Book Affair !!!

A few days before, when I was about to pack my bag before stepping out of my workplace (or work corner!) in my office, my colleagues asked me, a funny question,...“why ?....so early today..?

I told them that “it is 7 ‘o’ clock now and someone is waiting for me in my residence.” Then came their curious and quick “whoisit?!!!.” Just to add some more fun into the evening-chat I told them that “my beloved is waiting at my residence and I am so eager to meet her.” But by hearing this my friends had become more curious! They decided to accompany me to my house, to see by “beloved.”

While driving me to my “beloved” one of my colleagues asked “Is she a south Indian?” The other colleague wanted to know whether she is working some where or studying.

We cannot impose “south Indian tag to any; she is now living here as a Delhite,” I answered, adding more flavour to the car-chat.

At my door step, seeing that the door is closed, my colleagues said, “Jay, the door is locked from outside” I told them the lock can be closed or opened from both sides. She might me in a nap. So “Let us not disturb her, I will open it” I told my friends.

“Is it Fair to go without even a knock at the door?” another query from my colleague. I asked them to ignore knocking as we can give surprise (or get surprised).

After stepping into the house, my friends started enthusiastically searching here and there, for my “beloved”!!

Not much time they took for the combing operation in the entire small flat. “Now, what? Where is your beloved, they asked me?”

I led them towards my bed; I pulled a book which had kept beneath the pillow. It was a complied volume of popular Urdu poetry and ghazals. I showed it to them. “OK, nice book, but where is your beloved?”, my friends where loosing patience by then.

I took a deep breath and said, "this is my present beloved…"

"What?” – my anxious colleague…..."this book.., your beloved?”

I replied, “I have many more beloveds, fiancées, which lures me back to my residence…"

Come, I told them. I showed my small collection of books to them.

Then I spoke them about the journeys that I did along with my beloveds….........
....to the fragile mind of emperor-poet, Bahadur Shah Zafar…
....to the sadism and sarcasm of Dostoevsky-the gambler…
....to the pain of Sahir-the lover…
....Gandhi-the truth seeker…
....Fritjof Capra-the meta-physicist and many more…

At last, I could convince my friends that….there are beloveds waiting for me in my residence...and I am deeply in love with them!!!

Yesterday, when was leaving little early than the usual time from office, my colleagues asked, “Which beloved is given appointment today?”

My reply was “Dostoevsky” ..I am on my second reading of his master piece ‘Crime and Punishment.’

For your info: another beloved is in waiting, ‘Five Point Someone’ (by Chetan Bagawat) !!!!

I hope to meet her soon!!!!!!!!!!

"Mujh se pehli si mohabbat meray mehbub na maang."

One song, a ghazal hummed by one of my dear and most respected colleagues, kept my mind fertile over the last two weeks.

It was a famous ghazal by the great poet from Pakistan, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, "Mujh se pehli si mohabbat meray mehbub na maang." The ghazal is about the meaning of love, humanity and progression of our personal affections towards more wider and responsive relationships. Let me use Faiz's own couplets to protray it....

“…mein ne samjha tha kay tu hai to darakhshaan hai hayaat
tera gham hai to gham-e-dahar ka jhagdra kya hai
teri surat se hai aalam mein bahaaron ko sabaat
teri aankhon ke sivaa duniya mein rakkha kya hai…”

(“…I had thought if I had you, life would shine eternally on me
If I had your sorrows, those of the universe would mean nothing
Your face would bring permanence to every spring
What is there but your eyes to see in the world anyway…”)

Yet, Faiz, the humanist, painfully realises that there are grater worries in the world, which he also is supposed to own, address and solve. Please see the following lines -

“…jaa-ba-jaa bikate huye kuuchaa-o-baazaar mein jism
khaak mein lithade huye khuun mein nahalaaye huye…
…jism nikale huye amaraaz ke tannuuron se
piip bahatii hu_ii galate huye naasuuron se
laut jaati hai udhar ko bhi nazar kyaa kije
ab bhi dilkash hai tera husn magar kya kije….”

(“…In every corner are bodies sold in the market
Covered in dust, bathed in blood…
…Bodies retrieved from the cauldrons of disease
Discharge flowing from their rotten ulcers
Still returns my gaze in that direction, what can be done
Even now your beauty is tantalizing, but what can be done…”)

Faiz is well known as a Communist (eventhough Communist Party was banned in Pakistan) and his compassion for the exploited and the oppressed gave a distinct uniqueness and melody to his poetry.

It was a deviation from the much romanticised tradition of conservative shayari and ghazals. Faiz in Pakistan along with Sahir Ludhianvi, Kaifi Aazmi and Majrooh Sultanpuri in India opened this proletarian path of shayari and ghazals in the Indian subcontinent.

The ghazal ends with following couplets -

“…aur bhii dukh hain zamaane mein mohabbat ke sivaa
raahaten aur bhi vasl ki raahat ke sivaa…”

("…There are other heartaches in the world than those of love
There is happiness other than the joy of union…”)

There is another poem by Pablo Neruda, the poet among revolutionaries and the revolutionary among the poets, which conveys some what the similar thought. I wish to share it with you in one of my coming posts.

So, "Mujh se pehli si mohabbat meray mehbub na maang."

My heartfelt gratitude for my colleague for humming the ghazal.