सुनहरी बेड़ियाँ

रौशनी को ढूँढता हूँ अपनी आखें मीच के,
छिप रहा हूँ अपनी ही परछाइयों के बीच में|
लहू की लाली फीकी है, अब पानी बहता नव्जों में,
शोले दिल में हैं मगर बस चिंगारियां है लव्जों मे|

कीर्ति का कर थामकर, कर्त्तव्य का कर भूलकर,
कौरियों के वृक्ष रोपुं कृतघ्नता के मूल पर|
धन है, यश है, ज्ञान है, समाज मे सम्मान है,
स्व, स्वयं, मा, मम, अहम् मे खो गया इंसान है|

इमारतों की खिड़कियों से झाँक कर जब देखता हूँ,
जलते घरों की तपिश से बंद हाथों को सेंकता हूँ|
खून की बारिशों के छींटें सन गए है वस्त्रों पर,
जंग करने चले कलम से, ज़ंग लगे है शस्त्रों पर|

मातृभूमि की वह ममता, मातम के तम मे लुप्त है,
मत की कीमत मोतियों मे, मौत मिलता मुफ्त है|
उँगलियाँ सब उठ चुकी अब फैसले का वक़्त है,
उँगलियों की मुट्ठियाँ बनती नहीं, सब व्यस्त हैं|

क्रांति के वह लेख कागज़ की कश्तियों मे बह गए,
कर्म का कर विसर्जन, अर्थ अर्जन करते रह गए|
चीखते तो हैं सभी की हौसले बुलंद है,
त्याग पथ पर कौन जाये, इस बात पर बस द्वंद है|

युद्ध भूमि तक पहुँचने से पहले ही हार रहा हूँ,
मूक इस आवाज़ से उस रण ध्वनि को पुकार रहा हूँ|
आईने के सामने एक मृत शरीर सा दीखता हूँ,
बेड़ियाँ हैं हाथों में पर क्रांति काव्य लिखता हूँ |

The smartest answer I had

I was sitting with my neighbor watching the 9 p.m news about the CERN Big Bang (We are mad losers with big brains, lets see if we can destroy the universe) experiment, and contemplating with relief about my Project Launch which was now possible as “Mommy! Look what I made! Its called a tiny black hole” experiment had been postponed.My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by my neighbor when he suddenly asked me “You really think it could have created a black hole ?”

Ah Ha!! Right question to the right person!! Given my extensive knowledge on the subject and to some extent,the questioner’s apparent lack thereof,I decided to deliver a brief but intriguing “Funda Session” about n-dimensional Riemannian geometry and relativistic effects of alpha-hadron collisions, whilst he listened attentively unawares of the widely held belief that all I know about the Black hole is that ‘It sucks!’.But here I was delivering an unfaltering speech about the technicalities of making a black hole and finally finishing it off with a brief note about the racist implications of the experiment and why it is called the ‘Black’ hole and not the ‘White’ hole,drawing analogies with Blackmail and the Blackberry.

Bravo!! I was pretty sure that the guy was dumbfounded and wouldn’t have noticed a single flaw in my expert analysis of the subject.After all, and most modestly, I did have bigger brains than him.(Incidentally,he was a 10 year old kid.)

He looked at me and said – Sir (Read as I should be calling you Uncle but lemme just be diplomatic) ,You big guys work on so much cool stuff !!!

And then he asked me something that sent vocab book words like ‘introspection’ and ’self realization’ spiraling through my head. He asked – “What is it exactly that you do in your big posh offices?”

Bang!! My alter ego was punched out from my body by the question as it tried to look at me from the outside and decide what it was actually that I did.And what did it see? There I was, gazing at a Linux desktop screen as if I was practicing my psychokinesis skills.There was hardly any movement of my body except for my fingers. I saw myself sitting like that for a helluva lot of time and finally getting up to triumphantly announce that I had successfully made a button act like it was a button !!! WOO !!! Getting that done when you are working on a tool called Jdeveloper is really some effort. But hey!! but this little guy would never understand the complexities of ADF (That is a logical conclusion as I myself don’t understand it and previous evidence showed that he was not smarter than me to say the least .

So,there was a problem.The little guy was expecting a “Bang” answer and I didn’t want to disappoint him with a “Psst” answer
So I just said – Hey dude !! We are working on FUSION in ORACLE!!!
Simple line with just two keywords that makes my work look cool
I bet that would make him think of all fancy hi tech stuff with complex machines built on the basis of incomprehensible equations

Pretty much the smartest answer i had given to someone since..I donno, lemme think..probably since the time when i had cracked the abbreviation AAAAAAAAA and had come up with the full form. Now if you are tempted to know what it is… its All American Association Against Acronym And Abbreviation Abuse Anonymous..I hope they never get to know of the MOIs and the LOVs and the TDDs and the DTCs and the ERs and the CRs and the PEOs (well the list could go on in Oracle).

To be continued…

The Spot Of Ink

When you write an exam and come back, its not the questions and answers that you remember. What you remember is the momentary pause, the glance you took at your neighbor’s face,the few seconds when you stopped writing and looked out of the window, when you heard the birds singing outside, and followed the rhythm of the creaking fan for a second, before you went back to writing..Life is like that.. The moments which we “live” in are actually the moments we don’t even know that we are living in.When you pause while running through the motions of life, you might not realize that, that’s when you are actually experiencing the phenomenon called life..Its not when you are writing. its actually when you pause and the ink spills, smearing your blank sheet of life, that you actually live.

The Spot Of Ink

The T’s tail hung loosely
The I’s eye looked blind
Smearing the insanity of the space
The spot of ink was left behind

Countless lines drawn,So much writ
And yet so much more to write,
A jungle of thoughts chime along
Like a thousand voices in the quiet

And yet its silent,empty,
I sink deep in ethereal waters
Gazing at the shining bubble of life,
As the impending tide no longer matters

Pause.
Life has stopped
I stop running and take a look around
The cheers and jeers echo in my senses
While I listen to silence’s sound

A moment stolen
From the vaults of time
It never appeared
But it was always mine.

Clutching it, before I started afresh,
I stopped to look, to wonder, to think
The lines, the words are washed away
All that remains, is the spot of ink.

Women = Beauty ?

A tribute to the female beauty which has inspired man since eternity.No wonder then, that many of the beautiful creations of literature have been about women and their beauty.Do also read the previous post “Women = Horror ? ” to reveal the complete meaning

There’s something about your eyes,
That makes me think again
There’s something they speak of
A fire, a fear, a pain…
Can’t look at you in the eye
Feel a tingle when I do
When my heart stops for a moment
I know that it was you
I weep and I cry
Gather myself and decide
I need to get away…
But I can’t get away from you.

Something about your flowing hair
That whispers to the wind about me
The way you converse with the sky
The way you set yourself free
The way you dance and fly
The way you look from the far high
The way you talk to life
The way you laugh it away
I want to know your dreams
Go crazy when I think of you this way
Gosh!!! I need to get away,
But I can’t get away.

When you looked from a distance tonight
As you touched me with your sight
Could feel your eyes seeking mine
It was neither human nor divine,
I can’t tell you what I feel
Asked myself if you are for real
I can’t think of another thing
You haunt me night and day
I haven’t the courage to speak
To face you, to look at you, to say
That I need to get away
But I can’t get away

I wish I hadn’t noticed
Noticed you cry
All alone… miserable and cold
As tears rolled down that eye
I couldn’t say a word
A word to make you strong
A word to comfort you
What if I said something wrong?
I wish I would never have to see
What I saw, what I felt today
I need to get away
But I can’t get away

Would you be enraged?
Would you stare the way you do?
Would you turn and go away?
Or would you smile and stay?
Questions haunt me.
See you everywhere
I fear you might be hurt
I fear you might be upset
I fear you might not let me explain
Yes, I fear you
I need to get away,
But I can’t get away from you

I know not who you are
I know not where you are from
Will you stay this way forever?
Or will you change my life and go away
You leave so many questions unanswered
You leave so many answers unquestioned.
You leave so many wandering thoughts
You leave so much unheard of and unseen
You leave so much still to say
Let me live the way I lived before…
Let me go away…
Let me go away.

Women = Horror ?

A tribute to the sense of fear that women have created in man’s mind since eternity.No wonder,the most horrifying movies of all time have been about haunted and possessed women

There’s something about your eyes,
That makes me think again
There’s something they speak of
A fire, a fear, a pain…
Can’t look at you in the eye
Feel a tingle when I do
When my heart stops for a moment
I know that it was you
I weep and I cry
Gather myself and decide
I need to get away…
But I can’t get away from you

Something about your flowing hair
That whispers to the wind about me
The way you converse with the sky
The way you set yourself free
The way you dance and fly
The way you look from the far high
The way you talk to life
The way you laugh it away
I want to know your dreams
Go crazy when I think of you this way
Gosh!!! I need to get away,
But I can’t get away.

When you looked from a distance tonight
As you touched me with your sight
Could feel your eyes seeking mine
It was neither human nor divine,
I can’t tell you what I feel
Asked myself if you are for real
I can’t think of another thing
You haunt me night and day
I haven’t the courage to speak
To face you, to look at you, to say
That I need to get away
But I can’t get away

I wish I hadn’t noticed
Noticed you cry
All alone… miserable and cold
As tears rolled down that eye
I couldn’t say a word
A word to make you strong
A word to comfort you
What if I said something wrong?
I wish I would never have to see
What I saw, what I felt today
I need to get away
But I can’t get away

Would you be enraged?
Would you stare the way you do?
Would you turn and go away?
Or would you smile and stay?
Questions haunt me.
See you everywhere
I fear you might be hurt
I fear you might be upset
I fear you might not let me explain
Yes, I fear you
I need to get away,
But I can’t get away from you

I know not where you are from
Will you stay this way forever?
Or will you change my life and go away
You leave so many questions unanswered
You leave so many answers unquestioned.
You leave so many wandering thoughts
You leave so much unheard of and unseen
You leave so much still to say
Let me live the way I lived before…
Let me go away…
Let me go away