You are not alone

तू अकेला नहीं

जिस खाल के अंदर तू रहता है वह तेरे सैल्फ की सीमा नहीं।
जिस काल में तू जी रहा है वह भी तेरी हस्ती की पहली या आख़िरी घड़ी नहीं।
तू अपने को क्षुद्र या क्षण-भंगुर प्राणी न समझ।
तू अकेला नहीं; तू अलग नहीं; न ही तू स्वतंत्र है।
तेरी हर धड़कन, तेरी हर साँस; और तेरी हर सोच
समूचे प्राणीजगत की धड़कनों, सांसों और सोचों का एक हिस्सा है।
... इस लिए, हे अर्जुन, जिस जल की तू मछली है
उस जल को अपने शरीर से पोंछने की बेकार कोशिश न कर।
कछुए की तरह अपने को समेटने की चेष्टा न कर।
बल्कि अपने को ढीला छोड़ दे।
जिस सरोवर में तू रहता है उसमें अपने को शरबत की तरह घोल दे।
फिर देख अपने विराट और विशाल रूप को
और महसूस कर कि तेरा विस्तार कहाँ तक फैला हुआ है।

---बलदेव राज दावर कृत
'विज्ञान गीता' के १८वेँ अध्याय से

Life After Death

कहाँ जाती है हमारी जान (रूह, आत्मा, सोल) हमारे मरने के बाद?
जहाँ जाती है दिये की लौ (रौशनी, ज्योति, प्रकाश) उसके बुझने के बाद।

- बलदेव राज दवार
12 जनवरी, 07

Delhi's Own Star

Delhi's Own Private Star

Baldev Raj Dawar

About seven centuries ago we Dilliwalahs, built the Qutub Minar, to point a finger at the highest point in Dilli's sky, its zenith. It was also an apparent attempt to reach out for the stars. The sky in those days was far less polluted than it is today and therefore the stars were much easier to spot, recognize and to familiarize with. Dilliwalahs of those days might have noticed that a rather shy star of whitish hue visited and touched their city's zenith every night in winter. It is also possible that our ancestors developed a kinship with the star and regarded it as Delhi's very own star.


We now know that this star visits the zenith of our city's sky every day and throughout the year – except that in the summer months it visits us during the daytime and therefore, because of the Sun’s glare we do not notice its presence.

Does the star graze past the zenith of Delhi every day? No, it does it a little more frequently than 'every day'. To be precise, the star hits the zenith of Delhi after regular intervals of 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.09 seconds – or say, 366 times in a year of 365 days.

Does this star also belong to Mathura, Agra or Panipat? No. It doesn’t. The star never touches the zeniths of those towns. The star rightfully belongs to Delhi and Delhi alone. Isn't it ironical that even in this age of science we Delhiites have not woken up to lay our rightful claim to it? We should do so sooner than any other town/city in the world.

The star we are talking about is no ordinary star. It is not to be ignored as only 'another' star among billions and billions of stars that inhabit our galaxy. Neither is it just one of those 3000 odd stars that we are able to see with our unaided eye on a clear moonless night. It is one of the 12 brightest stars of the northern sky that are easily visible in Delhi in spite of its thick haze of pollution. It is a prominent star with a magnitude as high as 1.7.

The star we are talking about is popularly known by its Arabic name, Elnath, meaning 'the one butting with horns'. It is the second brightest star in the constellation Taurus, marking the tip of one of the Bull's horns. Hindu astronomers perhaps named it Agni. Its scientific name is Beta Tauri and its astronomical address valid for epoch 2000 is: RA 5:26:18 and Declination +28:36:27.

Elnath belongs to the B7 III category of stars. Its color is whitish, with a tinge of blue. From its spectrum we know that its surface temperature is about 18,000 degrees Kelvin. (Remember that the surface temperature of our sun is much lower – about 5,700 K.)

There is another remarkable thing about Elnath. This star, the centre of our galaxy and our earth, all three, lie in a straight line, i.e., at an angle of 1800. Have a look at Elnath today when it touches the zenith of Delhi. Six months later, at the same hour, and at the same point of the sky, you will be looking at the centre of our galaxy in the constellation of Sagittarius.

Every year on about the 18th December Elnath arrives at the zenith of Delhi precisely at midnight. A day later Elnath will arrive at that point in our sky about four minutes before midnight. A month later Elnath would arrive there about two hours before midnight and two months later at about 8.00 p.m. In other words in mid-February Elnath arrives at the zenith of Delhi around 8 o' clock in the evening. That is perhaps the most convenient time, if not the most appropriate time, to view it.

Remember that the moment Elnath arrives at the zenith, the Qutub Minar is pointing its finger directly at it. The rays of light of the star, after having travelled through space a distance of 130 light-years, strike perpendicularly at Delhi's ground and parallel to the axis of the Qutub. These rays at that moment also run parallel to all the towers, poles and outer edges and surfaces of all the walls of Delhi. This moment in the daily life of Delhi is not only a moment of deep emotional relationship with Elnath but also a reminder that the two belong to each other.

We Delhiites must brook no delay in claiming Elnath as our own star. We can do that in two ways: First, by monitoring the movement of Elnath from night to night during the winter months. For this purpose, we can use straight iron pipes of one to two meter length and about two centimeters in diameter. These pipes may be hung loose vertically so that they freely point at the zenith. Looking from the lower end of the pipes we can view the zenith. Let all student hostels and parks of the city have these simple observatories installed for public use. At the predicted hour, people may first be invited to watch the star in the open sky overhead and later wait for its arrival at the zenith, e.i. the other end of the pipe.

Secondly, let us go a step further. Let there be annual celebrations in mid-February to mark the arrival of Elnath at the zenith in the evening sky. In honor of our star let people gather in parks all over the city well before 8.00 p.m., and hold a star party. In such a party let people watch their favorite stars and any planets in attendance that evening, and exchange information about the sky. Delhi Vidyut Board might also be requested to join these annual celebrations by switching off all streetlights for about 5 minutes the moment Elnath is sighted through the pipes. This will facilitate the mass sky watch.

And let there be no delay. The present relationship between Delhi and Elnath is temporary. It is going to last only for a couple of hundreds of years more. Due to precession of the Earth the pointing finger of Qutub is slowly moving away from the star. Soon this moving finger will stop pointing at Elnath. It will take more than 25,000 years before it returns to Elnath. During that long period of time the star will appear to us to be skirting Delhi's zenith a long way out.

ग़ज़ल

हम से मिलिये किसी नव्वाब से मिलिये
हंसते महकते इक गुलाब से मिलिये

है बेहिसाब मुहब्बत हमारी बाँहों में
हम से मिलिये उसी हिसाब से मिलिये

बूडे पिंजर हैं उधर ढीले-ढाले
आइये आइये इधर शबाब से मिलिये

बुझेगी प्यास न मै के पैमानों से
हम से मिलिए नदी शराब से मिलिये

उड़ती उड़ती सुनी पे मत जाइये
जिन पे बीती है उन जुनाब से मिलिये

पूछ रहा था जिसे सदियों से जहाँ
उस सवाल के दो टूक जवाब से मिलिये

किसी खुदा का नहीं, अस्मां हमारा है
उठो जमीं से उठो, आफ़ताब से मिलिये

हमारा हुस्सन औ नूर, है तूर का जलवा
गले मिलिये मगर आदाब से मिलिये

खुद-खुदाओं का नहीं दावर कायल
नए खुदा के नए इन्तखाब से मिलिये

- बलदेव राज दावर

When There Were No Laws

Like everybody living out there,
I'm the end product of the Universe,
The final print after countless proofs,
Offspring of all that ever was,
Albeit, my long passage through eons
And through countless generations
Has entirely been unintended and unplanned.
I passed through sieve after sieve,
A trillion times. Or, perhaps more!
Somewhat modified every time,
Without ever getting to wish
Or to choose or to have a say.
I have only been a chosen one -
Randomly picked up from an odd lot.

No doubt, I fret a lot, indeed a lot.
I posses mass, throw it around
And cause ripples in space-time.
I have motion; can strike,
I have flight; can whiz past,
I can walk, I can talk, and I can even
Chalk out my future plans,
I can feel, know and think
And imagine things that exist not,
After all I'm a living being –
A defiant climber by default.

But is that really so?
Am I not for ever bound by laws of nature,
And shaped by what I was and what I am?
Am I not only an element of a system
Which itself is an element of a larger system
And so on and so forth - endlessly?

But what about Love,
A seemingly willful thing,
The very warmth of life?
Yes, what about love?
No, even love follows rules,
It can be measured like wind,
And like temperature quantified.
There is even arithmetic of love:
The day I was born I fell in love
With myself, and myself alone.
The love was deep and exclusive,
I refused to be aware of all but myself.
But soon I felt who my mother was
And recognized who was my father.
I loved to be hugged in their arms.
It was a very sweet embrace,
Very cozy and very tickling.
I loved my mom, I loved my dad,
For they too loved me very much.
But I hated them for being parents
Also to my sister and brother.
(I hated sharing my parents with them.)
Having grown up, I looked for a mate.
He/she was great, adorable,
Very sexy and really loveable.
I danced and sang all day long.
But this love was only a stepping stone.
My real love soon arrived - my baby.
I love my daughter, I love my son
Twice more than I love myself.
I love my children ten times more than
I love my sister's or brother's kids,
A hundred times more than
Their kids' kids and so on.
Because in loving my own children
I love only myself and myself alone.
My children are my future self -
And future is a certain thing,
There is nothing unpredictable about it
If you know the laws and a bit of Maths.

But are the laws eternal, universal and absolute?
Did they exist before the Universe was born?
Or, they came along as everything else evolved?
In this macro world, at least, things are
Much on-course and on the tracks.
Our Universe seems flat and steady.
Our Galaxy moves on in its cosmic path.
Our Sun shines indeed gloriously
But has a finite span of life,
The Earth's orbit is driven by curved space
Other planets keeping a safe distance,
The frequent fall of asteroids has almost halted,
And the Mutations are much fewer than before.
The Future is firmly reined by Past.
The massive Past acts like a weighty anchor,
Its intense escape velocity holds me back.
All my fanciful flights are grounded.

But it was not so in the Beginning.
I have had a glorious past.
My explosive birth was a big bang -
The grand mother of all explosions,
The hottest event of all times,
A billion times hotter
Than the next hottest thing.
The Time had not begun to tick,
Nor were any pauses between moments.
No events one before the other.
All was at the same time.
Everything was everywhere
With no gaps in between.
No murmur, no sound
And Nothing was nowhere around
Randomness ruled the place.
The Laws of Nature were not yet formed.

This unbounded state lasted only briefly –
Only a few millions years or so.
Soon the Time started ticking
And a great churning ensued.
It turned the place into a melting pot.
Lumps and clumps appeared,
Structures emerged and shapes arose.
Space and time became grainy.
Wide spaces parted grain from grain.
Particles organized into atoms,
Clouds of gas and dust arose,
From which stars were formed.
Eons amassed from moments.
These elemnts then evolved into systems.
Whose properties we call the Laws.
And lo, everything seemed fixed –
Bound, and mutually consequential
Randomness destroyed, freedom lost,
And all events, as if, pre-ordained,
And ruled by an omnipotent God.

Luckily, this is true of the macro world only.
In the sub atomic world of gluons and quarks
And in the sizzling hot plasma
(A relic the short lived past)
Full freedom prevails even now.
In that micro world
You are still everything and everywhere.
Without a pause or a gap,
You can do whatever you please,
Go wherever you want,
Exist here and there at the same time,
And even vanish all together
If you so desire.

Baldev Raj Dawar,
E 610, Mayur Vihar, Delhi-110091 Tele.22772360 WWW.brdawar.com