Uljhan

Kuch Baras Pahle hi ki toh baat hai
Jab Ghar ka Aangan chora tha
Yaad hai
Tab Aangan main aati-jaati hariyali thi
Mogre ki mahak thi
Aur neem ki kadwahat
Peepal ki Chanv thi
Aur Bargad ki Jatayen
Haan Yaad toh hai
Phir Aisa kyun lagta hai
Ki Jaameen ki dooriyan toh wahi hain
Par dilon ke phasle badh chale hain
Ki Tasveeron ki chamak to wahi hai
Par Yaadein Purani ho Chali hain

Aisa kyun lagta hai
Ki pheeki hoti mogre ki mahak
Awaz dekar kah rahi hai
Bahot Baras ho gaaye
Hamare Aangan ke Panchi ko Gaaye
Aisa kyun lagta hai
Ki Boodha neem pukar raha Hai
Bahot Baras ho Gaaye
Hamare Aangan Ke Panchi ko Gaaye
Ki Bargad Ki Sooni Jayaten pukar rahi hain
AbKe Baras
Jhoola Khali na rahe
Bahot Baras Ho gaaye Hamare Aangan Ke Panchi ko Gaaye
Shayad Peepal Bhi Asantosh main hai
Ke Na Koi uski daliyon par baith-ta hai
Na koi uski Chaanv Main khelta hai
Par Kuch hi Baras toh Huye hain
Panchi ko Aangan chore
Phir kyun lagta hai
Ki Panchi ab ghar lout chale
Ki Panchi ab ghar lout chale

Momentary

Now boarding the bus. Desi ? Beautiful fingers. Saphire in the middle finger. Long, slender fingers, clutching the ruffled black of the purse. No nail-polish. Khakhis and Navy-Blue T-shirt, sport shoes. Finely shaped jaw-bone, a look of determination. Hurriedly, yet neatly tied hair, a single knot, bundle of straight hair coming out, sideways.
Four birds fly in a distance, towards the mountains, passing the setting sun. Flying in a tapered N.
Alternating places, slowly retreating. Gliding, flapping now.
Ting. Her stop has come.
The birds are out of sight.
Hmm.

Days Flew By

Cute-Girl to Nice-Friend about Special-Friend: "We had a great time together. Days flew by - pata hi nahi chala"
Nice-Friend: "Accha. Did the days fly in a jet or a cargo ?"

Rumble On !

Life is a medical student, and you are it's Rat.

Eccentricity is the way of loner to seek attention, unknowingly, and the way of an idiot, knowingly.

"You are so hypocritical, conceited and full of deceit !"
"So what's your point. Why should I not be like that ?"
"It is so not right. I am displeased with you"
"Oh yeh, well it pleases me. Now Get Lost"

They, who say life is all about pleasure, are the ones most discontent.
They, who say it's all in the mind, are the ones most depressed.

Ignorance is bliss, and Stupidity nirvana.

Cognition

In a short but interesting interview in Walk the Talk by Shekhar Gupta, Dr V S Ramchandran talks about the rapid growth in comprehending the workings of human mind. Here's an excerpt:

What is your book Phantoms of the Brain about?

If you close your eyes, you have a very vivid image of your body parts—it’s called your body image. When you amputate somebody’s arm, the astonishing thing is that even after the operation the patient continues to vividly feel the presence of that arm. He himself is very surprised by this—he’s not stupid, he knows that his arm has been amputated. But he says, You’ve removed the arm, I don’t see an arm, but I vividly feel my fingers, my wrist, my elbow. This is called a phantom arm. It’s important clinically because many people feel excruciating pain in this phantom arm. Chronic pain in a real arm is hard enough to treat; how do you treat a patient who has pain in a non-existent arm?

It turns out that there’s a complete map of the body surface on the surface of the brain. When you amputate a person’s arm, a gap remains, corresponding to the hand, but which doesn’t receive any signals. Instead, the signals from the face invade that territory. It shows that there’s a great deal of malleability of connections in the brain—what we call plasticity. People didn’t realise it before we’d done that. That was the breakthrough. When you amputate the arm and you touch the patient’s face, the patient says, Oh, you’re touching my fingers. It’s a very simple clinical observation, but we said that the reason this happens is because the signal is now going to the wrong part of the brain. There’s been a cross-wiring, and it’s now invaded the vacated territory corresponding to the missing arm. This happens astonishingly fast, in clinical terms. In a couple of weeks, the face skin starts sending its sensory input to a new brain area. It’s radical because it shows that brain maps can change over distances of seven centimetres, even in the adult brain, challenging the clinical dogma that new connections cannot form in the adult brain.

.....

Going back to metaphor, it’s a big question. When Shakespeare says, It is the east and Juliet is the sun; when Tagore says of the Taj, It is a teardrop on the cheek of time—how do these people do it? Can you begin to approach this as a neuroscientist?

Another fascinating thing for me is human ability to spot, create and understand humor and humorous situations. What happens in the human brain, when someone says "This is funny !" And why does good laughter feel good ?

Kohra

Ab Ke Dhundh kuch aisi Chaayi hai
Ki Haath Ko Haath nahin soojhta hai
Ke Raah toh mahsoos hoti hai
Kintu Manzil Ka Aabhas Kho Chala hai