खामोशी

When I saw Khamoshi as a teenager, it sank into my skin and wouldn’t leave me for several days. The trauma of a gagged Radha seemed my own and that haunting song would ‘rah rah ke’ buzz in my head. The gullibility of that age allowed me to go through that ethereal experience which is not possible now. I was watching the movie again yesterday but instead of experiencing that delicately nuanced portrayal of Cinema, what struck me was the utterly impractical and farfetched medical remedy employed. A few things that surprised me though, was our rationality filter that let go some gems in songs. Songs often pass through our hearing and endear us on the basis of the magic of power words such as talash, tanhai, silsila, tammanna and graphic appeal of pighalna, phisalna, bikharnaa etc. Often the deeper meaning simply slips past our understanding. I knew a kid, a Tamilian kid Madan, in fact an unfortunate orphan to have to live with his insensitive Mama, who sang this song with gusto and loved it:

Jiyaa ho! jiya ho, jiya kuch bol do
Dil ka ‘pardaal’ khol do.

He would always sing it that way in spite of telling him that the word was ‘pardah’. When I heard and watched the song ‘hamne dekhi hai in aNkhon…’ the inaudible suggestion ‘sirf ahsaas hai ye rooh se mahsoos karo’ struck me with the power of a thunderbolt. This never occurred to me when I heard this song several times in the past. And the sinister connotation of ‘Kh’aab chun rahi raat’. It seemed to me that ‘kh’aab bun rahi hai raat’ has an element of uncertainty because ‘bun na’ is creation, there is no sense of finality in it, but ‘kh’aab chun rahi raat’ has certainty and malevolence. But the high point was this conversation:

Rajesh is reading from a manuscript…

.......और रीना ख़ाब में चलती गई चलती गई और चलते चलते रीना के पाँव दुखने लगे लेकिन पुल था के ख़तम होने को ही न आता था। कभी कभी वह बेक़रार, सुनसान से उस पुल पर रुक कर देखती, नीचे गहरी बहुत गहरी खाई थी, इतनी गहरी के अगर आवाज़ भी दो ...., वह भी गिर के चूर चूर हो जाए। और वह झाँक कर ..... उसने झाँक कर नीचे देखा , हर तरफ़ रात का नीलम चल रहा था, ऊपर दोपहर का चमकता हुआ पारा था। ये कैसा पुल था जो दिन और रात के बीचों बीच बना हुआ था? अचानक रीना ने सोचा वह अपने आप को इस पुल से गिरा दे तो ज़रूर उस सिरे पर जा पहुँचेगी जहाँ शेखर ने मिलने को कहा था. हाँ! वहीं तो शेखर ने मिलने को कहा था! रीना ने कूदना चाहा, उसने देखा उसके पैर पुल से चिपक से गए, उस पुल ने उसके सारे ज़िस्म को पकड लिया था, रीना घबराई वह ज़ोर से चिल्लाई, शेखर ! शेखर .....
फिर?
फिर! ...फिर रीना कि आँख खुल गई। वह कपडे की आराम कुर्सी में पडी थी, गोद में शेखर का रुक्का था के वह आज ही शहर छोड कर जा रहा है.........
फिर?
मुझे क्या मालूम? तुम बताओना!
मै? मै कैसे बताऊंगी?
क्यों? तुमने कहा नही था के अंत मै बताऊंगी।
अंत अब रह ही क्या गया है। महक तो जा ही रहा है।
तो क्या बगैर कुछ सुने ही चला जाएगा?
महक... मतलब क्या नाम है उसका?
आं.... रीना।
रीना कुछ कहेगी तब सुनेगा न और रीना अपने दिल की बात किसी से कहने वाली नही, जिस से प्यार करती है उस से भी नही। वह तो बस चुपचाप बुत बैठी रहेगी।
लेकिन , लेकिन वह कहती तो ? कैसे कह देगी। राधा नही कहेगी! राधा अपना ग़म किसी से नही कहेगी।
राधा ! तुमने राधा क्यों कहा?
नही नही राधा नही मेरा मतलब वह नायिका, क्या नाम है उसका? हाँ रीना रीना !
राधा !
अच्छा अब सो जाओ !

क़ज़ा

क़ज़ा अपने आप में बुरी नही
सिर्फ़ वहाँ तक का रास्ता डर से भरा है
फिर तो सिर्फ़ खामोशी है
और कुछ भी नही...........................

-- काली हवा

तरकश

हमारे शौक़ कि ये इन्तिहा थी
क़दम रक्खा कि मंज़िल रास्ता थी

जावेद अख्तर

T A R K A S H

"hamaare shauq kee yeh intehaa thee
qadam rakkhaa kee manzil raastaa thee"

I saw a film called ‘Blow Up’ in early seventies. I have only hazy recollection of the film. It was about a photographer who, while developing a picture of a park, discovers a fuzzy spot in it. When he blows it up he discovers a hazy profile of a corpse. The rest of the film was about his quest to search meaning of that picture with lot of symbolism. I remember the fascinating climax in which the protagonist approaches a tennis match played with a fictitious ball and a crowd in stands watching with rapt attention. While the players seriously played out the game with imaginary ball and the spectators following the movement of the imaginary ball our hero looks on bewildered. Suddenly a player hits a skewed shot which apparently ejects it out of the court. The camera follows the trajectory of imaginary ball sailing over the fence, it’s bouncing of the turf, rolling slowly and coming to stop near the photographer. Both the players as well as the spectators look at him expectedly. For a while he looked bewildered then picks up the nonexistent ball, chucks it in to the arena. The film ends at the commencement of the game again. Honestly, the entire film simple went over my head yet I was mesmerized by this surrealistic poetry on the celluloid.

When I read ‘The Trial’ and “The Castle’ by Franz Kafka, I had no idea what was going on. In fact lengthy monologues produced reading fatigue despite that there was some kind of magical appeal in the text, which prodded me to go on and complete it not understanding any of the cryptic symbolism. Later when I was told that both the novels were allegorical in the sense that Kafka was in fact in confrontation with his father’s mind. The ‘Castle’ which he wanted to penetrate was his fathers ‘Mind’ and the ‘Trial’ without any charge was actually exploration of Kafka to understand his father. Now I wonder if I had known about the allegorical nature of the novels whether I would have enjoyed them at all.

The point I am making is that work of art need not ‘always’ be interpreted. What is most fascinating about poetry? The esoteric meaning it conjures or appeal of words strung together in aesthetic fashion? I like poetry both at face value and if needed, to explore its meaning. Good poetry just happens therefore even the poet wouldn’t know what he has created. This is prime example of that creation. I would interpret it this way:

I am intensely passionate and that is my undoing. The moment I embark on an objective I am distracted by its loss of appeal. Something else lures me.

But take your pick, nobody can help you there.