What does it take for a decently intelligent and an ordinarily hardworking person to make it through a fierce competition? A lot of luck. Surely, there is a perennial attempt to undermine the role that luck plays. Jefferson is quoted to have said that the harder he works, the luckier he gets. This is true to a large extent. When one prepares confidently and waters down all weaknesses, the chance of success does increase. But, does this stand valid when the competition is so intense and the scope of success so small that the margins are highly miniscule?

CLAT – the Common Law Admission Test – will have around 1.4 Lac takers this year. The saturation of IIT-JEE coupled with the romanticising of National Law Universities has caused this heavy increase in the number. The unfortunate pandemic situation forced extension of deadlines to fill in the form, opening up a window to those deciding at the eleventh hour to try a shot at this exam.

The number itself, however, is not much of an issue. Afterall, several other exams in India have over half a million applicants. But, it’s the narrow scope of success that is worrisome. The 22 NLUs under CLAT all total to 1,355 seats for the General Category, with almost an equal number for the Reserved Categories. Comparing this to the total applicants, less than one percent have the chance of landing in an NLU. I repeat, not even one percent! To put it another way, if a candidate goes to take the exam at a centre which caters to five hundred students, a mere five will taste success.

While all this competition is one thing, the CLAT this year has been particularly spiced up with a lot of pattern and syllabi changes. The purpose was to streamline the process so that those with the best of Reasoning abilities and Knowledge are selected. This is surely a noble aim. CLAT, over the years, had become too mechanical where students simply understood the general nature of questions and toned themselves to solve those. This lead to a flourishing of coaching institutes thumping their chests of producing high rankers as they spoon-feed students with the ‘past year questions’ that neither gave them any substantial knowledge nor prepared them to be a good law student. It so happened that most students would know the answer to a Legal Reasoning question simply by looking at the facts or the principle, without as much as pondering over the rationale of their answer.

At the outset, I do appreciate these changes. They were much needed and had to be done years ago. But all these changes seemed to have created another problem, a problem much larger than they sought to solve. The new paper requires the candidates to be very strong at the language. A student might have excellent reasoning abilities, but they can only be utilised once she passes the hurdle of being swift, strong, and immaculate at the language. It is only when one understands the large paragraphs and the demand of the question that she can ponder over the given options and choose the correct one. If one does not process the given text within the given time, she does not even reach the stage where her reasoning skills are tested. This causes a huge barrier to those who have not had opportunities to hone their linguistic skills.

To make it all worse, the lack of adequate language skills can be attributed to the poor school standards across the country. Those who are privileged to have grown up in urban upper class households with educated parents and high-standard schools are clearly ahead in the CLAT race. Although the previous pattern was not on-point in testing reasoning, it was, if nothing, more accommodative of students with an average schooling and a determination to fill in the gaps. It is quite uncomfortable and disheartening to see plenty of students message me their doubts and queries using wrong grammar. Many simply do not understand the given text and ask for an explanation. At the risk of being extremely judgemental, I sense, at that very moment, that these students may not stand a chance to be in the top one percent that CLAT is going to skim off for NLUs.

It seems that the zeal of reforms has made the Consortium reckless as they undermine inclusivity. Given how small the margins are going to be in the eventual rank list, mis-reading even a word in the paper can mean failure. It is hard to see how a student with average schooling, poor exposure, and high pressure may crack the exam and walk to an NLU. The competition has turned a stream into a river, the pandemic has added a flood to this river, and the Consortium has narrowed the flood-gates allowing only the privileged to pass through.

Ultimately, it will be unfair for those who make it to the NLUs to credit their achievement entirely to their hard work and intelligence. Similarly, it will also be unfair to undermine the skills of those who fail. CLAT has, unfortunately, become a game of chance at which, even before the exam, thousands have already lost to a privileged few.

I feel numb.

I’ve generally thought of myself as an emotional person. I’ve had strong opinions about plenty of things and indifference towards none. The idea of being reserved and letting something go has been alien to me. Those who know me well know that I am quite vocal, sometimes with disastrous consequences. All this, however, is not a virtue. I tend to overdo it and make irreparable damage.

Overtime, I had learnt to exercise restraint and let things go. I chose my battles and made my point only when I felt it to be essential. But lately, this has been going south. My selective picking of what I must support or oppose has been tiring. Not because of my lack of energy, but because I find no utility in it.

When Article 370 was rendered ineffective in an effort to ‘merge’ Kashmir with India, when the Supreme Court ordered the construction of Ram Mandir, when the Parliament passed their CAA, when the Government proposed the NPR and NRC, and when the Tablighi Jama’at was made the scapegoat, the battle lines drawn were exactly the same. Those of my friends who are on the right side of these issues do not have to be engaged because our outrage and views are in sync. And those who are on the ‘right’ side cannot be engaged because of their obvious prejudices.

Thus, the very point of being angry at something gets defeated because there is no release. And all this pent up anger simply leads to such repression that it numbs all the emotions.

At the risk of sounding pessimistic, it is obvious that I have no power to bring in a change in the hearts of those who thump their chests with nationalism. This is not because they do not understand reason, but despite it. Engaging with them drives you in circles and exasperates you. The tale ends where it had begun. There will not be any change of hearts, but the minds surely become toxic. The ego of one’s ideology is too strong to be countered by reason.

There is, however, a larger point here. The idea of India has been pretty obscure. It is the indefinable feature which ought to have strengthened the nation by according both respect to the diverse traditions and dignity to an individual. But, was this idea a lie? In an effort to inculcate tolerance, we seem to have, over the decades, tolerated the intolerance. Eventually, the intolerance became powerful enough that it has put this idea of India in jeopardy. Or did this intolerance only remove the façade over the rosy idea of India which never really existed?

We’ve been told that India is about the pursuit of substantive equality, liberty, and fraternity. But the graph on these has only been diving downwards. Perhaps, the idea of India never was the truth. If it was, what does it take to live it in practice rather than merely preaching it in the ideals? Even if this idea is true, it seems to be only slipping away from our sight. We all have already chosen our positions on either side of the line, only to gradually strengthen it. This could be just a phase in this country’s history, or the death of our dreams.

In this prime-time-shouting-matches age, we all will continue to fight. We will assert our positions using every debating technique in the arsenal. We will grow our differences amongst us. And we all will, unfortunately, continue to defeat India.

What a time to be alive. Of course, being alive is the first of all priorities. But never did I think that we would witness such incredible times. The pandemic has shaken the world in every aspect. Lakhs have already died across the world, and those who battled it and survived have been through enormous difficulties and trauma.

Several unfortunate news stories have sunk my heart further. The deaths of sixteen migrant workers sleeping on the tracks, another twenty-four in a road accident, and the miseries of those taking long walks to try and reach their homes has been too tough to watch. All this invokes both anger and helplessness.

The response of the government has been inefficient and disheartening to say the least. We seem to be doing exactly the opposite of what the situation demands.

The first lockdown was announced with a four-hour notice. As the migrant labours scrambled to pick up the little belongings they had and head to their home towns and villages, we suspended all public transport. These daily wage earners now had no wage. The governments promised to provide them all food, but only after verifying if they deserve it or not. They were asked to register online using their Aadhaar Numbers, obtain their own registration numbers, and queue up at a crowded distribution centre.

Even in this crisis, we couldn’t declare that the food will be provided for every person who seeks it. And that’s because of the apprehension of ‘leakages’ – that those who are not ‘entitled to be beneficiaries’ should not take what isn’t meant for them. How ironic is it that when a person uses every provision of the Taxation Law available to reduce his taxes, he is known to be a smart businessman; but, when a person simply wants food to not starve to death, he is looked at with suspicion to be a moocher!

The biases have come out as obvious. We will bail out the corporates like Yes Bank which have crashed due to their own mismanagement, but will not help the vulnerable labourers who are vulnerable due to the government’s mismanagement. Even in these desperate times, our policies are pro-corporate as we help these wealthy capitalists by enabling them to retrench labour without any obligations, not to mention the dropping of Minimum Wages baselines. Because we may compromise the basic social security of the workers, but will not risk any chipping away of the business owners’ profits.

The labour had no choice, but to take a long walk to reach their native places. As they reached their towns and villages, they have been seen as Corona carriers. The administration in Bareilly went so far as to make them sit on the roads in a group and spray disinfectant over all the people using a fire engine. If this had to be done, it should’ve been done at the airports with all the people arriving from abroad. They were the ones bringing Corona to India, without which we’d not have the pandemic in the country.

Amidst all this, the power surely found what it was desperately seeking. A scapegoat. This came in the form of Tablighi Jama’at which conducted their meetings a few days before the lockdown was announced. The drill was the usual and all the developments were on the expected lines. Muslims have been targeted as conducting #CoronaJihad and vilified for conducting a meeting even when there was no restriction for the same. The Foucoult’s cycle of power and knowledge played perfectly well as the Government, the Media, and Ideologically-motivated people peddled a sensational narrative of hatred. It was disturbing that we found none of this surprising.

After two months of this ordeal which exposed the vulnerabilities of the weaker sections and the extra-ordinary power of the Government, we are on the path to open up the economy. Defeating the entire purpose of the two months of lockdown, we’re easing the restrictions, doing the exact opposite of what we ought to do. When we had a few hundred cases, the lockdown was brutally imposed with the Police misusing their powers by beating up anyone they saw on the road. But now that we have almost two lac cases, our Government wants us to go out and carry on with our routine. And there is hardly any voice which questions this planned execution of irony.

The episode has only started. Every development that shocks us today becomes the normal tomorrow. And this race to the bottom is furiously fast. If I think of it now, I shudder to imagine how this year will end. But then, I am sure that’ll be just another normal by then.

It’s been a while since I’ve been here. Over six years, in fact. I’ve often thought of writing and waking this dormant blog up. But, I had neither the courage nor the inclination. If anything, I only tried escaping the reality. The struggle and pursuit of my aspirations left me so weak that I wouldn’t dare put this journey in writing. The biggest of all fears was that I may, sometime in future, look back and read things with a disappointment of what it could have been and what it is not.

I am here now. Severely heart-broken and relying on a façade of happiness to hide all the pain. Reality is too much to take. Up until a few months, I could rely on random meaningless validations from others and maladaptive day-dreaming of my own. But that has proven to be unsustainable and the house of cards collapsed, reflecting what I always feared to witness.

The only hope I have is to rely on Him. Him, I trust, of course. And through Him, I trust the destiny. The burdens seem small and the shoulders relax when you surrender. I’ve tried being charged and pushing myself with the pretense of having good control over what I do. But, I give that up. Not only because I failed. But also because I am exhausted. If these years have given me any wisdom, it is to not hold yourself uptight and lead the journey, but to let go and chain yourself to time as it takes you on its path.

Courage does not lie in being strong and powerful. It lies in being submissive when you have a choice not to. Submissive, of course, to a larger plan. To destiny. To Him.

“BottleloN mein paani bharke fridge mein rakh do!”, a voice shouted at me with both the intensity to wake me up from the soundest of sleeps and the fear that disobeying the orders would mean to risk a near-death experience. Of all the irritating orders that a mom can throw at her child, this takes all three medals and the consolation prize with no close competition. When there’s a water filter, it requires you to hold the empty bottle in one hand and either lift or press down the tap to start the flow. As the time passes by, you cannot do anything, but watch the water fill up knowing that nothing you do now can increase the flow of water. But, at the same time, the bottle starts becoming heavier and heavier, and you run the risk of the bottle slipping away.

A productive use of your analytical part of your brain would be to slowly lower the bottle and meticulously put it down, and place it in such a way that the water stream enters the bottle without as much touching the sides of the bottle’s mouth. But the negative side of this, in case your life wasn’t hard enough already, is that the water stream becomes thicker and thicker. It requires tremendous calculation to place it in such a position that not a single drop falls out of the bottle and its mouth matches the thickness of the stream. However, you cannot place the empty bottle at a pre-determined fixed position and then switch on the tap because the force of the stream has enough power to kick the bottle side-ways and make you feel like a loser. So, the only way for you to fix it to the ground would be to slowly lower it while filling it which makes sure that the bottle has gained enough water for it to stand firm and face the eccentric force exerted by the stream of water, both harum-scarum to form itself as a smooth flow and indifferent to where it’s going to land.

If that wasn’t all, the huge water tank of 25 litres which is attached upside down to the filter chooses to replace the space earlier occupied with water that is now flowing down with air. The only source of such air is the same damn tap through with the water is running down. This not only makes the rough flow of water even rougher and causes problems to its trajectory leading to the bottle mouth, but also makes huge bubbles of air rush up from the bottom of the tank to its top, causing vibrations and disturbances which make the water flow even more bizarre!

All of that is when there is a damn filter with a tap! But what when the water container is an earthen pot and you are now required to dip in a jug, pull it out, and empty it into the bottle. One good thing about this is that you can place the bottle on the ground and hold it with one hand while you run a stream of water from the jug to the bottle mouth, while at the same time determining the thickness of the stream by adjusting the height of the jug. It’s not all good though. It requires skills of making a fair judgement of how much water a jug should be filled with in order to make sure that the bottle is fully filled up, while at the same time, there is no excess of water remaining in the jug after the completion of this tedious task. There is no tap for you to simply release it in order to stop the flow. You are either expected to flow back the excess water into the pot, an undesirable choice, or to gulp down the water yourself, which eventually, will increase your visits to the washroom by two. (Argh!)

If you manage to do all of this and have half a dozen filled up water bottles, you are not done before you accomplish another irritating task – to place these damn bottles in the already swamped refrigerator. Why is it that these bottles cannot get some permanent reserved place in the fridge? I know that I’ve picked them from all the four corners of the house, but that, by no means, would mean that its place in the fridge is taken up with butter, milk, eggs, and the forsaken sambar, dhaniya, and masala powders! Touching any of them would let out a whiff of those powders from the opening of their packets. You are now expected to rearrange all of these and find place for the uncompromising Tupperware bottles with a bulging base. There’s anger, anguish, and frustration when, after placing three bottles in a row, you find that there is some space left at one of the corners enough to place something, but nothing out of the things you have!

Once you manage to get done with all of it, hoping that the household consumes as less water as possible to push away another such episode, you are not just cranky, but also out of energy. And by the time your nervous system begins to relax and you return to the worthy things of your life, “BottleloN mein paani bharke fridge mein rakh do!”. Oh, fuck!

Three times. Yes, it happened again for the third time. This was yet another instance of making me question both my competency and luck at once. But earlier, this didn’t seem like the previous two times at all. We had read a lot. We did so much International Law and Space Law that even the ‘authorities’ that NALSAR prides to have, must not have. (It’s not all that hard to surpass them, by the way). I’ve been spoiling my sleep with dotty dreams about Outer Space and Moon. And that’s because I was stuck with the same damn compromis for nine long months. It all started in September last year when I had planned of taking up Leiden Sarin. But then, the competition seemed so arduous that I shifted my priorities from Air law to Space law. Then came the Open Challenge, clearing which, I had assumed, would put us on a field that’s supposedly shared by all the well-prepared teams around the globe. I was wrong. It turned out that the OC was a mere trailer for all that there was to come. The scores in the OC made me curse all the over-estimation I had done. For once, it seemed like we had pushed ourselves too hard for what seemed like an easy victory. But again, this was just a trailer, no?

I’m too lazy to work, really. Unless there’s a deadline and someone with an axe is ready to hack me, I cannot get to work. And that someone was missing once the OC was done. The result being that we submitted the same memorials for the actual moot too, secretly hoping that we’ll make it through somehow. What were we to do anyway? The already hectic schedule, full of exams and projects, had little time to offer. Also, it could be easy to start something new rather than improving something that has already been done. It seemed all fine when ISRO decided to seed us in the national rounds, basing on the memorial scores. The feeling persisted when we defeated both our prelims opponents, one of whom had come to this moot for the second time after having lost in Semis in their first. Here is where the sky lost its colours and the stars started to fade. We were, in Quarters, put up against the top most seed and lost. A loss with no regrets, for they were much better than we could’ve been even if we had worked during the lazing time after the OC. Plagiarising from the excessively used moot word, however, the unlucky part was to see the teams we beat in the prelims breaking into Quarters and stepping into Semis. The team that beat us went ahead to win it all in what was very well deserved. But, couldn’t we have been assassinated a little later? In the Finals like the previous two teams from my college were? Or, at least, in Semis? Bleh!

I’m tired of mooting. Not because it’s no more interesting. It is. There is nothing better than standing there at the podium and answering every question with all the non-sense that you may not be able to pull out anywhere else. It gives out kicks and makes you feel good about yourself. A sense of achievement like you’ve slept naked on the hot Dosa stove and still managed to avoid heat. A feeling that you’ve taken your helmet off in the Outer Space, near Comet Donkelson, and still managed to stay intact. Okay. Not all that fancy. But, that was just to give an idea of the amount of bakchodi that’s involved in moots. Mooting’s good. And it will get better if the element of luck is not as magnified as it normally is. The same team which failed to clear the OC went ahead to win Vis the next year. That very team went ahead to face disappointment in the Jessup national rounds because of a certain technicality in fixing the match ups. Luck has always ruled the mooting arena. It was relieving when my Vice Chancellor told me, “It is fine. Even Tendulkar has had bad years. Doesn’t mean he’s a bad player!”

There are certain things you want to do in a Law School before it gets too late. I have no idea if people have such lists, but I certainly do. The first of them is ‘mooting’. Well, it was. I’ve given it three shots and not once did it end pleasant. In fact, this time we were planning to head to Tokyo, had we got it. And we didn’t. Well, we wouldn’t have been to Japan either ways considering that my co-speaker doesn’t seem to be getting his Passport anytime soon. So, it wasn’t heart-breaking when they informed us that we aren’t being invited. On the other hand, it made my mom very happy that I won’t be struck by an Earthquake and will live longer.

I can go on writing about this, only to butcher my frustration. But, I’ll end this here and make this the last paragraph. Passion and destiny are two different things. I’m still confused if it’s my competency or luck that’s needs to be blamed. But, as far as my passion is concerned, it seems to be far far away from the destiny. I tried meeting them both thrice and they’ve always repelled. So be it! As Calvin once said, “Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine and valleys of frustration and failure.” Too bad that my valleys are simply too deep.

Law School can only do so much. Almost every kid that enters the gates of one will have his own prejudices and pretexts. When I did, I was staunchly against the caste based reservations and I knew no reason why death penalty could even be considered a bone of arbitrary state action. But that’s become, fortunately, my past. If I call the kid in me who walked the campus three years ago, I wouldn’t be able to reason out with him to support the same beliefs which that kid will grow up to subscribe in less than three years.

The transformation happened not because I’m more mature now. I don’t even think maturity has got anything to do with it, for kids who are born and grow up in an intellectual environment would rarely have the notions that I had when I started my law course. This day has come because of the exposure that the law school provides its students with. Courses such as Law and Poverty, Sociology and Constitutional Law give you so much to think about, that you end up challenging your own preconceived notions. The confidence that you had in expressing them falls flat when you realise that the world isn’t just black or white. The simple recognition of grey (and every other shade in between) is what broadens your horizon. It’s not merely the change of opinions, but also the transmutation of the language into a much more political one. And here I am – believing that there exists an imbalance between various groups of populace which justifies the affirmative actions taken to uplift them, and that the discretion given to the state to choose as to who would die and who wouldn’t is with no rules and guideposts. But then, this doesn’t happen with everyone, does it?

Ideologies are a set of beliefs that can never be forced upon someone. They are inherent in the thought process and conscience of one’s personality/mindset. You never choose to believe in something because you feel you should. You do so only because somewhere your reasoning hints that it is the right thing to believe. Someone after having spent half the law school life says that Kasab should’ve been shot dead right away as he would weigh heavy for the economy of the country has an inherent flaw in his thinking. His inner self (or whatever that damn thing is) gives no scope to think from the perspective that’s been proposed by a lot many sensible lads. That creates an ideology. An ideology that sticks to the principles he believed in when he had his first blush in here. The ones who recognize various other points of view and respect them for what they’re worth end up becoming ‘liberals’.

On the other hand, there are those over whom the transition has had no effect. That’s not because they find justifications for what they believe. Their deaf ears fail to comprehend reason and logic so grossly that they’ve made curtains of blindness around them. What’s more? Law School’s wasted on them, not because they choose to be ignorant, but because they have an inherent screw loose which could be fixed by none. It’s definitely impossible to argue with someone who remains ignorant, let alone with one who finds joy in being so.

Apart from these, there are those who thump their chests and claim to be of a superior breed. Why? Because it’s too main stream to follow reason and come to a logical conclusion. No matter what one tells them, their ego is going to slap them every time they even put an effort to think that there exists some sense. Their hatred for all the other people/religions/castes existing is, for them, an issue of immense proudness. I never believed the existence of such people when one someone, in my first year’s Daaru Party, pretended to be drunk and picked on his own batchmate on the name of his caste. The sight was so disgusting that one could vomit all the intestines and still not be satisfied. The same person, when a circular was issued from the VC’s office to use dry colours for the holi and not water, waived off whatever little Constitutional Law knowledge he had to invoke his ‘religion freedom’, claiming that if ‘other’ religions can ‘celebrate’ their festivals the way they want (on campus? Do we slaughter Cows here on Bakrid?), he has the right to spill a little water around. Helplessness is what I felt at such a dismayed and devastated product of this Law School. It’s even more heart-breaking to see that he’s just one person of such caravan.

Law School is wasted on such souls. It has failed at its job of instilling basic reasoning. The problem does not lie in the system; it, evidently, lies with its subjects. How does all of this come about? Hah! Beats me!

My mother’s father passed away when my mother was six. Throat cancer had gripped his life and he knew that he was about to die in a few weeks. As a young man, in his forties, he was, for a good reason, worried about his six daughters and two sons. He had no property except for a small paddy field and a ramshackled antediluvian house. No source which could yield enough money to sustain the entire family. Eventually, he decided to quit looking for alternatives and took over a conscientious task of writing a guide for his wife’s sake as to how the home is to be nurtured. So he wrote one letter everyday which contained scrupulous details on topics starting from upbringing of the kids and providing bread and butter to the family, to living the ‘life’ in the best manner possible. Each of these beautifully written letters consistently ended with the same sentence: If God wills for my survival for another day, you’ll read more in the next letter. All of this was, of course, in Urdu. He also happened to know Hindi, English, Persian and a bit of Arabic. He had such love and fascination for ‘language’ and its usage that not a single day passed by without using some or the other Urdu/Hindi/Persian couplet in his daily conversation. His favourite – Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib.

On the other hand, my father’s father too was a grand lover of poetry. Attending mushairas (poetic meetings) was his routine. Every anecdote that my dad tells me about him contains a pair of Urdu verses. His conversation would remain barren unless a couplet or two were spoken. And again, his favourite – Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib. But then, he too was gone by the time I entered this world. The more I’m told about him and his way of life, the more I feel bad for not having met him.

My entire family, from both maternal and paternal sides, has been so much institutionalised by Ghalib, that all they wanted to know was if the new born child was a boy or not. And what if it’s a boy? – He would be named after Ghalib! I have, by virtue of my name, inherited the legacy of poetic love both my granddads had. None of them saw me, but I’m certain if they had, they would have been in love with me, at least for the sake of the name that I carry. What adds spice is the fact that Ghalib’s father’s name was ‘Abdullah’ which also happens to be my father’s name.

Ghalib, undoubtedly, was a brilliant man. He authored around eleven thousand couplets in Persian which, however, failed to bring him accolades that a mere two thousand in Urdu could. Legacy has it that when Sir Syed Ahmed Khan went to him to get a foreword written for his well-researched and illustrated edition of Abul Fazl’s Ai’n-e Akbari, he wrote a Persian poem criticizing Sir Syed for wasting his efforts in writing about something which had happened a few centuries ago. Sir Syed immediately dispensed with all his interests in history and archaeology and became a social reformer. Eventually, he established Mohammedan Anglo Oriental College which was transformed later into Aligarh Muslim University, one of the largest in the country.

But, what made Ghalib so great? They say that a bare philosophical poet cannot do much if he’s leading a good life without being carked. Well, they’re right. It’s the circumstances and environment which makes one write. And Ghalib wrote. He wrote in such fantabulous and dulcet manner that the title ‘Father of Urdu Poetry’ is an underestimation. His views on life, grief and death were as poignant as anything could be. In one such wonderful couplet, he says:

Qaid-e-Hayaat o Band-e-Gham Asl Mein Dono Ek HaiN,
Maut Se Pahle Aadmi Gham Se Nijaat Paaye Kyoun?

The prison of life and the bondage of grief are one and the same,
Before the onset of death, how can one expect to be free of grief?

All this did not come to him out of the blue. He could hardly make peace with his life as he had to brook the death of all his seven kids even before any of them could reach puberty. He then ended up adopting his nephew who too passed away within months of adoption. And all he would do was to write!

Haan Ae Falak-E-Peer, Jawaan Tha Abhi Aarif!
Kya Tera Bigadta Jo Na Marta Koi Din Aur?

(Indeed, O master of the skies, Arif was still young!
What harm would it have done to you if he had died some other day?)

[Read more of the above poem here]

In spite of all this, he had perseverance towards his faith. He prayed and believed that the woes will be gone soon. It didn’t happen, but he still had faith. And he wrote as he waited anxiously for a good turn.

Ghalib! Na Kar Huzoor Mein Tu Baar Baar Arz!
Zaahir Hai Tera Haal Sab Un Par, Kahe Baghair.

Don’t make repeated pleas, Ghalib, to your Lord!
Your situation is evident to Him, even without mentioning it.

His pleas weren’t heeded to. He was in the same state of affairs till he left this world in the year 1869. And now, he rests here, hopefully, in peace. A man of his kind. No one similar shall ever exist on this planet!

Tomb of Mirza Ghalib at Hazrat Nizamuddin in Delhi

Husn Gamze Ki Kashakash Se Chhuta Mere Baad
Baare Aaraam Se Hai Ahl-E-Jafaa Mere Baad

Beauty is spared the strain of ogling after my demise,
Despotic beauties, after me, shall in peace abide.

Mansab-E-Shefatgi Ke Koi Qaabil Na Raha
Hui Maazuli-E-Andaaz-O-Adaa Mere Baad

None now deserves to wear the lover’s honoured badge,
Airs and graces of the beauties will now neglected lie.

Shama Bujhti Hai To Us Main Se Dhuan Uthata Hai
Shola-E-Ishq Siyahposh Hua Mere Baad

When the candle flame is snuffed, smoke begins to rise,
The flame of love has donned the sable after I’ve died.

Khoon Hai Dil Khaak Main Ahwal-E-Butaan Par, Yaani
Unke Naakhun Hue Mohtaaj-E-Hina Mere Baad

My heart bleeds inside the grave when I think of beauties sweet,
And realize that their nails are thirsting for the henna dye.

Kaun Hota Hai Harif-E-Mai-E-Mard-Afgan-E-Ishq
Hai Mukarrar Lab-E-Saaqi Pe Salaa Mere Baad

“Who will drink the bowl of passions overbold?”
There will be no reply to this question once I die.

Gam Se Marta Hoon Ke Itna Nahin Duniya Main Koi
Ke Kare Taaziyat-E-Mehar-O-Wafa Mere Baad

The saddening thought chills my heart that after I’m gone,
Untended and unmourned will love and passion lie.

Aaye Hai Bekasi-E-Ishq Pe Rona ‘Ghalib’
Kiske Ghar Jaayega Sailaab-E-Balaa Mere Baad

The thought of love’s helplessness fills my heart with grief,
Where will the devastating tide go, when it’s done with me?

“Well, don’t laugh at me when I answer your question!” was what came as a reply from a friend of mine when I asked her as to what kind of music she likes. Curiosity built and I convinced her that I shall not even giggle. She then shot a message which read, “Ahem. I’m not into rock and metal. I listen to the classics of Hindi music, most of the times. You know, Rafi, Kishore and all!” After almost screaming at her for being so hesitant about letting me know this, she said, “Well, enough people have laughed at me for the kind of music I like, okay?”

See! There! Whatever ones beliefs are about the classic Hindi/Urdu music, the moment you try degrading someone else’s choice of music with a pretext that what you listen to is ‘cool’, you deserve to get shot! The meaning that the words possessed once upon a time, when compared with the contemporary music, makes me feel that there has been an evolution in the language itself, let alone music. It’s not easy to digest the fact that the same language, which could produce such sensible emotional words that took the listeners’ breath away, is now put into use to shout and scream without even comprehending what the words mean. Very often, these new-fangled songs are made so emotional that one could label them as ‘wannabe emo-music’. (Examples here and here) My disgust had broken barriers when a roommate of mine played this nauseating cacophony on loop! And one cannot write about the ‘contemporaries’ unless an honourable mention is provided to ‘Tenu Mein Love Karda, Bematlab Karda, BahoN Mein Aa Soniye, Bas Aaj Raat Ke Liye’. Now, wait a minute. You claim to love that person, emphasizing modestly that it’s meaningless, and you want her in your arms for just one night? We’ve had a generation singing ‘Sau Saal Pahle, Mujhe Tum Se Pyaar Tha… Aaj Bhi Hai, Aur Kal Bhi Rahega!’ and well, BEHOLD! We’ve progressed so much now that the ‘love’ lasts only till we get an orgasm!

I don’t mean to pick on whatever shit that’s being sung and heard. What is insulting is the way the lovers of the contemporaries, sitting on their scholarly horse, discard what the last generation wrote, sung and lived with. No one, especially not them! No one decides as to what is ‘cool’ and what is not. I’ve never claimed, and will never do, that the classics are better than what is being produced now. What antagonizes me is that the same music that your mother listened to when you were in her spa-like womb is now being ridiculed and mocked at. These were the same words that many of your antecedents dedicated to each other.

Maybe Manna Dey is right when he says (here) that the present condition of the Indian music is so because of the void that has been created with the passing away of glorious personalities like Mohd. Rafi, Naushad, R D Burman, Sahir Ludhianvi, Shakeel Badayuni etc. The mellifluent ‘Haaye!’ that Mohd Rafi could pull out (here) is an impossibility for anyone living on this planet now. The point is that it ain’t because the people have changed their tastes that we see this humiliation happening to their legacy. Rather, it’s because of the absence of those people who gave life to music that their work has become a past. I’ve exhaustively gone through the works that have been released lately and tried too hard to find the traces of the kind of emotions that the classics tincture (say here). Failure is what I’ve faced throughout. I’ve told this before and I say this again. Keep your lame-ass music with yourselves and stop judging something you cannot even manage to understand. Yes, I did poke fun at your music in this post and for a good reason. I shall not waste my time to do it ever again as long as you shut your trap.

[Personal blogs are meant to be, well, personal. And this post is as personal as anything could get, just that it wasn’t written by me. But some sweet soul decided that this place is where he/she wanted it to be. And so, I decided to put this up without any second thoughts, proud as a duck!]

It was in my first or second grade that I’d my first encounter with death. A car accident, the driver survived, the woman passenger did too. But the children, two of them, by the looks of it, as old as I was then – were dead. One of their bodies was pulled out of the car in pieces. It is a very distant memory, the encounter, in that very moment, even more distant. Death made very little sense to me as a kid, it became an inherent truth as I began to grow up, by the time I was 12, I had come to view it as routine.

But that is for another day, for now, I think, the question that so many of us should ask ourselves is whether we still confront truths or make them seem routine, treat them with this wonderful tool of apathy. I have come to do the latter. Because my life’s been, erm, too random. And how do you confront the truth that your life is strange? That Sunday night was spent in a lockup, and Monday morning you attended school? It is to routinize. This word is used by academics studying the institution of prisons. Prisons.

We are in them. You can resist, you can create passive acceptance or you can use your indifference.

And indifference does not necessarily mean acceptance. It is to bide your time where you can’t resist and are unwilling accept. It is to outlast all of the jailors, the inmates and the rapists. It is to exist till all of them are subdued. Time and Pressure. And this is my greatest truth. The greatest lesson.

I have also learnt that despite the general air of scepticism that I live my life with, hope is necessary. I’ve found it in people sometimes. And when you hear stories of what your friends have ‘done to you’, you also witness, yourself, that what your friends have ‘done for you’, and it is no insignificant contribution to how you will view your life.

‘Standing up for you’, ‘being there’ – rhetoric. But those random acts, gestures – they are immensely important. Because they teach you that your existence as an island is not in isolation, it is an archipelago. And while you might not owe anything to the others in return, your existence is suddenly relevant and for as long as you are fighting those prisons, within yourself, you can do with some humour and some company – not consistently, not even reliably, but it’s around.

Thank You, random people in my life, for telling me that death is not the only truth. And that in moments, there is a world.

Anonymous.