Author: Mohamed Nawaz Haindaday

Khamosh Pani...the silent waters...no one knows what lies beneath the calmness and serenity of water...the depth of the heart is as deep as that of the ocean...the silent water above belies the turbulence within the depths of the ocean...that is me... Advocate by training Author by desire (Both set in motion at an age where a settled life ought to be cherished)
Posted on

Dear Zindagi…

Thank you for being my life
Ever since life was passed unto me

For if were it not for you, dear Zindagi
I would not have seen different shades
Of what life is all about

Seasons of the year are easy to define
Shades of life have colours aplenty
Not all find mention, many shades uncommon

Ups and downs aplenty
Straight and curvy roads, I tread many

Everyday unfolds a new story
Constant is the change, fear of the uncanny

Along the path that this journey has passed through
Friends, acquaintances and personalities
Have come and gone and I have passed through their lives as they have through mine

Some left lasting impressions, good, bad and of late some uglies
I thought I tried to be modest in reciprocation
Yet maybe matched not all or maybe none

But whatever has been the path I took
Lessons learnt at every stage; a treasure that remains in mind and sometimes the heart,
Yet fail to recall when events and men, similar in historical traits come across

O life…o my dear Zindagi….
Hold on to me, as I hold on to you
Until death do us apart
And until then, be my companion
In the various moods that I have

For I may not be unique, yet I am what I am
And as you have made me to be…

Dear Zindagi…until tomorrow, until the journey towards one year lesser begins yet again…Khuda Haafiz

Posted on

The heart, the mind and the loss of humanity

The heart yearns for contentment
The mind yearns for peace

Yet, the heart does not relent
Though it has more than it needs
Yet the mind does not let things go by
When all it needs to do is forgive

O heart! O mind!
Thou both work often in tandem
And yet, the heart fails to control
The beat that makes the mind tick

How then can there be peace?
Why then would the human be grateful?
In a world where small things become big issues
In a world beset deeply with greed

The mind that rules the heart or the heart that moves the mind
Can never make a human perfect; can never prevent a human ape an animal

And thus, the human, often than not
Suffers endlessly; lives and yet is always in search of life.

O heart, o mind!
Take the animal out of the human
So that the world remains a better place, to live

Let there be peace with content
Let there be life, within and around.

Posted on

Mumbai and its date with Monsoon

The summers of 2016 have been very hot and humid for Mumbaikars and its not that the earlier summers have been a bit charitable.  However, as people sweat out in the heat and drain themselves out over the period from March to May, the last month peaking in terms of humidity, the most awaited event is the news of rains hitting Kerala.  This news brings along hope for the dehydrated Mumbaikars that respite is round the corner…within a week of rains reaching Kerala, Mumbai usually gets its first rains.Mumbai Summer

This year has been no less different; rains have finally blessed Mumbai, or so it seems.  The morning witnessed good rains, but as I write now nearing noon, the rains have disappeared.

Nevertheless, since it is monsoon time, a few thoughts on the typical rainy season of Mumbai is in order.

Mumbai’s first date with rain is always a chaotic affair.  Mumbai’s lifeline, the local trains are the first casualty.  And regardless of how many people write and how many efforts on record the Municipal corporation and railway authorities take, chaos reins and if it were not to be so, then the opening charm of Mumbai’s rainy season would not be there.  imagesYDQ4JVM7

Not to be left behind in contributing to opening chaos are the infamous traffic jams, which get glorified on day 1 of the rainy seasons.  One wonders what leads to such snarls when it rains in Mumbai.  Mumbai’s driving community has not ever been known to be adherent to driving etiquettes and a downpour adds to the already existing impediments to driving on Mumbai’s roads.imagesPEJK8FIY

Schools in Mumbai re-opening coincides generally with the arrival of monsoons.  A Mumbaikar has to go through the school days as a student himself and then as a parent when he or she has to worry about how his ward would reach school and then back home when it rains.  And when it rains in Mumbai, it does not simply rain…it pours.

Mumbai’s rains are not only about chaos, snarls and worries about reaching home safe and sound…Mumbai’s rains also have that romantic aura associated with it.  Getting drenched, a walk down the Marine Drive, the pounding sea waves that rise in the sea and land on the coastal roads, the onion bhajias on the street side, Bhat’s adrak ki chai, the cool winds, sometimes blowing strong enough to shift you an inch on the road…Mumbai’s rains are a fantastic experience for those who have gone through every aspect of the rainy season.  1aeef369b188386d9f0e2f8d56c0b2c0

Let us hope for a rainy rainy season…let there be rains, let there be water…let the land and the human get drenched in the downpour…have a great rainy season Mumbai!

(Credits for pictures to various sources)

Posted on

Public Display of Religion – Why is it more of farce than reality

They who talk religion, eat religion, sleep religion, wear religion on their sleeves….PREACH religion, are the worst followers of the religion.

I am no religious scholar, yet, with an average intelligence, I have realised, with whatever I have seen and experienced over a period of time, that religion as ‘enforced’ today, is probably modified, twisted and presented to suit selfish interests.

A human is never meant to be perfect; perfection is a fallacy ingrained in humans. That a human is fallacious with his perception of being perfect is reflected in his acts, deeds and thoughts. Having said that, there are many who are bold enough to admit that despite of practicing or subscribing to a religion, they are far from being real followers. But there are equal numbers of those, or maybe higher, who portray religion as if wearing a crown, making it a point to engage in a display of being religious. Yet, in reality, they would be the worst followers of the religion that they present themselves to follow and promote.

From what I understand about religion, it is an identity with your Lord, the Almighty to whom you have to return. Religion is way of life, a guide to what makes good humans good to be eligible for a life in heaven. It is a guide to avoid path that can lead to a life in hell, if the guidance for eligibility to heaven is ignored. And I am sure, the various do’s and don’ts do not definitely include PDR (Public Display of Religion).

Religion is a divine approach with added laws and rules to regulate human conduct. Unlike man made laws, interpretation of which is decided by Courts and which are open for public review, the interpretation of divine law by humans, not eligible to comment on the framework of the religion has become a source of the current state of affairs in this world. Life at the macro and micro level has been vastly affected by the growing number of ‘self-appointed’ preachers, protectors and followers of religion.

Humanity has taken a back seat, rather, humanity is slowly disappearing from human conduct. And in its place has come contempt, greed and violence. At the micro level of inter personal relations, its self first and self last. At the macro level, religion is a tool used to create divisions and feast upon the spoils of damages caused by the divisions and disturbances caused by such divisions.

PDR has also created self-appointed religious preachers who would themselves be ignorant of the real essence of the religion that they vocally preach. Their own houses in disorder, they engage in imparting lectures on the wrongs and evils of society.

The sane humans, who will grow by the numbers, if they are able to see through the futility of practising religion in extremity, are the only hope for a return of humanity in the world. If these still sane humans fall prey to the high pitched PDR and join the bandwagon, then days are not far when there will be a complete extinguishment of humanity. Humans sans humanity, would bring about days where religion would be used as a tool to carry out mass murders, forcible occupation of lands and commitment of excesses.

Let us come out of rhetorics of religion; let us come out of rhetorics of intolerance. Let humanity be the winner, with religion as the guiding force for peace, harmony and prosperity of humanity. Religion is divine, let it remain divine.

Posted on

Glory

Glory is momentary
Enjoy the moments while they last

Perpetual glory is a myth
As is the myth of a consistent good human behaviour

Man by nature is more prone to opportunism
And glory, by its characteristics,comes to those who all but lack opportunism

Thus, Opportunism is perpetual
And Glory, momentary and sweet

Posted on

I yearn…

I yearn for a desire untold 

I yearn for so little, yet it seems manifold
As days pass by and the web grows 

I yearn, to break away from the flow
Patience has never been consistent

It only takes you to a point of no return 
Destiny, I believe, brings you where you are now

And destiny alone shall guide you beyond from the now
I thus wait for the guiding light

As I bid my time, to take flight

Posted on

School friends, boys who became men…and continued to remain friends

I met you after decades passed by
I met you last as a school boy
I met you now, as both you and me are fathers of growing young boys
O dearest friend, we still bond well as we did when we were school boys, pure at heart and at mind

Time passed by, years converted to decades
Our lives took on to different roads
And we forgot to turn back to look at the sunshine, to look for each other and for the happiness that we shared
Memories faded, we lost track, time passed by, years converted to decades

Then destiny brought about a change
A source to trace friends of childhood
Technology helped bringing back together
Friends of childhood days

We had grown, matured and had our own unique lives
We had all but changed; our memories had all but faded
As if waiting in the sub-conscious mind
To connect with friends of the days of our origin

We came across, you and me, and all of us slowly coming back to the fold of childhood days
Changing times brought about new innovative ways to connect
And we thus became connected yet again
Children who bonded, re-bonded with the same comfort as men
Children as friends are now stronger friends as men; the distance in time set in the realisation of the happiness of re-bonding of childhood friends

Then came the moment when you and I met in person
A moment in life where words often fail; a moment when the memories of childhood flash by completely
It was a moment of joy, of happiness, of feelings unexpressed
When you and I, standing together after decades,
Were the same old schoolboys hugging each other goodbye as we parted ways out of school.

As now we bid goodbye to each other
We now part with hope and determination
To live in memories always
And with the hope to meet once again

Posted on

Jannat si khushi aa jaati hai saarey Kainaat mein
Jab Eid ka chand nazar aata hai

Ek mahina ibaadat karta hai banda
Allah paak usey khushi sey dekho kaisey nawaazta hai

Duniya bhi dekhkar dang reh jaati hai
Isliye hum par apna gussa nikaalti hai

Ehsaas hi to hai yeh, warna kyon apni khaami ko chupaney key liye
Qatl bhi hamara karey aur qatil bhi hamein banaey

Imaan hamara itna kamzor nahin
Key hum khushi na manaein

Qatl jitna bhi tu karna chahey Qatil
Teri har nasl par hum hi bhaari hain

Aaj khushi ka mauqa hai, hum to khush hain aur khush hi rahengey
Aaj saari Kainaat mein padha jaa raha Eid ka khutba hai

Pur sukoon ho jaaegi hamari duniya
Itni ibaadatein hum jo kartey hain

Yeh zameen to ek chota sa lamha hai, yehan ki chah nahin hamein
Humari manzil to uski baargah hai,

Sarfarosh hain, zaalim nahin,
Teri taraf dekh, ek halki si haseen bhi terey chehrey pey nahin

Saarey Mominon ko meri taraf sey Eid Mubaarak…koi gum nahin, har mushqil ek neymat hai, yakeen tu kar bandey, tera Khuda hi tera Rehbar hai

Posted on

Agony

Why doth a man  hunt for excuses to lay the blame upon?

Why not look within to find faults, aplenty they may be!

Every problem a human faces, causes thereof lie in his inabilities

 

A mind in conflict with all that walks, crawls and moves

Cannot be the mind that can be put to effective use

 

Sadly, realisations do not translate into actions

Time waits for none, yet for him who remains confused, life will always be at a standstill

Posted on

Politics of divide – will Indians be ever free from religion and caste based politics

Babri Masjid was demolished when I was an article clerk doing my CA. Twenty two years down the line, if political parties use it as a bogey to win or lose elections, then regardless of economic growth and claims to financial and intellectual superiority, India and Indians would still be said to have retained the same polarised mind set.

We now have a new breed of young Indians who should ideally be freed from the pangs of communal divide if progress is really a priority for truly nationalist political parties.  However, people with credentials worst than barbarians are now being projected to win with handsome margins.  Their growth and popularity cannot be credited only to their own efforts.  Their growth and rise from the ashes, literally, has been facilitated as a result of divisive policies of political parties who have ruled up till now in various formations.

The other factors that have brought India to a situation facilitating change of guard, is the absence of a MAN to lead.  The outgoing government at the Centre had so many men but no real MEN so to speak, who could have brought glory to the nation.  Merely by saying that an ‘economist’ was at the helm and suave well-spoken men of literary skills and legal knowledge drafting and articulating the policies of the nation, did not present a strong dispensation with a firm grip on affairs of governance.  In fact, these old men were at best, puppets of subservient interests being dictated to bring in and implement policies to the benefit of this interest group of capitalist cronies.

Let us also not forget one more off shoot of the growth in corruption and malpractices in the Indian system.  The arrival of Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Admi Party.  This man and his party were pushed into India’s political system by the long suffering Indians who wanted someone to take on the corrupt political system.  The initial phase of Kejriwal, beginning from the Anna movement, on to the split in the movement and the birth of AAP and culminating in India’s first common man’s party’s debut as a governing party was perhaps a sort of memorable phase.  However, now, as the election campaigning progresses, it is becoming more and more evident that Arvind Kejriwal does not have the material or the team, to help them in gaining a substantial voice in Parliament.  Sometimes, I often wonder whether it has really helped the Indian citizens by the arrival of AAP.  Come to think of it, quite a few prominent members of the original Anna Hazare movement have now jumped ship and latched on to one of the parties whom they had opposed earlier.  AAP’s presence is also going to ensure a division in votes to the benefit of the party gaining momentum.  AAP has also not spelt out a clear agenda to claim its place in the corridors of politics.

The Grand Old Party has lost its shine.  Life seems to have been snuffed out of the ‘shehzada’ even before he could take a few gulps of air.  This election looks a clear one-sided affair and the results are all too evident.  Only time will tell…where India goes five years from now.  Whether, those who are now poised to reach the seats of power on the strength of their notorious past, would actually abandon the rhetorics of communal divide and concentrate on governance and growth, or whether they would succumb to the pressures of their so-called mentors.  Their deeds in power will shape the course of the lives of many Indians over the next five years and beyond.