Homos for Nobel

Two gay teens hanged from public posts, somewhere in Iran. Two? Or does the scoreline still blink, updating itself, every now & then? Did you hear of any queers pick up a gun and mow down the majority which either stood silent, or supported the sentencing or even perpetrated it? Did their ilk not feel downright paranoid disgust when the right to exist was being taken away from some of them, enough to do something drastic?

Or has there been a secession demand from the gays of Uganda? How about closer home in India, where we are all criminals, once again, having breathed free, figuratively, only for a few years from 2009-13? 

Are we out killing the 'muscular majority', to antonym the 'learned' judge's description of us, with guns from brethren across some border, where they sponsor it all from?

No Sir, we ain't; even though the persecution we live through is way, way older than Kashmir, or Jaffna; the cross that we bear outdates the slave trade of Africa, or even the Dalit injustice in India. We have been shamed into hiding or denying ourselves our existences, since times past gone. Even today, we can publicly proclaim our genders, religions, castes, mother tongues, political leaning, being left handed or right, but not who we are attracted to, for fear of ramifications at personal and professional fronts.

And yet, even today, you will never find the voice of the queer uprising as in any way jeopardizing the right to existence of the non-queer. Quite the contrary, you will only see us, standing shoulder to shoulder with our hetero brethren to fight ills that plague us all, like AIDS. 

While we name our pursuits as 'Azaadi Movements', but it is never to create a fool's paradise of a separate land, of milk and honey, but as a freedom to live amongst you, with the same rights as you do. We do not spread terror or hatred, but only preach love. Perhaps, separatists could learn a lesson or two from our struggles, even though realizing our goals seems distant (but sure).

Hope that someday Nobel committee takes note, and bestows the homos of India, its Peace prize. Hell, why just India, make that Homos of the world.

Roti

कितने ही हाथों ने तुझे गूंधा, बेला, तवे पे फेंका है

लोहे की तपिश से उठा कर सीधा आँच पर सेका है

लौ पर भी तू ख़ुशी से फूल सी जाती है

तब जाकर किन भूखे हाथों में आती है

टुकड़े टुकड़े होकर तेरी हस्ती सिमट जाती है

निवाला दर निवाला भूख मिट जाती है

कहीं घी, चटनी, अचार, सब्जी तेरे बाराती हैं

तो कहीं नमक और प्याज ही तेरे साथी हैं

तेरी चाहत में क्या राजा, क्या रंक, सब भिखारी हैं

पर तेरी तो सिर्फ कुलबुलाती भूख से यारी है

कितने ही भूखों को तू शायर बनाती  है

ग़ुरबत के मारों के सपनों में तू घर बनाती है

दुनिया तेरे लिए मरती, मिटती मिटाती है

पर तू क्षणभंगुर नादान, सिर्फ भूख मिटाती है

Usey pataa hai.......

क्यों, क्या, कैसे, कब जाने

अब तो जो हो, बस रब जाने

ख़ुमारी में डगमगाते क़दमों की

मंजिल का वो ही सबब जाने

गुदगुदाते बरबस हंसी फूट पड़े 

बस वो ही ऐसे दो लब जाने

सहमे सकुचाते कैदी एहसासों का

मर्म समझे, मतलब जाने

उम्रदराज़ अंधेरों में टटोल रहे हैं राहें

किस पहर कटे ये शब जाने!

Kyon

मोम बने एहसासों को
क्यों आंच कोई पिघलाती नहीं
सीले ठिठुरते आँगन में

क्यों धूप कोई आती नहीं

उमड़े आँखों भर ये सैलाब
क्यों गालों को नहलाता नहीं
बरबस ढह जाए ये बाँध
क्यों प्यार से कोई सहलाता नहीं

है शब्दों का कोलाहल अंतर में
क्यों कोई मगर सुन पाता नहीं
अखबारी बस्ती के बेनाम किस्सों
की खबर कोई क्यों लाता नहीं

है सबका साहिल, सबके मकाम, सबका घर
क्यों मंजिल बस अपनी ही आती नहीं
मैं हूँ बस जिसका, और जो बस मेरा
क्यों ऐसा कोई साथी नहीं

.............................................सवाल सौ हैं, जवाब एक तो मिले

Fix Me

Fix me,
for my life rotates
on loosened hinges

Wire me right,
the short-circuited brain
malfunctions ad-nauseam

Shepherd the wailing lamb
through his silences,
from the jaws of judgement

Lift this trampled flower

fallen off your Eden,

back to deliverance

Amortise my guilt,

over tranches of 

your sure-footed retribution

Take me home,

for me & my turpitude,

come off you only

Loveless, Shameless

This one goes out for all those who have loved and lost. This one is for those who can't give up, despite having been given up on. This also goes out to those of us, who can scarce attain finality in goodbyes: the ones who just can't cut the chord.

Listening to a Nashville Radio Station online, I come across this wrench of a number, that twists & turns one of our great sorrows: drunken loneliness, and squeezes out its sap, so much so that you see that its your tears that are rushing from the bottom of the mug to froth over at the surface, several times over. The song's called 'Need You Now' by a strangely named band called Lady Antebellum. 

They say one should never have alcohol on empty stomach, coz' it hits you hard. I say, its even worse when you run it through a system caging a broken, rejected & dejected heart. It pours out, and can go all over the place. Resolves flow away with it, so does ego (most of the times, self-respect too) and sensibility.

It ceases to matter how unceremoniously you were shown the door, also who was responsible to what extent, and what all has one gone through, or made the other go through. Alcohol's organic formulation has those stronger, malleable bonds amongst Carbon, Hydrogen & Oxygen atoms, that create such an alchemy that the subject of your attention is endeared to you, no matter what! So, it pains all the more to see him go, and the thought of him finding recourse in someone else's arms stabs you. Try running alcohol over your bare wounds, and you'd appreciate the searing sensation I'm talking of.

The urgency in the requisition of love, amidst drunken pining, which drowns out reason & ego, breaks all resolves, and makes you wonder, why the hell did you let it all slip outta your hands! So you reach for your phone, and try his number, or if you're feeling nobler, you send out a message: either ways, you try and reach out. Some nice souls do pick up the phone and listen, some preach, some are curt, some are ruder not to pick up, and some are coolly indifferent.

Some wonder what has gotten into the individual to be getting so desperate, so as to be going back on his words of keeping away. What perhaps we don't get is the fact its like a naked body shivering in severe cold. No sir, it doesn't get accustomed to the winter. It keeps on shivering till the warmth of a blanket encapsulates it. 

The drunken loner is perhaps most likely in his unabashed purest form. Whatever his ego, machinations, attitude, circumstances, tendency, et al are making him do in his sober times, don't matter now. He's telling the truth. He's laid his heart bare. He's ready to be shamed by you again, because he'd rather take your barbs and bleed than not feel anything running in his veins.

Alas! Some of us learn the hard lessons loss teaches us, only under alcoholic influence. We cry, plead, beg, seek forgiveness, or even punishment, but nobody takes us seriously, because we're not-sober. If only life changing realizations started dawning on mankind sans inebriation, booze would've been out of business by now.

The Pain Flotsam

आँखों के धारों में

इक खोया पहरा बहता है

पानी सा दिखता है

पर एक सेहरा बहता है

उतरा है ग़म नीचे

दिल में यूँ गहरा रहता है

कंकरों से हलचल हो न

दर्द ठहरा रहता है