टर्रम-टू

[Composed on same day... one year back]

रुको नववर्ष!
अभी मत आओ, थोड़ा रुक जाओ,
थोड़ी और मोहलत दो, अरे कुछ तो रहम खाओ।

गलती तो मेरी ही है, शायद मैं इस साल भी सोता रह गया,
दुनियाँ में खुशियाँ बाँटने के संकल्प भूलकर, अपने ही सुख के लिए रोता रह गया।
सूरज ने कहा था, "मैं रोज आऊंगा"... वो रोज आया,
ध्रुव का वादा था, "मैं यहीं मिलूँगा रोज तिमतिमाऊंगा" ... उसने भी कर दिखाया।
मेरी खिड़की के घोंसले का कबूतर का बच्चा - अपनी बातों का पक्का,
साल के आखिरी दिन ही सही, कल उसने भी उड़ दिखाया,
और तो और बरामदे की भूरी का दुधमुंहा बालक, आज उसने भी एक छोटा चूहा खुद मार के खाया।
पर ऐसा ना हो की हर बार की तरह 'मैं' अपने वादे और सपने अगले वर्ष पर टाल जाऊं,
और वादा खिलाफों की फेहरिस्त में फिर पहला नंबर पाऊं।
मैंने इस साल कागज़ बचाना था, अपनी कार का पोल्यूशन चैक कराके प्रदूषण नियंत्रण में लाना था,
लेकिन आज भी जींस की जेब से रूमाल निकालने का तकल्लुफ नहीं कर पाया,
रोज की तरह हाथ धोये - पेपर नेपकीन खींचा - हाथ पोंछे और बाहर आया।
ट्रेन में पास बैठे दद्दा की बीड़ी को मैंने क़ानून की फूंक मार दी,
पर खुद को ना बदल सका,
पाँच रुपये की मूंगफली - दाने मुँह में - छिलके फिर सीट के नीचे,
जैसे हाथ ही नहीं रुका!
ऑफिस की जल्दी ने परसों सिग्नल तुड़वाया था,
सौ रुपये जेब में डालकर मुश्किल से पीछा छुड़ाया था।
तब भी मन यही बोला था, "अबकी जाने दो, अगली बार हुआ तो छः सौ दे के पक्की रसीद कटाऊंगा"
पर हे नूतन वर्ष, तुम अभी आ गए, तो सालों पुराने ये सारे संकल्प बस कैरी फॉरवर्ड ही कर पाऊंगा।

वैसे सपने और वादे मेरे ही नहीं हजारों के अधूरे हैं,
किसी के पास घर नहीं तो किसी के पास कपड़े ही नहीं पूरे हैं।
कोई हर साल गाँव में बन चुकी कागजी सड़क पर चलने का सपना रखता है,
कोई पिछले साठ सालों से आजादी की ही राह तकता है।
मुन्नी ने अपने पांचवें जन्मदिन से आज तक सायकिल का वादा ही तोहफे में पाया है,
पर गरीब बुधिया क्या करे, गन्ने का समर्थन मूल्य बढ़ाने का सपना तो बीस साल से सरकार ने दिखाया है।
बूढ़ी खाला की आँख की रोशनी जाती रही, पर बल्ब में रोशनी इस साल भी नहीं आई,
किसी का नल आज भी पानी को प्यासा है, तो किसी के पेट को इस साल भी एक ही वक्त की रोटी मिल पायी।
चंदू कल भी बिना छत और बिना बोर्ड वाले स्कूल में पढ़ने जाएगा,
और कल्लू... वो तो ये 31 दिसंबर भी पतली चादर के साथ फुटपाथ पर मनायेगा।
अगले तीन सौ पैंसठ दिन भी इसी तरह ना निकल जाएँ इसीलिए तुम्हे टोकता हूँ,
वर्ना घर आते नए मेहमान को मैं भी नहीं रोकता हूँ।

पर हे नववर्ष, यदि तुम फिर भी आना चाहते हो तो ख़ुशी से आओ,
पर कम से कम एक वचन 'तुम' तो निभाओ,
कि हर घर के दिये के लिए थोडा सा तेल, पेट के लिए दो वक्त का भोजन और ढेरों खुशियाँ साथ लाओगे,
मुझे अपने वादे पूरे करने की ताकत दोगे,
और हर आँख का हर सपना साकार करके ही वापस जाओगे।

स्वागत नववर्ष - स्वागत!

नववर्ष की हार्दिक मंगलकामनाओं के साथ ... दिए गए कमेन्ट बॉक्स में आपके विचारों की अपेक्षा में ...
- मनीष छाबड़ा

“Oh you are back so early… must have booked a taxi from Bangalore itself?”
“No no, we went by bus”
“Achchha... so you hired a taxi after reaching there only”
“No no, didn’t hire any taxi… we travelled by bus, there as well!”
“Then you must have skipped some important places”
“Arre nahi, we visited all the three major destinations plus one extra!”

This is a part of telephonic conversation which Deepak was having with his mother today, after we came back from our fantastic one day Mysore trip last night. Thanks to Karnataka Government!

It was a little cold, rather a “cool” morning in Bangalore this Saturday when at 6 am we headed towards Majestic Bus Terminal to catch a bus to Mysore. There was no worry or doubt regarding bus availability as we had full faith in KSRTC services. After Rajkishor also reached there, we started for Mysore. It was a day of “What a timing!”.

After around 2 hours bus driver gave us a chance to break our fast with idly-vada (both having deep bath in Sambhar). The moment we finished our breakfast and went back in bus, driver appeared back and started the bus. Every North Indian knows how to eat idly-vada but I’ve learnt to eat it at appropriate speed (matching with a south Indian) as well, I realized (hehe… Chhabra joke :)

At 10:30am we reached Mysore bus stand. It seemed nothing less than an office of a multi-national IT company which forced me to click the first pic in Mysore. Not only in Mysore but in all major cities in Karnataka you will find it like that.

Our first destination Mysore Palace is at walkable distance from there. In between we had naariyal paani (It was a bit sweet and tasted better than that I’ve had in Bangalore and Hyderabad). An auto wala on the way, tried to attract us shouting “Aaj Tipu Sultan ki anniversary hai, so palace der se khulega” (did you understand the motive behind saying that? If not, call me on my cell phone, will tell you the same story which I told to Rajkishor then :).

After 5 mins walk, we were in front of royal Mysore Palace. We got to know that the original palace was destroyed in fire in late 19th century and the one in front of us was re-built in 1912. It is the second most visiting tourist place in India after Taj Mahal. It actually deserves to be!

After spending more than 2 hours in the palace we came out and queried about our next destination Chamundi Hills temple. It was more than 12 kms from there and in no time we got a Volvo AC city bus from there itself directly to the temple. Bus conductor suggested us to get a full day pass for 50/- instead of a normal ticket of 30/- upto temple. We got those passes and will you believe these 50 rupees was the only money we spent for city transport in our complete trip! As per information on the web and from the local people, there is a ticket of 20/- for normal queue (waiting time 1 hour) and 100/- for VIP queue (waiting time 10 mins) for darshanam at Chamundi Hills temple. We reached there at 2pm only to get disappointed as the temple remains closed between 2pm to 3:30pm and there were no signs of any queue meaning it was already closed. We will have to wait for one and a half hour! Having no clue of where to go and whom to ask we started roaming around and unknowingly reached the entrance gate of the temple. It was when we heard somebody shouting “jaldi jaao mandir band hota”. We took no time to get our shoes off and along with few other people around there rushed towards the gate. But Rajkishor was the only lucky to make it as police man at the gate locked the door and didn’t allow me and Deepak to enter. On a repeated request he indicated remaining people to come from the back door. Race again started. This time Deepak got the benefit of being tall and stood first. Since the crowd at the back door was blocking the people coming out, hence the policeman declared no-more-entry there as well. With the blessings of Maa Chamundeshwari, I had just entered and became the last to get the entry. After coming out we realized that the info on the web was missing third type of queue for darshanam with 0/- ticket and no waiting time (but only at 2pm, what a timing! )

Now we started discussing about where to go next as we had more than 2 hours before we go to see night beauty at Brindavan Gardens. In the options were few museums and the zoo. As usual, I was willing to visit zoo but Rajkishor and Deepak were making azeeb saa muh on that option. I started my lecture-
“Tum logo ne giraffe dekha hai?”
“nahi”
“lo to kis kaam ki hai tumhari jindagi… bataao kya muh dikhaaoge apne bachchon ko… giraffe dekhe bina hi duniya se chale jaaoge… bhagyashaali ho tum jo giraffe dekhne ka mauka bhi mil raha hai tumhe aur tum zoo nahi jana chahte…”

May be my words were not that effective as we failed to reach any conclusion and boarded a bus back to city bus stand. An AC bus was the best place to continue rest of the discussion, by this way we were utilizing our passes as well. After seeing Maharaja’s not-so –valuable belongings like kurta, shoes etc at the palace Deepak had curiosity if those guys knew in advance that someday somebody will make our museum and we should keep these things safe. I was inspired by his thought and captured my first ever bus pass in camera (no need to tell you smart people what I expect you to do with that :). We were laughing out loud talking on random topics and making fun of each other in the bus when it stopped in between. My wish to visit zoo which had got multiplied by zero suddenly got divided by zero as Rajkishor read “Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens” opposite side of the road. It was when my lecture worked. We all jumped out of the bus instantly.

We happily entered into zoo and to our disbelief, the very first thing we saw inside were 16 tall legs… wowwww… four giraffe were there to welcome us in the first enclosure itself. We kept staring at them for a minute and then started photography session. Even giraffe was very excited to see us and bent down to kiss Deepak’s head giving me a unique pose to capture. He gave me the same pose with Rajkishor as well. I would like to specially mention that the animals and birds in the zoo seemed to be very well treated and were in a very good health as compared to what I’ve seen in Gwalior, Delhi and Hyderabad Zoo. Mysore Zoo is one of the oldest zoos in India and is among the first to start animal adoption scheme. We also saw a tiger adopted by Mr. B. S. Yediyurappa Hon’ble Chief Minister, Karnataka. Nothing to mention, it was the healthiest among all.

Because of very good weather conditions all animals were in best of their mood. We saw roaring lion, a cute calf of elephant, different species of ducks having fresh fishes in their evening snacks, couple of leopard fighting for some personal issue, a chimpanzee annoyed for not having a long bamboo around to hit the people laughing at him, zebra quite satisfied with the services of zoo management, couple of stork bird (bagula) standing on single leg (depicting the famous Hindi phrase ‘bagula bhagat’), a species of kangaroo somehow managing to stand on two legs and many more. In all at each enclosure we felt, “what a timing!” It was around 5:15pm when we came out of the zoo and boarded a bus to city bus stand and another bus from there to Brindavan Gardens.

After one hour we were in front of the solid high wall of Krishnarajasagar dam built at Kavery river. The garden is adjoining to this dam. There was a huge crowd and long queues for ticket and entry outside the entrance. Garden is spread over a large area and is famous for its wonderful musical fountain. I think instead of any words, pics will be better resources to appreciate its beauty. But still, after roaming there for half an hour we couldn’t find the most exciting fountain. We were almost feeling that we have been fooled until Deepak shouted, “wo raha, what a timing!” The show of musical fountain was just started. They played few kannada songs as well as hindi songs including chak-de-india and saare jahaan se achchha at the end. Fantastic! Now we started back to the city bus station again using the same bus pass ;) and reached back to Bangalore keeping wonderful memories of a wonderful trip with us.

Visit here for more pics.

Cheers!

Leaving all the political motives and inclinations, i think the citizen of a nation shall also be able to think independently. Independent from the melodrama, propaganda and the thoughts of political parties as well as media houses.

This generation of the ancient nation shall think for a moment, whether they have started thinking as a nation or they are happy earning a livelihood and roaming in the glittering of malls? Whether they think that the issues of national importance shall also be the part of their coffee table discussion some time?

Those, who think, that yes we do have a collective responsibility and we also need to think openly, shall read ahead otherwise you can get back to your usual work :)

The discussion I'm going to open here is the one which has been blown out of proportion by different political groups, in one or the other direction. And probably no one has discussed the real issue.

And the issue is, “what is the significance of Ram Mandir for this nation?”

Is it a temple where Hindus want to go for worship? If so, there are many more places.

Is it an agenda to win some land? I think there are many more important piece of lands that can be acquired without much hoopla.

Is it a kind of revenge from the Muslim forces, for what they had done to this nation, a few centuries ago? I think even if this is the reason, then this movement shall not be supported.

But this movement means something else than all these points. And anybody can understand this cause if he or she feels that a nation is a cultural entity rather than a mere economic one.

Each place and every nation has some integral symbols of its culture and its ideals. Now we've to think whether we still think that Shri Ram is and can be the ideal of this nation? Whether we still think that Ram-rajya is the concept of state and governance that we all wish for?

If the answer to above question is yes, then what is the symbol of this ideal of the nation? Shall we tell our next generations that here lies the ruins of the place of your ideal, which your forefathers could not save and we could not reconstruct. And now we have constructed Babri Masjid at this place. Now the child may ask, “who is Babar? We have given place to Babar in place of Ram ji, that means Babar was a better person ,and a better ruler than Ram ji. Then why you are saying that Ram ji is our ideal. Why not the great king Babar?”

This is the question of the cultural identity of a nation. Though culture lives in the thoughts of the people of any place , but there are certain symbols that constantly reminds the generations that this is the ideal for which we shall aspire. And Ram Mandir is one such epitome of this ancient nation.

There are many more things that can be said, but i am going to sum up with few lines. Please be patient, to read it in full before reaching any conclusion, and to give it an open thought. :)

(All kind of comments are welcome)

"जो कसम राम की खायी थी वो कसम अधूरी है अब तक

संस्कृति का चिन्ह बना न सके कैसी मजबूरी है अब तक

यह प्रश्न नहीं मंदिर का बन्धु यह प्रश्न आत्म सम्मान का है

आक्रांता यवनों के हाथों निज पूर्वज के अपमान का है

हैं राम सिर्फ भगवान नहीं, हैं भारत के वह नायक भी

उत्तर से दक्षिण एक किया, हैं राष्ट्र प्रेम उन्नायक भी

गजनी ने तोडा सोमनाथ हमने उसको तो बना दिया

फिर बाबर को अपने युग का नायक हमने क्यों बना दिया?

होंगे जैसे आदर्श उसी दिश में यह देश चलेगा फिर

बाबर गजनी आदर्श बने उस सांचे में ही ढलेगा फिर

कुछ मुस्लिम-जन से द्वेष नहीं वह सखा सहोदर भ्राता हैं

लेकिन रखना है याद हमे भारत ही अपनी माता हैं

जिनने भारत में जन्म लिया उन सबके नायक राम ही हैं

वह केवट, सबरी, विभीषणों हर पातक के सुख धाम ही हैं

यदि मक्का में मस्जिद टूटी तो हम मिलकर बनवाएंगे

हर आक्रांता को दलने को हम पूरा साथ निभाएंगे

यह देश समन्वय वाला है सिख,बौद्ध,जैन सब अपनाए

लेकिन क्या इनने धर्म-स्थल मंदिर ध्वंसों पर बनवाए?

यदि मस्जिद वहाँ बना भी दें, क्या लफ्ज़ अमन के गूजेंगे

क्या यवन पुत्र सरयू-तट को , मक्का जैसा ही पूजेंगे?

कुछ तलवारें ले नाम धर्म का राज्य बढ़ाती आई हैं

इराक, पर्सिया ,सिंध विजय का पाठ पढाती आयी हैं

जो राष्ट्र पुत्र भी बन न सके वह विश्व पुत्र बनना चाहें

पर-स्वार्थ सिद्धि के हेतु स्वयं निज माता को छलना चाहें

हे भारत तनिक निराश न हो हम क़र्ज़ उतारेंगे तेरा

वह राष्ट्र चिन्ह का चिर प्रतीक फिर से बनवाएंगे तेरा"

[Composed on the eve of the historical day]

कभी मस्जिद की कैद है कभी मंदिर की
अब खुले दिल में भी रख ले कोई,

इक त्रिशूल है या इक तलवार रखी हर घर में
अमन का इक परिंदा भी रख ले कोई.

आब सरयू का हो या रावी का हो, सब लाल हुआ
जामे-मोहब्बत सदा मीठा ज़रा चख ले कोई,

गीता-ग्रन्थ-कुरान बहुत लड़ते देखे हैं
इक ग़ज़ल एका की मीठी सी भी लिख दे कोई.

'अ' से अल्लाह रह गया रह गया 'ग' से गणेश
मैं तो हर लफ्ज़ - हर ज़र्रे में था, ढूंढें कोई,

अदालतें लिखती हैं मेरी भी तकदीर अब तो
खुद ख़ुदा की रज़ा मद्देनज़र रख ले कोई...

-- मनीष छाबड़ा

[ आब = पानी, रज़ा = इच्छा ]

hi friends.....

after a long time im writing anything...

here i hav tried comparison between Bachchan's Madhushala with Income tax and NADT (national academy of direct taxes, nagpur). some words r very peculiar to NADT. u may not fully understand that... sorry for that :-).

एक्ट बने साकी ,
section बने हाला .
रोज़ ९ से ५ बजे तक,
Faculty बिल्डिंग बनी मधुशाला .

आयकर की हाला ने,
Probationers को इतना सुखा डाला .
हर Friday की रात को,
लगती है यहाँ मधुशाला .

बुरा सदा कहलाया जग में ,
आयकर की मधुशाला .
छैल छबीला CA साकी ,
AO लिए हुए है प्याला .

बने रहे वो घाग Assessee,
टैक्स छुपाना जो जाने .
बने रहे वो शार्प AO,
टैक्स बढ़ाना जो जाने .

वेतन , घर ,व्यापार , आदि से ,
सुसज्जित आयकर मधुशाला .
वहां Assessee टैक्स बचाए ,
टैक्स पी जाये मधुशाला .

Section, clause , proviso सुन सुन ,
कर ही जब हूँ मतवाला .
क्या गति होगी जब आखों के,
नीचे आएगा आयकर प्याला.

Act मेरे पास न आना ,
मैं पागल हो जाऊँगा .
अज्ञानी ही मैं मस्त,
मुबारक तुम्हे आयकर मधुशाला .

AO- Assessing Officer

CA- Chartered Accountant

Section, clause, proviso- terms used in Income Tax act