Chalte Chalte bas yun hi mujhe kuch kehna hai

एक मुठी ज़िन्दगी
दो भीगा ज़मीन
बस ऐसे ही कुछ मुख्दूं में है
कैद नसीब तेरा ...

वक़्त बदल जाता है
दुनिया बदल जाती है
कहने को तोह इंसान की
पहचान बदल जाती है l

पर मूढ़ के देखो तोह कुछ नहीं बदलता
किसी को हक नहीं तोह किसी को सहारा नहीं मिलता ...

ऐसे में एक जो है
वोह तुम ही हो खुदा
अपने आप की, अपनी किस्मत की
बस तुम ही हो दुआ ...

न छोड़ अपना साथ
कहते हैं मिआं
सितारून से आगे जहाँ और भी हैं
यहाँ सिअक्दों कारवां और भी हैं  ll

बस यूँ सोच लो की आगे मुकाम और भी हैं
सुनते सिमत्तेह हैरत-इ-होंसला और भी हैं ll

The boy who lived....

Oft in life, when we look back, all we see is a trail of broken promises - some effusive, some unsaid, unwritten. It is at times like this that a simple story of love brings home the truth of life itself - life is not about the broken promises, it is about the fact that there were promises and that by itself is promising!:-)

This is the story of love, of fear, hope, destiny, but above all, of a promise - a mother's promise to protect, nurture and save her child - a promise that forms the basis of humanity itself. From the sea of human suffering that washes over us everyday, this is the story that warmed my heart under the cold lights of a hospital room on a pre-autumn lazy, chatty Sunday afternoon..

Once upon a time, in a slum not so far away, there lived a boy. In a land known for the ills that plagued it in the post-monsoon rush for CWG "all-is-well" preparations, this slum, like many others, was witness to something more virulent during the life and times of the Delhi Games, something even more dangerous than Kalmadi himself, the smaller, ostensibly humbler, dengue bug with its brothers-in-arms chikungunya and malaria.

He, a tiny bundle, malnourished, was bitten. (We are still not entirely sure of the cause of his illness.) She, illiterate, knew not what to do. With a child almost certain to die, with not a paisa to her name, with a husband 'missing-in-action' for 3 full days, the decision was waiting to be made - to prepare for a burial or to venture into the unknown maze of city wheeling-dealings and claim life back for her child; the choice for this lady was clearly between sticking to being the passive wife or venturing ahead as an active mother.

One silver bangle was all she had when she set forth. That and the belief that her boy would live, had to live. They say, help comes to those who ask for it. And I believe, faith has no power like a mother possessed. In a city known for random rapes and chauvinistic autocratic autowallahs, it was a random autowallah who came to the rescue - a trip to one of the few hospitals with enough available facilities, in a locality far far away, with no expectation of being shabashed, he was in my eyes, a true hero. Not that she dint offer to pay, she did have the bangle you see, but a simple "behenji mujhe paap lagwana hai kya" before he rode off summed up that something bigger that we all hide in our hearts - the desire to be good, and that once in a very rare while manages to fight free of our facades of "worldliness" and "street-smartness" and translates into true heroism, acts that may be limited to our own private world but exalt us in our own eyes.

The hospital staff was quick to react and all red-tapism was forgotten as the whole universe rallied to save the boy - right from the nurses and the doctors who donated a part of their own salaries, to attendants who stayed back after duty-hours to help and offer moral support to the mother, to other patients who cheered the boy every time he managed a feeble soporific smile and the visitors who with medicines, clean clothes, their time and words of encouragement saluted the brave spirit of a simple, illiterate woman who knew only one thing - how to be a mother!

Sometimes in life, it is the little things that inspire - one silver bangle for instance...