Daily Gatha

I need a human sympathizer. Someone who would just put his hand on my shoulder and say, it is alright. 

Well... 

Came across a sher of Firaq Gorakhpuri:

فراقؔ اکثر کوئی ہر ایک سے بیگانہ سا رہتا ہے

بس اتنے پر کسی کو لوگ دیوانہ سمجھتے ہیں

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Firaq

Firaq aksar koie har ek se begaana rahta hai

Bus itne par kisi ko log deevana samajhte hain

 Firaq, often someone behaves like a stranger with one and all

That's all it takes for people to consider him mad

Wow ! It hit me. It's so true!  I felt that it was I who was saying it to myself! It throws up disturbing questions about social norms and the individual's struggle to belong to the group. It is a cry from deep within; a confession of the soul to itself. Who do you tell about the struggle within an individual? Everyone is going through the same conundrum, the same difficulty. The need of the soul to be left alone, with no care. But if this is spoken aloud, you are likely to face  the charge of being selfish, or useless or someone who feeds on the labour of others

Our society demands that we fit in. Either conform or you are out of your mind, a deevana, madman. Society is not an individual being. It does not have a face, or   its own will. And yet it is powerful. An entity which is formed out of a one sided need because society can do without a particular .individual

An individual however, cannot say the same. He needs to belong unless he has the will to remove himself and go to a cave in some mountain

And there is Firaq who must have felt this intensely, in the depth of a night, awake and alone, taking stock of his interactions with people, with students and staff at the Alahabad university where he taught English ... 

 

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