Don't Step Out!

In childhood summer days

My grandpa used to warn:

‘My child don’t step out
In the garden in night!

There is a snake chasing rats.’

In school days family doctor used to

Warn mama: Don’t step out

In the street or go to school! for a week.

The plague is spreading like a deranged man’s rage.’

Our Kashmiri gardener

Warns his young daughter:

‘Don’t venture out in the street.

A red-eyed wild soldier,

Drunk and intense,

Is stomping our street

His bayonet erect!’

Now my grandson returns

Early from his school and whispers soft:

‘School is closed. Let us not venture out

In mosque or  mall

Bus or cinema hall.

There is a bomb scare.

No one know what type and size.’

A hill station hotel manager suddenly regrets:

‘For two days no sight seeing, sir.

All roads are blocked for security reasons!

The President and her family and friends

Have arrived for holidays!’

M. Hasan

Ajmer, September 19, 2011

SILENCE ZONE

Silence Zone :I

This is a ‘Silence Zone!

Horns and loudspeakers strictly prohibited’,

Warns a loud expensive sign board of

Police Station on the Indian Parliament Street.

 

Silence Zone :II

Rajasthan police stations greet

With their confidence-oozing

Blood red department motto

Declaring at their iron gates:

‘Trust among common men!

Fear among criminals!’

Silence Zone: III

A small brass plaque,

Daily deftly massaged,

Each word glistens

As  tiger’s canine teeth,

On station house officer’s dark table,

And underneath

Steely horse-shoe heeled black boots

Tapping hard on stone floor,

Assuring visitors,

Some smiling, most sobbing:

‘Buck Stops Here!’

M. Hasan

Jaipur, December 1, 2010

Mosque Wall

 

They made me share

My wall with a mosque,

Saying to comfort, ‘you are fortunate

You are close to God.’

So I share my wall with a mosque

But neither my world nor my God

In that mosque.

Wife cajoles

I pray in the mosque

Where I am regularly told:

‘Pray five times a day

It will handsomely pay.’

Further, I am advised:

‘Give zakat and alms,

Fast every Ramadhan

And speak the truth.’

So truth I shall tell:

I don’t share my world and God

With those who pray in the mosque.

How can I share with them

When my wall keeps me apart

From those who just pray in the mosque?

My God says grow more trees.

Keep thy neighbourhood clean

And in harmony and pious peace.

I am whispered: I need not come to the mosque

To throw some coins

In full public gaze

On wrinkled, twisted open palms

And tattered spread scarves

Of veiled deserted, destitute women

Toddlers pasted on their hollow busts.

‘Go to their homes,’

In whispering voice

I am gently told.

‘Save them their long

Journey to the mosque.’

My God says

Break the wall

Not of the mosque

But between those

Who religiously pray

five times a day in mosques

In green and black headgears

Combing well oiled beards.

And donate for granite stones

Where people slip from truth

And what is being from pulpit told.

M. Hasan

Summer, 2010 Jodhpur

Silk Scarf

A stray wind draft

Creeps underneath a creased

Green silk scarf

Ruffles, shocks and nimbly lifts it

Stealing it out from high mansion window.

With few playful mischief, abandons it

Entangling irretrievably on a thorny bush.

Seeing an old banyan tree

Stretching out its hairy arms

On highway road

She stops her speeding car

Under its shade.

Her wandering eyes sees the entangled scarf

Fluttering its shredded parts,

A frocked girl crying to escape

Being snatched away from widow mother

Consigned to a burning pyre.  

Her car doors tightly closed.

Engine and air conditioner on.

First she whispered, then softly sobbed.

Then, her cell phone hissed.

Shocked, she cried in anguish

as if suddenly stabbed

Being alone on a lonely road.

Was the banyan tree an octopus in deep sea?

A yellow leaf, yesterday green,

Falls on her wind screen

Getting stuck with wipers. They stop.

Mist settles in her eyes.

She vacantly looks beyond opaque screen.

Nothing moves. Nothing stirs.

Neither wipers, nor the leaf.

Being angry, the car has already stopped.

Her skirt’s hemline stuck in door.

Snatching it out, a wolf outside howls.

M. Hasan

Jaipur, August 9, 2009

Uhuru

 

Are you there, Mecere, still  fine and firm

In the blackened system, cruel and infirm?

Where is our fragrance of friends

who fought with green twigs

For voice of wisdom, Ugali and grass

Voice  Mathare Valley, River Road and

space  between Nakuru and Nariobi.

I remember the blast

Shaking the white Norfolk Hotel at midnight

Shattering campus window panes and

Graveyard peace of urban elites

Leisure life in Hilton Inn, Jacaranda and Serena

Black monolith Kenyatta Center did also shiver.

Kisumu Nairobi Mombasa Train

An old lady with wonderful grace

Daily moved like an ebony cylinder

At times like a glistening cobra snake

In wood and safari plain

Carrying curious eyes  of white men.

Fascinated I, get fastened in the belly of gorgeous snake

Kisum-Mombasa wonderful train

With glazed scales as window panes.

Free Masai, proud panthers, and golden lions

Spangled zebras, ridgley giraffe

Carrying birds in thorny grass

I run through them in Mombasa train.

A gentle tap on my hand

Ebony grace on a chiseled face

White teeth adorning spotless sun

I turn around and struck with surprise

See the train bearer with gracious smile.

He smiles. A morning garden sprouts

in me throwing away mean Nairobi in me.

Warm, grace, generous and decent,

He bows with his sumptuous plates;

Pine apples, papaya, juice passion fruits

Water melons, corn flakes and aromatic coffee best.

He spreads the table and spreads all with smile and grace.

“What else would you like to have?”

He says like an angel concerned.

I thank him with my watery mouth

Pleased and sure he gently retires

Behind white curtains of slithering train.

Outside the train some wolves cry

Droughts have damned safari lands.

No rain this year. It was not last.

Cobras hides have gone to cities

On dead elephants’ ivory stacks

Plies as tourist luggage from safari land to city Nairobi.

White men oversee in the Rift Valley

Many rifts in human landscapes:

Sunken faces, receding eyes

Half moon dark stomach

hanging on straw frames.

Trees without leaves

and leaves without trees

Far away last dying vulture screech

Dusty dry bones hurt its parched beak.

Plundered Highlands with stony face

Heave over bodies of Kikuyu dead,

And far away Akamba, Luo and Masai in desert lands

Are trapped, tried and whipped all the night.

Mecere Mugo, tell me dear, how long?

And are you, at least, alright?

I await, you say ashante, not hakuna,

Even though you could be crying

under the rubbles of unfinished Uhuru.

M. Hasan

Sports Club,  Ahmedabad

May 5, 2000

----------------

Note: Ashante = Thanks; Hakuna = No; Uhuru = Freedom in Kiswahili

Symphony of Golden Void

SYMPHONY OF GOLDEN POORIES

M. Hasan

Iselin, NJ, April 4, 2009

Slowly kneading American dough

from her aged face drips

some salty spontaneous drops

oozing from stream of subconscious thoughts.

The slow motions unlock

from rheumatic finger knots

texture of deeper thoughts

tight, tense and waffle glass brittle

only she knows what they are of.

Sea deep frying pan

and the red-eyed fire beneath

the messy and greasy oily world

become heated enough

at certain point

but the lid must remain strong,

as an old habit,

she timorously thought.

Step by step she rolls the dough

as perfect moon in poorie form

the unending circles of her own,

one by one she dips them all

in scalding oil to let them puff

first silvery white and then gold brown,

thin crisp and heaved full

they remain intact holding their own

floating on a hellish stove.

Well puffed attracting smiles

but only she knows

the void inside veneer thin

is her own.

-

Indian Iftaar Parties: Fellowship or Politics?

M. Hasan

(Published in the Hindu on 19^th 2010, p.14, Sunday Edition)

Fifty years ago, during the Ramadhan in my home town of Taranagar in  western Rajasthan, plain millet breads, dal/potato shorba, coarse home made savainya, sugared water, dates and halwa, each from different homes, would come to mosque for Iftaar, ‘breaking of fast.’ Each crumb was eaten with gratitude to the Provider. Iftaar bonded the community spirit.

In a Nairobi mosque in a black neighbourhood (as also in Chardarwaza Dargah, Jaipur), Muslims from nearby neighbourhoods bring food for Iftaar shared by the poor and others together. Travellers and passer-by are  asked to join in a spirit of fasting and sharing.  This is Fellowship, common among religions of revealed books.  It pleases Allah immensely, says a Sufi, as His children are fed together after fasting. (In Kerala grand-father of a friend never took dinner in Ramadhan till a traveller joined him. Worried villagers used to coax travellers to oblige them!)

Times are changing and so are the motives  and magnitudes of Iftaars. Politicians in power ignore basic problems of  Muslims, including threat to their lives and property. But they seek them for Iftaars. The Bush-Blaire duo led attack on Iraq and Afghanistan, killing thousands of innocent Muslims, including children and women, and damaging hospitals and homes, justified as collateral damages. The world, outraged, still agonizes. Unblinking Bush called his spin doctors. Shocking the world, Iftaar party was hosted in the White House! Dead bodies turned in graves in NJ, Iraq and Afghanistan. A gulf exists between  outraged sea of bereavement and island of carpetbaggers.

Disturbing images of Iraq, Afghanistan, Gujarat, Mumbai and Srinagar keep crowding psyche of civil societies and Muslims.  Ramadhan is a month of cleansing of body and mind by observing fast and austerity. Politicians have changed its pristine philosophy to  a mechanism to exploit  sentiments and creating divisiveness among Muslims, ignoring justice and governance for them, confronted with stubborn red lining, communal attacks, loss of life and property. But party  must go on.

UPA president, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, hosts Iftaar  party for Muslim leaders and dignitaries from Muslim countries. Unlike free mixing in mosque Iftaars, invitees are stratified by status: foreign dignitaries and senior cabinet ministers in the core circle, VIPs in the middle and the rest in outer circle. Wheelers and dealers manage to sneak in. Even a slot in the outer ring is statement of importance: ‘I was invited in Soniaji’s Iftaar Party!’ Party chiefs, governors and ministers host lavish Iftaar for dignitaries, politicians, and Muslim elites. Mounds of leftovers is wasted. Size and quality of crowd hugely satisfies the host. Investment in such Fellowship ‘improves’ political image, bringing electoral returns. This is the crux of the tamasha. 

Other political formations are not behind in enticing Muslims for political harvesting. The JD (U) and SP supreme are at their best in Ifaar bonhomie. Iftaars gives new blood transfusions. Media reports the likes of the Advanis and Ataljis adorning skull caps and green pugrees foisted on them by over-enthusiastic and calculative Dargah heads. In their  own perceptions, Muslims and political hosts are happy with the ‘conversion’ of the other! Party enthusiasts are ordered to bring in buses loaded with Muslims, preferably in skull caps and beards, from Jama Masjid and nearby towns. Expensive piping hot delicacies have their own magnetism. Though hardcore Hindutva elements fume and fret in private, BJP’s spin doctors smile at the spectacle without forgetting core communal agenda: abrogation of the Article 370, enforcement of Common Civil Code and Ram Temple at the demolished Babri Masjid site. Pragmatists counsel: Iftaar ki raftaar mein sab chalta hai! ‘All is permissible in race for Iftaar!’ 

Once a respectable Muslim leader sought suggestion for hosting Iftaar in Jaipur. Underlining its futility in Jaipur, I suggested him to host it rather in his constituency in poor Mewat region for true fellowship. It further endeared him. This Ramadhan a Rajasthan  cabinet minister hosted a huge Iftaar in a five-star hotel in Jaipur, raising many eye brows. Who footed the bill was not a mystery: he holds a key portfolio. Some say it was a litmus test to judge solidarity among agitating  Muslims who had announced boycott of Iftaar by politicians.

They are agitated because last July, following killing of one Meena tribal criminal  by a Muslim criminal, just before Ramadhan, mobs attacked innocent Muslims in Sarada, Udaipur, in the presence of  district administration. The mob was instigated by the RSS activists. Through Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad (VKP), Mewar is fast become a testing communal laboratory. During the curfew hours, seventy Muslim houses were burnt and looted. District Magistrate, IGP, SP and heavy posse of armed forces stood as spectators. According to the eminent scholar Asghar Ali Engineer, arson and looting didn’t happen in 2002 even in Gujarat areas where DM was present. But it has happened in Congress ruled Rajasthan. There are shining  examples of law upholding  Superintendents of Police in Gujarat and Rajasthan (Sarada July 2004 and Balesar May 2010) who performed their constitutional duties firmly, containing riots to save Muslim lives and property. Oddly, these SPs  were transferred immediately by Rajasthan BJP in 2004 and Congress in 2010, apparently playing, respectively, hard and soft Hindutva cards.  Ironically, BJP replaced SP Dr. Ravi Prakash Meharda by  Dinesh MN (now in Gujarat jail in the Sohrabudin case). 

Most Muslims of Sarada were herded in the police station before the mayhem began.only their houses were searched for arms.  Police locked  a family in two rooms and let the mobs set the house on fire. An elderly woman sobbingly narrated this harrowing experience in a Jaipur public meeting. Sarada Muslims were rendered homeless and jobless during the Ramadhan, ruining both their fasting and Eid festival. They demand dismissal of responsible officers and a judicial inquiry. Rather, government instituted an inquiry by divisional commissioner (who neither took any preventive action, despite knowing the tense condition), keeping DM, IGP and SP out of the purview of  terms of reference (TOR), despite the damning report against them by the Rajasthan PUCL team. Even then, the governor and CM are hosting Iftaar parties expecting Muslims to attend, adding salt to injury.

Indian state has no official religion. Its only dharma, if at all, is to protect the lives and property of people. Iftaar is a religious activity to be not politicised. Muslims are agonized over the  politics of Iftaar which often divides them.  Hosting Iftaar in official residences by constitutional post holders is problematic, like building and nurturing temples and mosques there, damaging  the secular image of the Indian state.

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*Writer was professor in the HCM Rajasthan State Institute of Public Administration and is currently Member, Rajiv Gandhi Social Security Mission, Rajasthan . Address: 54 Kidwainagar, Jaipur 302015; Tel: 141-351786; Cell: 09784678786; Email to mhasan23@rediffmail.com; mhasan1944@gmail.com

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Home

What I need is a little home

Where friends and family can be at home.

A peaceful place for sound sleep

A dining space for friends indeed

For coffee rounds and small treats

On a green patch where birds can chirp

A quiet room for mother’s retreat

That is a home for us all, I dream.

Nothing more and nothing big.

For others around thus I dream

What I need is a little treat

A bath tub of two by six feet

Where words and vision can easily mix

Where I can spread my legs with leisure

For relaxing, ruminating and wondering aloud

While watching intently bubbles around

I crave to run away far on wild clouds.

Stratosphere and lithosphere

May hover around and quietly merge

With my solo journey without fear.

For a tethered man’s small dream

My little desire my wife concedes

In a house of three beds and dining hall

This little request is not very tall.

Friends insist build a beautiful house

Impressive, enjoyable to house dreams.

They measure me and size of the land

Unfolding their worldly thoughts.

How many rooms and baths

Size of dining hall and front yard?

What materials from where to find?

What materials are you using?

No, no Kota stone!

If not granite, then

Makrana Marble is a must.

No stone frames nor iron ones

As trendy values they bust or rust!

Italian marble if you can

For your master bedroom, dear friend,

They suggest with great zest

For a man to have a nice rest!

Big slabs not small crumbs

Bhilwara bricks not cheap ones

Cement Shri or JK is fine

Big units. Almost divine.

No section window, never at all.

We must have seasoned wood.

No acacia, nor sesame or sal.

Just teak from MP or Assam

Not Nigerian or Nepal.

Teak for doors and window large

Letting sun, moon and wind barge in.

They spread their vision

In my drawing room and dining hall.

Their global flights, my local frights.

Not a Gandhi house for EWS.

You have earned enough

To build a decent and durable house.

There isn’t going to be another house

In this life, they gravely say.

It is going to be one for ever

Wise friends remind me at last.

Alas!

I think for ever, what I know

And feel deep.

The house for me is never so big

With wood, glass, cement or marble.

No bath no kitchen

No dining and drawing room.

No reading room, nor sofa set

No fancy light nor air conditioners.

It is going to be minimal, raw and simple

Prime primitive and pure plan.

A two feet by five by six feet

Covered by earthen pots not by bricks

Thatched roof with straws and mud.

At most they may leave behind

A one feet long irregular stone

Scribed in charcoal with abandonment:

Here lies the 'Unknown'

Date of birth, not known

Place of birth, desert west

Died this morning

Wishing to be alone.

God, bless him! Amen.

M Hasan

Sri Ganganagar, April 9, 2000 

Garden Walk

Garden Walk

April 11, 2007

Defense Colony, Bangalore

Tall trees spread their overarching arms

Entwined, almost love locked

Over walk ways blessed with shades

For morning people, in group or alone

Young and old, beautiful and plain

Shapely and spread, tall and thin

Short and stout

Brisk and slow

Ears plugged with earphones

Firmly plugging out

World ahead and behind,

Programmed, orbit like shadows.

Birds jump from twig to twig

At will sipping flower nectar.

Joyously they chirp

and sing their music own

Their ears not plugged

Like that of the crowd below.

Isn’t this sad, God?

In green ambience

Invigorated with fresh air

Cool shades and lofty landscape green

People can be so mean

Paying dancing and singing birds no heed

Eyes not savoring serene trees

Their sun-bathed golden leaves

Stately curved trunks as if

With still Bharatnatyam pose

With slow motioned

Fan-like fingered branches

Clad with beautiful palm leaves

All choreographed with each gale

Willing to kiss whosoever them touch

Fragrant Harsingar flowers descend one by one

Not disturbing birds’ music notes.

Don’t Yee see and wish,

they all seem say, good morning

To every leave and every flower

To each bird and each fellow walker?

A graceful smile from an elderly face

A silver smile from a gorgeous girl

An outreaching well-meaning hello

From a young man

Can make a marvelous band

You play and we play

For a wonderful day

Beginning from a garden bay

Wouldn’t you all for this pray?

UHURU BEREAVED

I may be black

Not my deeds and thoughts

Pink is my flesh and ruby my blood

Teeth my pearls forest my robes

When beasts were my friends

I never sobbed

Lakes our aprons

Pelicans were wings

Elephants our force

Rivers our dance

We sang with birds

Roared with lions

We ran with golden deer’s

Danced with peacocks

Diamonds in my mother’s womb

You all have robbed.

The Nile was my journey

Mt. Kilimanjaro my crown head

I didn’t leave my home 

You stole me by force

From the lap of my mom

And hands of my father

Without any thoughts of remorse

In ropes and scaffolds.

My home wasn’t dark

White and Brown

You all made it dark

Indeed, very dark.

M Hasan

Jaipur January 6, 2008