Fire in ME!

One of my all time favorite poem by Dushyant Kumar on 'Change', on 'Courage', on 'Revolution' is pasted below. These divine lines always help me do my reality check. It brings me back to square one - from where I started to where I am really heading.

Even in 21st Century, when we have technology at the tip of our finger, medical science so advanced, sources of earning money are in abundance, but in reality it is difficult (but not impossible) to earn our living and where life offers maximum comfort, yet we still struggle within us. Struggle to stand up for our moral, for our values and for our principles. And the challenge is that now people around us 'Are Practical', 'Think Practical' and 'Expect us to behave Practical'. Everything is judge by keeping 'I' in context. There is a sudden scarcity of 'US'.

When we leave our house early in the morning for work, we encounter millions of people, millions of circumstances and twisted challenges that will test our limits to the core. By the time we are done with the day, we for sure have passed through the test, either victorious or failure in literal sense but our inner conscious will tell us the true story. Did I stand up for what I believed in? Did I act with courage to what I should have acted upon? Did I fulfill my moral obligation without giving second thought? Was I fair in my routine transaction today? Did I do something for others today? Did I do something for self today? If the answer is ‘No’, then it raises many questions. Where is this divine ‘FIRE IN ME’? Why is our conscious not questioning our character, our inner self?

Honestly, this is not an era of Technology, Speed, Science – the so called ‘21^st Century’. This is in fact an era of “How we are handling ourselves after having these ancillary means?”. It is time for “Character Check”!

हो गई है पीर पर्वत-सी पिघलनी चाहिए,
इस हिमालय से कोई गंगा निकलनी चाहिए।

आज यह दीवार, परदों की तरह हिलने लगी,     

शर्त लेकिन थी कि ये बुनियाद हिलनी चाहिए।

हर सड़क पर, हर गली में, हर नगर, हर गाँव में,
हाथ लहराते हुए हर लाश चलनी चाहिए।

सिर्फ हंगामा खड़ा करना मेरा मकसद नहीं,
सारी कोशिश है कि ये सूरत बदलनी चाहिए।

मेरे सीने में नहीं तो तेरे सीने में सही,
हो कहीं भी आग, लेकिन आग जलनी चाहिए।

- दुष्यन्त कुमार