Why must I vote for Change? Agree or not, but ten years is a very long time for any political party to hold the country’s leash at a stretch. And when we are a ‘mother of democracy’ as we boast, urgency of change becomes akin to a therapeutic beam of light to shine on the murky corridors of power… or a good broom to sweep away the accumulated muck and stink from the Augean stables. For, power is a vicious fiend, a hydra-headed monster. If not reined in in time, its ever-growing, menacing tentacles begin not only to sting and bite but also undermine the very pillars on which a supposedly benevolent and people-friendly – but inherently shaky edifice of democratic order – stands. We have already seen how power breeds corruption, fosters coteries and insidious nexuses when a political party – any political party – has a long, uninterrupted run. It assumes more serious dimensions when we know that 42 per cent of our sitting lawmakers have serious criminal charges against them. Power...
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मेरी कविता को कुछ ना कहना कह लो भला-बुरा मुझे चाहे जितना , पर मेरी कविता को अप्रिय कभी कुछ ना कहना यह तो है स्वप्न-देश में जायी , कोमल , शिशु-सुंदर , चंचल पर भोली , मेरी पूजा का गहना न जाने यह पाप-पुण्य , छल-कपट , सच या झूठ ; लाया हूँ इसे उतार , नभ से सीधा धरती पर हँस के सुंदर-रंगीं ’ पंख पहन , उड़ आवारा बादल सा बन , चाँद-सितारों को बहला फुसला कर दिव्य-लोक में गंगा-जल से नहला , इत्र-सने फूलों का वस्त्र पहना , प्रेम-रस से सींचा है इसे कई दिन उगते सूरज से ली है आशा की उजली किरण , चाँद से मासूम हंसी , और तारों से टिमकता भोलापन दोस्त मेरे , यह क्या जाने नफरत की भाषा ? ना यह जाने कलह , द्वेष व बैर , यह तो है परी-लोक से आई फैलाने प्यार की धूप , हरने जग में पसरा तम , सुनाने नग्में प्यार के , यह है...
The newspaper I read Which newspaper do you read? A silly question to ask perhaps. For, in the glitz and dazzle of TV news anchored by loudmouths, and fakes and deepfakes - generating more heat and smoke than light and insight - newspapers have no place. To cap it, we have Netflixes, Zees and Jios et al pandering to our baser instincts: sizzling hot stuff of guns and gore for the violent beast within us and some mirch-masala of flesh- and skin-baring to keep our wane loins tickling. (I am no holy cow though, I confess!) Then the younger lot have hell-raising games to tingle their neurons with and myriad dating apps for flings or to hunt for soul mates. And of late, to beat them all, an AI-birthed sexy avatar custom made to indulge your wild fancies is a few taps of buttons of your device away to chat or flirt with. Therefore to ask about newspapers or a word in print is stupid and even rude. But being an odd man out in this bewildering chaos - and for sanity’s sake - I...
INDIA and Elections ‘24 Dear citizen: Elections ‘24 are almost upon us. Given the country’s present mood and pulse, it would be moot to ask “who will win?”, for the answer seems so obvious. Exultant after its recent assembly election wins the BJP is already breathing brimstone and fire and flexing its muscles to deliver a fatal blow and knock the living daylights out of the haggard, famished, fractured Opposition. As a simile it is almost like a dangal between pehalwan Dara Singh and the poor fumbling (‘drunken’) Kesto Mukherjee- our Bollywood comedian once. Thinking about the INDIA conglomerate, nothing but disgust washes over me. What a silly mess its constituents have made of it! Marked by two grand meets of its stalwarts it took off well engendering hope while giving jitters to the BJP. But alas! they flattered to disappoint. Succumbing to personal (‘Nitishian’) greed, self-interest, insatiable lust for power and perhaps some sam-daam-dand-bhed stratagems employed ...
‘Carry on Jatta!’ “Love is a Many-splendoured Thing”. So goes a popular song in the movie with the same name perhaps borrowed from Han Suyin’s bestselling novel’s title. Though I relished reading this beautiful book decades ago, but the true import and transcendent power of ‘love’, its many splendours, its mystic beauty and purifying fragrance that it bestows on us had not descended into my wayward soul in those flippant years of youth. Regrettably, the wisdom leading to my nirvana dawned a bit too late in life: my ‘wisdom tooth’ having only caused pain (and fattened the dentist’s bill) than shone any light of understanding. Well, I am no Rumi, Bulleh Shah, Shakespeare or Keats. Neither Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, nor Kant. Nor am I Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone (much though I adore them for their trail-blazing, self-practiced ideas and ideals). No Bertrand Russell either– a towering intellectual I would love to emulate, though. No ‘love-guru’ Osho am I too: in a sense the m...
