' मोहब्बत में मेरी तन्हाइयों के हैं कई उन्वान :तेरा आना /तेरा मिलना /तेरा उठना /तेरा जाना...''[ फ़िराक़ ]

बोल कि लब आज़ाद हैं तेरेबोल ज़बाँ अब तक तेरी हैतेरा सुतवाँ जिस्म है तेराबोल कि जाँ अब तक् तेरी हैदेख के आहंगर की दुकाँ में... तुंद हैं शोले सुर्ख़ है आहनखुलने लगे क़ुफ़्फ़लों के दहानेफैला हर एक ज़न्जीर का दामनबोल ये थोड़ा वक़्त बहोत हैजिस्म-ओ-ज़बाँ की मौत से पहलेबोल कि सच ज़िंदा है अब तकबोल जो कुछ कहने है कह ले- फ़ैज़

CHANGES IN FOLK CULTURE AND FOLKLORE ENSEMBLES

Kristin Kuutma

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The human need for the knowledge of history has increased in our contemporary world, and it is generally accompanied by the nostalgic feeling of historical continuity with past generations (Frykman-Löfgren 1987: 33-35). On the other hand, the past is usually idealized as an unsophisticated, simple "counterworld" (Bausinger 1990: 145) that is opposed to the neurotic and chaotic present day. Folklore traditions are perceived as the impersonation of that unaltered, stable and desirable "lost world" that are documented and deposited in archives in their authentic original form. The following article reflects on how this archived heritage is reanimated in the modern age and developed into a tradition in its own right. First, a few aspects elaborating the concepts of 'tradition' and 'folk song'.

The modern academic discourse on tradition argues that it is not a cultural given but a cultural construct (see Hobsbawm-Ranger 1983), invented at a certain period of time under certain circumstances. It is not relevant to judge whether a tradition phenomenon (for example, a folklore ensemble) is genuine or spurious. Tradition is neither genuine nor spurious because it is not handed down from the past as a thing or collection of things, but it is symbolically reinvented in an ongoing present (see Handler-Linnekin 1984). Tradition is not passed on from generation to generation in language, art, and music as a time-honoured body of knowledge and values, but it is rather in a constant stage of disorder and confusion, about to disintegrate under the pressure of change. And members of the society strive to restore and maintain tradition in new rituals, displays, and in diverse forms of entertainment (which are constructed, and if necessary invented), or in the revival of old ones. (Bausinger 1990: 127).

The term 'folk song' appears to convey a somewhat rigid connotation, as it embraces the idea of relating to all the people comprising a 'folk'. Folk songs have never functioned the same way for everybody in a community, they have never been current among all people, but only in particular groups of internal interactive communication, whose structure may vary considerably. In different age, people sing different songs with different companions. In its primary function, folk song is a serving object in manifestation of community life. In its secondary function folk song is experienced as a triumphant object and a spectator experience is developed (see Klusen 1986). In the contemporary society the use of the song as a tool in life-shaping experiences has been replaced in many cases by a spectator experience.

It is difficult to define the exact time when the serving object of community life of Estonian peasants developed into a triumphant object of performance culture, but surely this change is inseparably connected with the urbanisation process occurring in the industrial society. The cultivation of older forms of folk culture became an organized activity in the 1920s, its main agents being nationally-oriented museum associations, women's voluntary associations organizing handicraft courses, and youth organizations, among whom the leading position belonged to the National Estonian Youth Organization, Ülemaaline Eesti Noorsoo Ühendus or ÜENÜ(Viires 1986: 596). The Tallinn department of the latter founded a special branch for cultivating folk dance and folk rituals in 1925, and they manifested their activities as promoting "the development of omakultuur", i.e. genuine [Estonian) culture. Folk cultural festivals with grand outdoor spectacles were arranged under such national romantic titles as Voorepidu (drumlin festival), Hiiepüha (sacred grove celebration), Ilopüha (celebration of joy) (Viires 1986: 598). By 1939, ÜENÜ included 176 folk dance clubs all over Estonia with 3000 dancers (Viires 1986: 601).

An outstanding activist in promoting folk music was August Pulst. He arranged two festivals of the Tallinn Estonian Museum as early as the beginning of the 1920s. In 1927-28 he took the troupe of the Estonian Open-Air Museum Society to five tours covering the territory of Estonia. The troupe gave all in all 244 concerts, the performers were traditional musicians (e.g. Juhan Maaker alias Torupilli (=bagpipe) Juss from Hiiumaa Island) and traditional singers (Mari Kilu from Jõelähtme parish, a Votic singer Darja Lehti), and the dancers from ÜENÜ Tallinn department. In 1932-36 the Music Museum Society continued with a similar tour, covering a more extensive area, as there were 570 performances presenting mainly ancient rituals and folk games. (Viires 1986: 599).

In the course of the past seventy years, choral singing had been developed by that time into a collective culture of Estonians, song festivals were arranged all over the country from Harjumaa county in the north to Setumaa in the south, and from the town of Narva in the east to Kuressaare in the west. The tradition to wear folk costume in a performance situation and during festivals disseminated extensively particularly through choir groups. The ideal to be achieved was to copy the costumes deposited in museums up to details, and to manifest the native region of the singer. The interchange of the inherited and the borrowed cultural elements resulted in the creation of a new version of the national culture model (Dégh 1978:43).

The cultivation of folk culture in amateur groups became popular both in urban and in rural areas, and when the cultural expression of Estonians was submitted to the guidance of Soviet cultural policy, the established system was subjected to centralized supervision. And "the cultural workers" set energetically to the development of Soviet folk culture, socialist in content and ethnic in form.

The aesthetic standard of public performance became considerably altered during the 1950s in particular. Under the supervision of professional cultural workers (animators) amateur activities were shaped into a more modest form of professional art, while the latter was copied both in aesthetics and in techniques. Folk dances performed for an audience followed the standard of ballet, folk song performance departed from the classical vocal technique of chamber music, the ideal of a folk instrumentalist was expected to be music-making in a symphony orchestra. The repertoire performed was primarily humorous and gleeful, depicting the frisky and playful entertainment of the simple village folk, or the energetic workmanship achievements of the kolkhoz members.

However, parallel to the organized and institutionalized amateur activities in cultural houses, factory clubs or schools, there continued to exist the spontaneous music making, village dances and small town social dances, wedding celebrations and feasts as a constant element of communal life. The predominating repertoire, the songs and dances at these occasions did not attract the attention of cultural researchers as they remained outside the scope of ideological education, nor were they specially deposited in archives. The research objective of folklorists was targeted to a distant past, searching for "genuine" folklore heritage. Informants were not expected to perform songs and stories dominating their current repertoire, but to recall those from their childhood or early youth. For a century, the collecting of folklore in Estonia has denoted the documentation of vanavara 'the old heritage', digging up information about previous rituals and recreations from the memories of people - the more aged the better - while discarding material with a modern label as something worthless.

By the end of the 1960s the attitude towards the folk heritage paradigm changed. This phenomenon was not unique occurring in Estonia, it concurred with similar shifts of import in several European countries, e.g. in Hungary, Finland, Sweden, and Ireland. In Estonia this process was directly influenced by the massive interest in village traditions and the collective performance of unarranged folk music rising among Lithuanians, particularly among their academic youth. On the other hand, the situation in Lithuania was considerably influenced by the fact that the agrarian village community preserved its ancient features up to a more recent period. One significant landmark in Estonia in reintroducing the ancient musical heritage, runosongs, was the publishing of the five volumes of Eesti rahvalaule viisidega (Estonian folk songs with notations) in 1956-65. This publication of texts and melodies included a most thorough introduction in each volume, and the collection was edited by Herbert Tampere. In 1969 was published the first book of the anthology of Estonian folk songs (Eesti rahvalaulud), edited by Ülo Tedre. It is a comprehensive collection of folk song texts, and in 1974 was issued the last, eighth book of the series. In 1967 was released the first record anthology Eesti rahvalaule ja pillilugusid (Estonian folk songs and instrumental music), in 1970 followed the second LP collection. By the end of the 60s started also a radio programme introducing Estonian musical folklore, and again Herbert Tampere's name should be mentioned. And it was once more Tampere who organized a series of folk music concerts with commentaries at the Theatre and Music Museum in Tallinn (Kippar 1979).

The impact on the wider public's interest became, in turn, from the representatives of the so-called professional culture, who began manifesting respect towards the earlier layers of Estonian folklore. One should mention here the works by composer Veljo Tormis whose first folk song arrangements date from 1959, and in 1969 his choral cycle Eesti kalendrilaulud (Estonian calendar songs) was performed before an audience for the first time. An important impression made the literary works and articles by writer Jaan Kaplinski (it has been particularly stressed by those who later became active in folklore performance; see Tõnurist 1971, Smidchens 1996, Kaplinski 1969) and theatre programmes (for example, Külavahelaulud 'village songs', and dramas directed by Jaan Tooming). While discussing films, one reaches another expressive landmark (though from a more recent period) in evaluating the so-called genuine folk culture - the reinvention of the Finno-Ugric identity of Estonians: as a small nation we need a wider background in order to increase our self-esteem and find our place in global culture. Veelinnu rahvas(Waterbird people) by Lennart Meri in 1970 and especially his Linnutee tuuled (Winds of the Milky Way) in 1979 drew a clear image of our Finno-Ugric identity. Also Veljo Tormis has composed several choral works based on Finno-Ugric music heritage, as has the figurative artist Kaljo Põllu in his graphical works. Starting from the end of the 70s, the latter initiated also fieldwork trips of art students to study the material art of Finno-Ugric peoples.

The genuine traditional heritage was developed into a counterculture to ignore and oppose the officially dominating Soviet folk art. In the 1960s the first folklore ensembles were founded, though at the time they were called ethnographic ensembles or folk art ensembles. A parallel process took place in Lithuania and Latvia where, as in Estonia, the first ensembles formed were ethnographic ensembles organized by a cultural institution in a rural area. Among the first was Setu leelo choirLeiko in Värska (south-eastern Estonia), formed in 1964. On the other hand, this trend concurred with the guidelines to cultural organizers produced by a corresponding Moscow institution to be distributed all over the Soviet Union. Those guidelines provided that the genuine and living folk traditions must be introduced to the wider audience, in order to convince Soviet citizens that the Soviet cultural policy is aimed at satisfying the cultural needs of the wide masses. In 1969 was established the ensemble Leigarid, in 1971 Leegajus, 1972 Hellero, 1973 Sõsarõ, 1975 Lahemaa rahvamuusikud 'folk musicians from Lahemaa'. The official impulse for founding Leigarid was the intention to demonstrate the songs and dances of ancient Estonians to foreign tourists visiting the Open-Air Museum in Tallinn, as the number of foreign guests visiting the capital was growing remarkably. But the significant change in mentality was actually reflected by the urge of the leader of the ensemble, Kristjan Torop, to educate himself and the dancers in traditional dance, which resulted in ignoring the current established performance canon for "folk dance", and that in turn caused disparagement among the merited dance activists. Leegajus (leader Igor Tõnurist) and Hellero (lead by brothers Sarv, Paul Hagu and Viktor Danilov) represented the vogue among the urbanized youth to admire and idealize the peasant culture. The performance style of Leegajus was closer to a theatrical presentation, more so directed to an audience; Hellero functioned actually like a club for a circle of friends. The members of these urban ensembles regarded runosong to be "the most natural song" (Sarv 1982), though the general repertoire of Estonians had changed quite radically starting from the beginning of the present century. That was the case also in Kihnu Island and in Setumaa, which were officially regarded as the last resorts for the masters of the ancient singing style, but where even the direct tradition bearers gathered as a registered ensemble at the village cultural house in order to perform the runosong heritage. The local youth already entertained themselves generally with a different kind of song repertoire.

The establishing of such recontextualized folklore ensembles, however, did not become a massive movement in Estonia until the second half of the 1980s. One major factor in this respect was the opposition between the so-called official culture and the folklore movement. It should be mentioned, that academic folklorists did not particularly appreciate the activities of folklore ensembles either, the only stage performances recognized were those by Kihnu or Setu folk tradition ensembles. The youth of urban descent were regarded simply as copycats of a fine art, excluding completely the possibility to see them as tradition bearers. To the cultural administrators, the evolved alteration in the aesthetic paradigm was largely incomprehensible and unacceptable. They perceived the ignoring of the established concert performance canon above all as a technical inaptitude and a lack of the obligatory stage training. Thus the official cultural policy did not support such folklore activities. But those folklore ensembles presented to the audience a new semantic system in interpreting traditional culture, and gradually a resonance was created. Organized and collective recreational events, and the growing popularity of celebrating folk calendar festivals together with one's colleagues in a factory, kolkhoz or office created a demand for competent performers in the entertainment programme. And therefore folklore ensembles offering a stage programme of the ancient peasant traditions were popular entertainers both in cities and in villages.

In the 80s a change of attitude becomes gradually apparent. The runosong heritage reached the widest cultural masses in the choral compositions by Veljo Tormis, the popularity of which grew rapidly. Since the late 70s folk music days were arranged in different parts of Estonia, which included also a competition for musicians that assisted in bringing forth again the village instrumentalists. In 1976 was started a regular series of international folk music conferences, the programme of which included concerts presenting various folklore ensembles of different Finno-Ugric peoples.

In the middle of the 80s there occurred also a major shift in the principles of the cultural administrators, though it did not happen completely overnight. The Moscow officials picked Estonia as the most suitable place for arranging the 1985 general assembly of the world organization of folklore festivals (CIOFF, Conseil International des Organisations de Festivals de Folklore et d'Arts Traditionelles). This event testified to the development of new trends in Soviet cultural policy, primarily the aspiration to demonstrate themselves as appreciating and promoting the genuine traditional culture. In 1986 in Estonia was arranged the first event under the title "folklore festival", Viru säru in Palmse (northern Estonia). The next year took place the first international folklore festival Baltica in Lithuania, the next year that touring festival was arranged in Latvia, and in 1989 it was Estonia's turn. The emergence of such an arena brought about an expansion of the folklore movement, and the integration of manifested folklore programmes in the repertoire of a large number of dance and music collectives that previously had presented only arrangements or authorized repertoire.

In 1990 in Viljandi Cultural College was established a department of folk music, which can be regarded as the outset of new trends and a new quality in Estonian folk music activities. Today the number of folklore ensembles, their place in the cultural landscape and their membership has undergone several changes.

References

Bausinger, H. 1990. Folk Culture in a World of Technology. Translated by Elke Dettmer. Bloomington, Indiana.
Dégh, L. 1978. The Study of Ethnicity in Modern European Ethnology. Folklore, Nationalism and Politics. Ed. by Felix Oinas. Columbus, Ohio.
Frykman, J., Löfgren, O. 1987. Culture Builders: A Historical Anthropology of Middle-Class Life. Translated by Alan Crozier. New Brunswick.
Handler, R., Linnekin, J. 1984. Tradition, Genuine or Spurious. Journal of American Folklore no. 97, 273-290.
Hobsbawm, E., Ranger, T. (eds.) 1983. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge.
Kaplinski, J. 1969. Pärandus ja pärijad. Sirp ja Vasar 1969, 9 (28 February).
Kippar, P. 1979. Osalemisrõõmust. Sirp ja Vasar 1979, 7 (28 September).
Klusen, E. 1986. The Group Song as Object. German Volkskunde. Bloomington, Ind.
Smidchens, G. 1996. A Baltic Music: The Folklore Movement in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, 1968-1991. UMI Dissertation Services. Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Sarv, T. 1982. Hellero. Sirp ja Vasar 1982, 12 (4 June).
Tõnurist, I. 1971. Laaliku minu isädä... Sirp ja Vasar 1971, 6 (13 August).
Viires, A. 1986. Folklorismi sünd Eestis. Keel ja Kirjandus 1986/10: 595-602.

New Folk Media

source- wikipedia

New Folk Media is a developing movement in experimental film and video art which is concerned with the use of existing media for artistic expression without regard for copyright or ownership. The movement traces its roots in Joseph Cornell and his film Rose Hobart and otherfound footage films. It can also be traced to Sergei Eisenstein's aborted film project Que Viva Mexico which has been edited by countless filmmakers and artists including Kenneth Anger. Other early examples that have influenced the development of New Folk Media can be found in the works of Bruce Conner, Jonas Mekas, Ken Jacobs, Craig Baldwin and Kenneth Anger.

New Folk Media is a reaction to the growing ownership of every form of media. Practitioners of New Folk Media consider existing media to be the same as paint or words that can be used by the artist to create a new work.

New Folk Media is also often concerned with issues such as post-colonialism and ownership of culture. Often the works involve world cultural events that are broadcast on television, but according to practitioners of New Folk Media are not truly owned by anyone because they are part of world culture. Through there works this group of artists seek to represent these televised cultural events in a personal way, creating a new meaning for the media as it relates to their own experience of the event.

Youtube can be seen as part of the New Folk Media movement, as many videos are mash-ups of pre-existing content given new meaning.Snakes on a Plane is also considered by some to have some relationship to New Folk Media, although there is no consensus regarding its inclusion in the movement.

The earliest definitive examples of the movement include Inauguration (2004), Brooklyn Waterfront/North Sixth (2004) and Televised Pope Funeral (2004).

Other influences on the movement include the sampling in music such as the KLF and Negativeland.

New Folk Media is also seen as a descendant of Pop Art and Post-Modernism, but it is generally considered a 21st Century art movement.

Bahut Dinon Ke Baad

Bahut Dinon Ke Baad

Greatest Hits Vol 2

Greatest Hits Vol 2

Resistance As A Culture By Ramzy Baroud

Resistance is not a band of armed men hell-bent on wreaking havoc. It is not a cell of terrorists scheming ways to detonate buildings.

True resistance is a culture.

It is a collective retort to oppression.

Understanding the real nature of resistance, however, is not easy. No newsbyte could be thorough enough to explain why people, as a people, resist. Even if such an arduous task was possible, the news might not want to convey it, as it would directly clash with mainstream interpretations of violence and non-violent resistance. The Afghanistan story must remain committed to the same language: al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Lebanon must be represented in terms of a menacing Iran-backed Hizbullah. Palestine's Hamas must be forever shown as a militant group sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state. Any attempt at offering an alternative reading is tantamount to sympathizing with terrorists and justifying violence.

The deliberate conflation and misuse of terminology has made it almost impossible to understand, and thus to actually resolve bloody conflicts.

Even those who purport to sympathize with resisting nations often contribute to the confusion. Activists from Western countries tend to follow an academic comprehension of what is happening in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. Thus certain ideas are perpetuated: suicide bombings bad, non-violent resistance good; Hamas rockets bad, slingshots good; armed resistance bad, vigils in front of Red Cross offices good. Many activists will quote Martin Luther King Jr., but not Malcolm X. They will infuse a selective understanding of Gandhi, but never of Guevara. This supposedly ‘strategic' discourse has robbed many of what could be a precious understanding of resistance - as both concept and culture.

Between the reductionst mainstream understanding of resistance as violent and terrorist and the ‘alternative' defacing of an inspiring and compelling cultural experience, resistance as a culture is lost. The two overriding definitions offer no more than narrow depictions. Both render those attempting to relay the viewpoint of the resisting culture as almost always on the defensive. Thus we repeatedly hear the same statements: no, we are not terrorists; no, we are not violent, we actually have a rich culture of non-violent resistance; no, Hamas is not affiliated with al-Qaeda; no, Hizbullah is not an Iranian agent. Ironically, Israeli writers, intellectuals and academicians own up to much less than their Palestinian counterparts, although the former tend to defend aggression and the latter defend, or at least try to explain their resistance to aggression. Also ironic is the fact that instead of seeking to understand why people resist, many wish to debate about how to suppress their resistance.

By resistance as a culture, I am referencing Edward Said's elucidation of "culture (as) a way of fighting against extinction and obliteration." When cultures resist, they don't scheme and play politics. Nor do they sadistically brutalize. Their decisions as to whether to engage in armed struggle or to employ non-violent methods, whether to target civilians or not, whether to conspire with foreign elements or not are all purely strategic. They are hardly of direct relevance to the concept or resistance itself. Mixing between the two suggests is manipulative or plain ignorant.

If resistance is "the action of opposing something that you disapprove or disagree with", then a culture of resistance is what occurs when an entire culture reaches this collective decision to oppose that disagreeable element - often a foreign occupation. The decision is not a calculated one. It is engendered through a long process in which self-awareness, self-assertion, tradition, collective experiences, symbols and many more factors interact in specific ways. This might be new to the wealth of that culture's past experiences, but it is very much an internal process.

It's almost like a chemical reaction, but even more complex since it isn't always easy to separate its elements. Thus it is also not easy to fully comprehend, and, in the case of an invading army, it is not easily suppressed. This is how I tried to explain the first Palestinian uprising of 1987, which I lived in its entirely in Gaza:

"It's not easy to isolate specific dates and events that spark popular revolutions. Genuine collective rebellion cannot be rationalized though a coherent line of logic that elapses time and space; its rather a culmination of experiences that unite the individual to the collective, their conscious and subconscious, their relationships with their immediate surroundings and with that which is not so immediate, all colliding and exploding into a fury that cannot be suppressed." (My Father Was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story)

Foreign occupiers tend to fight popular resistance through several means. One includes a varied amount of violence aiming to disorient, destroy and rebuild a nation to any desired image (read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine). Another strategy is to weaken the very components that give a culture its unique identity and inner strengths - and thus defuse the culture's ability to resist. The former requires firepower, while the latter can be achieved through soft means of control. Many ‘third world' nations that boast of their sovereignty and independence might in fact be very much occupied, but due to their fragmented and overpowered cultures - through globalization, for example - they are unable to comprehend the extent of their tragedy and dependency. Others, who might effectively be occupied, often possess a culture of resistance that makes it impossible for their occupiers to achieve any of their desired objectives.

In Gaza, Palestine, while the media speaks endlessly of rockets and Israeli security, and debates who is really responsible for holding Palestinians in the strip hostage, no heed is paid to the little children living in tents by the ruins of homes they lost in the latest Israeli onslaught. These kids participate in the same culture of resistance that Gaza has witnessed over the course of six decades. In their notebooks they draw fighters with guns, kids with slingshots, women with flags, as well as menacing Israeli tanks and warplanes, graves dotted with the word ‘martyr', and destroyed homes. Throughout, the word ‘victory' is persistently used.

When I was in Iraq, I witnessed a local version of these kids' drawings. And while I have yet to see Afghani children's scrapbooks, I can easily imagine their content too.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com.

From : Countercurrent.org

अरुण कमल की तीन कविताएँ

लगातार लगातार बारिश हो रही है लगातार तार-तार कहीं घन नहीं न गगन बस बारिश एक धार भींग रहे तरुवर तट धान के खेत मिट्टी दीवार बाँस के पुल लकश मीनार स्तूप बारिश लगातार भुवन में भरी ज्यों हवा ज्यों धूप कोई बरामदे में बैठी चाय पी रही है पाँव पर पाँव धर सोखती है हवा अदरक की गंध मेरी भींगी बरौनियाँ उठती हैं और सोचता हूँ देखूँ और कितना जल सोखता है मेरा शरीर तुम इंद्रधनुष हो. रेखांकन-डॉ लाल रत्नाकर वापस घूमते रहोगे भीड़ भरे बाज़ार में एक गली से दूसरी गली एक घर से दूसरे घर बेवक़्त दरवाजा खटखटाते कुछ देर रुक फिर बाहर भागते घूमते रहोगे बस यूँ ही लगेगा भूल चुके हो लगेगा अंधेरे में सब दब चुका है पर अचानक करवट बदलते कुछ चुभेगा और फिर वो हवा काँख में दबाए तुम्हें बाहर ले जाएगी दूर तारे हैं ऐसा प्रकाश अंधकार से भरा हुआ कहीं कोई उल्का पिंड गिर रहा है ऐसी कौंध कि देख न सको कुछ भी दूर तक चलते चले जाओगे पेड़ों के नीचे लंबी सड़क पर पेड़ तुम पर झुकते आते चाँद दिखेगा और खो जाएगा और तुम लौटोगे वापस थक कर. शायर की कब्र (नज़ीर अक़बराबादी के प्रति) न वहाँ छतरी थी न घेरा बस एक क़ब्र थी मिट्टी से उठती मानों कोई सो गया हो लेटे-लेटे जिस पर उतनी ही धूप पड़ती जितनी बाकी धरती पर उतनी ही ओस और बारिश और दो पेड़ थे आसपास बेरी और नीम के. मेमने बच्चे और गौरैया दिन भर कूदते वहाँ और शाम होते पूरा मुहल्ला जमा हो जाता तिल के लड्डू गंडे-ताबीज वाले और डुगडुगी बजाता जमूरा लिए रीछ का बच्चा और रात को थका मांदा कोई मँगता सो रहता सट कर. और वो सब कुछ सुनता एक-एक तलवे की धड़कन एक कीड़े की हरकत हर रेशे का भीतर ख़ाक में सरकना और ऊपर उड़ते पतंगों की सिहरन हर बधावे हर मातम में शामिल. वह महज़ एक क़ब्र थी एक शायर की क़ब्र जहाँ हर बसंत में लगते हैं मेले जहाँ दो पेड़ हैं पास-पास बेरी के नीम के. ------------------------------------------------------- अरुण कमल 4, मैत्री शांति भवन, बीएम दास रोड, पटना, बिहार. 800 004