My Guru

My Guru died


My Guru died,
Not in an ashram
nestled in Himalayas,
nor in the house
of a rich patron
He died on the street
next to the garbage dump
across the street from my house.
On the same spot
where he begged for years,
his leprosy finally eating
into his vital organs
He never spoke
except with his fierce eyes
that challenged me to look at him,
at his decaying face,
not with pity
nor with charity
not even with compassion
But with the knowing
that his rotting body was mine
and mine was his,
and all that separated us
was chance
A chance,
less significant
than a speck of dust
Shekhar

68 thoughts on “My Guru

  1. wonder why i’ve to write “i’m speachless” to express the silence …
    the last verses are so profound.
    Mr. Kapur, i hope u compile ur poems and short stories in a book.
    God Bless U

  2. …the dust that brought us to this circle
    where beggar and giver are not two but One
    searching beyond this land and the next
    only to return to this place
    where
    both are one and the same.
    Cinda

  3. I just stumbled accross your blog. You never told me your were a poet, and a good one too!

  4. I came here to be intimidated by sophisticated pieces of writing since the blog comes from you, a person is world reknowned for his work in the film industry.
    Instead I found writings and poems which laid no claims to being esoteric, and woven with simple words, which could have been written by anyone who was sensitive enough to see and feel through all his senses.
    Just seeing that is reassuring. It makes me realise that great pieces of work does not as a rule imply complexity in thought but probably channeled by the most simple and fundamental ideas. There is hope after all for raw simplicity 🙂

  5. a few in this world have a heart to recognize the ‘knowing’,however,r we all just equipped to leave this knowing to ‘chance’or pacify oneself with some future action of life?
    thank u for ‘knowing’ Mr.Kapur and may god give you the strength and oppurtunity to channelise this ‘knowing’ into wonderful movies/poems/various expressions of your creative urge.
    congratulations on creating such a wonderful site.

  6. ‘His Disciple’
    My Guru’s last gaze
    awakened me.
    Emblazened me.
    Am I so brazen
    as to search for the answer
    that my guru sought
    against the onslaught
    of his fate?
    But my guru was fierce
    and never gave up,
    just wanted to see –
    wanted me to see –
    that chance
    is a gambler’s
    mantra.
    But Love
    is the reconciliation
    of his death
    and my life.
    So I roll the dice
    and raise a toast to my guru,
    whose fierce gaze
    is my silent passion.
    Unrelenting
    I pursue The Maker of fate
    to make a picture of
    His work
    through my works.
    For it is in His eyes
    that I may see
    the answer that my guru sought:
    my own reflection.

  7. Awesome!
    Didnt knew that you had this side too!Came to know about your site from a newspaper and I’m glad now I’ll b a regular here.Shekhar Sir, can I get your autographed pic?? pls.

  8. i wanna just knw if mr. kapur is making buddha or not?!! Im an AD n was EXTREMELY keen on working on that film. You have my email Id. If anything works out pls get in touch wt me.
    Yours Sincerely,
    Urvashi Shah.

  9. hiiii…shekhar i m big fan of yours..i m very happy to find out this site .i enjoyed every film of urs immensely..plz plz plz make movies faster ..i egarly wait for ur new movie to watch..Also i m a writer and have some very unusual and entertaining stories..plz contact me if are runing out of good stories !

  10. I wish, I could have expressed this. We all experience this, but few like you could only acknowledge and beautifully express this truth.

  11. Hi Shekhar…A year back i read this poem n wondered tat hw cm amidst al distractions n beauty u saw the splendor of ugliness? Tat day u became a part of my never ending teacher’s list. U know i was a writer too someday. I still write bt the genre is different now. And I hv forgotten the art of writing tat i did once for myself. The one tat made me happy. My blog carries trial attempts more than success. Can u teach me hw to learn wat i hv unlearnt unfortunately?
    Btw….Every poem, every short story carries a message here. A message so simple tat v smtymes fail to understand. Coz human soul has lost its simplicity. Mayb the day i learn its simplicity once again i might b able to do wat i loved doing and wat i did best- tats writing for myself…Till then,,,shall keep reading your blog and learning from my new found teacher-

  12. * Shekhar ji , i’m not as good as you are, but i also think the same way, you do …!

    * My Guru, is an expression of interest, which should b of *interest* to MOST … !!

    * last but not d least, v hv everything in *21st-Century* but, not Guru … !!!

    regards,

    Chandra …….,

  13. To call this a poem does not fully depict the contents, nor the emotions and imagery. May we call it, in the absence of a better label, a word-film? This and its corollary included in the ‘Reply’ transcend in their content the four dimensions of space-time and embody variety of stimuli for all sense organs. This brings to fore the eternal conflict of ‘choice’ between material and spiritual with the balm of harmony.
    Thanks Shekharji for sharing this thru twitter for people like me.

  14. Touched..GURU IS IMMORTAL..Taken a departure from the world of MORTALS to bless ever..I script in honour..” Khuda Hun Khudayi mein Khuda se mil gaya hun ,Ye jahan chora to kya, dil -o-ankh mein bas gaya hun ” God bless us all.

  15. The Guru’s will die, and no body will even Cry,
    Because of this Urbanization and our big capital ‘I’
    we are loosing our culture,
    and every body wants to eat the urban & modernization Pie
    the learning has stopped and people are living a lie,
    cutting tree’s, rivers, and polluting even the sky,
    I can hear the dead guru cry,
    Where do i go there’s even no place divine in Sky

  16. Beautiful,True words of the heart.Left totally speechless.I am feeling gravity of the words inside.

  17. There is a light that shines beyond all things on earth, beyond us all, beyond the heavens. This is the light that shines in our hearts

  18. A child going in a bazaar (world) will see only toys.

    A youth, beautiful pictures of women and fine clothes to attract them.

    An adult/intellectual will see bookshops.

    A man approaching his old age, decaying bodies, which he knows will be the fate of his own body.

    Where is the question of choice or chance in it?

  19. A very very touching poem; one of the most brilliant poems I have read for a while…

  20. When my heart’s questions me asking what is the one thing you love about life my answer is ‘opportunities’.The chances that life offers..

  21. In a moment of time, when identities dissolve, and you are the dying guru, and he is the one watching you, that’s when we realise,how futile is ego, and existence.

  22. Sir,

    So BEAUTIFUL.. such an apt description of human dilemmas. Somehow we are forcibly ignorant while being cosmopolitans.. Salute!!

  23. Shekhar ji, was thinking of mine sometime ago and crying.

    He’s alive but I think of the thousand deaths I died in this lifetime…

    Thank you for sharing.Deep thoughts there.

    Love
    sheela

  24. So near to the mother earth’s womb so straightforth so near but unseen unfelt .thanks for showing the mirror

  25. Forgot to add:

    And from a little higher perspective it is not necessary that even a leprosy-stuck beggar is worse off than an apparent celebrity. Not as many beggars have committed suicides from unbearable load of living as celebrities. Why? Because more than physical torture is emotional torture,more than emotional torture is mental torture. And all are in line so far as one’s evolutionary scheme of things goes life-by-life.

  26. Guru gobind dou khade, laake laagu paye.
    balihari guru aapne. jin dehi gobind milaaye.

  27. Shekharji

    With tears in my eye,speechless …all that I can write is Bow my head to the soul that is our own which help us contemplate coming to this universe as a entity with a different form…Bless u Love

  28. Your writing always makes one to think what this life is all about,about the different roles of different individuals.How we are interconnected emotionally.And the person who is not directly related to you through various relationships also has some influence over you in one way or the another. It is the common consciousness of values for one another which binds us together.

  29. sometimes i felt the same way, you have described the non-ceasing event. the feeling that i could be him or what if he was me typing this comment about me. events and experiences are our guru.

  30. Before dying My GURU requested all his desciples to let him lay in the same place where he rested during the day. And thereby he was laid to rest while in Smadhi Dhyan.

  31. Not inspired.
    Just birth does not decide fate.
    Mr India stop looking at the Dark Side!
    It shows u r a sensitive person – but let ur passion seek out the “happy” not the “sad”
    …I have just exercised my choice to disagree with you!!

  32. It is not just poetry, it also has all the ingredients of drama, a film or even a novel but leaving the hyperbole aside it is the sensitivity as a human being that comes forth is touching. No wonder you are a film maker of some substance and you have not succumbed to the narrow box office temptation of a hundred crore club. More power to your pen ! Poetry and film making are not that far from each other. A good film is ahem and a good poem is a film.

  33. aam sa khoon hai, lal sa khoon hai
    neela nahin jo bahe to aasma zard pade
    raste ka kankar hai, thokar se hat jayega
    iske paas kya zamee ki rai ka pahad kare
    is ankde ka nahin us ankde ka hissa sahi
    kalam khareedne ki auqat nahin ki dastkhat bane
    hoga koi pichchle karmon ka bojh jo keeda nahin insaan bana diya
    Usne bhi socha chalo aam admi bana do joon kate

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