खुशफ़हम इस दिल को, कल रात टटोल के देखा किसी गिरह में भूले ज़ख्म का शरारा छिपा रखा था (खुशफ़हम = credulous, गिरह= knot/joint, शरारा = spark)
थक-हार गया था जंग, जहाँ तूफाँ से लड़ते लड़ते
समंदर ने लहरों के पीछे ही इक किनारा छिपा रखा था
जुगनुओं को तलाशता रहा बेख़बर एक उम्रभर
कमबख़्त ज़िन्दगी ने मुठ्ठी में सितारा छिपा रखा था
अँधेरी रात जो छटती, कभी शायद हमें दिखता
सुबह ने धुंध पार क्या हसीं नज़ारा छिपा रखा था
है नहीं शायद मुमकिन, लफ़्ज़ हर दर्द को देना
मैंने नज़्मों में लेकिन हल्का सा इशारा छिपा रखा था
(An account of true events which happened on Friday,14th November in 2014)
It was midnight. The office floor was completely empty with not a single soul around (except mine of course).
I was working for some random US based activity.
My only companions were the sounds of the coffee machine coughing and the water cooler gargling. I was engrossed in work, and enjoying the solitude when sometime past midnight I heard a human voice coming from some distant corner of the floor, like a man whispering to me.
At the first instance I dismissed it as an imagination of a mind hungry for sleep. But then it repeated. A man would incoherently whisper something for just a few seconds, and then there was silence.
A friend of mine called and I told her about it. She said i was either drunk or crazy. When i insisted that i never drank during office hours and also that the sound was not my imagination, she cursed me for trying to give her nightmares, cursed the entire male population for being insensitive, and hung up on me.
I was getting curious. I started doubting if I was actually crazy (unlike Sheldon's mother, my mother never had me tested! ) So I checked the floor- cubicles, pantry, lab, even restrooms but found no one.
I had returned to my seat and was trying to get busy with work when suddenly, another whisper! I got up, looked around sharply and shouted, "Who's there?". I knew I wouldn't get a response.
It was 3:30 am. My alarm clock ( aka my Mom) called me up. By now I had made several rounds of investigation but had no clue of what was going on. When I told her the story, she got scared. She immediately ordered me to play Hanuman Chalisa on YouTube, and to stay on my seat instead of checking out the floor. I played it until she was satisfied.
10 mins later she called me up again. She told me to call the security guard and ask him to sit with me till dawn, at which point I hung up on her.
Just when I hung up, feeling all brave and headstrong, something startling happened. There was a loud thud. Close to my desk, somewhere behind my back. Like somebody banged a desk very hard. For the first time in the night I felt something more than curiosity.
Now things were not so trivial.
Seemed like the voice was making its anger on hearing the YouTube prayers very obvious. What was more , it had clearly come out of the unknown distant corner, and was approaching closer.
For a moment I actually felt like calling up the guard, but then on an impulse I decided to take the fight into the voice's zone. I picked up my laptop and moved to the dark side of the floor which I had roughly localized as the source of the whispering. I had decided I will find out what the sound and who it was. Sitting there and waiting, I almost murmered...Come on! You can do better than that you lousy thing!
And this time the whisper got louder. I could hear it very closely even over the noise of the coffee machine, water cooler, CFL lights, and the other creaking noises that a building makes at night.
After few attempts of careful hearing, I was sure the sound was not my imagination. I also knew the direction it was coming from. I started walking towards it, making sure to look under the desks too. And finally there it was ! Right in front of my wide open eyes - in a corner cubicle, a laptop with its screen-locked (not hibernated or shut down) and the lid nearly closed, with black earphones plugged in, dangling down from the desk. The muffled sounds had been coming from the earphones. It seemed that an intelligent gentleman must have been too busy to shut down his laptop. And the web page he was browsing just didn't want to give up on playing an ad every now and then!
Moral of the story : It's always advisable to put your computers to sleep at night. It can not only save electrical energy, but also the energy of a telecom engineer trying to decode eerie sounds in the middle of the night !
P.S: Oh wait! But the source of the loud thud is still unknown. And let me tell you there wasn't a black cat around.
One more night's work still left. All hail :P
खुदगर्ज़, बेगैरत, ज़माने ने जो-जो दे दिए
महफ़िल में वो सारे खिताब लेके चलता हूँ
बज़्म की लाज रखने को, लो मैंने होंठ सिल लिए
दबा के सुर्ख आंखों में, हर जवाब लेके चलता हूं
( बज़्म = gathering)
कुरेद कर खंजर से नब्ज़ को सौ-सौ दफा
वो पूछते हैं क्यों तबीयत मैं खराब लेके चलता हूँ
बहोत थक चुका हूं मैं, कि मेरी रूह छलनी है
कभी है बर्फ़ सीने में, कभी सैलाब लेके चलता हूं
खुद के चेहरे को तो मैंने कबका जला डाला
दुनिया के लिए अब, बस इक नक़ाब लेके चलता हूँ
बस में तुम्हारे रहता हो, वो प्यार थोड़ी है
भरसक टीस नहीं देता हो , वो प्यार थोड़ी है
छा जाएगा प्यार जो दिल पर, दर्द बड़ा सहना होगा
तरसेंगे बेबस दोनों पल पल, मुश्किल फिर भी कहना होगा
जब दर्द-ओ-दवा सारे ही मन के, उससे ही जुड़ जाएंगे
दिल सूझेगा जैसे हो गिरवी, दुख उसके तुम्हे रुलायेंगे
तब ऐ प्यारे जान ये लेना, जीना दुशवार हो चुका है
डूबो गे तुम "और" भी हर दिन, "अब" प्यार हो चुका है !!
उड़ गए तो पँछी यहाँ वहाँ
पर भुला शाख़ को कभी न पाए
जिस दिशा में मेरी नींव बसी है
उस ओर खड़ा मैं शीश झुकाए
#Teachers' Day
और कभी कभी तो वो बगीचों में जान-बूझ कर पैसे गिरा आता था...छोटे बच्चों को जो खुशी गिरा हुआ रुपया पाने से मिलती है, उसका एक हिस्सा बनने की यह तरकीब मुझे छू सी गयी..वो अनदेखी खुशियाँ इधर उधर कोनों में चुपके से डाल रहा था..और में खो चुका था छुपन-छुपाई और विष-अमृत के खयालों में ।
