कभी-कभी मैं खुद  को एक नाव में पाता हूँ
नाव ,जो कि किनारे से कोसों  दूर है
नाव,जो “काली” अंधेरी रात में बस कहीं  बढ़ती जाती है
नाव,जो समुद्र के वेग से हिचकोले खाती है  ….एक ऐसी नाव
उन तन्हाइयों में, उन गहराइयों में मैं कहीं खुद  को पाता हूँ
उस नाविक का बिंब अपने आप में  देखता हूँ
सागर उफ़ान पर हैं ,ज़ोर  की हवाएँ  हैं
प्रकृति की इस विकरालता ने उस रात सफ़र को और मुश्किल बना दिया है
अपने वर्तमान के बारे में सोचने पर मजबूर कर दिया है
किसी अज्ञात भय ने मुझमें  भी एक अनचाहा-सा घर बना ही लिया है
पर पता नहीं क्यूँ? फिर भी यह कारवां चल रहा है
हर पल किसी नई दिशा की ओर मुड़ रहा है
वैसे इस अंधेरे से मुझे गुरेज नहीं  है
शायद, यही उसके लिए प्रेरणा है
प्रेरणा ,कि “कोई” आगे है
प्रेरणा, जो हर पल आशा का संचार तो करती है
प्रेरणा, जो उसे कहीं तो पहुँचाती है ……

– Mukul Mishra (2nd year, Maths)

Disappeared

At a certain point I lost track of you

They make a desolation and call it peace

When you left,even the stones were buried:

In the lake the arms of temples and mosques are locked in each others reflections

Your history gets in the way of my memory”

-Agha Shahid Ali

 

In the Winter of 90’s

When nights were long

And life fugitive,

Mothers sang lullabies

For their loved ones.

 

Houses burned or empty?

Because they disappeared

Like moon from the sky.

No priest left to save idols.

As they passed by the almond trees-

where once we together collected them in our ‘halams’

and the Saffron fields

Which now smells of blood;

-To the plains there, towards my south

hiding their exiled faces.

 

They had no choice my love

But to leave,

Leave us forever

without bidding us the last farewell

as they left in midnight

in trucks like caravans of the deserts.

 

They never came back to see the walls of fire,the broken bridges and the clay lamps that once scattered light on their pedestals.

 

We disappeared too

No,we did not flee as thee

Some disappeared,some forced to disappear.

A child carries a coffin of his father on young shoulder.

Women peep through windows to see their heroes.

Days dissolved into nights

without their touch

Without their sight.

And each day they entomb a minaret

Flowers grow near them, as I count.

 

The gaze of the masked cat in gypsy

Traded us in the imperious darkness of unmarked grave

Causing mother’s inundating eyes for longing

And raids of men with long white boots

Makes one to shrink under the broken table in attic.

Beguiling voices echo when gentle flacks of snow fall

Singing songs of sorrow from distant cage.

 

When they left,

hearts were dipped in blood,

Besieged by winds of grief

But I foresee them coming

Our tragedy is not greater than your tragedy

So come its easy if you come

Our tombstones will lead you to your milestones.

– Miran Gulzar, second year(English)

(The epigraph of the poem has been taken from Agha Shahid Ali’s poem ‘Farewell’)

याद

दिल्ली की इस खिङ़की से
दूर कहीं देखती हूँ
इस अनजान सी नगरी में
पहचान सी खोजती हूँ।

चौङी़ सङ़कों में इसकी
लखनवी तंग गलियाँ खोजती हूँ
यहाँ की फ्रूट बास्केट में
दशहरी आमों की ङ लिया खोजती हूँ।

तू तेरे के बीच में
आप की मिठास याद आती है
जिसमें बसी हुई लखनऊ की खुशबू
मन के और पास आती है।

वो शंख और अज़ान की तान
अब सुनने कहाँ मिलती है
खोजने पर भी ना मिले
जो शाम अवध में ढलती है।

छोले भठूरे में वो
कबाबों वाली बात कहां है
बिरयानी के चावल और केसर का
वो अवधी साथ कहाँ है।

बेखबर से इस शहर में
वो पड़ोसी भी याद आते थे
खीजते रहें हम चाहे फिर भी
रोज़ हाल पूछ जाते थे।

वो पतंग कटने पर लड़ना
वो आम के पेड़ों पर चढ़ना
वो कहना हम नवाबी हैं
वो ग़ालिब, फैज़ को पढ़ना।

किनारा गोमती का वो
शहर वो चमचमाता सा
वो लखनऊ है शहर यारों
हो बच्चा खिलखिलाता सा

नजा़कत और नफासत भी
हवा में थी शरारत भी
कभी लड़ना कभी भिड़ना
मनाने की वो आदत भी।

उसकी याद ने मुझ पर
किया जादू है कुछ गज़ब
यहाँ की इवनिंग में खोजती हूँ
शाम – ए-अवध।

– Prakriti Anand, 1st Year (History)

I’m Writing To Set You Free

​You are always searching for me, aren’t you? 

You search for me in your black coffee, 
you sometimes add milk to it 
only to realise it tastes a lot like me; 
Bitter and familiar. 
Sometimes my name rolls off your tongue, 
and you’d touch her 
only to find me under your fingers. 

The funny thing about you 
was that too often 
you told the universe that 
you hate me 
only to whisper to your heart, 
“Not so much”. 

I remember those sweltering summer nights, 
you’d wake at 3:43 AM 
and ask me, 
“Do the broken edges hurt you as you draw me closer?“
I would wipe the question off your lips,
like the remnants of mayonnaise from that shawarma 
we ate after every 10:25 class in  college. 

I should have told you 
That if you were an abandoned building, 
Like the one all the children on the street were afraid of; 
I’d paint you in every shade of love, 
humility, sweat and blood. 
I’ll construct not a house, 
I’ll make a home out of you, 
with vintage furniture, 
blue, pink and yellow walls 
Held together for years by laughter and tears.

I should have told you that, 
I want to stick to you. 
Like stamps in my passport 
for all the cities my father showed me, 
for all the cities I loved. 
But could no longer recognise.

I should have told you that, 
if you were a tree, 
with the tendency to splinter 
and release into my skin, 
to branch off into my veins, 
to root in my soul 
I would still sit under it and write a song 
about getting better, 
about beauty, 
about you.

If you ever cried on a crowded street, 
like you did when you felt your heart travel 
all the way to your knees. 
I would hold you and whisper, 
“Shh, it’s okay, no one ever taught you 
how to behave in public when your heart was broken” 
I’d pull you into my mouth, 
thinking that I could hold you there forever 
but I couldn’t,
because too often houses abandon people. 

Every night in your dreams, 
I tell you the same story 
over and over again 
about this young prince 
who found the wrong princess 
who didn’t know what it felt like 
to hold the universe between her palms. 
He eventually rode off on his white horse, 
To find an adventure instead.

You have to put all the pieces 
back together- so that one day, 
You’ll wake up under white sheets, 
Next to this beautiful girl 
And make yourself a cup of tea 
Because who the hell likes coffee anyway.

Simran Varma

B A History H