Should I quit?

Never was it a question whether you loved me or not,

Because your words distinctly answer that…

But now it is whether you love only me,

Or is anyone else just like me…???

Say it out if you want not me,

I feel bad and I would regret…

For having come into your life and have lived in a dream…

I understand it hurt sometime,

I repent and am sorry after,

I trust you with my whole heart,

But I don’t want to repent to having trusted you…

It quit a time since it all happened,

I feel bad and I am sad…

You too may be are feeling the same way I do,

I know…

But now I am struck and confused,

Left with an unanswered question striking my mind…

Should I quit….???

And your actions are the answer…..

 -Sai Praveen Mantha

When life performs an apoptosis

For readers not acquainted with the term, apoptosis is suicide by a cell when it sees itself not fit for use. A kind of sacrifice for 'the greater good'. Interestingly, this is also the feeling of a living being when he/she gets a suicidal feeling, going by the suicide notes. I am no psychiatrist but the recent happenings have definitely made everyone sit up and think about what's wrong with the place labelled as the best place to be for your life to prosper. How ironic, isn't it?

My fellow IITians, you may not know me. How would you? I am arguably the biggest introvert you will ever meet. But being an introvert and a lonely person are two very different things. I have never known the feelings of the latter. But the recent happenings have certainly made me wonder what kind of hopelessness and gloom the person must have gone through to take his life. I had always thought that suicide is an act of cowardice. Probably it is. But at the same time, it requires a certain amount of courage also to take away your own life. There is a difference though, between this courage and the usual courage we hear about taking a stand and stuff like that. That difference is in the source. The source of the 'normal' courage is a sense of righteousness, a sense of pride, that what I am doing is right. But the source of the 'suicidal' courage is that of desperation, misery, despondency and despair.

As people having a science background, we tend to instantly look for solutions. That is good, very good. But in this 'habit' of ours, we tend to underestimate the gravity of the problem too. There are several people who have proposed solutions to this. But the question is whether these solutions are sure-shot correct. I hope most people will agree with me when I say certainly not. Why? Because the variables involved in this problem is far too many. Surely, nobody is so fragile that one problem crops up and bang, he commits suicide. I think its probably small things that keep piling the pressure up and ultimately the last straw breaks his back. For an outsider, it might seem trivial but to him, it was probably linked to so many other problems that he didn't see himself strong enough to solve them. I can't offer a solution to this but I can definitely offer some advice because some of my friends have gone through this. These little bits of advice only pertain to the life of an IITian, or probably to a college going student. But they can definitely be extrapolated to a general mass.

Life, as I have understood it, is to attain happiness. For me, this comes through having a purpose and going after it. Different people might have different means of attaining it. But from what I have seen, most people don't understand this basic premise of life. Right from their childhood days, they are told to live someone else's life because he/she attained 'success' by following that life. Equate it to your aunts asking you how you cracked JEE, so that they can tell their sons/daughters to follow your path and attain 'nirvana'. I am not blaming them or demeaning them. Everyone does that. But, as you can see, the results are quite horrible. When we take such 'tried and tested' formulas, we tend to create a certain achievement and a standard in our minds. Well, guess what? These 'tried and tested' formulas don't necessarily give us our expected results. This is when things start going awkward. We are not ready for the worst case scenario and so what do we do? Give up. Why? Because we don't know how to achieve that standard. That is why it is important that we choose our means to happiness and not someone else. This way, we are always ready for the worst case scenario and the situation will not take us by surprise. There will be opposition, sometimes from friends and sometimes from family as well. I say don't give in. Fight for your happiness. I know family means a lot but certainly they have not brought you up to do their bidding, right? Sooner or later, they will come around. But if you are trapped in the web of hopelessness, there will not seem any light at the end of the tunnel. Live your life for your own happiness. Seems like a bit of preaching, right? I must admit I have not achieved anything till now (except maybe JEE :P) to advice but I am following my own path. Whether it will lead me to success or not is another matter but only by virtue of choosing my own path, I have cut off the suicidal path in my life. Even if I become a nobody in life, I will always know what makes me happy and continue to do it. I am most certainly sure that this thought will never allow me to consider suicide as an option.

At the end I would say that no problem is big enough to take away your life. Every problem has a solution. You just need to look into the correct places. So, get up, pull up your socks and fight for your life. The world is with you and its wonderful.

Cheers! 

Anish Kumar Sinha

4th year
B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering/M.Tech in Engineering Entrepreneurship

Find yourself to loose your self

After working for some months I take break for a day. On that day I explore this world, I loose who I have become to find who I am. Knowledge is a tool to answer some questions which your inner voice asks to you so, I want to know more to have more satisfactory reasons of my existence. On that day   I put my acquired inner freedom into action without losing even an iota of sanity. I do what schools struggle to achieve, fun and learning at the same time and space. I would like to share two days on which, I had chosen to play two different roles. A day as a gay and a day as an atheist.

Previously I had tried talking to animals, inspired by some poets, which ended up in a 100 metre sprint, that’s what you get when you take up literature too literally. I have visited places, not so famous but with a story, which were mentioned subtly in books, like the places where Gandhiji had stayed, places mentioned in the “autobiography of a yogi”, the places which had been mentioned in magazines for the problem, mostly environmental, it is facing, some naxalism hit villages etc. at times trying to put my love for problem solving into action. In these places I have met thousands of people with thousands of stories and skills. India is a place which has got immense talent but it’s a very painstaking job to find it because it’s not all on a single platform or under a single brand or banner. It’s like the way we have got thousands of fresh fruit and vegetable sellers in a market but in U.S.A they all are into a system like walmart.

 I packed my bag with some essential things and went to station to catch the 7:30 am train to a nearby town, Novastral. I bought the newspaper which I always buy to settle the problem of change. The day started off with the poignant news of the demise of India’s first stand-up comedian, Jaspal Bhatti.  I was reminded of how he used to make everyone happy and gay with his flopshow on Doordarshan. I had to manage being gay without him on that day. After sometime the train came and I poked my way through the crowd to get into the coach. Travelling gives a lot of time to contemplate. Some of the best ideas and solutions have occurred to me while travelling. After taking the seat I turned to the imminent task which I had to complete that was of living a day as a gay and I started from basics, how to be a gay?  They are normal people who just have different preferences and as it requires technical changes I can’t be exactly as they are. Till now I have never had sex and it doesn’t mean that I have not lived these years as a straight male. I thought that I should feel the difficulties which they face, which would make me more humane and sympathetic towards the world. I had heard the phrase “coming out” a lot of times so I thought that I should try this out. In a while I figured out with whom I am going to try this out. It was jai, who had been one of my recent friends and hence it was relatively easier to convince him. I rang him up and asked him to reach near Advaita ashram. Advaita ashram is a lovely place. Surrounded obviously by rural-greenery but in an orchard fashion which, after gazing for a while appears as if soldiers of Indian army dressed in green are guarding the peace which wafts around it. And the birds which always gives me something new to play on my flute and also tells me how sharp those ears were who had decided the rules for raga. We met there. After some regular chat I came to the point. And after pushing in many “you are joking” pop ups with concoction of “I m serious” and some facts used in contorted way, he finally agreed that I was gay, on that day. Thanks to my principal who believed in complete education and had also kept theatre classes in our curriculum. His response was good to me but not at all good for me. I couldn’t find my life difficult even after coming out in front of him and that was like wasting a huge portion of day. But life is good because it’s not a script. At times nature gets very kind to me, everything happens as expected. He told me that he knows a guy who is also a gay. I convinced him to fix a meeting with him in the evening, in LG Park. The guy agreed to see me. While we were walking to the LG park he told me that he is speech-impaired and I felt intensely bad about that, in a society where every matrimonial ad seeks utter perfection in a world where students are taught that, “an ideal thing is a thing which doesn’t exist”, how difficult it have been for a person to survive with TWO disabilities. After walking a few more steps I just poked fun at him and asked if he cannot speak then how did he tell him that he is a gay. He was waiting for us there when we reached. And an unconscious pop-up occurred to me that gays are always on time (you see typical Indian mind at work which if see’s some Bihari as rickshawpuller renders all as that, if sees one Marwari cunning declares all as the same – too fast in coming to conclusion, reckoning and creating stereotypes) which I immediately silenced – civilising my mind through my soul. He came forward and shook hands. I just don’t know but a chill ran down my spine while shaking hands, something near to goosebumps, something uncomfortable. But asking to myself why such a different feeling, the self, answered. This was the same feeling which racist whites felt when a black used to touch them, the same feeling which people used to feel with the touch of leprosy patients (which people like Baba Amte didn’t feel because he eventually taught himself and thus became a realised soul) , and embarrassed me. I had tried to figure out while reading Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, how can the touch, voice of a person make someone feel spiritual, feel like heaven, referring to buddha? These people touch others with a different feeling which is not discriminatory in nature, they see god in everyone, they see all as one. Mahatma Gandhi used to say when he was transforming his soul by continuous self-learning,” I feel the touch of a woman and man different. I want to feel both as same.” I then decided that when we will be departing he will definitely feel a better touch from me. Our conversation started. He talked to jai in sign language who gave his voice to those signals. He started with asking who my partner is. I told him no one and asked if he could be my partner. He replied that he is in a relationship. I had never known that gays also go for long term relationship. further conversation with him revealed many more things which made me aware of many obvious things which I could have also known If I had thought simple, but as it is said “you don’t know the trick because you don’t want to know it, you want to be fooled” and that’s why there are so many myths in society. For gays, males are not only sexual but emotional preference also. I have heard stories about people committing suicide because they didn’t get the love of the one which they PREFERED and I can sense the intensity of pain it can cause to a person. So why are we not allowing a small section to live, marry and merry with those of their preference?

Not everyone turns out to be a gay. And it is not a choice, which is scientifically proven. So why are churches against it fearing that it’s going to be a menace for the society and for the progress of human race? They say, since gay sex is not procreative so gay marriages should be banished. First of all, marriage is not all about only sex, sex is just a part of it. Secondly why don’t they ban condom then? It has been found that these couples raise children and they turn out as normal as of others. There are so many orphans in this world who don’t get family, are deprived of decent education, healthcare etc. in their life. These two things can be a simple solution of each other. Also, My parents have never discussed sex with me in these years and I found my emotional and sexual preference on my own through the society, so I don’t think that gay couples can affect sexual preference of an adopted kid.

This day churned out a plethora of my thoughts on human relationship and now I understand this word much better. In future, if someone praises my understanding on relationship I would definitely tell her that I was gay for one day. One day was no way enough for understanding life of homosexuals and in future I would try to spend more time on each role. Actually the problem is that due to bad practise of studying one day before exam it’s now ingrained in me to study things for one day only. And in one day this is the meagre amount of knowledge which we can accumulate and get a feel of. While we were walking out of the park I saw some guys teasing a girl, passing loose comments and justifying their action by the dress she was wearing. I took it as a very welcoming opportunity, for which I was waiting since the morning and intervened to play my role. I went there with an ogling look and held his shirt. And after throwing concoction of some amorous actions, loose comments (learnt from eunuchs) and a bit of force I told him that I am gay and I want to have sex with him, in fact rape him and reasoned that he was looking too attractive and because he was not wearing dhoti- kurta and turban kind of dress he should be raped. The people around us started smiling and giggling and he was also intelligent enough to see where I was pointing. We left him poker faced in shock and shame and moved ahead.

On some other day I was an atheist. I bought the newspaper as usual. It always contains something relevant to my journey just because it contains almost everything. It was not only I who had turned up being an atheist but along with me many others might have also chosen the same path. That day Asaram Bapu occupied almost a fourth of the front page. I always care for the idea and not the person. That’s one of the things which I have learnt from being not me, not to be a fanatic. Different levels of consciousness do exist and that’s a scientific fact. God and baba are totally independent things but god and spirituality do go hand in hand. Being an atheist for a day allowed me to introspect myself, my response to the society and the reason behind it, reason for why I do what I do. I went to a place 200kms away, known as Quastral and sat on a naturally cut seat on the top of a hill and meditated there for some time on my thoughts. In the process to imitate yogis most of the time went in shooing away the fear of snake and warding off other kinds of final destination triggered images. I found that it won’t be possible for me unless I forget the difference in life and death, so I came down and sat under a tree for meditation.

Things are normal till I live in a space confined to earth and time till I live. But when the question comes where I will be after death? The fear of being lost in the deep ocean of space and time makes me take up the search for the immortal content in me. Here comes the concept of god in which you can find yourself. For me the problem was never whether god exists or not but what is the meaning of god? What has been defined as god? Is it light? Is it energy? Is it the atoms which make up everything? I had ruled out ,disregarding some holy books with deep respect, quite  early that god is one who is living somewhere away from earth in heaven which made him more of a king and less of a god. I don’t want to get lost with the ebbing tide of time into oblivion. People often speak about the importance experience. I want to recall what my past lives taught me, just imagine how a person feels losing all his experience when he loses his memory in his forties. I don’t know what exactly past life means but I do know that the atoms which make me today were in harmony with some other systems of panchtatava when I was not there. In short I want to realise this infinity which hinders me whenever I start thinking of any kind of cycle, of time, of birth and death etc. and there I seek the help of different concepts of god which have existed since the genesis of first thought which occurred to human mind. So I could afford being an atheist only for one day. I came out of the ashram. While I was walking on road with checking on my phone for the return train, some boisterous riders came on bike from back and snatched away my phone and drove away and soon were lost in the haze of mud which their bike had left behind for me. That was a decent amount of loss. I consoled myself with “those who drive like hell go to hell” but no hell and heaven exists today. God punishes those who do wrong but god does not exist today. It was too bad a feeling to realise that I won’t get my phone back and no is going to punish them. But why can’t I behave like them? Why it’s so difficult to harm anyone for me or any civilised person? That day god didn’t exist for me but still I could not have dared to harm anyone. Sins multiply, if someone commits a sin and is not punished by nature then it gives incentive to others to go for their turns. But one needs to realise that being good is an important aspect of a civilisation. Being good and not choosing to be mean every time you get an opportunity, is a contribution towards making this world a better place to live. It’s something like a person who chooses to use water judiciously to solve WORLD’S water problem, switch off lights and fans when not in use to solve WORLD’S energy problem and so on. So along with good governance, self-discipline is an essential thing to inch towards a utopian society. And being an atheist and being bad or immoral is not all the same. I was left with a very little time as I was having no information regarding train. I was without a google map to find the way to the places I had to visit. I decided to spend the time left with me as a vagabond. I passed some time with some folks under a shade as an atheist. Questioning them freely and improving their as well as my concepts. Villages have got some very talented self-taught musical instrument players. We passed some more time together with music. Like words help in exchange of thoughts and help intellectual development similarly music also helps in exchanging feelings and emotions boosting up that process further. After ending the music session I bade them adieu. I was taught to thank god for the great life he has given to us, since my childhood and now it’s a habit. I often get conscious of what a great life I have got. This time on my way to station it just occurred to me that had I been a girl whether I would have got this opportunity of sitting with strangers, having fun (which I have not discussed in detail), exchanging ideas and emotions (and this was not at all similar to the case of Rahul Gandhi’s “but the most important thing is empowerment of women”)? But I was too tired to have an intellectual chat with my mind and I slept, with something nice for the next break, as soon as I closed my eyes.

Subham Suman

The Voice

The classroom speaker cracked and and a toneless voice said hello. Few of the students casually turned to listen.

“Lets play a game, its gonna be fun. What do you say?”, said the dead voice.

There was a silence followed by chaos of confusion at the uncharacteristic message from the speakers, that usually broadcasts announcements and instructions. A boy from the class proceeded to check out who was at the other end. But he had to stop once he figured out the door to the classroom had been closed, seemingly from outside.

“Where are you trying to go? Are you not playing the game?” demanded the voice.

The realisation of what just happened confused the students. “Since when do we have cameras in here?”, questioned the same boy. The students were scanning the walls for cameras as the voice came to life again.

“Quit searching and start playing. This is round one. Among thirty two of you, only fifteen will still stay in the game. So play hard. All you have to do is write down the names of people you consider your friends in your class. The seventeen of you with the least number of appearence on paper would lose. It would be game over for you. Somebody pass around a sheet of paper. No cheating, I’m watching you. And do not write your own name people”

“This is very stupid”, said one of the girls.

“No its not. Its fun”, the voice said with a kind of creepy humour.

The class was shocked once again at the realisation that the voice at the other end was listening to them too.

“Now start the game”, demanded the voice with overpowering authority.

The class was a bit scared now and someone initiated the game. The paper was passed around and the moment the last person wrote down his list of friends, the voice came to life and said, “Very good, now I have the results, the seventeen of you who are losing out are…”

Before the students could make out what was happening, 17 of them dropped dead. The rest fifteen freaked out and started shouting at the top of their voices. For once the school seemed deserted and banging at the door did not invite anybody’s attention. All of them were crying loud and there was nothing they could do.

“What have you done?”, cried one of the girls

“Stop this game of yours and bring back my friends”

“Friends? I thought you told me they were not your friends. I just wanted to make the game all the more interesting. Now the less popular ones are out, lets go to round two, shall we?”, said the voice.

Everyone was freaked out to even listen. The seven guys and the eight girls still alive were scared to death and shouting at the top of their voice for help. It didn’t help.

“Stop screaming and listen. Or you will also lose. Its always a bad feeling to lose, isn’t it? Even I hate losing. Losing to anyone in anything. It sucks. So lets play the round two”, the voice said.

“Listen now or you will lose”, authority taken, the voice said. The screaming died down a bit as few of the students realised the implications of losing.

“I want to go home to my mommy, please open the door, I don’t want to play the game”, a boy still kept shouting and the next moment, the number of students still alive went down to fourteen.

More screams; followed by sudden silence. Most of the students were crying uncontrollably and at the same time trying hard to control their sound. Once the shouting subdued, the voice started.

“Too bad he kept shouting. Now there’s only fourteen of you and I needed an odd number of you for the second round. What do I do?”, the voice wondered.

“Can you please stop this”, begged one of the girls who was nearly out of voice due to fear.

“Common, it was getting interesting. I am sure you would’ve loved the game from here on. But since you want to stop..”

The girl fell dead.

“So all of you still going strong. You have one minute to pair up with someone else, and the one without the pair would lose the moment six pairs are formed”

There was a huge commotion in the class once they interpreted the message and within five seconds random pairs were formed. A very soft spoken, not-so-pretty girl was left alone and she was trying to push into a pair when she also dropped dead.

“Ha, she was so miserable. Its a good thing she lost, she wouldn’t have gone on in the game for long anyways”, the voice said amid more screams. “And yeah, one more thing, only one of you is gonna win this game eventually. And remember, there are no consolation prizes” .

More screams followed.

A boy gathered enough courage to ask the voice, “What are you, who are you? Are all of these people dead? Who are you and what do you want? Why are you harming us. Please stop this”

“I am the most evil person you guys will ever know. The most cunning person. I am shrewd, I am smart and moreover, I am evil”, the voice burst into a streak of creepy laughter.

“What do you want of us?”, demanded the same boy. He was the class head as was evident from the badge he was wearing.

“I just want us all to have fun. So shall we play next round?”, asked the voice.

“We don’t want to play. Will you stop this and bring back all my classmates?”

“I hate when people talk too much in a game. You should have lost by now, had you not been so highly placed to win this game. I shall let you play for now. But one more word, and thats the game for you”, threatened the voice. The class head got scared and decided not to speak any more.

“So, for the next round I want all of you to go back to your pair, formed in the last round and hold hands”, said the voice. “Good, now I want you to listen carefully. If you utter the name of your pair, he or she loses. But if he or she utters your name before that, you lose. So in the end one from each group loses. Get it? Ok now, go”

No one moved, or said anything. Everyone kept looking at their pair.

“Hello?” the voice spoke again. “Lets up the stakes, if none from a group makes a move, both from the group lose, that too in the next 15 seconds. So here we go. 15.. 14...13..”

The class head made his move, he said the name of his pair and she fell down dead. Two seconds later, two of them from the same group made their moves at almost the same time. One of them dropped dead.

“..4..3..2..”

Two more made their moves and their pairs lost. The two girls who formed the last pair were hugging each other and crying out loud. As the voice counted to zero, both of them dropped dead.

“Now don’t freak out, I know you would be too excited that you are almost there. I love you people. You played well. Now for the last round.” the voice continued.

“Can’t you stop at least now”, pleaded the only remaining girl. She was unable to speak anymore as she fell to her knees.

“Not yet. We don’t have a clear winner yet, have we? So play, game’s still on”, said the voice. “For the next round, each one of you will have to get a gun from the cupboard. And I guess you know what I would ask you to do…”

The girl gathered herself to her feet, ran to the cupboard. She took out a gun. Then pointing it at herself, she started screaming and shot herself.

“Wow, that was nasty. I hate people who give up. Winning is all that matters, why don’t people realise that? Pity her. What are you three waiting for, play the game. I sure hope you guys are better than that stupid girl”, said the voice.

The three of them glanced at each other and proceeded steadily and slowly towards the cupboard. The class head reached in for his gun first. He saw there were exactly three guns left in there. He took one of them, he moved back. As the other two were reaching in for theirs, he shot both of them at the back of their heads.

There were moments of silence

“Thats why you deserved to win”, the voice came back to life. “You win the game. I sure hope you had fun playing”

The class head boy was not crying anymore. He stood there looking around at the thirty one bodies around him, three of them bleeding profusely. He dropped his gun and turned to the speaker.

“Who are you?”, asked the boy

“The most evil person you’ll ever know”, said the creepily cheery voice.

“How did you do all this and why?”, the boy demanded.

“Because I hate losing. I wanted to win. And thats all I ever cared about. I hated being second to anyone. This game is how I win.”, the voice said, in a very serious tone.

“Why did you do this to my classmates. What did they ever do to you? And how?”

“There is no ‘how’s, only ‘why’s. I told you, because I hate being a loser in anything”, said the voice, not laughing anymore.

“What are you? Why did you do this with my classmates? I don’t understand.”, the boy said his voice more confident than ever.

“I am the most evil person you will ever know.”, repeated the voice. “You still don’t get it, do you?  Lets meet. The door would be open. Come and meet me at the office room”.

The head boy walked to the door, opened it and stepped out. The school was completely deserted and dead silent. He slowly and steadily walked towards his destination. He reached the room and pushed on the door. It opened. Inside was dimly lit like never seen ever before.

There was someone sitting on a chair facing the wall opposite to the door, with the mic to the speakers in his right hand. Once the boy entered the room, the chair slowly turned towards him. The expression of curiosity and fear on the face of the head boy slowly turned to one of disbelief.

A few moments later it slowly turned to one of understanding and fearlessness.

In the room, the boy met himself.

- Srihari Radhakrishnan

Running away is not an option, dear

The title might make you scratch your head and look deep into your memories of some 80’s film dialogues. Did you hear it somewhere, some when? Is it one of them? Yeah! Maybe it is. But I am damn sure that you never got the essence of it. Very few do. Let’s see what’s in it for you…

I came across this random fact some day and built up a quote for it – “God has given you a certain small tilt in your walk, so if you ever try to run away in a desert you will most probably end up in the same place”. These lines mean more than just a guide in a desert and great people – be it Martin Luther King or Swami Paramhansa Yogananda, always use a metaphor or an analogy to explain things. It is the same with this quote. So let’s look at life as a desert – certainly a long journey to learn from. If you ever try to run away from a situation – yeah, God has given you a tilt in your walk… The faster you try to run away from it, the faster would you complete the circle and look at what you just ran away from!

This is the solution for most of the problems we face in life…The first reflex we have to problems is - we try to run away from it and later do we actually gather courage to stand up to it and face it and finally come to a conclusion that we, as a person are bigger than all the problems summed up together.

So let’s adopt this ideology and develop the courage to face each and every situation life presents to us! And yeah I called it “Presents” to us …because all that life gives you, love and loss, are all “Gifts”

-Hardik Katyarmal

One Experience

I was celebrating my b’day when i met you first time,

Honestly speaking i had no intention to make you mine.
Yeah But i felt something strange with you,
so i began writing ‘My love is new’.
I didn’t know how my words began to rhyme.
they transformed themselves in poetry after some time.
I was confused about what is this thing crawling inside me?
is this the snake of lust or the beautiful love tree?

 

So i decided to think about it very deeply with all my brain on it,
But my brain replaced these thought with that beautiful picture of you.
My heart followed the order and made a special place for it,
I realized that this is not an ordinary feeling this is something new.

 

I didn’t know what am i experience next,
I didn’t knew that is it gonna change my life for the worst or the best?

- Dhruv Joshi

An attempted tribute to graduating seniors

वो जाते जाते वादियों को चूमता जा रहा था |
वो सारी फिजूल सांसें जो उसने कल तक खर्च किये थे ;
आज रात उसका हिसाब हो जायेगा ||
कुछ बुनियादी -बेबुनियादी रिश्ते 
जो लोगों ने उसके दीवार पर टांग दिए थे 
अब उनका क्या होगा ? वो शायद ना रहे |
एक नया दौड़ आएगा , नए पेंट चढ़ जाएंगे ||

शेल्फ के एक कोने में 
जो सारे कैश मेमो पड़े  थे ;
सीसीडी, park , flavours , शिवानी 
हर पल एक नयी कहानी |
अब इनका क्या होगा ? ये शायद अब ना रहे ||

खैर 
packed  बैग के साथ 
यादों  के भी तो कुछ कच्चे चिठ्ठे जाएंगे ,
कुछ अल्फ़ाज़ जो कभी भुलाये ,भूले ना जा सके; 
कुछ "रिग्रेट्स" जो मिटाये मिट ना सके ;
कुछ मुहब्बत , जो कभी मुहब्बत बन ना सके ;
ये सारे साथ जाएंगे |
और जब कभी यही बसंत लौटेगा; 
जवाँ पे पुराना जायका लौटेगा ;
यादों का एक हूक दिल के दरवाजे को दस्तक देगा 
शायद...शायद...शायद...
 किसी मोड़  पे फिर मिलेंगे ...........................................................


-Anupam Kumar

Third year undergraduate