Raazi : Ready to sacrifice, till you question the cause !

I watched Raazi film. A nicely made patriotic film stayed
with me for quite some time. Two things particularly stayed with me viz. a) a
punchline that came quite often in the film : Vatan ke aage kuchh nahi,
and b) In the climax, Sehmat – the protagonist of the film – sobbingly pleads
with his trainer/master and says, ‘aapki ye duniya meri samaj me nahi aati.
Mujhe ghar jaana hain !’ 

कैद हैं हम सब |

कैदखाना बदलते रहते हैं |

राज़ी रहते हैं, सबकुछ कुरबान करने के लिए

क्यूंकि, ‘....’ के आगे कुछ नहीं |

आखिर कब तक ?

तब तक जब दिल से आवाज ना आये,

मुझे घर जाना हैं |

Not being an over-the-top patriotic person, the ‘vatan
parasti’ didn’t appeal too much to me. However, ‘ghar jaana hain’ had often
been my cry too and thus, I could connect to this more. From this point onward, the
film took me to spaces beyond love for one’s country.

Raazi, a synonym for the word Sehmat - the name of
protagonist, can loosely be translated as ‘up and ready’.  In this film Sehmat agreed, and was raazi, to
sacrifice everything and everyone for her mission, and her guiding principal
was – ‘vatan ke aage kuchh nahi’ – ‘nothing is more important than
motherland’.  

Society, parents, family, friends, schools and colleges,
teachers and professors, workplaces, jobs, colleagues, films, books, and Gurus
– all these remain sources of social, intellectual, and emotional strength for
us.  All of these keep telling us the
same thing.  They give us a purpose.
Let’s call this purpose  ‘ABC’. They tell
us that “ remember, ‘ABC’ Ke aage kuchh nahi”.   They insist us to “give all you have to ‘ABC’”.
 They reinforce time and again that “you
have to defend ‘ABC’ at any cost”.  They
also assure us that if you are ‘raazi’ or ready to take this up, there will be
lot of challenges but there will be a support system too.  They assure us of potential of ‘hamare log
tumhara khayal rakhenge’.  They
convince us that we will be taken care of, if we do our bit for ‘ABC’
sincerely.   

They lure us into accepting this as a challenge. And, we accept
it.  In fact, we keep accepting such
different challenges, time to time, all throughout our life. This acceptance
emanates from many reasons like love, obedience, respect, or just thrill of
doing something spectacular. We accept, and spend our life defending this ‘ABC’.
 In this process, our intense loyalty
towards this ‘ABC’ keeps expanding and this ‘ABC’ becomes bigger and
bigger.  In defending the big ‘ABC’, we
may use everything and cheat everyone that comes our way.  

At times, in the process our inner self gets compromised.  This core resists.  Sometime, it poops up, we get exposed to this
inner self, which contradicts our defense of ‘ABC’.  It informs us and tries to tell us, ‘you are
not this. You are something else’ (Remember Tamasha ? ‘tu koi aur hain,
jaanta nahi’).  But, then our passion
for the defense of this big ‘ABC’ is so high that we disagree.  We argue against our inner self in favor of
bigger cause of the ‘ABC’.  Our inner
self gives up momentarily, and, we get busy in defending the acquired reason
for existence. But, somewhere the struggle has begun.

Somewhere in this struggle, we find out that we are neither a
doer, actor, nor a director.  We find out
that we are mere an instrument. The means; mere tool to be utilized in the
quest to achieve something else, i.e. the End.  Tools or instruments are brought and used for
their best qualities.  Once brought, they
are also maintained well till they have performance utilities.  But, once their utilities are over, they are
needed no more.  Now, maintaining them is
costlier than their utilities.  They
become liability.  And, then they are to
be discarded. 

For some of us, as our role in the quest of ‘ABC’ is near
over, a realization sinks in.  A
realization that we were utilized for ‘ABC’ and then discarded.  This moment of realization, the enlightenment,
happens only to chosen few.  These chosen
few then break away. They declare themselves free from their self-acquired
purpose of life to defend ‘ABC’.  They
don’t defend anything anymore. They don’t justify their various acts in the
name of anything, not even ‘ABC’.  They
just exist.  They arrive.  

This breaking away happened to Sehmat in Raazi as she saw her husband
getting killed, and realized that she too could have been dead.  She then confronts her master and proclaims,
‘muje aapki duniya samaj nahi aati’.  And then, she declared, ‘muje ghar jaan
hain’.

This ‘aapki duniya’ is the society. The society keeps giving
us various ‘ABC’.  For Sehmat, the ‘ABC’
was her ‘vatan’.  Sehmat’s conditioning
made her ‘raazi’ to defend her idea of ‘vatan’ at any cost, be it loved ones,
family, or even oneself.  Sehmat defended
her ‘vatan’.  For many of us this ‘ABC’
could be religion, god, rituals, etc.  For
some others, it could be ego, insecurity, self-esteem etc.  For some, it could be intelligence, intellect,
wisdom, knowledge etc.  And for many others,
it could be money, fame, etc.  For many
of us the ‘ABC’ could very well be being man, woman, and their preferred gender
roles etc.   We keep defending this
self-acquired life goal and keep happily sacrificing all that comes in our way
to achieve this.  We are always raazi for
this sacrifice believing that as the way of life. And, we keep telling others
so too. Unless, we would like to be free. Unless, we
decide to break free from this self-imprisonment in search of our own ‘Ghar’! 

Raazi gave
me this important learning of life.  It
is fine taking up life goals from our conditioning. It is fine giving oneself
completely to this cause. But, it is all the more important to keep
questioning, and keep seeking answers. It is important to critically question
the cause and its elements. And, it is ok to give up the quest and to reject
ideologies to seek one’s own cause and path towards it. 

__________*************__________

कैद हैं हम सब.

कोई काम में, कोई
आराम में

कोई ख़ास में, कोई
तमाम में

भरी महफ़िल के
धमाके में कोई

या, बंद कमरे के
सन्नाटे में कोई

कुछ लकीरों में, कुछ
अल्फाजो में

कुछ सुर, ताल, और
अंदाजो में

कोई जानेवाले की चाहत
में

कोई आनेवाले की आहट
में

कभी अपने में, कभी
जपने में

कभी पुरे अधूरे
सपने में

कोई खुद में, कोई
समाज में

कोई सरेआम तो कोई
राज में

कुछ प्यार में, कुछ
बाज़ार में

कोई वैराग्य तो
कोई संसार में

हो चुके की जिक्र
में कोई

तो, ना हुए की
फ़िक्र में कोई

कैद हैं हम सब|

हा, कैदखाना
बदलने की आज़ादी जरुर है |

----------****----------

मुझे घर जाना हैं

जबभी मैं होता हूँ,

मायूस, असुरक्षित या असक्षम

मुजमें से कोई

यु ही बोल देता
हैं की

मुझे घर जाना हैं

सब कहते हैं, जाओ,

और इशारा कर देते
हैं

उस पते वाले
मकानकी और...

पर..

ये मकान, वो घर नहीं..

मुझे तो 'अपने' घर जाना होता हैं, मकान नहीं!!

घर..घर जाने वाला
घर

शायद ये कोई जगह
नहीं हैं,

जहा मैं पहुँच
सकु

न ही यह कोई पद
हैं

जो मैं प्राप्त
कर सकू..

ये घर एक कल्पना
हैं,

मात्र अनुभूति!!

ये न स्थल हैं, और

शायद समय भी
नहीं..

या फिर शायद

स्थल और समय का
ही कोई संयोग

एक ऐसा संयोग, ऐसे कुछ क्षण,

जिसमे में

बस एक एहसास बनके
रह जाऊं..

और

एहसास बनके ही रह
पाऊ..

कुछ ऐसे क्षण की
जिसमे

मैं सिर्फ मैं बन
सकू

न बेटा, न, भाई, न पति, दोस्त या प्रेमी...सिर्फ
मैं

न क्रेता, न विक्रेता, न अधिकारी या
उतरदायी...सिर्फ मैं

या फिर शायद मैं
भी नहीं..

कुछ ऐसे क्षण की
जिसमे

बेवज़ह चुप रह
सकू..

अपनी उन कुछ
अनसोची, अनकही, अन-करी

बातों को मल सकू

न धर्मकी , न समाजकी , न संवेदना, न चेतनाकी..

सिर्फ अपनी..सुनु

ये घर शायद एक
अवस्था हैं

जो प्राप्त नहीं
होती

हो सकती हैं तो
बस

उसको पानेकी
अविरत कोशिश

कोशिश करते रहेते
है

हम घर ढ़ुंढ़ते
रहेते हैं

इस तलाशको ही

शायद जिंदगी
कहेते हैं

मुझे कहा कुछ
पाना हैं

मुझे तो घर जाना
हैं

घर जाना हैं