Firaq Gorakhpuri 
 
 
By Vijay Phanshikar :
 
    “Ye Manaa Zindagi Hai Chaar Din Ki
     Bahut Hote Hain Yaaron Chaar Din Bhi.” 
     (Agreed that life has only four days
      Even those four days are long enough, friends)
- Firaq Gorakhpuri 
 
 
 Prose  

THESE very famous, oft-quoted lines from the legendary Firaq Gorakhpuri draw applause every time they are uttered. In just fourteen words, the poet captures and presents the essence of living -- capturing everybody’s imagination, triggering everybody’s comprehension to a new level. Philosophers often speak of the immense possibilities and potentials life holds for everybody. Yet, in the everyday grind of life, what is missed is exactly that immensity of possibilities and potentials. For, habitually, we often forget that in his short life of only 32 years, Adi Shankaracharya showed what an inspired person can do.

 

We also forget that Swami Vivekananda also lived for less than 40 years. But the footprints both these seers have left behind for the humanity will never be forgotten. Much to the contrary, their story will always be told to coming generations -- no matter how short or long a life can be. But then, there also are countless people who live long and very meaningful lives. For them, each day brings a new challenge, a new dream to fulfill, a new obstacle to surmount, a new meaning to be gleaned from the hours that passed and the hours that are promising to come. Old upanishadic prayers seek a life of one hundred years -- Jeevet Sharadah Shatam ... The prayer then goes on to seek good health, good intelligence, good opportunity to see good things, to hear and speak good words, to befriend good people. There are fourteen such requests that talk of a meaningful life. True, the prayer does seek a life of a hundred years. But what is more important is the quality of the time one must spend between birth and death.

Wrote R.L. Stevenson famously (In ‘Mother and Son’) --
The child,
The seed,
The grain of corn,
The acorn on the hill.
Each
For some separate end
Is born.
In season fit, and still,
Each must, 
In strength, arise
To work
The Almighty Will. 
The stress is on living meaningfully, to fulfill the Diving purpose for which one is born. In other words, the main aim of living is to know what that Divine purpose may be 
-- and then work to The Almighty’s Will
When life if lived with such 
meaningfulness ...
... Bahut Hote Hain Yaaron Chaar Din Bhi!