Greetings, Life!

[This is an attempt at the translation of my original poem in Hindi - Salaam, Zindagi!]

It’s a tale from a long time ago…
A tale of a dense scary darkness,
A tale of two misty eyes,
And of two wings, cut lifeless

Whenever the two little eyes
peeped out from the curtain,
Beautiful was the world outside
but the one inside was different

Between the curtain’s folds, they saw
pretty colours splashed everywhere;
The heart made friends with colours
but the eyes had a colourless tear

Through shades and sunshines, moves on
every single person on life’s journey;
But for years, she couldn’t understand
the stillness of her own story

As she tip-toed with the heavy stillness,
it dawned on her day by day
that it was someone else’s reflection
that she saw in the mirror everyday

To live a role every single moment
even with a deep vacuum inside,
So that nobody should read her eyes;
Alas! If only somebody could read her eyes!

And slowly, with each passing day,
she went on to forget her own self;
She remembered just a scream sometimes
that reached nobody beyond herself

She was shivering in the chilling rain,
thick dark clouds choked the sky;
Then, she looked up towards the horizon
and saw a little bird… fly o fly!

She saw the bird and remembered
her own forgotten fragments,
her own couple of little wings,
forever kept at a distance

She’d imprisoned her own self
and made friends with the ropes;
She had wished… but never dared
and killed all her dreams and hopes

If she wants, those misty curtains
can be taken off her eyes,
because it’s her wish and her right
to touch the rainbows in the skies

So what if a long time has gone away?
A long time is yet to come too!
A long time of hard work,
and a long time of joys too!

After passing that long time every moment,
Staying alive, yet dying every moment,
Fearing, laughing and crying every moment,
Yet somehow, daring and trying every moment…
Here, finally, is the right path
Come, hold the hand of the heart
It is not about the long time anymore
It is not about yesterday or tomorrow
It is only about THIS moment now
It is all about EVERY moment now
It is time for brightness in every moment
For cheer and celebration in every moment
It is the moment to shake hands with your SELF
It is the moment for a new introduction to yourself

It is the moment to say… Greetings, dear Life!

Salaam, Zindagi!

सलाम, जिंदगी!

बात है बरसों पहले की
घने घिरे अन्धियाले की
धुंदली सी दो आँखों की
कटे हुए से पंखों की

नन्ही सी उन आंखों ने
जब झाँका बाहर परदे से
सुंदर तो वो दुनिया थी
पर अलग थी दुनिया अन्दर की

परदे की सिलवट से देखा
जग भर का रंगीन तमाशा
दिल ने की रंगों से यारी
आँखें पर बेरंग रहीं

धूप छाँव में चलती रहती
कैसे सब की जीवन गाड़ी,
बरसों तक न समझ सकी
क्यूँ उसकी ही दुनिया रुकी रुकी

रुके हुए से चलते चलते
जाना उसने हलके हलके
शीशे में जो परछाई थी
वो तो और किसी की थी

इक किरदार को हर पल जीना
खाली भले हो ख़ुद का सीना
पढ़ न ले कोई आँखें उसकी
पढ़ ले काश… कोई आँखें उसकी

धीरे धीरे भूल गई वो
अपनी ही पहचान कहीं तो
चीख ही बस इक याद रही
जो कभी किसी को नहीं सुनी

गहरे काले बादल की
बारिश में थी वो ठिठुर रही
जब आसमान पे नज़र पड़ी
उडी इक चिडिया उडी उडी!

देख के चिडिया याद हो आया
भूला हुआ वो अपना साया
पंखों की वो अपनी जोड़ी
जिससे रखी हर दम दूरी

बाँधा था ख़ुद को ही उसने
यारी की थी जंजीरों से
आशा की... पर हिम्मत न की
खूनी थी वो ख़ुद की ख़ुद ही

आँखों के वो धुन्दले परदे
चाहे तो वो पीछे कर दे
इन्द्रधनुष को छूने की
इच्छा है उसको और हक भी

बरसों बीत गए तो क्या है
बरसों अब भी बाकी तो हैं
बरसों की मेहनत है बाकी
और बरसों की खुशियाँ भी

बरसों बरसों करते करते
जीते जीते मरते मरते
हँसते रोते डरते डरते
फिर भी जुर्रत करते करते
राह है पकड़ी मंजिल की
थामे बाजू इस दिल की
बात नहीं ये बरसों की
बात नहीं कल परसों की
बात है अब ये इस पल की
बात है अब ये हर पल की
हर पल के उजियालों की
हर दिन के रौनक मेलों की
ख़ुद से हाथ मिलाने की
एक नया परिचय करवाने की

सलाम… सलाम… सलाम, जिंदगी!

A Little Voice...

Till I was about 4 years old, I used to think that my family – my father, mother, brother and I – were the only people in the world! It’s strange, I know. Chandigarh was never an island. I mean, I did see people in my extended family and around, but somehow, it never truly registered that they were as living and just as much human as we were.

And then, it all changed one day. Our family of four, seated on my father’s scooter (with me on my mother’s lap), was waiting for the light to go green at a crossing. As we waited and I looked around, I started to notice other men, women, and children in the women’s laps, just like me – waiting for the light to go green, just like us. It was at that moment that it struck me, and I said to my mother, “Mummy, do you know that we’re not the only people in the world?” My poor mother was clearly befuddled, then she shook her head in exasperation (“Children!” she must have thought) and said, “Of course we’re not! Who told you we’re the only people in the world?”


Do you know what is one of the scariest feelings ever? That “I am the ONLY ONE in the whole world”! It cannot get any lonelier when amongst all the people around, including your dearest ones, you cannot see even a single person who would be able to or would try to understand you, caress your forehead and tell you – “It’s alright child! You’re not abnormal; you’re just one of the many beautiful possibilities of human evolution.”

From the feeling that I’m the Only One in the Whole World who is like THIS, breeds the feeling of being wrong somewhere, of being guilty of not being able to be like every other child, besides being terribly lonely and helpless because there is just no way to ‘amend’ yourself.

It takes years, sometimes, decades of silent turmoil to realize that perhaps… just may be… I’m not the only one… I’m not wrong… I’m not abnormal.

I fought with myself for 17 years, until the first time I got to access the boon called the internet and know that there were millions others who were like me. Many of them had personally shared their experiences of the whole process of their coming to terms with themselves and finally going ahead with the pursuit of their true identity. The relief I got on reading them can never be expressed in words. They handed me something I had lost a long time ago, a weapon that thereafter, helped me fight not only the formless enemies inside me but also shield my precious self from the jeers of the world. They gave me… HOPE!

It is from all those people, whom I have never seen or met, that I learnt that Hope is the biggest gift you can give to someone, because Hope never comes alone. It comes along with Courage, it comes along with Happiness…

So, even if today, some of the dearest people in my life tell me that I shouldn’t get stuck with ‘transsexuality’ in my public life, that I should move on from it now that I’m post-operative and accepted and acknowledged as a girl… somehow, I tend to go back to the 17-year-old me, reading about somebody’s life on a computer screen in a cyber café and feeling an unbearable weight being lifted from my heart… and yet again, I believe that in this world of silence, every little voice of Hope matters.

I AM a lot of other things besides being a transperson (one of them being a girl), but yes, I am and will always be a transperson too! And perhaps, through this blog, besides being other things, that little voice of Hope too…