Jaadu ttha , sapna thha, kyaa thha

Jaadu ttha sapna ttha kya thha
Maine tujhmein kya dekha thha
Aankhein bhi aankhon jaisi tthin
Maatha bhii maatha jaisa ttha
jis mitti pe naaz ttha tujhko 
main bhi ussi mitti ka banaa thaa

Jaadu thha
sapna ttha
kya ttha

This is a poem my father taught me to recite when I could hardly enunciate words clearly.I was fascinated by the sound of words perhaps.A little courtyard, a bit of the blue sky, a handful of cool breeze and an ocean of bliss. And I would reach out to the bubbles that floated in the sky and put them in his lap.Today I realize they were specks in my own eyes.The best part of childhood is that you see things far away,high up .and watch them come closer to.Sometimes you get to cocoon them in your palms. As adults we tend to see things in darkness.The ocean leaves traces of salt.

Embossed!

An embossed painting like this confuses me. I can’t think of thick sunshine or murky waters in shades so light. Never would I want to walk into the waves because of the fear of losing out on my fluidity. I may end up as a still life or become as still as the wave there. Only night is thick, hiding in its depths secrets of the heart. The heart that is impalpable, never ceasing to venture into the unknown. The blood thickens with the onset of darkness and becomes as black as the night itself. The thickness of the night is the thickness of one’s soul.

Only Vincent Van Gogh  could have done justice to this palette. His thick strokes are never static. They are alive ,breathing in every subtle mood of the moment and manifesting  themselves on the hard course canvass of life in a way that makes you want to be a stroke of his brush. Just a powerful stroke. (if anyone knows who the artist of this painting is please let me know!)

spaces

If there's emptiness,you want to fill it up.You don't have to.Cherish the empty spaces.Even a comma will tempt you to hand a scarf on the clothes peg.

my very own soundcloud

https://soundcloud.com/ghazala-shamim-siddiqi

Shamim hanfi poems

Black beads

Black Beads

The sun doesn't set

in the lands where the woods are deep

and hearts deeper

Black is the truth as dark as raven

Light only drapes it in translucence

Inerasable is the dark

And deceptive- the light

The shaman looks up

At the  moon

Painted with the citrus juice

Invisible

But to the spy

Who irons out the creases

From the black sky

And lo behold

Emerges the silver disc

The yin and the yang

In perfect harmony

The black and the white

The zenith and the nadir

I continue beading the string

With beads

the colours of the rainbow

Ghazal

18^th June,2014

Prof . Shamim Hanfi in conversation with Zamarrud Mughal at Rekhta Studio