Little Angel

Dedicated to the memory of "SARA"

How strange it is !!

You were ‘Are’ Yesterday                        
Now you are ‘Were’ today.

Its’ just nine springs you

Grew up in love and laughter

Raising hopes and dreams, but

Suddenly you took to bed in ‘NIMHANS’

For the forks, scalpel and knives

To dissect to order your brains!

O’ how tormenting it must have been

For you little angel, how could you

Curtain that pain, your face was

The same cherubic glow: Alas!

God won the battle and left your

Parents in a pool of tears.

Now no one will ask you

How are you?

Neither, Pikulu bhai nor family members

Will say-“you ‘ll be alright ‘Sara’”

Your uncle will never bring again

Your favourite fried fish.

You left everybody with a ‘?’

O’ beautiful angel

Let the heavens be blessed

To have you as a gift

Richer than they can ever have!!


Sabita Sahu

GodMen Gone

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

I don’t blame Gurmit Ram Rahim or Asharam Bapu or the Brahmacharies and Babas before them, for our history is replete with such names. Our desire to jump the life to come, if the present one could be made fruitful by any means- even miracles, magic and fraudulent means are welcome. Hindus read that God is nirakara and nirguna; God has no shape or form or attributes, but ,they go to the temples to bow down before an artist’s creation identifying the mask with the face. This stone, wood or jewelled icon does not speak, he only hears if at all, but we pour our grievances paying a token of our worth, a flower or fruit, to appease the speechless god and ask for everything- from child, promotion , wealth to another’s fall and death as if god will avenge for us. If something happens coincidentally, we cry full throated praise from house tops. If nothing happens we wait, perform yajnas, observe fasts and try all rituals and follow casual advises of persons who in their lives are often beggars of fate .

This weakness of men is exploited by some clever men who play midwife between god and man. Often they are equipped with true knowledge, intution and creativity like Shri Aurobindo but mostly the imposters carry the day. Lechers, sex-crazy godmen play Rasalila in real life as Krishna’s avatar. The gullible people savour the simulated drama as real and are motivated to see divinity in the imposters. A few magical tricks, a few induced fulfilment of their desires make them slavish robots of the godmen and they are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for them. Their rationality is often mortgaged to a few gifts or magical tricks of these cheats. Our desire to have what we often do not deserve makes us fall at the feet of the so called godmen . These tricksters and self serving men are like the directors of chitfunds and ponzi companies who lure the poor to invest their money believing their promise of doubling or trebling the invested amount in one year. The super clever politicians hold out another ideology before the common man promising them the whole paradise if they join their faith. Following one man of miraculous powers started with the religious leaders. The world has seen the Buddha, Mahavir, Christ,Mahammad and many variegated editions of the great masters who have enslaved or enraptured men and women to their faith. Once a faith is accepted the bhakt or devotee is ready to kill and die to save his faith and guru from all rational attacks.

In a large democracy like India with so many political and religious gurus, another class has also flourished- the godman who performs god like miracles  holds sway over the politicians and bureaucrats. The politicians protect the godman to get the votes of his large followers. The godman lives a lavish life shaming the epic description of luxury in literature . He moves in planes or two crore Mercedes and rapes and kills with impurity. The vote bank at his command is his insurance against rational attack on his faith and ways of llife. Since democracy is a game of numbers the politicians buy the support of these godman make them god substitutes for a large number of people. The godman build their empire and exploit the poor and emotional half-heads.

This has no place in a democracy. Let there be Rule of Law, good and compulsory education and no votebanks in the name of faith.  No man can ever be god. If gods are allowed to breed private armies to attack the state, the state will disappear. All the small and big godman be, first of all, depoliticized. Their seven star life style itself should be questioned by the state. At the same time let the common man be educated in the latest scripture, that is, The Constitution of India at all levels. Sectarianism and indirect sacerdotalism should be crushed by the state without discrimination. May the common man, the Aam Adami, be made powerful by proper administration, education and Rule of Law enforced rationally. 

New Dawn

Of late, I have learnt to rise
From the bed of languid hopes

Early to sniff at the crimson dawn

That has just begun to lavish

On me the indefatigable joys of being.

Just now I have started putting on

New shoes that bites me delicately

But I don’t bother, I am not scared,

My new rendezvous with life has

Taught me to forget the poison

Fruits of familiar trees, the vile

Canker now cannot touch my feet

Nor the slush of affluent weeds

Can transfix me on unpaved roads,

I’ll wipe off memories of horrible lure

And create my own memories in the

New space making my short life’s

Long span my identity.

I'll make my moments long
Eternities of dreaming truth
Which my years have snatched away
In empty beats of hollow melodies,
Played by hands that rooted me
To a worldly sense of security.

I greet my new dawns with new songs
The late opened litanies of joy. 

Sabita Sahu

Mobile Fixation

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Whichever corner of the world you go, you will see someone walk on the road, his ear glued to a tiny instrument which 'connects' people. The world today is abuzz with human gossip. In a picnic scene you will notice men and women busy with their phones. In the legislature or even class rooms people watch forbidden things. The internet makes the world a superstring of valuable connectivity. In the malls, corridors, pavements, cars and buses and even on bikes and bicycles one hand and one ear are in the close conspiracy of personal whispers. In the parks or lonely places lovers laugh, cry and sulk over the mobile phone. Businessmen, rickshaw pullers, even housewives and five year olds play with the phone to keep the game of life alive. No student of T.S.Eliot will ever nod with the line- My people, humble people, I can connect nothing with nothing. No, the poet was wrong. Today the mobile phone can save lives, avoid wars, feed old immobile people and grow your business. Now that India is moving fast towards the digital mode, the Prime Minister advises the poor villagers to do e-banking, money transfers and almost everything that a person needs with the mobile phone.

The internet has now the entire knowledge sphere at its command. If you are a researcher, the cut and paste job has been made easier. If you are a genuine lover of knowledge, this tiny universe of a phone can give you all the knowledge you need without the physical toil of sitting for hours in a library. The modern world does not care for depth or width- information is all. You need headlines, a few snatches of a masterpiece, see a painting of  a Van Gogh and you become an authority. The lecture you deliver to a learned audience is on the wall, you need not practise standing before a large mirror like Bill Clinton, you need not take notes or mug up things. You just look at your mobile and dole out all the wisdom your audience needs. You can ask for all goods and services by touching the screen as if you are holding Alladdin’s lamp which grants all your wishes, legitimate, illegitimate even banal. You can send messages which you alone can decipher, you can buy and sell Gods’ creation without moving from your chair. You can live alone away from your loved ones. You will never be bored or hungry, the changing seasons, time's mutation will never disturb you. With the mobile in your hand your personal universe is in your grip.

But is it really so? Don’t you feel that the world is more than a few data, equations, pictures and information? Your reality becomes virtual, your imagination is an offshoot of biochemical algorithms. Your view of the world is data- centric. And you too are a datum for others.

Yes, the mobile phone is a dear friend in an emergency. When you need transport, service, help, especially that of a doctor or to inform a friend of impending disaster the mobile comes as a god-send. But beyond that it is a obsessive toy which makes you a child who constantly lives in  wonder not like Alice but like a lost child who finds solace from a non – welcoming reality.

I know people who after charging the phone pray let not anything go wrong with the phone; let not the networks fail. The mobile phone is a boon to the modern man. No argument. But it is not the be all and end all of life. The children today, particularly the school kids, have stopped reading books. The museum or art gallery does not hold any attraction for them. The teacher is also expendable-Google sir will give us lessons. It has made the young persons self immersed; they have no time for anything. Social media absorbs their intelligence; their creativity is confined to a few wisecracks.

Make the mobile your friend, not your lover, not your soulmate.Listen to your own authentic voice instead of listening to or reading the voices of others. Be yourself, not a mirrored image.

Mission Of My Life

I know I can never reach up to you

Nor can I ever touch you, for

You have built your castle so high

That shames the towering clouds

In the blue expanse of the sky.

I don’t know how long will it take

To break your meditation, no Menaka I

But pray step out from under

The canopy of silence to spread

Your message of Truth, Love and God.

After my appeal the stars have

Given up their comfort zones

To embellish the blanket of grass

To listen to the meditating Hermit

In bright silence the Om of love.

I know  the road is tough and long

With weeds and canker, hateful rancour

Of centuries of hate and banter

But I’m sure you will lure

With your magic of soft and pure

Thoughts and  practice of silent love

To show the path ahead to me and all.

I know you will hang on the Cross

Face bullets and arrows only for me

To see that I live in peace and glory

Achieving goals of our love.

Come forward  my soldier

Fight the hate, fight the arrows

Of man’s violent heart and mind;

If you get shot I will be there

To hold you in my loving arms

To fight the battle divine and bold.

Even if you fall never worry,

My lap will unfold and carry you

To your final rest,

If rest you must.

This is the Mission of my love,

My goal and My Salvation 

sabita sahu

Freedom Of Speech

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

The Indian Constitution guarantees freedom of expression. In all democracies of the world this freedom is respected except in the communist countries. You are free to express an opinion or take a call on any situation. But is this absolute? Ezra Pound’s free expression landed him in the jail. Another great American mind, Noam Chomsky gained national acknowledgement of his genius for his rational intensity and uninhibited expression on the ideological process of indoctrination of America in Vietnam and the Middle East. But in India freedom of expression is like a river in spate, it hurts, inundates and dries up on its own. The law or the constitution has no control over any form of expression. When M.F Hussain's paintings were vandalized no one dared to speak. Ultimately the man left India, took citizenship elsewhere and died unlamented and unsung. China today claims all territories contiguous to their land as theirs. If anyone opposes on principles and facts China challenges to the battlefield, as if military power is the ultimate arbitrator of all issues.

What disturbs the rational mind is the impunity with which opinions are expressed about persons, religions and political rivals. Last  month in Rameswaram the memorial of APJ Abdul Kalam was inaugurated. The next day some’ great visionaries’ found fault with the presence of the Bhagbat Gita near the statue of Kalam. The charge was BJP is communalising an icon who is above all religions. The Bhagbat Gita is a great poem, not necessarily a Hindu Scripture. Germans, Americans and many nations read the Gita and research on it. It is a view of life and reality and definitely one of the best literary works of the world. Why should doubts be expressed in polarising terms on such an innocuous issue?

Intolerance has crossed all constitutional limits in India. Jawaharlal Nehru University can celebrate the ‘martyrdom ‘ of Burhan Wani, a Hijbul terrorist and also of Afzal Guru a terrorist who masterminded an attack on India’s most sacred temple- The Parliament, slogans like – Afzal we are ashamed that your killers are still alive- can be shouted in a choric fashion and no eyebrows will be raised. But when the Kargil Victory Day is celebrated in Hyderabad Central University the temporary memorial could be demolished post midnight in a clandestine manner. The Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir can shout if Article 35-A is abrogated there will not be anyone in Jammu and Kashmir to lend a shoulder to the tricolour. Politically loaded statements can be made  without  disturbing the rational balance of the Indian mind.

Yes lynching is condemnable in the name of the holy cow or in the name of ideology  but how many people condemn the lynching of RSS workers in Kerala? Rational judgement and constitutional propriety should not be taken recourse to selectively. But this is what happens in India. The free thinkers like Dhabolkar are killed. No one is prepared for a public debate. If Kamal Hassan finds fault with the Mahabharata defeat him with logic and a sound reading of the text. But no, people will threaten him. Similarly Madhur Bhandarkar has made a film on the 1975 emergency in India. He was hounded by congress workers- why? Watch the film and criticize on his wrong reading of History- if any- and comment on the flaws in other artistic or technical areas. Madhur Bhandarkar also has the same right of self –expression as any other creative person.

We notice two trends in India today. A cultural aggression and a defeatist attitudinal dynamics attacking with nervousness all citadels of life.These come to clashes and create only noise pollution. The rationalist intellectuals now should interfere and call a spade a spade. People must be made to understand that there is a limit to freedom of expression. If that Rubicon is crossed the constitutional values will be in jeopardy.

Corruption

SABITA SAHU         : Indian civilization always prided in moral purity. But in Independent India we experience the opposite of it. People are corrupt, morally bankrupt and spiritually empty. Can there be any  explanation for this change?

PRAFULLA MOHANTY : I think you are too simplistic in your observation. Ofcourse you are right, there is corruption in all spheres of life. But do you think in the hoary past Indians were angelic?

S.S      :  No, not angelic but they were god fearing and law abiding. They never ran after power and pelf.

P.K.M   : Turn the pages of history.  In every page you will see a king or a strong man aspiring for things which are not legitimately his. The epics- Ramayana and Mahabharata are full of such illustrations. Greed leads to corruption-

S.S        :  But the epics demonstrate how evil is trounced by good. Corruption has no place in society. Ofcourse corruption is there but the epics teach us how  to eradicate it and how to have a just society.

P.K.M    :  Then why the Indians, the proud inheritors of the Vedic and Epic culture of our great past are today at number 89 in the corruption ranking of the world?

S.S         :  That’s why I asked. Why do you think corruption exists?

P.K.M   :  Because we wish it to exist. Man is not naturally self-sufficient in everything but he is full of desires. He would greed for power which naturally corrupts. He would desire for money which often leads to moral perversion. Lust is perhaps the worst form of corruption. It destroys Troys and Lankas-

S.S        : Let us confine ourselves to economic crimes like bribe-taking and giving-

P.K.M   : Yes, bribe giving is the beginning of corruption. I give a bribe to someone to get what I don’t deserve. Thereby I also deny the rightful person his due.

S.S       : Yes the third rate students bribe teachers to get the highest marks. But I blame the teachers who accept the bribe to do injustice to the meritorious students.

P.K.M    :  Yes you are right, But some people think money and power can buy prestige and social standing. They use that power on those who are greedy.

S.S      : But when I see the MP’s and MLA’s being bought my blood boils. They are people’s representatives. Why do they greed for money and power when they already have them?

P.K.M    : Because they have no soul force. They value these mundane things more than integrity, character and personality. Inside they are all paupers and sell themselves for false social pride.

S.S          :  But false social pride can never satisfy the soul-

P.K.M     :  Provided they have souls. The seat of the soul is at the centre of a multisensory person’s activities.

S.S         :  Yes Gary Zukav tells us that, But a normal person should accept his lot and be satisfied with what he has-

P.K.M    :  Why should he? When he sees people could be duped, fooled and cheated like Yudhistira, he plays Shakuni.

S.S         :  Yudhistira should not have played the dice game in the first place.

P.K.M     :  But the desire to gamble and get things which may come easily is difficult to resist. Desire asThe Buddha said is the root cause of man’s sorrow, everyone knows it but goes to put his finger in fire.

S.S        :  If you don’t put your finger in fire how will you know that fire burns? (laughing) Evil I think is more attractive than good.

P.K.M   :  Yes. Gurucharan Das’s treatment of the Mahabharata is called- The difficulty of being good- good compels hard work, discipline and basically renunciation which is difficult to practice.

S.S       :  But we have so many laws and law enforcing agencies yet corruption is, like a birth mark never leaves the body. In India the politicians are mostly corrupt-

P.K.M    :  Not only in India, all over the world. Politicians, bureaucrats and even the smallest man in society. Moral chastity,  one may say, is lack of opportunity.

S.S        :  O’ This is an extremist statement.

P.K.M    :  Nevertheless true.

S.S        :  Is there no cure? Can we not eradicate corruption from the society.

P.K.M    : We can, If we do not desire for ease, comfort,  luxury or power,but we have to settle for less. Are you prepared  to settle for less?

S.S         :  Maybe not but we can live within our means.

P.K.M    :  Look here Sabita, If there is a Seven Star Hotel you would like to go at least once.

S.S        :  So there should not be a Seven Star Hotel?

P.K.M    :  Yes, create them but make it accessible to everyone. If there is heaven we would like to go there. We create dreams, We imagine and create luxury and we want to have a share of that luxury.

S.S        :  So don’t dream, just live. Don’t you think that will be absolutely boring?

P.K.M    :  You have to choose between boredom and Seven Star Dreams.

S.S         :  (smilingly)  Yes I get the point. Thank You.