the HRs and most of the people were on vacation. Nonetheless, who cares what the reason is? The cristmas tree has been right at the entrance of the GEC for a couple of days now. Me and Donald on our way back from the music room (and the Pantry for a late night snack), just out of the whim decided to pose with the tree. Trecilla, Aubrey and the rest of the gang, Thanks for doing up the tree for us.

Merry Christmas, all you people. Be Good!

Khwaab Bunein...

Aao ki koi khwaab bunein kal ke vaaste,
varnaa ye raat aaj ke sangeen daur ki,
das legii jaan-o-dil ko kuchh aise ki jaan-o-dil,
taa-umr phir na koi haseen khwaab bun sakein,

jo hum se bhaagti rahii ye tez-gaam umr,
khwaabon ke aasre pe katii hai tamaam umr,

zulfon ke khwaab, honthhon ke khwaab, aur badan ke khwaab ,
meraaj-e-fan ke khwaab, kamaal-e-sukhan ke khwaab,
tehziib-e-zindagii ke, farogh-e-vatan ke khwaab,
zindaan ke khwaab, kuuchaa-e-daar-o-rasan ke khwaab,

ye khwaab hii to apnii javaanii ke paas thhe,
ye khwaab hii to apne amal ke asaas thhe,
ye khwaab mar gaye hain to be-rang hai hayaat,
yuun hai ki jaise dast-e-tah-e-sang hai hayaat,

aao ki koi khwaab bunein kal ke vaaste,
varnaa ye raat aaj ke sangeen daur ki,
das legii jaan-o-dil ko kuchh aise ki jaan-o-dil,
taa-umr phir na koi haseen khwaab bun sakein...


~Sahir

sangiin daur = hard/difficult times
taa-umr = entire life
tez-gaam = fleet-footed
meraaj-e-fan = (to reach) summit of art
kamaal-e-sukhan = perfection in poetry
tehziib-e-zindagii = civilized life
farogh-e-vatan = nation's progress/upliftment
zindaan = prison
kuuchaa-e-daar-o-rasan = road leading to the gallows
amal = work
asaas = foundation
hayaat = life
dast-e-tah-e-sang = hands crushed under a stone (helpless)