Hum ne to nisaar kar diya dil,
Ab jane woh shokh, yaa na jaane.

Here I offer my heart to her,
To accept or say no is upto my sweet.
[Hasrat Mohani]

This was the ibteda (beginning) of my love. A very important phase of my life; for this will decide my fate. If my heart is accepted, then aafreen, otherwise my name will join the list of aashiqs whose love story ended before it ever began.

I have lost the count of days since I first saw her. It must have been years and years, I believe. I still remember when I saw that beauteous face for the first time. And all I could say was,

Aap ko dekh kar dekhta rah gaya,
Kya kahoon aur kahne ko kya rah gaya.

I saw you and couldn’t take my eyes off,
What other words can describe your beauty.
[Aziz Qaisi]

I have no words to tell you how beautiful she is. Her glowing face, her long raven tresses, her honey dripping voice, her graceful gait like a gazelle, and her hazel eyes.

Yeh jafaaen gham ka chara, woh nijaat-e-dil ka aalam,
Tera husn dast-e-isah, teri yaad rooh-e-mariam.
Teri deed se siwa hai tere shauq mein bahaaran,
Woh zamin jahaan giri thi tere gaissuon ki shabnam.
Yeh ajab qayaamaten hain teri rahguzr mein guzraan,
Na hua ke mar miten hum, na hua ke ji uthe hum.

This cures oppressive griefs, that delivers the heart,
Your beauty is the hand of Christ, your memory Merriam’s face.
More beauteous than you is the love awakened earth,
Fertilized by dew of your fragrant lochs.
Strange are the calamities in the path of love,
Nor we have will to live, nor the strength to die.
[Faiz Ahmed Faiz]

And not to forget those ruby red lips,

Gharq-e-shaqar hue hain kaam-o-zabaan,
Jab liya hun main nam tuj lab ka.

My palate and tongue get honey drenched,
Whensoever I mention your lips.
[Wali Mohd. Wali]

And in this way my infatuation began. A strange feeling was all over me,

Dil-e-nadaan tujhe hua kya hai?
Aakhir is dard ki dawa kya hai?
Mai bhi munh mein zabaan rakhta hun,
Kaash puchho ke mudda kya hai?

What ails thee, my silly heart?
What balm for your ache, at last?
I too have a tongue, I too can speak,
Would that you ask, what I crave?
[Asadullah Khan Ghalib]

I was surrounded by her. She was in my dreams. She still is. I was restless. I started looking forward to seeing her each day; Wali has rightly said,

Dekhna har subah tujh rukhsaar ka,
Hai mutaala matlai-anwaar ka.
Subah tera daras paya tha sanam,
Shauq-e-dil muhtaaj hai taqraar ka.

To see your face every morn,
Is to see the glorious flush of dawn.
I saw you just this morning, Love,
Lo, my heart yearns again.
[Wali Mohd. Wali]

One is highly intoxicated when in love. Radiance of light of love spreads its aura all around you. Iqbal farmaate hain,

Anokhi waza hai saare zamaane se niraale hain,
Yeh aashiq kaunsi basti ke yaarab rahne waale hain.

Strange are their looks, out-of-this world they seem!
Wherefrom, O Lord, do these lovers spring?
[Sir Mohd. Iqbal]

I then thought of expressing myself. And thanks to the “Benevolent Lord of the Three Worlds” who arranged that also,

Baam par aane lage woh, samna hone laga,
Ab to izhaar-e-mohabbat barmila hone laga.

She now comes on roof top, face to face we stand,
Love is now proclaimed without least reserve.
[Hasrat Mohani]

But these encounters were unable to put my restless heart to rest. I then pumped all my blood into my heart and approached her, one day. I stopped her. She stopped. Smiled. I opened my mouth and ark! nothing came out of it. Them I stammered & stuttered. Her beautiful radiant face and equally beautiful smile had left me speechless. And before she left, all I could think was,

Mere dil ko kiya be-khud teri ankhion ne aakhir kon,
Ke jion be-hosh karti hai sharaab, ahista, ahista.

Your eyes,at last, have entranced my heart,
As wine benumbs our wits, step by step.
[Wali Mohd. Wali]

And all I could see was a drop of sweat, from her tresses trickled on her cheek and lo, how wondrous to see sun splashed over with dew. She again smiled and ran away. I stood there. Standing there. Still. And I told myself,

Ibtadaae ishq hai, rota hai kya,
Aage aage dekhiye hota hai kya.

It’s only the beginning, why dost thou groan?
O, wait and see what happens as you onwards move.
[Mir Taqi Mir]

I was captured by the long and deadly roots of love. More I tried to free myself, more I got entangled in them,

Yaad karna har ghari us yaar ka,
Hai wazifaa mujh dil-e-bimaar ka,
Aakbat kya howega maalum nahin,
Dil hua mubtla dildaar ka.

Remembering my Love all the time,
Is all the prayer my sick heart knows,
I know not how its going to end,
I’ve lost my heart to my sweet heart.
[Wali Mohd. Wali]

I was then avoided, tracks, streets, bazaars, changed on seeing me. I was sad,

Muddat hui sajan ne dikhaya nahin jamaal,
Dikhla apas ke kad kon kiya nahin nihaal.

For long hasn’t my Love shown her beauteous face,
Nor with her stately presence uplifted my state.
[Wali Mohd. Wali]

And I wailed,

Husn-e-be parwah ko khud bin-o-khud aara kar diya,
Kya kiya maine ke izhaare tamanna kar diya.

Beauty self-oblivious has turned self- aware,
O, why at all did I express my heart’s desire?
[Hasrat Mohani]

The days were tiring; the nights long,

Tum aae ho na shab-e-intzaar guzri hai,
Talaash mein sahar baar baar guzri hai.
Woh baat saare fasaane mein jiska zikar na tha,
Woh baat unko bahut nagawaar guzri hai.
Na gul khile hain, na unse mile hain, na mai pi hai,
Ajib rang mein ab ke bahaar guzri hai.

You haven’t come, nor has the night of waiting gone,
Looking for you the morn has called again & again.
What did not even figure in the tale entire,
To that he has taken very grave offence.
No flames, no wine, no sight of my friend,
In what queer way we’ve spent this spring.
[Faiz Ahmed Faiz]

Nobody heard my cry, but nothingness. All words were lost there. Days passed. Months passed. And even did the years. Nothing was exchanged between us. There was vast, immense, dark and dead silence. My heart was crushed, that was the first time I realized it.

Tujhiko jo yaan jalwa farma na dekha,
Baraabar hai duniya ko dekha na dekha.
Mera Guncha-e-dil hai woh dil grifta,
Ke jis ko kaso ne kabhi wa na dekha.
Aziat, musibat,malaamat, balaaen,
Tere ishq mein hum ne kya kya na dekha?
Kiya mujh ko daaghon ne sarv-e-chiraaghan,
Kabhi tune aakar tamaasha na dekha.

If here we see thee not immanent in thy grace,
What use then, our earthly pilgrimage?
My heart is such a crumpled bud,
None has ever seen it bloom.
Trouble, torture, reproach, disaster,
What all haven’t I suffered in love?
The scars within have set me ablaze,
Alas, you haven’t seen this sight.
[Khwaja Mir Dard]

I had initiated. She had taken a step back. So I coiled all my feelings around myself. Meetings became scanty. On those rare occasions when we used to see each other, I would often think,

Roya karenge aap bhi pahron isi tarah,
Atka kahin jo aapka dil bhi meri tarah.

You too shall weep for hours on end, if your
Heart, like mine, somewhere gets entwined.
[Momin Khan Momin]

Then the sky fell down on my head. She was in love with someone else. The sky had fallen over my head. The world must have reached qayaamat (end of the world). But, I could spare a smile for her,

Donon jahaan teri mohabbat mein haar ke,
Woh jaa raha hai koi shab-e-gham guzaar ke.
Bhule se muskra to diye hum aaj Faiz,
Mat puchh walwale dil-e-naakarda kaar ke.

Having lost both worlds in the game of love,
There goes lonesome man, ending his night in grief.
Today, Faiz, unawares you chanced to give a smile,
O what a swell and surge within my powerless heart.
[Faiz Ahmed Faiz]

Once, when I met her, I told her,

Mera ji hai jab tak, teri justju hai,
Zabaan jab talak hai, yehi guftgu hai,
Tamanna hai teri, agar hai tamanna,
Teri aarzoo hai, agar aarzoo hai.

Your quest is my objective, as long as I live,
Of you alone I talk, while I have a tongue,
For you alone I yearn, if yearn at all,
You are my desire, if I harbour one.
[Khwaja Mir Dard]

And I was reminded of Ghalib’s great ghazal,

Hazaaron khwaaeshen aisi ke har khwahish pe dam nikle,
Bahut nikle mere armaan, lekin phir bhi kam nikle.
Nikalna khuld se adam ka sunte aaye the lekin,
Bahut be-aabroo ho kar tere kuche se hum nikle.

Thousand of desires tantalizing one and all,
Many a wish have I realized; yet I yearn for more.
Oft have we heard about Adam’s exile from Eden,
Humiliating much more was my exit from your door.
[Asadullah Khan Ghalib]

And, with what else can I end but,

Hum parwarsh-e-loh-o-qalam karte rahenge,
Jo dil pe guzarti hai raqam karte rahenge.
Ek tarz-e-taghaaful hai so woh unko mubarak,
Ek tarz-e-tamanna hai so hum karte rahenge.

We’ll keep on plying the pen on the page,
Record shall we the tale of our heart.
A style of indifference will be her way,
A style of submission will be our creed.
[Faiz Ahmed Faiz]

• Copyright 1995-1997, Jatinder PS Nagi. Originally written in April 1995, revised in May 1997.
• The English translation of the Urdu poetry is taken from the book "Masterpieces of Urdu Ghazals" by K.C. Kanda, Sterling Press, India.
• This was the first piece of writing I put together. I was under many spells, one of them being the Urdu poetry. So this was the result.

A study placed eight monkeys in a room. In the middle of the room is a ladder, leading to a bunch of bananas hanging from a hook on the ceiling. Each time a monkey tries to climb the ladder, all the monkeys are sprayed with ice water, which makes them miserable. Sooner enough, whenever a monkey attempts to climb the ladder, all of the other monkeys, not wanting to be sprayed with cold water, set upon him and beat him up. Soon, none of the eight monkeys ever attempts to climb the ladder.

One of the original monkeys is then removed, and a new monkey is put in the room. Seeing the bananas and the ladder, he wonders why none of the other monkeys are doing the obvious; but, undaunted, he immediately begins to climb the ladder. All the other monkeys fall upon him and beat him silly. He has no idea why?? However, he no longer attempts to climb the ladder. A second original monkey is removed and replaced. The newcomer again attempts to climb the ladder, but all the other monkeys hammer the crap out of him. This includes the previous new monkey, who, grateful that he's not on the receiving end this time, participates in the beating because all the other monkeys are doing it. However, he has no idea why he's attacking the new monkey.

One by one, all the original monkeys are replaced. Eight new monkeys are now in the room. None of them have ever been sprayed by ice water. None of them attempt to climb the ladder. All of them will enthusiastically beat up any new monkey who tries, without having any idea why?

And that's how any company's policies & procedures get established !!

(This was sent as a part of those annoying chain mails, which I never forward. But this was too good not to be shared with the world. Thanks to the original author.)

The breakthrough that eventually allowed scientists to explain the northern and southern lights (bands of bright color also known as aurora borealis and aurora australis), happened by accident.

In 1859, English astronomer Richard Carrington was sketching sunspots when he witnessed a large solar flare. He soon learned that a British observatory measured a simultaneous fluctuation in the Earth's magnetic field caused by the flare.

Eighteen hours later, one of the most dramatic displays of northern and southern lights on record began. Scientists still could not explain what caused auroras, but they were now confident it had something to do with energy from the sun.

A century later, observations from spacecraft confirmed that auroras occur when electrically charged "solar wind"--a stream of electrons and protons released by the sun--disrupts the Earth's magnetic field. Some of the solar energy slips through the field and enters the upper atmosphere, causing oxygen and nitrogen molecules to glow--just as electricity makes fluorescent lamps glow. The colors in auroras vary depending on the gas that's involved, which is also true of fluorescent lamps. Oxygen molecules tend to emit the greenish light that's common in auroras. Nitrogen is responsible for red, blue, and lavender hues.

Auroras are most common near the North and South Poles, because that's where it is easiest for the solar wind to break through the Earth's magnetic field (they're reported less often in the south because that part of the globe is less populated). In rare cases, the auroral displays stretch into southern parts of Europe and the United States, but that happens only a few times per century during the strongest solar bombardments. The solar flare that Carrington saw in 1859, for instance, triggered a solar storm so strong that the northern lights were visible in Puerto Rico.

Like Alfred Russell Wallace, the contemporary of Darwin who independently deduced natural selection, German scientist and artist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) has fallen into relative obscurity. But Haeckel, a free-thinking supporter of evolution, was nevertheless a very popular figure of his time, as well as a keen and patient observer of nature. Influenced by Darwin's theories and contemporary German idealism, Haeckel offered his own variation on evolutionary theory: the belief that individual organisms "recapitulated," or replicated, every evolutionary development of the species.

After studying invertebrates for nearly six years, Haeckel became convinced that as organisms evolved, they became increasingly complex, a fact that was reflected in their tissues, if not in their outward appearance. From his close anatomical study of microscopic radiolarians, Haeckel deduced that all living things--from single-celled organisms to humans--exhibited symmetrical structures, and that symmetry was nature's most fundamental principle of unity, a "formula" for all organic life. He believed that as an organism evolved, its body would demonstrate richer symmetrical patterns.

Haeckel's belief that organisms became increasingly complex led him to pose the "Biogenetic Law," the theory that an individual organism's development (ontogeny) corresponded directly with the development of the species (phylogeny). For example, metazoans go through a developmental stage called a gastrula, a ball of cells with an infolding that later forms the gut. Haeckel thought that at one time an organism called a "gastraea" existed that looked much like the gastrula stage of a metazoan's development. Haeckel thought this hypothetical ancestral metazoan gave rise to the rest of the multi-celled animals. For some animals, Haeckel thought the _expression of earlier evolutionary stages was subtler, but he insisted that every organism contained a record of all the adaptations accumulated through its evolutionary history, whether visible or not. All living things, Haeckel believed, could be traced back to a single, simple primordial form.

While Haeckel's ideas generally have been discarded, he left a valuable legacy of written and illustrated material, including beautiful, detailed drawings of invertebrate anatomy collected in the book Art Forms in Nature. Haeckel's plates are imaginatively arranged to emphasize the rich symmetrical patterns he perceived as nature's unifying principle, and to stress the physical beauty he saw in nature's design.

People generally don't associate music with the Protestant Reformation--or with Martin Luther (1483-1546), the German priest who, in 1517, triggered that ideological rebellion within the Catholic Church by nailing his 95 Theses to a church door in Wittenberg. Luther's chief complaint centered on the Church's willingness to forgive sins for a fee, a practice known as selling indulgences. However, he also sought reforms that would make worship more accessible to the masses, and he saw music as an important means for achieving this goal.

An experienced musician, Luther believed that music had the power to raise worshippers to a spiritual plane where they could better experience God. He also considered music an educational tool, composing hymns to help children learn Bible stories, and employing repetition to make his lyrics--and the lessons they contained--easier to remember.

It is widely accepted that Luther composed at least 36 hymns--though the exact number remains a subject of debate--and that he asked other musicians and composers to help him add to the stock of hymns available to worshippers. In 1526, he helped write a Mass in German for rural churches, where people knew little or no Latin, noting his desire to include as many German songs as possible and speculating that singing and worshipping in their native tongue would strengthen the faith of rural Germans by helping them to better understand Christian teachings.

Luther composed one of his most enduring hymns, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," in the 1520s, at a time when he personally needed spiritual support. He feared that his son, Hans, and his pregnant wife, Katharina von Bora, would succumb to Bubonic Plague, the so-called Black Death that devastated Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. As Luther composed and sang, however, he watched them gain strength, their eventual recovery helping to reinforce his belief in the spiritual value of music.

In 1890, Austrian philosopher Christian von Ehrenfels (1859-1932) coined the term gestalt (German for "figure"), which later became the name of an important school of psychology. Ehrenfels, who had a keen interest in the arts, developed a theory that humans tend to perceive the whole over its constituent parts, a notion he had derived from observing how people appreciated music.

Ehrenfels demonstrated that listeners heard more than a sequence of separate notes when a melody was played. They heard music, not discrete tones. Ehrenfels further demonstrated that listeners could recognize the same melody even when played in different keys, whereas someone just looking at the sequence of notes on paper might not. The ability to merge separate photographs into a running movie is another example of our tendency to recognize wholeness more readily than isolated fragments.

Ehrenfels's System of Value Theory, published in 1898, applies his theory to human psychology. He suggests an individual's entire conscious experience (the melody) is shaped by the value a person places on various objects and his or her environment (the notes). In 1913, German psychologist Max Wertheimer developed Ehrenfels's ideas, and founded the school of Gestalt. While Ehrenfels had believed the parts were just as significant as the whole, Wertheimer believed the whole--or Gestalt--was far more important than its constituent parts. An individual's entire experience, argued Wertheimer, colors his or her thoughts and actions.

Gestalt psychology, as it was developed further by Fritz Perls in the 1950s, takes into account the patient's social interactions and environment--with all of its unseen, irrational, and unknowable factors--to form a picture of the whole person. Gestalt psychology recognizes an individual's tendency to shape perception according to what he or she values; gestalt therapy encourages a patient to become conscious of the selective decisions he or she makes when assessing a situation, and to recognize what values motivate those decisions.

British naturalist and explorer Alfred Russel Wallace independently invented the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1858, nearly scooping Charles Darwin, who published first. Nevertheless, Wallace's research led him to another important discovery, one that geologists still enshrine on their maps: Wallace's Line.

While exploring the vast 2,500-mile Malay Archipelago, Wallace noticed what kinds of animals lived on each island as he traveled farther from the mainland peninsula. He found that he could draw a boundary down the narrow Macasser Straight, which runs a twisted course between the islands of Bali and Lombock, and between Borneo and the Celebes group. Wallace's Line--an ocean channel only 15 miles wide--separates tigers from marsupials and trogons from cockatoos. The animals on either side of it, he wrote in 1858, "differ as much as those of South America and Africa. Yet there is nothing on the map to mark their limits. I believe the western part to be a separated portion of continental Asia, the eastern the fragmentary prolongation of a former Pacific continent."

Wallace had no way to observe the sea floor directly, and in his day nothing was known of tectonic plates. On the basis of animal distribution alone he deduced that the eastern island groups must have been separated from the western for much longer than any individual islands were separated from each other.

A hundred years later, geologists and oceanographers found the reason and the proof: Wallace's Line traverses an area of intense crustal activity, where the northward-moving Australian plate interacts with the western-moving Pacific (Asian-derived) plate. In addition to bringing two different geographic clusters of animals and plants close together, the plates' enormous pressures on each other and on the Eurasian continent has given rise to the most concentrated volcanic activity on Earth.

After toiling as a minor official in China for years, Confucius was named Minister of Justice in his home province, Lu, at about the age of 50. The Chinese sage, who may be best known in the West as the inspiration for trite fortune-cookie sayings, brought crime under control in the region. But his honesty angered more corrupt colleagues, who eventually forced him from office. In what may be history's longest job search, Confucius and his followers wandered China for the next 13 years in search of a patron.

Confucius was born in the 6th century BC, toward the end of the Chou Dynasty. Traditional systems of control were collapsing, plunging China into one of its most violent eras, the Warring States Period. Confucius believed "moral authority" offered the key to a more ordered society, and he advocated for a set of traditional values that began with Jen, or respect for others. "Do not do to others what you don't want done to you," Confucius is quoted as saying in a passage that closely parallels the Christian Bible's Golden Rule.

Confucius saw education as the only way to build strong values, and believed those in power had the greatest responsibility to behave properly. That may be why officials are said to have chased Confucius out of courts all over China, often threatening his life.

Confucius never got another job, but he did get the last word on his rivals. Since the enlightened Han Dynasty, his teachings have served as basic training for Chinese officials. Compiled by followers in collections like The Analects, those teachings also became required reading for Chinese students. For two millennia, until Mao ended the practice in the 20th century, the first sentence taught to Chinese children has been Confucian: "Human beings are by nature good."