The Darkest Rhyme

( Atal Bihari Vajpayee often described as one of the greatest orators modern India ever produced using his much famed eloquence in Hindi and spellbinding oratory to enrapture a crowd in public meeting. ) Book Review Vajpayee (Part 1): Ascent of Hindu Right 1924-1977 Abhishek Chaudhuri 432 Pages Rs. 695 Picador India After a long await, it seems relief has finally come to everyone interested in Atal Bihari Vajpayee or ascent of political Hindu Right wing in India with the latest book Vajpayee: Ascent of Hindu Right wing 1924-1977 , a debut work, first in a two volume series by a young scholar Abhishek Chaudhary , praised as definitive and landmark work on it's subject by various eminent intellectuals such as Ramachandra Guha, Shruti Kapila and Christophe Jefferlot among others on it's blurb. In the preface to the book, the author confidently claims to fill the vaccum for a descent biography(1) for Hindu right's most mainstream and respected icon Atal Bihari Vajpa...

(Credits - anonymous, via Internet) Mate 1: ....you know we should end it here. Its has been a good time together... Mate 2: ...but....why? Mate 1: ....all these years...the ups & downs together...hope we remain on good terms hereafter... Mate 2: .....please don't say that....atleast let me know why? Mate 1: ....I don't know how to put it in words...but well..you see.. our vibes have changed...you don't give me the same vibes as before.... ..... Vibes ..... Familiar isn't it? Just close your eyes for a moment and try to recollect the many times when we hear this word or use it, so casually and unconsciously, in so many myraid situations and circumstances, for almost anything and everything according to our convenience that it's no longer possible to imagine a world where there was no conception of it. The word has achieved sort of preminence that now it seems that it was prior to idea of relationship itself. But first of all let's ask ourselves, ...

Even Death won’t hide the poor fugitive forever; on Doomsday he will learn he must live forever. Will the Enemy smile as I pass him on the street? I’m still searching for someone to forgive forever. (Agha Shahid Ali) For people like this hopeless writer, if he ever could love someone, he could promise one thing, he won't be an imposter ever, he would be himself and would be willing to be accepted only as himself, not in fractions but in whole. And I want to be thoroughly original, original to the extent of being wierd or boresome and express myself in originality, be it my passions, desires or wayward daydreams, declaring to myself and to the world within and without - "She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. I love her, and I must make her love me. I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter, and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir dust into consciousness, to wake th...

The Hindi literary world might now be a battlefield of contesting ideologies and showing decline in standard, quality and truth but it is imperative now to quote what Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena wrote in his poem "Desh kagaz ka naksha nahi hai" (A country is not a map drawn on paper) - "Keep this in mind the murder of a child the death of a woman the bullet-riddled body of a man is the decay not only of a regime but of the whole nation"  This is a very sad poem for me and I hope same was true in case of Sarveshwar.  The death of a seven year old boy while running away from Israeli forces who were brave enough to chase a seven year old way and kind enough to kill him after he falls is a matter of immense shock, heart wrenching pain and a perfect sad metaphor for description of how nationalism and religious identity is leading and making Israel and it's reaction to Palestine situation. The oppressed of past are oppressors of today is the dictum which could...

He always had an uneasy feeling that there was someone following him. Some phantom, that he can't describe or explain away, but could vividly feel, always lurking in the back of his mind constantly making him feel that way. He always had an inkling who it was but he never dared to turn behind lest he may confirm his worst fears. - I could vividly remember the first time I met him. When we met I found him quite dull, short in height and pitifully ordinary in first glance. Yet, there was something in him that was unsettling. He was the living essence of Fitzgerald's lines, "He smiled and said understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare conversations with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. He faced--or seemed to face--the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. He understood you just as far as you wanted to b...

(The Veiled Suit: The collected poems of Agha Shahid Ali) This year has proved itself to be the Annus Mirablis for Indian literature with Geetanjli Shri's eloquently and masterfully written Hindi novella Ret Samadhi becoming the first book of any Indian language to win International Man Booker prize for it’s equally skillful and beautiful translation The Tomb of Sand by Daisy Rockwell. Yet a creeping feeling can’t be denied but felt that we have now firmly entered the “Age of mediocrity” where reading is looked down with a tired often apathetic gaze of bewildering boredom where only those books deemed worth reading which are sold with byline of this or that competitive exam. This pathos of apathy towards reading culture is even more tragic in light of boons conferred on our generation by information revolution in form of easy availability of PDFs & EPUBS of all latest books available on internet. Gone are the days when you had to pay a hefty ransom to be a vocife...

कवि आलोक धन्वा को पढ़ना प्रेम और क्रांति के मिश्रित संगीत को सुनने जैसा आभास देता है जिसमें एक ओर असीमित प्रेम की ललक है, प्रेम करने की इच्छा है और प्रेमी से एक और बार मिलने की कसक है , वहीं शोषण से परेशान होते, विस्थापित की तरह अपने गांव की याद है, हत्या और आत्महत्या के बीच साथी को फर्क समझ लेने की सीख है।  राजकमल प्रकाशन से प्रकाशित कवि आलोक धन्वा का कविता संग्रह "दुनिया रोज़ बनती है " पढ़ना विभिन्न अनुभूतियों, विचारों और दुखों से मिलने के समान है। जिसे पढ़कर उम्मीद कभी मरती है तो घर के छत से चांद को देखकर जंगल की रात को याद करना याद आता है।  आलोक धन्वा को पढ़ने का सुख इस मायने में और भी बढ़ जाता है जब ये आभास होता है जिस कल्पना की उड़ान हम कभी नही कर पाते है कवि वो उड़ान भरने के बाद उसके अनुभव हमसे हमारे घर के बड़े बूढ़े बुजुर्ग की तरह प्रेम से मुस्कुराते हुए हमसे साझा करते जाते है अपने कविता के सौंदर्य में और उससे भी ज्यादा उसके अंधेरे में।  बिहार, वामपंथी विचारधारा, गरीब, मज़दूर, विस्थापित उनकी कविता के कुछ विषय है जिनके विषय में कवि कविता से ज्यादा वो...