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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
