Unwritten Rules for the Written Word

“Writers more interested in literature than the truth ensure that they never come out with either thing — one reason that the word literature today sounds so fake, as if you were to insist on saying cuisine every time you meant food. Food, as in sustenance, is more like what we have in mind.” 
                                                                              ― The editors n+1

A question has often crossed my mind that why these days we have so many Indians switching to writing in English and why there are so few books good books in Hindi and other Indian languages. My mother who is an avid reader of Hindi books often finds it difficult to find anything interesting in newly published books. Even when some new titles appear in library/ bookshops, they are difficult to read . Mostly due to their atrocious language which is a strange mix of English  words mixed with Hindi and often the slang of the two languages. The grammar is deliberately wrong and the themes are often repetitive. Even internet blogs are more lively and readable than the published books sometimes .

Today in a chance meeting with one Editor in Charge of Contemporary Indian Literature at India’s apex society of letters, I found answers to most of my doubts. My expectations from the person occupying such a respected post was of someone who’d love books and words making up those books. Someone who would be open to all expressions and styles and most of all someone who’d be learned enough to be open, unbiased and objective. What I found gave me ample proof of why even the most passionate Hindi lovers are today reading very few Hindi books. It also made to thank God that I am not a writer/ poet aspiring to be published or reviewed by these hollowed men.

I had always heard stories of writers who were rejected repeatedly by the publishers only to become world famous later on. One also hears of artists who were rated hopeless by critics  just before they shoot to fame and stardom.   Today I witnessed to my horror how a critic forces his own myopic view on a budding poet. Sitting in his cosy office , surrounded by the publications of his revered organisation, he vaguely looked at the crisp new  book and then shot a glance back to the newly published poet .  He read the biodata of the poet, determined within  seconds that she is in an outsider in the world of literature.( i.e.  not a full time writer cum academician  but  a successful professional  ) . He nodded his head disapprovingly and then the poet was told in harshest possible words that her choice of words, title of the book, themes of the poems and even the design of the cover is “incorrect”. The reason given was shocking – Today’s public does not want such words/ titles anymore. These were “in” some 40 years back. Who would read such (correct and pure) language anymore? These themes are also old. They do not sell anymore.

 Interesting part was that the learned man formed this opinion in just 4 minutes of looking at the book and without even reading one of the poems. When the poet protested that was this not suppose to be her expression....her words ....her language. She was told  that she has no chance of being established here if she thinks like this. Everything from the theme to the style should be carefully chosen based on the trend these days. He then arrogantly told the poor girl that she must read the journals and publications of his organisation to realise what kind of stuff is in demand these days and then try writing like that.  I was feeling bad for the poor writer till I found, to my horror , that the esteemed editor cum critic was criticising Tagore’s Geetanjali  as well on the same grounds saying that it won’t stand in today’s market . I was taken aback because this was not a profit minded publisher speaking but a critic associated with the society which is meant to “Promote and protect literature of Indian Languages”. Leave alone any encouragement to go different, there was a clear message- my way or highway.

When I asked this gentleman about writing for one’s own satisfaction ( Swantah Sukhaya)  without consideration of “market demand”; he almost got angry. “What a naive question? Who does that anyway? If anyone wants they can keep writing sitting quietly but our publications would never review such works. We have some standard to keep. People have expectations from us and we cannot publish about something which is not graded high on these established  benchmarks”.  So that is the new mantra- books as a consumer good. To be manufactured as per the demands of the customers . 

 Curious by his response, I decided to peep in the bookshop of this organisation, to browse through the latest trends in literature. I am now very certain to say that no Bacchchan or Ajneya , no Jaishakar Prasad or Sumitra Nandan Pant can today find place in these hallowed galleries of literature . They are now an exclusive domain of people who do not understand pure language, do not risk to go original in style or themes and worst of all, who are in the   ‘exclusive literature circuit’. The unwritten banner screams “Outsiders are not welcome” loud and clear. The experimentation with language is acceptable only if it is ‘approved kind of experimentation’ by the high priests of literature, all other variations are   ‘wrong’.  Good for these classic poets and writers that they become famous before such patrons of literature occupied these positions and framed their rules of good literature.

 Thankfully we are in an age where information seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire and it wafts across the electrified borders...thankfully it also goes beyond the domains of such Mullahs and Pundits of  literature. No wonder that many  young writers either move towards English as language of expression  , opt for more  entry barrier free mediums like internet publishing  or give up the hope of being read by people who’d have admired their words.

Was it just a dream ?

“So long ago

Was it in a dream, was it just a dream?

I know, yes I know

Seemed so very real, it seemed so real to me
Took a walk down the street
Thru the heat whispered trees

I thought I could hear (hear, hear, hear)

Somebody call out my name as it started to rain”

- John Lennon (Dream)

Have you ever wondered about dreams? Those intricate stories our minds spin while we sleep, and the vivid visions of the future that keep us wide awake, hearts racing with adrenaline. Dreams are also the quiet hopes that sustain us when reality lets us down. To me, dreams are magnificent journeys—free to take, yet priceless in how they inspire us, fuel our growth, and push us to reach higher. In our dreams—especially the ones we see with open eyes—we are strong, powerful, beautiful, creative, and forever young. We become everything we long to be, sometimes down to the tiniest detail. Dreams can make us feel like superheroes, a captivating vamp, or a love-struck teenager with an impossible crush. But they can also leave us trembling like a frightened child, hollow like a ruin, or aching like the sick. It’s a pity that daydreaming is often dismissed or ridiculed—because to me, it is a vital, creative phase of any meaningful pursuit.To me it sounds like a very important and creative phase for any important achievement in life

I am an addicted, incorrigible dreamer. I dream with my eyes open—and, of course, closed. I dream of places, people, and moments so vividly and so often that sometimes I struggle to believe they aren’t real. The memories of these dreams are etched so clearly in my mind that I wonder if, in old age, I might begin to confuse them with reality.

I dream myself alive. I dream of breathtaking places and impossible experiences I know I’ll never have. Sometimes, I’m an eagle perched on a tree branch, surveying a vast valley. Other times, I’m plunging from mountaintops, savoring the thrill of the fall. And yes, I dream strangely too—of death and destruction, of being trapped in eerie, inescapable spaces. These moments feel so real that I imagine the actual experience couldn’t be much different. I once considered recording my dreams, but they always lost their magic when I tried to write them down. My words couldn’t capture their wild energy, their vividness.

Dreams fascinate me. I don’t always know what sparks them, but I have the ability to close my eyes and string together entire stories—so detailed I can almost feel, smell, and taste them. Sometimes, when one of these dreams materializes in real life, I’m left stunned, as though I had summoned it into being.

Surely, I’m not alone. There must always have been others like me—people who take dreaming seriously. There are mornings when I wake up laughing from some bizarre vision, and nights when I jolt awake, breathless, desperate to escape a nightmare. No wonder every ancient culture has its own lore about dreams. Some even had seers to interpret them. Certain dreams—like Queen Mahamaya’s vision before the birth of Siddhartha, or Abraham Lincoln’s premonition of his assassination—were believed to hold deep significance.

Poets, writers, mathematicians, and scientists have long claimed that dreams gifted them inspiration. I once read that Srinivasa Ramanujan saw mathematical formulas in his dreams, delivered by the goddess Namagiri, and verified them upon waking. Paul McCartney heard the melody of “Yesterday” in his sleep. Mary Shelley conceived Frankenstein in a dream. Throughout history, kings, statesmen, and artists have looked to their dreams for guidance—and I completely believe them. I’ve felt that kind of clarity myself. After all, many of our myths and legends begin with a dream. So do countless songs, books, and films.

It is generally believed that the mind, in its mysterious ways, plays with our dominant thoughts, fears, and desires—stitching them together into a tapestry of scenes, sounds, and emotions we call dreams. They are often seen as a psychological sorting process, a quiet theatre where the subconscious enacts the dramas of our waking concerns. But then, how do we explain those dreams that seem to emerge from nowhere? The ones that take us to places we’ve never seen, show us faces we’ve never met, or unfold in languages and landscapes we didn’t even know existed?

It’s in this space—between the known and the unexplainable—that dreams begin to feel like something more. Perhaps this very mystery is what gave rise to the idea that dreams are moments when the divine tries to whisper to us. That in the silence of sleep, angels—or call them messengers, guides, ancestors—attempt to converse with our deeper selves. In a way, dreaming feels like opening a secret doorway to a world that is both ours and beyond us. A place where the rational gives way to the symbolic, where meanings arrive not in words, but in sensations, visions, and inexplicable truths.

Perhaps the ancient sages were right when they said that both the waking world and the dream world are illusions—fleeting projections on the screen of consciousness. Just as a dream can feel completely real until the moment we wake, so too can life feel absolute until we pause and question its fabric. In both states, we experience joy, fear, love, and longing with equal intensity. The dream dissolves when we open our eyes. But what if waking is simply the next dream—just longer, louder, and bound by more rules?

In Advaita Vedanta, it is taught that the dreamer, the dream, and the act of dreaming are all expressions of the same Self—the undivided awareness behind all experience. And perhaps that is where the true magic of dreams lies. They remind us that we are more than our routines, roles, and rationalities. They allow us to touch the edges of mystery, to converse with parts of ourselves we never meet in daylight, and to remember that there’s more to existence than what meets the eye.

So, if you’re someone who dreams a little too much, don’t be in a hurry to dismiss it. Maybe your dreams are not distractions from reality, but gentle nudges toward a deeper truth. Maybe, just maybe, in dreaming, we come closest to remembering who we really are.

A Pause

Louis MacNeice was an irish poet, a contemporary of W.H. Auden . I reproduce a poem written by him here as it gives me strength on those desparate moments when I feel that a cyclone of "life" is sucking me in its vortex.It helps me in realising that at the other side of all the despair, frustration and failures ....life remains our only chance to redeem ourselves, to purify ourselves and to cleanse ourselves of our weaknesses. And we live this life with all our disappointments and despair, yet not lose our innate faith on ourselves. Every misfortune only makes us stronger, every grief steels our heart ever more and every battle we lose makes us more determined.

     The cynic would say that in the course of our journey, we only move from one frustration to another, from one despair to another, from one pain to another, from one sorrow to another, from one disappointment to another, from one hopelessness to another. Only for some fleeting moments, we are allowed to be happy – “Happiness” as Thomas Hardy said, after all “is an occasional episode in the general drama of pain”. But that does not mean that we take our frustrations and despair and disappointments for granted and resign ourselves to our fate, knowing fully well that

“Alike for those who for today prepare,
 and for those who after a tomorrow stare
A Muezzim cries from the tower of darkness
 Fools, your reward is neither here nor there.”


No, the strength and determination are certainly not for any imaginary victory over an imaginary foe, not even against ourselves. It is only to realise that despite everything, just to be living is an wonderful experience. So here I begin once again, heartbroken after one more disappointment...full of hope for the next assignment ; praying that they do not turn me into a stone....ever.

PRAYER BEFORE BIRTH by Louis MacNeice

" I am not yet born; O hear me.

Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.
Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.


Otherwise kill me."

 

On a Cold January Morning

"Bare branches of each tree

on this chilly January morn

look so cold so forlorn.

Gray skies dip ever so low

left from yesterday's dusting of snow.

Yet in the heart of each tree

waiting for each who wait to see

new life as warm sun and breeze

will blow,like magic,

unlock springs sap to flow,

buds, new leaves, then blooms will grow."-

Nelda Hartmann, January Morn

Kipling's Contradictions

In the latter part of the nineteenth century an American girl Edmonia Hill, married an Englishman who had been appointed by Lord Salisbury to fill the chair of Science at the Muir Central College, Allahabad University wrote in a letter to her family back home : “I've met an unusually interesting man with the uncommon name of Rudyard Kipling….. Mr. Kipling looks about forty, as he is beginning to be bald, but he is in reality just twenty-two. He was animation itself, telling his stories admirably, so that those about him were kept in gales of laughter. He fairly scintillated, but when more sober topics were discussed he was posted along all lines. …..I am surprised at his knowledge of people and places. He is certainly worth knowing, and we shall ask him to dinner soon.”
This description I find very near to what I imagined Rudyard Kipling would have been in his times.Its not that I am very fond of Rudyard Kipling as a writer. I have read his poems and stories sevaral times but my feelings towards him and his writings can at best be described as -confused. At times I marvel at his imagination, his witty way of describing people and events and the variety of his experiences which he sketched through his characters…from life of a vagabond to that of a ghost. On other occasions I feel such deep felt hatred for his views on many aspects of his times. When I was in Shimla, I read a lot of literature about him …I visited his school, his house and places which he described in his poems and stories. Once again I found Mrs.Hill confirming my views about him. She writes in another letter to his sister in England about Kipling , who was then working in the editorial staff of The Pioneer at Allahabd “Young Kipling is certainly all things to all people. He talks equally well to High Court Judge or to a scientist, and I hear he can make first-class love to the latest belle in Simla……..and what a life he leads, all among the babblings of the Chamber of Commerce and the unsavory detail of the days among the dockets, departmental orders, and the queer expositions of human frailty, vanity, greed, and malice that a newspaper offers. With it all he watches for suggestive ideas for his tales.”
Kipling indeed lived a very interesting life. He was an Englishman born in British India. The father, John Lockwood Kipling, an architect and designer, was sent to Bombay by the English Government to take charge of the art school(J .J. School of Arts) , and Kipling's mother was the oldest daughter of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, the Reverend George D. Macdonald. When the Kiplings were married they spent their honeymoon beside a little lake in England called Rudyard, and so when, on December 30, 1865, a son was born to them they called him by the name of the place where they had been so enchantingly happy.
Rudyard Kipling was , as a critic noted “Man of Permanent Contradictions” . Its interesting of note that I am not the only one who finds it difficult to frame an opinion about him . Even when he was alive he was crtisied and adored by almost equal number of readers. After his death as in his generous and beautiful elegy for William Butler Yeats, W. H. Auden affirmed, "Time that is intolerant," nonetheless "Worships language and forgives/ Everyone by whom it lives." Putting this poetic faith to what he evidently regarded as a strenuous test, he asserted,
Time that with this strange excuse

Pardoned Kipling and his views,

And will pardon Paul Claudel,

Pardons him for writing well.
But the relation between time and tolerance turns out to be more uneasy than that. When he was alive many critics thought Kipling to be a bad writer, and also a bullying and jingoistic one, and many readers today agree. Moreover, much of Kipling's work, inarguably, was hasty and poorly written. Dick Heldar, in The Light That Failed (1890), says, "Four-fifths of everybody's work must be bad," and one feels Kipling speaking more truly than he knew when his character adds, "But the remnant is worth the trouble for its own sake." A great deal of his fiction is still a chore or an embarrassment (never mind the "politics"); and he overproduced verse in a quite promiscuous manner, often for the most short-term and propagandistic motives. The shock effect of some of Kipling's compositions has actually faded; they now afflict the reader more with a sense of faint amusement than with horror or disapproval. And when I was thinking about him this time, I found that Kipling's most successful and polished prose, Kim is also dependent on the idea of a double life. The boy is an orphan, raised to believe he is half-caste, and is "passing" for Indian. The whole action of the story hangs on dissimulation and duality.
Something I owe to the soil that grew—

More to the life that fed—

But most to Allah Who gave me

twoSeparate sides to my head.
This is drawn from a Kipling poem titled "The Two-Sided Man." As if to underline its message, Kipling added,
I would go without shirts or shoes,

Friends, tobacco or bread

Sooner than for an instant lose

Either side of my head.
Now that I have benefit of retrospection if I were to assemble a profile of Kipling it would include his staunch Anglo nationalism, and his feeling that England itself was petty and parochial; his dislike of nonwhite peoples, and his belief that they were more honest and courageous; his love-hate relationship with the Irish; his contempt, and deep admiration, for the United States; his respect for the working class, and his detestation of the labor movement; his exaltation of the empire, and his conviction that its works were vain and transient.
The contradictions interestingly are not limited to his writings only. Or probably the genesis of these contradictions lie in the life the writer led. From childhood he was both repelled and attracted by cruelty. Ultimately, Kipling's two greatest literary and emotional attainments—the ability to evoke childhood and the capacity to ennoble imperialism—contradicted themselves too flatly and painfully .
Kipling, it could be argued, did not like it when other people patronized Indians. But that did not inhibit him from patronizing them himself. He drew many an unkind picture of the ways in which educated Indians tried to ape British customs. And, though he reserved to himself the right to praise Indians as equals (Gunga Din is the best-known example), he was always a ferocious and intemperate foe of any talk of self-government, let alone independence. To his ineffaceable shame, he even applauded General Dyer's Jalianwala massacre of 1919.
But with all contradictions, he still charmed his readers (and still does) . I read his books not only a fiction of a particular time but also as chronicle of that age. Like all other accounts and narrations, these also include the author’s views , his biases and a reflection of his personal experience of living in his times.
NB: If you are wondering why suddenly today I am thinking, and therefore writing ,about Rudyard Kipling I must add that the chain of thoughts was started by two factors. One, I was reading a collection of articles on writings on Allahabad and found Edmonia Hill’s account there . Two, I found a collection of Kipling’s stories about Shimla in the Campus library and enjoyed remembering about a city we both- me and Rudyard Kipling ,loved - for very different reasons and in very different times .

Intoxication , philosophy and a candid life....

मिट्टी का तन, मस्ती का मन, क्षण भर जीवन, मेरा परिचय

(A body of clay, a mind full of play, a moment’s life - that is me).

This is how Harivansh Rai Bachchan introduced himself . He was born exactly 100 years back on this day . Though today's generation will know him as father of superstar Amitabh Bachchan and grandfather of Abhishek Bachchan , he attained the fame which very few poets in Hindi can boast of. He lived a candid life and the reflections of his sorrows, achievements and joys are found in his poems.

जो छुपाना जानता तो जग मुझे साधू समझता

शत्रु बन मेरा गया है छल रहित व्यवहार मेरा "

His poems are so real, so close to life that they are still recited in literary societies, in students' hostels and even in mainstream movies. His great collection 'Madhushala (मधुशाला)' is perhaps the most quoted book of modern Hindi poetry . While thousands know about him and his 'Madhushala' most are not sure about his place in literature. Till about 1975, he was a phenomenon to reckon with, but after that he was ostracised as belonging to a non-literary world (perhaps because of the rising glory of his son in the Bollywood) and no attempt was made to seriously evaluate him as a poet.In Harivansh Rai, the neglect caused a side-effect. He learnt to depend for his inspiration more upon his readers and committed audiences and built an unprecedented relationship with them. .
Reacting to critics' prejudices, Bachchan had in 1973 declared his retirement from poetry. He had announced it formally in his address to his readers in the last volume of his poem titled Jaal sameta where he wrote
जाल समेटा करने में भी वक्त लगा करता है मांझी ,

मोह मछलियों का अब तो तो छोड़ ...

"It takes time in closing the day(arranging the net) O fisherman, leave your desire for more fishes now"

He also promised to his readers in a different medium such as prose. By that time, Bachchan's first two volumes of the autobiography were already published and his reputation as a prose-writer was established. After some years, when the other two volumes were published, even his worst critics could not ignore him. Yet for most of them he was a better prose-writer than a poet. As against the belief that he was a poet of private pain, he was indeed a poet of joy. And 'joy' was indeed the nickname that he had given to his first wife 'Shyama'. Even his poems of sorrow collected in 'Ekant Sangeet' and 'Nisha Nimantran' have an intimation of joy and beauty, and by the time the poems of 'Milan Yamini were published, in which the lovers meet and meet, the joys of life can be seen as real and palpable. Harivansh Rai Bachchan cannot be dismissed simply as a popular poet. Talking like a common man, he was really a serious-minded poet. Of all his writings, his 'Madhushala' is the most misunderstood. This is no celebration of wine, which Bachchan never touched. It was in fact a comment of the social hypocracies and behaviour by taking wine as a metaphor . Listen to a part of it here . As a salut to this great poet and writer I want to share these beautiful lines from his pen:

मैं कितना ही भूलूँ, भटकूँ या भरमाऊँ,

ही एक कहीं मंजिल जो मुझे बुलाती ही,

कितने ही मेरे पाँव पड़े ऊंचे-नीचे,

प्रतिपल वह मेरे पास चली ही आती ही,

मुझ पर विधि का आभार बहुत-सी बातों का।

पर मैं क्र्ताजं उसका इस पर सबसे ज्यादा -

नभ ओले बरसाए, धरती शोले उगले,

समय की चक्की चलती जाती ही,

मैं जहाँ खडा था कल उस थल पर आज नहीं,

कल इसी जगह पर आना मुझको मुश्किल है,

ले मापदंड जिसको परिवर्तित कर देतीं

केवल छूकर ही देश-काल की सीमाएँ

दे मुझपर फैसला उसे जैसा भाए

लेकिन मैं तो बेरोक सफ़र में जीवन

इस एक और पहलू से होकर निकल चला।

जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक़्त मिला

कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ

किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा भला।

As I walked out one evening

This is a poem by W.H.Auden which I found thanks to my hubby dear , who read out this poem to me last evening. Do you wonder at times what can be those "things of beauty" which are "joy for ever" in our day to day life . If I start counting "few of my favorite things" some feel good books, some old snaps , some melodious songs and poems like these will top the list . They are truly joy forever. I think of these writers and poets ...singers and composers ., and I want to cry. With admiration and with inspiration. I think of the purity of passion and absolute sincerity to their conscience with which they composed these 'beauties', and I feel so tall with happiness , courage and energy. Here it goes.....

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.'

I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.'

In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.'

Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.'

The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

'O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.

'It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

मैंने आहुति बन कर देखा ....

This poem is by सच्चिदानंद हीरानंद वात्स्यायन "अज्ञेय" . ...my favorite poet in Hindi and this is one of the best poems coming from his pen.....

मैं कब कहता हूं जग मेरी दुर्धर गति के अनुकूल बने,

मैं कब कहता हूं जीवन-मरू नंदन-कानन का फूल बने ?

कांटा कठोर है, तीखा है, उसमें उसकी मर्यादा है,

मैं कब कहता हूं वह घटकर प्रांतर का ओछा फूल बने ?

मैं कब कहता हूं मुझे युद्ध में कहीं न तीखी चोट मिले ?

कब कहता हूं प्यार करूं तो मुझे प्राप्ति की ओट मिले ?

मैं कब कहता हूं विजय करूं मेरा ऊंचा प्रासाद बने ?

या पात्र जगत की श्रद्धा की मेरी धुंधली-सी याद बने ?

पथ मेरा रहे प्रशस्त सदा क्यों विकल करे यह चाह मुझे?

नेतृत्व न मेरा छिन जावे क्यों इसकी हो परवाह मुझे ?

मैं प्रस्तुत हूं चाहे मिट्टी जनपद की धूल बने-

फिर उस धूली का कण-कण भी मेरा गति-रोधक शूल बने !

अपने जीवन का रस देकर जिसको यत्नों से पाला है-

क्या वह केवल अवसाद-मलिन झरते आँसू की माला है ?

वे रोगी होंगे प्रेम जिन्हें अनुभव-रस का कटु प्याला है-

वे मुर्दे होंगे प्रेम जिन्हें सम्मोहन कारी हाला है

मैंने विदग्ध हो जान लिया, अन्तिम रहस्य पहचान लिया-

मैंने आहुति बन कर देखा यह प्रेम यज्ञ की ज्वाला है !

मैं कहता हूं, मैं बढ़ता हूं, मैं नभ की चोटी चढ़ता हूं

कुचला जाकर भी धूली-सा आंधी सा और उमड़ता हूं
मेरा जीवन ललकार बने, असफलता ही असि-धार बने

इस निर्मम रण में पग-पग का रुकना ही मेरा वार बने !

भव सारा तुझको है स्वाहा सब कुछ तप कर अंगार बने-

तेरी पुकार सा दुर्निवार मेरा यह नीरव प्यार बने!

चाँद और कवि

This poem always inspires me to dream big, dream to change the world, dream for things seemingly impossible ....after all :"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams".Enjoy the poem:

रात यों कहने लगा मुझसे गगन का चाँद,

आदमी भी क्या अनोखा जीव होता है!

उलझनें अपनी बनाकर आप ही फँसता,

और फिर बेचैन हो जगता, न सोता है।

जानता है तू कि मैं कितना पुराना हूँ?

मैं चुका हूँ देख मनु को जनमते-मरते

और लाखों बार तुझ-से पागलों को भी

चाँदनी में बैठ स्वप्नों पर सही करते।

आदमी का स्वप्न?

है वह बुलबुला जल का आज बनता

और कल फिर फूट जाता हैकिन्तु,

फिर भी धन्य ठहरा आदमी ही तो?

बुलबुलों से खेलता, कविता बनाता है।

मैं न बोला किन्तु मेरी रागिनी बोली,

देख फिर से चाँद! मुझको जानता है तू?

स्वप्न मेरे बुलबुले हैं? है यही पानी?

आग को भी क्या नहीं पहचानता है तू?

मैं न वह जो स्वप्न पर केवल सही करते,

आग में उसको गला लोहा बनाता हूँ,

और उस पर नींव रखता हूँ नये घर की,

इस तरह दीवार फौलादी उठाता हूँ।

मनु नहीं, मनु-पुत्र है यह सामने,

जिसकीकल्पना की जीभ में भी धार होती है,

बाण ही होते विचारों के नहीं केवल,

स्वप्न के भी हाथ में तलवार होती है।

स्वर्ग के सम्राट को जाकर खबर कर दे-

रोज ही आकाश चढ़ते जा रहे हैं वे,

रोकिये, जैसे बने इन स्वप्नवालों को,

स्वर्ग की ही ओर बढ़ते आ रहे हैं वे।

- A poem by Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar'

Law of the jungle

"Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky;

And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper,

but the Wolf that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back --

For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack."

From ‘The Law of the Jungle’ by Rudyard Kipling