Nishatanay

People are remembered in many ways. A human being has God-knows-how-many dimensions, but when people are asked  how they remember him long after he has gone, the way they summarize him, offers  a realistic glimpse into one of those dimensions, sometimes revealing rare aspects of his self. When I try to remember my Grandfather, an image of a man of a medium stature, clad in a soft almond-yellow kurta and a white dhoti appears. He is carrying a stick in his right hand, and is wearing a vintage HMT watch in his left. The stick is bent in a u-shape at its handle, and has a black spot in the middle of the handle, resembling a serpent. Although there were  an array of reasons why he left his job of a revenue collecting official (Patwari) halfway,  the most prominent one was that the pay was too meagre to support his large family. Immediately after resigning, he started his private practice of writing registries for people of nearby villages that his Tehsil covered, ma...

What is the point of this life? One may ask and ask quite rightfully - The point of being born, as an assembly of countless cells, as a part of a never-ending chain of cause and effect, of a cosmic spark thirteen billion years ago, on a giant ball revolving around a star, merely being a dot on the cosmic map of existence. |1| What should we do with this absence? The nullity of any meaning, the life brings with it,  but only an ever-lasting void. |2|  For Zero is an interesting number, for where there is zero, there is a possibility of everything. This leaves us the mortals, trapped in this rushing stream of time  for a few moments, with a freedom unlimited. |3| A silhouette of young Napoleon appears on a nearby wall, immersed in a piece of paper, an omnibus of highlands of Europe. Now, the horse of Napoleon is strutting across the Alps, with all his vigor, the force of life. Then it limps and falls, and so the glowing lamp, inside his study. |4| ~ Ashutosh 

टॉल्किन (Tolkien) की एक कविता का हिंदी अनुवाद :- सोने की हर चीज़ नहीं चमकती,  ना ही खो जाते हैं, सभी भटकते हुए लोग, पुराना और मजबूत मुरझाता नहीं,  गहरी जड़ों तक नहीं पहुंच पाती पाले की बर्फ |1| राख से उठेगी इक आग, परछाइयों से निकलेगी इक रोशनी, फिर से नई हो जाएगी, टूटी हुई तलवार  और रंक बनेगा महाराज !   ~ आशुतोष (अनुवाद) कविता: जे.आर.आर. टॉल्किन, "द फेलोशिप ऑफ द रिंग"(1954)।  नोट :- यह मेरा व्यक्तिगत अनुवाद है, मूल कविता के सभी अधिकार लेखक/प्रकाशक के पास हैं। न