रूह लखनऊ में अटकी है, देख गोमती तर जाएगी

I often ask people in my class, where are they from? For often, it reveals a lot about them. Yes, it may lead to some stereotyping but well, clichés become such because they survive the test of time.

However, at times, I received a puzzling response. People couldn't pin-point because their families shifted a lot. Each such time, I felt a little pity for those because they are rootless ones. They don't belong to anywhere. I wondered and pitied the nomads the same way.

In fact, I read somewhere that when Punjabis shifte to much sought after Canada or UK, they do not sell out the land in their pind (village) for generations because that is where they belong to. That is where their roots are.

I always have known that I belong to Lucknow and Lucknow belongs to me. Although, for a long while, I've felt a bit irritated with the place and somewhat disconnected too because all my friends have shifted away, home is shifted to a new one, and city has also gone on without me. But something more happened today.

Someone asked for some antique shops in Lucknow and I couldn't recall anything. Someone asked for some routes and I couldn't recall anything. In that moment, I understood what those Punjabis would have felt when they sold off the land in their pind. In that moment, I didn't know where do I belong to. In that moment, I felt that tremor of rootlessness.

P.S. - it doesn't matter where and how it happens but when I die, I want to be cremated beside Gomti because no matter where I live... that is where I belong. That is where I have always belonged to.

दिया दूर नहीं जात

I may have told you earlier, maybe somewhere on this blog or some day in thoughts... that I often live my life by simple adages... some simple rules or some simple ideas to live by. One of which is this - दिया दूर नहीं जात ! The full couplet (दोहा) from Bihari (बिहारी) is as follows:

ऋतु वसन्त जाचक भया, हरस दिए द्रुम पात 

ताते नव-पल्लव भया, दिया दूर नहीं जात। 

It means - when the season of spring comes as a vagrant, the tree parts with (as if donates) its yellow leaves with glee. As a result of this largesse, the tree gets new leaves when spring comes in full glory. So whatever you give doesn't go away from you, it comes back.

It is this last phrase - whatever you give doesn't go away from you, it comes back - that has often stopped me from doing wrong and often inspired me to be the better person than I would have been otherwise. So why this sudden recall? Well, on one of my worst professional days' morning, when nothing was moving and old despairs were haunting back, someone knocks on my room. That someone just wanted to say thanks and a few good words for what I had done for that someone a while back. While there was no expectation of any thanks when I guided that someone, it felt good to know that I have not totally wasted my time here.

If you noticed, I may have told you earlier, maybe somewhere on this blog or some day in thoughts, that before I die, I just want to make some positive changes in the world... well, if not for everyone like a superhero, at least for some individual's worlds! And when I finally die, I just want to leave in peace, leaving people with a thought that he was a good man, not totally in vain.

In that moment, that day, I although smiled but I almost cried somewhere deep inside... for in that moment, I knew that I have not lived in vain. For in that moment, you see, whatever I had given, came back to me!