Manish Gaekwad's Blog, page 13

Kishore Kumar: What The Heart Wants, The Head Delivers With Guilt

How the singer loved and lost Madhubala.

Madhubala and Kishore Kumar.

‘Haal kaise hai jaanab ka?’ she giggled, splashing water on him.

He tapped his straw hat, ‘Kya khayal hai aapka?’

‘Hai, tum toh machal gaye oh ho ho,’ she stood up, tilting the boat with her weight.

He arched on his left, and sat down on the flat board in the bow, ‘Yun hi phisal gaye, ah ah ah.’

‘Cut,’ director Satyen Bose yelled from a distance. He was seated with his film crew on another boat, instructing the camera operator to switch to a new angle. ‘Joldi koro, I want to take far shot, far from here,’ he huffed.

Kishore Kumar began yodelling.

Kumar and Madhubala were shooting for a song in the wobbly boat in a placid lake. The boat was being paddled by an extra who was not included in the camera’s frame. The extra also appeared oblivious to the actors’ off-screen romance.

‘But you know, I cannot marry you, I will only give you distress,’ she called for Kumar’s attention. The extra looked puzzled, trying to deconstruct her dialogue from one end of the boat.

‘I don’t care,’ Kumar inched closer to her face.

‘I have a hole in my heart,’ she added.

He put her right hand in his palm, held her thumb, took off his hat, and placed it on a whorl in his hair.

‘Do you feel something?’ he pried.

‘Na,’ she grew curious.

‘Rub it,’ he tamped her thumb on his head, putting pressure and rotating it like a driller machine.

She wrinkled her face to give him a sign that she felt nothing.

‘Then how do you expect me to feel the hole in your heart. I see heart, I don’t see hole.’

She laughed at his cunning; he had a child’s guileless charm, there was innocence in his appeal of a kind that can hardly be called romantic, but fetching to the maternal instinct in her. She found herself ready to adopt this grown up brat.

‘Behki, behki, chale hai pawan jo udde hai tera aanchal,’ Kishore teased.

‘Chhodo, chhodo, dekho-dekho, gore-gore, kaale-kaale baadal,’ she flirted, trying to dismiss his affection.

They docked at the waterfront. Kishore was outfoxed by her playfulness, ‘Kabhi kuch kehti hai, kabhi kuch kehti hai,’ he said as he stumbled out of the boat.

At their wedding, he held her shy face by her chin, holding her luminescent smile in his eyes, ‘Zara nazar toh samabhaalna,’ he winked.

Their civil union had upset a lot of people including Kishore’s parents and first wife Ruma. She did not want to divorce him so he could bring home a notun toy to play with.

Ruma had taunted Kumar during the bou bhaat ceremony at home, when Madhubala stated she could not cook a grain and laughed the loudest at her own admission, while others frowned as her indecent display of milky-white teeth and contagious honesty.

For a month, Kishore and Madhubala, both dour-faced, addressed each other as Pagle-Pagli in the Kumar household where Madhubala had a tough time adjusting to his family’s demands of her as a model housewife like Ruma.

Madhubala, who had always been a star since eleven, could not breathe in the stifling atmosphere of the strict Ganguly family. She decided to confront Kishore about it. He was not blind to it either, though he could not stay apart from his joint family set-up.

They agreed to separate, she moved out of his house, back to her Bandra bungalow which was not far from his. They would call each other on and off, sometimes going out on what Kishore called, ‘boy-girl dates.’ He would yodel on the phone to capture her giggle.

Madhubala enjoyed this the most; marriage was over, courtship continued.

‘Pagli…pagli…kabhi tuney socha raste mein gaye mil kyon?’ he would prod her over candle-lit dinner at a glittery five-star, away from the spectre of marriage and its accoutrements.

She would light up, tinkling her glass of claret with his, ‘Pagle…pagle…teri baaton baaton mein dhadakta hai dil kyon?’

They would burst out laughing at each other’s silliness; how they both loved playing it out, their dreary un-filmable lives were in these nimble moments, floating with gaiety and under-table footsie.

‘Hod-aay-e-ee…yud-aay-e-ee…ud-aay-eee,’ Kishore would bleat at his table, often setting the waiters in a scramble. Her toes would reach for his to stop. ‘Woohooo,’ he would empty his glass in one big swig.

The same year she went to London for medical treatment and was told by doctors that there was no cure for her gun-shot heart. She had at most a year to live. The news devastated her; she came back, stopped working and sought to distance herself from everyone.

When Kishore got wind of her poor health condition, he tried to intervene and move in with her, but she would have none of it.

‘Kaho ji, kaho ji, roz tere sang yun hi dil behlaayein kya?’ she quipped. She thought it could get worse, the more she saw him, the more her heart would bleed.

‘Suno ji, aha suno ji, samajh sako toh khud samjho, batayein kya!’ he would plead, bowing, pointing at the hole in his head. Her giggle sounded hurt. Blood crawled up on her lips in spittle. Kishore’s head pounded with agony.

After her death, Kishore Kumar’s fame as an eccentric artist became a lore. To give it further credence, as he began to stun visitors with erratic behaviour; biting a producer’s hand, locking a financier in a cupboard, talking to the trees in his bungalow’s front yard, he put matters to rest when he placed a signboard outside his door. No one disturbed him.

The hole in his head was spreading. The board read, ‘Beware of Kishore’.

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The Boys I Love VS The Boys I Hate

R Raj Rao’s two-tone poem and its rejoinder — say what you may.Marlon Brando (Image for illustration purpose only).

R Raj Rao’s poem: The Boys I Love

The boys I love

Are scarecrows without Salman Khan’s biceps

The boys I love

Do not have e-mail ids or internet passwords

The boys I love

Scrub their teeth with neem twigs, not Prudent tooth-brushes

The boys I love

Have hard-ons only when they’re hard-up

The boys I love

Apply no deodorant to mildewed armpits

The boys I love

Are dunces who don’t know their ABC

The boys I love

Turn dead rats on taking off their socks

The boys I love

Can’t talk Foucault before or after fucking

The boys I love

Never touch my tongue with theirs

The boys I love

Say AIDUS, as if it were anus

The boys I love are animals

But isn’t sex a thing between animals?

My poem in response: The Boys I Hate

The boys I hate

Are beef cakes with Salman Khan’s discarded muscle weight

The boys I hate

Have only naked torsos on Grindr or Tinder as well

The boys I hate

Scrub their teeth with MD sprinkled on their electric bristles

The boys I hate

Have hard-ons only when they have poppers

The boys I hate

Stink of first copy CK and Chanel

The boys I hate

Are smart to text TTYL

The boys I hate

Turn wet rats on taking off their jockstraps

The boys I hate

Will talk only about KJO before or after fucking

The boys I hate

Put their tongue in places that I can never reach myself

The boys I hate

Rhyme AIDS with mates

The boys I hate are stuffed animals

At the click of a button they are made attainable

Poem: A Penile Infarction

The long and short of it.

It is common

For a child

To see his mother’s vagina

In the bath

‘What is this?’

He will ask

Stretching his limp

Man snout

At first her honeypot to him

Will appear as a tuft

What’s nesting inside

Could be a beaver, he’ll wonder

He will then move on

To discover the fanny of

Little girls

Playing so very impudently

In the cradle of cutesy

‘Show me yours’

This will stumble him no less

A pencil drawn gash

On her buttery cooter

Through the peep-hole of desire

He will look for clues

If growing girls visit the powder room

To talcum-fresh their sweaty minge

Friends will tarry him to

The whore house in Park Mansions

He’ll pay time to rent

And examine the labia minora

Baby pink flesh he will see paling

When he digs his nose for investigation

‘I came from here?’

‘No chance I could fit in there eh!’

Vulva! Vulva! He will have conquered

In ancient Greece he’d receive a gold crown

Back here, it will do him good

If he can keep his head high

Whilst others are being blown asunder

Clit clit clit clit

He’ll click his heels

Not going back so soon

What is left to wonder

All mons veneris

Lead to poon paradise

But all mons veneris

Is no sui generis

Sage new man

Who will then vow

Never to rest his sword

In one scabbard for long

Rust, he fears

Might lust for his honour

Chew its way through you say?

His mind braced in dentata

Talking women are cunts he fathoms

What difference where

The voice booms from

He gathers

The comely waitress at the diner

Speaks little, pours coffee

Serves hot muffins

In the hope of

Cooch — e — coo later

Sweet, he slumbers

In self pity for longer

Why did the serpent

Choose Eve as bait

Did the serpent shrink

Before Adam’s puny member

It is no wonder

The pum-pum has to suffer

Beej ka Bojh: The Farmer’s March in a nutshell

“Paentees hazaar,” dukandar ne kaha.

“Paentees hazaar!” kisaan ne chaunq kar poocha, “ek beej ki bori itni mehngi, kaun kharidega?”

“Jo udhaar chukta kare woh kharidega,” dukandar ne phatt se jawaab diya.

“Hum paentees hazaar kisaan agar yahaan se paidal, nangey paon, sau meel chal kar sheher pahunch jaayein toh poora ka poora rasta khul jayega na bhai.”

“Tumhare kehne se,” dukandar bola, “khul jayega toh kya beej apne aap hi anda dega?”

“Nahi,” kisaan bola “soch ko naya modh dena zaroori hai.”

“Jao, jao, dhandhe ka time kharab mat karo. Yeh tumhara joh gyaan ka anda hai na, apne ghar mein khilao sab ko.”

Kisaan palat kar khet ke agle paar, highway ki sadak par jaa khada. Usne ishaare se khet mein hal chalate anya kisaanon ko bulaya.

Ek ek kar ke juloos nikal pada.

Dukaandar ne kisaanon ki sangati dekh kar bori se mutthi bhar beej nikala.

Usne kabootaron ko chaara daal kar pucchkara aur bola, “Khabar pahuncha do sheher mein, akaal aane wala hai gaon mein.”

“पैंतीस हज़ार,” दुकानदार ने कहा.

“पैंतीस हज़ार !” किसान ने चौंक कर पुछा, “एक बीज की बोरी इतनी महंगी, कौन खरीदेगा?”

“जो उधार चुकता करे वह खरीदेगा,” दुकानदार ने फट से जवाब दिया.

“हम पैंतीस हज़ार किसान अगर यहां से पैदल, नंगे पाऊँ, सौ मील चल कर शहर पहुँच जाएँ तोह पूरा का पूरा रास्ता खुल जायेगा न भाई.”

“तुम्हारे कहने से,” दुकानदार बोला, “खुल जायेगा तोह क्या बीज अपने आप ही अंडा देगा?”

“नहीं,” किसान बोला, “सोच को नया मोड़ देना ज़रूरी है.”

“जाओ, जाओ, धन्धे का टाइम ख़राब मत करो. यह तुम्हारा जोह ग्यान का अंडा है ना, अपने घर में खिलाओ सबको.”

किसान पलट कर खेत के अगले पार, हाईवे की सड़क पर जा खड़ा. उसने इशारे से खेत में हल चलाते अन्य किसानों को बुलाया.

एक एक कर के जुलूस निकल पड़ा.

दुकानदार ने किसानों की संगती देख कर बोरी से मुट्ठी भर बीज निकाला.

उसने कबूतरों को चारा दाल कर पुछ्कारा और बोला, “खबर पहुंचा दो शहर में, अकाल आने वाला है गाँव में.”

Naked came a stranger

Image from the cover of the book Naked Came the Stranger.

A man got out of bed and stood in front of me. The single yellow bulb hanging from the ceiling was miraculously switched on by a person who sat behind me, adjusting her petticoat. I could tell it was a woman from the silvery sounds of her bangles and anklets — the music was home to my ears.

Turning around would have made me catch the woman in the act. I was too groggy to be surprised. Indian living spaces are so tiny that they often have to accommodate unwelcome guests in bed. Where was my cot? I did not have one, or we could not afford one, but the easiest explanation for that will be that mothers like mine did not believe in sleeping away from her only child.

But who was this stranger before me, tall, bushy, naked. He smiled and said, “Kya dekh raha hai?” (What are you looking at?). He stooped to pick his trousers from the floor and hunched to wear it. A thick gold chain around his neck glinted in the dim light, his smile grew into a creepy grin as he fumbled with his pants.

Did I stare at his genitals when he questioned me? What was I looking at?

Here was a naked man who was having sex with my mother a while ago. I was lying next to them, turned away from the sight, but not the sounds. My ears soaked in metal sounds jangling with huffs and moans to build a rhythm. The sounds of coruscating flesh flung meteoric sparks across my closed eyelids. The two bodies slammed, trying to enter each other as if a door was shutting in their faces each time they tried to pass. And so they continued indefatigably, sweating and smelling of liquor and fading jasmines.

Image for illustrative purpose only. Credit: On the unmade bed, ©Laurent Monserrat, Paris, 2017.

What I heard was painting pictures, there was a voyeuristic thrill in connecting the senses to a visual performance. Aren’t the actors in such acts drowning in ecstasy with their eyes shut? Pupils adapt in the dark as they feel the sensations clouding their whites. The heightened senses of sound, touch, smell and taste is what makes us inveterate nocturnal mammals, willing to substitute sight, in return for their favours.

Who climaxed first? A silence arose from their clammy loins. Heat escaped into vapour in the room. A stench reached my nose. It had the salty scent of something either sacred, or sinful, I could not tell the difference because it was done so sneakily. Thick clouds of frankincense from a ritual hung in the air. Their heavy breaths were taking cognisance of what had transpired in the room. There was no snapping sound of a condom coming off. No one had heard of AIDS.

The man walked out of the door. The light was switched off. I went back to sleep without a word exchanged between mother and me. There was no need to. I was certainly not going to remember the incident the next morning, or the one after that, if it happened so often that one recollection was enough to cancel all the other instances when my bedtime was interrupted by a post-coital kerfuffle.

I believe that is the first time I encountered a naked stranger in my bed. He had a boozy loftiness that comes from knowing too little in the exultant moment, but he did not register to me as a man out of his skin. He smelt like home.

My mother was his mistress. He came for sex. She gave him love. She gave him me, a drowsy child to a father who occasionally shared the only bed we had in the tenement, and who never kissed us goodnight before he walked out of the door.

When Russian writer Anton Chekhov changed the effect of the word Randi in a kotha in Kolkata

Image for illustrative purpose only. Credit: (Reuters/Rupak De Chowdhuri)

Loiters shouting randi ka beta was like a hallelujah exclaiming the arrival of a messiah. Or in the lanes of Bandook Gully in Bowbazar, where the courtesans of Kolkata thrived, and where the prophet had not reached, the words boomeranged in the air as if someone had announced the title of a new grindhouse hit: Shaitaan Ka Beta, Jungle Ka Beta, Alladin Ka Beta, Randi Ka Beta.

I was never pleased about the radio broadcast every time I stepped out of the kotha, but who went to see such tacky films anyways, I thought. I was 15 years old, and I was watching Wild At Heart, The Piano, and My Own Private Idaho on television (and obsessing over their unusual storylines). The hubbub of insults would die out soon, when the boys grew up, or if I had the temerity to approach them and cup their tiny balls. In which case, I would not be alive to write this and even curse them in my head randi ka beta.

Verbal abuse made me unflappable, the more they laughed, the more resilient I became. Unless you charge at me with a shimmering scimitar, and even then I will look unfazed (partly because I will have frozen in fear), waiting for you to plunge the bloodthirsty blade into my kidney, I have grown accustomed to not buckling under any kind of pressure. Or ducking, when the sword comes down. It is not bravery, just a kind of surrender that is equal parts cowardice and fait accompli triggered by randi ka beta.

The kotha was a dilapidating fort that protected me from the prying eyes of men. The same prying eyes that bore through the women’s artifice of sequinned blouses and scented gajras, could not find a trace of me when they entered the courtyard. The women made sure the children were hidden behind a purdah after sunset because they would be addressed as randi ka beta.

Porous musical notes floated into the streets in the evening, stirring the hearts and loins of men. Roadside ruffians who mocked me in the day time wished that I would lead them to the mujra dens as their sycophant pimp. They used to beckon me with sharp whistles and hoots when their wallets and crotches were tumescent with desire. An effeminate pimp’s waggish mannerisms would have suited me but it was a job I never applied for, despite my unimpeachable qualifications in their eyes as a randi ka beta.

Women, young girls, and infants were my only friends and family. Boys were missing from the house party. I was not the only adolescent boy in the kotha. There were a few others, Bunty, Sonu, Monu, Pappu, who preferred to hang out with the street rowdies more than with the womenfolk at home. The boys were not training to be pimps but to become men of honour. They were trying to groom their own macho identities away from the illicit world of their fussy mothers and sisters. Their worthless lives had no place in the contentious society outside the walls of the crumbling kotha, where there were welcomed as randi ka beta.

The boys were fighting the young men who called them randi ka beta. These kids were getting bashed, punching back, bleeding from wounds, and courting the lacklustre law and order situation in the area. Policemen would referee fights, arrest scoundrels, and demand bribe. The boys visited prostitutes, consumed drugs and came home to quarrel with their mothers. They detested their environment but did not know how to break free from the indignity of randi ka beta.

Anton Chekov.

I was a wimp in the streets, keeping my head down and walking as far away from the crowds. I did not detest the safety the kotha offered. There were no men inside to bully and tease me. I read discarded books and magazines (borrowed from a raddi shop), and newspapers (own pocket money) like a moth reads light. It helped me deal with the chaos outside. I did not offer to have my nose broken to score a point over the humiliation I felt from a few choice words randi ka beta.

I once read a short story called The Bet, by Anton Chekhov. It was about a lawyer who accepts a bet of house arrest for 15 years. A bag full of money awaits him at the end of the term. He stays locked indoors, reads books and upon his release forfeits the cash prize for the wisdom he has gained instead. His triumph would perhaps be sullied too, haters jealously guarding their own ignorance by exalting him as a bloody fantastic son of a bitch or a randi ka beta.

The story had a powerful impact on me. My cash prize was embedded in the text. I wrote about what I saw, and heard and read every day from inside my fortress, the kotha. I kept a diary between the ages of 15 and 20. I cannot be certain of what I felt, because I had not yet grasped how to fully express my feelings, when in one of the earliest entries I noted tersely, “I am always made to feel like a haraami, a person of wedlock, a bastard. I don’t spare anyone when I write, even myself.” To hell with randi ka beta.

Writing breaks those shackles. It is where honesty stings and where truth has to loiter and listen. I am at once all of them: Shaitaan Ka Beta, Jungle Ka Beta, Alladin Ka Beta, except Randi Ka Beta.

Echoes from the Brothel: The Naqalchi Qawwala Poem

Still from the film Chaudhvin Ka Chand (1960)

नकलची कव्वाला

Aapne unka kotha nahi dekha

Haye…kya tasveerein tangi thi

Yun…jhuk jhuk kar Malka Nigar ne

Apne chhati ki autograph di thi

Shola baraste nain, nukili naak

Gore-gore gaal aur aghori ahankaar

Kai photo mein toh galaa phaad kar

Inteqam le rahi thi

Aur jab galaa bhar jaata

Bagal mein rakhe peek-daan mein

Mar-marre sur ugal deti, bhasm kar deti thi

Maa kehti thi bahut mashoor qawwala reh chuki hai

Kaahe ki qawwala

Humne toh ek bhi na suni

Unke fann se zyada tann ki demand thi

Taala laga kar chali gayi ek din

Apne bade bete ke ghar

Uske gale mein tang gayi

Musibat ki tasveer ban kar

Kabhi kabaar maa se milne aati thi

Royal Challenge whiskey pee kar

Chaudhvin Ka Chand ke qisse sunaya karti thi

Chhota sa role mila tha film mein

Waheeda Rehman se badi jalti thi

Daayein — baayein, upar-neeche

Apne honth tedhe-medhe kar ke

‘Ama chhodo bhi, chaudhvin ki raand’ hans kar

Qawwala ka toh pata nahi

Heroine ki naqal hubahu kiya karti thi

*

Echoes from the Brothel: 3 poems about how I grew up in a kotha

Still from the documentary film The Courtesans of Bombay.

Revisited some poems written almost a decade ago, and because they are always bearable when reworked.

True story, I grew up in-between boarding schools in Kurseong-Darjeeling and now erased from memory and history-the kothas of Bowbazaar, Calcutta, and Congress House, Bombay, where my mother worked as a courtesan or who you call a tawaif, or a baiji.

Ask me more if you are curious. It is not something I am ashamed of, neither should you hesitate.

It is a survival story about my mother, a BPL low-caste Kanjarbhat gypsy, who was a child bride in Poona, an indentured labourer in Agra, and who was later sold in a brothel in Calcutta when she reached puberty.

My story comes much later, and don’t worry, I have my mother’s permission to write about us.

I grew up in kothas run by beleaguered but beautiful women, where like wolves in the forest, I was raised fiercely to be free and independent, with absolutely no understanding of men, or patriarchy, because women lit the home fires and brought in the dough every night.

There was singing and dancing and colours and costumes and sex and violence, but not as pretty as films. It was like a Bhansali film set but with the budget of a DD National programme.

Men were welcome only as guests, because they had wives and families to return to where they could wield control. Some came with guns, some with swords, and some with roses, but most of all, everyone came with moderately fat wallets.

And that, dear friends, is why I will charge for the rest of the story. So please think big — book, musical play, film, web series, but not television. Have a heart. Show me the money, not the likes, not the comments, not the expressive emojis, loosen your deep pockets.

The one kind of privilege I had even before I learnt to read and write was a house-shaped birthday cake, a metaphor for a nest that never existed to shelter us, but it was tasty as hell. We blew out the candles as quickly as we could, so as not to allow its waxen taste to sour our sweetening souls.

Blowing together — Mother and I, in Kamathipura, Bombay, Circa 1980s

Read with patience, if not love. And act upon it.

Let’s for once do something about this possibility. Please share this post (with a small intro for your friends) because it is not a blood donation forward that does not match your blood group, and it also does not cost a single paisa to help through social media. (who knows what good might come off this, and you can demand some credit, right?)

Find me on Insta, Twitter, and FB under my name, and make yourself useful by sharing, agar aap ka dil ijazat de.

Merci Beaucoup.

I: The Praying HorseMere ghar mein koi namaaz padhta tha
Mere ghar mein ek bewaa rehti thiDaant kum thay mooh mein
Par shakkar se gehri dosti thiKehti thi mujhe
"Beta woh wala gaana ga do na zara
Banno teri ankhiyaan surmai-daani"Maa ki odhni churaya karti thi
Apni beti ke liye
Door gaon mein rehti thi jo
Bin byahee Banno Safai karti thi mere ghar woh buddhiya
Haath ki aur kabhi kabhi jhhadu liyePaanch-o-waqt ka namaz padhti thi
Usse dekh kar main sochta tha
"Hamare liye bhi kuch padhti hogi"Jaane kahan hai woh boodhi bua aaj
Namaaz ki aadh mein baithe
Ghodey ki tarah soya karti thi
II: HashmatKhuda ko bhi na jaane
Kya manzoor tha
Ke maa ne ek shaadi-shuda aadmi ko
Apna dil phhokat mein de diyaPathaani khoon tha unme
Naam tha HashmatBachpan mein main jab
Apne papa ka naam poochta tha
Tab Hashmat sun kar
Hairaan ho jaata tha
"Yeh kaisa naam hai…Has mat"
Hans uthta thaSardiyon ki chutthi mein
Jab Darjeeling ke ek boarding school se
Wapas Kalkatta aata tha
Tab maa ko behad tang karta tha
"Mujhe mere papa se milao"Kisi naukar ke saath
Maa mujhe unke karkhaaney
Bhej diya karti thiKarkhaana steel ka tha
Par uss se kahin zyada saqt
Dil unka thaMaa kothe ke naukar se kehti
"Isse dikha aa iske baap ki manhoos shakal
Laut tey waqt Royal hotal se biryani ke liye paise maang lena""Aur mere liye phirni"
Main apni maange poori kar leta thaSaal mein papa se ek baar milta tha
Aur unka diya hua ek rupaih ka sikka
Mutthi mein kas kar inaam samajh leta thaMaa se shaadi nahi ki unhone
Jab ki unke mazhab mein jagah hai maa ke liye
Teen hi baar toh kehna padhta hai sirf
Qubool Hai Qubool Hai Qubool HaiPehli shaadi se teen bete thay unke ghar mein
Main ek kum hoon unke janaaze ke liyeMeri chhati par unhone
Bade soch samajh kar
Maa se kaha tha
Ke mujhe Aurangzeb ka naam diya jaayeKhamakha apne aap ko
Shah Jahan samajh baithe thayChhati: Ceremonial sixth day of the newborn
III: Bandook GullyChu ki
Bandook Gully mere ghar ka address tha
Boarding school mein dost saare
Khil-khila utthte thay
'ठायीं -ठायीं'“Kaun se naale se nikla hai bey tu”
Kehte thay sab 'ठायीं -ठायीं'“Bandook ki baddua lagegi inn sab ko”
Mere dimaag se goliyaan chalti thi
'ठायीं -ठायीं''ठायीं -ठायीं' bahut hoti thi
Bandook Gully meinDin raat ki 'ठायीं -ठायीं'
Doosri type ki 'ठायीं -ठायीं'Jab maa ko chitthi likhte waqt
Ghar ka pata likhna padhta tha
Tab main sharminda hokar
Bandook Gully ko Bandhu Gully likhta thaMere liye zyada kuch mushkil nahi tha
Bandook ko Bandhu bana lenaAur waise bhi Bandook Gully ke log
Din bhar gaali-galoch toh karte hi thay
Par Bandhu banne ki koshish bhi bulund thi
Jab 'ठायीं -ठायीं' ka time hota thaToh ab aap hi kahiye mezbaan kya harz hai
Bandook ki salaak mein gaali-goli ki jagah
Ek do thho Bandhu ko hi ghusedh do, hai naBade hote hote, akal bhi badhi thodi
Bandhu Gully ko 'translate' karke
Friends Lane likhne laga
Akal se kahin chauda tha chauraha
Jahan maine yeh Angrezi modh liyaMaa kabhi-kabaar mujhe phone kar ke
Saaf lavzon mein kaha karti thi
"Tu toh va kai bada ho gaya hai re
Chitthi bhi nahi likhta aaj kal
Angrez ka choda ho gaya hai kya"Daakiya pareshaan
Kalkatta ki gulliyon mein
Friends Lane dhoondta phire
Bandook hi thhama de koi bechare ko
Haye haye se pehle
Usko bhi 'ठायीं -ठायीं ka sukoon mile