Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Punjabi Poetry by Rajveer



My first Punjabi Poem Inspired by Waris Shah
Supn-ch Mere Waris Aya
Rukhi Sokhi Rooti L’Aya

Kenda Ranjhe, Tu Aadam Da Jaya
Heer Nu Kithe Tu Chad Aaya

O Labdi Tenu Chukh-Chubare
Tu Jogi Da Bhesh Vadaya

Ni Mil Jogi Tu Ranjhe Nu,
Ranjha Andar Heer Lukaya,

Eh Supn-ch Galla Kyo Karda Ve
Dekh Ni Ranjhe,
Aj Galli-ch Utthe Koi Nava Jogi Aaya

Game of Blogs – Midway Through The Heart!

Team – Qissa


[ READ THE PREVIOUS PART OF THE STORY HERE ]

Roohi went to school and Tara to her life that is office. Shekhar was left alone in the house to measure its length and width. Despite a hardcore routine today Shekhar wasn’t sitting in his study and struggling with thoughts and words. He sat in the balcony on a low wooden stool with a lighter and a packet of cheap cigarettes. Half the packet he had already smoked since morning and the prevailing dark patches between the first two fingers of his left hand were narrating the story of his love affair with cigarettes and thoughts!
At this age of his life he had begun to loose positivity of thought and often looked at the ideals he had followed all his life with doubt. He would have become a writer of many published books but what he was left with was a writer of one published novel and lots of rejected manuscripts. Whatever respect he had left for himself after so many failures was being slowly but steadily taken away by the jeers of Tara. Society was never a concern for him; it was something he wanted to transform by his writings. At times, he would wonder that perhaps he was born in a wrong age. He believed he belonged to the age of ideals and ideologies, not this age of consumerism and thoughtlessness.
Shekhar’s insistence on not having a cell phone for himself and still writing on white papers with an age old typewriter which at times he himself would repair by staining his khadi kurta and smearing his hands spoke a lot about Shekhar the Man. His current writings still dealt with the misery of peasants and the Naxal movement. His wrath for capitalists and profiteers held the thunder of angry clouds.  His first novel was a classical story, in which innocent love was caught in the brutal class war. He had to change the ending from sad and melancholy to something sweet and happy. Though the novel did well but it had a very bad impact on Shekhar’s sentiments. After the first 2 year contract was over he denied its republishing by citing a will of changing its end as he had originally written. No publisher wanted to change the End part since that had become the selling point of the novel. Shekhar turned adamant so he himself republished it but this edition doomed and so did his writing career. Only a few books got sold and most people didn’t like the current version.
Instead of drawing a more flexible writer in him, this incident turned him into a more rigid one. Most people become arrogant after their success but he had become arrogant and unyielding after his failure!
When the manuscript of that book was selected by the publisher they had requested a change in the ending of the story which he wasn’t willing but they had sent Tara from their Media team to convince him. Though, she was young and inexperienced but her persuasive power was already well observed by her superiors. It was a chance for her to prove herself and climb the ladder or go back to where she came. She succeeded in convincing him but she paid its cost by falling for him. In the process of convincing him for what the publisher wanted she fell in love with a person who didn’t even satisfy a single item from the list she had for her perfect man. Tara wasn’t very much interested in his writings but his writing career prospect. He had the flare of a soon- turning-into-a-literature-celebrity. Wife of a celebrated writer and a high profile media professional – an endearing thought for a woman who only knew one thing in life and that was Goal and Achievement, not mental peace or ecstasy in a simple life.
She had put her heart and soul for the success of his first novel. Consequently, she was very much disappointed when Shekhar had refused to renew the contract and put forth his condition. This happened just after their marriage and that was two years after the book launch. She again put forth her persuasive might to get him to sign the contract but she failed to do so. It was the first time when a bitter thought for Shekhar had crossed her heart. It was the first time she was compelled to look back at her decision of getting married to a man that belonged to a different world than Tara.
Time passed and so did the problems. Shekhar had begun writing new stories and soon Tara found herself pregnant. He could foresee the forth coming crisis so he started taking freelance work and that too in a way where he didn’t have to make compromises and question his own writing integrity. He even wrote articles for smalltime news papers but they soon stopped giving him work. When the whole country was ranting that Kashmir belonged to India he was writing in articles that either Kashmir should be left independent or a greater autonomy should be provided. When the Naxal movement was spreading like cancer in India and turning into a grave internal threat he was writing articles in their favor and blaming the government and capitalistic thinking for naxalism.

When Roohi was born he was somehow able to make ends meet but then things had changed. The rain of freelance work turned into a drizzle and then into a trickle. Soon, Tara took the reigns in her hands and earned enough to give her family a good life. The more she would grow in her career the less love she would find in her heart for the imperfect husband. Initially her frustration was limited to the complaints but then, it slowly but steadily began turning into disrespect. His love for Tara was still what it had been at the time when they had married. He knew the desperation of Tara with which she wanted to be free from him and his world but the love for his daughter Roohi turned him unjust and shameless. He was even ready to listen to the worst things from her.

Though, Roohi was not old enough to understand the intricacies of relationships she had understood the dysfunctional relationship of her parents.

In the balcony, when Shekhar lit the last cigarette from the packet, he longed for the death of not his physical self but his metaphysical self. His loyalty for his ideals or principles gave him nothing but a life of humiliation. Simplicity of his life and thoughts was not admired but questioned and mortified. Now he wished to throw that simplicity out of the balcony into the heap of garbage round the corner.





“Me and My Team are participating in 'Games of Blogs' at Blogadda.com#CelebrateBlogging with us”


[READ THE NEXT PART OF THE STORY HERE ]

Sunday, September 7, 2014