What dies inside you while you live becomes a millstone around your neck,

It can the quality of your life really wreck!

Its dead weight can your boat sink,

So do not try to yourself hoodwink!

Nor should you cry over what is dead and gone,

It will not come back to life however much you plead and moan!

Salvage whatever of your conscience is left,

That is what will save you and give your life some meaning and heft!

Do not let insidious worldly temptations corrode your being,

But for that you have to open your inner eye and change your way of seeing!

That you do not barter your soul

Should be your sacred project and purpose whole!

Why not make it your mission to protect what is left of your core

Because there is nothing that can be precious more?

All the wealth in the world can be no match for your core,

The loss of which will leave you just empty and sore!

So with all your might for your essence fight

Because this is one fight that is honourable, just and right!

Arun Bhagat

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मत ढूँढ मरने के बहाने,

सुंदर भविष्य खड़ा है सिराहने,

यूँ बैठा शून्य में न तक,

तुझे भी जीने का है पूरा हक़,

असीमित सम्भावनाएँ हैं खड़ी पंख पसारे,

फिर क्यों ढूँढता है तूँ कमज़ोर सहारे?

उठ खड़ा हो, अपने सपनों को दे गति,

इस्तेमाल कर जो ईश्वर ने दी है मति!

घुप अंधेरे में भी ढूँढ निकाल कोई झरोखा,

अतुल्य है तूँ, कर दिखा कुछ अनोखा!

अर्थहीन सीमाओं में न खुद को बांध,

जो दीवारें तुझे रोकतीं, सबल बन उनको फाँद!

अमूल्य जीवन की निधि को यूँ न गवा,

बुलबुला है यह, कौन जाने कब हो जाए हवा?

स्वर्णिम अक्षरों में जीवन के पन्नों पे कुछ ऐसा लिख जा

कि विरला ही मिले कोई और प्रेरणा स्तोत्र तुझ सा!

ध्रुव तारे सा तूँ हो जा विद्यमान नभ में,

जीवन भँवर में खोए जहाज़ों को रास्ता दिखा तूँ जग में!

अरुण भगत

We know that some day all this is to end,

Still our silly ways we do not mend!

Prisoners to our ego, we so often go wrong,

When our life could have been a lark and a song!

With our monumental follies we mess it up big time

When the short interval between birth and death could just have been sublime!

Our ugliness so often rears its head

Because we do not with awareness the path of life tread!

In our self-created misery do we wallow

When we could have through life flitted like a swallow!

With our self-inflicted wounds we go our agonising weary way

When life could have been sunshine and hay!

This is how our failings hollow us out like a pest

Though nature gave us the potential to go from better to best!

While, thus, we wear our follies on our sleeve and them flaunt,

The irony of what we are and what we could have been does plague us and haunt!

Arun Bhagat

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Our dark desires make us play with fire,

Even then of them we never tire!

They make us do things brutish and weird,

In the darkness of our minds are they reared!

We pander to our darker selves with pleasure,

We feed our carnal longings at leisure!

Insidiously do they spread their tentacles through our mind,

In their mighty coils they tend our soul to bind,

Still of them we do not tire

Because the devil in us loves to play with fire!

Even as to be good we pretend,

Our shadowy creeping yearnings inside tear us and rend!

On this sacred occasion of Lord Krishna’s birthday,

We see of hope a beckoning ray!

O Lord! Help us transcend the dark crevices of our mind

As you play upon your divine flute and mesmerised we walk behind!

Arun Bhagat

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The Poignant Tale of An Unwashed Ragpicker

The ragpicker in her teens asked me the way out of our lane,

Unwashed and vulnerable, her sight was enough to trouble anyone sane!

I asked her to come home with me,

It was to assuage my guilt almost a plea!

She looked at me tentatively and then followed me,

As I gave her something to eat and drink,

I could see that she was desperate and on the brink

Like so many of her fellow beings we in these difficult times see into the morass of poverty sink!

My small gesture had touched her a bit,

I could see her eyes with a glimmer of happiness lit!

As she lingered at our door,

I brought her something more!

I asked her if she still wanted something more,

At this a weak smile she wore

And went her weary and troubled way,

A sight enough to darken any thinking being’s bright day!

Thus goes of young wasted lives the sordid story

As we get on with our ambitious lives and talk of our great country’s glory!

At such glaring contradictions we just should not wink,

They should be for us occasions to introspect and think,

To think of building a world that is better

In which people can live a life of dignity without any fetter!

Isn’t that the only way to revive what inside us, the better off, everyday dies,

Isn’t it where the real glory of our motherland lies?

Arun Bhagat

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Love people for what they are,

And in relationships you will go far!

Accept them as they are,

And nothing can you equation with them mar!

Accept that each one of them is a free agent,

That each of them is unique in life’s spell-binding pageant!

Accept that of life variety is the spice,

That none is as if your pawn in a game of dice!

Why try to cast even your child in your mould,

Why anyone a prisoner to your beliefs hold?

Why should you anyone to become your shadow wish,

Why should you anyone for acting differently diss?

Why wish anyone to be your puppet on a string,

Why anyone’s thinking differently like a wasp you sting?

Let others climb their own mountains,

And see of love everywhere spring the fountains!

Allow them to reach for their own stars,

And put an end to all inner and outer squabbles and wars!

Learn to embrace people as they are,

And no note in the symphony of life will jar!

Let them grow their own way, let them be,

Allow yourself a life of freedom and let them also be free!

Shorn of all expectations, there will be freedom in the air,

And that will be so liberating and so very fair!

Arun Bhagat

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The stupid of themselves are so sure,

They think that none more than them is pure!

They live with their certainties false,

To all the wrong tunes they so gleefully dance!

They frolick in the garden of their folly,

They are so terribly smug, by golly!

They live in their world of make believe,

And so they themselves deceive!

The intelligent, on the contrary, are assailed by self-doubt,

That is why they often have to face uncalled for rout!

Their thinking becomes their soft spot,

They can not just blindly accept the prevailing rot!

Arbitrary binaries they can not ingest,

False certitudes they just can not digest!

On the stage of life where cocksure fools all around strut,

The wise stand aloof as they can not be a part of the rut!

Arun Bhagat

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अगर ग़रूर न करते

तो बेमौत न मरते,

न होती हमारे ज़मीर की ज़मीं बंजर,

न होता बेनूर और बेरौनक़ यह मंज़र!

न फ़िज़ा में घुलता यह जानलेवा ज़हर,

न बरपाते इक दूजे पे यूँ क़हर,

न बनते इक दूजे की बर्बादी की वजह,

न देते लम्हों में सदियों की सी सज़ा!

ग़र ग़रूर और ख़ुद्दारी में फ़र्क़ कर पाते

तो यूँ दुनिया से रुसवा हो कर न जाते,

फिर शायद इस जमीं पर अमन और चैन होता,

और मुहब्बत के अनमोल ख़ज़ाने को कोई यूँ बेवजह न खोता!

फिर शायद यह दुनिया ही जन्नत होती,

और हर रिश्ता होता इक नायाब मोती!,

फिर ज़र्रे ज़र्रे में ही दिखता खुदा का नूर,

और इन्सान होता न इन्सान से मीलों दूर!

अरुण भगत

कितना अच्छा होता

कि पैसा चाहे थोड़ा कम होता

लेकिन ज़िंदगी में होता जोश,

चीज़ों को लेकर न हो जाते बदहोश!

कितना अच्छा होता कि ऐशोआराम थोड़ा कम होता

पर हर किसी का ज़मीर न दिखाई देता सोता,

मन में न रह रह कर उठती हूक,

प्यार की न दिखती चारों ओर भूख!

कितना अच्छा होता की निजी वाहनों की जगह हमारे आस पास खड़े होते लोग,

तो मन को न लग जाते कई तरह के रोग,

अकेलेपन के न होते हम सब शिकार,

और आराम से होता जीवन का बेड़ा पार!

कितना अच्छा होता कि अपनों के साथ बिता पाते सकून के कुछ पल,

जैसे बिलकुल ठहर सा गया हो किसी झील का जल,

जैसे ऊँघती सी हो कोई शाम,

जिसका न लगा पाए कोई दाम!

कितना अच्छा होता कि दोस्तों की सजती महफ़िलें,

और प्यार और गर्मजोशी के यूँ ही चलते सिलसिले,

मीठे से होते रिश्ते जैसे सर्दी की मीठी धूप

और उजला सा, संवरा सा होता इस जीवन का रूप!

कितना अच्छा होता कि अहम् के न हम मारे होते

और ज़िंदगी के हसीन पलों को न यूँही बेकार में खोते,

सब को कर अपना एक खुली और प्यारी ज़िंदगी जीते

और न रह जाते यूँ ही बस रीते रीते!

कितना अच्छा होता—

अरुण भगत

जीवन की हर गिरह जो खोली

तो वह मुस्कुरा के बोली,

जितना गहरा भी तूँ जाएगा,

जीवन की थाह न पाएगा!

जीवन है अथाह सागर,

न समेट पाए इसे कोई गागर!

यह है अनंत और विशाल,

इसे ले खड़े हैं कई सवाल!

हर जवाब में हैं कई और सवाल,

ऐसा ही है जीवन, मन में न रख कोई मलाल!

जीवन है विशाल और हम हैं गौण,

शायद जान पाएँ कुछ रह कर मौन!

न मचा बवाल, न पाल कोई भ्रम,

मैं को दे निकाल तो पाएगा हर ओर ब्रह्म!

ब्रह्म से उपजी यह सृष्टि, ब्रह्म में ही होगी लीन,

स्वयं को यूँ जान जैसे अपार सागर में हो मीन!

एक जीवाणु के सामने समस्त विज्ञान है मुँह बायें खड़ा,

कौन है जीता अगर नियति से है वह लड़ा?

मौन में है ध्यान और ध्यान में है ज्ञान,

यही शाश्वत सत्य है, यही जीवन विज्ञान!

अरुण भगत