Poets would know this well. Poetic impulses are utterly unpredictable. They rise when they choose to rise. There is no harbinger that ushers poetry. It just conjures up spontaneously.
An example of this happened this morning on my morning walk. I have to walk indoors these days because of the winter. I do so listening to Hindi movie songs on my mobile . This morning I was listening to a Mala Sinha special on Saregama Radio's "Weekend Classic with Ruchi." Incidentally, I have no compelling reason to mention either the name of the radio station or the show and its host. I do so because it is in good taste. And, of course, Ruchi sounds cute although I have chosen not to Google her images in order to sustain my imagination about what she may look like.
Speaking of the unpredictability of poetry, even while writing the last sentence about not searching for Ruchi's images, this line was immaculately born:
हुस्न तसव्वुर में रहे तो बेहतर
गर रूह-ब-रूह हो जाये तो मुश्किल
But I digressed. I was telling you about what happened while listening to the Mala Sinha special. One song that is almost mandatory in any show about Mala Sinha is the enduring masterpiece 'आप की नज़रों ने समझा ' ("Aap ki nazron ne samjha") from the 1962 film 'Anpadh' . It was written by Raja Mehdi Ali Khan, sung by Lata Mangeshkar and composed by Madan Mohan.
The third and final antara in the song begins with "पड़ गईं दिल पर मेरे,आप की परछाइयाँ ".
What I am about to tell you is exactly how it happened. I froze mid-step at परछाइयाँ and scribbled the following lines behind an official letter from the Department of Health Services, State of Illinois, as if they were fully formed. If it sounds magical, because it is. If the handwriting is not fully legible, that is because I scribbled the lines in a hurry lest they evanesced.
सिर्फ मैं ही था मौजूद
फिर इतनी परछाइयाँ क्यूँ थीं
सिर्फ मैं ही था अकेला
फिर इतनी तन्हाईयाँ क्यूँ थीं
--मयंक छाया
It is not my case at all that these lines are great poetry (actually, they are) but only an illustration of how a creative mind works.
I played a song likely composed in 1961, the year I was born in Ahmedabad. The song was composed by Madan Mohan in Bombay with the lyrics by Khan. That era was obviously much before the internet, mobile phone and instant musical gratification. I listened to it 61 years hence in Naperville on a wintry, foggy morning on my mobile phone while walking inside my apartment.
And then these lines were born. Brilliantly exhilarating.