Saket Suryesh's Blog, page 16

Ghalib - On Ephemeral Nature of Life

Ghalib

आह को चाहिए एक उम्र असर होने तक
कौन जीता है तेरी ज़ुल्फ़ के सर होने तक

दाम-ए-हर मौज में है हल्का-ए-सद काम-ए-निहंग
देखें क्या गुज़रे है क़तरे पे गुहर होने तक 

(दाम ए हर मौज- Maze of waves;  हल्का-ए-सद काम-ए-निहंग- Gaping mouths of Crocodiles; क़तरे- Droplet; गुहर- Pearl)

आशिक़ी सब्र तलब और तमन्ना बेताब
दिल का क्या रंग करून, खून ए जिगर होने तक

हमने माना के तग़ाफ़ुल न करोगे लेकिन
खाक़ हो जाएंगे हम तुमको ख़बर होने तक (तग़ाफ़ुल: ignore)

परतव-ए-खुर से है शबनम को फ़ना की तालीम
मैं भी हूँ एक इनायत की नज़र होने तक
(परतव-ए-खुर- The light of the Sun, तालीम- education. इनायत- Kindness, benefactor's glance)

यक नज़र बेश नहीं फुर्सत ए हस्ती ग़ाफ़िल
गर्मिये बज़्म है एक रक़्स-ए-शरर होने तक
(यक नज़र बेश - Not more than a moment, फुर्सत ए हस्ती- Spare time in life ग़ाफ़िल- ignorant, careless, गर्मिये बज़्म- Charm in life रक़्स-ए-शरर- A dancing spark)

ग़म ए हस्ती का 'असद' किस से हो जुज़ मर्ग इलाज़
शमा हर रंग में जलती है सहर होने तक.
(जुज़- Except for मर्ग- Death)

My translation:
A wail of desire, will need a lifetime to become something worthwhile,Who will survive the spells of indifference till your love eventually smiles?
A sea of gaping alligators await, expectantly among the maze of sea wavesWe will see what fate the droplet seeking to transform into a pearl, braves.
My love wants me to be patient, my passion is impatient, refuses waitingDon't know which way my heart to be, till eventually it stops beating.
I do know you can't ignore the news of my demise,alas, it will be too late by then and in ashes, I would rise.
In the scorching light of the sun, is dying lesson for the dew-dropsMy spirit, similarly lives only till your wandering eyes on me as a blessing stops 
Not more than a careless moment is there in the interval of the lifetime,It takes not more than a dancing spark to put an end to the life sublime. 
The tragedy of life has no solution till death comes our wayLike a candle of the night, we burn, until the arrival of the day. 
Interpretations:
Ghalib is master of Ghazals, but what makes him a master-thinker is the fact that his writings rise above the standard definitions of a Ghazal (Verses of communication between lovers). He delves into the intricacies of the spiritual queries, and no one can dispute him when he writes about himself that had he not been taken to drinking, he would have been considered a philosopher and a sage. 
Couplet #1

Every sigh of despair, every wail of desire, needs whole lifetime to come real. In fact, turning it on its head, every desire, every wish, every emotion, goes along with us through our life. It is something of Richard Bach's contention couple of century later when he contends,  "This is a test to see if your mission in life is complete. If you are still alive, it isn't." in his book The Adventures of A Reluctant Messiah". Ghalib says the same thing here. You cannot rest and do nothing at any point. Every ambition of yours, every relationship needs constant work, which will go with you for all your life. To presume that you will some point in your relation, reach the end of it, is misplaced. You won't be alive till the time the love's hard work is finished. 
Couplet #2
This is one less known couplet of Ghalib, which draws from the belief that the pearls are formed out of dewdrop falling into the oyster on the moonlit night. This is a masterpiece of imagery. He says that the dewdrops fall onto the ocean and the maze of the waves on the sea is filled with gaping, hungry mouths of alligators. Who knows what the droplet will have to go through before it becomes a pearl? Love needs complete submission, try not to guide the ways of love, for you cannot. Surrender to the love, be love. One is as helpless as a falling droplet, and beneath you would be gaping crocodiles but that is the way of transformation from a droplet to a pearl. Another interpretation is that all the glory and success will be the outcome of total surrender to a dream, an idea, an ambition. We only look at the outcome, shining, bright in its glory, little do we know the moments of excruciating self-doubt and danger of perishing without a trace a droplet goes through before it becomes a pearl.
Couplet #4
This one is more popular of all the couplets here. It refers to the dilemma every lover is faced with. Here the object of love could be another person, an idea, a dream or a hope. Love, is subtle, patient and unhurried, but passion at the same time, is impatient, and wants to achieve, conquer and own. Both are so intermingled that it is an eternal dilemma as to which one to follow. All the while one knows that in the end only certainty it the heart that is left bleeding. Ghalib points to the futility of defeated wisdom which we at times use as crutches to bear the pain and sadness of life, to be patient, the set the one you love free kind of thought. On the other side of the spectrum is the virulent, audacious idea of conquering the love. Both, says Ghalib will end in the inevitable, loss of self and bleeding of heart. Saddening, but true. Every love will mean losing a little bit of your self. Not a bad bargain, but a sad truth, nevertheless. 
Couplet #5
This is another more popular couplet. Here the poet speaks of his beloved (it may  be taken as God), that I do know you cannot ignore the news of my death (no matter how you pretend indifference). But I will be already turned into charred ashes by the time you get to hear about me. The moment of love is now. You will lament my demise, but by then I'd be gone. It will be too late by then. Do not postpone love, thus Ghalib admonishes the beloved.
Couplet #6
"The world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players.They have their exits and entrances." said Shakespeare.  This is one of the more philosophical couplet. The world is transitory. We are merely passing through it. And Ghalib says, every morning, this is the eternal lesson which the rays of Sun, impart to the dew-drop. But then as Ghalib often tends to be, he brings in another message in, which turns the mystical couplet into a multi-dimensional one. In the second line he says, I exist only till the time I am blessed with one benevolent glance. In the traditional sense of a love verse, one can say that the poet, in love, awaits the look of his beloved, which is the purpose of his life and his life ends with one look of love. But if you considered the layered truth in Ghalib's verses and his life, you will find he could have meant, that just as the beauty of dewdrop ends with one benevolent view of the Sun, an artist's vigor and liveliness of art withers and dies, once the power that may be loot at him with benevolence. An artist thrives on opposition, and lack of love. Artists lament not being understood and this sad indifference of the masses, but out of this pain and solitude the best of art emerges. The first glance of benevolence from the authority, the touch of luxury marks the end of creative life. That is the lesson. 
Couplet #7
One moment of careless ignorance in life is not possible, we say. And we keep on waiting for such a moment to arrive, until life is there no more. Life, which on the other hand doesn't play a fair hand, doesn't give us enough time, slips away slowly, while we keep on waiting for that one moment. And then suddenly, a swift dance of a speck of light, life is gone. 
Couplet #8
This search for a life without struggle and strife and pain is so futile. It is absolutely impossible. We go back to the Richard Bach's point. The life is constant learning, constant struggle, constant movement. It never ends. It is not meant to end before death. How can one find, says Asad (Ghalib), how can find a cure to the pain of life but in death. Even a candle lit at night, burns through the night, whatever might come its way. He doesn't hide away from the grief, the sadness, the pain which is a part of a sensitive life. He almost like Nietzsche' s Zarathustra says, "Was that life? Well then, Once more." 

PS: These are my translations and interpretations. Will be happy to make amends if pointed out. The object is to share the wisdom of great poet, beyond the cursory. A brief Sketch of Ghalib by clicking here.  

My Take on HRW Report

Human Rights Watch has published a scathing report titled "India: Stop Treating Critics As Criminals" (Click to read) on the the ways, it posits India handles dissent. When I objected to it on Twitter, Ms. Meenakshi Ganguly from HRW told me that this refers to the colonial laws and not to the current political dispensation and also is not particular about India but such reports are prepared for other countries (particularly colonial countries as she would say). I asked her that by the definition of colonial it would also include US and Pakistan and asked her links to report on these two countries, which is awaited. 
For some reason, there has been a tendency to broad-brush India as such of late. I saw particularly scathing, and largely unsubstantiated articles in newspapers like Guardian when Indian PM Narendra Modi was to travel to the UK. They would innocently appear when Modi was to interact with the west in International papers, and when there was an election in Indian media. Modi was asked in London about 2002 riots, which sad though it was, looking at deaths on either side of the divide unlike 1984, wasn't blatantly state supported. Still, what made the question to the visiting head of nation conspiratorial was the fact that a fortnight prior to Modi's visit, Chinese premier had visited UK and no one asked any question on human rights to him. It is just coincidental that Modi is to travel to US and address the US Congress soon (7th of June, if I am not wrong). 
I try to look at the article purely on merit, which I intend to do as a common Indian. Journalists who have a hegemony over the space of mass communication, have conceded now that news is subjective and are generally garrulous with their customer, the reader or news watchers, when objective reports are sought, and subjective interpretation is asked to be justified. 
The article begins with a generalized statement "The Indian authorities routinely use vaguely worded, overly broad laws as political tool to silence and harass critics." The Article quotes, don't smile with disdain, its own report. This is one interesting trend I observe in articles being put out in public domain. Quoting yourself as a proof of authenticity of your position. I have read one Sunday editorial by eminent historian, Ramchandra Guha, where he substantiated his position by quoting a paragraph from a book. Written by Ramchandra Guha. I don't know how many have read Nietzsche, but one gets a feeling he somehow saw intellectuals of today when he wrote,  When they give themselves out as wise, then do their petty sayings and truths chill me: in their wisdom there is often an odour as if it came from the swamp; and verily, I have even heard the frog croak in it!
Coming back to this article, the premise if built at the beginning of the article. It does not deduce, it posits in the beginning and builds up to it. Ms. Meenakshi Ganguly writes then "India's abusive laws are the hallmark of repressive society, not a vibrant democracy." Thus she makes another assertion. India is not a vibrant democracy. It is somehow of small minds, with lesser intellect who contends that India is a vibrant democracy. I wonder, if she has seen a group of intellectuals and opposition parties shouting at the top of their lungs calling names to democratically elected head of state names and attributing shameful motives to appointment of ministers on national television in Indian channels. The laws we have truly are overly broad, unlike the concise, scathing provisions of Patriot Act of the US. US Patriot act happily covers terror attacks on mass transport (like Mumbai Local). It is hard to imagine an overgrown child of a film actor, settled for holding weapons to bring mass destruction in Mumbai, walking out and even being invited to an even of intellectual deliberation in US as he was in India. Probably such laws allow the US, the land of the free, where John Dayals of the country to complaining there own country, to details people endlessly and has resulted in highest number of the prisoners in the world. But then Patriot Act is Anti-terrorism act, equivalence to which was in POTA, which was repealed in India.
Let us look at Sedition act and treason for now. A quick search on Google tells us, as per historical data, the highest number of people charged under treason was from the US, around eleven with India having one person convicted for treason Ayyub Thakur. The article strangely also cites the case of Supreme Court upholding the charges of defamation law as a hindrance to Freedom of Expression. I beg to differ there. I would rather say this is actually supportive of the person wrongly charged of being anti-national. Although wrongly will be the key here. The article quotes the case of Kanhaiya Kumar, mentioning that the government acted on complaints of rival student faction. I do not know if such factual error could be on account of subjective or objective reporting of news. It ignores the fact that action against Kanhaiya was initiated on formal police compliant by a Member of Parliament. 
The article subsequently laments that the Home minister of the country warned that those who challenged India's sovereignty and integrity will not be tolerated.  I am not sure if the human rights body wanted the Home minister of a nation to make statement to the contrary, something like those who challenge the sovereignty and integrity of the nation shall be rewarded. The purpose of the state is to create a collective concept which should be able to defend the weakest who cannot defend themselves. A state which cannot defend itself cannot do its job. Citizens need the state to assure them that the state which collect taxes and obeisance from them is capable of providing not only food and basic necessity of life, but also security and a stable framework. A state which cannot guard its own sovereignty and is too willing to define and re-define its existence to satisfy a handful of people is not very assuring and is a ready ground for civil strife. In the situation of Civil Strife, I do not know which side Human Rights watch would stand. 
She writes that the Supreme court overturned the decision to hold those charged with treason in prison and interim bail was granted. The way the matter was handled and interim decision was given actually stands testimony to a free state, not a repressive one. She misses to see that Judiciary which bailed out Kanhaiya and comrades was a wing of state, not a body external to democracy of India. The fact that not only Judiciary, rather a whole spectrum of people from media and thinking elite came forward to defend Kanhaiya and Leftist comrades, who called for breaking the nation with the power of gun (okay, two of the videos were doctored, four weren't as per government forensic lab), without any clampdown of the state evidences that the gloomy picture painted in the beginning of the article is incorrect. Scores of pages were written, unsparing editorials flooded the newspapers. The truth is that the outrage on leftist, arsonist students getting beaten up without any serious injury was more than the horrifying murder of poor young man in Kerala. The government of the day is unabashedly right, but still could not move the media to move the opinion for the killed boy in kerala also proves that the demonic stature that the article tends to put the Indian government into and Indian people into, is grossly incorrect, if not devious. 
I respect her right to see India the way she looks at it. What is disturbing is the article in which she quotes her own study, will be quoted by vested interests. Those are the political parties who will gleefully accept this broad-brushing of India, their own nation as a hostile nation, without detailing and substantiation, because they look the nation equated with the government in power and take glee in the national pride going down. The article ends with simplistic solutions.
- Repeal or amend laws that criminalize peaceful expressions. - There are no such laws. Most laws come into force when public security and peace is impacted. Calling people to war against nation is not peaceful expression, calling for vulcanization of India is not peaceful expression. To my mind, no law exists in India preventing freedom of expression. If your view is not to respect the law of the land, you can't be left free to express it. It is juvenile approach. You can't indulge in shoplifting since you hate capitalist who runs the showroom and call it your freedom of expression.
- Withdraw investigation against those facing persecution for right to freedom of expression. -  Since there is no such law, I suppose there is no such legal action. Unless we are talking about a man who is rotting in the jail in UP for expressing his view, something similar to what media anchor called 'alternative reading'. I am sure HRW is not talking about that man, also not about the people in prison on Malegaon attack without chargesheets.
- Train the police- Police reform is very important and on this one point I totally agree. This will take away a big grudge from elite people who have spent their youth well protected in rich environments of metro cities, exploiting the state and use this leverage to use the young people are cannon fodder.
Here is my banal response to a banal article. 

A Brief Sketch of Ghalib- Greatest Urdu Poet of All Times

I am not a history scholar, not even an Urdu scholar. I have been running this blog writing on all things which come to my mind. Couple of months back, it occurred to me that while in a world of Whatsapp and Twitter, Urdu poetry has suddenly become popular, it still suffers with little attention. The tragedy of any language is to link it to a religious faith and elevate it to such a level, where it becomes obsolete. Every language is like a lovely butterfly, which needs to play, dance, float and fly in an open garden. Once it gets appropriated by elite, it loses its gait, its charm and eventually its life. This happened to Sanskrit, to Persian and now Urdu faces the same challenge. 
With this in my mind, I created a fresh page on my blog, dedicated to the work of greatest poet of Urdu, Ghalib (Ghalib himself disagreed when he wrote, referring to another stalwart of his times, Meer, 
रेख़ते के तुम्हीं नहीं हो उस्ताद ग़ालिब कहते हैं अगले ज़माने में कोई मीर भी था। 
You are not the only master of poetry Ghalib,Some say there was much better Meer, in lost days.)
and try my humble attempts at translating and interpreting it. One can say, it is too audacious to be taken seriously; but then, that is the pleasure of leisure writing. I couldn't care much. Two posts went in. Strange reverts came, especially from overseas friends who although now share different origin, came from the same larger Hindustaniyat. A lovely young friend, quite creative in art and literature, quite active in cultural roots of Bangladesh, where she hails from asked me who was the poet for those lines. I replied 'Ghalib' and expected nothing beyond would be needed, and was surprised at the next question, "Is he a famous poet?" 
While the root of this question could be in the national boundaries re-drawn between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh when British left India, I wanted to do my bit. We can not afford our heritage like Ghalib to fade away in the oblivion. Noted historian Rana Safvi (Her Blog: On Indian History and Culture)advised me to read Biography of Ghalib , by Pavan K. Verma. I dutifully did and I am forever indebted to her for directing me there. 
I read Ghalib first as engineering student, like all young people used to in those days of early 90s. I read many others, mostly writing in diary the couplets which stuck in my mind. While Sahir also stayed with me for long time, but Sahir and other poets were like the loving worshiper of Urdu, Ghalib was like one of the Gods of Urdu poetry. The sense of being ancient, the mysticism of poetry and the man himself and his life, gave him this stature to my young mind. 
Ghalib, Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan was born in 27th of December, 1797 in Agra. Most genius minds are plagued with there own insecurities and uncertainties of their own talent. Ghalib was very unlike them. He was at all times, very much aware of his own station in life. Although most of his life, he spent chasing the government, earlier, Mughals and later, the British for what he believed was his due, mostly on account his martial and aristocratic background, he was very much conscious of his literary and philosophical position.He presumed his position to hold in British view as respectable a position as it was to Mughal. However, Mughal sultanate was on a decline and the Emperor himself was a pensioner. In 1805, Akbar Shah II was committed a pension of INR 1500000 later, the company rescinded and reduced it to 1200000. The protests made by the Emperor to the court of director, did not yield any result.Same fate came to Ghalib's request for justice on distribution of his father's pension. A timid soul, unsure of his talent could not have written couplet like:
हैं और भी दुनिया में सुख़नवर बहुत अच्छे  कहते हैं कि ग़ालिब का है अंदाज़-ए-बयाँ और|
(There are and will be great poets and writers,They say the way Ghalib converses is different from anyone else)
His father a soldier, came to India in search of employment during the time of Mughal King Shah Aalam II, which was also the time when British obtained the decree for collection of taxes, still ostensibly under the Empire of Mughals. He worked with Alwar King, Nawab of Lucknow and eventually in Agra. Ghalib, however, was orphaned at a young age of five. He started writing by the age of Eight (Eight, my kid is eight and cannot speak with clearer diction). His biographer Hali writes that someone called Kanhaiyyalal had preserved a Masnavi (collection of 6 books) he wrote at the age of Nine. He initially wrote in Persian considering Urdu to be beneath him. He was a prolific writer. Hali writes that Ghalib often composed while drinking in the evening. Sitting alone, his fingers playing with a long sash, he would tie a knot, whenever he finished a verse. In the morning, he would untie the knots, recall the verses and write them down. 
He married at the age of 13 to Umrao Begam, a fanatically religious and pious woman, for a long life of companionship. Ghalib's sharp intellect stood at odds with religious dogmas and caused very interesting interaction between the husband and wife. Ghalib writes in a letter to friend Mirza Tufta, while expressing his inability to write introduction to a friend's collection of poem- "God has exempted me from Namaz and Roza (Fasting during Ramzaan), can't you exempt me of writing a Preface." He further says, I do observe Roza, but I keep Roza in good humour, a sip of water here, a smoke, a bite of bread (रोज़ा रखता हूँ लेकिन रोज़ा बहलाए रहता हूँ ). There is an interesting episode with Emperor Zafar, a pious, practicing Muslim. When asked by His Majesty if Ghalib was observing Roza, he responds, Not one Roza observed (which could be read as one not observer, or not one observed out of all the days). He further adds 
जिस पास रोज़ा खोल के खाने को कुछ न हो रोज़ा अगर न खाये तो नाचार क्या करे। 
(The poor who has nothing to eat for breaking the fast,what would he do rather eat through the fasting)
He writes to his friend, that the emperor could do nothing but laugh at his quick wit and plain-speak. 
However, when he eventually moved to Delhi for prospects and recognition in Mughal courts, he began writing in Urdu. BahadurShah Zafar was Mughal Emperor and the anti-British revolt of 1857 was yet to happen. The emperor already had Zauq as his Ustaad or master of literature. His was the fate of any talented migrant. The talented poet had no one to vouch for him, no support system in the largely disinterested city, going through the period of political turmoil. The Emperor did not acknowledge Ghalib till 1850 when he was eventually offered the title of Nazmud-daula, Dabir ul-mulk, Nizam Zang (Star of the Realm, Scribe of the state, Marshal of war). Mughal Emperor was the ruler for namesake, while the real political power rested with the Governor General. Ghalib had an acute appreciation of his own aristocratic lineage and his own genius, which probably made him respond to disinterested Delhi with :
वोह हमसे पूछते हैं, ग़ालिब कौन है कोई हमें बतलाए के हम बतलाएँ क्या। 
(The ask me who Ghalib is,Pray, someone tell me, what should I tell them)
Ghalib watched the politics and religious beliefs being put to test, and was one of the most progressive and liberal minds of his time. Writers and poets of those time were far ahead of our times in terms of challenging religious dictum, whether it be Ghalib's writing,
ईमाँ मुझे रोके है जो खींचे है मुझे कुफ़्र काबा मेरे पीछे है तो कलीसा मेरे आगे 
(My faith holds me back, while evil tempts me forward,Ka'aba is behind me and the church is in front of me)
Or it be Momin, writing
उम्र गुज़री है तमाम इश्क़ ए बुतँ में मोमिन अब आखरी वक़्त में खाक़ मुसलमाँ होंगे। 
(Spent all my life worshiping idols, MominWhat purpose would becoming a pious muslim in the end serve?)
These were brave, illuminated souls, free in spirit. Ghalib attacked the hypocrisy mercilessly when he wrote couplets like 
कहाँ मयखाने का दरवाज़ा ग़ालिब और कहाँ वाइज़ पर इतना जानते हैं कल वो जाता था कि हम निकले। 
(How could the learned be near the tavern, GhalibBut all I know, is that I saw him on the way in, as I departed)
Ghalib loved his drink, mostly french wine in the evening, which he always had in moderation, much to the annoyance of his wife. He was a man of joyous disposition and ready wit, but he was eaten away by the feeling that the world did not treat him with justice. His pension was withheld for long, and all his effort, to his king, the light of the world, and to the Governor General and the Queen, did nothing to increase his salary. While his biography mentions that he took it into stride as he wrote quasida (Panegyric) praising the Nawabs, Emperor and even the British while seeking the restoration of rightful pension, I would feel his conscience did not much agree with what he had to write. In fact, in his collection of Persian verses he wrote in the preface that he regretted that half his life was wasted in praising fools. I feel this reflected in 
हुआ  है शाह का नौकर फिरे है इतराता वगरना शहर में ग़ालिब की आबरू क्या है। 
(He roams around parading is false pride, being King's servant,Else scant is Ghalib's respect among the citizens)
He is not sparing even with himself. 
I would even stick out my neck to say that while the city offered all it could in those times to Ghalib, with the empire breathing its last and impending failed rebellion which would see the definitive collapse of old days of living, with grace, poetry and literature, he was for a long time disenchanted soul. Recognition came late, respect even later as he wrote, 
हरेक बात पे कहते हो  तुम कि तू क्या है तुम्ही कहो की ये अंदाज़-ए-गुफ़्तगू  है। 
(You ask on every question, who are you?Tell me what kind of graceful conversion this is.) Although in 1850, he reached the royal court and eventually, was after the death of Zauq, became the Ustaad of emperor Zafar and eventually of his son, as he was last left in the triumvirate of poetic genius of Momin, Zauq and Ghalib. Ghalib was 57 by then and was not given Zauq's title of Malikush-Shuara (Poet Laureate)
Ghalib was told many times that his writings were quite complex and he should dilute his writing to make the comprehension easier. He refused to do so famously writing,"
ना सताइश की तमन्ना ना सिले की परवाह गर नहीं हैं मेरे अशआर  में मानी  सही। 
"Neither am I looking for praise, nor prize,If there isn't any meaning in my verse, let there not be."
सताइश- Praise; अशआर - Verses मानी  - Meaning
An irreverent, audacious poet who refuses to bend down to commercial demands, but that is not all that is there to Ghalib. His deep intellectualism, Sufism in his verses, makes him some kind of visionary, a saint in his own right. 
Probably Ghalib was also aware of his spiritual position and understanding, when he wrote,
ये मसाएले तसव्वुफ़  ये  तेरा बयान ग़ालिब तुझे हम वली समझते जो ना बादा ख्वार होता  
(These complex matters of spirituality, and your explanation Ghalib,We would have considered you a saint, had you not been a drunkard).
तसव्वुफ़- Spirituality; वली- Saint; बादा ख्वार- Alcohalic
He was not aloof and disinterested in getting his work read. He eventually started writing in Urdu publishing his first Urdu Diwan (Collection of poems) in 1821. Before publishing this, Ghalib did edit his work with a vengeance at the advise of Fazl-e-haq, discarding around two-third of all he had written. In a letter, he even confessed in his old age that most of his writing during the age of 15 to 25 was rubbish. He then torn off the Diwan, retaining merely 15 -20 of the verses. In 1828, he published a combined selection of Urdu and Persian verses- Gul-i-Rana. His Urdu Diwan was published in 1841 and sold out. It was republished in 1847. His collection of Persian verse was published in 1845.
I welcome you to the world of Ghalib. Ghalib, often terms as Eliot of East, is a source of inspiration not only to his readers, but also to other writers. In his life and reflections, I personally find him closer to Oscar Wilde. His life is an example of unyielding spirit of a true artist. Ghalib continuously had brushes with authority in spite of being court poet and a noble. He even ended up being jailed for three months, in spite of the intervention by the Emperor, His Majesty, The shadow of God. This was a rude shock to Ghalib, in terms of his own estimation of his worth as a noble and as a poet, and also in terms of the authority of the last Mughal (this was much before 1857, when the pretense was still alive). He always had friends among the British who were appreciative of his literary prowess, but it never helped him. As early as 1842, he was offered the job of Persian teacher in Delhi College. He went for the interview but declined as his interviewer, secretary to the Government of India, Thomson did not come out of his office to receive the poet. Ghalib took that as an affront and refused the job. This was customary in old ways of Delhi, and little did Ghalib know at that time that those days were just couple of decades away from end. Ghalib suffered much in long life, obscurity, ridicule and infamy, although he was for most of his long life a poet of masses. He probably referred to this aspect when he wrote
होगा कोई ऐसा भी कि ग़ालिब को ना जाने शायर तो वह अच्छा है पे बदनाम बहुत है। 
(Would there be anyone who would not know Ghalib,He is a good poet, but is so very infamous.)
In his private life, he was always in debt, and lost all his kids. His brother died in the aftermath of 1857, when the whole city of Delhi was destroyed. Ghalib lived to see the city limping to life, but never regaining its earlier glory, before finally departing on 15th February 1869. He wrote his last Urdu verse in 1866 and last Persian ghazal in 1865. Before his death he saw the whole way of living destroyed, with Quila-e-Mualla (The red fort) converted to barracks, Mughal emperor exiled to Rangoon. The world of literature and poetry and art, gave way to marching soldiers on the streets of Delhi. He who counted Raja Bansidhar, Mushi Hargopal Tufta and such his friend and was so secular in his views, would have also seen with some sadness the changes as beef ban imposed by the Mughals being lifted by the British with little understanding of India, triggering first communal riot  in modern times. His wife died exactly one year after him.
(I hope you will enjoy reading my posts on Ghalib's poetry. I am no scholar, but am trying and therefore will appreciate your feedback and corrections. In words, we rise). 

Book Review: India's Broken Tryst - by Taveleen Singh

Published : 12th of April, 2016,  Harper Collins On a pleasant August Night, in 1947, India’s First Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, declared India as Sovereign Independent nation, with a fervent speech talking about the India’s Tryst with destiny. The speech became a hallmark of Indian Polity on post-independence world. Tavleen Singh, noted writer and political commentator, who like most of us, borne post-independence, three years after the Independence of India, in her book “India’s Broken Tryst’ refers to the sixty-years of mis-governance which peeled off whatever hope and pretense of glory we had in us.
This is not a voyeuristic insider report, which I had expected when I picked the book. To be honest, I expected some first person account of the mechanization of 10 Janpath, which are increasingly becoming visible with the defense scams coming to fore with every passing day. This book actually cuts too close, too near the author. It opens with the Raid of Enforcement Directorate, the house of her partner, Ajit Gulabchand, the man behind Lavasa.
A writer’s nearness to the narrative which is too close to the author can cut both ways. The same nearness which brought immense credibility to Emergency by Coomi Kapoor, in this case, somehow makes on fearful about prejudices interfering with the writer’s account. As a partner of Infrastructure tycoon, wronged by a vengeful government which would not hesitate to adversely impact the larger population’s interest, she seems to find key solution to all the ills in infrastructure. She mentions infrastructure and urban development as a panacea to all ills at many places in the book. This seems too simplistic and too naive, more so, because the subject appears to be too close to her life to be considered impartial view. Congress stalled the Lavasa project, conducted raids at Tavleen’s house, got her column discontinued in Indian Express by putting pressure on Shekhar Gupta. Going by the ways Governments work under the guise of the custodian of democracy, her insinuations might be all true. However, they are never more than implications and hearsay. Friends meet in cozy, five-star lobbies and disclose the conspiracy. The state as autocratic agent of dictatorial tendency was very obvious in Emergency. One need not have friends in highest echelons of power to notice the vengeful face of power. It was in your face, as Coomi Kapoor’s husband was thrown into the Jail for upsetting Ambika Soni (I could no longer see her with seriousness when she came on TV talking about the danger to democracy in Modi's Rule vis-à-vis Uttarankhand and otherwise), Raid on Subramanium Swamy’s house, the torture of George Fernandes during emergency. It was not so-and-so told so-and-so when they met in a lavish marriage in a farmhouse. The facts did not need the intentions of the writer for the proof of their authenticity. This is not the case here. One wanders into the search for intentions, for instance when Sonia Gandhi confronts the writer for hating her. 
Even the emergency of the 70s, which in my opinion was the darkest path that India as a democracy has traversed, is merely a fleeting mention. Possibly a privileged background and an affluent Lutyen’s address left Tavleen rather unscathed during the 70s, emergency did not impact her as much as Lavasa did. Even with this sore miss, which to me was the biggest broken tryst, the book stands out for truth. Tavleen not for a moment pretends to be what she is not. She is honest enough to mention that she did not go to get the kid from the street picked by the Police released as it was too late at Ten-thirty, without taking, well, poetic liberty on how she tossed in the bed thinking about the poor boy. She doesn’t hide that she stays in Taj during election coverage in Agra, and that Maurya in Patna offends her sensibility. This makes the reading real and interesting.

The book is lucid and captivating. Uncomforting truths linger in the background in a subtle silence, without dramatic turns. Tavleen talks about Nashta for street-kids, about soullessness of the rich in India (read the Vijay Mallya episode), the humane stories. She boldly mentions how India itself was in a way responsible for the broken tryst, lack of healthcare, infrastructure, education. We never as a nation demanded these building blocks for a civilized nation. She narrates the Rajasthan story when villagers said their lives are still as horrible at independence, with hospitals miles away, schools sub-standard. Still when asked who was best PM, they say, Indira Gandhi, because- She knew how to rule. Thus, the slavish obeisance made us love our leaders for crushing us and keeping us in perennial poverty. She is right in this respect. In a democracy, we as citizens cannot escape our responsibilities. We kept on voting for wrong people and even adored those who kicked us with their royal boots. We had no dreams and little demands.
The book is captivating and bold. It is the book one should not read while walking in a hallway as one might hit the wall on the nose. I finished it in two night which stretched till almost the morning. This is the book which may wake us out of our slavish slumber. As we look back at sixty six years of mis-governance with leaders who treat the country as fiefdom with no accountability as they gave themselves one after another Bharat Ratna, without being questioned, we find we as citizens, voting wrong people, early as loyal subjects in awe of royalties, and later for color TV and now for free Wifi, we are as much to be blamed for the lost sixty years of sluggish growth, as those who ruled over us. We had lost our ability to dream, to aspire. Every nation gets the kind of government it deserves.
My verdict: Read it to solidify your commitment to nation, to understand our errors of the past, so we are not doomed to repeat them. Read it for the captivating read it is and read it to understand how at individual level we can still contribute to the society through small initiatives. I rate it 4/5 because some places it looked prejudiced and I hoped more details on media. Many secrets are told as coming from sources which cannot be named. 
Buy it on Amazon

Dil Hi To hai - Ye Tera Bayaan Ghalib - My Internpretation

दिल ही तो है न संग-ओ -खिश्त , दर्द से भर ना आए क्यों रोएंगे हम हज़ार बार, कोई हमें सताए  क्यों। 
दैर नहीं, हरम नहीं, दर नहीं आस्ताँ नहीं बैठे हैं रहगुज़र पे हम , कोई हमें उठाये क्यों।
क़ैद ऐ हयात, बंद ऐ ग़म , अस्ल में दोनों एक हैं मौत से पहले आदमी, ग़म से निज़ात पाये क्यों।
हाँ वह नहीं ख़ुदा -परस्त, जाओ वो बेवफ़ा सही जिसको हो दीन ओ दिल अजीज़ उसकी गली में जाये क्यों 
ग़ालिब ऐ ख़स्ता के बगैर कौन से काम बंद हैं रोईए जार जार क्या, कीजिये हाय हाय क्यों। (Meaning:
संग-ओ -खिश्त: Brick and Stone 
दैर: Temple हरम : Mosque
दर: Doorstep आस्ताँ : House
क़ैद ऐ हयात: Captivity of Life बंद ऐ ग़म: Prison of Pain
दीन ओ दिल अजीज़: One who loves God and Heart)

Literal Translation Why, wouldn't this heart of mine fill with pain, it isn't some concrete I will cry a thousand cries, whenever I get beaten and face mistreat:
I am not at a temple or a mosque, not at your home, nor at doorstep,  I am sitting at the public street, who are you to pick me up:
The prison of life, the captivity of pain, are in truth, one and the same, To wish freedom from grief, before death, is a desire so lame:
True she is not god-fearing, true she is not loyal, but then if you cared for God and self, why long for her at all:
Without Ghalib, the world moves unperturbed, unrepentant, Cease my friend, these meaningless tears, this useless rant.
Explanations:Couplet 1:
Never be ashamed of your sorrows, your pain. The pain that I feel, the grief that wrenches my heart, is the sign that I am alive. Cherish your pain, your sensitivity. It is the sign that my heart is in the right place, and it is a feeling, beating heart, not a piece of stone, incapable of empathy, compassion and love. Do not resist it, surrender to it, bask in the glory of love. That is the nature of love, and that is the nature of true heart. As Khalil Gibran would say, "Love will gather you unto itself, it will sift you free from all your confinements, it will grind you to whiteness, it will knead you until you are pliant and then it will assign you to sacred fire, so that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast."  The pain, the Sorrow, the test is only to refine you and ready you for love. Bask in its glory, though painful it might seem. Cry if you must, but don't resist love, be love. 
Couplet 2:
Religion has divided the whole world. The world is split between mosques and temples (and churches). The land and the people are owned by them. A soul which is emancipated, does not belong to the mob and therefore stands alone. It refuses to follow the religion as beyond evaluation.  It comes with solitude, which Ghalib refers to as there is no house where he is guest, not even the doorstep. But by earning an existence independent of anyone, he earns an independence of mind. That is the price of liberty that you have little place to call your own, which is no more than street-side. Still the ground on which a liberated soul stands is his (or her) own. He doesn't borrow from stale wisdom, he has his own mind to think for him. Even if that little piece, the tiny free space be devoid of the charming buildings, it is the space where free soul breathes to the new lights, it is the space which one can call one's own. Even if that be a street-side, it is a free air, beyond presumptions and prejudice. In political sense, it is the audacious space of a mugwump. All glory of mankind in the history has arisen from this irreverence of the street corner, the no-man's land of individual liberty. Truth is often resigned to streets, while dogmas are placed on high pedestals in places of worship and honorable courts of mighty kings. Einstein, much later warned us on this when he wrote, "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth" and Emerson, urged for the same unyielding soul, when he wrote, "best lighting rod for your protection is your spine". Ghalib, of course, was the poet king of free-thinkers of the world. Mind of one must not surrender the collective mind of many. 
Couplet 3:
Pain is an integral part of life. Life grows through grief. There is no way out of it. The search for a life, a future, without pain, sorrow and sadness is a search for utopia. Life and pain are intertwined. Lets not try to escape sorrow, let us celebrate it. Why do we see so many young people getting into drugs and even killing themselves early in the life? They are in search of something which does not exist. Till we live, pain will keep coming back. We will escape it, but it will keep coming back. We escape it truly when we accept it. The captivity of life, and the prison of pain are both same. It is not only impossible, rather incorrect to want to escape one without escaping another. Ghalib's life was an example of immense pain- unrecognized talent, an sensitive mind, loss of progeny, still his story was not of doom, his story, his poetry is always a testimony of a soaring spirit, flying high like an eagle, because, Ghalib, never surrendered to sorrows, he celebrated it. John Keats wrote in a letter, "Do you not see how necessary a world of pain and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?". That is so close to what Ghalib wrote here. 
Couplet 4
Love is not measured on the scales of social correctness, and is not tied to conventions. A love which is too prudent, too calculative is anything but love. Even if the object of your love is not religious, even if it is not loving you back, you must love, anyways. Love is not always returned, but then, love doesn't insist of being returned. Love never binds, love liberates. Love's ways are steep and difficult and it might not lead. CS Lewis mentioned this in The Four Loves, "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possible broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one..."
Couplet 5
Biggest problem in our lives is false sense of self-significance. We are plagued by it. We believe the world would stop once we are gone. It doesn't. We know it will not, and that further aggravates our sorrow. Our present is hounded by the thoughts of a future without us. We destroy any possible trace of greatness which might be in our legacy, in search of a legacy. Ghalib refers to the ephemeral nature of human life when he says that nothing would stop when he is gone. Make no mistake, that Ghalib considers himself insignificant. Ghalib is one of the most self-respecting intellectual of all times, fully aware of his immense talent. But he says this. He accepts this. He almost laughs at it. The same recurrent thought we find in Somerset Maugham, when he writes in Of Human Bondage,"There was no meaning in life, and a man by living served, no end. It was immaterial whether he was born or not born, whether he lived or ceased to live. Life was insignificant and death without consequence." Thinks the protagonist Philips and Maugham writes, that when Philips thinks thus, "he exulted, it seemed to him that the last burden of responsibility was taken from him; and for the first time he was utterly free..his insignificance was turned to power, and he felt himself suddenly equal with the cruel fate which had seemed to persecute him; for if life was meaningless, the world was robbed of its cruelty." The thought liberates Philip and in the ecstasy of emancipation, he cries out, "Oh Life, where is thy sting?". 
There is another couplet of Ghalib which is around this thought, but that is for another time. For now, it is all to the modesty of thought, willingness to surrender to the immense power of love, a love which is reason unto itself, a commitment to uncompromising intellect, refusal  of the intellect to surrender to the social pressure and religious dogmas, and readiness to be human, all too human, without shame and pretense.   

Excerpts of Imaginary Meeting in 10 JP on Agusta Westland- A Satire

There has been storm on the television studio, ever since the Waterloo of NDTV and team happened with JNU episode. In fact, everyone involved in the JNU episode, came out as a winner, except for journalists, deal-makers who have contributed to the nation-building in earlier regime by getting people of impeccable bearing like Mr. A Raja appointed to the cabinet. Media, post-JNU broke a clear divide of tolerant and intolerant. Since that day of great churn in media world, things were different. Lines were drawn and TRP sources were defined. So Ishrat Jahan is one day, Samjhauta Twist the other, NIT Srinagar yet another day. In the middle of all this, suddenly Agusta Westland Chopper scam comes back. A meeting was hurriedly called up at the residence of topmost Congress leader as Notice was given for debate on the bribery in the Rajya Sabha. Here are the excerpts from that meeting on this summer day at Janpath in Delhi:
Supreme Leader: What is this nonsense? The day after this man reaches the RS, this thing comes up. Rahul Baba called up in the morning after tea with Comrade Budha and told me there was some Television Serial on this man, Swamy. You people never told me about him, even when I met him for that tea party with Supreme Leader of South India.
The Lawyer-leader, Nirbal ( We will call him La-Le, for short) with merged eyebrow looked up: He is not the same man from Swamy and his friend. Baba is watching too much TV, even old serials. Although this Swamy is as naughty and mischievous, he is not the same man. I have thought a way. We can say that as a nominated member, he cannot raise matter of public Interest.
Mr. Rakhtpaat Stands up: Madam, you need not worry. This is good idea. We will see to it he stays restricted to matter of no interest to public. Our Twitter team can run polls every day for three topics of interest and given the one with zero vote for debate in RS by nominated members. If he still raises the matter, we can make this north vs. south issue and threaten bloodshed.
Supreme leader looked at the aroused structure of Rakhtpaat, standing to his full height, eyes bloodshot. These natives never fail to amuse her, ready to kill one another to prove their loyalty, much like Sicilians back home. 
La-Le quickly checked his diary. All he could find was unpaid dues towards appearance made for that JNU student’s bail, who off late was making more waves than Baba and some poems for his new book. The money Nitish promised did not come. Anyways, Baba is talking too much and exposing his stupidity. He surmised that Baba sure needs to make another trip for introspection. Good that he wasn’t there. Baba, Semi-supreme leader was prone to come out with odd statements like, “This morning I got up in the night, and then I found there was a beehive. Later I realized it was South Block. And they had all Indians in there, who were all born in India.” He suddenly felt a bead of sweat appearing on his prosperous legal forehead.
“No Madam, our Aiyyar ji has created a precedence. We can’t avoid the debate.”
Rakhtpaat ji took deep breath and settled down. Timely intervention prevented him from turning into their hulk. Madam was furious. She looked around for Aiyyar. The man was turning into an embarrassment. The man even doesn’t know what to speak where. Last she had sent her to Pakistan to get help in removing this government, he ended up talking about it on the stage. What moron? 
Dinde stood up. Even in this troubled time, Madam smiled. He still stood like a constable, erect frame and compromised soul.
“I have an idea. Why don’t we call our Ms. Palatt and tell her this Agusta Westland is actually a brahminical construct. It was originally conceived by Muni Agastya and eventually Acharya Vatsayana bought stake in it. Just like our Saffron terror idea, we can call it Saffron corruption and put two more charges on the Colonal in the jail.”
“Dinde, this is not our government and this is about Airforce not Army.”
Dinde looked down and wanted to shrink into the earth like Sita in saffron mythology.
The phone rang. “InSofarAs” Tewari picked the phone.
“Madam, It is our NAC –ara child. He says people are pushing him on twitter.  He has already reviewed Nil Bate Sannata. He needs to say something. What should he do?”
“What a moron? He can’t even become a good TV journalist. He is always worried about what people will think. Tell him to review “The Jungle Book”.
She continued thinking.
“And you, ‘Insofar’ what is your suggestion?”
“Madam, while it is true that some acts of moral impropriety might have occurred due to commission or omission, in so far as Congress’ link with such acts are to be concerned, no such links can be established. It is an attempt by the BJP to obfuscate, complicate and trivialize the issue, which in so far as my opinion is concerned, is anyways trivial.”
Madam exhaled. Tewari always left her exasperated. It was his strength when they were in power. Natives were getting impatient. How time changes things.
She looked towards Sherlock Singh. He was man of great theories, though she felt he was fast slipping ever since he got re-married to a news anchor. He was her adviser. She was also her son’s adviser. Baba always loved his stories.
“Sherlock, it is all your fault. You natives have no sense of decency. I am an epitome of self-sacrifice. How can you blame me?”
The NDTV journalist tried to be helpful.
“Madam, I can drop on the floor and start crying No, no no, if anyone in the debate blames you. It has worked even when I was a child.”
“You are no longer a child, Ridhi-Sidhi. We have a serious problem.”
The investigative journalist with her ideas more crooked than her hair, smiled at the TV anchor being scolded. There is a difference between an investigative journalist and an ordinary TV anchor, she concluded and smiled to herself in secret satisfaction of her intellectual superiority.
“We must isolate madam from this.”
Madam was charmed. This has worked all the time, in 2G, in CWG, in Coalgate. Raja, Sheila and even the PM were collateral damage, native sacrifice to white skinned goddess. She was sure there will be no alternative reading for this Goddess who brought modernity to this country of snake charmers and horrible looking men like Sherlock Singh. He was really bad to look at but had his utility. He can really come out with outrageous theories. His RSS spin on 26/11 was simply marvelous. They waited for Sherlock Singh to speak. Sherlock kept busy with his iPhone. He was looking at his wedding pictures.
“Sherlock” Shouted the Madam in panick, “Stop looking at your wedding pictures. This is not the first time you got married.”
“Madam, We can say you never knew about it. It was government decision. Party had nothing to do.”
Ahmad Peti loved this theory. This exonerated both Madam and him in one swift stroke.
Sissy Truer shook his head full of gorgeous hair. What a pity, Sherlock has a new wife, while such a handsome man, has none, in spite of four attempts, thought Madam.
“It is a horrendous idea full of cataclysmic proportion of buffoonery.  Every one saw the somersault of the whole party including Makhan on the Ordinance affair, Crediting the Semi-supreme one with Dimples for withdrawal of ordinance approved by the cabinet. It would be an astounding stupidity to believe that people will be naive to believe that Supreme leader had nothing to do with the government.”
Madam felt exasperated. This man’s English always tired her. She felt he was always working on his new book. His complex words sat heavy on her tired soul.
The investigative journalist, Nana Khub spoke, “There is no question on line of avoidance. Only matter to be decided is the manner of it. Let us go brazen and shrill about it. Strong words. Pimps and agents in 10 JP did this. Not the Supreme leader. We could have blamed the driver of Salman Khan, but Bhai has already moved into Modi camp. Supreme leaders must get rid of these power peddlers and pimps who get the innocent lady such a bad name.”
Suddenly everyone turned towards the journo and looked at her in silence. She broke into apologetic laughter, "No, no. Don't look at me like that; I am not resigning.”
Supreme leader got up. Her mind was made up. It was as clear as it was on the day when she came to know that she cannot become the prime minister and came out with the masterstroke of sacrifice.
“I agree with her. Let her polish this line. You may add that I am an innocent person. I was made to believe by those, as she calls it, pimps, that offering to a white-skinned goddess was some sort of religious belief for the brown, unwashed natives. It was innocence at best, lack of understanding of the local custom at worst. Even the guy who benefited, the Verma guy in spy tangle, is the son of Hindi teacher to our family. We can say we supported him because we love Hindi. This whole scam speaks about the love of the Supreme leader for the culture and tradition of the country, and support for the national language.”

She was tired. She was old enough to see this routine posturing. She knew this shall pass. She felt optimistic again. She can make alliance with some fundamentalist parties and win couple of election again. And then she will show this man who talks of uprooting him about Saffron terror, saffron corruption, saffron lies and all that bloody saffron. They were ready for the day. The grand old party was ready to face the world. 

Responsibility of A Writer- As per Ghalib

Kahte hain, jab rahi na mujhe taqat-e-sukhanJanoon kisi ke dil ki main kyunkar, kahe bagairThis is one of the lesser known couplet by Ghalib. Loosely translated it means-“If it is said, that I no longer hold the power of writingWhy should I be told the affairs of someone’s heart, without asking?”Being a writer is a rare privilege. It allows one to reach out deeper into human hearts, offers rare empathy to pain, happiness and ambitions of fellow human beings. When I say writing here, I am not referring to writers driven solely by commercial necessities, writing as per market-mechanization.
Writers, like doctors, have the ability and authority to look into our hearts and find the treasures which we never know, we possessed. This also puts a great responsibility on the writers. A writer searches the truth, not only for himself, but also for those about him and for the generations after him.
Not everyone is blessed with a writer’s sensitivity and the vastness of vision. Therefore, it is not always an easy life, but being a writer is a privilege. It needs to be earned. A writer often faces trauma, tragedy and terror on account of his writing in his private thoughts or public life. But he needs to keep at it. This only gives him a right to be a friend to many. It is not unusual for people to walk up to a writer and share with him or her feelings which they would otherwise not confide to best of their friends. Sometimes, it is an expectation of answers or sometimes it is merely trust and empathy that a writer offers. He needs to earn this privilege of universal brotherhood and he needs to keep being worthy of it. 
In today’s world where columns are brought by vested interests, this couplet of Ghalib is a reminder to people who write, whether as literary writers or journalists. We, the word-worshipers, owe it to ourselves. We need to celebrate our rare gift, which though might be difficult to pursue at time. Our writings need to have a purpose, offer a meaning to the aching hearts. Writers are like scientists and philosophers, searching the truth for those who are not able to search it for themselvesWhich would mean that unless I am committed to reflect with sensitivity of people around me, whose feelings I can know being a writer, without being told, by interpretation and extrapolation as we often do, why should have this ability to delve into other people’s heart and affairs. This couplet may also be translated to mean“If it is said, that I no longer hold the power of writingWhy should I know the affairs of someone’s heart, without being told?”(I have planned a series trying to interpret one couplet of Ghalib in each post. This is a part of that initiative)

What I Meant When Suggesting Early Reading?

Image Courtesy - Getty ImagesI had last week written on why reading is essential for getting in a rounded personality (Why Early Reading for Kids Makes Sense?). One of the interesting revert was that while books are good to make one ‘successful’, too much emphasis on the books will make a person 'bookish'. 
Two errors of judgment lie in here, in my opinion. Primary issue is the assumption that I am advocating reading from the view of making a successful person, intonation being a successful person from the practical parameters. That was not the premise when I wrote that. I do not think success in a worldly sense has some written formula or recipe. Luck or fortune plays a great role there. We use some phrases every day, something to do with American world view that we do not realize the deeper significance of it. In an interesting writing by Alain De Botton, a contemporary philosopher refers to this. He posits that in an ancient world, when we came across a poor and thus ‘unsuccessful’ person, we would call him ‘unfortunate’. Now a days, we bring our kids up with the philosophy that they can be anything they want to. Which is an erroneous idea, and a dangerous one. What we could actually become is defined by our circumstances, our inherent capabilities and our fate, which might for all rational reasons might be quite accidental. Even Napoleon, the self-made Hero of the modern world wore a ring inscribed “To Destiny.” However, this incorrect world-view makes us believe that the person who is not able to be successful as a failure. This not only puts so much of pressure on people, it is factually inaccurate and also unkind.
So, I agree with the line of thinking that fortune or luck has a great deal to do with worldly success. Reading cannot ensure that. In fact, nothing can. What reading can ensure is that one has the heart in the right place and has a mind mature enough to protect it.
It is ill-conceived to believe that writers are away from the real world. In truth, writers are able to trace the world and its inner working more clearly than the most. They have a unique vantage point provided by the ability to put themselves out of the world around them, and then look at it from the outside. It would be of interest to know that the greatest of the writers had very active lives, oftentimes, military or otherwise. Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby while on Military duty, Maugham’s writing career began as an army doctor, Joseph Conrad was a sailor and Anthony Trollope, surveyor for British Post. Hemingway for that matter, was so many thing that he can beat any action oriented man, any day of the week and twice on Sunday, as the say. He wrote on war, even as a celebrated writer, right from the front.

Even if we look at the successful leaders who are able to break out of the set trajectory of success as we know it, as non-writers, they are all avid readers. Reading gives them a rare eye to evaluate the world around them and their own place in it, objectively, dispassionately. Reading is not counter-purpose to practicality, if anything it bolsters human insight and creates a sound analytical engine in the human mind to act on what we call gut feeling. When you look at books as a threat to your way of life, and take to reading as a necessary thing to do, it will stifle you. But when you take to reading as an integral part of becoming a person, it will enhance you, expand you and provide you great subtlety and sophistication to encounter the world without losing your inherent humane values. Even course books when not taken as necessary, rather taken as important, will be read not to clear exams, rather to know things. Clearing exams will happen as a sub-plot, without you knowing it. Read a poem for the sheer beauty of human emotions, read a novel to understand the infinite possibilities of human heart and mind, not to earn as social tool. That you will get a social tool of sophistication, will be an upside, which you will not need to work for. It will give you friends who are truer and life which is more meaningful. Success can mean many things to many people. But most importantly success is the ability to handle life without the necessity to deceive oneself. Reading offers that stiffness of spine and softness of soul. 

A Letter to NIT Srinagar

Dear Students of NIT Srinagar, I am writing this letter to you as a citizen of the country, a father and as an Ex-NITian. I know no celebrity will write open letter to you, no intellectual DU professor will write an editorial expressing interest to adopt you, and no great media write will waste his eloquence in writing flowery Op-ed as tribute to your bravery in extremely hostile environment. I am writing because it means much to ordinary Indian. 
Some pictures have the ability of changing the course of the history. The one that I have put up here is one such. Media is in search of finding such pictures and as we know now, at times driven by agendas, fabricating and propagating one. But amid those fabricated, choreographed and photoshopped images, some like paper Tricolor being raised in the heart of the valley at NIT Srinagar stand as some kind of message of divine intention in their innocence and truth. This paper tricolor carries a value much higher than the paper tigers eulogized by the media in JNU. It will escape the cynical and agenda-driven minds who first create a devil of hyper-nationalism from a true and venerable nationalism and then indulge in quixotic fights in studios and at times on Social media with outrageous anti-national hashtags. That’s less about the idea that people fight over, more about the people who are fighting. It is about mainstream media losing its role as opinion creators, on account of losing credibility.
Dear friends of NIT, You need not worry about that. Not about the mainstream media not covering you, not about well-dressed big-shot millionaire top-shot political lawyers not representing your right to report you, not about none of those big media names descending on your campuses to conduct televised debates and interviews by gushing reporters. There neglect isn’t a comment on you, it is a comment on them. In a nation with richest media stars with resources to cover Arab Spring, the reports of NIT Srinagar standoff comes on international media, and national media tries hard to ignore it till whispers turn to voices and voices to slogans and noise. You mustn’t worry about it.
Engineers aren’t generally liked by most. Jokes of nerdish boys going out of city, coming back to get married and then silently serve the nation in double-shift with honest taxes on salaried life are pretty abundant. Nothing romantic there, like almost drugged dances of high sounding principles of liberty and fake secularism in hallowed campuses, bodies gyrating to chants of Azaadi in engineering campuses.
Not that engineers are away from national conscience. Engineers are closest to realistic national conscience. Engineers are too clear in their minds to be fooled by inflated ideas, or be fooled by religion. Engineering campuses are the most secular campuses we have. They don’t interest media and unfortunately, not even political parties. In 91, in sleepy, dusty town of Raipur, students went with black flags opposing casteist policies of VP Singh. The ills of the plague which started with VP Singh, we found culminating in Haryana, Jat reservations twenty five years later. You can count on an engineer to see through the weakness of political arguments. It was so then. It is so now. As now, then it ended with police baton charge, six - seven policemen hitting mercilessly one or two they caught. Six students ended up in hospitals and I saw as second year student, for the first time, police as political tool. But then it was some page 11 story in newspaper, no politician visiting campus. We got the point. Engineering colleges are free of electoral politics. This makes engineering students not much supported by local political forces. We had seen it whether it was Congress goons of Shukla brothers, or Chattisgarh Shiv Sena criminals. Only thing which kept us safe was our own unity and principled position.
Kashmir as per the most recent reports, Kashmir is the most pampered of all Indian states. Every illegal act of separatists is condoned under the pretext of the rabble-rousers, stone-pelters carrying Pakistani and now ISIS flags, being misguided Kashmiri youth. It is a shame. Why should we tax payer be continuing to fund the India baiters? Why should it be easier to raise enemy nation’s flag in one part of our country than our own national flag?
This bluff that any attempt to talk about India in Kashmir will create huge law and order issue needs to call off. It serves the interest of the politics on both sides, right and left to maintain the bogey of dangerous land. At the heart of it is the failure of law and order. When the crime gets colored, terrorism takes birth. This happened in the 1990s. When a murder or an insult of national symbols are not responded to as a law and order issue, under the idiotic guise of understand the Kashmiri aspirations, healing touch, it emboldens the lawless mobs and it gets emboldened, gathers mass from the lawless watchers. A law and order problem becomes a fountain of terrorism by the mollycoddling of the state.
I can see the state which was positioned and out to power as a nationalistic replacement to a vacillating government is fast becoming similar to the one it replaced. The government stretching out healing touch to people who bless Pakistan and curse India is unable to find time to properly reach out to you. Do not be dishearten by that. They have always been like that. They know that you will complete your education and go on to do double shift in some fertilizer plant or write codes in some IT company to send the next mission to Mars. They know you will build the nation and give them something to go around the world with something to be proud about. They know you will be one of the 3% of contributors to direct taxes, and build the nation. 
But they also in their vile calculations, know that you will not be their future. You will not further their political mechanization. That is why the journalists who found Kanhaiya’s smile went to his eyes, will not find time to visit your campus, the lawyers from Congress who defended those who beckoned people to break the country will not fight your battles. Not that there are no great lawyers in right wing, but they will not come to your rescue. They did not when we went to the Jail in our time, when we were beaten by the police, they will not now. They did not even came for the Military Intelligence officer who is in Jail for seven years without bail. So it is a lonely fight. But worry not. If this government wakes up, you present an opportunity to change things for better. If it could find courage in the strong winds of support for you which flows subtly across the country. 
We see hope in you. We see our younger souls in you. We see our future kids in you. We are with you. If it is audacity of youth which you represent, give me some more of it. The farmer in Andhra and villager in Latur and the shop-keeper in Imphal hopes in your victory and hopes someday, this government will find its heart and its mind. Now we know, how deep the rot runs. It stands exposed and it stands exposed to be cured, if only our leadership could find its heart in its place. In the meantime, our hearts beat for you. Be there, steadfast, for you are loved. Even if it means being angry with the government which is fast disowning its own nationalistic credentials, so be it. To quote Mark Twain, “ Loyalty to the country ALWAYS. Loyalty to the government, when it deserves. ” And for the powers that may be, which came with massive and definitive mandate in the center, the message on behalf of many disenchanted supporters, comes from Theodore Roosevelt, “ Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other Public officials, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in stand by the country. ” 
Don’t stand down kids, we are proud of you and stand by you, we the unheard masses of the country. Don’t worry if the national media has moved to a fading superstars' love-letters, we continue thinking about you and praying for you. You are NOT alone in this.

Why Teaching Kids Read Early Makes Sense?

Picture Courtesy- GettyImagesI am an only child, though not a child anymore. My childhood went in search of friendships outside the home, and waiting for the evening to come by to immerse into those rare moments of camaraderie. Our days, the Pre-Appu childhood, was largely supervised by our parents. I do not much remember visiting my friend’s place in childhood. Much unlike my daughter and her friends who keep meeting up in their homes. My friends were kids of my father’s colleagues and we met when they met. Friendships were formed and finished in the children park. 
The interspersed period of loneliness was filled up by books. It was from Comics to pocket-books to Geeta Press to even, Indian Classics like Ramayana and Mahabharata. They filled up my days of solitude with rare happiness. I was called introvert and adults left me alone. It was an arrangement which we both liked. There was no other arrangement in the view. For some reasons, parents those days did not appreciate reading outside the school syllabus. Pocket-books, detective Hindi novels, were almost like banned books, and reading them something dreadful like drug addiction today. I still wonder why but it did give a sense of adventure as I indulged in Ram-Rahim and Vijay-Vikas on the sly. I do believe it did provide me with a love of language, a flair for style as I would look for the Bernard Shaw’s Arms and The Man and Neruda's Tonight I Can Write Saddest Lines in the class twelfth as a literary friend and not a boring, tiring academic foe.
Reading does many things to you, more so, if it finds you early in the life. I do wish at times that if reading weren’t a prohibitive thing in my childhood, likely to impact your school results and your adult obedience, I might have gained much. I might have turned out a much better person with an abundant supply of Shakespeare, Joseph Conrad and Pablo Neruda in early life. Even Roald Dahl and Dr. Suess was something I discovered after becoming a father. Embarrassing but true. I am trying to make up for that gap with my now about to be eight year old daughter. She again is an only child. I can see from her desperation to go meet her classmates and the friend downstairs, that she is plagued with the same blankness, unending emptiness as I was. She needs friends.
She needs to know that there are only two friends she really needs- Books and herself. These are the two friends which will help her make many. The relationships forged by a reading man are deeper and more meaningful. Balzac wrote, “ Reading brings us unknown friends. ” The great American Academic, Charles William Eliot wrote “ Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”  
Books teach us life. It gives us tools to examine, evaluate and resurrect, rebuild our own lives. Long time back Socrates wrote that an unexamined life is not worth living. Books give us eyes to examine life. Every time we do that, we come out a better person. Reading keeps us honest when we evaluate our own lives and gives us knowledge to amend ourselves. It takes special sophistication of soul to be brutal with oneself in such introspection. Unless it is brutal and honest, it is pretense. You end up feeling ugly, feeling helpless and blaming the world, in which case, it is not search for truth; it is search for excuses. When you have a maturity of mind, you turn inward; irrespective and isolated of the world you examine yourself. As they say in scientific postulation, X is given, and X is the world about you, in which case what you would do to make yourself better person is the only variable open to you. Books and reading bring that honesty, that ability to better yourself, to you. It opens a wide panorama, where you look at the world from eternity to eternity spread in front of you, and your own life in the broad scheme of things. Books help us understand conflicting perspectives and what drives them. Thus it helps us accommodate and adapt. “Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.” Wrote Joyce Carole Oates.

It calms your nerves. It makes one understand one’s place in the larger scheme of things. It doesn’t make your pain vanish. If anything, it makes pain pronounced. But at the same time, it makes one adept at handling pain. When you read, you understand that the world had been inhabited by finer women and men, who had at one point of time been worse than you. It helps one trace the whole trajectory of life and lessens the hits that life lands on us. Books helped Liesel Meminger and even the Jewish fugitive Max survive the childhood through world war in The Book Thief. Reading gives you tools to interpret the world. Abuses are result of failure of words. We cannot understand what we cannot put into words. It overwhelms us. Words adapts us to not be overwhelmed, calms our nerves. With words, courage is well-meaning, anger is well-intentioned, sadness is well-curated and life is well-lived. Well-read people are rarely abusive. They are able to handle well what life throws at them. Maugham wrote “ To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. ”
So, I, with these ideas, to equip my kiddo with wherewithal to manage the solitude and to manage the life, have begun my work. I do not know what direction her life will eventually take, what choices she will make in her life, reading, I am sure will prepare her for her life-choices, even if they be non-literary. she is now introduced to Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss, and even occasional Poe (She has come to love “ Quoth the Raven, Nevermore ”). My cruel conspiracies began with surrounding her with books and telling her stories, selective reading. Since it cannot be outsourced, it also gives us little private time together. She would worry with me while reading The Book Thief and laugh with me while reading The Cat In the Hat, and she would look at me awestruck when Matilda of Robert Dahl would speak names like Hemingway and Dickens. I had no clue when we picked Matilda, but in a subtle way, through the lives of Wormwoods it also will help us understand the fault-lines of modern lives, lived in living rooms in front of television. I remember, googling Robert Dahl and showing his face and his house on google to her. She understood him as real person and was charmed that real people can write such lovely stories. Her interest was kindled. I put her into library, having found BC Roy Children’s Library, next to the ITO, much helped by the metro station, bang at the doorstep. I was shocked to hear the fee- four hundred rupees an year. That translates to one year supply of wisdom at the price of a movie ticket (two hours) in a multiplex. It is a pity that such treasures are unknown and ignored by people. And the bigger treasure, for a father, travelling in the Metro, biggest Father-daughter time than any weekend resort trip, as many things the non-stop chatterbox tells you while traveling in public conveyance.
It is hard to imagine what couple of hours of company of books can do to a child. It prepares him or her for the society.  When the supply is unlimited and the shame of being a serious reader is gone (yes, I mean it, in today’s world where even well-educated people are seldom well-read and even boast about not having read a complete book in the life time), it opens one to multiple view, different thoughts, often conflicting ones. It is hard for a well-read person to be a bigot, almost impossible. Don’t get me wrong. When one reads as a vocation unto itself, not as a considered effort to create an arsenal to defend an ideology, one reads without discrimination. When one reads far and wide, Dogmas get destroyed, orthodoxy is obliterate, and fanaticism fades away. Virginia Woolf tells us how one ought to read, when she writes, “ Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Do not dictate to your author; try to become him. Be his fellow-worker and accomplice. If you hang back, and reserve and criticize at first, you are preventing yourself from getting the fullest possible value from what you read. But if you open your mind as widely as possible, then signs and hints of almost imperceptible fineness, from the twist and turn of the first sentences, will bring you into the presence of a human being unlike any other. Steep yourself in this, acquaint yourself with this and soon you will find that your author is giving you, or attempting to give you, something far more definite. ”

I do hope, my daughter, will read a lot more than I could in my own life time. My own reading as I explained, was sketchy in the beginning. Still I did try to compensate as I grew old and my teenage rebelliousness was mostly limited to not following religious dogma and wanting to read, in the face of adult advice that it will hurt my schooling. It still confounds me why my parents would see my reading in contradiction to my reading and sadly, it still remains same for most parents. I would still out my neck and say it is incorrect presumption. They go together. It is like running and exercising supports football. Unstructured reading prepares one for structured curriculum like nothing else.  I can now vouch for my theory as I can see that in my daughter’s school, since she started reading. Another mistake not to make is to never underestimate the intellect of a child. It is the most pure, most expansive phase of human mind. Their intellect has the capacity to rise and grow and expand to what is presented to them. They are blessed souls of tomorrow, let us keep them blessed and in process, learn to be stay blessed from them, rather than trying to these little people, happily running around in the world, amid all the miseries we adults create. Let them be great readers, for nothing goes farther in creating a better world than a reading populace. It is a blessing in itself, apart from the life benefits, I have tried listing. Let the libraries be opened to people and truth will unwind and unwraps itself to readers. I would end this with the most hopeful and truthful quote I found on reading, again from Virginia Woolf. She writes, “ I have sometimes dreamt, at least, that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards — their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble — the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, ‘Look, those need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.’