I ,Me, Whatever

Away from all bonds but never free
my  freedom is chained in caves.

I walk along the long beaches
yet untouched by greedy waves,
I twinkle like distant star
but my world is dark.

I cry my heart out and wail
no shoulder to lean on , I prevail.

I fear none yet I slave
I shiver alone yet I ‘m brave,
fire dosen’t scare me nor flame
I burn in the fire of love and wane.

I am not a weakling I know
Yet I can’t fathom my strength I vow

Yet binaries come to me like gossip
I don’t care now let them speak,
I am what I’m a fair loving soul
find me if you can or vanish all.

Sabita Sahu

Election

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Election is a superior process of choosing a candidate to serve people than selection or nomination by an authority, for, people’s choice is the most acceptable choice in democracy. Candidates campaign their ideology, mostly party line and promise to improve the condition of life in a constituency. Candidates are supposedly men and women of integrity, honesty and proven ability to accomplish life- friendly things for people. They are open minded visionaries and persons of commitment. When India became politically independent in 1947 the then leaders of the freedom movement accepted democracy as the most suitable form of government for the Indians. The model followed was the Westminister one with slight modification. The constitution of India’s Democratic Polity was adapted in 1950 and the elections for the states and the central government were held in 1952.

Election is a democratic festival. For a month or a few weeks before the date of the election candidates move from village to village , city to city, meet people, address rallies and do door to door campaigning upto the last moment. Canvassing, motivating, convincing, explaining the ideals of their party and their individual commitment to solving certain area- specific problems to the voters they seek their votes. Volunteers or paid party workers distribute voter slips to voters tutoring them on the symbol and how to cast their vote inside the booth. In course of time the ballot paper has changed into the Electronic Voting Machine as the level of education and awareness of the voters manifested positive changes. The voters have increased in number, technology has changed the tone and tenor of campaigning. The media has made the elections loud , controversial and at times larger than life.

But election is no more a democratic festival. It is a veritable war. The moment the election dates are announced the people of the state are divided by their party loyalties. Of course, the middle class which is  almost indifferent to the election process prefers to do fence sitting till the last moment. And quite a sizable percentage of this class never bothers to take the trouble of going to the polling booths to cast their votes. They enjoy the election day as a holiday. But the unemployed youth finds some excitement and for money and free liquor give their vociferous energies to campaigning for their parties. But the grassroot members of political parties mostly do the legwork. Money flows freely despite the rules enforced by the Election Commission. Bureaucrats give their days and nights for safe and smooth conduct of the election and often their partisan attitudes come under severe criticism. Law and order authorities curse their fate as crowd management gets on their nerves. Everyone is on his toes. At times, however, one feels tired of the whole process because of the predictable consequences.

One is tempted nay constrained to ask what is this all for? Once a candidate is elected, he is no more a public representative; he turns a king. He feels he is a ruler, he is the destiny maker of the people whose votes elevated him to the chair of authority. He can flout all rules; he can bash the poor toll collector, slap an officer and defy public restrictions. His son, wife and relatives can do all illegal business with impunity. In two generations his family will earn the sobriquet of royalty. His family members will be awarded the highest honours of the country for their ‘sacrifice’. Is democracy then multiple royalty? Each state has ruling families from top to bottom, from the centre to the periphery. Did we bargain for this kind of democracy? This question may haunt us but we can take comfort from Churchill’s tongue in cheek statement: I admit- democracy  is the damnedest form of government but what is the alternative?

Choicelessly, therefore, we have to tolerate the loud clashes of microphone wielding netas who speak more on personal weaknesses of rival candidates than policies of their parties. Often abuses are hurled at each other like daggers wounding reputations. They forget that mutual mudslinging leaves both faces dirty. The netas divide the society in the name of caste and religion, provoke controversies which linger after the election like festering wounds. But the funny side of election speeches is, the netas promise the moon to the people who are now beginning to understand that election promises are like vows made on wine by professional lovers. Yet the poor voters are happy when TVs, cookers, saris and some gold coins are thrown at them and trucks come at the dead of night to their door steps to distribute liquor and cash. Democracy zindabad they shout and with tottering steps go to the booths to ink their  forefingers.

Elections are now managed by expert event managers. Voters are psyched by organizations like Cambridge Analytica and their ilk. The Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp buzz all the hours round attacking and counterattacking parties and personalities. The dustbin of history is dug out for juicy scandals and the people display all emotions of the election drama. Well, we have to accept elections as free shows of human frailties and laugh as loud as you can.

My Last Request

Remember my last request,

not to send any gifts

if material tokens are gifts

I don’t know what you call gifting

love, friendship, sacrificing 

a life for the loved one.

Don’t even gift me sun, moon

planets and galaxies as I can’t play

them in my lonely moments,

if you can, make a small hut

somewhere in the galactic shores

play surf with me on the

unending sand collecting  shells.

I want a world with you

to call it my very own

give the warmth of arms

the gifts of joy and gifts of life

not tokens which cannot stand up

to my whining heart's lonely melodies

my throbbing pulses' love calls.

The promise of other life

in my today’s and tomorrows.

Sabita Sahu

Waiting For A call

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Two minutes, she said, I’ll call you. I held the phone slightly loose away from my ears, appreciatively looking at the slick instrument but heart, mind and soul fully focused to listen to vibrations and feel them in my palm. None came, she perhaps cut the line dead. My heart sank. Is  two minutes such battery consuming or so expensive that she had to off it! How long is two minutes, one twenty ticks, two rounds of the second hand, two 360 degree motions: but I can hold my breath for two minutes, there are people, especially, swimmers who can hold for more than five minutes. Why did she snap the connection. Did she do it deliberately or the insensitive mobile phone cooled off in indifference? Does she not know after how long, after how many eons of anxiety I wanted to talk to her? Two hours is a long time in a man’s life. Long two hours! Bhubaneswar to Delhi, Madras, Mumbai! When concorde operates one can go to Beijing even. Two hours sealed the fate of Napoleon. Two minutes after a  two hour hiatus is a blank in time. The world ceases to move, life is in coma. Nothing happens. No birth, no death, no motion. There is an inexplicable pause in sound and silence. Spheres are at a stand still. Eyes do not see as the nerves do not get signals from a blank mind. Breath is inaudible. The invisible air is dumb, the elements have suspended their functions as the prime mover is dazed.

I never imagine time, space and the creative process of supernal life could ever be self-apathetic. Nothingness reduces time to a non -being. Consciousness is being. If consciousness is stuck at a point of non-reality the sub- conscious too lapses into a stasis. Time and history get detached. Detachment causes a death in life. Poets call this a separation from the paradigms of being. The lover calls this separation- biraha which is like a pause in the heart beats- not death but worse. You feel death is more welcome than this nothingness. You stay put in a state of freeze.The sky, earth and all the shenanigans of cosmicity are on hold. You are divorced from the origins, your roots and your vital encounters with life.

Waiting for a call from your alter ego is painful to say the least, it reduces your being to a bundle of shame. Shame slowly leads to fear, the fear of being a non- entity. An identityless moron who is taken for granted. Whose soul force is undermined. Whose manhood is ignored. This fear of loss of personality leads even to self –loathing. Your existence falls apart. You are like a banned drug seller hiding your ware even from yourself.

Waiting for a confirmatory call from a potential employer is a temporary heartache where your being does not lose its power of defiance. You have done well, you deserve the job, if it is not offered, you feel cheated but you don’t feel everything is lost. You will try and retry and will succeed one day  like this year’s IAS topper Anudeep who after four failures found his name on the top of the list.This waiting gives you determination. You accept the challenge with defiance. As Churchill wrote- In victory magnanimity, in defeat defiance- you rise up to the binaries heroically. But when you lose your innocence you often lose the strength to fight back.

A political party can wait. A leader can wait. A jobseeker can wait. A favour seeker can wait. They may say in disgust – life is an endless argument before an empty Bench, there is no judge in sight-but they will wait, plead, argue, appeal, and even fight. That’s what man is. He will wait to fight to win or lose. He never gives up. Never says nothing- to be done.

But love is perhaps the only divine thing which man is not fated to win. There is no victory in love.  If you love someone she/ he becomes your total reality of this life and even of lives to come. Waiting for two minutes to listen to the golden voice of your love is more important than a Waterloo. If the call does not come the two minutes prolong to pervade all your time and space.You cannot say well, why wait for a proud woman, there are others. No, It would mean you never loved. Time comes to a standstill for a person who loves without boundaries of space- time, all limitations are meaningless. You lose patience which is your only possession and sigh away your deep agony.

But why does this happen? Should love overpower your soul force? Well, no answer or explanation will ever satisfy a lover for whom love is the only name for life. Yet … well  the phone is vibrating, a ring resonates the heart.

All is not lost. Nothing ever is lost except the silliness of overarching impatience.

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