6 verses · ~1 min
राही, चौराहों पर बचना! राहें यहाँ मिली हैं, बढ़ कर अलग-अलग हो जाएँगी जिस की जो मंज़िल हो आगे-पीछे पाएँगी पर इन चौराहों पर औचक एक झुटपुटे में
अनपहचाने पितर कभी मिल जाते हैं: उन की ललकारों से आदिम रुद्र-भाव जग जाते हैं, कभी पुरानी सन्धि-वाणियाँ और पुराने मानस की धुँधली घाटी की अन्ध गुफा को
एकाएक गुँजा जाती हैं; काली आदिम सत्ताएँ नागिन-सी कुचले सीस उठाती हैं- राही शापों की गुंजलक में बँध जाता है:
फिर जिस पाप-कर्म से वह आजीवन भागा था, वह एकाएक अनिच्छुक हाथों से सध जाता है। राही, चौराहों से बचना! वहाँ ठूँठ पेड़ों की ओट
घात बैठ रहती हैं जीर्ण रूढ़ियाँ हवा में मँडराते संचित अनिष्ट, उन्माद, भ्रान्तियाँ- जो सब, जो सब राही के पद-रव से ही बल पा,
सहसा कस आती हैं बिछे, तने, झूले फन्दों-सी बेपनाह! राही, चौराहों पर बचना।
इति
The Poet
अज्ञेय
Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan 'Agyeya'
1911 · 1987
Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan, universally known by his pen name Agyeya, completely rewired the circuitry of modern Hindi literature. Born in 1911 in a British archaeological camp in Uttar Pradesh, his life was as fiercely untraditional as his prose. Before he became the architect of the Prayogavaad (Experimentalism) movement, he was an active revolutionary who spent four years in British colonial prisons for attempting to help Bhagat Singh escape. In those prison cells, he began drafting Shekhar: Ek Jivani, a psychological novel that shocked the literary establishment with its unapologetic exploration of the individual ego. He rejected the prevailing romanticism of the era and instead assembled the Tar Saptak series, bringing together a new generation of poets who wrote in free verse about alienation, intellect, and the fractured modern psyche. He won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1964 and the Jnanpith Award in 1978. Agyeya was a novelist, a combatant officer in World War II, a journalist, and a profound existential thinker. He gave Hindi literature the vocabulary to interrogate the inner self without the comfort of traditional morality.
Paired Painting
Draupadi and Simhika
In this evocative work, Raja Ravi Varma captures a profound moment of trepidation from the Mahabharata. Draupadi, the dignified heroine of the epic, is depicted navigating the dense, shadowed forests of the Kamyaka. She is accompanied by the rakshasi Simhika, who disguised herself as a lady in waiting to deceive her. The artist portrays the contrast between the guileful serenity of the deceiver and the genuine, wide eyed anxiety of Draupadi, whose intuition senses the impending peril. Through his signature synthesis of European oil techniques and Indian storytelling, Varma breathes life into the texture of the saris and the nervous tension within the jungle foliage, reminding us that even the most divine figures must confront the dangers of the unknown.
Open the viewer →