Poetry from Zindagi Naa Milegi Dobaara

17JUL

Some things never fail to inspire. Good poetry & good movies are some of them. Awesome poetry by Javed Akhtar from the Movie ‘Zindagi Naa Milegi Dobara’

Jab jab dard ka baadal chaya
Jab ghum ka saya lehraya
Jab aansoo palkon tak aya
Jab yeh tanha dil ghabraya
Humne dil ko yeh samjhaya
Dil aakhir tu kyun rota hai
Duniya mein yunhi hota hai
Yeh jo gehre sannate hain
Waqt ne sabko hi baante hain
Thoda ghum hai sabka qissa
Thodi dhoop hai sabka hissa
Aankh teri bekaar hi nam hai
Har pal ek naya mausam hai
Kyun tu aise pal khota hai
Dil aakhir tu kyun rota hai…

Ik baat honton tak hai jo aayi nahin
Bas ankhon say hai jhaankti
Tumse kabhi, mujhse kabhi
Kuch lafz hain woh maangti
Jinko pehanke honton tak aa jaaye woh
Aawaaz ki baahon mein baahein daalke ithlaye woh
Lekin jo yeh ik baat hai
Ahsas hi ahsas hai
Khushboo si hai jaise hawa mein tairti
Khushboo jo be-aawaaz hai
Jiska pata tumko bhi hai
Jiski khabar mujhko bhi hai
Duniya se bhi chupta nahin
Yeh jaane kaisa raaz hai…

Pighle neelam sa behta ye sama,
Neeli neeli si khamoshiyan,
Na kahin hai zameen
Na kahin aasmaan,
Sarsaraati hui tehniyaan pattiyaan,
Keh raheen hai bas ek tum ho yahan,
Bas main hoon,
Meri saansein hain aur meri dhadkanein,
Aisi gehraiyaan, aisi tanhaiyaan,
Aur main…Sirf main.
Apne hone par mujhko yakeen aa gaya.

Dilon mein tum apni
Betaabiyan leke chal rahe ho
Toh zinda ho tum
Nazar mein khwabon ki
Bijliyan leke chal rahe ho
Toh zinda ho tum
Hawa ke jhokon ke jaise
Aazad rehno sikho
Tum ek dariya ke jaise
Lehron mein behna sikho
Har ek lamhe se tum milo
Khole apni bhaayein
Har ek pal ek naya samha
Dekhen yeh nigahaein
Jo apni aankhon mein
Hairaniyan leke chal rahe ho
Toh zinda ho tum
Dilon mein tum apni
Betaabiyan leke chal rahe ho
Toh zinda ho tum

What can I say… Just awesome !

The Discovery of Nehru..

Chacha Nehru, makes him so much like a family man and voting for Congress in India a "Ghar Waali Baat" (a domestic issue)..

He is painted differently over the last 64 years by people. For most people he was the ultimate leader and they take his name with more respect than they would of Lord Ram or Lord Krishna or Lord Shiva or Lord Vishnu or any other god. Structure after structure and scheme after scheme has been dedicated to him or his clan members, but a structure to be dedicated to Lord Ram is facing a difficult struggle for the last 18yrs.

So I wanted to know little bit about him. Whatever little I got to know about him killed my curiosity to know more about him. Reading about him or watching his speeches on the youtube.com was the only way to know more because I was born more than 30yrs after his demise. I never saw him, met him or stood in his company so what I am presenting is a distant view of Jawahar Lal's personality.

Person:

Intelligent, well-spoken, well-travelled, social, ambitious. In addition, selfish, conniving, foolish, lofty, careless, bad foreign policy strategist, egotist.

Sexual:

I hear all sorts of things about it. With men as well as women. High and mighty as well as unknown figures ranging from sweet sixteen upwards. I don't know what to believe. May be none, but its spicy enough for me to still keep reading.

Politics:

1. I haven't seen any of the other well-known Congress Freedom Fighters come up in life. All got finished during his own rule. How? Why? Intriguing.

To me it looks like his doing all the way. Systematically disallowing other competitors from growing up to be a challenge to his fiefdom.

2. Strange that Independent India couldn't take INA into IA. They fought for the Nation and were only dedicated to nation and no other political ideology, but Nehru brilliantly described Nationalism as a political ideology and firmly denied them any right to join Indian Army. Till he was alive even the voice to get the INA veterans their due couldn't be raised. Eerie...

3. Like an idiot he created an international leadership vision in his mind and sacrificed India's national interest at its alter. The worst defeat in a war was to his Hindi-Cheeni Bhai Bhai partners. He ignored the advice of some of the most brilliant minds on this country including that of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel. When Army Generals told him that a war was expected with China he ridiculed them and called his own soldiers War-Mongers. He allowed defense preparations much too late causing one of the most embarrassing defeats in Indian Military history. The scar remains.

4. Nehru was friend of Chinese Nationalist Chiang-Kai-Shek and the moment Chiang lost to the communist, Nehru became a friend of Mao Tse Dung. Not just that, when UN refused to let Communist China be the part of Permanent Five, and asked Nehru for his view as the geo-politics affected India most, he foolishly supported Communist China. Took personal guarantees and did what even Communist China itself was unable to do. Then he got our soldiers butchered and our territory in Aksai Chin lost forever.

5. He refused to let Sardar Patel deal on Accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India. When Hari Singh - The Clown, asked for help, as he couldn't defend his territory against Pakistani Army, he was asked to sign Instrument of Accession. He signed. Indian Army fought a bloody battle and stopped the advancing hordes. Then the great mastermind that Nehru was went ahead and called for Ceasefire under UN which called for Plebiscite. It created Pakistan Occupied Kashmir forever. That created unrest in Kashmir forever, that 64yrs of unrest has caused the current Kashmiri generation to feel let down and participate in the cause of Separatists.

Oh! he didn't stop at just that. After this, as if he hadn't caused enough damage, to show how magnanimous he personally was, he gave up his professional responsibility and created Article 370. Now the Kashmiri constituent assembly that gets elected through elections held by Election Commission of India doesn't pass the necessary act and we have a perfect case of Half Pregnancy. It has started paining so sorely now that people are screaming and pelting stones.

6. Economic policy of Nehru was totally confused and sometimes directed at embarrassing certain industrialists. His god-father Gandhi was surrounded by India's top industrialists like G D Birla, Jamnalal Bajaj, Ardeshir Godrej and many others. Gandhi always stayed at Birla House, which were in many cities including Delhi and Calcutta. Obviously, they didn't treat Nehru and Gandhi equally. Nehru wasn't even a PM candidate then. There were many other senior leaders in existence. Nehru, the egotist was jealous. He wanted to bend them on his feet. When he got power, he made a License Raj policy. All industrialists including Birlas and Bajajs had to bend in front of him to get their business running and propagating. To satisfy his ego, this confused socialist got the India's economic growth engine slowed down and between 1947-1991, India grew by only 3.2-3.3%.

7. What happened when Nehru got power?

Uh Oh....he went mad. Nehru had just pipped every single princely family. If they were ruling few hundred miles of territory, he was the undisputed King of 32lakh square kms of Indian Territory. Never achieved like this in the last 5000yrs of history. Not even Asoka, not even Akbar had ruled over the entire territory together, some piece of the puzzle was always missing.

He thought he was the greatest king of all. It screwed with his mind. Now he wanted the world to recognize his talent. Promoted Non-Aligned Movement and when Chinese attacked India in 1962, he wrote a desperate letter for help from US President John F Kennedy, who refused as India weren't his allies. I mean we were completely Non-Aligned and tasted a bitter defeat.

I can go on and on about this man. But, I guess, at least I have no reason to worship this forced relative of the nation. I don't think he was the greatest that ever was. He was just an average man who suffered his imaginations like many others do. He only made it bad because he was sitting in that most important chair of Independent India's First Prime Minister.

India gives..

The recent India-Africa summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at which India’s government pledged $5
 billion in aid to African countries, drew attention to a largely overlooked phenomenon – India’s emergence as a source, rather than a recipient, of foreign aid.
For decades after independence – when Britain left the subcontinent one of the poorest and most ravaged regions on earth, with an effective growth rate of 0% over the preceding two centuries – India was seen as an impoverished land of destitute people, desperately in need of international handouts. Many developed countries showcased their aid to India; Norway, for example, established in 1959 its first-ever aid program there.
But, with the liberalization of the Indian economy in 1991, the country embarked upon a period of dizzying growth, averaging nearly 8% per year since then. During this time, India weaned itself from dependence on aid, preferring to borrow from multilateral lenders and, increasingly, from commercial banks. Most foreign-aid programs – with the sole exception of Britain’s – have dwindled or been eliminated altogether.
Today, the proverbial shoe is on the other foot. Long known for its rhetorical faith in South-South cooperation, India has begun putting its money where its mouth used to be. It has now emerged as a significant donor to developing countries in Africa and Asia, second only to China in the range and quantity of development assistance given by countries of the global South.
The Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Program (ITEC) was established in 1964, but now has real money to offer, in addition to training facilities and technological know-how. Nationals from 156 countries have benefited from ITEC grants, which have brought developing-country students to Indian universities for courses in everything from software development to animal husbandry.
In addition, India has built factories, hospitals, and parliaments in various countries, and sent doctors, teachers, and IT professionals to treat and train the nationals of recipient countries. Concessional loans at trifling interest rates (between 0.25% and 0.75%, well below the cost of servicing the loans) are also extended as lines of credit, tied mainly to the purchase of Indian goods and services, and countries in Africa have been clamoring for them.
In Asia, India remains by far the largest single donor to its neighbor Bhutan, as well as a generous aid donor to Nepal, the Maldives, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka as it recovers from civil war. Given Afghanistan’s vital importance for the security of the subcontinent, India’s assistance program there already amounts to more than $1.2 billion – modest from the standpoint of Afghan needs, but large for a non-traditional donor – and is set to rise further.
India’s efforts in Afghanistan have focused on humanitarian infrastructure, social projects, and development of skills and capacity. Five Indian medical missions provide treatment and free medicines to more than 1,000 patients a day, most of them poor women and children. The Indian-built Indira Gandhi Centre for Child Health in Kabul is connected through a telemedicine link with two super-specialty medical centers in India.
A million tons of Indian food assistance provides 100 grams of high-protein biscuits to two million of Afghanistan’s six million schoolchildren, a third of whom are girls. Indian engineers, braving attacks that claimed several lives, built a 130-mile (218-kilometer) highway from Zaranj to Delaram in southwest Afghanistan, opening up a trade route to the Iranian border. Indians braved the 3,000-meter heights to run a power-transmission line from Pul-e-Khumri to Kabul – giving round-the-clock electricity to the capital for the first time since 1982. India is currently engaged in building the Afghan Parliament building, a visible and evocative symbol of democracy.
India has also commissioned 100 small development projects (mainly quick-gestation, small-scale social-sector projects), and pledged further funds for education, health, power, and telecommunications. Of course, some in Pakistan see nefarious designs behind this assistance, but the ultimate objective is straightforward: to build indigenous Afghan capabilities for effective governance, reflecting India’s commitment to regional stability in the face of terror and violence.
In Africa, India’s strength as an aid provider is that it is not an over-developed power, but rather one whose own experience of development challenges is both recent and familiar. African countries, for example, look at China and the United States with a certain awe, but do not, for a moment, believe that they can become like either of them. India, by contrast, comes across as a land that has faced, and is still surmounting, problems rather like those confronting its beneficiaries. If India can do it, many Africans reason, perhaps we can learn from them.
Moreover, unlike China, India does not descend on other countries with a heavy governmental footprint. India’s private sector is a far more important player, and the government often confines itself to opening doors and letting African countries work with the most efficient Indian provider that they can find.
Similarly, unlike the Chinese, Indian employers do not come into a foreign country with an overwhelming labor force that lives in ghettoes, or impose their ways of doing things on aid recipients. Instead, they recruit, hire, and train local workers and foremen, and leave behind enhanced capacities. Whereas China’s omnipresence has provoked hostility in several African countries – a presidential candidate in Zambia even campaigned on an explicitly anti-Chinese platform – Indian businesses have faced no such reaction in the last two decades. Indeed, Uganda, where Idi Amin expelled Indian settlers in 1972, has been actively wooing them back under President Yoweri Museveni.

Finally, India accommodates itself to aid recipients’ desires, advancing funds to African regional banks or the New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Its focus on capacity development, its accessibility, and its long record of support for developing countries have made India an increasingly welcome donor. This could not have been imagined even 20 years ago, and it is one of the best consequences of India’s emergence as a global economic power.