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Jab kautoohal ki nidra me, is jag ke swarnim swapan paash, bandhan me mujhko baandh, kisi anjaan desh le jaayenge. saathi mere tab kya mujhko tum vapas lene aaoge? swapno ki urwar bhoomi chhod, jab main yatharth ke banjar se, aalingan tera tod kisi, girte ko uthaane jaoonga. saathi mere tab kya mera tum haath bataane aaoge? sheetal bayaar jab sawan ki, tan man me aag lagaayegi, dhaani choonar ko od dhara jab, geet milan ke gaayegi. saathi mere tab kya mujhko ker yaad vihval ho jaaoge? Fir tod sabhi naate rishte aur chod sabhi sangi saathi, ek din jag ko taj ker main sukh ki chir nidra so jaoonga. saathi mere tab kya mujhko tum dekh nahi muskaoge?

The heros are of two types. Some of them are born blessed while others are just pushed to the limit. It is hard to decide which side of the line did P V Narsimha Rao stand on and the generations to come can hardly care less. For them, he will be the architect of the era of economic reforms, the person largely responsible for the huge difference between my own 80's childhood and 90's adolescence when suddenly the waiting queue for telephones got shorter by years. PVNR was the first prime minister whose times I remember in some detail. In fact, now that I look back, I realize that it was in 1991 only, shortly after the death of Rajiv Gandhi that I moved to Lucknow from a small place called Sardhana in west UP. Probably the huge difference in the 80's and 90's that I felt was largely due to this shift and not due to the economic reforms of PVNR but I clearly remember mugging up his full name to show off in front of others. I also remember that he was known to be a very lea...

sakhi mori piya ke rang rangi ! aankhon me piya ke swapan bhare, adhron per kampan mukhar dhare, ranjit kapol hue lajja se, jihva pe piya ka naam fire. dhalka jaaye aanchal jheena, shudh budh khoyee, sukh chain chhina, na bhaye use bacpan ki sakhi, bin piya lage ab jag soona. Sakhi mori piya ke rang rangi ! kuch vesh kaho? kabhi mili nahi ! mridubhaashi hain? swar sune nahi ! na des pata, jaane na gali, chad kaandhe chaar kahaar chali. Bin sakhi mujhe kuch na bhaaye, jhoole ke bina saawan jaaye, sochoon to yahi ka jatan karoon, mo pe bhi piya ka rang chaaye. sakhi mori piya ke rang rangi ! [ Those who know better, would probably notice that a long standing promise has been fulfilled today although it has not come out as I would have liked it to but if that could be controlled, world would have been a pretty banal place. ] [ Incidently, there is something in the above poem that is quite indicative of the times it has been written in. Can u notice it? I also noticed it only after finishi...

They say if you are not an idealist at 20, u have no heart and if you are still an idealist at 30, you have no head !! Now that leaves two possibilities for 25. Either you can be completely confused between being a idealist and a practical person or you might be well balanced with both the things in perfect balance. Now if you apply the same logic to 23 (considering 20 and 25), you will know where I lie :). I am in between getting confused and being balanced which, I have no doubt, is an extremely confusing state of affairs to be in. A state of confusion about if you are in a state of confusion !! Anyway, enough of confusion. The news is that tomorrow at 15:15, I will complete 22 years of walking on this earth (for the first year, I was not walking) and considering the kind of people that are inhibiting the earth along with me, I consider this to be an achievement :P. okay sorry !! I shouldn't be this mean :). In fact it is the people living with me who have made this life worth li...

Last week I was reading the women special edition of Outlook. One of the articles in that discussed the radical social choices that women are making today. So there are ladies asking their parents to stay with them even after marriage, choosing to live separately for the sake of job, living alone even though their parents are in the same city and many more. There is no doubt that each of these decisions takes a lot of courage on part of a woman but what is alarming is that most of them relate to one common theme namely breaking down of the old concept of family. Some of the feminists argue and rightfully so that family has been the biggest source of oppression for Indian women and so it is natural that in the new age, the old concept of family breaks down. The question is however how does it affect our society? One particular example is of single mothers. All over India, there is an increasing trend of single mothers and the reasons are various. The one that stands out is that it is se...

Vardan Mathur posted this beautiful piece about adopting a child today. This is something that has been on my mind recently. In fact there are two issues and I'll talk about both of them. First issue is the same as discussed in the talk also. On my way to office, I daily pass a crossing where 2 small kids, barely 4-5 years old, brother and sister, perform some gymnastics and then ask for money from the people who have stopped there. Now as a matter of principle, I never give them any money because I believe that first, giving them money will only encourage this thing and the person behind the game will push even more children into begging (most of the times, there is some adult person involved) and second that giving money is the least and as I said above, may be the worst kind of help that u can provide. It provides you with a false sense of having done something without actually doing anything. So untill I do anything worthwhile, I donot want to live under the false pretence of...