Night’s Tale

 I wandered alone in silence

the starless night swaddled in darkness

attacked me in anger, frustration
ignorant of night's follies

which men indulge in arrogance:

I wanted to swallow the dark night

for my scant food does not lessen

the burden of earth or crude hunger.

Don’t open the window for the  dark

to descend on my heavy soul.

How strange no stars could guide

to the temple where Asifa was tied

in malignant ropes of silly pride

ears too failed to hear the cries

the angel made, even temple bells

could not chime her pain.

How long she could bear

the torture the brutes gave her

O’ you men what pleasure did you get

tearing the delicate frame

of a girl of just eight, darling

of her parents eyes: if flesh

you need, be a customer

in the Red zones where shops

are open for your itches,

for God’s sake spare these tiny souls

who have not seen life yet.

Asifa is now free from the body cage

defiled  by predators of lust

the grave now is her home

allow her to rest in peace.

I’ll now place sweet jasmines

to mock at the night on her grave

and bind the night in the hollow

of my eyes never to witness light.

Sabita sahu

Birthday

What’s in a birthday! A day to remember when your cries widened the lips of your family members in beaming joy! And count the numbers year by year. The day I was born the sky was rent with lightning, it rained daggers stabbing the earth to bleeding slush as though Krishna came slicing the jailed womb of my mother. May be it was a hospital labour room, dingy, bloody and screams of women deafening the nurses and midwives to indifference. I don’t remember. Never had the urge to ask my mother. But I remember the celebrations since my fourth year. Mother would dress me in new clothes, dot my forehead with sandal paste and vermillion over my eye brows, father would take me to a temple – Nilakantheswar; we would walk along ridges of farmland and some puja would be performed. Neighbours would be invited in the evening. Mother would serve some delicacies and the celebration would end.  The next morning the same books, school, class and my own inventive devices to get more from life.

My disenchantment with my birthday came in my tenth year. How is a birthday special? How is it different from the rest of the days in a year?  Every moment children are born and so do birds, beasts and insects. Everyday the sun is born out of the dark womb of the night, every evening it dies beyond the horizon. This coming hither and going hence runs in symmetrical perpetuity balancing birth and death in the human condition. How is birth different from death except being two states of life. Without death life is not complete and without birth this daily encounter with death’s multiple doubles can never manifest their wrathful forms. I am born to die so I should rue the day I was born.

On my tenth birthday I had my birthmate, a beautiful torn-frocked neighbour in my street run over by a speeding bike. Her left thigh bone was perhaps fractured. I put her in a rickshaw and took her to the city hospital. I had no money to pay the fare; the rickshaw puller sent my fourteen generations to hell. The expletives still ringing in my ears, I lifted the girl and ran to the Doctor who was kind and attended to her immediately. After an interminable hour she appeared, smiling tears half hanging from her black, bleary eyes: No fracture only a crack. But she should not walk for at least ten days. How do you feel Namita? She looked at me for a second- I ‘m hungry, she said, tears rolling down her cheek. I leaned her on my shoulder, matched my steps to her limp. I had no money to feed her. My failed malehood wailed.

It was Namita’s birthday too – celebrated with pain, hunger, bruised and bandaged in life’s march into time. I told mother to give her some food and she did after remonstrating my action. I did not eat. Birthday also comes like sandstorm in a garden. Flowers droop, saplings become rootless, trees bend in shattered pride. I left the house and walked barefoot up to the station.  The horns of the train wailed hunger in my ears, the crowds of self- immersed men and women bargained their passage home. My blistered feet turned homeward, my birthday was a famished noon tide. The shores of life seemed devastated by their own storms. I gulped my tears and returned home -no school, no nothing.

I have forgotten my birthday, even the month and year. I have grown, perhaps mature to be indifferent to all Namitas of the world. If you are born, you have to live a life. There is no rule, no Samhita to direct the course of your life.  You have to live to die one day: but how? The how should be answered by you only. You make your calendar, sleep with dreams of tomorrow, cajole your dreams to come every night, shuffle your fancies and place your cards face down. But I've had to show my cards, often losing the stakes. I have become a pop singer. I play the Mandolin in birthday parties.

When rich brats hire posh hotels, invite friends, classmates, neighbours, teachers, relatives and place Black Pagoda Cakes on well decorated tables I raise the pitch and pace of my Mandolin. I lead the dance, the children and grownups in their Ritu Jain designer fineries , clap and dance, their jewels shine, their well made up faces  broaden with loud laughter, their feet, although missing beats and steps , claptrap to  long applause. No one looks at me except the videographer yet I create the rhythms of joy for those boys and girls who enjoy their birthdays floating in the gathering like Champagne glasses on the toasting hands. Dinner, drinks, music, and cake cutting, teasing, praising, jealousing- all go on in varied sequences. The Mandolin gets subdued, the drums go silent, and the light fades. I return on my bike to my shanty.

Namita knocks at midnight plus after her hotel room stints, her garish make up blurred by tired limbs and says- I’m hungry,  Do you have…

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Draupadi

                                                                                                           

Shall I call you Princess Draupadi
or fireborn orphan from no human womb

invoked, invited by a conjurer’s chants

a package deal for Drupad’s revenge?

You never played puchi on Yamuna banks

no mother’s breast fed you life into veins

you came as heroine to twist and turn

the fate and the course of this great land.

For you the Princes tested their powers

hitting the fish- eye moving on a mast

but he who won had to share your soul

you rolled on five arms like  a mute doll.

You were a commodity for customers five

rending your soul in your body divide-

yet you reigned, Empress of hearts and minds

to be a wager by your own lord blind.

Unclothed you were to the shouts of whore

you questioned the rights of men and bore

the insults in tears and disheveled hair

roamed in the forest from lair to lair.

Yet you mothered the universe

in your hand was the Akhaya Patra

you fed birds animals and humans

your mind heart torn apart

in summer winter and rain

you caused the war

history accuses you of revenge

epics give you thousand names

yet you shampooed your matted hair

with the blood of the arms of nemesis:

were you happy and fulfilled

I’ll never know nor wish to know.

Your children were killed

Husbands abandoned you

When you fell on stony slabs of snow,

no arm rested your bleeding head.

You came from fire

ended on ice bloodied by your own

what shall I  call you Princess or sod,

Princess of history or woman defiled

You came like magic went like stone

Lightning blasted leaving dark zone.

Sabita sahu

Danda Nata

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Superstitions stem from fear, the fear of the unknown. This fear stems from ignorance of reality. Ignorance stems from incomprehension or incomplete understanding of the world. Of course the reality of the world can never be fully explored. Certain things will elude us. All our modern sciences can boast of partial understanding of reality. But culture society and civilization are all evolving concepts and no society or civilization at any given point of time can claim perfect understanding of anything. The Rigveda, a 3500 year old Indian text raises seminal questions whose validity remains unchallenged despite the explosion of knowledge over centuries of quest for knowledge. The Nasadiya Sukta (Hymns of creation) raises issues which no knowledge can ever resolve:

Who really knows? And who can say?

Whence did it all come? And how did creation happen?

The gods themselves are later than creation,

So who knows truly whence this great creation sprang?

Who knows whence this creation had its origin?

He, whether He fashioned it or whether He did not,

He , who surveys it all from the highest heaven,

He knows- or may be even He does not know(x 129)

If creation precedes gods, it is man through his quest for knowledge of nature and reality created gods. The sages, prophets and men of perceptions created religions which became life management systems tying up a group of human beings with a cosmology imaginatively conceived and convincingly professed whose logic did not extend beyond acceptance. Refinement and reformation by later generations of imaginative philosophers supported by texts and discourses have made religion acceptable to larger groups. To engage the minds of people in an active celebration of life, rituals have also been created to suit human minds in their seasonal variations. The religion of the Hindus is open to a variety of streams and faiths branching off the central faith in the Principle of Brahmanic Energy. Sectarian variations spearheaded by some sages too have been  permitted within the Sanatan umbrella. When agriculture came up in a big way  some rituals associated with fertility myths were added to the existing sets and some were abandoned like the ritual worship of Indra, the rain god.

The creation of the Trinity-Brahma the Creator ; Vishnu the Administrator and Shiva the Lord of time and death also brought changes in the worship mode and the accompanying rituals. Since the season of Danda Nacha(nata) has just come to an end I would like to touch upon the ritualistic practice to highlight   my conviction how faith and rituals are appeasatory agrarian rituals. Man’s desire for well being compels him to practice even masochistic rituals.

Danda Nata is a penance ritual. The belief that low birth and penury in this life is because of prarabdha or some sin committed in the past birth has been ingrained in the minds of people much before the theory of karma was preached. And the remedy for this painful low birth is expiation by self punishment. This Danda Nata, some scholars believe, originated in the10th century BC, in the Suktimati civilization that came up along the Tel river. It is a ritualistic performing art. We can say Danda Nata is the first pre –dramatic form of India in which the processional forms took roots. The name derives from Danda (staff or stick) which symbolizes the Phallic authority of Shiva. The staff and the smaller two sticks or the earthen bowl represents the male and female sex organs.  The Danda also stands for the body- temple- stupa in an imagistic form for the illiterate people. The earth, water, fire and ether, the body and the elements represent creation. The human creative process is represented by the phallus and the female organ. It is in this sense a fertility ritual associated with the agrarian cycle. The festival begins 13 days before the Visuva Sankranti which ushers in the rains. Danduas gather at the Kamanaghar or the house of desires – to be freed of pain or bad luck or to ward off evil or to get a son. Danduas gather at midnight and take a ceremonial bath, after which sacred threads are given to them and they take a vow.  Danduas are made to believe that the sins of their previous birth would be purged if they voluntarily undergo penances. The penances are Dhooli Danda, Agani Danda(fire), Pani Danda (water) and the punishment in the forest. The danduas for these 13 days stay away from home and all worldly pleasures. All caste barriers vanish as they perform acrobatics, music with sincerity and commitment. The Kamana danda and the canes symbolize Shiva and Gouri. The Yajna or the fire ritual revitalizes the danduas to perform life’s activities with purity and commitment. The Chadheya with his three –eyed staff is Shiva and the person in the role of Chadheya identifies himself with Shiva. The Bana Danda suggests a life of retirement. It is similar to the Vanaprasta. Phallus and fire are the beginning and the end of this ritualistic performance. Life is energized by the element of Fire – vitality which also purifies the soul. The Dandua returns to his family and society as a purified soul to make a new beginning with his worldly life.

After this very brief account of the danda nata I may say that this festival is now confined to very few places. The tribals are now modernized. The rituals now include many images which dilute the austerities. But in Ganjam, Koraput and Bolangir it is still performed although the tinsel bravado and artificialities have entered the performances in a fantastic way. Hosts too are now few and far between. Yet what is of great satisfaction is that despite adulterated filmy gimmics danda nata is still not listed as a dying art.

God Is In Me

O’ God ! if you are everywhere

if this  reality is your structure

why do we search in temples,

mosques, churches and miracles

you are omniscient you know all

you hear our unsaid prayers down the hall.

Why then chant we in voluble measures

your glory in prose and lyrical meters?

You are father of all ,why then

we fight for Mecca and Kashi.

We feed you honey, milk and fruits

but turn out the poor and sick like brutes

you say you are  in every living being

why then the poor and weak are nothing?

But I know where my God is

you may agree or disagree,

I know who ,what, where he is

I feel and trust him in calm and ease,

he is my best friend ,my worst enemy

he is my poison, my honey,

he is my love, my hate

he is my frustration ,contentment great

he is my desire , my dream

he is my anger, my hunger.

My god is my faith my earthly success

he makes me work hard for his own grace.

He is in me and I in him

no temples or prayer  is for me.

Sabita Sahu

Cricket

                                                                            

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

The first lecture I heard at Allahabad University was delivered by Prof. S.C.Deb, National Professor of English , who was given the fond sobriquet-Professors’ Professor by  L.C.Knights, wherein he had said by way of advice to the PG students: ‘play cricket and read Shakespeare, your study of literature would be worthwhile…’ I was a keen follower of cricket but I never had the chance to play the game. Frankly at that time I couldn’t connect Shakespeare with cricket. And Shakespeare, I’m confident, never heard about the game in the Elizabethan times. As I grew up with life’s vicissitudes and watched cricket avidly I began to comprehend the significance of late Prof Deb’s statement. Cricket is a bold metaphor of life. The rope – boundary in a park is the world where two teams of eleven players each display their prowess, manliness if you please, to the epitonic limits of their mind and body. The batsmen at both ends of the wicket play but only one man at a time faces the ball thrown at him from a distance of twenty two yards.  The bowler is like fate ever eager to hit the stumps (of your personal life) which the individual has to protect by his artful intelligence and technical ingenuousness converging his mind and body on a single object – the cricket ball – the red cherry. A slight error of judgement will end his innings of life – stumped, caught, LBW, hit wicket or losing his stumps to the fateful enemy on the other side. But if he can hit the ball beyond the ropes horizontally or aerially he is a hero. The audience (the society or world) will cheer to acknowledge his heroism and the hero would raise his bat in majestic humility coloured with the pride of achievement.

The hero is surrounded by a hostile field. The enemies are in a battle array. The hero is like Abhimanyu in the hostile array of war. But he must show his mettle, his preparations for life, his intelligence and sprightliness. He will fall certainly, for, that is the name of the game, the law of nature. But before his fall he must conquer the world never playing the “Roman fool”. This world does not give a second chance, no pardon, no leniency; the umpire will raise his dreaded finger unhesitatingly and you have to leave the field. Man has one life. He must make the most of it by his native worth.

Life is a display of excellence on this earth, which holds gracefully on her display disc man’s glory in her moral order. Shakespeare gives this poetic metaphor in style. Life is short, death is a given. But man makes a heaven of hell by his virtues.

In the twentieth century the game earned the pride of place by virtue of its entertainment value which, however, was commercialized in no time. Cricket’s International popularity spurred on by competitive patriotism and television broadcast became a password for modern culture. Even poor countries too took to the game wasting five full working days on the field. Cricket is now a money spinner and conservatively a multi-billion dollar industry. Cricketing gear – pads, bats, hats, uniform, helmets, balls, wickets, gloves, etc are now under the grip of corporates. Stadiums are built in small cities. Schools, colleges, universities play this expensive game. Tournaments are organized in almost all cities. Clubs have come up. And after the one day and T20’s caught the imagination of the paying public the corporates have taken over the game. Day night games with the mast lamps shinning bright on colourfully dressed gladiator like figures, playing with a white ball has now become the craze of men, women and children all over the world.

India learned the game from the British masters and plays it as a nouveauriche aristocrat competing with the masters to beat them in their own game. One may argue against India playing cricket to beat the hangover of the foreign masters: when forty crore Indians are below the poverty line why should the rising middle class indulge in imitative luxury? Well, all those arguments are now pointless as Indians call cricket their Religion. This religion is now monopolized by the politicians and corporates. The Ambanis, Adanis or Shahs as well as some bankrupt millionaires and retired film stars now own teams and the greatest show on earth; The Indian Premier League is played in India much to the jealousy of some cricketing countries. The BCCI today is the richest Board controlling cricket. The IPL has raised the price of the cricketers even in the small towns of India. The IPL auction of players from all over the world is the funniest corporate jamboree where cricket stars and candles are bought by amounts astronomical. The stadiums are jam packed, the carnival is the toast of sporting events. But the diseases of corporate culture too have entered the game. Match fixing, spot fixing, betting and other betrayals of this wonderful metaphor have brought the game to ill repute. The spirit is now missing. The gentleman’s game is now commodified. Ball tampering and cheating like infernal images now attack the metaphor. Yet cricket continues despite our nasty minds trying to reduce the metaphor to a dud.

I Feel Good...

 

I own no empire
nor am I a princess,

no kingdom gives me the title

no guard salutes I get

no piper blows trumpet for me

yet my day begins with

a christening ceremony

followed by coronation

makes my memory vibrant

when you say, Hey Princess!

                                      I feel good.

                                                                                                                                                   

When you wait at the window sill                                               

just to get a glimpse of me

I rush through my chores

to share my day and more

strange colours spread on

my incomplete canvas of life.

                                        I feel good.

When you reverse my stubborn

‘No’ to ‘On’ a rainbow of joy

arches your face of triumph

compensating years of tears .

                                  I feel good.

You see life as a dream

my life is a silent scream

but when you listen its music

and appreciate its logic .

                                    I feel good.

At times my taunts pierce,

your delicate heart bleeds,

but with your magnanimity

you smile it away and tease me

to change my taunts to love.

                                     I feel good.

Sabita Sahu                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

India Leaks

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

None could ever imagine in 1947, an ancient civilization with hoary traditions would come to a divided, leaking society almost disintegrating with contradictions. A country with the legacy of Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, just after 70 years of democracy has become self- stultifying with intolerance, religion-caste divisions, ruling-opposition conflicts and many other self created ills for which no cure is in sight.  It seems there are no Indians here, they are all individuals or groups or communities with un-Indian loyalties. The National Flag, National Anthem are mired in competitive logic of defiance. Defence secrets are leaked and sold for a few chips of gold. Data of unsuspecting people leak through willing hands to psych the voters. Privacy leaks through Adhar cards originally meant for protecting individual identities. Secret files of government offices are flaunted by unwanted people to harass and blackmail men in power and authority. Election dates reach interested parties before the Election commission announces them. Money , the hard earned money of tax payers is leaked into unholy pockets through the banks with the connivance of officers and other agents of depravity.  And the question papers of matriculation boards, CBSE and even SSB are leaked to the paying public without regard for the meritorious students who give their day and night, to their studies.

And who does it? Not the agency of Hell or the Satanic elements of enemy territories. It’s done by Indians, who boast of their pedigree, their culture and history; who believe in soul and immortality; who visit temples, mosques and other shrines to show off their purity, their moral beings. Almost every year in some state or other examination question papers are leaked. Some enquiry and ho halla go on for a week and retests are done to assess the merit of our future generations. About  a year ago a girl student topped the Bihar Board Examination results: she did not know the difference between Home Science and Political Science. The CBSE is a very hallowed organization. This Board stands at the mid point between the school and the University education. Its role and function therefore are significant and important. But its question papers are often sold in the market hours before the examination starts  .

In recent memory leaks occurred in 2011 and 2013.  The usual shouting matches happened but no one was the wiser. This year too class XII   Economics and class X Maths papers were leaked. Since 2018 is a pre –election year the din raised was at its highest pitch- which is natural- protest marches, gheraos and media commotion with debates by all and sundry followed. The Chairman of the Board, it appears, was informed about the leaks much before the dates of examinations by a so called whistleblower. But the Chairman CBSE perhaps took it as mischievous rumour mongering (which is not new in this country)   and slept over it. When the protest by angry and disappointed students and parents hit the streets and the door steps of the authorities, the Board announced a re-test for Economics. The Central Government HRD minister made promises of fair play and the usual things followed.   

But the question is not about paper leak or re tests. In these days of digital expertise dominating systems all over the country, why didn’t the Board take precautions at every step? If we respect merit, if examinations are meant to test merit and select the best for higher studies the Board should have left no stone unturned to make the whole process leak proof. But no; it doesn’t matter. If there is a leak of papers, there will be a retest: problem and solution are historically established.

 Of course such things will happen again. None can guarantee a system that will not crack under the weight of cynical, unpatriotic thieves. Indians with love for the country and her future generations are no more here. The bankers do not guard peoples’ money towards controlled and well planned economic growth, for they are salaried employees not proud Indians.  Teachers merely make a living. Corporates are meant for success whatever be the stakes. Governments are for wielding power enjoying peoples’ mandate: They want to spend their chair-years and pass into history. There is no heroism left anymore. No one hesitates to sell the secrets of the country or the treasures nourished over centuries to the enemies of the country. The Indians are the enemies of their own people. We are the villains of necessity, knaves by our own compulsions of self generated greed. If this mind set does not change leaks cannot be plugged. Our pride has leaks. Our culture has leaks. India now leaks and waits, perhaps for a messiah to seal the holes in our souls.

                                                                                                                                    

Let's Play Chess

Let's  play chess-

my king is sick, knight on leave

all right, let's forget them

and play with the pawns.

ordinary foot soldiers are vicious

you know! Don't you?

I think this Board
ought to have been a circle
like this frameless world
with seas mountains and valleys
where we would have staked
the flowers to win the stars:

This world is meant for that
where living beauty is pawned
for distant gleam of unreachables.

Make your small square
unmappable space,
widen your heart and mind
make all space your love embrace.


Sabita Sahu

Apartments

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty


An average middle class person dreams of a flat in an apartment complex. He settles for it as it is not within his ken to dream of a sprawling bungalow on a large plot of land. In an overpopulated country like India or for that matter in large cities it is not possible to buy independent plots unless one is very rich. Governments, therefore, try to reduce pressure on land by providing apartments to people. Big builder- contractors too share the concerns of people in exploitative zeal. They take money from potential buyers in advance instalments and often delay delivery much to the disappointment of people. Heartless builders often cheat their customers in quality and other cynical ways. The customers borrow money from banks and pay interest in helpless submission for their dream houses. Finally when they hold in their eager palms the key to their flats their faces turn crimson with a sense of manly pride that finally they now own a shelter: they will open up their universe in the 1300 square feet of space.

Willy Loman, the ubiquitous hero of a world of make belief however complained of being “boxed in“ where the sky is not visible to mount dreams, Most housewives complain how small is this kitchen; no pujaroom. Children set their tables in windowless rooms to study grumbling with a low feeling. The master of the house compromises his pride between selfhood and fate and consoles his wife, “at least we have a house, however, small but see people do not have even half a roof over their heads. Yet a cramping lowliness crowds his lonely moments when he has to curtail other essentials to pay his EMI’s without bank notices.

It’s true that most apartment owners many a time feel that for them there is no earth, no sky, they hang between roof and roof. But there is a consolation of comparative safety. You can lock the house and go out for days and months, the guards and the establishment will take care. Maintenance is not a problem. If light fails or a pipe leaks the staff will come on call for repair. You pay a monthly fee or maintenance charge and stop worrying. Shops, hospitals are nearby; if not conveyance is always available. There is someone at the gate to respond to your call-hopefully – and help is always available on payment. But if you are off guard your daughter may be attacked by predators in connivance with some members of the security guards. This is not really a constant threat unless you are in an area of ill repute. For social functions there are facilities available on payment.  Birthdays, marriages and deaths, the turning points in your life curve can be taken care of. You have to simply loosen your purse strings. For old couples whose children are away- which is the norm these days – an apartment is safe. But if you are rich safety cannot be guaranteed for there is no protection against human greed which often ends up in a criminal act.

But with all its advantages and disadvantages the apartment is our choiceless reality. Over population, urbanization and the limitations of the open space have given birth to this new concept of social life. The idea was first experimented in the hostel buildings of colleges and universities (schools too) to accommodate students coming from different parts of the country, even from abroad. The hostel is a village with an identity of traditions built up over the years.  Similarly the apartment complexes have their own community life. In a hostel students stay for four years and go away to seek pastures new. But in the apartments the birth- marriage- death drama of life is enacted in most cases. The flat owners have their clubs, community halls, recreation centres, shopping areas and also have their own individual functions. But a sense of togetherness and village life reality with urban conveniences grows among the owners. This is the modern form of community life provided one is not a self- imprisoned loner.

Each apartment has its own memory, its own narrative yet in the totalized sense creates a solid human bond. Adiga’s Last Man on the Tower very sensitively brings out its joys, fears and also the horror of apartment life. But modern man has no choice. The middle class especially embraces apartment life and begins to love it as the alternatives are either beyond them or too far away for comfort. We have to accept this hanging feeling of earthlessness as a postmodern tribute to our lost heroism.