उसकी ऑंखों ने झूठ बोला था

You know how, there are times when you idolize someone and then... you don't! Well, I've been that fallen idol and I have had a few as well. 

Driving to my office today, a Gulzar song was playing these lines:

लिखते रहे हैं तुम्हें रोज़ ये मगर,

ख्वाहिशों के ख़त कभी भेजे ही नहीं....

I felt that. 

You know how, there are times when you idolize someone and then... you don't! Gulzar is one such fallen idol for me. Although I still like a few scattered lines and thoughts by him here or there, mostly I feel like resenting. And how do you resent to a fallen idol? By a retort perhaps. Like it happened the other day, I read a couplet by Gulzar:

ऑंखें थीं जो कह गईं सब कुछ,

लफ्ज़ होते तो मुकर गए होते। 

and retorted as follows:

उसकी बातों का गिला क्या करते,

उसकी ऑंखों ने झूठ बोला था। 

The year of Brutus

As the year dies, I decided to have an evening that would put some make up on the wound that the year has left.

I sat in the balcony with my camera and a book. I finished a bottle of wine. I imagined my utopian worlds again. I reminisced your touch again. I heard my favorite voices again - of Regan, of AB Vajpayee, of Kishore Kumar, of birds, of yours, of mine.

It was a good ending to a terrible year, albeit a week too early. As I lay in my bed, half drunk, half asleep, half hurting (for, you know by now, I'm more than one man)... the only thing still hurting is that knife. Can you please take it off my back now?!!

हाय ये तक न कहा मैंने कि "ब्रूटस, तुम भी?!!"

मेरे दिल में ये रहा दोस्ती बदनाम न हो।

बैठ कर देर तलक सुनता रहा ख़ामोशी,

इस इरादे से कि इसमें तेरा पैग़ाम न हो।।