ठहरो, कि दास्ताँ आगे और भी है

I used to be a voracious reader. Not that I don't read anymore, but the frequency of books has dipped to a all time low, barely managing a book each month.  Especially I miss reading good Hindi literature. Good books are not available in nearby bookshops. Pity, the city Mumbai is. But just few weeks back, I found one website called Kavita Kosh, which is a great collection of Hindi prose and poems, hence this post. I read few of my favorite books such as Rashmirathi etc on the website. I'll recommend this if you are really into Hindi literature.

One more thing. Despite spending a whole lot of good part of the day on internet, I still feel that reading a book in hard-copy is a completely different experience. I don't get the same feeling while reading books online. No upgrade of the e-book reader will be ever come close
to that experience. I genuinely hope that technology gets defeated in this race and the hardcopies of books reign. I may not be a big believer of libraries, but I don't want them to disappear either.

Anyways, following is a piece written by Guljar.  I liked it a lot and even put the first line as my Facebook status message for the day :P. Hope you will enjoy this too. To Hindi poetry................

"अभी न पर्दा गिराओ, ठहरो, कि दास्ताँ आगे और भी है

अभी न पर्दा गिराओ, ठहरो!

अभी तो टूटी है कच्ची मिट्टी, अभी तो बस जिस्म ही गिरे हैं

अभी तो किरदार ही बुझे हैं।

अभी सुलगते हैं रूह के ग़म, अभी धड़कते हैं दर्द दिल के

अभी तो एहसास जी रहा है।

यह लौ बचा लो जो थक के किरदार की हथेली से गिर पड़ी है

यह लौ बचा लो यहीं से उठेगी जुस्तजू फिर बगूला बनकर

यहीं से उठेगा कोई किरदार फिर इसी रोशनी को लेकर

कहीं तो अंजाम-ओ-जुस्तजू के सिरे मिलेंगे

अभी न पर्दा गिराओ, ठहरो!"