Into that heaven of freedom...

I write this in a state of mild embarrassment. I thought I was past this sort of thing. I have worked in the circumference of the Indian government and certain of its do-gooding tentacles for about a decade now. I know enough to know that very little good ever gets done. I have met scores of government officials who probably don’t even realise that they are corrupt because they know of no other way to be. I know that incompetence and apathy can be so bone-deep that it can seem to structure the system. I have been at more meetings than I care to remember where everybody knows what to say and everybody knows what will finally be done, knowing that the two are never the same thing. I have passed over stages of shock, disgust, rejection, defiance, and to detachment. I can usually work in this dystopic world determinedly doing what I have to, healing disappointment with amusement, fighting revulsion with rectitude and glossing pain with philosophy.

Not today it seems. Maybe I went in less cynical than usual. Maybe it was the five-feet tall tattered portrait of MK Gandhi I started at throughout the meeting. Maybe it was because they did not even get why I was refusing. Maybe it was because the auto back home had a faulty meter.

But I came home and bawled like a baby.

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That was yesterday. One good thing seems to have come out of it though. The matla of this ghazal which has been evading me for a month finally eased into me. So here-

Tabiat-e-imaan-o-taa’at fizool ho chala jaise

Muazzin -e- deen-e-bazaar ab rasool ho chala jaise

Koi na guzraa zakhm taazaa kiye bagair

Tohfaa-e-khaar ka kuch usool ho chala jaise

Duaa na sahi salaam qubool kar jao

Keemat-e-taaluq vasool ho chala jaise

Koi larzaa tho chale koi lahar aud le mujhko

Koi nishaan duaa qubool ho chala jaise

Hairaan hun aaj zharf kaise lafz-e-bayaan

Khamaa bhi dil ka tool ho chala jaise

Usko kyaa dhoonde jo chup ke baitha Zoya

Apne khaaliqi mein kuch bhool ho chala jaise