Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Mein......

This probably was the first poem that fell into my ears after I came into this world.

My parents were in Agra.
There was no television yet. All they had was a tape recorder and this cassette which had not just the songs of the movie Kabhi Kabhi, but the movie itself.
My parents would play this cassette everyday.

They did, of course, on many days go to the Taj Mahal and spend their evenings there, before the love monument.

I have grown up listening to this poem and the song that follows. Sometimes, it was somebody else’s poem. And sometimes, it was my poem. But every time I heard the verses, the experience was one full of poignance. In the voice of Amitabh Bachhan, the poem moves you. Even the air that carries the song would become still … such is this song.

It is a poem to be loved. But it’s not a poem to be lived.

Every few years, it became my song, my poem. The journey of life took me to this poem now and then…and the poem helped my tears flow freely, but I always thought I would find another poem, another song…eventually.

But this poem has stayed with me.

These lines haunt me now more than ever before.

I wonder if it was not merely incidental that my life should have started with this poem.
I wonder if it was not merely incidental that my life should have started with the love monument. For that’s what my life has been all about. Love, longing and living.

kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hain
ki zindagi teri zulfon ki narm chhaon main guzarne pati
to shadab ho bhi sakti thi

yeh ranj-o-gham ki siyahi jo dil pe chhayi hai
teri nazar ki shuaon mein kho bhi sakti thi

magar yeh ho na saka …

magar yeh ho na saka aur ab ye aalam hai
ki tu nahin, tera gham teri justjoo bhi nahin

guzar rahi hai kuch is tarah zindagi jaise,
ise kisi ke sahare ki aarzoo bhi nahin

na koi raah, na manzil, na roshni ka suraag
bhatak rahi hai andheron mein zindagi meri

inhi andheron mein reh jaoonga kabhi kho kar
main janta hoon meri hum-nafas, magar yunhi
kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hai