It was neither nonchalance nor indifference, just a passive mood. I looked at the people and their words fell on my ears alright, but I paid least attention as there was enough of struggle going on in my mind. The din in passenger trains is inescapable A hawker came, another came, they kept dropping in as they usually do, in trains. One was talking convincingly; trying to sell some item which he claimed was very cheap in comparison to market price. I forced myself out of the indolence that had set in sync with the movement of the train and my lack of interest in the world around me, and saw that the lady sitting before me was holding a golden coloured watch in her hand and was turning it over and over to checking it was genuine or not. The article looked quite pretty and I was quite surprised to know that it cost only se4venty rupees. Then only my eyes went to the sell or when he told the lady that the watch will last at least one year and she could throw it afterwards. There was such honesty in his voice and manners that I turned to scrutinize his face closely. He looked a perfect gentleman and was neatly dressed. His face belied nothing; no joy, no sorrow, no anger or mockery.
When the lady showed enough interest in buying the watch, he took out many other articles like bangles, imitation ear rings, ear buds, pens, mirrors etc. In that compartment full of people, articles, which, otherwise, would have appeared completely lacklustre, looked divine. And he kept the surprise up, by bringing out articles one after the other. Bargaining is an inevitable thing. The man disarmingly relented yet, told that he didn’t make a lot of money so the customers should be reasonable while buying. The lady’s husband asked him how much he made selling things in trains. He told that he made around sex thousand from the trade and had other petty sources too. He further told that recently he had a misfortune that beat him down or his business was going on pretty smooth. On being insisted , he told that he lost his wife recently in an accident. He escaped alive from it but his wife died on the spot. The people in the compartment were shocked to hear that , because nothing in the features of the man revealed that he had had such a terrible loss. He was calm, and went about his work in a very matter-of-fact way. Unconsciously, I kept staring at the man in awe. He looked at me and looked away. There was still nothing in his face to tell that he was sad, only an empathetic heart could see the tears that never flowed or the pain and anguish the person had bottled up inside him at the terrible turn of fate. He was a living example of patience, forbearance, and quiet acceptance of life’s unpredictable twists and turns,
WE often are knocked down by the blow of fate, we wail, grumble and whine that God has been very unkind to us, but there are people among us, very ordinary people, who have nothing extraordinary to claim, yet they face life with extraordinary quietness and courage which most of us lack. They are not beaten by the thorns, they stretch their hand towards the rose, and they bleed, yet strive for the flower. Whether they get the rose or not, that’s immaterial. Their immeasurable faith in life is what makes them unique.
I recently heard the pathetic story of a known person who died of cancer. He was in teaching, taught in government college, had a wonderful family with two lovely daughters. At one point of time, the wife died. He became very lonely but managed to live as the daughters were there. One day he came to know that he was suffering from cancer. Doctors told that nothing much could be done except prolonging the pain with the help of treatment. He chose to keep his disease a secret and never revealed anything to the daughters until two days before his death. The daughters were shocked.
They stayed in a rented house and none of the daughters was married. There were no relatives to fall back on. But the father's time had come and he died leaving the girls orphans, left to fend for themselves. Till date they are struggling to make a proper living and move around asking for monetary help from little known people.
I was shocked to hear the story.Shocked at the way life can toss people about, making them playthings of fate.
Not only the professor and his daughter, so many people suffer in numerous ways, without any fault of theirs. We can say, they should have done this or done that, would have planned better.But above all our plans there is another planner who holds the cards. So, what are we to do? Should we give in and suffer unending, or gather our faculties and rebuild our lives. Suffering in life is inevitable. Disappointments are a part of life. Through it , we would have to go into silence for a while, and understand our actions and our purpose of living. From this silence, when light descends on our heart, darkness has to go. And once we are standing in the light, our actions will be exemplary, in love, in bearing, in courage. We are divine beings. We only need to understand what we are.
For the last fifty years or more, Goddess Laxmi is paying her customary visit to Dhenkanal starting with the day of Kumar Purnima. No, the people of Dhenkanal are bringing her to her earthly abode for an eleven days long stay in the small town that turns crazy in her presence. Starting from Govindpur, a roadside village in the outskirts of the city till Station Square, the city is decked like a bride. An unbroken chain of colourful lights illuminates the city as soon as darkness falls.
Goddesses sit on decorated pandals in their full glory. The atmosphere seems so intoxicating that some residents of the city wish that the celebrations never ended.
Dhenkanal , being a small town has a straight road running through the market. And unlike any other city in Orissa, the main attraction of the Laxmipuja celebrations is that you can the whole distance on foot with family or friends and go on watching the idols, the decorations etc without break. The experience id really heady, you feel like being in the light and the crowd the whole night.
An ORMAS(ORISSA RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND MARKETING SOCIETY) fair iS organised every year by to sponsor and help the rural businessmen and weavers who get ample business during the puja. Varieties of household items are bought and sold in the stalls starting from edible items to carpets and clothes. The fair is helpful especially to the women SELF HELP GROUPS who market their products produced throughout the year by their members.
Numerous small businessmen line the streets, either sitting on the ground with their products or vending in their stalls opened specifically for the puja. People are drawn to these stalls as flies to the fire. Besides people of Dhenkanal, people come to see the puja, from other cities as well.
When the Goddesses is immersed in water, and the decorations have been taken off, the city looks like a widow. But the people of the city go through their daily grind with the hope of the Goddess's arrival the next year.
The Laxmi puja celebrations in this hilly town of Dhenkanal are one of their kind.
The Puja brings a wondrous joy in the life of people who get relief from their monotonous, routine life and roam around in a mad frenzy and rare abandon these eleven days.
Evening had already come down on the beach by the time we reached. It’s not great to arrive at the sea at sun down because you lose the real glory of the rolling waves and the monstrous gray water body stretching for miles, the awe-invoking splendor of the unfathomable. In the evening the sea turns into a stranger, you don’t dare to go near it and it was also one day behind a full moon night.
Young people and children threw illuminated plastic balls into the water and the waves put them back to the shore gentle after a few tosses and turns. I thought the sea is losing its poetry because I felt nothing; no wonder, no respect, no joy or excitement. The timing was wrong, yes. Go in the early morning and you will come closer to an experience of realizing God.
The next morning the news channels announced the death of Jagjit Singh. Though the maestro was ailing for sometime, just like any other news we refuse to believe easily, it was heard to digest that the mellifluous singer was dead. I didn’t feel any sorrow, but I felt like losing a soul connection which was bearable because he had reached the twilight of his life. He was a singer whose voice held honesty and goodness in a strange combination that he immediately touched you whenever you tuned in to his song. I myself am used to humming his rendition from SATH SATH- Tumko dekha to yeh khayal aya, jindegi dhoop tum Ghana sayaa….His songs not only fell on the ear like honey but they touched somewhere very deep inside. The lyrics of almost all his songs were unmatchable and the lines had truths lying scattered here and there, reminding one of the pains and suffering that streak human existence. His eyes had the honesty of a true man, a simple, uncomplicated soul who seemed to carry on his rendering of life’s journey, love, separation, heartbreak, disappointment, hope, mild sarcasm, an invitation to come and join the brigade of optimists and a thousand of other emotions and stirrings. In his death, one more connection broke.
That night, two women lay in bed in adark room listening to unforgettable songs, lost in their own thoughts. The music was soul stirring and the tears that ran down the faces were different. One’s heart cried for the lost love of her roots, the other for the lost love of a soul-mate. The night grew older and older, the music persisted until they fell asleep.
It was smiling since morning,
and it seemed the rains bade adieu
but suddenly the sky looked sad,
a sea of clouds welled up in the horizon,
birds were swiftly turning homeward,
a pall of grief, so breathtakingly beautiful,
fell on a part of the earth,
The two temples on two sides of the road
declared that
God was still there,
What will happen if we reached home safe,
What will go wrong if
we are caught up in a downpour,
the stranger asked,
and there was an eternal hunger in
his eyes, to be one
with the greens, the water,and
the sky.
The brooding, nonchalant bull stood undeterred,
he was to run for shelter, but later,
The water under the bridge was swirling
in rapid motion,
There was again a flood, but in
another river,
the sufferers were the same, earthlings,
The sky looked down threateningly,
Still painfully beautiful,
But it still didn't rain
It was a cloudy yet a clear day and we fifty teachers sat listening to our resource person elaborating on the effective methods of teaching English in a classroom. Evidently, in order to bring in the important issue of teaching human values by being more loving and humane to our students, she narrated to us how God made the sculpture of a teacher and was in deep thought as to what to do to complete because this was the character that was going to create generations. It was the angel standing behind God who saw drops of tears in the eyes of the sculpture and told God that He had already completed it and there was nothing more to be done.
Today, there is a departure from the beautiful anecdote that foretold that a very rare species of human beings were being created by God.There is a visible drop in moral and human values in the present generation of young people. Changes in thinking and life style has been drastic and not often for the better. The social set up has changed and Western and European examples have been followed but often without taking into account our age old culture and value system. The shift is not well balanced and is causing crisis before a complete overhaul of our social and economic structure is made possible. In this context, the role of teachers acquires relevance because they are the only fraternity who affect thousands of life together through there vocation.
These are indeed difficult times because gone are the days when life used to be black and white and people thrived on simple rules of ethics and goodness. Time and technological revolution has showed that human beings have a lot of gray shades to them. There was a time when teachers were the most revered citizens of the society and their words were wisdom and the profession of teaching was regarded as holy and sacred. In the present society, education has undergone a whole revolution with the mushrooming of English medium schools .Nowadays, teachers are regarded as mere service providers. The relationship equation between the teachers, parents and students has undergone a drastic change. It is no more personal, respectful or value-based. It’s more of a professional relationship based on quality service and customer satisfaction.
In the changed scenario, the role of teachers assumes huge significance as they are the sole social class who come in contact with a large number of children every day and moreover, they are the people who raise the future citizens. In the earlier society, knowledge and love sufficed for a student to be motivated. But in the current set up, skill, information and technology are the things that rule the roost. So, a teacher is expected to have many things besides having knowledge in some particular subjects. Good teachers of today are ideally expected to possess the following qualities:
Good teachers love to teach. Not doing it for the money, prestige, or glory, they teach because it brings them an incredible feeling of satisfaction knowing they are contributing positively to the futures of others. If a teacher doesn’t have this inner satisfaction, and does not enjoy what they do, they’ll never be able to make lasting impressions in their students’ minds. Passion has great impact and this is something that all really good teachers have.
A good teacher has the responsibility of bridging the gap between themselves and their students, so good communication skills are a must. It’s difficult sometimes to relate to people, especially children, so that learning can happen in their minds, but excellent teachers are masters of this. Relating to students on the student’s level, these teachers have developed many ways to reach their students, and communicate using terrific speaking skills, visual aids, and even in their body language.
Admirable teachers lead lives of high moral ground, and they set an example to their students because of it. Really though, admirable teachers are more credible than others. We as people are much more likely to listen to those we admire, because we wish to be like them. Models of who we would like to someday be, really good teachers help show us the way.
Instead of using strict punishment to discipline students, good teachers know how to use positive reinforcement to discipline instead. These teachers understand that negatively hinders how their students learn, creates resentment in the students’ minds, and ends up breaking the ties of the student-teacher relationship. Often these teachers reward their students for doing a good job, so they are more apt to doing it in the future.
Equality is an ideal that good teachers hold dear to themselves. They treat their students equally, yet giving them the individual attention they need. No child is left out in the mind of a wonderful teacher, and they make it a mission to teach them all the same. In doing so, they end up teaching their students the importance of equality and fair treatment, even if the teacher hadn’t intended to do so.
Teachers are leaders. In the classroom, they own the spotlight, and have the responsibility of being strong instructors so that students listen to them with determination. They have to lead their students on the right path through the learning experience, and help by showing the obstacles that may stand in the student’s way.
There is no doubt that a great teacher is committed. They go above and beyond the time requirements of a typical teacher, and are willing to help students whenever they need it. Good teachers are very committed to the curriculum they teach, and like their students, are always continuing to learn in the hopes of becoming even better teachers.
Great teachers understand their students better than most people. They understand where their students came from, who they are, and know the best avenue to take them to who they will become. Good teachers have an uncanny understanding of what they teach, because they are experts in their fields of knowledge.
There is suffering in the world, and a good teacher recognizes this and has the inner desire to help. Teachers help by teaching, because they know that by giving knowledge to the next generation, they are creating individuals who will have the skills, compassion, and dedication to end suffering. Good teachers care about the world and what they do and wouldn’t have things any other way.
A teacher can’t teach without confidence. Students won’t believe in a teacher that first doesn’t believe in theireselves. Good teachers are confident that they know how to teach, and in what they are teaching. Nothing stands in the way of this confidence, and the teacher does their best not to become arrogant about the job they do.
Teachers always remain prepared. They know the steps necessary in their curriculum to teach students, and follow them well. Teachers are always ready to go when the time calls for it and they never leave their students lost and not knowing the direction they are headed. Good teachers stick to the plans they’ve prepared, in order to teach the beat way possible
Professionalism is the sign of a good teacher. They know that as someone who is responsible for helping people learn, they must take their work seriously. Terrific teachers dress well, have good hygiene, and treat their students with respect. They believe in timeliness, and are never late and rarely miss days they are assigned to work. In doing so, they earn the respect of their students, and the students are more willing to learn from them.
Besides this, teachers see each child as a child, and not a diagnosis. They see the class as individuals and not as a drawer full of case files. They keep their sense of humour against all odds and deal with upset kids, clueless administrators, and pushy parents with great dignity. They are not afraid to be flexible and creative. They know when to make a stand and when to fight their battles. They see parents as allies, not enemies and never give anybody any doubts as to why they went into teaching. They love their job and it shows on their countenance.
To be a teacher is not an easy task. To renew the physical courage every day even after teaching six to seven periods is not an easy task. With their eyes and hair smeared with chalk powder, their vocal chords always under stress, their legs and knees stiff out of continuous standing, their bodies dehydrated because they forget take enough water, their eyes under constant pressure out of correcting notebooks and exam papers, their minds and brains under continuous pressure coordinating between the management, the authority, the parents and the children - being a teacher is not an easy task at all. Despite all this, they love the students, try to understand and sort out their problems, learn, unlearn and relearn for their sake, and sometimes learn from them. They laugh, sing and dance with them, share personal problems and suggest solutions, appreciate them and are appreciated.
Teachers are unique in their responsibility and their contribution to the society. They hold the key to the future of a nation at all times. They are truly gifts.
In a summer afternoon
When a song of the old days playing somewhere
Fell on the ear,
The world, words and the people changed,
The senses melted into a void
Heart drawn into a strange nothingness
As if the last birth came alive
through obscure voices murmuring around.
Amidst the long silence of
Closed windows
And sleeping souls,
While the sun outside
Spread its scratching passion,
They called it seemed
From a place far away
where death can only take us.
Some author had almost nonchalantly mentioned in the beginning of one of his stories that life is a strange humdrum affair, and appearances can be very deceptive. Human mind is capable of perception, yet that perception can be very deceptive because the mind is such a peculiar thing, it fabricates and weaves it's own illusions and disillusions.Most of the time the mind is completely incompetent in understanding other human minds and is deceived like anything by situations and appearances and more often by its own expectations. We are mostly slaves to our own expectations.
To have expectations is not wrong at all, but to simply expect is more than foolishness.Nothing is ever given to human beings on a platter. Yet,often we sit and either or lament about things. We rue that things are not happening according to our desire. Our utopia never happens yet we keep dreaming about it and get disappointed and frustrated. It is a sign of lack of evolution and growth. I am not talking about the consciousness that never expands. In this vast existence that we call universe lives are planned to be different. Every consciousness has to either very underdeveloped, developing or developed state. The existence is designed to be imperfect so that souls born into it are sent with opportunities to strive for perfection: perfection in many aspects and through many stages. Hence each soul undergoes a different set of experiences. The real gems of human kind are those, who take a hint from the existence and work on it, and turn a small small gift into a great event of their life, and make things and people happen. These people bring change in the world.
There are people whose lives are designed to be spent in pursuit of livelihood, bread and butter. The next level is for beings who, sheltered and comfortable harbour ordinary personal ambitions like the material prosperity of self and children.Those, who are able to free themselves from these shackles of petty ambitions through constant thinking, meditation and studying are able to visualize a higher perspective of life. If they are able to steady and still their wavering mind and set it free from the gross and the transient, are able to attain the stability that is required for consistent and committed effort to realize anything that is good, noble and higher. Their mind is established firmly in the consciousness, is unmoving and centred.Nothing disturbs its stillness.
I once read a beautiful story of one of my most beloved Oriya fiction writers,Puspanjali Nayak, in which the hero who is a senior administrative officer, is confessing his failure as a person and a human being. He has acquired wealth, status, prestige,all the comforts of life, yet, he is terribly unhappy and passes his nights tossing in bed. His high society wife's marble white body doesn't evoke any desire in him, his children are so engrossed in their world that they have moved away from him.At the pinnacle of success,he is tormented each moment. At times, he remembers the simple village girl whom he once loved, a girl who only knew how to love with all her heart, but had no eligibility to be the wife of an administrative officer. She had tried to kill herself after he cruelly broke their engagement after being selected in the I.A.S. exam and chose to marry the aristocratic,English educated daughter of a senior administrative officer.
The story is beautifully written and the pain and agony of a so-called worldly wise man is so vividly brought out that it raises a question on the validity of the modern man's self-centred life without any love or dedication to a higher purpose in life. Man today has become an emotionless, mechanical, pervert who only moves in certain spheres of existence in the mad frenzy of achievement.What man doesn't understand is that any endeavour, any pursuit without love, commitment and a pure purpose can bring material success, but it can never lead to happiness. Wealth and fame can never buy contentment and satisfaction. They only give a superficial sense of achievement, undermine the higher purposes of life and ultimately lead to a life of emptiness and discontentment. On the other hand, things done with love and sincerity with right understanding of situations and people leads to general well being of individuals and the society and leads to bliss. Resultantly,the human soul remains calm, unpolluted and pure and thus dwells in bliss.
-1-
It was hard to come by,
There was not a sign of it, nor the sound of it, for ages,
But it came such an odd way, one day,
through the hardy terrain it came
burdened with disbelief and disgust,
but it came,
climbing on the soft, magical wings of a crooning,
And nudged the heart,
then entered it, pierceing through,
The walls closed around itand it remained enclosed there,
It still is.
To release it and to give it wings to fly back
and to fly away somewhere,
will require a lance-blow, a tear, very strong and deep blow,
a death.
-2-
I hate that 'karmic' madness,
and that feverish mind that keeps jumping from branch to brach
like a monkey in pain,
I hate the long silences
that seem to dismantle things,
I hate the surface dreams,the forgetfulness,
that surges over the sand and keeps earasing the good,
and the memorable,
The rude words that break the heart time to time I despise,
yet Underneath all, runsa a stream, cryustal clear,
the slime never rises to the surface or muddies the stream,
It flows, queitly,
Through seasonal tears and pain, and flows,
Because love never quits.
A young married woman goes to her parents' house for the delivery of her first child. When she comes back with the brand new baby in her arms, her husband refuses to take her in. She comes back to her father's house with the baby, tries one more time, but the husband doesn't buzz. Their marriage had been the culmination of a love story. Now the husband lives with another woman and the divorce case is still in the court.The baby has grown without knowind who has never known what a father is. The man who abandoned the wife with a newborn child legitimately fathered by him, never wanted to see his son nor wanted to know about his well being. And he didn't think twice before shunning the woman whom he had loved for many years and had married.
A young MBA girl joins a job. As she is new to the place, she decides to stay with a distantly related brother who works there. Her family also feels secure that the girl is with a brother.within some months something very shocking happens with the internal world of the small town, morally conditioned girl. The brother declares to her one day that he loves her. This is a jolt to the unassuming,moralistic girl, but the boy keeps singing his song of love. One day he coaxes her into a fake marriage citing that as they are cousins, their families would never agree to the alliance, so they would marry privately and remain committed to one another for life. They start living like husband and wife. A few years elapse and one day the girl catches the boy having an affair with another girl. She confronts him and reminds him of his vow to remain committed. The boy promises not to do so again but clandestinely continues with the affair. The girl takes courage, confronts the other girl and the matter is put to rest. But when the girl asks the boy to marry her legally, the boy tries to sneak away from the scene altogether. The matter end tragically with the girl committing suicide after many months of mentally agony and torture. The boy works in a lucrative position in another city and in all likelihood,in a few days, he will find another girl for himself.
These are two stray examples of how the young minds of our country are completely out of sync with the moral and ethical principles of Indian culture that have been the proud heritage and the backbone of our society. They have moved into an alien world of their own with its own perverse rules minus any moral scruples. In this world, egotism and self-centered existence is regarded as normal. Pleasure is the main purpose of life and human emotion, affection and caring are strange words. The blind imitation of all that is detestable in the Western society has been accepted as the sign of progressiveness.The magnitude of such moral and cultural crisis is increasing day by day and the view of these distorted world is quite distressing. In the land of the likes of Swami Vivekananda and Dr Kalam, such degeneration is a matter of great shame and disappointment. Human goodness makes the world what it is, and degeneration of values will make it a land of demons. Only the face will be a human's, the conscious will retrograde into that of devils.Is there any hope for our young minds?I am not including those who still carry the torch of moral uprightness and are never afraid to stand up for something good and extraordinary.
N.B.-The incidents cited in the above blog are purely imaginary and any resemblance to any person or any real-life incident is purely a co-incidence.
