Monday 26 January 2015

The Great Game

There are few things more comforting and invigorating than the realization of first love.  And yet, come to reason, there are fewer things more amusing and deluding than the same. Of course there is the utterly mystifying and truly humbling magnanimity of the universe. But for a mind privileged (or doomed?) with inquiry, everything must conform to a predictable pattern or behavior. When everything has a reason, randomness is abhorred as an anomaly. Even the grand dance of the cosmos- however confounding it may seem- is intricately woven together by understandable tenets of reason that we have learned, unlearned and relearned over centuries. So how can something as overt as love, be so covert? The mind rebels at the thought!

So I decided to submit it to reason. Drawing a lot from observation, a vast testable sample space of friends near and far, a bit of scientific temperament that I’ve managed to brush onto myself over the years and a fair share of experience, I thought one could try to unmask this facet of human nature. I was wary of misplaced arrogance or a sense of false accomplishment that has often been an impediment to curiosity. Hence, instead of allowing myself the enormous luxury of twisting facts to suit theories, I decided to twist theories to suit facts. I don’t claim to have stumbled onto a Theory of Everything of sorts, but as is so often the case with intellectual pursuit, the journey in itself was more rewarding than the outcome.

Although it took me the greater part of the past few years to complete this journey, it all culminated in a moment, an epiphany of sorts wherein I realized that there in fact can be a method to this apparent madness. That as unfair, hurtful, instinctive, fateful or arbitrary as it may seem, there is nothing more to love than a barely remarkable sequence of cause and effect. Let’s call it The Great Game...

(to be continued with The Anatomy of Attraction)

Friday 2 January 2015

ख़याल - II

कभी फुर्सत में होता हूँ, तो कुछ पल लौट आते हैं,
जो कल को याद करता हूँ, तो लम्हे छूट जाते हैं.
कोई बंदिश नहीं है ये फलसफा ज़िन्दगी का,
यहां  पलकें नहीं गिरती और सपने टूट जाते हैं.

मैं जब जज़्बात लिखता हूँ, वो बस अलफ़ाज़ पढता है,
है माहिर खूब अदाओं का, हमें फनकार कहता है!
माना हकीकत यूँ ही बयाँ करते नहीं लेकिन,
जाने क्यों वो हर एक झूट से भी इंकार करता है,

सोचा कभी फिर से, मैं यूँ ही दूर चला आया,
जो देखा कभी मुड़के, अकेला था मेरा साया.
किया हर अर्ज़, लिखा हर लफ्ज़ तो वो सुनते रहे शायद, 
जो थे जज़्बात उन्हें ज़ाहिर मैं ही कर नहीं पाया.

जो कल तक अर्ज़ियाँ करता, वो अब खामोश बैठा है,
दीवारों और सलाखों से ही अब इरशाद’ कहता है.
सजा--इश्क़ उसे यूँ ही मुक़र्रर हो गई लेकिन,
जो है मुजरिम वो ही खुद कहीं  आज़ाद बैठा है.