धर्मार्थ

रण का नाद उठा जब
दक्षिण में, धनुष्य की कोटि से...
"जाओ वीर, हर लाओ
एक लिंग, कैलाश की ही चोंटी से।"

ऐसा कहते ही, श्रीराम के परम भक्त,
पवन-सूत, बजरंग हुए नतमस्तक।
"सत्य वचन, प्रभु" कहा "बिन लिंग,
रण विजय यज्ञ, अब रुका रहेगा कब तक।"

यूँ कह बजरंग ने आशीष लिया
और हुए आँख से ओझल,
यहाँ तो है बस कोसों-कोसों
नील नभ, बालू रेत औ' जल,
"यत्र - न ब्राहमण ना अर्धांग"
श्रीराम के चिंतन में यही था पल-पल।

बिन ऋषि, बिन लिंग,
वे यज्ञ विजय का कैसे पूरा कर पायेंगे?
और, जाने कौन घड़ी में,
बजरंग कैलाशपति को लायेंगे।

श्याम वर्ण की चिंता जब,
चहूँ दिशा में व्याप्त हूई....
और दशानन रावण को
श्रीराम की ग्लानी ज्ञात हूई....

तब लंकापति, असुरराज ने
ब्राह्मण धर्म निभाया है...
स्वकरों से बने बालू लिंग से
श्रीराम का विजय यज्ञ करवाया है।

औ' यही नहीं, वे लाये साथ
सिया को, पुष्पक विमान में ....
यह देख प्रभू श्रीराम झुके,
ब्राह्मण के सनमान में।

लिंग बना, जो डिगा नही,
इतिहास ने ये कहीं लिखा नही
कि रणभूमि में असुरराज ने वीरगति जो पाई है,
वह इस कारण कि, कर्म, धर्म और
शेष सभी की चर्या पूरी निभाई है।

SNUG

He tugged a little on right and then a little harder on the left, leaned his head over her shoulder and said softly “You know I’ve always wanted to use this phrase…. I’ve always wanted to mumble ‘sweet nothings’ in your ear….”

“Well-if-you-don’t-loosen-this-a-bit….. I-don’t-know-about-sweet…..” she wheezed “….but-I-sure-would-be-able-to-say-nothing….” She let out a sigh as if it took a great deal of effort to say that; A sigh that was drowned in his chuckles. She shrugged her shoulders to ease the corset and stared hard at the glass…. Into those eyes and ran her hand through his ruffled hair.

“I don’t think I need the corset so tight when there are other things keeping me warm.” She lipped impishly.

Utterly incapable of taking his eyes off her, full of admiration and tempt, he briefly raised his head from her shoulder and mumbled “Like…?”

As he leaned back into her neck, she gave a little shudder and said “Like your warm breathe…..umm….Like your arms wrapped around me….”

“So…. It’s snowing outside just so you and I can stay indoors, eh?? I like that….” Before he could exhaust his breathe, she had pranced over to the misted screen. He walked up behind her, put a hand round her waist and wiped a clean circle in the fogged glass with the sleeve of his tattered sweater.

“Just like our own orb isn’t it?? And listen to the ice chunks making the tin roof sing….. Pitter Patter Pitter Patter…. The music and the sight make me crave for a dance…..” she crooned as she turned on her heel and held him. They waltzed around, he strutted with a limp on left and she swayed repetitively with a little twitch.

The two leaned into an oddly comfortable posture and stopped still. He broke the stillness with an untroubled “I am sorry”.

“What for?”

“Well, I remember the time when we wouldn’t wait for winters for it to snow….. when snow was just a tilt away…. when someone just shook our home about and I would wrap you in my warmth.” He said deeply. “There was a time when we would prance many a times in a day…. every time that kid turned the key. And we made music of our own. That was our orb…. Our globe…. Our home. I am sorry that I couldn’t save our snug little world.”

“Hey…. We don’t need a key or someone to tilt us to make this our home. I love this side walk we live on now. I love these brief months of winter, which bring back the memories of our celebrated abode.” She held up his chin and smiled “It’s just our SNOW GLOBE that has aged, not us…. its two who make it a home…. Our home….. and you are just as warm…. it’s you who makes this home, SNUG.”

Of You as much For You

Colour me Red, White and Blue...
With every possible Earthly Hue...
Colour me conventional....
Or may be just a little askew...
Like a bright Green mountain...
Or some placid sunset's view...
Feeling the staleness of dead Brown...
Or fresh and crisp as morning dew...
Like an all new concoction...
Or a steaming hot brew.
Alongside the canvas...
Over the time as I grew...
The brushes turned stagnant...
And only my hands drew...
Colours of my life, and...
Everything about, flew...
In Love I fell deeper...
And all I painted was YOU!
You as I painted, I realised...
The Colours are too few...
With You starts Life and
All colours in time due...
Fall short for your facets
All Old and New...
Varying in your facets...
Too many; not few...
So many things to yourself, that,
Everything in its own leu;
Hides a sign of life...
Of nature...
Of Beauty...
Or simply put...
OF YOU...

Colours of Joy

He woke up startled, a smile spread across his face and a feeling of high very evident. As he lay on that charpai, spread-eagled, he screwed his face trying to remember what had made him wake up with a start and why he was so happy despite a broken sleep.

The smell of burnt wood wafted, with a chilly November breeze, from the sigri under his charpai. Its warmth was a solace for his bare arms and legs in such nights. He could hear the birds chirping at a distance and knew he had only a few more minutes to lie before he heads off with the cattle for their daily graze. He took a deep gulp of saliva to quench his dry throat, and the winced at the aftertaste of garlic from last night’s dinner. Everything else was dark, the chirping and the chill and the whiff and the taste all meddled with what he wanted to think about. Plus the urgency as the night was about to end…. He turned his head in an attempt to doze off again.

For the next few moments he tossed around lazily and then considering it as a lost cause woke up again; though the experience, that had woken him elated, lingered on. Getting back home, he took a deep breath and the air was scented with freshly thatched cow dung cakes, making a thoughtful gesture he moved quickly to wash up. After the daily chores of the morn, he picked up a bamboo limb and headed to fetch his bovine companions.

It was amazing, the dexterity with which he moved among the fields on the paltry muddy pathways. Every now and then he’d run his hand in the bristles of grass and trying to make something more out of the tickling sensation. He whacked the buffaloes a few time just to hear them groan and again smiled as the thoughts of wee morn kept renewing inside him. On his way, he pulled off a few leaves from an abutting bush and kneaded them on his palm impishly, and his smile broadened as he put his palm to his nose and let the aroma fill him up. To him it was all a joy of discovery…. Over and over again!

Reaching the destination, he tied the buffaloes to the tree and got inattentively distracted by the clinking of their bells. He sat there for many minutes flicking the bells casually and repeatedly just to hear them and the same jubilant smile lit up his face. He had packed for himself some extra amount of rice for lunch, just so he can have a nap while the buffaloes grazed. The idea of a siesta was just too tempting, for previous night’s slumber had just given him a new found joy!

He sat for on the bare ground and started tucking in the rice, and again he mashed up a lump of rice in his fingers and kept stretching them out and back in to feel the stickiness, and again like a new born who just learnt to stretch out his fingers, he would giggle out with joy and kept doing it in hope to find something more. After having played with his food for much time, he undid his bundle and stretched out a tattered sheet on the ground; unbundled himself and did as intended – stretched himself out. For a last brief moment before having dozed off he felt the gravel lying all around him and heard its crunch.

Then he just slipped off into the world he aspired to! All that was dark suddenly came to life…. The open sky had a strange hue of freedom… The home he lived in was earthy in complexion. In his fantasy, he walked among the grasses and crops that had a restless tinge about them, a sort of playful pigmentation; the buffaloes grazed somewhere nearby and a mere look towards them made it clear they were of a lazy solid tincture; leaves and twigs of bush around his field swayed with the winter breeze and looked intoxicatingly saturated; and the gravel among which they grew were heavily undertoned.

If truth be told, this was his fantasy, his fancy, his dream and that was the best he could do. When awake he had to use four of his senses to understand the hues of the beautiful world around him, which he couldn’t name, but when asleep he made up for the one sense he didn’t have.

His dreams was where he saw, his dreams was where is envisioned his sensations of the worldly escapades, his dreams was where his had not bounds to his vision. He didn’t have to name every hue he saw, so long as he felt it right….. But his dreams was where he saw COLOUR.