Aatish Paraston ki Ek Devi / آتش پرستوں کی اک دیوی

Shakhon se ubalti rui

Jab pedon ke badan se utar kar

Shehar ki sadkon pe bikhar kar

Kinare kinare saujati thi

Tou ek chingari se usey

Jaga kar

Jhulsa kar

Hum phir hawaon mein uda dete they 

Ladakpan mei  aag se

Kise ragbat nahi hoti

Muhabbat nahi hoti

Magar phir zindagi mein

Samjhdari ke ek mod par

Mujhe aatish paraston ki

Ek devi mili

Rooh jiski aatishi thi

Aag se raakh

Raakh se khaak

Aur khaak se gubaar banana

Jiski zindagi thi

Har woh shay

Jo uske badan ki hidat se guzri ho

Jhulasna uski taqdeer thi

Apne badan se utre kapdon ko

Supurd e naar kar

Ghanton unhe taka karti

Hawa karti

Hansa karti

Phir us raakh ka naseeb woh jaane

Mai raakh ho chuka hoon kya?

Ab mai jo uski utran hoon

شاخوں سے ابلتی روئی 

جب پیڑوں کے بدن سے اتر کر

شہر کی سڑکوں پہ بکھر کر 

کنارے کنارے سوجاتی تھی

تو ایک چنگاری سے اُسے 

جگا کر 

جھلسا کر

ہم پھر ہواؤں میں اڑا دیتے تھے

لڑکپن میں آگ سے

کسے رغبت نہیں ہوتی

محبت نہیں ہوتی

مگر پھر زندگی میں

سمجھداری کے اک موڈ پر

مجھے آتش پرستوں کی

ایک دیوی ملی

روح جسکی آتشی تھی

آگ سے راکھ

راکھ سے خاک

اور خاک سے غبار بنانا

جسکی زندگی تھی

ہر وہ شے 

جو اسکے بدن کی حدت سے گزری ہو

جھلسنا اُسکی تقدیر تھی

اپنے بدن سے اترے کپڑوں کو

سپرد نار کر

گھنٹوں انہیں تکا کرتی

ہوا کرتی

ہنسا کرتی 

پھر اس راکھ کا نصیب وہ جانے

میں راکھ ہو چکا ہوں کیا

اب میں جو اُسکی اترن ہوں؟

A PRIMER OF LOVE

C for Clothes

Magar accha tou ye hota ki hum ek saath rehte

Bhari rehti tere kapdon se almaari humari

(Jawad Sheikh)

Clothes form an essential structure in the metaphysics of love because your beloved wears them. Just by that fact only they become signifiers of something transcendent  wavering between mystical and fetish. The cloth, the garment becomes a text, a language tailored by one adorned by someone else - a Barthesian language. Its texture is the texture of memory and desire - suddenly you remember, she wore that dress on that day when that thing happened. Somewhere in a closet hangs Rene Magritte's  Homage to Mack Sennett.

"I love your every dress

Because they do

What I wish to do"

F for Fingernail

Your fingernail grazes my lip and nicks my being. Last night the waxing crescent moon resembled your clipped fingernail. Was it destined to be apart from you because it was a part of you or it wasn't, like me.

"In love

I want to collect

All your clipped nails

As a souvenir of my excess longing" (Mubashir Karim)

Q for Question

Standing before God (who has all the answers), it is a matter of asking the right questions. Mythology and epics are riddled with questions, so is Love. I love you was a question when you said it. I inherited it as an answer and that has made all the difference. Here I am, everyday, standing before God searching for the right questions to ask. 

"To whom could I put this question (with any hope of an answer)?

Does being able to live without someone you loved mean you loved her less than you thought. . .?" (Barthes)

T for Time (and Place)

I love you is always incomplete. I loved you in Kashmir: the past indicator and the place. Love can never escape the spatiotemporality. To be in one place at the same time is essential for you and me to fall in love. Had we been somewhere else, say Paris, we would have loved differently. There's a particular Kashmiri way of loving that only lovers in its space and time know.

"Tumhari aankhoun mein

Nami aatey hi

Srinagar mein

Baarish hojati hai

Mausam koi bhi ho

Meri Nazm bheeg jati hai"