A half house

A Half House by Sandeep Dahiya

You tube promotional video of my book 'A Half House'

Author website--Sandeep Dahiya

Sandeep Dahiya is an emerging writer, poet and blogger. Taking inspiration from his see-saw existence drawn between a traditional Haryanvi village and metropolitan Delhi, he mediates to carve out a reliable identity from the two opposing worlds. He holds a decade of editorial experience with reputed academic publishers in the country. His works include: Footsteps Lost (Minerva Press); Verses from the Land of Farmers’ Messiah (ABC Publishers); A Half House (Invincible Publishers); Beyond and Beneath (Invincible Publishers); Chimp, Champ and Chops (Invincible Publishers).

Sandeep Dahiya grew up at a village in Sonipat district of Haryana. Having his education in a village school and graduating from a small town college, he just did marginally better than other students and dreamt big. Moving further he completed M Sc in Ecology and Environment, and Masters in Journalism and Mass Communication. His teachers at the small village school thought he could become an IAS officer. However, during summer vacations in Shimla, a lady official who decided the best travelogue prize for the camping students made a still better remark that he could write. He remembered it all the way while he tried his best for the IAS and the PCS.

Coming from that part of north Indian countryside, where literature will be the last thing on anybody’s mind, where agriculture is culture itself, where perhaps people would prefer a buffalo over a book, he tried to be the black sheep that is trying to get out of the herd to set its own offbeat course. Following a self-possessed and self-nourished dream comes with its own set of trials and tribulations. More than once he abandoned the dream of full time writing. Many a time he realised his limitations as a writer. Still many more times he felt himself a victim of the forces beyond his control. Having spent a decade in the editorial departments of academic publishers, he gets up again to try further and get a slippery foothold led by the anticipating whispers of the inherent voice.

He fought for the most prestigious civil services examination in India. Fought decently well also, given his own limitations and more importantly the literary limitations of the socio-cultural unit he came from in the village in Haryana. The harder he worked, the more distant became the goals. He saw the worst of politico-bureaucratic-judicial game. When he finally fell his inner voice told him, it is more on account of the system’s failure than his own. So he has sips of justice in the form of inner thumbs-up by his soul.  

Every time he falls, deeper are the analytical impressions on the neurons of his brain; graver have been the bruises on heart. If nothing more, it gives him the mood and inclination to write. Churning out reflections and sentiments that  life’s thousand catapults give to all of us uniquely, Sandeep Dahiya writes to basically satisfy the inner cravings, and more importantly to create scenes and visualisations for a better world both for himself and the larger cause of humanity.Author website-Sandeep Dahiya

Me

Well it has been a bit tough ride so far, but believe me every sweat-lorn step has not been without big-big revealations. The greatness lies not only achieving lofty targets, but in dodging the failure as well. I have been doing it so long that the CONTRADICTORY thorns dividing success and failure have been burnt to give rise to a beautiful rosy realization that only karma, the selfless work, is supreme.

Tauji

Tauji

While the world was lost

     in the frenzied tunes of urban lark,

In the countryside a faint flicker was

     tiptoeing through the dark,

Slowly-slowly the torch

     burnt high and bright,

Dynamic dimensions of its raylets

     woke up the slumberous masses for a fight.

Dignified confidence and exalted impulse

     of light went flunging forth,

Historically harassed and exploited millions

     got fresh hopes in south and north,

Lo! The fringe folks arrived

     at the forefront,

As the brightest star of Haryana

     in the sky brightly burnt.

Tauji, how high and mighty thou were!

     Still so down to earth and simple!

Corpulent informality thine

     brought always a smiling dimple

On every face tormented by

     a worrying wrinkle.

Thy simple soul,

     Always solemnly cuddled into

the paternal throes of composing

lushly-lustrous future

     for each and every one of us,

And when the brightest son of Haryana

     was gone for the eternal sleep,

A scar was created incalculably deep,

     While our helpless sky

fell into a mourning hush.

Still, O Tauji!

     Thy steady and unvacillating goodness,

And that persistently pronounced forthrightness

     will always remain with us

to guide us clear of every trouble's crush,

     Thy enlightening sagaciousness,

And the robust bravado of your heart

     will continue to inspire new green

sprouts in land troubled by thirst.

How fulsome was your love

     for the common people!

How refreshing was your smile's verve!

     Temper so gracefully proportioned

and enchantingly simple!

     How immensely forseeable

was character yours!

     Just like a path straight

and an open book of pleasant hours,–

     Without any twists and turns,

O Tauji great !

Thy large-hearted liberality

     was simply unbelievable,

Sacrificed the Nation's highest post

     without tiniest trace of grumble,

Now, others follow thy legendary step

     and reap the political fruit,

But alas, hear they not

     the cries of masses mute.

Who can forget

     the old-age pension,

Aha, an enormously elaborate

     example of public work !

Gone was crippling old's tension;

     Rhythmically gleaming

smiles now lurk.

O thou farmers' messiah !

     You tactfully removed

the noose of debt from their neck,

     Gave then a

fatherly pat at the back,

     And they – helplessly hemmed in by

the merciless loops of modern banking–

     found utmost solace

in thy patronage loop,

     Heavily indebted backs with a droop

got straightened with pride,

     Launched thou then

a new tirade against hunger,

     New hopes now linger

in peasants' dry eyes of yore,

Opened as thou a new door

     to pride and prosperity.

Mystic subtlety and exuberance

     of thy demeanour,

And freely elaborate freedom

     of the 'human' in you,

Reach O subjects at the King's

     threshold at any hour,–

Aha, no officially reprimanding queue!

Your legacy burning

     like a lamp

in stillest of silence,

     And thy charisma holding

in spellbinding balance,

     While time's arms

swinging helplessly and silently,

     Grows as the great man's

legend almost exponentially,

     Continue it will to

shine as our path's light,

     And we the sturdy sons

will toil to reach the height

     where you wanted us to reach–

A new, fighting determination

     in heart each;

To get the justice

     for everybody wronged;

A new prosperity in homes

     where it never belonged;

For the youths a fresh start;

     Evolve we'll a new art,

Whereby everything is in

     exquisitely fine-proportioned

parallel to your cause,

     Brethren! Let us prove our gratitude

to the man who brought

     in teary eyes a smiling rose.

Long live our

     grand spellbinder's legacy!

God! Let it perpetually

     cut the time's fabric mazy!

The Ever Flying Kite

The Ever Flying Kite

See the kite's sway in the sky:

Papered soul pull for escaping fly,

Corded attachment but to the earthly;—

The life force to its limits finally.

The will of soul for free float,

Alas! Possible only jerks lot,

Till the last drop hot,

The instinct, the desire leaves not.

And the momentary penury released,

As if to get the prisoner appeased,

What a beggar the besieged!

Pious but still teased.

Yes, broken at last! That wondrous free flight,
Alas but until fall for earthly delight.

                           

SPRING SEEDS

⋯and now the April has also gone,

Where are the seeds that I’d sown?

Like a ploughman I worked

in the summer almost melting bones,

Removed the stones,

Rattled which the spirit like someone

caught in desert’s sandy moans.

Then during winter my toil lit up a bonfire

amidst blinding blizzards and nature’s icy deeds,

These were my spring seeds,

embedded, impregnated in earth through my earthy deeds,

Spring seeds meant to

conceive, germinate, grow, ripe, flower and fructify,

But the spring came and went with a sad sigh,

Sorrows in my barren fields hit another high,

My spring seeds thus lost,

And me the farmer standing forlorn

without that harvest of which I used to boast,

Now the scorching May sun

beats down the dusty land with a fiery pun,

Peasant and his field thus stand mute,

Almost complete has’n the plunder and loot,

To gallows was sent my crop,

The hangman just mechanically pulled

the handle at the hanky’s drop,

Efforts’ dead body hangs from that noose,

And even the last strains of

faith, will power and hope getting loose.

People say that too much is my browbeat,

‘Why not clear another stony plot

to get something to eat?’

Perhaps they don’t realize

the blind, illogical passion’s treatise

which I wrote over stones with a pure soul,

Impractical, insane I stand out

with cracks and brain’s hole,

How could I expect fruits from this very plot?

And now I stare at the nullifying dot,

The desert storm meanwhile hisses with its lust hot,

Seeds have most probably been killed,

Aah, with amazing precision

the Goddess of infertility drilled!

While the songs of my fertile efforts in a chorus trilled,

But She has’n successful in its swipe,

Its blinding gung-ho and macabrous hype,

Lolloping its greedy tongue to

dejuice and deflower everything ripe,

Now I lay my back against a

hard, hot, unshaded rock,

My weariness, fatigue and torture

put me in a sleepy dock,   

In that short uneasy sleep

I get some relief from the pain of this injury deep,

A luxuriant crop I see in my dream

and nearby gurgling goes a stream.