Born in Kashmir, the land of lakes and lotuses, I thought my poet-father must have named me ‘Neeraj’, which means lotus-the waterborne, after he saw some splendid lotuses in one of the emerald lakes of our valley. It didn’t occur to me those days that my father’s poetic sensibilities were inspired by a poet who lived thousands of kilometres away, in the heartland of India.
One fine snowy winter afternoon, when I was secure under few layers of woollens and listening to old songs on radio with my joint family in our century-old wooden-ancestral house, my father casually mentioned that he had named me after the writer of the song that was playing on the old box-radio, covered with a thick brown cloth cover. The song was megha chhaae aadhi raat, bairan ban gaye nindiyan.
I was pleasantly surprised that I was named after the legendary poet-Gopaldas Saxena “Neeraj”. The song is still one of my favorites, imbued with childhood memories of snowy winters spent indoors listening to songs on radio and watching cricket matches on black and white TV in those golden years of Indian cricket.
Later I kept collecting more information about Neeraj, who is among the rare lyricists like Sahir, whose poetry was used in movies like that and admired for its rich literary value. He was born in 1925 in Puravali village in Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh. In a career spanning over five decades, he has penned over a 100 lilting romantic songs.
I never thought I will get a chance to see him in person, forget about talking to him or getting his interview. I feel people are connected to the person at some level, whose identity, personality, has been the reason or inspiration for putting a tag on their identity- a name, which is mostly the sweetest sound to their ears.
In February 2012, when Neeraj was in Bhopal to attend a felicitation programme organised in his honour by the Madhya Pradesh government, it was a dream come true for me.
At last I had got the chance to see the poet who wrote the immortal numbers like Jiivan kii bagiyaa mahakegii, Phoolon ke rang se, dil kee kalam se... Shokhiyon mein ghola jaye phoolon ka shabaab, Karawan gujar gaya, gubar dekhte rahe. When my resident editor told me that I could interview him and write it the way I wanted, I was ecstatic.
I fixed the interview. He told me to come at 10 am sharp. His attendant mischievously smiled at me; looking at the liquor bottle lying in a corner of the room. 10 am!
It was a sunny Friday morning. I reached the government guest house before the scheduled time. When I entered the room, Neeraj, a frail body in a large frame, with flowing grey hair and bushy eyebrows, was squatted on the bed, attired in a causal white kurta. Those who don’t know about him can easily take him for a farmer or just another elderly guy from the countryside. He has this ordinariness in his persona that reflects in his poetry to which generations of poetry lovers relate to.
On one side of his bed, lay a bottle of scotch Vat 69 and Blenders Pride and on the other side, there were two packs of beedis. I felt it was symbolic in a way-he could regale both elite and the common man through his poetry, penned in rich Hindi, Urdu and beautiful Hindi-Urdu mix. His attendant for last ten years, Om Bahadur, a man in his late twenties, with mongoloid features, was making a butter toast and serving him morning tea. I waited.
After tea, Bahadur helped him gulp down medicines, five pills from different packs and small plastic pouches. And our conversation started. With his frail body and unwavering spirit, I was wondering whether this was the man, whose stentorian voice would keep people spellbound in mushairas, where he would recite poetry in his inimitable high-decibel baritone voice.
I introduced myself and told him that I belonged to Kashmir where my father had named me after him. With a smile that came slowly on his face, he said.
“So Neeraj wants to interview Neeraj”, he said. He put his hand on my head; it was affection and blessings together.
I smiled. He laughed. As our conversation progressed, with his fast-paced sentences, which took the poetic rhythm of their own, it became clear to me that this Padma Bushan awardee didn’t bother about anything at the dusk of his life- whether it was dates, years, awards, media attention, movies, money or luxuries.
He seemed to have transcended them, having seen much in his six decades of the poetic journey. He looked like an ascetic- a Sufi fakir, who understood the language of love and its transcendence from words to silence.
“Don’t ask me about films”, he told me point blank at the very start of our conversion. He had left writing for films long back. When I asked why he did it, he said, “Music directors for whom I wrote successful songs like Jaikishan and SD Burman, expired afterwards. It left me very depressed and I decided to quit the film industry”. A long forgotten sadness floated in his deep sunken vigilant eyes.
After a while he started talking about his old comrades, his interactions with Sahir, Josh, Jigar, Bachchan, Firaaq, Makhan Lal Chaturvedi and other greats of Hindi literature.
“I miss Sahir. I still remember he organised a special mushaira for me. On whom he liked in the present generation of lyrists, he said he loved the work of Gulzar, Javed Akhtar and Prasoon Joshi.
I knew about his long association with Osho. Having read Osho, I asked him about his special relationship with the mystic, who was born just a few-hour journey from Bhopal.
“Osho was my friend. He would send me his books for which I wrote introductions, like his Gita commentary series and Sadhana Path. Osho invited me to Pune ashram and organised the first ever mushaira for me there. Osho is the most original thinker India has ever produced. He is yet to be understood fully, by those in the rat race and by governments, be it at Centre or here in MP.”
When I asked him about his favourite works and poems, he said all his poetic creations were his children. “I love them equally. I cannot choose; even when some of them are more popular”.
Like the old Zen master, these days Neeraj composes haikus and dohas.
“I am writing haikus in Hindi and will publish them soon. You cannot write them actually. Such Zen moments happen and you just record them.......”.
When I left Neeraj, I felt I had been in presence of a wandering Sufi, who will continue his nomadic journeys in the forests of words and valleys of silences. His spirit still burns with a restless creative zeal and that is how he wants it till the end...to burn into poetry and silences...
Sharing one of his poems that sums up his life and poetry ....
दर्द दिया है
दर्द दिया है, अश्रु स्नेह है, बाती बैरिन श्वास है,
जल-जलकर बुझ जाऊँ, मेरा बस इतना इतिहास है !
मैं ज्वाला का ज्योति-काव्य
चिनगारी जिसकी भाषा,
किसी निठुर की एक फूँक का
हूँ बस खेल-तमाशा
पग-तल लेटी निशा, भाल पर
बैठी ऊषा गोरी,
एक जलन से बाँध रखी है
साँझ-सुबह की डोरी
सोये चाँद-सितारे, भू-नभ, दिशि-दिशि स्वप्न-मगन है
पी-पीकर निज आग जग रही केवल मेरी प्यास है !
जल-जलकर बुझ जाऊँ, मेरा बस इतना इतिहास है !!
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