Silence is (Not) Golden

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty 

Those who taught us this maxim, perhaps, imagined life and world as moral order, where human rationality directed all human doables. Silence is for contemplation. The yogis, philosophers and thinkers thought of silence as the endpoint of all irrational volubility that makes man a nervy, distracted person who loses the fulcrum of his authentic self. Silence restores the balance to weigh events, actions, words to get the proper measure of reality. But silence does not mean the universe would be still, motionless and almost soporific. Nature is never silent. The rivers, oceans continue their roar,liquid, limpid flow in varying rhythms. The moon and the stars speak in soundless lean whispers the romance of life. Even dreams speak a language to make man laugh or cry or to get up with a start at the dead of night. Man at times, however rare cries eureka as though he has found out the absolute truth of all mysteries. The sensor of the mind never sleeps. A guilty mind as Lady Macbeth in her somnambulistic awakening speaks of blood in her hands which the multitudinous seas cannot wash off. All creative minds whisper to no one in particular words and ideas while in total abstraction from time and space. The grass blades murmur when the spring breeze soft - fans them to playfulness. The man who feels lonely in a noisy crowd mutters disbelief at the range of vocabulary of the gushing multitudes. Waiting for a phone call too is not a silent surrender to the whims of the expected caller: he groans in disgust, sighs his impatience and often breaks the phone if the wait is longer. Man, nature, society are not meant to be silent. Silence belongs to the realm of death.

 

But what is purported by this ‘wisdom’ is noninterference in complex, complicated things or affairs. If elders are discussing a problem better not to speak something silly. In the present border situation of India at Ladakh if someone says “… I would have chased away the Chinese soldiers in 15 minutes” that would illustrate the maxim’s efficacy. The speaker here is a mindless person. It smacks of puerility. Silence in such situations is golden if you have any psychic problems against the people responsible for the peace and security of the country. When you hear wrong facts from people who matter automatically you keep quite. And if the audience is silent when the speaker thought they would burst out in laughter, he would rewind the tape in his mind and know where he was wrong. He would rectify. A true scholar listens to the wrong suggestions of peers in silence. Often the women in the family listen to the irrational tirades of the parents out of respect. But silence should never mean acquiescence or acceptance of imposed lies and false accusations.  Silence is golden as long as your inner being is not hurt; your rights are not infringed upon, and your character is not compromised. Silence can also be defiance. It is the most subtle kind of protest provided the authority or people against whom protest is made are not dumb nincompoops. Gandhi’s fast against the British administration and his silence as a response to torture were the most potent weapons: and the perpetrators understood Gandhi’s strength. Silence in certain situations is “trumpet tongued” to borrow a phrase from Macbeth’s soliloquy. Silence however, should not be allowed to be misconstrued as admission of guilt. If you listen to false accusations in silence you are more guilty than the accuser, however respectable and powerful he might be. One should remember that the Accuser is not always Caesar’s wife. Mindless silence before Royalty, Nobility or Justice and the Tyrant is suicidal – if one is not guilty of anything. A secret agent may keep silent to protect his country and that is honourable silence. If by opening your lips you jeopardize peace, security well being or integrity of a country or a great man, one should be silent. Sealing your lips to protect someone from the wrong side of justice you may save a reputation. But if your silence makes a guilty man escape your silence is homicidal.

 

Today in India and some other countries we see a new trend of so called civilization: and that is synecdochic of the new values of prudence. If you see a crime committed on the road you  go blind. If you are called to testify you will be silent on truth and vocal on irrelevance. If your friend or a neighbor harbours terrorists you should keep quiet for dear life. A modern, educated person is a self-whole, he is the total life system. Nothing exists beyond his own safety, security and well being. He is not responsible for anything. His charmed circle of life has a radius of half a centimeter, and that too is large enough to maintain.  The justice system in the world is awry because testimony is truth- blind. If you saw a rape you will try to prove you were not in the country; you were abroad holidaying with nymphs from another galaxy. Of course, truth in the modern society is hard to digest.  A whistle blower is done and dusted if he breaks his silence on personal or institutional corruption. Yes in such cases one has to choose between heroism and self centered cowardice. But if you remember your lessons of childhood and say Silence is Golden, you are unworthy of living a life.

 

In love and faith silence is never golden. If you love someone confess everything and if your sweetie is guilty of anything make a sacrifice of her: for your silence ruins someone else and also your love. Couples who are silent in love live not like saints but like animals. Sex too is animalish if there is no poetry and music in your union. Faith too deserves the respect of your being. Hypocrisy of silence is not a culpable crime, it is a moral failing which reduces man to the quintessence of dust. A man should be open, free and use silence either as a weapon to save people or as a shield to protect innocence. Silence is unnatural and evil if it is a fig leaf to cover your unmanliness.

He Is Good I'm Good

He is good I’m not bad

I’m good he is not bad at all

We are good both are good

Yet nothing good happens to us.

 

He is sober I have a temper

He is not ill tempered I’m quiet

He too is quiet when I clam up

Yet we shout for the other joy.

He is healthy I’m a bit sickly

He too gets sick when  I run wild

He runs too when I sit tired

But we never move like statues.

 

He is the sky I’m the earth

No no he is the earth he holds me

All my skiey delights are on him

Yet we are morn - even shadows.

 

 He is with me I am with him

 I am in him he is in me

We are in each other forever

Yet we are apart like wind and rain.

Sabita Sahu

 

Legacy

What is there to be happy,

unhappy and gloat about it

some shed tears and

some try to suppress,

I watch the scene and smile

and try to count the stars

without losing focus

and forget the total

as numbers don’t define

laughter and tears.

 

All are born here on earth

to carve out destinies but

they just grow and produce

and die unceremoniously

perhaps to be born again

like the returning spring year by year.

 

Children you leave behind

may never sing your story

if they remember your day of death

consider yourself fortunate.

 

You are alone in marriage

parenting serving and dying

leave your mark behind

your creative sparks undying

your emblematic work and love

should be read like poetry

by posterity like history

and the history maker shall

guide them to create a new history.

Sabita Sahu

 

 

I Am Free to Speak My Mind!

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty 

Freedom I have always maintained is a defiant energy. The human species always tries to break barriers, cross hurdles and demolish opposition of all kinds. Bridge the rivers, break the mountains, kill the enemy-these come very naturally to man for he is a growing animal (physically, mentally, spiritually), a doing animal and above all  a speaking animal. Speech is the master weapon of the human race. Man will speak his mind in all circumstances as he is a free being. His limitless freedom, he thinks, permits him to speak on and about everything. No secret no, mystery shall remain undiscovered. This mindset is not reflective of his quest for truth, rather his freedom is to unearth everything- real, unreal, imaginary and impalpable or unreachable. This is how he has grown from the amoeba to the present form and has multiplied himself to live and explore every nook and corner of this multilayered universe. The atom of knowledge must be further exploded to discover its components. And this process is endless: within the country, society, family and even within his own mind explosions go on – the Big Bang still reverberates and the universe still manifests changes.  Man’s freedom to ‘ask’ questions about everything is self- guaranteed. He now asks why doesn’t Nature speak my language? Some claim to have understood what the sky- earth- fire etc speak; what the birds speak? His last question is why should man die? He has already asked why does man grow old, and has found some solutions to prolong youth and age.

But man’s nastiest use of freedom is to interfere in almost everything and not to accept anything as final. The social media – FaceBook, Whatsapp, Twitter have given a platform to the free- biased, subjective and partisan expressions to reach the known and unknown multitudes; even the  half lettered village folk too have confident gossip propagations untaxed and uncurbed. The law is bound to remain silent, for any legal action shall be deemed to be an authoritarian interference in human free speech. The constitutions of all democracies have given guarantee to free speech. Views opposing any institutional policy or public proclamation of governments can be criticized by any idiot (I too have the right to use the mild hurting words empowered by the same constitution).

 

If right to speak freely on any subject, person, decision is man’s democratic prerogative a cacophonous society deafened by noise will be the only end point achieved by democracy. Freedom is not an unbridled licence, nor is  it a birth right as claimed by all political groups. In one of my recent pieces I had commented on the fakery and abuse of language and decency, which makes democracy somewhat farcical. The right to speech is definitely welcome but the speaker must talk sense. But often we notice that speeches are made according to party line ethics- if there is any. What the free speech advocates forget is that speech is bound by rational articulation on an issue of social and national importance. All speeches free or commandeered are fundamentally founded on Reason. A sentence is constructed to mean something rational. But some people spread lies not out of malice but due to ignorance. For instance those who say that global warming is caused by holes in the ozone layer are ignorant. But such false statements or ideas are followed by others who get easily panicked by any kind of rumour – scientific or political. This happens because people do not know the difference between Idea and Opinion: opinion and rumour. And this ignorance stems from a weak sense of Reason. Often the cultural allegiances to certain Belief Commons or Superstitions are expressed with gay abandon. The herd instinct enjoins them with the rudimentary voices of the culturally – religiously motivated people. The vicarious satisfaction of having joined a so called worthy betrays their below average minds.

 

There are in the world today, including in India, people who have a form of motivated reasoning which was not noticed hithertofore. Biased logic, fault finding mindset, sheer instinct to hate, these days have gained more voluble space thanks to the Internet, we do not have public debates except in Assemblies and Parliament. There the debates are party-focused but are substantiated by statistics. But the common man and women use words and phrases in a cavalier fashion.  At times personal frustration and suppressed feelings find Freudian outlets, especially in the non - artistic, non - scientific people. The social media users are mostly intellectual imposters with inflated egos. They do some point scoring by using swear words against celebrities.

 

It has been noticed all over the world that the genius never uses the social media. The genius as Kant put it is “the innate mental disposition (Ingenium) through which nature gives the rule to art.” People who have no eye for beauty, form, symmetry; no ear for rhythm, no mind for nature’s integrated variety and vast amalgam of contrarian matrices can never ever comprehend the scope and sweep of reason of human affairs. And such people claim free speech as their birthright, the constitution is only an added prop to their claim. In India the political ideologies are sacrificed to manipulative power politics, hence the higher the decibel the stronger is their ‘right’. The Supreme Court of late is critical of the PILs which are filed merely to distract judicial attention. And the vocal lies, fakeries and deceitful narratives shut Reason and good sense to desperate wordlessness. If some politician abuses the country and praises the enemy the mindless blokes are happy:- This definitely opens up the empty space in our socio-political reality. But who will inject reason into these dead veins? Hope they will utilize their minds and become reasonably human.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Is That?

 

Before falling on the bed I leave

My world and my specks with which I see it

On the bedside table and lo

The waves invite me the twinkling stars wink at me

My receding world bids goodbye

And I move between the starry waves

And twinkle which my own eyes rise up to.

 

The fantasy is so calm

The words I hear are so soft

My senses strain in expectant joy

The lies are so sweet

The visions are so beautiful

I fail to decide how to respond

Yet in the company of fairies

I float and swim

In the fantabulous symmetry.

In the morning when I wake up

And put on my specks

My world lost in fantasy

Returns with roaring distractions

My senses alerted

I rush to this and that

All the time asking

What is that, what is that?

Sabita Sahu

One Cheer for Democracy

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

In the last century E. M. Foster wrote Two Cheers for Democracy disapproving yet appreciating and accepting Democracy as the most viable form of government capable of keeping all men and women happy to a great extent. When Churchill heard a longish argument against the anti-individual, anti-liberal aspects of democracy, he replied: Yes I agree, Democracy is the damnedest form of government but what is your alternative? Certainly autocratic governments are not! The fall of Soviet Union had given the clarion call for democracy.   If communism has failed, it does not send us to Islamic theocracy where tongues would be cut if voices of individual belief are ever raised even in lonely rooms. The state capitalistic system of China has no takers. But a choice must be made between Anarchy and Tyranny. Is Democracy the choice?

 

Since the Wars the major democracies of the world have demonstrated their excellence in three sectors. Freedom, economic well being and equal treatment of all citizens: However it must be noted that in all these successful democracies there is one dominant religious faith and about 95+% of the citizens speak one language. The case of India, however, is very complex.  India does not have a national language for state stake claim for her own language to be the national language. Tamils do not recognize Hindi, Kerala and Karnataka too have little love for Hindi. In the Parliament elected members take oath in the language of their choice which is naturally the language the majority speaks in their respective states. This oath taking ceremony provokes laughter and provides some kind of relief. But the idea of one India, one people goes awry. A multi tongued cacophony emerges drowning all saner voices. If liberal democracy is the panacea for all human ills what about the saner voices which are always in the minority? The genius is always in the minority. If democracy is a number game the genius is the odd man out. This is definitely a tragic anomaly. India is the most noisy if not the most chaotic democracy in the world today. The Indian constitution is definitely an attractive document and its Preamble sums up all human aspirations in the world in five words: Equality, Liberty, fraternity, Justice and the lately added Secularism. But the legion castes, faith systems languages, cultural diversities, unequal histories of states cannot and have not been brought under one viable system of governance. Hence we have naxalism, terrorism, appeasement politics, protected groups, IsIs elements, free thinkers, lobbies. Left-wingers, rightists and what not? The private ideological groups, Shivsena, Karnisena, Bajrang dal, Popular front of India, Campus Front of India, Viswa Hindu Parishad, Student wings of different ideologies, khap Panchayats and hundreds of other group identities make the scene chaotic.

 

One may ask who represents India? The answer perhaps is every Indian. Unity in diversity has been our motto right from Independence, but every Indian has his own image of India. These images are half perceived through the prism of class politics. In India we have about 18% muslims and the rest are Hindus, Christians, Jains etc.  But the Dalits comprise a large part of the population and they do not claim to be Hindus. We now have Valmiki temples coming up everywhere. Gandhi is not the father of the entire nation after his death. His murderer Nathuram Godse is also worshipped now in some temples. No leader in India has an untarnished image. A south Indian leader is seldom accepted by the cow belt. All these self contradictory and mutually militating ideologies are in perpetual conflict. Democracy in India is a mere number game. Only elections matter and they are highly visible and naturally violent.

 

But what really pains is the willful devaluation of all institutions. If you love your country you are not a true Indian, for a true Indian believes in universal brotherhood. Those who preach liberal values oppose patriotism, nationalism, so much so that the Indian Army is targeted.  Certain political groups question the Army’s valour. In the present Covid ridden India when the Chinese PLA is at Ladakh, the people do not speak in one voice. Every institution is defamed by irrational challenges, vituperative criticism. Be it the Ayodhya, Babri Masjid demolition decision or Afzal Guru and Memon death sentence the Supreme Court is attacked for ‘judicial murder’. If the judgment on any case – Judge Loya, Ayodhya Ram Janam Bhoomi or any such sensitive case goes in favour of a party or person the aggrieved party criticizes, the Supreme Court and also the Judges become their targets. The freedom of speech which the constitution guarantees is abused by biased perceptions and irrationality. Even the Parliament which is the highest symbol of democracy is not spared. The irony is, a law passed in the Parliament by both Houses is criticized and protest marches by groups disturb the peace of the society.

 

To cap it all we have an all licensed media which acts as Parliament and Supreme  Court. Media is a law unto itself. The Chief Minister of West Bengal always talks of Cooperative Federalism, but always defies most central laws. The social media is another too free cyber empire to know its limitations. Reputations are slained by unthinking people who post their venom in bad language, that is, words and sentences defy grammar, logic, decency and culture. In this state of a physical and psychological tremulous atmosphere most sane people think of Indian democracy as illiberal and undemocratic. If you listen to some voices while the enemy poses a real threat on the north- western border you will feel cheerless. Even one cheer is too much.

 

 

“Characterless”

 Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

I came across the word for the first time in my teens, in M. Hiriyana’s Indian Philosophy: God is ‘characterless’. What he meant was attributeless, what we call “nirguna”, that is without the social predilections of qualities of head and heart unbiased and uninvolved in personal preferences. But my, the then understanding of character had made me laugh: If less means a quantifying word (adjective, noun, adverb) then God is without ‘character’. I too was biased by the proverbial precept, “… if character is lost everything is lost.” Today, however, I have no regard for that and such percepts which are half witted utterances of elders to confine the human essence in sexuality. Foucault would have laughed at such things while pardoning Hiriyana for bad English.

Character has several shades of meaning. It means the handwriting or even alphabets; an identifying trait of a personality. In literature, especially in fiction and drama, character is the emergence of a personality in his actions: the protagonist’s attitude, his intellectual and emotional response in a crisis, his decisiveness or withdrawal, his sense of responsibility, the language he speaks in critical situations, and particularly the values which he upholds or flouts comprise his character. If he makes his destiny by his own actions we call him a worthwhile character. There are also some men and women who are inflexible, rigid and stubborn, thereby displaying static traits. Some spit and scoot (hit and run) jokers are also referred to as characters in a negative sense- oh! What a character. But down the centuries character is associated with sexual purity. A philandering bum is not called characterless but if a woman jumps the medieval virtues she is immediately denounced by patriarchy. One may be honest, hardworking, sincere and truthful but if she loves a man outside the charmed circle she is called a slut. A whiff of suspicion ruins the reputation of Sita. No one, including her great husband Ramchandra appreciated all her virtues of purity in devotion, total commitment to her husband, her cultural grace, feminine majesty and refinement; the moral balance tilts against her in irrational suspicion of her ‘character’ – she becomes characterless as if all her virtues are not even fig leaves to cover Royal shame. In the American novel The Scarlet Letter, the heroine is shamed and condemned for adultery. Hester Prynne’s daughter Pearl (the most lovable bastard) too is abandoned by the society. But the ‘Love‘ which she lavished is decimated by hate.

 

The human society has no place for love. The most hateful value is love. Human hypocrisy is boundless. Jesus is worshipped as he preaches love. Krishna too is worshipped despite his riotous sexual indulgences: the argument is Krishna is a God, the most brilliant, divine redeemer. His character is gold. All greats in the world are judged by their contributions to humanity. Their greatness never gets the moral tag, “characterless” even if they deflower thousand virginities and spend nights with voluptuaries in their heavens.

 

In the entertainment industry character does not matter. The affairs, escapades, public flaunting of frivolities are materials for glossy magazines which the laity pours over with pornographic curiosity. They are the new gods and devis. In the lower stratum of the society none bothers about character. In the high flying society none has time to think about chastity. The powerful conquer character, the weak lose it in one night.

 

But strangely people accept a liar, manipulator, cheat, rapist, arsonist as a leader. The seat of power it seems purges all sins and transforms the leader into a divinity. There too character is above sexual purity. A typical case is Rose Beauharnais who later in life became the paramour and wife of Napoleon; and by virtue of her marriage to Bonaparte sat on the throne as Empress. And once that happened none remembered the star of fashions, the orgiastic sex doll which Rose was before right from her puberty.  Before she attained her new name Josephine and her new status she was under everyone’s sheets. She slept with the rich and also with the servants. Love was not her profession but Rose professionally utilized her physical charms to rise the socio-political ladder in Revolution battered France.

 

Character should not be defined by sexuality. A person may indulge in the passions but if the nightly transgressions are transcended by life changing virtues the improprieties of the body are not remembered. But the hypocrisy of the human mind is so obviously biased against women that genuine love is hated as crime. Meera was poisoned but Radha (an imaginary damsel) is adored as Goddess of love. The patriarchal double speak is now more prominent in social media where tongues wag in taxless libertinism. If I say Trump is a character people will agreeably smile, none would have dared to call him characterless. If you remember the famous saying- Elizabeth was a virgin behind her back – people will raise eyebrows scratching their cheeks. A wit may whisper, leave the other things to their biographers’ footnotes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Am Not A Caged Bird

Today my patience breached the banks

the foamy waves of suppression leaps out:

Why a slave for your mom and pop- a cook

and pleasure doll for your kinky fancies,

why dowry demand when I am  worth a fortune

you should know and ye all here and there

I am  no thirteenth rib, I am myself, a being

capable of carving out my destiny.

Mom mocks me from kitchen to the labour room

why a silly girl child, it's male we wanted

you brought a liability not worthy of our name

she cannot save us from perdition

you now agree our son will marry again.

Is a girl a curse, I shouted, who brought you

and all human kind? The Apollinaire male?

Why should I wait for your midnight revels

your drunken orgies, I have a body, a mind

I am of fancies poetic, music exotic

and friendship of equal majesty, dignity

I am not a dumb damsel a puppet parakeet:

I am what I am, not born to mother you

or be ready for anytime rapes 

burning in cold fury.

I view the world with wondrous eyes

my vigour and will cannot be enslaved

as though I am a bondslave bound by fate.

family is not a business, it's a world,

parallel to what God devised, we are

commissioned to make our world great

by mutual love, not to bargain for profit

for your corrupt treasures.

I am a free soul bind me with love

respect my identity I will give you bliss

enclose in my heart you and yours: But

spare me this caged bird torture.

If you can't I will fly away

on my soaring wings which have God's urge

to fulfil myself and give my account to him.

 Sabita Sahu.