EVERYONE HAS A RIGHT...

It's a mood,Yeah,
So,light a two hundred watt bulb
within,
and allow the heart to jump into the middle
of a jubilation,
One has a right to be happy
and to make hearts happy.

It can be the aroma of fresh food,
An excursion into some hidden wonderland
or a familiar spot full of people,
Can be bear cans, and shouting obscenities
in unimaginable ecstasy of a few moments.

Everybody has a right to happiness,
and to spread happiness.

A silent prayer
can be sent
in the calmness of understanding,
The earth has been and will be,
with all its new years,
There are skies where the new sun would bring
only a monotony of wants and ignorance,
where defeated souls would be lurking unhappy
in search of hope.

They don't know that they have
a right to happiness.
May be nobody told them.

Everybody has a right to sunshine,
Trying to give a little,
Just a little,will scatter mirth.

When spread,
happiness
shines better,
on faces,
in lives.

Everybody has a right to happiness.
Everybody has a way to happiness,
One's happiness can not imitate another's,
Yet it's beautiful,
in all the eyes,
all the lips,
Whatever way it may come.

...........................................
A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF US

ANOTHER SANIA:THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE

Sanias of our nation are making heads turn through their sports skills and glamour. Today I went to meet a Sania who has nothing to do with glamour or fame. I went to meet her as a subject of field study for my Human Rights report writing assignment.
I had heard her story from from an NGO official and wanted to meet her in her circumstances so that I can make an idea of what has she gone through and what kind of a life she is living now.

Village Biritaila is quite a far away place from the nearest developed village Similia of Dhenkanal district. We had to travel through a dusty and bumpy terrain without any sign of habitation. The path zigzagged through uneven hilly areas which had no farmlands. The whole region was lightly covered with grass, bushes, shrubs and trees and was largely empty of habitation or people. We met stray people riding bicycles or a shepherd with its herd.

I couldn't really understand why a village grew so far away from locality or the closest available communicable road. When we reached there, the social worker with us called out Sania's name loudly and she immediately showed up at the door of her hut with her sick two and half year old son in lap. While complaining about her son's fever, she spread out a plastic mat on the verandah for us to sit. Her dry skin, drawn tightly on her face belied her 26 years. Clearly, she was a victim of poverty and insecurity, but there was an expression of helpless acceptance on her face.

I came to know from her that she had been married to a small businessman at the age of fourteen. The man had lied to her family before marriage that he was single.
After one year, when Sania had already given birth to his child, she came to know that the man was married and had children too. Such was her anger and rage that she left the man and came back to her mother even though their religion allowed polygamy. After sometime, she was again married to a distant relative from her mother's side and had twin daughters with him. In a bad twist to her fate, the second husband started demanding for dowry. Sania's parents offered him whatever they could but it was insufficient for him. Besides, he was very displeased that Sania had given birth to two daughters and no son. One day, he left Sania insecure and penniless and went away,never to return.

Fighting for survival and struggling to eke out a living, Sania fell into the trap of a trafficker. He was also a distance relative. He promised to take her to Punjab and find her a job there and also a better match. But after reaching there, she came to know that the relative was planning to sell her to a Punjabi man. She raised a cry and a Punjabi gentleman came to her rescue. She returned to Dhenkanal with the help of Punjab police. Here, she got shelter in a centre for rescue and rehabilitation of destitute women and lived there for three years with her three children and got vocational training too. After three years, she was returned to her parental home. Now, she lives there with her four children.It's a pretty bleak life for her without any hope of any improvement.

It's just before the dawn of a new year. Well-to-do people will welcome it in pubs and clubs along with dance, music and drinks. The middle class will do so with delicacies cooked for the occasions. But Sania's day will dawn with the the same worry of feeding four mouths and raising four children single-handed. Her eldest son, only eight years old, would be breaking rocks for daily wages instead of going to school and her two and half years old twin daughters would be roaming around here and there with their tonsured heads and torn clothes. Can't we do anything for all the Sanias and there children who really need our help and support to have a dignified existence?

Men Women Bonding:Time to Reflect

I once read an article in a national newspaper which shocked me beyond my wits. It was about a well-known television actress. Despite being an actress of national repute, she had to put up with the torture and oppression inflicted upon her by her brutish and insensitive husband. She had told in the interview that she had done everything possible, to save her marriage. Even when her husband was suspicious of her character, she gave up acting to convince him. But instead of getting better, the situation got worse. The husband stopped giving any money to even for her personal expenses or the day to day expenses of the household. For quite sometime, she put up with these excesses thinking that silence and submission will make things better. But it got worse by the day. As she was not working anymore, financial crisis hit her badly and the circumstances became humiliating. The husband even poisoned the mind of her son by telling him stories about her. Unable to put up with these cruelties any more, one day she got up, packed her bags and left the husband’s house. Now she has started working again and lives on her own. The husband has gone to the extent of not allowing her son to pay a visit to her. But she has no regrets. She has learnt her lesson. She is not going to unlearn it now.

Money is about power. Power corrupts and in the hand of unwise and unscrupulous people, it becomes a dangerous weapon as becomes an instrument of domination, subjugation and exploitation. This happens not only in conjugal relationships but in families between parents and children and in workplaces between the employees and the employers too. That’s why nowadays it is advisable for women to work and earn. Equations in relationships have always been largely imbalanced with the man playing a dominant role, but in today’s world, it’s touching the border of weirdness. Love or tender affection, and caring have become rare. It’s mostly a bond that is pushed or dragged forward or it’s one of convenience. Money, comfort, luxury, power etc define the equations and when it happens, relationships are bound to suffer. Women are consistent in love and are more sacrificing by nature and with them having financial independence; the relationships have a chance of surviving turbulence. If the softer and extra sensitive image of woman undergoes a change and men retain their egocentric character that is mostly inborn, broken families are going to be a familiar feature of Indian society in the future. Relationships are valuable and a good bonding between the male and counter parts is inevitable to the existence and evolution of the society. Both men and women should remember this very basic truth.

REVELATION IN THE MOONLIGHT

The pale moonlight trickled in,
through the glass,
The darkness looked mesmerizing,
There was not a soul except loneliness and she,
Not even fear, or the slightest quivering
In the heart, the universe and the cosmic soul
were at peace with one another.

The dark shadows of the coconut and neem
Silhouetted against the faint sky,
Belied a bond with the world and its beings,
They spoke of the visit that has been,
And is short,
And a homecoming that was due.

The darkness lit with the silvery beams lingered,
So did the surreal existence,
Together they pushed back the smaller lies
of life, and the earth,
And whispered in unheard voices
That nobody belonged here.

COSMIC HOURS

Now that the screen has erased
Most of its contents
That was written with love,
You often go back to the places
That stood by their aloneness,
The canal that impressed you like a river
With a picturesque bridge on it
On which you went by
In a bus and gazed at the water.
Or moved on its raised bank while
The wind almost lashed with its succulent whip,
And the distant ponds and corn fields
Looked at you dispassionately
Yet a kind of fond feeling choked
Your voice,
And you wanted to be there forever,
one with the cosmos.

May be some other places
Will tell you some day,
That you were never so beautiful
Never so free,
In your forlorn existence,
In your pain,
Or in the much sought after
ejection from the
clutches of time
You, who had been
a prisoner of Time,
and this living, so far.

DEATH AND THE ENIGMAS OF LIFE

A very special girl died this Nov, putting an end to her suffering of many months that was not letting her live, nor allowed her to die. She was suffering from a disease that had become incurable. At last, she decided to put an end to her suffering.The saddest part is that she refused treatment and chose to suffer silently, alone.She was brave nevertheless, but her heart gave in at last.

So many young people die every year.She was also one of them.What was special about her?She was a representative of all that is pure,innocent,good and worth respecting in human beings. She was born with a physical deformity-part of her palm was absent in her since her birth.She was a bit sensitive about it and tried to do everything normally in order to prove to the world that she was not to be pitied. She hated being pitied. Once when some one told her something about her deformed hand, she was so hurt that that very moment she left her job and everything in Bangalore and just got into a train without knowing where she was going.

She did things beautifully. In her presence, the house remained neat and clean. She had good taste. Seeing her moving around on a cycle was a joy.She was thin like a stick, but her soul contained a sea of love for all the people she knew.When she completed her MBA, parents suggested her to produce a certificate meant for the physically handicapped and get a good job in Orissa.But she refused to do so and got her first job competing in the job market.

We all know that we all will die one day.But when young people of worth die, the society loses a member with some possibility. And when good people die, the earth is short of the positive forces they carried with them.Death often comes untimely and snatches away good souls who enriched our life and the society. We think, may be we could have done something to save their lives. We repeat the cliche' may be God loved them and wanted their company, but the loss is never made up for.We grieve the loss and ask the question- why good people only? But there is no answer to it. Life and death are enigmas nobody has ever been able to solve. Untimely deaths of good people teach us things that we should be careful and try all the possibilities of saving a life, avoiding dangerous living and remain good so that when we go people
would remember us for our goodness.That's a hard task though.

MARKS...MARKS...MARKS...

It’s a familiar sight in English medium public schools to see the parents running from here to there and from this teacher to that teacher, with complaints about the marks of there ward whenever they are shown the test or the examination papers.Sometimes they complain that the teacher would have been more lenient, sometimes they grieve that the questions were hard. At times they even complain about the question pattern being wrong or the marking patter being erratic. Nowadays we almost don’t see a parent grieving about his or her child not putting in more efforts or not being very studious though there are exceptions.The teachers are invariably at the receiving end for one fault of theirs or another.

Earlier, the teachers had great expectations from students and the students and the parents together tried their level best to live up to those expectations. Imperfections were accepted with self remorse and more efforts were put in, to fill in the gaps. Nowadays, neither the children nor the parents bother too much about how much knowledge is being assimilated. All that they worry about is marks. Marks obtained by unfair means are also accepted without scruples. If we analyze the reason behind it, it’s a very simple psychological truth underlying such fanaticism regarding marks. The world loves achievers and the losers are not forgiven. Nobody notices a non-achiever. Parents love to tell to the world that their children are achievers. It is sad to see that old idealism are losing their value. Maxims like a tree loaded with fruit always bending downward which meant that a knowledgeable person is always humble, unassuming and quiet about his achievement does not hold value in the modern world. Here one has to be successful by any means and people don’t take notice of you unless you blow your own trumpet or shout from the roof top. Even the card of smallest value has to be flaunted ostentatiously.
Goodness and idealism are passe. Tact and saleability are the law of life today and children are the worst victims of high expectations.

Children are like wet clay. The responsibility of carving out an angel or a devil rests primarily on the parents and then, the teachers. If good values are put into them and they are taught to differentiate between good and bad and the transient and the permanent, they would learn to exercise their judgment and assess a situation according to its true merit and not merely for selfish interests. If they are taught things which will last them a life time, they would grow into good and responsible human beings and sincere members of the society. That can only happen, if the elders themselves are evolved human beings. All of us know that life has been turned into a fast-paced rat race and all are struggling to carve out their own place. The means we assume to reach our ends are important. If the means are wrong, the success achieved may be very short-lived, but if we keep our means clean, we may not have to regret later.

The truly educated parents should keep in mind that success may not be an all-time companion, but knowledge is. It never shuns us. Hence, instead of running after marks or regarding them as the hallmarks of success, efforts should be made to raise successful and good human beings who can grant us relief from the spiral of unethical expectations and help us to have faith in our basic goodness.

DIWAALI IN SHYAMACHARANPUR

When the first batch of earthen lamps and candles
Got into their places on walls, terraces
And window panes,
Aunty came with her
Eight-month old grandson clinging to her body,
her white hair unkempt and flying.
The little boy looked around with his round black eyes,
His familiarity with stranger speaking of
His acceptance of a truth,
That mom was not going to be around very soon,
May be for two, three years,
She had a job,
and no time to look after a baby.

Candles or lamps could not remove
The darkness that overhung so many trees
And hills,
But they brought light anyway,
They lit up the hearts of the people
Who remained cooped up
In their matchbox houses after dark
And often forgot the world of the living,
Voices and laughter emerged from the caves
For chosen moments
And accepted life,
The candles and earthen lamps burned,
Shone in the darkness like little beacons,
And died away,
Their death was not lamented,
Nor any effort was made for resurrection,
Coops were reoccupied.
The ritual had been done.
The day’s promise was kept.

Holistic Approach to Education

We all sat listening to the deliberations of a seminar-cum-workshop, we teachers. The resource person was talking on Quality Control Management in schools. He discussed point-wise on goodness, confidence building through encouragement, the importance of reading and aggressive innovation etc. According to him, goodness comprises three things:

1.Purity of mind, heart and spirit
2.Being value based
3.Remaining healthy and fit

Besides this, his eight fold path resembling The Buddha’s, included exalted ideas like giving the children a dream, making each child believe that he or she was outstanding, promoting holistic development, reading a lot of books, assessing ourselves etc which are definitely practical and fairly rational instruments of holistic teaching and quality improvement. At the end of the talk a questionnaire was asked to be filled which most of the teachers would find themselves insufficient to complete because they were mostly queries on subjective self-assessment and a partially evolved consciousness would shrink away from such questions. A few questions were asked which were not of very serious nature, yet thought provoking. But some fundamental questions bothered my mind.
In the beginning of his talk the speaker went back to the past and narrated the experiences of his school days; how once he left his box of marbles behind at the bus stop and when he realized it after the bus has covered a certain distance, he didn’t think twice before getting down and walking back to his bus stop, picking up the marbles and walking all the distance to school again. Going back home and seeking the help of the parents to be taken to school never occurred to him. He had reached school on the third period that day, but that was the most natural thing for him to do. He regretted that today’s children are growing up in a way that is quite discouraging. They shy away from physical labour, and are being made useless by relentless pampering of the parents.

Value-based and quality teaching is highly desirable and our children should be given a dream. But the question is how to make these children dream? Teachers are supposed to be good mentors, the light bearers. But the forces working in the educational sector are so contradictory that sometimes they struggle to see a ray of light. It is a period of transition which has no end. But we will have to continue with the striving, efforts and initiatives. The ultimate truth is that experience is the best teacher. Our children may waver, stumble, falter and fall, but they will also learn to get up and move forward. That is how the entire human history has been formed.

"Dan"

DO NOT KILL THE ROMANTICS

There are times when life seems so eventless that we find ourselves looking into the distance and into the bleakness of life and thinking ‘What’s ahead?’ We don’t always get an answer. Instead, a big void, a path that seems pretty lonely stares us in the face. We feel there is nothing going to happen to our lives ever. Absolutely nothing interesting! But we also often see that from that monotony and lonely existence something sublime is born. We may not explain it in terms of worldly gains. But it builds us and makes us what we become hereafter.
Today’s world is found running after the gross. It has no time to sit and reflect on things that can change his life on a smaller level and the world as a greater level. How many are there who feel happy when there is a sudden shower, or how many get elated to catch the mist on their skin? How many feel good when sounds of nature such as the voice of a bird fall on their ear?
Today’s word has most of its people who instinctively live for themselves. There is no harm in it too. But we don’t see die hard romantics any more who impulsively do acts of courage, chivalry, kindness or goodness. How many like to read nowadays? How many forget themselves when they look at the sky when nature is at one of its different moods? Do we get time to look around us even? Most of the time we are busy with our own problems and the rest of it is spent before a television, a computer or in shopping malls. We have forgotten that this earth is a unique gift from creator and each and every element in it is a wonder in itself. We have taken things for granted and we are not going to be forgiven for it. That’s another thing. We are killing the romantics in ourselves. J. Krisnamurthy had once told in one of his discourses that one cannot enjoy a full moon night unless the mind is free from worries. Life has become complicated. Human race is losing its innocence. Science is providing us comfort and turning us into emotionless, mechanical beings. Unless we simplify it, unless we make a really serious effort to bring back romanticism into our lives, nobody knows where this upward cum downward journey will take us.

THE UNSPOKEN TRAGEDY OF GIRLS IN UNDERPRIVILEGED RURAL INDIA

A thirteen year old girl who had gone to collect water from a well as she does everyday was forcibly dragged away one day by a man who was in the prowl for easy victims. Naturally, she was physically weak and too naive to counter such a sudden attack on her person. She was kept in confinement by the man for many days and was continuously raped and tortured.

Finally when the man didn’t need her anymore, he discarded her like a piece of unwanted clothing. But that was not the end of her misery.Worse things were
waiting for her at home.Her parents, including her mother, refused to keep the
girl with them telling that they couldn’t keep a spoilt girl at home as it is a dishonour to the family.

The police become the temporary custodians of the girl and the child welfare department was contacted. Finally the girl was handed over to an NGO and was made to stay in its home for the destitute.

If we come to think of the incident from different perspectives, so many things come to view

-That the awareness level among rural Indians, and the level of education, is very low. That is why, instead of understanding the trauma and the suffering of the physically abused girl, they dismissed her as a spoiled girl who was not fit to be their daughter anymore. It’s abysmal to see that people in rural areas still represent the feudal class with its own jungle rules sans any humane considerations. The social myopia is so blinding that it completely subjugates natural emotions like parental love. May be in an uneducated and underprivileged rural society, that has not benefited from freedom, democracy or education - the wrong kind of social pressure is still prevalent.

-That the life of an unsuspecting girl, who had a secure existence in her environment hitherto, can be blighted without any fault of hers. She has no hope for even a ordinary normal life. Her chances of getting married also are lean because of the desertion by her family and the social stigma attached to a victim of sexual abuse. Belonging to the lowest rung of the financial ladder, earlier she was deprived of education and a normal childhood. Now she has very little hope for an average life with scope for any kind of growth. May be she will face worse situations and would be further victimized as she has no real protector in the society she lives in and the legal system which is supposed to provide safety and justice often turns impotent in such cases.

EDUCATION AND CUSTOMER SERVICE

Times have changed. Times are changing, yet some us still continue to live in the old times as far as values are concerned. So, when you hear that parents are the CUSTOMERS and the schools are the service providers and they must ensure customer satisfaction, it is difficult to digest, leave alone assimilating it.

Coming to customer satisfaction, it can have connotations. If it means providing good teaching, ensuring just and fair behaviour to children, and facilitating an atmosphere that leaves no room for complaints, then it is contributory to the process of producing good citizens. But there is a chance that in the effort to satisfy the parent-customers, principles and values will be thrown to the wind and mindless compromises will be made in the form of individual favours and unfairness undermining the age-old principles of teaching and learning and we will be raising small monsters instead of responsible citizens with human values. Children are far more communicative with parents today and they come to know of everything happening around them. The fear is that they will start taking deviation as something normal and will grow up to propagate such irresponsible behaviour.

When expansion and growth become the prime motive and there is cut throat competition in the educational sphere, compromises are often made. In today’s world, survival has become the prime issue and even learned and intelligent people close their eyes to the violation of a moral code which is instrumental in contributing to a corrupt society. Something good cannot be born of a compromise.

It’s a changing world and we cannot expect our children to be pupils of ancient times who worshiped their teachers and sacrificed important things for the sake of principles. The equation between a teacher and a student is also undergoing transformation. A teacher is no more an awe-inspiring Godhead for the students. The reason is pretty simple to understand. Earlier, the teacher not only imparted knowledge, he or she also moulded the character of the children. The parents thought it improper to interfere in the functioning of a teacher and put their trust in him or her. In today’s world they are merely service providers. The parents, most of them, understand knowledge in numbers and percentage. Their attitude often affects the student-teacher –parent relationship in a negative way and it affects the equation between the administration and the staff of an educational institution too. A teacher is torn between raising the level of understanding and application in the students and sometimes has to evaluate them according to the expectation of the parents. As punishment is banned there is little fear in the mind of the children and it often leads to in-disciplinary attitude and improper behaviour.

The question is, instead of being drawn into the sea of commercialism, can’t educational institutions create their own standard by motivating and forcing the parents to understand the real meaning of teaching and learning? Instead of giving in, cannot they stand for something? Do we real want turn this world into such a place where we will be uncomfortable to live in, because our instinctive nature is divine. If the demands of the external world weigh heavy, cannot we keep our steadfastness in keeping it a bit sensitive, a bit moral and a bit conscientious?

DEATH OF RADHA

He told;
Now that my greater responsibilities beckon me,
I must go, Radha,
Away from you and from my life hitherto,
Because I have to look after others too,
There is a world beyond this world of the banks of Yamuna
And there is a love greater than ours,
Radha listened quietly,
Yamuna entered her that day,
that moment,
And never ceased to flow,
It drained her of any joy she had ever known,
And any love she had ever received on her soul,
on her body,
The grief ate into her being
And she searched solace
in the groves, by the riverside,
in the places of her escapades,
in the bowers that were witness to her ecstasies of love,
stared into the night sky with tearful questions,
which answered back with silence,
Days kept changing into nights
And nights changed into moments of lingering, impending death,
She bore it upon her soul,
Her love,
Like gold, and sought relief in no one but her aloneness,
And carried the terrible disquiet
Through the monotonous milkmaid’s existence,
And the sufferance that her being had enveloped itself in,
Lived without a life,
Loved without a lover,
Burned her soul in ever-smouldering fire
That waited for the elusive,
Joy and pain became one inside her one day
and she became Goddess.

Nobody knows when Radha died or if she did,
Krisna went and fought,
Visible and invisible battles
destiny had woven in his name,
Played games that never needed to be played,
Wrote many stories for posterity,
And died,
he did.
He died much later,
Radha had died the day he left her alone,
By the side of a river
Below the Kadamba tree,
She had died
the moment her eyes had turned vacant,
And her heart had dried up in her breast.

THE LONER

If love had become the path,
Many paths would have sprouted,
To many loves,
And flowers would have paved them,
Hedges of hitherto un-existing plants would have come up,
Sprinkled with the water of
love.

The path uphill still waits,
Bearing the Gulmohar trees
ablaze with blossoms,
They see, but don’t wait for
the strangers who walk by them.
They wait for someone
Whom,
The sky, the air, the pebbles,
Even the grasshoppers know.

One who sits and stares absentmindedly into the horizon,
And the world inhabited yet unknown
So near yet so alien,
One, who sits with heartful of emptiness
With nobody to share
Yet the one
Like whom nobody holds the universe
To his being,
One who loves the mango orchard beyond the railway tracks
And its unknown grounds
same way as the unfamiliar faces in a crowd.

As the dusk touches
the skin and the breeze tell it’s time
To go back to
The world of duality,
The legs pull themselves up
And the lip stretches into a smile,
A sigh of unknown truths escapes the being
And freedom readies
To enter into the joy of
Living, amidst
Revelations,
Of accepted bondages,
And of immense realizations

PLANNING TO RE-READ? THINK TWICE.

Recently I happened to read Sanjay Shipahimalani's blog The Joys and Perils of Re-reading and to my awful perception I had also had similar experiences while re-reading a book and had found out that it could be a very demystifying or disappointing experience. But it is not that it happens the same way with all the books. Rather it is worth finding out why it happens with some books and why it is the same wonderful feeling with some other books. For reference; the first time I read the famous Oriya litterateur Prativa Roy's very well known JAGYANSENI (On the life of Draupadi, the lone wife of the five Pandavas from THE MAHABHARAT), I was held mesmerized and enthralled by the understanding and sensitive imagination with which the author had portrayed Droupadi's character. I thought it to be a path-breaking and wonderful creative peace. But, to my dismay, when I read it a second time, five years later, I couldn't go beyond six pages. The writing seemed to be labourious, dragging and full of unnecessary and exaggerated emotional outbursts. But take the example of Arun Joshi's THE FOREIGNER and some of the likes. At least lovers of literature like me can go on reading and re=reading it without the book losing any of its magnetism and romantic charisma.

Sometimes I ponder over the probable reasons to this variant experiences. Most probably some of the books answer or pose some of the eternal queries or touch upon the universal aspects of human existence. So, they invariably speak truths only. And truths cannot tire you because they are what they are, forever. They answer some callings beyond our mundane existence and touch us very deep inside where we rarely reach as worldly being lost in the mad race of life. Those books remain beautiful forever and draw us towards them now and then, and the experience is always like meeting a beloved with love and tender excitement.

TODAY"S CHILDREN: HANDLE WITH CARE

When we were young children, this question incessantly bothered me. Does power and authority essentially give the power to control the life of others. The question started in the family. When we raised any issue or questioned the pertinence of a decision or were deliberately kept away from decision making, were made to feel small and unimportant, this question was invariably born in the mind, 'what gives the right to even do wrong?'Do parents get an upper hand in dealing with children just because they are the bread earners? I don't know if such questions were ever born in the minds of children, but they always came floating into my mind. And the answers was a 'NO'. The source of power and authority should be lying in the judiciousness, fairness and righteousness of people faced with issues irrespective of whoever is the bearer of such virtues. Sometimes it is seen that children surprise us with their sense of justice and fairness and the extraordinary frankness and honesty with which they view a situation. We shouldn't ignore them just because they are children or they are yet dependent, hence , automatically dispossessed of the right to meddle in the affair of elders.

This question again came to mind when I heard a young daughter complaining to her ever-nagging mother as to whether she had no right to speak her mind just because she was younger. Do the elders possess the right to even do and speak wrong things because they are older? Are the young ever to be played down just because they are dependent?

There was a time when submissiveness before parents was considered a virtue. But didn't it amount to perpetuation of wrong at times if the parents were arbitrary, tyrannic or autocratic in their action? Nowadays, equations have changed in parent-children relationship. Children don't hesitate to raise their voice against parental excesses. Speaking the other way, parents consider themselves a harassed lot too.But isn't it a new world of their own making in the way that they fulfill each and every demand of the child.

Handling children has become an extremely delicate affair for children nowadays. Parents are to act more as friends, philosophers and guides rather than exercising control. They are more to lead by example rather than preaching and sermonizing. Punishments cannot be eliminated altogether, but the nature has to be changed from direct and harsh to subtle and emotional. The questions in the young minds are too well pronounced today, so answering them has become too important. And answering them honestly is the only way to earn their love and respect.

TOO MANY QUESTIONS

Gender discrimination makes women a pretty vulnerable species and it’s always comes natural to be concerned with women issues.

In one day, I encountered two women, directly and indirectly. I have no intention of passing judgment on them. I just met them and found them to be beautiful and strong in their own way, weak too, and subject to the duality of this world too.

One I found sleeping on a seat of a local passenger train.I will speak about her today.She was sleeping there completely in disregard to the world around her and without any female consciousness. She had her back to the rest of the people and it was difficult to guess her age that way. Only her hard and soiled feet told in a way that she was either elderly or had had a very hard life. It also told that she was alone and without any expectation of kindness of charity from the masculine world. That she was not delicate or had any illusion of good mannerism of middle class or upper middle class women who would, not even in their wildest imagination, could think of sleeping in broad day light, in a passenger train with the risk of many men and women observing her with disdain.

People wondered what woman was this, but not for long , and started discussing politics and how fickle and evanescent people's opinion was.One of the passengers was trying to explain why the opinion of the majority was a big factor in determining the eligibility of a particular leader when the girl got up from her slumber. She stretched herself to shake off the inertia and sat upright gathering her knees together as one would sit up on bed and jumped into the discussion uninvited.
-Can anyone present here tell me what economic development means?
She asked, looking at the young men who were discussing politics.Nobody had a reply.
Because chat room gossip usually has never any substance or seriousness in it. She unfolded her legs and sat up, upright, and started to explain at length what economic development meant in reality and how the present government was fooling people in the name of Industrial development. Her knowledge of facts and figures put the boys into inconvenience and they kept siting through the exposition sheepishly. I had gathered by then, using my little experience that she must be working for some NGO. On being asked she promptly replied that she was part of a socio-religious group and no NGO. Presently she was going to a religious function. She added proudly that she has also been awarded for her contributions and efforts. Only this line sounded harsh to my years because I don't quite digest bragging and boasting, especially by people who appear to be doing something good. Nobody knows, she might have been brainwashed by some individual or group to do the kind of work she was engaged in, it might too have been her own calling.But she was different in her courage, her crude intellect and the way she stood by the philosophy she believed in. She was a beautiful girl,turn hard owing to the way of life she followed. She could have chosen to marry, have the safety, security and the comfort of a home life, without having to work outside too, but she didn't choose that. And, she had no pretenses at all. She told what she thought to be true. She was able to give us complexes us and I really envied her.

DEATH AND GOOD MEN

I am not speaking of him because he was my uncle, but because he was what he was in his own capacity and because of his exceptional moral uprightness, courage and extraordinary sense of humour. You can’t help falling in love with his persona, such a charismatic man was he. He started in the army as a major and reached the rank of colonel. His loyalty and love for his profession was unquestionable. But somewhere down the line, he must have felt the subtle force of politics affecting his morale and he was not a man to compromise with his principles. He must have stood by his love for his country and the organization that ensured the safety of the people of his country to a breaking point, then the crusader would have thought of quitting. Also, his old mother was eternally sick and he would have thought of standing by the family and serve the nation and his own conscience some other way. After opting for voluntary retirement from the army, he sought employment in many renowned private and government institutions. But being a man of strong principles, he couldn’t work very long in any of these because of the sloppy and compromising attitude of all these organizations. Last he was working in Odisha Govt’s disaster management cell; when he died in a mishap.I think he would not have got much pain while he died as it was a very sudden death.
He was a man, around whom no one can remain gloomy or sad. His hearty resounding laughter was enough to disperse darkness and spread light. Whatever dissatisfaction or personal grievance he may be having, he kept it hidden in the deep recesses of his heart. Anybody who saw him saw a man who was a hard taskmaster and a very cheerful man who made people laugh. In his late fifties, he was fit as a fiddle. He walked morning and evening, and did power Yoga to keep his body in excellent working condition forever. The feudal and traditional man that he was, because of growing in the land of his ancestors, he never revealed it before others.
He used to tell that he would do something of his own, after his only son gets admitted into a professional course, something that will give him a feeling that he has given back to his people, his society, and the society he grew up in. He had plans and dreams. But he died suddenly. A man who was really capable of doing something for the society went out of existence.
The afternoon was oppressive, and my thoughts drifted towards this uncle of mine who had a dream. How unpredictable and unreliable is this life of ours. It seems all the more so, when it takes away somebody who is not ready yet, whose dreams have not become realities yet.

LOVE FOREVER

The flowers were taken back
suddenly,
The stunned eyes gazed upon
the path, that took the receding steps
to a distant nowhere,
Fleeting truths
were hurled like rocks,
hit hard,
and it bled everywhere
for long.
The exhausted self coiled itself
into its cocoon
and mourned the death of
tender moments.

At the end of everything,
Love still stood
at the threshold of eternity
surrounded by the corpses of old dreams,
waving and smiling,
Its innocent eyes
bearing the marks
of the untold and
the unexpressed.

THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF BEING ALONE

I started living alone only a few months ago I as I took up a job in another city.Before that, I had a rather flimsy idea in my mind about living alone. That
it was running away from something very disturbing,an act of courage, also a kind of self-imposed punishment for living a very sheltered life with my parents or a determination to move out of my comfort zone and see, if I am able to survive and grow.

I found out that in a city that is alien to you and where you don't know many people, living alone can be oppressive. Humans are social beings and living in seclusion can give a suffocating feeling. When you go out you feel one with everyone you meet if you have developed a spiritual attitude of thinking of everybody as humans and different.

Sometimes you start thinking that it's true that loneliness kills people. Sometimes you enjoy people telling that it's great to live without strings. Nobody would be pulling you back anytime you want to do something. You know in your heart that nothing between these two is absolutely true. Yet, the summer afternoons with their eerie silence and warm wind make life so solitary and forlorn. But I will tell you a truth, it's very very normal to feel so. Even people who have got everything of their heart's desire also feel this way.

The truth is that all of us are lonely inside. A part of us remains alone. If we are fortunate enough, we get people who understand this loneliness and be balm and also respect it at the same time.

At times I have felt it strongly that if you need to do something productive or creative like writing or doing research,loneliness can be a gift.The quiet moments that you would have found oppressive become a spur to reflect on things and induce creativity. You start getting insight into things which, otherwise would never have entered your head. You start using loneliness to rise above the commonplace and the ordinary and bringing out whatever gift God has sent you with and sharing it .If you are being pulled apart by a thousand obligations and numerous people, you cannot do too much, may be. That's why loneliness has remained a blessing for gifted people or people with some talent.

Excess of nothing is good. And finding a middle path has been the greatest ordeal of the human race. Many a great men have learnt to live with loneliness and have been able to turn it into aloneness. Many others have learnt to remain lonely in the crowd. Many others have learnt to balance between the two. The mystery lies in recognizing yourself who you are and how are you destined to act.

Love

ON BEHALF OF CHILDREN, TEACHERS AND EDUCATION

Children are just children. You cannot judge them. They will remain restless, tantalizing, noisy, fickle, restless, blabbering things. And they can be cute! You would keep falling in love with their innocence now and then. Sometimes they would so heartbreakingly loving that you would not know what to do. Especially small children. Nothing escapes their notice, may it be your clothes, your speech, your way of reprimanding them, your love and care, your excesses if any etc, etc.
-Ma’m, you have got so many pimples!
-Why don’t you tell me to write on the board anymore?
-my father is a great editor!
-You look beautiful today.
It’s their world where interaction and responses are spontaneous, natural and uninhibited. That doesn’t mean that no sins are committed at all. They have their own quota of meanness and wrongs. You do find bullies, big- sisters and big-brothers among them who often make rules for the rest of the children.
It’s the world of children.
Handling very young students who are less interested in studies and are usually very restless and naughty can be exhausting and difficult, especially with children whose manners and sense of discipline is not a product of healthy home environment. In a crowded classroom, it can be hard to handle them and teach at the same time. Sometimes queer and unpleasant things happen because of miscommunication. Take this- A boy was not listening or writing in the classroom. The only thing he was doing was getting up from his sit and distracting and disturbing other children. The exasperated teacher threatened to punish him with a certain number of ups and downs if he didn’t relent. Three lovely and brilliant girls were sitting on the front bench. It usually happens that the bright and the well-mannered often hang together. The loudest among them, the monitor, toed the speech of the teacher-
-Ma’m, if he still does not behave , you will make him do up and down, a hundred times.
The teacher dismissed it as a casual remark and nodded smilingly. And to her horror and dismay, it turned out to be an issue later when she was summoned to the Principal’s office. Moments later, she was being asked why she had punished a small child with a hundred times of ups and downs. She was ill at ease because she had done nothing to earn the reprimanding. She was informed that the class monitor had executed the punishment according to her instructions. She had to explain that she had not done anything like that and it could have been a miscommunication on the part of the child monitor, and she had to pacify the angered father of the punished child who genuinely felt aggrieved. Then she recalled the casual remark of the monitor and was shocked at the profoundness of the situation.
The situation in school is growing becoming complicated, especially in private English medium schools. Schools are mushrooming and survival and growth is an issue. Parents are important and are not to be displeased. The notion of good teaching has already been revised as securing good marks. Other things like gaining real knowledge and growing into balanced personalities is not the important goal anymore. The Principals are under pressure. They have to ensure the growth of the school and a consistent money inflow too so that the institutions grow and strengthen. The teachers are under pressure to act, not necessarily to the tenets of ethics and morality which may mean remaining sincere to certain principles that facilitate real education, but to please and to compromise. The immediate goals have become growth in terms of money, marks and advertisement.
Nobody can deny that commercial viability is very important in a time of tough competition among institution to draw in the maximum number of students. But shouldn’t we start thinking in terms of acquiring knowledge along with marks and turning our children into great human beings and future citizens with not only a balanced approach to life but also being instrumental in opening up new vistas and avenues for numerous aspects of life and being courageous enough to transform their knowledge and perception into reality in full view of the world. Doesn’t their evolution as classified zombies in specified sectors or money-making machines hurt our sensibility? Our children can be all these and much more. So, let’s start thinking beyond our limited spheres and make the wishful dreams of our great forefathers, a reality.

ABOUT BEING YOURSELF,BEING DIFFERENT AND BEING ONE SOUL

I got to know from Sangeetaji that she has given birth to a daughter.It's nothing special.Thousands of couples give birth to children throughout the world every moment.But Sangeetaji and Hemantji are not among those couples who just live a life like everybody else. They have a mission. The time they chose to have a baby succeeds their tryst with service, service for the underprivileged children.

They believed in the strength of togetherness and community – they wanted to make a difference in gentle and practical ways. One of them was by building an organic, sustainable, environmentally-friendly farmhouse called 'HideOut' in Jhadpoli village. After interacting with their tribal and villager neighbours over the last 20 years, this couple had been wanting to give back in as many ways as possible, to these simple folk. This was the germ of the idea behind the Bicycle Project.[Information collected from net]

And another thing came to my mind while reading about them and watching their wonderful togetherness on sites that serving others has no definition and you don't have to starve yourself or deprive yourself of things that make human brings happy.
Service can come in any form. And in case of this cosmopolitan couple, it has come in the form of the bicycle project.

I congratulate them on the birth of their first child and may be the only child-Ayaana.Hopefully, the girl would grow up with the ideals of her parents and would carry their intelligence, beauty-inner and outer, and their philanthropic spirit, which are special or common to both of them.

SAHGEETAJI GOT A GIFT OF A DAUGHTER

Beloved Sangeetaji got a daughter delivered.
It's wonderful.I will tell you about these things tomorrow.
Now, too sleepy.

IN ZERO STATE:WITH AND WITHOUT YOU

From the dawn,
When the birds fill the stretch of the upper world
With their chirruping,
Till the exhausted eyes overcast with sleep, drop dead
on their own,
You overhang the zenith
And become the sunlight,
Or become the dull afternoon tinged with sadness.

When the horizon is putting on her vermilion dot,
And the whole western sky is breaking into a pale blushing,
A mystique query forms in the back of the mind,
And the heart aches with a soft thumping,
The evenings and nights’ errands pick up themselves
And end, on your imaginary trail.

The body,
Finds its loneliness under the sheet of darkness,
And touches the skin,
The absence and the emptiness trickle down
with your hands of shimmering desire,
and your condensed, sheltering ,love.

In the dead quiet of the night,
And turn into beautiful springs
Flowing zigzag, and softly wild,
Under the eyes, and the abysses of the ephemeral self,
And a throbbing reaches the soul
Turning itself into a never dying yearn
That keeps returning.

One more day dies.
With you.
Without you.

SMALL STEPS DO HELP

Running to work in the morning is a daily ritual.Shaking off the inertia in the morning comes hard and taking it slow is a habit with some people like me, and it makes it mandatory to run afterwards. I always end up with my legs aching badly for a good few minutes. I used to think of solutions and thought that walking with big strides will not cause pain. You know, we people keep experimenting with things. I used to do it for a while, smug in the belief that it's working, may be that's the result I should get, and am getting. But today, for change I started walking with short and quicker steps and lo! It was just so comforting. The feet didn't hurt at all today. And I had made a discovery. May be not really. The physicians world over know it.
But for my own little personal self, it was a discovery.

It can have a bigger meaning also, about walking with smaller steps.

WALK WITH SMALL STEPS.
It might be helpful.Beginning humbly, moving slowly and gradually moving towards bigger things helps. Think so.

This much for today.
I will write soon if I get anything meaningful. Right now, I am trying to shake off fatigue.

A REFLECTION

Sometimes no medicine works. Yet life goes on.
People are like flowers, or pebbles, they have variety.
Some may not help enrich your internal world, but they do spice up your moments.
Ripples on the surface of water.
If we need calm seriousness for greater things, we need ripples also, to keep alive.
We all have ripples in us, more or less.
We all have hidden springs within us, small or big.

These are times that promise nothing.
Life is just a river with sand on two sides, no views.
Yet, the river flows.

And the river does carry love.

Amidst all these, even when there is someone eternally crying, choking and struggling within you, you have to go on.

So, let's go on.
Everything is beautiful despite everything.
Let's tell ourselves this, and go on.

love

SOMETHING'S SO FUNNY ABOUT LIFE

A very familiar yet interesting thing came to my mind when I was just going about doing daily chores. It suddenly came i thought it to be so funny.Human life is really funny if you look at it.When you don't have food, your whole attention is centred on filling your stomach somehow.After that is done and becomes a familiar thing, the next thing man wants is shelter, own or rented. After that comes a regular source oft sustenance, a job, business or whatever. Then comes sex,accompanied with the emotional and psychological need for a companion.Some people with a higher level of consciousness, understand this need at a greater level and look for an intellectual and/or spiritual communion along with all these. Along with all these come into being baser needs like getting known and appreciated by all and the sundry, rising the social ladder etc. It is for some people. Some go beyond this and create different marks, happy with themselves and their own individual thoughts. But I was thinking how our needs grow from one to another, then to another. If we abduct a very rich and famous man from his surroundings and put him in an uninhibited island, he will rediscover his needs just like this. First he will go mad after food and shelter, then for human company, then other hungers etc.

It's only a thought.

Winter is a bygone thing now.
Today a lovely wind started blowing and made realise how lonely life is.
A rain will come afterwards and Nature will turn beautiful still.
There is a question raising it's head, about life and living.
About choosing between the highest, the most beautiful and a compromise.
The question is universal.
We do make a choice between the sublime and the ugly.
The transitory and the permanent.
Excitement and bliss.
Unfortunately, life doesn't allow us all sort of experiences. It grants only some.
And if we look deep, it also protects us and prevents us from falling into the abyss of ignorance and its consequences. It does show us the path to the higher, the unknown, the exalted, the different.It is up us to be able to hold courage or be safe.

Who has the answer?
Even if there is, how do you translate it into reality?

Love to all fellow humans.

NIGHT: INSOMNIAC

You think the night sleeps?
Hardly.
In the eerie silence that surrounds it,
It goes back to the lanes walked so far,
Feels the pain, the joy,
And the humiliation of love,
And convulses
Trying to shake off the distance that keeps
Love apart.
Blood drips from its pall,
Keeping tears off the bay,
Wiping recklessly,
Is agonizing. They don’t listen too,
Having their own music and
own rhythm.

You can hardly hear the night
Sobbing,
Or see its loneliness and grief,
because of the darkness.
It wakes,
And keeps the world
At rest.

LOVE WILL BE LOVE, WITH OR WITHOUT VALENTINE'S DAYS ETC.

I could not write anything yesterday, The Valentine's Day, though I had wanted to.
So, writing today. After all,I must write something I want to.

Very few of us really understand love. Being human beings with frailties,we don't understand it in its real perspective because we keep looking for our own happiness
in everything despite ourselves. There is nothing wrong in it, love begins with loving ourselves, and stretches to our loved ones. Anyway, we have to love if it happens and love has no end. Sometimes love unites people, sometimes it separates people. Sometimes we have to move away from the people we love intensely so that they are happy.But true love is something great.Love can not live where ego is. It thrives in the surrender of hearts, the complete annihilation of ego.It lives beyond differences, fights, squabbles.It lives beyond appearances, years, disease and every other thing of this earth made of matter. It can forget itself for sometime, but it never dies, it comes back, because it's love.Those who tell that lovers shouldn't be united are the greatest hypocrites of the world. Love is not an illusion that shimmers at a distance, it is something real and concrete and it must face its test by uniting the lovers so that they try, falter, get up and be together forever.

So many beautiful things have been written about love. Someone had written that love is not about looking at one another only, it is also looking at the same direction together. What do mean by same direction. No it is not what you are thinking, try to find out, Ha...ha...

I can't write everything I think or know. Later may be. Bye.

Here is something I had found out about love:

LOVE IS PATIENT AND KIND,
LOVE IS NOT JEALOUS OR BOASTFUL,
IT IS NOT ARROGANT OR RUDE,
LOVE DOESN’T INSIST ON ITS OWN
IT IS NOT IRRITABLE OR RESENTFUL,
IT DOESN’T REJOICE AT WRONG,
BUT REJOICES IN THE RIGHT
LOVE BEARS ALL THINGS,
BELIEVES ALL THINGS,
HOPES ALL THINGS,
ENDURES ALL THINGS,
LOVE NEVER ENDS….


-Love is a person’s whole existence and there is no need to put the real in front of it,
Because if it is not reality is not love at all. It is something that gains strength with patience, grows despite obstacles, warms in winter, casts a breeze in summer, and bears fruit in winter.


-What is love after all?
The world is full of people, why is it that the face of that one woman or man seems most endearing?
What exactly is love?
Love is the quiet, inaudible spring of love which doesn’t stop flowing

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY TO ALL WHO ARE IN LOVE

MUSIC OF GOOD TASTE:ANYBODY INTERESTED?

A couple of days ago, I got to attend a public function that saw the inauguration of an Oriya album,NUA LUHA PURUNA LUHA. The lyricist of all the songs was pou very own DEVDAS CHHOTRAY and the music directior was the very talented OMPRAKASH MOHANTY. The soulful songs were sung by the beautiful and very graceful singer of our times-Smt. Susmita Das. The songs are an effort to bring good, lyrical and melodious music back to the Oriya cultural scene which seems to have given itself up to rampant imitation, mindless writings and jarring, noisy commotion of voices and musical instruments. The guests did speak that the people who listen to good music are rare, yet they can play a part to promote it. The inaugural price of the CD was a bit overboard, but considering the appreciators of such music, it was not inapt also. All those who love Oriya literature and Oriya music, should consider making it a prized possession and be instrumental in promoting it too.

INTO NEW WORLDS

You can't exactly call it a very pleasant or happy experience. You are cut of from the old world, the new one is not exactly a happy one, it's like moving through labyrinths
without any hope, but walking, moving forward. Your old identity gave you security may be, the new one has none, but it's your own, despite inconveniences. Walking unknown roads with people you don't know well, yet you can trust for some time because they are human beings too, is a strange experience. Not less painful too, but only because the fake ego sitting somewhere inside you is hurt somehow. If you can shove it into the backyard without regret and remorse, you can accept the hew. You may not be happy, but you are living life, away from your comfort zone, and that's not a small thing.

What do you tell, folks?

SPIRITUALITY IN REAL LIFE

What is spirituality transformed into real life. It not only transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary in a quiet and subtle way,it is many ordinary things too. So, what is spirituality in real life? It is TURNING OFF THE WATER TAP IN A COMMON TOILET WHEN NOBODY SEEMS TO CARE. It is also smiling at a person’s lies because you know that he or she needs to put up a better and cleaner image before the people or she or he feels it will undermine his or her position or status socially. It is loving people despite their flaws and trying to correct them in a very loving, gentle and subtle way.

This much for today.

Or I will start feeling dizzy.

ABOUT UNDERSTANDING THINGS

I read it in a newspaper, but it was always at the back of my mind, may be since the day I was born.
Some author wrote it, there was view and counterview, but the truth always remains the truth.
Yes, it is true, we can’t tell that life is incomplete without a man or a woman, it can be heaven and hell as well with a man or woman, and everybody has a CHOICE. A right to choice to make or destroy his or her life. Women being the second sex, have their own saga of pain and tears, of subjugation and subordination. But women have a choice, to be happy, be it in any way or anywhere. If it is in a relationship, it’s a choice, if its out of it, it’s also a matter of choice. Nobody has a right to pass a judgment on what women do and what not. If one can be happy in any way without hurting anybody, or the human values, she should have the freedom to do so.
On the other hand, if we talk about relationships, the idea of a perfect partner with all the compatible virtues and traits has emerged from the pop culture which human race as adopted as a way of life, more so, the modern generation. But any successful couple or the marriage counselors will strongly vow that all good marriages require a lot of hard work and compromise. Studies have shown that, the chemical reaction that triggers initial romantic feelings or attraction that lovers feel fades away over a period of time and a very strong commitment and many compromises are needed to keep a bond going. A stable relationship requires strong, mature and patient partners rather than people who evoke strong initial attraction.
The newspaper is to be complimented on its illumining analysis of the scenario.

Connecting with Nature

It was the finest mist that I had ever experienced on my skin. I had no protection except my normal clothes, I feel freedom that way, and it was just lovely having the vapour touching your body. The most dampening complains you can here are, what a terrible weather! One can get lungs infection or pneumonia! My Lord, see, how she has come! Not a stitch of wool on her body! I will tell you, I enjoy the attention though I never want to invite it, I just want to have it my way, without harming the mankind or its sensibility, I just reveled in the weather. We have only one life, if we don’t enjoy the beauties of nature, then all this will be left behind after we go. So, may it be the rain, the cold, the fog, the spring, the moonlit night, the wild bridge hat chills your bones, the long, deadly summer afternoons, all of them are to be relished with fetish, with wild passion.

What do ya tell folks?

Is it a lesson, or just a bitter truth?

Until you come closer to people, you can never know what pain and what bottled up emotions are lying hidden in the human heart.As such, it is difficult to understand human feeling because they are not reflected through words or outward behaviour.But sitting close to a woman in her graying years, i came to know a truth i was vaguely familiar with.

'My mother had told before marriage that you may not get to enjoy life and you may not have a single desire fulfilled, be ready for that. Since that day, I have not known, what is choice, what is a personal joy, never enjoyed life in terms of clothes, accessories or entertainment. Only toiled for my in-law's family, for husband, for children. Now, at this age, nobody understands me, nor cares for me. I don't get to hear even two words of love. And all my life i only sacrificed for others. Look at my hands, how rough they have become. And now, in the twilight of life, I still get toil and indifference from my family.'Tears welled up in her eyes and flew over. All I could do was to put a hand around her.

Sometimes we find ourselves so incapable of helping people. Only we should never shirk from a few soothing words or a comforting arm.