Shopping

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

I don’t think we need a Socrates to ask why do you work hard and what will you do if you earn more money. The language, accent and phraseology might have changed but the basic answer remains almost the same. Money was always used for security; the food shelter-dress security was the minimum need that was hard to get. Today people live in a consumer society and the products available are almost nightmarish in their variety. From roadside vendors to big Malls wherever one goes one sees men and women in colourful attire bending over counters on which salesgirls pile up various products- from traditional, ethnic designer fashions to eccentric baggy trends. This is not to say that only fashions interests people. Music, art, designer cards, picture books of all kinds and food parks or flower and fruit exhibitions, wherever the fancy leads, people flock together. New tablets, phones and any new electronic gadget attracts crowds of buyers. Only new books are perhaps not awaited in feverish eagerness unless it is a Harry Potter. Why this craze? The answer is simple: people have more money; easy money. The wives of officers and other professionals whose ‘extra’ income is far in excess of their legitimate dues, their wives and children go for shopping in their craze for new versions of everything. The TV changes every year, so is the case with refrigerators and even micro-ovens. This scene in all cities on Dhanteras is mind blasting. Why?

Is it like King Lear saying - reason not the need? We are superfluous in almost everything. Food, clothes, home decor, home appliances and even bed covers and lamp shades bore us in a few days. What to do when we get bored? Go for shopping, for the eyes are now our minds. The eyes are no more for nature’s beauty. Nature’s rivers, forests, wild beasts, lakes and dolphins are now in videos. If we find time we may watch them. But the fun of living is in the malls. We have no time for a leisurely chat with friends. In any party we see people busy with their cell phones. All are busy. Distraction is the only diversion. Those who go visiting places, they too tick off place names and capture the scenes in their video camera. The calm contemplation is only a bohemian phrase. We don’t have time even for foreplay in love making. We are alwa8ys in a hurry. A funeral dirge too is boring even if the body in the grave is our dearest soul mate. Time itself is impatient to cause tremors in our impulsive minds. Shopping therefore is a welcome distruction, a relief from the tedium of life’s varied transactions.

The other day I was in a Mall, well that is an understatement. It was a city in itself. A star hotel. A theatre for special- you know what- films, a large swimming pool, a gym, a conference hall and a sprawling high rise five tiered Mall larger than Macy’s. I was interested in buying some books and wanted to go to a book shop. My companion, a person I worship in my heart, insisted that we go to that Mall where the whole world was available. I quipped – if the whole word is there are we visitors from another planet! She looked at me with wide bright eyes and smilingly said, yes we are from the Moon. What a fall, from Moon to a Mall! No, no it is a rise from dreams to the spread of reality. I stopped arguing knowing pretty well what her reaction would be. We entered the fashion section where my eyes fell on a simple yet elegant saree and whispered, hey, it would be a tribute to your beauty. She gave me a baleful look: what this fabric and this colour! Are you  a true connoisseur of beauty? What do you know about sarees? This will make me look pale. I was silenced. She moved from salesgirl to salesgirl and I meekly followed. The forenoon lapsed into the afternoon, her saree selection could not begin. I was bored stiff. Hunger raised my acid level. I mildly proposed, come let’s at least eat. Eat? What is life meant for eating only?

No my dearest, life is meant for shop hopping, stall hopping and rejecting Ritu Bery or Satish products. I therefore propose some real shopping, come. O’ books! No my boy all work and no play makes Jack - you know what. You read books which make you physically dull and mentally preoccupied. You simply wander like a Somnambulist in unreality. What else is there except unreality?  When you see your reflection in the crystal waters of the pool you feel like Narcisus: Is that real? When you see the morning sun the scarlet ball raising its arc in the east, you want to use it as a flash light for your night walks: Is it real? When I hold you in my arms you become a beautiful sod, speechless with eyes closed and I whisper all my love in inanities: Is that real? When you read an epic you are stunned by the grandeur of the palaces and the heroic display of swordsmanship and start day dreaming that you are a Ulysses or Arjun: Is it real? Ok stop, she said and asked, what do you want now?

Let’s go shopping. We will buy peace from the mountains, rhythm from the lake shores, beauty from  the hot springs- she stopped me asking – and Love?  Love is only you I cannot buy you. No mall can hold my love as a designer’s delight. Love is where shopping ends. Let’s not talk shop any more.

Python

Where is the python
            the lazy predator

like me he never knows

            what hits him.

Stones pelted at him 

            never disturb his peace

Waits for the prey to come near

            so sure of himself.

He never moves to bite

            he is full half the time, 

coiled he sleeps life's hours

            wakes only to eat.

He neither reads or writes

            love's speckled rhymes

for him love is entangled
            in a moment of passion.

I'll make  him my Guru

            wait for food and love

like him stretching on my bed

             of rocks, thorns and agony.

Sabita Sahu

Anger

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Anger is one of the six ripus as per our ancient wisdom and all over the world people consider it to be the basest emotion which the wise should avoid. Agreed. But why does a man get angry? Anger comes naturally like smiles or affection when confronted with disagreeable situations or when a person speaks something hurtful or does something which causes injury to our ego, pride or self- esteem. The human being is a social creature and his feelings, thoughts and emotions always function in an inter-dependent manner. He has to operate in the society where clashes of feelings as well as symbiotic contacts are inevitable. When someone treads on your corns, slights your ego, contradicts your views, what you think is irrational; causes terrible loss, demeans your personality you naturally get angry. The adrenalin rushes into the blood, the palpitation of the heart increases the eyeballs pop out, the face reddens and you shout straining your vocal cords and rave mad. You speak fast, frothing at the mouth and use even expletives against your grain. At times like termagants you saw the air and often break whatever you lay your hands on.

Anger, however, is not a uniform or standardized reaction to ego hurting stimuli. The intensity and expression or outburst varies according to the situational dynamics of the emotion. A voice-raised repartee to a witticism or sarcasm of a familiar person cannot be termed anger. Similarly a child unintentionally breaking a toy or a tea cup does not evoke anger. At times there is mock anger or simulated anger when a beloved person reacts to a situation that is unpleasant. People often are angry  when the petrol prices rise but they do not show any violent reaction. But the reaction of dissatisfaction which has political overtones may influence the social approval pattern. When one’s reputation is tarnished by unsavoury comments too invokes anger; when a family is defamed or abused one may get irritations bordering on anger. But when a loss of property, prestige and ego happens a man gets angry. The most dangerous kind of anger is the one which seethes a person’s hurt feeling to a bursting point. At times when the person insulting, is stronger and you feel your violence  may be self stultifying you keep it on the back burner of your mind and bide for a chance to retaliate. This anger in certain cases is nursed for a long time in the case of Shakuni in the Mahabharata. This type of anger leads to revenge. Shakuni’s parents and relations died one by one in a slow and cruel death as Duryodhan provided only one meal a day for the entire Gandhar royal family. Shakuni was kept alive by the family on that one meal to avenge the death of the entire clan. This anger resulted in the destruction of the entire kuru clan.

There is another type of anger which is termed as righteous indignation. When moral truth is suppressed by physical powers and a person is ruined, he like glowing embers under a blanket of ash burns into a rising tongue of flame to lick his enemy. Revenge  however is accepted in literature as a heroic value. No legal- moral law is flouted when revenge stems out of moral hurt. But revenge, as is shown in Hamlet, is a destructive value.

We see, often, young persons of thwarted ambition feel totally imbalanced in simmering anger, externally they appear like the Pacific but inside they are violent and rough. In their conversations we notice bitter sarcasm and even universal cynicism. Jimmy porter in Look Back in Anger is a typical illustration of this kind of indignant person who hates religion, love, society and almost everything. His mocking tone hurts people. Even his wife, for no fault of hers, lives a martyred life under his morose temper. Frustrated people and those conscious of their own weaknesses and those who have settled for less in life, are always angry but their anger singes themselves more than those faceless things that caused his sustained anger.

When the self interest of a group of persons who, they feel, have been robbed of their entitlement they too show their  infructuous anger in many ways. But the most harmful anger comes from a realization of inadequacies of one’s own self. When you feel that you are nothing and all your efforts fail to establish yourself in your chosen field of pursuit, not  because of socio- intellectual prejudice of others but by your own failings; you come to the verge of suicide. This may lead one to destroy life.

Is there  any cure for anger? Well, no medicines, (tranquilizers) can restore you to your balanced view of the world. Yoga, Pranayam may help but what is  needed is a proper understanding of your reality and the human condition. How to attain it? Well, I wish I knew. Therefore live as you wish to live without rancour or a sense of inferiority.

Poolside melody

The swimming pool is empty

dry and still the bluish waters

pause for the ripples to dance

when the mermaids sway their tails.

Where have they gone, the nymphs

where are the feasting couples

licensed to cavort and mate

in the rafts of serenading strings:

the auctioneers bids will measure

breasts and buttocks when night rages

with Sheikh dollars smelling of petrol.

The pool turns purple and blue

entwining bodies flap and swim

the zooming cameras flash and flick

the pool witnesses the orgy

and turns still again in deathlike gloom.

I’ll watch the scene to report

still like the lethargic pool

and pen the lyrics in dark ink.

Sabita Sahu

Honour

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Honour is an honorific word signifying a person’s or country’s achievement that elevates the stature of an individual or country, commanding respect of people in general. Honour is a fulfilment of the human spirit. The average individual is most often a reflexive pragmatist unless he is a dud waiting for things to happen to him. He searches for the needs of the self and is satisfied without assertive survival.  But a man who believes in his inner spirit aspires for glory, heroism, creativity. He makes life more than a package of living. He may be an Arjuna or an Achilles or even a Ravan with an urging soul to dominate, conquer and confidently earn respect of the common man. He always leads and never is led compromising his self-esteem. The soul may also enter a reflective state of being where ideas, metaphors, rhythms can invent truths not perceived by the laity. He may also renounce, sacrifice his energies to serve people with compassion. Compassion too is a great soul value. These souls earn and achieve a state of honour which is not palpable. It is an abstract social value which endows the soul with pride, a sense of non-arrogant superiority not displayed or proclaimed but a state of worthiness much more valuable than money, power or visible assets. Honour is a social perception of a name, a reputation.

Some people achieve honour by their soul force striving for it by pursuing qualities of excellence; some inherit it vicariously by their birth into a family. For example, the children of celebrated families of King’s or other respectable institutions. Some others have greatness thrust on them, again vicariously by chance or circumstantial gimmicks. But honour is a state of divinity which a mortal attains by his deeds - courage, compassion or sacrifice.  Those rich and powerful men who think they are honourable are self elevated morons. Shakespeare’s Falstaff (Henry IV part 1) says:

                   What is honour? A word. What is that word honour? What is that honour? Air!

                    A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died a’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No.

                    Doth he hear it? No. ‘Tis insensible then? Yea, to the dead.... honour is a mere

                    scutcheon...

Since it is dangerous to disagree with Shakespeare who is definitely more endurably honourable than most men of honour, I accept with humility. But Falstaff is definitely not my embodiment of honour, for he does not make people proud of him. Honour is that value which makes people feel elevated by the achievements of an individual. A man who lives for others and/ or gives a sense of relief, solace, pride, safety, joy and such like values to a large section of people deserves the honorific of honourable man.

When a person is self assertive, however exalted his heroic honour may be we hesitate to accept such heroes. Victories over human hearts are more honourable than the heroic exploits of war heroes. Achilles and Shakespeare’s Macbeth are not men of honour. A man of honour is always humble, for his honour stems from people’s acceptance of his greatness. Honour does not exist in a socio- cultural vacuum. Honour is always bestowed by society: it cannot be claimed like an average man claiming credit for killing a snake. But can you kill or commit suicide in the name of honour? Often men of glory kill themselves when their unconscious follies come to light. Othello, definitely a man of heroic honour, falls victim to his baser self manifested in jealousy. When he realizes his blunder, he kills himself. Antony too kills himself but his stature does not lift up by suicide. Cleopatra dramatizes her own reckoning, thereby enhancing her innate honour. But when parents kill their sons or daughters for love affairs or inter- religious marriages, in the name of honour, doubts crop in the mind about honour.

Is honour a caste or religious value? If a son or daughter marries a person of another caste or faith, how is one’s honour tarnished? The Khap Panchayats in India pronounce death penalty on love defectors without hesitation and parents obey in the name of honour. Raped women often kill themselves as ditched women do, for honour. But honour is not associated with chastity which is important in itself. Violation of a woman definitely injures female pride but I do not think honour is violated. Sita dies for honour which she had earned, after she was abandoned by Ram, by her determined existence of purity. But that is not true of Amba or the rape victims. When the politicians demand respect for their honour and prestige we feel like laughing for except a few politicians whose souls glow with sage like flame for mankind, the others are rooted in self. One attains honour after a lifetime of work dedicated to human welfare or mass enlightenment. Let us not, therefore, cheapen it by using it in the manner in which we use the word beautiful.

   

Prayer

 

I do not cross river beds

under the burning sun in agony

nor I walk barefoot  in rituals

over mountain stretches fasting

as others do on all occasions:

but I am no atheist or agnostic.

I come when self doubt cripples me

I climb your steps to find myself.

I go to your majestic abode

not to confess  my sins or wrongs

not in fear or in supplication

I do not  know what to ask for

but I come with love to play

with the others who chant  repeating

what the priest mutters by habit.

I have no desire to see you

I know you are not in the image

punish me if I transgress

your rituals laws and grace:

I come to see my lost soul

In your ever smiling face.

When others close their eyes and pray

my eyes search for the hands

that carved you to bless

the men and women who seek solace.

Every breath I inhale, I  take in

your breath incense like to sweeten

my mind, body and life

to  purify my being to receive

your essence in all my limbs.

But are  you there in this stone

this marble floor, song and flower

in this temple built by a king

or a greedy corporate for fame;

tell me are you there in this structure

on this bejewelled throne:

if you are, let me know my destiny

my identity and role here

in this crowd of stony hearts.

Sabita Sahu

The Enlightened One

                                                                                                                                         Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

                                                                

Arnold J. Toynbee in one of his American speeches had asserted that two men were born in the world who had a perfect understanding of life and the human condition and both were born in India: Gautama the Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi. When Gautama came to the Indian world the Hindu poetry , philosophy and myths were on their declining phase because the entire idea of life was monopolized by the priests, saints and Ashramites who had spread over the country preaching appeasement  of gods, sacrifice –Yajnas- and rituals of  penance to overcome mortal suffering and attain something called salvation. The Vedic idea of a formless life principle, the Brahman was materially exploited by images and icons of imaginary proportions. Life was almost a retribution for past deeds. Gautama too saw the same situation of high - low birth, power equations and penance rituals. He saw man’s suffering-old age, sickness and death. As he was kept by his father in almost a pleasure garden of plenty, prosperity, youth, pleasure and bravery as well as a wantlesss atmosphere, the contrastive picture of human sickness, age and death definitely struck him as the ugliest truth of unaccomodated man. He left the life of youth luxury and royal indulgence to seek answers to the perennial suffering of man.

But why did he go into the forest to seek answers? A modern renouncer has no forest to escape in to search for the alternative truths to relieve the present day suffering of religious strife,  clash of civilizations, terrorism and the fears of cyber warfare. May be Gautama thought nature holds the secrets of life. Meditation on life in the midst of nature may lead to some light to dispel the darker truths of living. The hapless dwellers in the pathless woods may give him some clues; the green senate of trees, the wild beasts and seasonal changes in the environment may vest in him new powers to see through opaque realities of life. Sitting under the Bo tree he could realize that suffering is life. No knowledge can help man to transcend suffering; it has to be endured in different forms from time to time; the master sculptor, Time, moulds man. But he could know the cause of suffering: it is desire. The desire for self fulfilment. Desire for pleasure, power and glory. The inner turbulence of body and mind is caused only by man’s desire for the projected needs of the self. To conquer this self- consuming desire he found the eightfold path, which basically means non attachment. By keeping oneself in a controlled state one can ward off all attachments to pleasure, power and glory.

Gautama became the Buddha. He saw life as individually self conscious in a godless world. There is no Redeemer, no Saviour. Man must redeem himself by forsaking the self for the life of a soul. The soul virtues are non-attachment, compassion and individual orientation to his reality. Life is not general, it is individual. Each individual must live a life of austere selflessness with compassion for suffering in others. This was definitely a very modern view of life and its novelty positively attracted people to embrace Buddhism.

But when he started preaching, teaching and practising his enlightened awareness of life and reality what did he achieve? Was it not another level of  unreality where men and women sit tonsured, presenting their ugly face to each other, just to attain the truth of pain and to deny the evanescent pleasure of life- sex, wine , victory in war, riches and their ilk? If one is awake to suffering, the internalization of that suffering is no transcendence. Awakened souls must create a new order of life. A flower must expose its beauty but if there is no one to appreciate beauty why should the flower bloom? Rivers mountains and the variety of nature teach values of love and beauty. If compassion is the only projection of the soul and abstinence is tranquillity how is man different from the inanimate things with which the world is superfluous?

Love is the greatest value in life. Love only manifests itself in compassion, tranquillity. Love too is a non-attached soul value. A man and a woman can come together by love; love makes life divine. If there is no divinity in anything, if heroism, chivalry, conquest pardon and art music, philosophy and literature do not reveal man’s love of life why should the species survive at all. Even if man is the most insignificant he can make life existentially meaningful by making his self a soul by love:  love for all values, valour, honour, renunciation and compassion. Life is not withdrawal from reality; it is a value addition to creation despite suffering.