Aye Mohabbat

Aye mohabbat tere anjaam per rona aaya

Jaane kyon aaj tere naam pe ron aaaya

Begum Akhtar’s ghazal was playing on the radio and how true were the timeless lyrics that said that love more often than not begets sadness and tragedy.

Kabhi taqdir ka maatam, kabhi duniya ka gila

Manzil-e-ishk mein har gamm pe rona aaya

Sometimes it is your fortune that fails you and, in other times, the world at large keeps complaining and resisting against your wishes. Love has always been a struggle from time immemorial and, more often than not, the two souls have to fight every inch of the way from family to society. It has been glorified and romanticized in our movies right from Mughal-e-Azam, where the heir apparent Prince Salim fought his father, Emperor Akbar, in a bloody battle, who disapproved of his love for a court dancer Anarkali, to Bobby where Raj Nath and Bobby Braganza fall in love and are almost driven to suicide to prove their undying love. 

In today’s world we have a new breed of moral keepers who wake up around Valentine’s Day and create a ruckus showing off their vigilantism. As if this was not enough, now strange and lop sided laws have been enacted to prevent inter-faith marriages which are being misused by the cops and the mobs. How ironical that the term the love between people of two faiths as ‘Love Jihad’ failing to understand that love is a jihad in itself irrespective of religion. Surely, if the people enacting such backward looking laws were to undergo a psychiatric examination, the results will show that these are the mad and sad souls who have either been spurned or have never known love of any kind in their lives and are hell bent on making lives of others painful. When all the religions of the world speak of love and compassion towards fellow human beings, how can these handful and hateful be allowed to run amok….all in the name of God?

Sharing with you something written long ago, but is relevant even today, about the struggle called love.

Same Old Tree

Do you remember, Amina

When the clouds would gather

How I would run and get the rope

And you would get the wooden board

I would quickly climb

This same old tree

And then we would swing

And when I would push you hard

You would start crying

No Raj, I never cried

I made shrieking cries

There were never any tears

But I liked it the best

When you would stand above and heave

The swing with your strong legs

How safe I felt sitting below

Together we would swing high

Together we would sing

From the same old tree.

 

Do you remember,  Amina

When you used to return from the madrasa

I would wait under this old tree

I would bunk school

Just to make sure I was here

Same time same place

Never wanted to miss a day

Never wanted to miss you

How much you would scold me

Then take out your books

To teach me

Sitting under this same old tree

Books never interested me

So just kept looking at you

Watching your lovely eyes blinking

Your tender moving lips

All of it and more

Sitting under the same old tree

 

Was this not the same old tree, Raj

From where you picked the flowers

So many of them

And then made a garland

It was so beautiful a garland

I thought you had made it for the temple

But then you gave it to me

I kept it hidden in my bag for many days

Till they started drying

Then just kept a flower in the Koran

And every time I bowed to pray

Felt a happiness beyond words

The flower still remains dried as ever there

But the fragrance of the flower

I can still feel even today

Happiness I can still feel today

Maybe the flowers are blooming, once more today

Up above on the branches

As we stand below, swinging

From the same old tree.

 

How many evenings

We sat below holding hands

Looking up at the dark sky

With twinkling stars

And the shining moon

Staring at us, smiling at us

As we dreamt

Dreamt of a beautiful life together

Dreamt of happiness in each other

All under the same old tree.

 

Why did they do this to us, Raj

Hang us from the same old tree

Raj, did you not say

Your God spoke of love, kindness, compassion

Taught love for all

So did my God

Love for all

Yet our love they said was against the Gods

How they forgot love and mercy

When they put the rope

That once hung the swing

On our slender necks

Pulled us up so hard

As we cried

And they laughed

For once, those who never agreed

Stood together as one

All religions surely must be the same

All Gods must also be the same

For look, how united they stood today

Those who were always at each others’ throats

Together they have pulped our throats

And left us swinging, hanging

From the same old tree.

 

Give me your hand Amina

Let me give you one last kiss

Ha Ha

Did we ever kiss earlier, Amina

No, not really

So many times I asked

But you would never agree

Raj, I too wanted you to hold me

Touch me gently

Kiss me…..

But remained a coward

Afraid of my people, your people

Till they caught us

Sitting under the same old tree

Here take my arm

Kiss me goodbye

Hold me tight, kiss me

One last time

As we, hang together

From the same old tree

One last time together

No fear of the swing today

Just the joy of the flowers above

And our loving togetherness below

And as we swing far away into the stars

It never will ever be

The same old tree.

 

Aye mohabbat tere anjaam per rona aaya

Jaane kyon aaj tere naam pe ron aaaya

 SS