Infusing logic with rhyming

Author: 
Ribhu Ahuja
Post date: 
21 October 2020

Ribhu Ahuja was born in Jaipur, Rajasthan and attended St. Xavier’s School, Jaipur. He graduated from an engineering college in Kolhapur, Maharashtra and then moved to Delhi for work.

Ribhu started work with BPOs, then moved into IT recruitment and finally into the IT – SAP domain, having worked for companies like TCS and HCL.

Ribhu decided to move abroad and obtained a PR (Permanent Residency) for Australia. He has been living in Melbourne for a few years.

Ribhu likes to write poetry. He loves infusing logic with rhyming to generate poetry on random topics.

I wrote my first poem when I was seven years old, when I was in class 2. At that time I didn’t even know about the vast and deep feelings like happiness, immense hate, excruciatingly painful heartbreaks or eternal love, which are required to be present in one’s heart to write sensible poetry.

I still remember, we used to get lot of homework from school in summer vacations to keep us busy during vacations. One of the task was to write a 200 words essay in Hindi on the topic ‘What if I were a teacher’.

I had been doing a lot of school homework in those summer vacations, plus my mom made sure that I write two pages of cursive handwriting practice book each for Hindi and English everyday as I did not have (and I still do not, till date ) a good and legible handwriting.

So, my plate of unwanted tasks was already full, and I had to somehow escape this essay and needed a break from it. My escape plan was to ‘erase’ three words ‘200 words essay’ – from the question the Hindi teacher made me write in the notebook – ‘write a 200 words essay on topic, ‘What if I were a teacher’ with her signatures below the question and replace it with one word – ‘poem’. So now the question became – write a poem on the topic, ‘What if I were a teacher’. This was to escape from writing 200 words and still proving that ‘todays’ tasks accomplished’ to mom.

As I erased those three words, being in grade 2, I didn’t notice the intricate nuances of the pencil marks that were left on the paper and by looking carefully, one checking up the homework (my mom that is), would clearly notice that I had fudged the question – she being a school teacher herself.

Unknowingly, I wrote a poem and my mom checked it and instantly, she smiled, looked at me with her raised eyebrow, as if she knew what trickery I had done, and as I swallowed the saliva out of fear, she flipped the notebook and hugged me. For the first time in days, I didn’t get scolded for cheating, because she felt that I did something good, something creative. She tore that page from notebook on which I wrote the poem and kept it in her cupboard and asked me to go and play.

Well, that was my first poem and then gradually when my school life was about to reach cessation and I left Jaipur for further studies, I started writing in happiness, pain and agony of being aloof and away from home, when alone in my room. It gave me a sense of achievement when I wrote something that rhymed and made sense. Poetry gradually got infused into my comportment.

I write poetry to express my thoughts; it is both a hobby and a passion. I used to be good at expressing things in poems but until I finished my engineering, those poems were like more of romantic and cupid only; not filled with much sage and depth.

Becoming an engineering graduate hardwired the logical thinking into my DNA. In fact, the Environmental engineering degree I pursued, did not give me anything much apart from inducing logical thinking into my brain forever – as I built my career in IT from very beginning. Hence I applied zero knowledge that the engineering gave me.

So, after my engineering, when I wrote, I could easily blend the logical flavor into my poems. But then, a few setbacks in life, one after the other like heartbreak, hindrance at the job or botched ratings in the annual performance review, office politics, friends stabbing and bitching behind my back – all the negative things made me indulge myself more and more into poetry – it became my fallback friend.

Moreover, I posit that poetry is all about being creative and thoughtful. It’s a well-known fact that if one wants to be creative, one should read or listen to creative paraphernalia. One such ingenious ‘paraphernalia for me is music.

I usually write poems while listening to music – I just pop earphones in my ears and play any song –almost just any type of music and start thinking and imagining. While listening to this music I would just hit some random strokes on my laptop’s keyboard and within a few minutes I would end up with a poem.

And I write these poems in free time only – like while traveling in a cab or a bus from office or while coming back home from office. That’s why I hate driving, because it snatches away my free creative time from me as I can’t write while driving.

During my career switches or job changes, after every few years as I used to attend inductions for new joiners, or during any corporate company speakers’ sessions, I used to hear many veteran speakers or CEOs or vice presidents mentioning that in order to make a difference, read….. read this book, read that book.

It used to arouse curiosity in me to ask this; and when I joined TCS many years back, I asked the speaker this question, ‘Sir, with due respect, you said that one should read in order to excel in life. Have you ever thought that one should also write? These books come into the market because people think deeply and then passionately, they write. Isn’t it?’

On this question that very senior gentleman smiled and made an eye contact with me and asked, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Sir my name is Ribhu.’

‘Ribhu, you have a very good point. And I have just one word for you, focus, because you will fail many times before succeeding.’

I have yet to write my book – its long due!

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This year, all of my batch mates have turned 40/40+, so I composed a poem on this topic and shared it on our Whatsapp group, encouraging them to be passionate about working out and exercise. I'm sharing it here as well along with the nuances:

Sab iss group me 40 ke ho gayey, with few variances....

Presenting a poem titled '40 years'.

Statutory warnings:
* Injurious if not read in free time
* Do not contain any abusive jargon this time ;-).
* italics to be read in Hindi
* This has been written with a light and free heart and not with an intention to disrespect anyone - no offences and none to be taken. Phir bhee agar le lo to dil pe mat lena.
* Ye poetry samajh me aayey to bhahiyaji ismile, nahee aayey to thoda sa sir khujaaiyey aur phir se padhiye. Samajh aa jaayegee.
* Phir jab samajh a jaayey, to bhahiyaji ismile, else follow the immediate step above.

Enjoy!

 
Ribhu Ahuja as part of the 1998 batch of St. Xavier's School, Jaipur

Ribhu Ahuja as part of the 1998 batch of St. Xavier's School, Jaipur

 

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40 Years

Subha ko chale thaey ghar se,
Ddopaher tak paheli manzil par pahonch gayey thaey, ab SUHANI SHAAM HO GAI HAI,
school, college, naukri, shaadi, family,
Kaafee khwaab poore kiyey sab ne, par ab 98 batch me chalees kee UMAR AAM HO GAI HAI,

Lekin khwaabo aur aashaao ka aisa hisaab hai,
Ke badhte hee rahengay hamesha, ek mission acomplish kiya then repeat the formula of success for NEXT ONE
Kuch ke daadhi me bhee halki safedi aa gai hai,
Lekin aaj bhee if we are challanged, confidence brimmedin with assertion - Well, CONSIDER IT DONE.

Haar jeet to lagee rahegee - kabhee victory paas hai to kabhee door khadee hai,
Experience issee ko kahete hein, as in lage raho kyou ki setback ka sahee jawaab HOTA HAI COMEBACK,
Kitne solutions hote hein ek problem ke,
jab ye samajh me aa jaata hai to hasee aati hai issues ko dekh kar, kyouki dimaag KAHETA HAI ATTACK.

Ye samjho ke din dopehar shaam raat ye sab zindagee ke padaav hein,
No one can change what u did in the past but ab mazaa utna hee karo jitna apne shareer ko sazaa de sako - balance it WITH WORKOUT,
Shaam ke baad raat aati hai aur phir agle din ka savera,
A bit subtle, par shaam haseen aur lambi ho, iske liyey sharaab aur excercize me regularity aur limit zarooree hai, else THERE IS NO DOUBT.

Editor's Note: Here are some more memories from the alumni of St. Xavier's School, Jaipur. Xavierites are welcome to keep contributing!

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