The Valentine Martyrs

Life perambulates death,

when death benumbs the nation beyond shock.

When terror in thief like steps strikes

without giving a chance to the braves

to die like heroes to sing their swan – song

half choked in terror’s shady blasphemy.

The martyrs lay in coffins
fulfilling their tryst
with their valentines

the band played last salute

the nation perambulated

in teary farewell to the brave hearts.

Why this untimely ceremony

when the nations flag is half furled

the glory half honoured why then  

the candles are lit in shady pavements.

Terror has no face its body must also be buried

under unredeemable deapth

for life is great and noble to hold the human banner,

Let’s all raise it to the downy stars.


Dedicated to the martyrs of CRPF jawans on 14th Feb 2019 at Avantipura Pulwama.

Sabita Sahu

The Anxiety of Terrorism

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

If we go by the dictionaries, terror simply means extreme fear and terrorism means an attempt to cause fear in order to achieve political ends. If this is the meaning of terror and terrorism, a terrorist is the instrument and agent of fear. And fear is the basic element which a state should not have  in any political territory so that the people can live with hopes for tomorrow. It’s the responsibility of the state to ensure terror free life to its people. Any agency or enemy (country or organization) which attacks to kill unsuspecting people to cause panic and destabilize a state, is a terrorist activity. Terror also aims at destroying the symbol of national pride in another state as was the case in the 9/11 attack. The twin towers of the World Trade Center was destroyed in a dramatic manner which the world watched on television. India has been a victim of Pakistani terror for more than 30 years, particularly after 1971 when India dismembered Pakistan into Pakistan and Bangladesh. Pakistan too is a victim of terror. In fact the entire world is now under the grip of terror of one kind or another.

But the United Nations has not yet accepted any definition of terror, that is, the member countries have not yet agreed upon a definition. When America after 9/11 attacked Afghanistan and Iraq and Tony Blair echoed the words of George Bush the U.N accepted the classroom meaning of terrorism. When France pounded Syria with bombs terrorism had meaning. But when India wanted U.N intervention after 26/11 the U.N had doubts over the meaning of terrorism. During the Modi regime Pathankot Uri and now Awantipura(pulwama)  have happened but Jaish e Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar cannot be declared a global terrorist because, One : ‘terrorist’ has not been defined and Two: China applies veto nullifying the wisdom of America, European nations and others. It is obvious that the UN. Security Council Members do not accept the stated meaning of terrorism or terrorist when non SC Member countries complain. China has its own economic interest to safeguard. The CPEC ( China Pakistan Economic Corridor) can develop dangerous bumps if Masood Azhar is declared an International terrorist. Self interest of China is more important than defilement of human rights by terrorists. Very often a terrorist is defined as a freedom fighter, Subhas Chandra Bose, for the British Administration was a terrorist, so was Bhagat Singh. Thank God Gandhi was not declared a terrorist. Martin Luther king (jr) was not hanged as a terrorist. But countries which play with the destiny of weaker nations decide the meaning of freedom fighters and insurgents keeping in view their own interest as the hallowed repository of meaning which they give to terror.

But who is a terrorist? A terrorist is a weak person who cannot inflict greater damage on his so called enemy. He can, however, change the political climate by causing a sense of fear in the normal people by daring military action. He is no hero; he is essentially a coward who can never challenge his ideological adversary to a single combat. He masks his face, lives in dark jungle areas and under the cover of darkness blindly kills and destroys. He kills a few people but he spreads panic. The political and intellectual establishment reacts so vociferously that the impact of it on the general unsuspecting public, is full like war. The media sensationalizes the terror strikes and the echo is of a higher decibel than that of the explosion. The terrorist thinks he has a cause. It may be political or religious. But at bottom it is a cynical hatred for life and human well being which makes him play anti- God to destabilize the balance of societies.

Our Awantipura experience reinforces the idea that the terrorist is a vengeful cynic who cannot tolerate the rise and prosperity of India. Be he Masood Azhar or Hafiz Sayed, he is an enemy of man. The religion he professes and the god he worships, he definitely knows, will not ratify his action. But he must falsely convince himself that he is doing the work of God. He plays anti god to deceive himself. This gives him a sense of power and self importance to be feared by many and hunted by organized forces. He is anti-life and worships death for its own sake.

How to combat this menace? If by some quirk of luck they lay their hands on Nukes what will happen to mankind? Well these are imponderables. If such an eventuality ever becomes a reality perhaps the world will go back to the stone age. But hopefully man and his civilization will be responsible for man in the 21^st century. Bioterrorism and nuclear terrorism are possible but man will reduce its probability by his innate reason and humanity. Man must celebrate life and its glories even by embracing dissent of all forms. But it is easier said than done for we are all slaves of interests and motives.

My Love is Wordless

May be I’m not the right one

to walk stepping up with you,

I'm a half fluttering candle

half speaking in half flickers.

Your thought speech and action

I do not conceive

I hear and see your love

and  burn in anger
at my own comprehension.

My love replaced by anger

flows like the hourglass

in the silence denying

every flaw done or undone.

May be when you wake up oneday

find my space empty simply tilt

the hourglass and listen to the wind

my final breath will whisper

my love was wordless, mum

but I loved you with all the jest

all the nerves my body and mind

throbbed with as long as I lived.

Sabita Sahu

Blessings

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

We bow down before elders to seek their blessings. Parents almost in all cultures of the world teach their young ones to bow down before senior men and women to seek their blessings. People go to temples, churches to ask for divine blessings. Students, before examinations or job interviews bow down before pictures of deities in the puja room. Performers take bows of their audiences. Candidates seeking elections seek the blessings of the voters. Even the non- believers and agnostic candidates bow to the voters. Images of icons or sculpted deities are always in blessing postures. The Buddha whose message has nothing anthropomorphic in it, is painted in blessing forms. Men always seek the blessings of gods and men who are powerful. Learners seek blessings of their teachers. Gods never answer the bows of men but the elders and the powerful respond saying: may God bless you or ‘ rise and prosper’ or ‘live up to ripe old age’.

What is this blessing? A wish of another being for the well being of a person who shows respect! Touching the feet of senior persons is a cultural practice almost everywhere. A hug or a handshake also has some significance. It involves a touch, between two bodies. The inner significance, all agree to say, is the spiritual energies of two bodies fortify each other against divisive forces. Blessings whether formal or sincere convey good wishes. The cultural assumption is a human being is a spark of the Brahman. There is god in all human bodies. If someone seeks blessings by bowing down or by touching the feet, the god in him seeks inspiration from the other person, more experienced and more boiled in worldly ways. If he raises his hand in blessing a positive vibe flows. For this reason an elder never bows down to a person junior to him in years. 

This is definitely a healthy practice. It perpetuates the idea that man is divine and if he blesses another person with feelings of love, something good will happen to the younger person. This practice subscribes to the theory of man's divine origin. But in today's world such beliefs are on the decline. People who believe in these old values are called superstitious. Modern man discards the idea of divinity in man. A human being today is nothing more than a biological creature. At best an algorithm; a process or set of nerves- veins in a mould of flesh and bones following biological rules. Modern science has proven that joys, sorrows and even love are chemical reactions to situational stimuli. Hence respect for another man is always need based and the blessings of the other person is a formal response without any spiritual meaning. The more educated we are the more mechanical we become. Today even a namaskar is need based. Only a man in power, somebody who can do harm gets public respect. The chair or designation makes him respectable. The moment the chair is gone the crowd disappears and bows become 'hallow' or at best 'how do you do'.

Honour is no more , what Shakespeare's Prince Hal in the Henry plays said, 'a state of being'. It is now 'a state of having'. The Shakespearean insight into the nature of human culture is so far seeing that today we demonstrate it even in our homes. A poor father or an old man has no honour. He does not get the respect from his own children as his 'having' state is now been replaced by 'asking' for help. In rich and educated families too the young achievers have no respect for the old fossils. If you are old and no more useful or harmful you lose all your divinity. That is the reason why we refuse to pray to the Almighty in the schools or debate over the efficacy of Vande Mataram. Human rights too are a matter of debate. Faith is to be decided by the legal- judicial process of a country. Respect too:  must have legal sanctions: for the morals are now effete.

Rights -democratic and constitutional- are more important for us than the Right Path, Right Thinking etc. We do not accept the right of any God or Divine or Enlightened man to tell us what is Right. Well may be the classical values were wrong; but blessing a human being for his respectful recognition of divinity in another person was a godlike gesture. If created an atmosphere of moral well being. If today our media presents human depravity in multifarious, multitudinous forms, the reason is not far to seek. Man has lost his morals and with that his divinity. He is now a robot; And no one teaches a robot to seek blessings, Thank you and 'you're welcome' are enough to bless our mechanical existence.

Moods of A Princess

                   I

After  a sandal oil massage

Princess walked on velvet carpets

to her private swimming pool

scented by jasmine buds,

petals of champa and primrose the pool

like a designer honey pond gathered

her lush body with a swish,

her shapely breasts rose on the water,

the age fellows sang maiden grace

the water clung to the Princess

like the flies of coloured wings

when she came out for towelling

the marble steps simmered in glee.

What will you wear your Majesty

Silk, muslin or- Bring me my sheer

cotton gown and leave, I’ll now sleep

and dream of my lost kingdom.

                        II

Evening clouds gathered in the sky

droplets fell on tired flowers

the princess hummed a sweet note

Here is your juice  your Majesty!

What juice?

Grapes your Majesty!

See the rains have come

to give me love juice

I’ll fly like lightning

to my  Prince’s cave...

There is no love fruit

no such tree your majesty:

Bring me poison then

I must liberate myself

to join my doting love, go.

                     III

Your dinner is untouched Majesty!

I’ve eaten

What Majesty?

What you can never serve

what the angels haven’t seen

I ate the blue of the sky

dark love juice sent by him

he whose cave shames heaven

I’ll wash my mouth when he comes

biting his lips love inebriated.

He has come my lady

he is in the central hall:

How dare he come here?

How dare you bring him in,

go and tell him to go back

to his cave and wait for me

I’ll fly to him in my next birth.

Sabita Sahu

Who is Afraid of Old Age ?

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

W.B Yeats wrote, An old man is a paltry thing/ a tattered coat upon a stick. While I applaud the apt metaphor, I am tempted to ask: Who is an old man? One who is 60+ or 80+ or one who withdraws from the external world and sinks to self made depths of depression? Growing old is nature’s way of weeding out the canker from the earth to fill it again with greenery. If death is the finality of all forms of life, age is the only uncountable, for, age, is only a number on everyone’s palimpsest to be defaced by progressive numbers. The earth is old, the sky is old and imagined immortals of heaven are old but they are all ageless. Man perhaps is the only creature who bothers about old age as it is the declining phase of life in which the senses weaken, the vital parameters slow down and eventually stop functioning necessitating a final discarding of the body. If you are a Charbakite you say this life has now come to its useless stage and will be consigned to flames. But if you are a believer, the immortal soul will take another frame somewhere. Why fear old age then?

You may think, I am the most incorrigible optimist or the most irrational idealist, impractical and even inhuman. I am prepared to wear all your sobriquets and all your pejorative adjectives on my head with the same irrational pride: But I will reiterate that the old age is the crowning time of life where the mind is mature after the fitful journey of a long life. It is a period where wisdom reigns; a balance sheet of credit and debit, merit and sin, achievements and failures, enjoyment and sufferings are subconsciously analyzed to give the individual the judicious energy to say the final farewell to a world in which he/she played life in a given field, large or small. And now he would leave with this satisfaction that he has played well unmindful of victory and defeat.

Old age is of course dreadful. Man’s energies snap. His vertical existence in many cases ceases and his horizontal existence begins, at times bringing horror for self and dear ones. Sickness, disease, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans everything man becomes a burden on those who care for him. Yes, this stage is dreadful. But this is what life is. Anything which is bright, loses essence and sinks into dark sea. But life is more than all these built in horrors. Often blindness makes you see the ultimate truth. Sickness makes you dream of lofty encounters with the divine. Like Emerson you dream of youth. Like Hemingway’s Santiago you dream of lions in pre-final slumber.

Today medical science provides ease and comfort. Life expectancy increases decade by decade. Man lives up to hundred or more. But old age comes, as is natural, to everyone. What is expected of us is to make our old age the final conflagration of the spark of  life that we are. I have seen old men and women who think that the end is near; therefore all the more urgent to bring your creativity to its highest pitch. Death will come but since time is short we must make most of it. The last flicker of the dying candle is definitely bright. Have you seen sunsets? The sun too paints the west with golden hue. Dissipation of energy is a given. But it should not mean that you have hung up your boots for good. You may not climb the Everest anymore but you can paint, write, speak and even love. Love of life never ends. No old age can sap the energy and instinct to love another human being.

Yes we need care when old age hastens the wasting process. The young ones you created will definitely care for you if you give them your most mature, sober and autumnal love: For life is a display of the rainbow of love. All colours will merge in the final glow of love. When your personal resources  of time flows to a different shore you must ride its slowing waves. Prepare your unfulfilled desires, regrets and also your vituperative moments to unite to give an account to your Maker. You have lived a life with some faith, some defiance and also some compromise. Make your Maker to listen to you and speak of it to the young, your flesh and blood : Tell them that Newton's Third Law operates in all branches and offshoots of life , therefore  before you act reorient your self in the light of  the late wisdom you have gained. Above all be content , be happy you have made the world of your wishes and desires to the best of your  potential. Ask for more births to give more to life and before you breathe your last smile and bless all creatures to live behind.

Swacch Bharat Zindabad !!!

You are happy to see me

carry your excreta on my head,

You smile when my belly is exposed

through my torn saree

you ogle and wave a 10 rupee note

and indicate a room in the

neighbourhood  after sun down.

I never attended any school

my mother-in-law induced me to do

what they have been doing for centuries

to please your sacred thread

over your pot bellies.

I was not a quota girl

only a victim of upper caste mercy.

Today I was beaten abused

my new sari was removed and thrown

into your proud dustbin

I could not cry, stood like

Draupadi without Krishna’s help

you raped me gleefully and

threw money on my bruised breasts.

The police took me in his jeep

in the cell all Kaurav brothers finished

the half eaten meat of my endowments

I have only one thing to say

Swacch Bharat Zindabad!!!

Sabita Sahu

School Prayers

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Why do students pray before the teaching in the classes begins? Why do students of a school and the teacher(s) gather to pray the Almighty before learning Maths, Physics and literature etc.? When such questions are raised one is provoked to say that those who ask such questions are still in the quagmire of ignorance. Learning is not a mere commercial proposition where paid teachers and paying students are engaged in the knowledge enterprise. The modern world may believe that knowledge should be gained to equip oneself for a lucrative job for the ease of living in a competitive world. May be to make a resource person for the country’s development, to participate in the process of economic growth: But the primary aim of knowledge is to be a good human being to contribute towards the general well being of the society. Life is a challenge of uncertainties,  unforeseen situations and no one can be a winner. T.E.Huxley rightly said, one must be equipped with knowledge to play the game of life to the best of one’s capacity. And for this we must approach all knowledge and the learning process with humility. A prayer is an expression of humility and for that we must bow down before the unseen powers- call it God or anything – and seek divine help to learn the art of living through certain books which must be mediated by teachers. The Guru or the teacher is also revered as Brahman; the Guru is the refiner of the soul, the maker of personality. A prayer before the lessons begin, therefore is essential for the composed integrity of the mind.

In Military training too the supreme powers are invoked. A musician starts his alaap only after prayers- to a Guru or the Supreme Guru. Any learner in any discipline starts with a prayer which prepares the mind to concentrate and stay focused. Knowledge does not come easy. It necessitates hard work with a sense of surrender to the powers governing reality. Only for this reason, all over the world, schools begin the day with a prayer song. The language may be English, Sanskrit, Latin or any local language but the purpose is to learn with humility, for humility is the beginning of all knowledge. In all government and private schools prayer is almost mandatory.  There is nothing dictatorial or authoritarian about it. Learning is the most sacred human activity and the learner should submit to the Supreme Powers so that knowledge will dawn on the infields of ignorance.

In 2012 in all Central Schools in India a beautiful verse was introduced as a prayer song: Asatoman  Sadgamaya, Tamashoman Jyotirgamaya, Mryturiman Amritamgamaya ,Om Shanti Shanti Shanti. It means to reach the truth, moving away from untruth, To move towards light away from darkness and To move towards immortality from mortality.  This alone will lead us to the roots of the universe. Om, (AUM) means the three stages of man's reality and those of the universe; the Awakened state, the Dream state and the Sleeping state. Knowledge of the Om will lead to the peace of mind and also of the universe. The Central Schools have wisely chosen this from the Mandukya Upanishad for generations of students as prayer before they settle down to classwork.

But sadly or unfortunately a PIL has now been filed at the Supreme Court of India seeking its removal, citing the constitutional provisions, as it interferes with the freedom of non Hindus. This is ignorance of the worst kind. Sanskrit is a store house of poetry, philosophy and wisdom.  Sanskrit is much above Hinduism or any sectarian faith. This prayer is not religious nor does it have anything to do with religion of any kind. This is wisdom, pure and simple. But the saddest thing is the Supreme Court of India instead of rejecting it has decided to constitute a Constitution Bench to examine its validity. When T.S. Eliot in his Nobel Prize winning work The Waste Land used Om Shanti Shanti Shanti, no one in the English speaking world raised objection of any kind. Eliot has enriched his poem by borrowing from Indian Wisdom. But in India the source of this wisdom, is now facing a legal challenge. We have no other better example of irony than this!

Dharma is the most misconstrued word in India because of the minorities who always contest anything that extols the majority community. But the greatness of India’s culture should transcend such contestations. There is nothing comparable with India’s wisdom contained in the Sanskrit language. The computers use Sanskrit grammar and all over the world the wisdom and philosophy of India is admired. Such controversies raised in the name of certain misinterpreted constitutional provisions should not vitiate the sacred atmosphere of the schools.