न आकार का न प्रकार का, ये प्रश्न है निराकार का

न मंदिरों की घंटियों का
न मस्जिदों के आगाज का
न गिरजाघरों के प्रकाश का
न सोंच के तलवार का
ये प्रश्न है निराकार का

मन है विचित्र सा
खोजता पवित्र सा
न भूखों के आहार का
न शक्ति के प्रहार का
ये प्रश्न है निराकार का

न मन के भ्रम का
न शरीर के श्रम का
न धर्म के प्रचार का
न असत्य के संघार का
ये प्रश्न है निराकार का

न बालक के अबोध का
न अनुभव के प्रबोध का
न अशुद्ध आचार का
न शुद्ध विचार का
ये प्रश्न है निराकार का

सुलग रहा मन है
पूछता प्रश्न है
न जिंदगी के आधार का
न शून्य से साक्षात्कार का
ये प्रश्न है निराकार का

मन की गहराईओं का
दिल की अच्छाईओं का
आत्मा के एहसास का
परमात्मा के प्यास का
पृथ्वी के आधार का
व्योम के विस्तार का
बदलते मौसम का
ढलती रातों का
उगते उजालों का
नीर के प्रपात का
होठों के चाहत का

है संकुचित मेरी लेखनी
और ये प्रश्न निराधार है|
फिर भी मन में हाहाकार है,
इस निराकार का क्या आकार है||

न आकार का न प्रकार का
ये उत्तर है निराकार का

फिर क्यों पिछड़ गया बिहार?

बुद्ध के ज्ञान का स्थान था बिहार,
सनातन धर्म का उद्गम था बिहार|
सीता और श्रीराम के विवाह का साक्षी था बिहार
फिर क्यों पिछड़ गया बिहार?

रामायण की रचना का जनक था बिहार
जैन धर्म का श्रोत था बिहार
गुरु गोविन्द सिंह जी की कर्मभूमि था बिहार
फिर क्यों पिछड़ गया बिहार?

कौटिल्य के राजनीति का पाठशाला था बिहार
आम्रपाली के सौंदर्य से जगमग था बिहार
मेगास्थानिस के आर्याव्रत को समझने का विद्यालय था बिहार
फिर क्यों पिछड़ गया बिहार?

अजातशत्रु के राज्य में शांति का पराकाष्ठा था बिहार
सोन और गंगा के संगम का केंद्र था बिहार
नालंदा के रूप में उच्च शिक्षा का केंद्र था बिहार
फिर क्यों पिछड़ गया बिहार?

आजादी की लड़ाई में गाँधी का शंखनाद था बिहार,
राजेंद्र प्रसाद का जन्म भूमि था बिहार|
जयप्रकाश नारायण के क्रांति का बिगुल था बिहार
फिर क्यों पिछड़ गया बिहार?

दिनकर और बेनीपुरी के कलम का आवाज़ था बिहार
बुद्धिजीवियों का एक मजबूत आधार था बिहार
प्राकृतिक सम्पदा से परिपूर्ण था बिहार
फिर क्यों पिछड़ गया बिहार?

क्या हो गया बिहार को,
सबसे आगे रहना वाला राज्य कैसे पिछड़ गया सबसे|
किसकी नजर लग गयी बिहार को,
क्यों नेताओं ने लूट लिया बिहार को?

परिवर्तन लाना होगा, सिर्फ एक दिन बिहार दिवस नहीं,
हर दिन ये दिवस मनाना होगा|
प्रगति के पथ पर आगे बढ़ने के लिए,
बिहार के सारे सुभ्चिन्तकों को एक साथ आवाज़ उठाना होगा ||

बस बहुत हो गया लूट, विकास का वायदा दो,
तभी हमारा वोट मिलेगा, आइये हम ये प्रण करें|
जात पात से परे हटकर,
समझ-बुझ कर नेताओं का चयन करें ||

आधुनिक बिहार को प्राचीन बिहार की तरह,
अगर गौरवशाली बनाना है|
आज इस बिहार दिवस के मौके पर,
हम सबको ये संकल्प दोहराना है||

We have lost our way; Help us to find one

This is what Arvind Kejriwal (from Team Anna) said to the people of India while requesting the people to provide some direction to the anti graft movement led by Anna and his team. Here are my suggestions:

1. Appoint only one spokesperson for the movement. No one else from Team Anna should express his or her opinion on a public forum that contradicts the spokesperson. The spokesperson must be extra careful to avoid any political speeches.

2. Keep the movement apolitical. Don’t be seen as rallying against one political party as every political parties in India practices rampant corruption.

3. Sometimes silence is golden. Politicians have mastered the art of throwing barbs at you and hope some sticks. Don’t respond to every barb thrown at you. Keep quiet. Do your homework well. Keep building your strategy and hit when it hurts the most. When you decide to go for the hunt, go for the kill.

4. Don’t deviate from the grass root nature of this movement. Appoint a person / team to lead the grass root movement and keep building a pan India structure that is very transparent to which every Indian and especially the rural population can relate to. The movement should not be just seen as middle class fancy. It must permeates to every nook and corner of India for this to be successful

5. Keep media on your side. In a free democracy media has the power to make or break. Use it sensibly to further the interest of the movement and resist the temptation of filling people’s living room by expressing personal opinion

6. Keep Anna in the front as people relate to him

7. Finally, accept to lose the battle to win the war –Celebrate small wins and accept the fact that you may not get all what you want. Publish the list of unfinished demands and slowly build awareness to incrementally chip away on them. Remember, you cannot put a completion time in mass movements. Be prepared for a long drawn out war.

India Against Corruption

I fully and unconditionally support Anna Hazare’s struggle against corruption in India. While living 10,000 miles away from India, there is only some limited way I can show my support but nonetheless, support I extend to this Gandhian and his clarion call for rising against corruption.

India and every Indians are suffering from rampant corruption; right from birth to death, the demon of corruption is eating at the basic fabric of the society. From birth certificate to death certificate, everywhere you need to grease the palm to get your work done. Now, with the advent of internet, no doubt some lower level corruption is getting eliminated as more and more online services are proliferating but an increased level of corruption at the top especially by politicians has brought shame to all Indians across the globe. According to a recent UN report, India appears at the bottom of the list of countries that are honest in their dealings. From CWG scams to 2G scams to other high profiles scam, it is now getting increasing difficult to find how many zeroes are there in such scams, such is the magnitude of money being looted.

The most disturbing side of the loot of public money is that this is being done by the people who are well educated, are in high office, supposed to be the protector of the money, people who are in the top bracket from all possible angles.

Now that a Gandhian, Anna Hazare has infused the war cry to pass the “Jan Lokpal Bill” that if enacted by the parliament will bring a strong law against the graft and will be a big positive step towards arresting this menace.

I have tried to write a few lines and dedicate my compositions to Anna Hazare and India against corruption

देश की एक तिहाई जनता,
अभी भी दाने दाने को मोहताज है|
पर भ्रस्टाचार के मामले में,
हमारा देश बादशाह बेताज है||

कांग्रेस हो या बीजेपी,
लालू हो या जयललिता|
भ्रस्टाचार के सवाल पर,
एक हैं सारे नेता||

भ्रस्टाचार को जड़ से मिटाना है,
नेताओं के लिए ये तो ज़माने को दिखाना है|
देश का सारा पैसा,
स्विस बैंक में लुटाना है||

सफ़ेद को काला और काले को सफ़ेद करना,
भारत के नेताओं की कला है|
जुर्म साबित होने के बावजूद भी,
कानून ने कभी किसी नेता को पकड़ा है?

भ्रस्टाचार को लेकर आज आम आदमी दुखी हो गया है,
जन्म से लेकर मरन तक पैसा खिलने का रिवाज़ पक्का हो गया है|
Birth Ceritificate लेने जाओ तो बाबु कहता है बाद में आना,
पैसे दे दो तो कहता है आज ही लेते जाना||

Death certificate लेने जाओ तो बाबू कहता है,
साहब से समझ लेना, मैं तो फाइल आगे बडवा दूं|
पैसा दो तो मुर्दों का क्या,
जिन्दों का भी Death certificate बनवा दूं||

हर साल बरसात के पहले दिखावे के लिए सड़क बनती है,
और फिर पहली बरसात के बाद टूट जाती है|
कोई सड़क बनाने वाले और बिल पास करने वालों से,
पूछे की उनके घर के रंगों की चमक कहाँ से आती है?

नेताओं से भ्रस्टाचार के बारे में पूछो,
तो कहेंगे नेता तो समाज का आइना है|
हम कहाँ भ्रष्ट है, हम पर तो सिर्फ इल्जाम लगता है,
तो फिर क्यों नेताओं का भ्रस्टाचार पर जन्म सिद्ध अधिकार दीखता है?

राम राज्य से दूर होकर,
भ्रष्ट राज्य हो गए हैं हम|
इस बीमारी को जड़ से मिटने के बजाए,
इस बीमारी को फ़ैलाने में जुट गए हैं हम||

युगों युगों से चली हमारी संस्कृति और परम्पराओं का,
आजादी के ६४ साल में ही हमने त्याग कर दिया|
भ्रस्टाचार में लिप्त नेताओं ने तो,
पुरे देश को ही पीछे धकेल दिया||

अतित

यह मन का भ्रम है या
मानसिक अपरिपक्वता की निशानी है |
की जो गुजर गया, जो भूत है,
वो बार बार बेताल का रूप लेकर
भविष्य के लिए कर देता परेशानी है ||

अतित से सीख लेकर वर्तमान में, भविष्य के लिए,
नए आयाम ढूँढने चाहिए ||
न की भविष्य को,
अतित के चक्कर में ही डुबो देना चाहिए ||

काल चक्र तो निरंतर आगे बढ़ता है,
तो फिर क्यों नूतन को सँवारने के बजाए,
हरेक मसले पर भूत
सामने खड़ा हो जाता है ||

मैं यह नहीं कहता की अतित के अंतर्त्द्वंद,
मन को विचलित नहीं करते हैं |
मगर पश्च दृष्टि के तुलना में विद्वान जन,
दूर दृष्टि से नजर नहीं हटाते हैं ||

यह सही है की गुजरे हुआ पल को समझ कर,
आने वाले पल का स्वागत करना चाहिए |
पर गुजरे हुआ पल को हमेशा पकड़ कर,
आने वाले सच्चे पलों से मुंह नहीं फेरना चाहिए ||

बर्बाद हुए चमन पे ही तो,
फिर से बहार आती है |
जैसे हर रात का सीना चिर कर,
सवेरा फिर से जीने का एहसास दिलाती है ||

यह बेजान सि, मरी हुई अतित,
जो बारम्बार हमारे पीठ पर बेताल सरीखे बैठती है |
यह देखना है की कब कोई विक्रमादित्य की तलवार बेताल को काटकर,
भविष्य को देखने की सही दिशा दिखाती है ||

Double Standards?

Recently I read about Krittika Biswas, daughter of the vice counsel at the Indian Consulate in Manhattan, Debashish Biswas, who was handcuffed in her school in US and spent a night in the jail on suspicion of sending some obscene photo to her teacher. This arrest even in normal circumstances would have been wrong but it was especially wrong and bordering on arrogance on the part of US cops because of some simple reasons.

1. Krithika is the daughter of Dy. Consul General in US and hence enjoys diplomatic immunity
2. She was arrested in her school
3. It was just a suspicion based on which she was arrested (the IP address from which the photos were sent was of someone in her apartment complex)

While these kind of incidents earlier would have gone unnoticed but with increasing speed of information flow and democratization of information per se, it baffles my mind that how still arrogant the cops in US are becoming in enforcing laws. Inspite of Krittika telling the cops that she has entered US on a diplomatic visa and her Dad is an Indian Counsel Officer, the cops still went ahead with the handcuffs and put her in jail.

If you still don’t think that what Cops did was wrong, the more bizarre explanation came from the spokesman of the US State Dept, Mark Toner. Earlier this week, Mark Toner, US State Department deputy spokesperson, said immunity enjoyed by consular officials does not extend to Biswas. "As a family member of consular officer, rather, she does not enjoy immunity from jurisdiction or inviolability," he told reporters.

Nothing can be further from truth. Insisting that Toner had got it wrong, Prabhu Dayal, the Indian Counsel General in New York pointed to article 53 (2) of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 1963, which says "Members of the family of a member of the consular post forming part of his household and members of his private staff shall receive the privileges and immunities provided in the present Convention..." The State Department, however, said yesterday that it is sticking by Toner's earlier remarks. What a pathetic display of knowledge of the US State Dept of one of the main diplomatic conventions followed across the world.

The reasons are also not difficult to find. The police in the US in a majority of the cases have just a High school degree before they get inducted in the force. Their understanding of Vienna conventions is basically too much to ask. While I cannot extend that logic with similar degree of certainty to US State department, but at least considering that US is one of the most developed nation on the planet, their response should have been to go back, read the Vienna convention and then come in front of the media to share the right information and not look dumb with their current response of family members of diplomats do not enjoy similar diplomatic immunity as the diplomats themselves.

This action of US in handcuffing the daughter of Indian diplomat smacks of arrogance than incompetence. US must realize that with democratization of information and opportunity they will continue to be increasingly submitted to greater scrutiny. They cannot take citizens of any country for granted in subjecting them to high handedness without rational thoughts

I was very happy to see that the Indian Counsel General, Prabhu Dayal clearly stated the provisions of the law that was applicable here and asked for an apology from US. I am seeing such kind of spirited and calling spade a spade kind of response of late from India which is a welcome sign of speaking up and be not subjugated to the grandeur arrogance of US.

When will US learn to avoid having double standards on such matters? What if the US citizens in India are subjected to similar treatment? Will the US keep quiet?

Geronimo EKIA

They came, they killed and they went back home saying Geronimo EKIA - Geronimo is the name given to Bin laden after the Apache warrior who fought with America & México for many decades in Apache Wars and was captured with great difficulty in late 19th century. EKIA is the acronym for Enemy Killed in Action.

One of the most wanted terrorist by America since 9/11; this US operation re-established American credibility that seems to have been lost in the last one decade in their fight in Iraq & Afghanistan. It also helped fulfilled the pledge of George Bush and Barack Obama to capture or kill Bin Laden. One of the interview that I saw of Condoleezza Rice with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, also re-iterated the view that even the Bush administration was sure that Bin Laden will ultimately be brought to justice as it took America 20 long years to finally kill once infamous terrorist Abu Nadel.

However, this US operation raises quite difficult questions for Pakistan. If four helicopters could enter the country’s boundaries anytime without any check, and complete their operation in 40 long minutes without any interference from Pakistani forces, how are the Pakistanis going to trust their hugely financed army? Where is the justification of 18 per cent raise in defense budget this year?. Is this complicity or simply incompetence? The latter seems more likely though the former cannot be ruled out

Even more important question than breach of sovereignty is the fact that Bin Laden was living near one of the most secure area of Pakistan (The Pakistan Military Academy) in Abottabad and no one in Pakistan was aware of this. When it’s difficult for any ordinary Pakistani to buy a piece of land without establishing identity, how come the most wanted terrorist was living for the last 5 years. Who purchased the land and built the house for Bin Laden to live peacefully? Who provided the visa to Bin Laden and his many wives living with their children’s?

The overwhelming narrative that engulfed Pakistani media, remained focus on ghairat (honour) and the way USA has violated Pakistan’s sovereignty in all its imperial arrogance. Little did anyone on these pulpits tried to recall that bin Laden was anything but a law-abiding citizen of Pakistan. The biggest question regarding Pakistan’s sovereignty comes from Osama’s presence in Pakistan. Pakistani’s must admit that having Bin Laden living right under their nose is much worse violation of their sovereignty than the US forces coming in and killing Bin Laden.

The leaders of Pakistan must reflect, take a lesson, and drop any covert support to terrorists and by extension global terrorism. A general consensus has emerged the world over that Pakistan cannot be relied on these global epidemic concerns. Pakistan still has a chance to regain world’s trust by now handing the wanted list of 26/11 to India.