My Religion

 Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

If I am to choose a religion today, I will choose none. This answer may shock you for religion is man’s identity today next to his official ID. The passport or Adhar card without which you are officially dead, is the definable identity of a man or woman in a modern state. But religion is the identity  of a person in his social  life. You will ask, then you must have a religion or at least belong to one. Yes, I will say I belong to  a religion because my father had a faith inherited through generations without asking questions or exercising choice. I am  a Hindu as my father was a Hindu , his father was a Hindu...and ad infinitum. I never go to a temple, I never observe the rituals, never read the Gita or any religious scripture, I don’t fast on ekadasi or eclipse. I eat all types of food- beef, pork- whatever comes on my plate, I haven’t married on the altar to the chanting of Vedic mantra or somebody's badly pronounced  Sanskrit. I don’t remember when Navaratri comes or when the Holi colours scald unsuspecting skins, I have never  bathed in the dirty waters of the Ganga although I have boated in the ‘holy sangam’ for more than 200 times, I don’t perform shradha ceremonies for my parents: Yet all records say I am a Hindu.

Now coming  to your question my love, If I am to choose a religion today I’ll choose none. I view religion and God business as an unnecessary luxury for which I have no time and no need. I need not submit to a fictional reality which religion creates. How can I believe that God has created men and women just to multiply and conquer the earth. Woman in God’s scheme of things is less intelligent, cannot be even trusted to testify in a court case. She is a commodity for man’s use. If God has given life and shape to man who created sickness and death? Gods never fall ill, they never vomit blood, they eat the sacrificial offerings and are always happy. They never face ecological problems or tsunami nor do they face the wrath of vigilantes. Man faces all disasters, blizzards before dying on a farm or in a hospital. What is God’s purpose then, If he has created men, animals, insects and nature? Are the created objects, things including men and creatures meant for God’s recreation? Are we the motley jokers to entertain gods who  are perpetually bored? We have no identity then!

No, I don’t want the identity of a creature of God. This religious identity of man  has created a new problem for man besides  hunger disease and death. And that is hate and war. Ever since man wore this identity, this planet is soaked in blood, the atmosphere is fetid in hate and is crouching in fear. The religious leaders make all constitutions invalid. The fear of the other world is added to the available fears of the human condition. Civilizations with science and technology dispel some natural fears but they cannot contend with the fears created by religion. The fear of hell and the lure of ‘Heaven’- no matter how many storeyed- make life on earth a far more sinister proposition than Dante’s Inferno.

I am my own God on earth, not immortal like the perpetual dictator, but mercifully mortal, a creature with birth, growth, manhood, old age and death as changing scenes in a theater. I love man admire woman, take delight in biodiversity and try to befriend all those who appear, however briefly in my sphere of activity. I respect my parents who brought me to this beautiful earth; I love with all divinity and purity at my command the woman I live for and appreciate everything that man does except his hate, anger and greed.            

Life is the greatest gift of nature. This earth is the loveliest theatre to play my chosen role. My quest for knowledge is never punished here as in the Garden of Eden. My birth is not a sin to be washed away in austere penance rituals. I never harm others’ interests. I obey the law of the land and pay my taxes, stand in a queue for my turn to come. And I love my beloved children and share their happiness. Above all I love the most graceful woman on earth.

This is my religion. Come my love: lets sing love’s sweet songs of life to man and forget gods, devils and heaven and hell.`

Hungry No More.

Left the bed early after
the wild night’s wakefulness,
tied my hair, changed the night gown,
when I heard the first caw from the
garden outside looked at the reddening
sky reminding me the world I hold on my

shoulders, whether it cares for
me or not I don’t know.

Tea I made and served others,
whose worlds move on different axes,
prepared sumptuous breakfast, fed
everybody, they left never looked back
to see my plate was empty or filled.

My hunger turned into anger,
felt humiliated and neglected
could not concentrate on any work,
with jumbled mind prepared khichidi,
that was half burnt, thought  then I
angry for what, with whom
and why? Who cares except the
one who like me prepares burnt
khichidi  and eats with pleasure.

Yes, I thought of him, and ate with
pride and simulated joy; waiting for
my love who loves my anger
and eats it with the hunger of
a life time, leaving me
hungry no more.



Sabita sahu

Leave Me Alone.....

 Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

I am young. I have the energy to hold the earth like Atlas. I have dreams to launch spaceships to put out all candles of the sky and burn my own stars I have created in the laboratory. My passions are immeasurable. My ambitions are Herculean, my love will stun Cleopatra, my reach is unlimited. Sitting with a super computer I can hack all devices, accounts and bring the world to a standstill. I can do what my temperamental brothers over the countable centuries could never do. Yes, I can hold the universe as a grain of sand in the hollow of my palm. I work for twenty hours to create and destroy.

But when I go home my mother asks me what I ate whether what she calls, junk food, or what she had given in the hot box. Father asks – did you read that book? That’s very important for the competitive examinations you know. The library bought ten copies of the book at my request. Father runs back when shouts of joy are heard from the TV room- his star Kohli has scored his 32nd century. I run up the steps to my room, bolt it from inside and fall on the bed. Mother’s -o’ listen, eat these sandwiches- rebounds against the doors.

I take Ritalin when I sit in the old fashioned classrooms as my attention wavers. I get stressed listening to dull lectures and irrelevant rhetoric. In the university play fields I have no place in the playing eleven of the cricket team. I play basket ball against my will but my team regularly wins championships. Father has forbidden the play field- recommends the gym to me. Well! why should I be commanded by everyone to do this or that? Why should someone tell me what to read and what job to apply for? Mother wanted me to be a doctor, father an IT professional or a Management Guru. None asks me what  I want to become-BECOME no I want to BE. Parents, teachers, advisers please stop bullying me. Let me be what I wish to be. And I wish to build and create. I want to fight the enemies of life. If you tease me and say what will I eat, where will I sleep and such nonsense, I’ll say I’ll eat the sun piece by piece and sleep on the starry bed of the sky. You think I am mad! Then don’t ask me anything. Leave me alone. Millions like me roam in the streets searching for ideals to follow. What world have you left behind O’ my great grandparents? A world where I cannot breathe; where the climate goes North by Northwest because you wanted the West to come to the East, where gaping manholes swallow pedestrians midway to their homes; where lakes foam and fume, water tantalizes the farmer to his suicide; where dragged from a train a woman is raped on the footpath- onlookers like four legged brutes take pictures to ruminate in moments of shameless privacy to savour in human barbarism in primitive ecstasy; where bullets are sprayed on music revellers by a demented ideologue of the devil; where; where your chancy birth to a religion makes you superior to others; where atom and hydrogen bombs are bandied about on whims; where God’s acres are reduced to rubbles to justify ownership; where love and faith  are commodified in the name of modernity; where all values are  sacrificed for vote bank politics and where man wishes to live for two hundred years with medicines...

Well, don’t play with my passions. I am a simple human being. I want to live in a comfortable home where love bonds the human other into a relationship. I want a fair job which will absorb my soul and give freedom to search for new things that will delight man without ecological despair. Life should offer challenges to show and prove that man is a creative soul in a world full of such human beings who never bother to chisel out a stone knife even for hunting like the Homo Erectus.

In short let me live like a man with love and creativity to make the world more beautiful. Let me leave behind a more hospitable world than I was fated to inherit. Let me be a glowing part of God’s scheme of things- If there is no God, let me create God and worship Him as a referee to judge me in the final reckoning.

Resolve

How many times do I need

to wear my armour to fight

the unending battles of life’s
phoenix falling to rise again?

How long can I enflame

my desire to live , how long

enforce my weak shoulders

to carry the arms in this

time eaten body and mind?

My growing years have slowed

my pace,my steps infirm,

my  memory unresponsive,

I depend on my family to remind me

I am not sick and lost.

But I can’t sit here to brood,

analyse and ask, although

I am frail bereft of zeal,

I have to fight my battles

long and deep with my love’s

empowering and indomitable will.

I have done my worldly duty

yet I’m not done, I still

have dreams forlorn.Come my love,

my dearest friend hold me tight

and breathe your magic into me

send me again to fight and heal.


Sabita Sahu

Festivals

 Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Festivals are always a celebration of Man Alive. As integral parts of  religious rituals festivals are life celebrations. Man’s joys, sorrows, hopes and frustrations in the pastoral and agrarian contexts of life are expressed through the festivals. A cynic may say that festivals are  psychic  compensation for social boredom. But such compensations were required when man depended  on agriculture and no other avenues of life sustenance were available.

Festivals are at times totemic, at times celebratory, often propitiatory. These are expressions of ideological faith of a human collective. In ancient Greece too  we had festivals as the Greeks had created a mythic order above man  for life management. In the other civilizations too we  have festivals. Christmas is, perhaps , the greatest festival celebrated all over the world. Hindus have multiplicity of gods and goddesses and almost every other day there is some festival.  In Odisha since Jagannath is the chief deity of the people as per the temple tradition, 13 festivals are observed in 12 months. But the most important festivals for the Hindus  are Dussehra, Diwali and Holi. Nowdays  the Ganesh festival is rivalling the Durga puja. Festivals always unite people for a common cause. The famous car festival of Puri is always an occasion for almost an International meet. In the ancient days  the King of Puri had consultations with his spies spread all around and the kings of other kingdoms for precautions against attacks etc. The cultures of different states and people had a chance for contact and mutual enrichment.

But today festivals are a platform for the vulgar display of the nouve riche. Commercialization leads to dilution of faith, individual display or group display of snobbish pomposity leads to more competition: as a consequence mutuality and intermingling gets negated. Moreover we now experience communalization of such festivals, which compels us to rethink. If festivals are celebrated for communal passions and competitive display of wealth or local pride the purpose is lost. The younger generation has more competitive tests for survival in the global situation. Festivals for them are waste of working days on passionate beliefs which are not relevant to the new challenges to life in the changed order of things.

History is witness to the change and evolution of new forms of worship, new forms of faith. In the process of cultural evolution many a form loses relevance and new forms emerge. Like the changes in human evolution from the amoeba to the Homo Sapiens culture too changes its tone, tenor and at times culture gets destroyed. Today festivals are at critical crossroads facing even extinction. The reasons are not far to seek.

Today man is not integrally connected to the society; he is a self – contained world in himself. The scientific temper may not have replaced our fear-induced mindset altogether but the medieval, pre- modern and emotional approach to life has definitely changed. A rationalist way of thinking is slowly entering the society. The individual by his schooling and exposure to technology is slowly moving away from the ritualistic frame which religion imposed. In Hinduism, specially, there is no regimentation. In Islam reading Namaz at least five times a day and going to the mosque are compulsory. The dress code and the culture codes are thrust on muslim children right from the Madrassa days. The Madrassas do not promote scientific ways of thinking nor do they permit cultural individualism. In Christianity too attending the church every Sunday is mandatory and those who do not attend Church services are termed agnostics or non- believers.

But their number gradually increases in the Christian world as there is no regimentation.The Hindus in this respect are more liberal. One who never goes to a temple or prays for a day is also a Hindu till death. Modern education and awareness of environment protection and ecological problems make the educated generations turn away from age old rituals. Comparatively green deepavali this year is illustrative of the change in the mindset of the younger generation. They consider pollution a greater evil than Ravana and Ram should destroy the evil of pollution. Hence no no to crackers. The rivers are polluted by our traditional belief which now must change to save the greatest monument – the Earth.

The knowledge of reality and awareness gradually move the new generation away from celebrating festivals. There are other greener ways of celebrations and hopefully in the days to come ways and means will be found to combine tradition and modernity in our festivals so that the air, water and other elements do not get polluted. The joys of triumph or love or devotion can be expressed in environment- friendly ways if we do not imperil our own survival by following the traditional ways with ostentatious snobbery. The slogan now is : Think green , Live green.

In Memorium ( Remembering My Brother- in –law)

I was your last companion

at the bed side when
your breath stuck to unreality,

you fell like a broken bough

softly on our tear drenched eyes,

you went to rest in peace,leaving

behind endless tasks, as tough

as you were soft while you breathed.

I could not read the signs;
the candle did not light up,the

dogs howled all night and the

amiable lift man chose to be rash,

the swipe machine did not function,

the premonitions went unread.

I could not give you the food you

asked before surgery, could not

stop the flow of blood, could not feel

your time was up, your dreams ended

the reckoning was over forever,

prayers and doctor’s efforts turned

futile, the rest was a dark silence.

Your dear ones cried, wailed but

I was stoned to brave the moment

listening to the call of duty, to take

your lifeless body for final farewell,

but why did you part half way when

the entire road was open for you

to reach your destiny – maybe it
was your destiny to leave us destitute.


Sabita Sahu

Gambling

 Prafulla Kumar Mohanty


No man is ever happy with what he has or what he is – women too. In the evolutionary process of Homo Sapiens we have seen changes in body and mind. Attitudinally too man changes and wishes to change according to his imaginative perceptions of life. If a chance comes to take a risk he jumps at it. If no chance comes he creates, manipulates even conspires for it and gambles. Antony and Cleopatra gambled away half of the world for a kiss. Shakuni in  the Mahabharata gambled away his family  for revenge. He could bear with stony fortitude the sight of death of his parents, brothers and friends in the stonewalled prison house of Duryodhan only to destroy the Kuru clan. It was a great gamble with fate and a human challenge to destiny. Hitler’s gamble with the Russian campaign has been recorded as a compulsive war mongering bound to fail as he was trying to alter the destiny of the world and human beings.

Gambling is a challenge to destiny. Man wishes to gain what is not his in the normal course of reality. All men gamble overtly or covertly, consciously or accidentally; Those who don’t are timid and are satisfied with what they have. They never take risks, never disturb the apple cart. A gambler takes risks, even the risk of losing what he has and what he is. The desire to possess the desired objects which a person is denied in the regular course of his life makes him gamble. He risks his reputation and at times his existence. Gambling is like magic which gives the illusion of seeing or getting something which is not there. When a saint or a sage gives a magic mango he definitely takes a risk: If his tantric knowledge fails or his tricks are exposed he will lose his identity.

No business will ever thrive without risk taking. A speculative release of a product may by chance catch the imagination of the people and become a universal favourite. Jeans for example, is one such chancy product, which gambled its way into success. All big Industrialists take risks. Oil exploration too is a gamble in fact all ventures are fraught with elements of risk  .

Politics is the art of chance manipulation and risk management. The kings of yore as well as the politicians of the modern world often gamble on an issue or a situation. They bet on the mindset of a people or a ruler. China thought that the Indian mind still carried the old traces of timidity and fear of war, and would step back to escape a risky situation. Hence the Doklam threat, but when India stood eyeball to eyeball without banter or ferocity China withdrew, the gamble failed. Indira Gandhi’s Emergency was, perhaps, the greatest gamble in Indian Political history - post –independence. But it failed.  The Demonitisation of Narendra Modi was also a political gamble. It succeeded politically but failed to a great extent, however, temporary it might be, in terms of economics. Yudhistira  in the Mahabharata is a great example of a gambler. He is an expert in soldier mobilization which he practised on the dice board. When the invitation to play dice came from Dhritarastra, he accepted it and played with Sakuni’s deceitful dice. He lost everything including his brothers and his wife and was exiled for 13 years, the last year being the underground year.  Why should a truthful, honest and wise man like Yudhistira play dice? Was it for kingdom or wealth? No, Yudhistira played for political strategy. Had he won he would have returned everything to Duryodhan but Shakuni’s loaded dice had another gamble, changing the course of the plot of the epic.

Seniors always  admonish against gambling but gambling goes on – if not in the public places, in licensed casinos. Las Vegas is perhaps , the most glamorous gambling city in the world, a playhouse of billionaires. On Kumar Purnima  in the South and Diwali in the  North –West people gamble as  a religious ritual. Gambling, betting will never stop. Kalidas gambled and wrote the best in Sanskrit poetry. Dosteovsky ruined himself at the gambling dens but wrote great novels. Gambling is ‘bad’ but alluring. It is risky but irresistible.