Eyes Set On Kejriwal

Team Anna called off its fast until death move seeing that the ruling UPA party was in no mood of passing the Lokapal Bill in the coming parliamentary session. The move of calling off the fast was wise as there was no point of blackmailing the government in the first place itself. The government has been hostile towards the movement from the very beginning and had not shown the political will of doing something serious about the issue of corruption from the very beginning.

It was a treat to see the retired army general V.K. Singh sitting besides Anna ji on the Anshan stage. His short speech was energizing and must have made every Indian proud to see a courageous solider, Anna Hazare, and the humble general coming on one stage to raise their voice against the problems of the nation. The heart gets filled with respect when one sees a diabetic Arvind Kejriwal fasting for nine days and then coming on stage to recite one of Dushyant’s poem: ho chuki hai peer parvat si pighalni chahiye, is himalay se koi ganga nikalni chahiye…

Arvind Kejriwal talked about how they have decided to come to politics and give the Indian public a political alternative. Also, in his brief speech, he gave an inkling of how the party will look like. But amidst all this, one can see that Kejriwal, who is known to be the mind behind the movement, is going wrong in some of his calculations. In the equations of politics, corruption has never been a much talked of issue. Roti, kapada aur makan with a mix of communal, caste and varga politics has been the success mantra for most the political parties so far, not forgetting the money spent to buy votes and MPs. It has been accepted by the Indian masses, more importantly the ones’ who go to vote, as an inevitable evil of the system. A Bill against corruption is one thing and public perception about corruption is another.

There is no doubt that Team Anna, will act as an anti-congress, anti-BJP faction during the 2014 elections and both the parties can expect a shift in their vote banks, though one can’t say who will actually get the benefit of such shifts in general. Congress surely faces a tough task ahead of belittling the Anna movement and undermining each and every flaw in the team to make the whole movement look like a farce when it goes to election campaign. Being a party with great experience in politics, it has actually started questioning the sanctity of the IAC movement, by saying that they already knew that team Anna had political aims and the movement was just a means of fooling the people.

Anna ji says, that an effective Lokpal Bill can bring down corruption by 60%. What is 100% corruption? Is there any way in which the any country can even give an estimate amount of money that is lost due to corruption every year? Arvind Kejriwal counted two three major scams in his speech and reached a number four lack seventy thousand crore, by adding up the estimated loss to the exchequers in those scams. Let us start with the number assuming it to be the sum total of all the money lost to corruption (obviously it is just a poor approximation). There are twenty eight state (let’s leave the union territories for now). Let’s say each state has an equally corrupt political-bureaucratic nexus. Dividing the figure by twenty eight gives us sixteen thousand crore per state. Well, recently CBI made it public that the exCM of Uttar Pradesh has an asset of worth rupees one hundred and eleven crore against her name. Such a small number! By all logics she can be proved to be innocent and a politician with a clean record. She was the CM of for five years of a state which was entitled to rob its people by sixteen thousand crore an year (again reminding its just and understated approximation). Where probably is the rest of the money? Undeclared?

Where ever the money may be, it’s so neatly hidden that even the CBI could not bring it on paper. It is a matter of belief that we should go with the figures that the CAG gives us about 2G scam or alike. The art of hiding the act of corruption is not mastered overnight. Probably we can apply the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest to explain the jungle raj and its workings here. But coming back to the equations of politics and corruption, team Anna seems to be too simplistic in thinking that framing of a strong Lokpal Bill will attain some miraculous feet in bringing down corruption. The politicians, including the fifteen ministers of cabinet who were earlier alleged of being corrupt, will neatly hide their corrupt acts and escape in most of the cases. Well, some will obviously be too thick to escape the nets of a strong bill, but bringing down the corruption by 60% is nothing but a tearfully laughable joke.

Team Anna’s view has made corruption synonymous the ruling UPA party. There is no doubt that the UPA government is left answerless to most of the charges of corruption and mismanagement of public fund in various schemes and policies is widely accepted. But can congress be made to leave the power politics in near future? If yes, then will it mean an end to corruption in India? Well, as of today both the questions will have to settle down with negative answers.

All that a pro-Anna, anti-corruption Indian can hope for today is that the movement that Anna started should not go in the gutters and should become more popular with people in near future so that the chances of new political alternative becoming stronger strengthens with time. Meanwhile, Arvind Kejriwal will have to do some homework in sorting out a meaningful agenda for the upcoming party and will have to rethink his understanding of the corruption that India is facing today.

-ckh

मैं ही हूँ या हर कोई इस रात से हैरान है

मैं ही हूँ या हर कोई इस रात से हैरान है 

ये अँधेरे मेरे हैं या अंधेर में इंसान है ?

टेक देता पत्थरों पे सर मगर मैं क्या करूँ

जानता हूँ क्या हूँ मैं और कौन वो भगवान् है !

जान लेलोगे मेरी गर सच जुबाँ पर आ गया 

कैसे कह दूं क्या है ख्वाहिश क्या मेरा अरमान है 

देखता हूँ उगते सूरज को उठाकर जब नज़र

 खौलने लगती हैं सांसें उठता फिर तूफ़ान है 

ऐ विधाता जानता ना मैं अभी के क्या है तू 

पर मैं इतना जानता हूँ मुझसे तेरी पहचान है 

मौसम-मौसम बढ़ता जाए

मौसम-मौसम बढ़ता जाए 
जीवन का रंग चढ़ता जाए 

केशव खोलें सारी गाठें
अर्जुन गीता पढ़ता जाए 

कुंडली में रख रहू केतु को 
भाग्य, देवता मढ़ता जाए 

मद्धम-मद्धम गिनता सासें 
कोई कविता गढ़ता जाए

-ckh

जाने ये लोग

जाने ये लोग कैसे गाते हैं
हम तो हर धुन ही भूल जाते हैं

घर की दीवारें या के आईने
जाने क्यूँ मुझपे मुस्कराते हैं

बेसबब तो नहीं ये उनके ग़म
कुछ तो है आज भी सताते हैं

ख़त वो लिखते ज़रूर होगें पर
नामाबर ही इधर न आते हैं

शाम आई कई सवालों संग
फिर से हम घर को लौट जाते हैं

-ckh

काबिल-ऐ-गौर

काबिल-ऐ-गौर हैं मेरी सांसें 

मैकदे छूट गयें, ये ना छूटीं

आज भी आती हैं ये जाती हैं 

ख्वाब तो रूठ गयें, ये ना रूठीं 

चाह कर भी न कह सके उनसे

वो मेरी बेबसी पे हँसते थें 

वक़्त खामोश कर गया उनको 

जो मेरी दिलगी पे हँसते थें

--saving for future--

Metamorphosis

A life in making. A life in the mid of no where....

‘How many roads must a man walk down

Before they call him a man

How many seas must a white dove sail

Before she sleeps in the sand’

The eternal questions of mankind about who he is and where he is going, when sung in the folk tenor dampens the heart and renders the mind a unique kind of numbness. Reading about various kings and dynasties that came and went, numerous unknown artisans and workers who worked laboriously in building the forts and grand sculpture, which stand the heat of time speaking to us the history of the mankind, I often ask, ‘how were they different than me?’

The fact that death is inevitable is in itself enlightening. Why to hurt someone? Why speak bad words? Why to fear? Why to be proud about what we have and be sad about what we don’t have? Who are we, if not food for insects and germs of tomorrow? We live as if we are to be forever. And even if it is so, what’s the point?

Questions give rise to more questions. We chase as musk dear chasing an odour coming from its own body till we get tired and sit to meditate and look within to realise that ‘Truth’ is not without. And what is truth? Well, to me, it’s a white dot that says, ‘be quite and observe’. Answers have no meaning to the one without question. So why do I ask, ‘How many roads must a man walk down?’

I have roamed around like a mad man in college campus for four years. Always asking, what to do next? Never getting an answer. I have spent nights with drunken friends on hostel roofs, watching them break beer bottles and shout. I have played from dusk to dawn in sport complex, bunking all the classes I had to attend just to bring out the rebel in me. And do all this I just have wanted to know, who I am. Wandering around in the city of Dhanbad, all alone, I talked to trees and wind at times. Everything culminated as thoughts and thoughts seeped in into numerous poems. The obsession took such a form that my wallet used to have more poem than cash, written on the back of railway tickets, ATM machine receipts, tissue papers of restaurant etc. Each poem asking, who I am.

I recall the day of our farewell day at college. I was amongst the few who were asked to speak about our stay at college. I introduced myself as ‘9550’ my college roll number, as that was what I thought I was – a number. An element in the arithmetic progression of our ancient college. Don’t know how many elements have already passed away. The incremental nature of the roll number tells very evidently that a student at the college is nothing more than ‘one more student’. I went on to say that, ‘From here I can see shining faces and glittering eyes of my batch mates. I don’t think we will be gathered like this ever again under one roof’. Realising that I was taking more time than I was allocated as the faculty had taken its precious time to come and bid us farewell, I cut short all that I wanted to say and presented a poem.

‘antim din jeevan ke yadi ye

Peer hriday ki reh jaaye

Ke daud dhoop me beet gaye pal

Preeytam se kuchh na keh paaye

Praan kanth taka a pahunche hon

Bhaav mukhrit na hote hon

Bheed me dhoonde man priya ko

Bairi nayan dhundhla jaaye

Shithil padta mera shareer ho
dhamaniyon me ho maddham rakta prawaah
beete pal sab ik ik karke
mastishka patal par chha jaayei.N ....

(Now I was choking)

I could see from there, the subdued eyes of our favourite teacher, CK Sir. I almost choked while putting the last lines of the poem, trying very hard to be audible and clear. I walked down the podium and the Golden Jubilee Lecture Theatre was filled with applause. The walls of the theatre had heard a poem quite often. Sometimes back, ace poets of our time like Waseem Barelvi and Rahat Indori were seen standing on same podium, from where I bid my farewell to the college. I knew deep within my heart, that I had kept the standard of poetry up to the mark and that the podium understood what I meant when I nailed my thoughts in the final stanza saying:

Chitt chita ki raah taakta

Mrit saiya pe leta ho

Aage badh kar daag de koi

Dhoonwa raakh sab ho jaaye

Antim din jeevan ke yadi ye
peer hriday ki reh jaaye
ke daud dhoop me beet gaye pal
priytam se khuchh na keh paaye’

Today things have changed. People have moved on in their lives. I too followed the drift of time but then came back. Back to my school level books, I find something new every day. I find rulers, kings and kingdoms hidden n the pages of NCERT books. The brittle, yellow pages of the books I once read in my school days, talk to me. I feel good to see my hand written answers in the fill in the blank questions with fountain pens. The shaky hand writing, I was always known for, smiles back at me. I feel as if I have all the time of the universe these days. There is no thought of the all India rank that I held few years back. There is no thought about the job offers I had and the promotions I got at IBM for the sophisticated skills that I developed in software field or the lovely farewell I got while leaving IBM. All I am today is a kid, with no degree, no CV and no doubts about his capabilities. No vanity, no pride, no expectation and above all no grief or guilt. Now, I am at a place from where I can distinctly understand what the Nobel prize winning poet meant when he said:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

….. If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

-Rudyard Kipling's famous poem 'If'

But do I suggest the same to those who are at same place where I was few years back? I would say, NO. It’s painful, and takes a lot of metamorphosis for the personality to undergo, before one can really relinquish all he has (or he feels he has).  There is a beauty in materialism too and there’s no wrong if one can enjoy it. For me I see an untraveled road ahead and pulling up my socks to start over again.

आईना तू ही पराया क्यूँ है

आईना तू ही पराया क्यूँ है 

दाग चेहरे पे लगाया क्यूँ है 

ऐ शमा तूने उजाले तो किये 

पर मेरे घर को जलाया क्यूँ है 

ऐ खुदा ख़ाक ही हो जाना है  

फिर मुझे  तूने  बनाया क्यूँ है 

-ckh-