Blessings

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

We bow down before elders to seek their blessings. Parents almost in all cultures of the world teach their young ones to bow down before senior men and women to seek their blessings. People go to temples, churches to ask for divine blessings. Students, before examinations or job interviews bow down before pictures of deities in the puja room. Performers take bows of their audiences. Candidates seeking elections seek the blessings of the voters. Even the non- believers and agnostic candidates bow to the voters. Images of icons or sculpted deities are always in blessing postures. The Buddha whose message has nothing anthropomorphic in it, is painted in blessing forms. Men always seek the blessings of gods and men who are powerful. Learners seek blessings of their teachers. Gods never answer the bows of men but the elders and the powerful respond saying: may God bless you or ‘ rise and prosper’ or ‘live up to ripe old age’.

What is this blessing? A wish of another being for the well being of a person who shows respect! Touching the feet of senior persons is a cultural practice almost everywhere. A hug or a handshake also has some significance. It involves a touch, between two bodies. The inner significance, all agree to say, is the spiritual energies of two bodies fortify each other against divisive forces. Blessings whether formal or sincere convey good wishes. The cultural assumption is a human being is a spark of the Brahman. There is god in all human bodies. If someone seeks blessings by bowing down or by touching the feet, the god in him seeks inspiration from the other person, more experienced and more boiled in worldly ways. If he raises his hand in blessing a positive vibe flows. For this reason an elder never bows down to a person junior to him in years. 

This is definitely a healthy practice. It perpetuates the idea that man is divine and if he blesses another person with feelings of love, something good will happen to the younger person. This practice subscribes to the theory of man's divine origin. But in today's world such beliefs are on the decline. People who believe in these old values are called superstitious. Modern man discards the idea of divinity in man. A human being today is nothing more than a biological creature. At best an algorithm; a process or set of nerves- veins in a mould of flesh and bones following biological rules. Modern science has proven that joys, sorrows and even love are chemical reactions to situational stimuli. Hence respect for another man is always need based and the blessings of the other person is a formal response without any spiritual meaning. The more educated we are the more mechanical we become. Today even a namaskar is need based. Only a man in power, somebody who can do harm gets public respect. The chair or designation makes him respectable. The moment the chair is gone the crowd disappears and bows become 'hallow' or at best 'how do you do'.

Honour is no more , what Shakespeare's Prince Hal in the Henry plays said, 'a state of being'. It is now 'a state of having'. The Shakespearean insight into the nature of human culture is so far seeing that today we demonstrate it even in our homes. A poor father or an old man has no honour. He does not get the respect from his own children as his 'having' state is now been replaced by 'asking' for help. In rich and educated families too the young achievers have no respect for the old fossils. If you are old and no more useful or harmful you lose all your divinity. That is the reason why we refuse to pray to the Almighty in the schools or debate over the efficacy of Vande Mataram. Human rights too are a matter of debate. Faith is to be decided by the legal- judicial process of a country. Respect too:  must have legal sanctions: for the morals are now effete.

Rights -democratic and constitutional- are more important for us than the Right Path, Right Thinking etc. We do not accept the right of any God or Divine or Enlightened man to tell us what is Right. Well may be the classical values were wrong; but blessing a human being for his respectful recognition of divinity in another person was a godlike gesture. If created an atmosphere of moral well being. If today our media presents human depravity in multifarious, multitudinous forms, the reason is not far to seek. Man has lost his morals and with that his divinity. He is now a robot; And no one teaches a robot to seek blessings, Thank you and 'you're welcome' are enough to bless our mechanical existence.

Moods of A Princess

                   I

After  a sandal oil massage

Princess walked on velvet carpets

to her private swimming pool

scented by jasmine buds,

petals of champa and primrose the pool

like a designer honey pond gathered

her lush body with a swish,

her shapely breasts rose on the water,

the age fellows sang maiden grace

the water clung to the Princess

like the flies of coloured wings

when she came out for towelling

the marble steps simmered in glee.

What will you wear your Majesty

Silk, muslin or- Bring me my sheer

cotton gown and leave, I’ll now sleep

and dream of my lost kingdom.

                        II

Evening clouds gathered in the sky

droplets fell on tired flowers

the princess hummed a sweet note

Here is your juice  your Majesty!

What juice?

Grapes your Majesty!

See the rains have come

to give me love juice

I’ll fly like lightning

to my  Prince’s cave...

There is no love fruit

no such tree your majesty:

Bring me poison then

I must liberate myself

to join my doting love, go.

                     III

Your dinner is untouched Majesty!

I’ve eaten

What Majesty?

What you can never serve

what the angels haven’t seen

I ate the blue of the sky

dark love juice sent by him

he whose cave shames heaven

I’ll wash my mouth when he comes

biting his lips love inebriated.

He has come my lady

he is in the central hall:

How dare he come here?

How dare you bring him in,

go and tell him to go back

to his cave and wait for me

I’ll fly to him in my next birth.

Sabita Sahu

Who is Afraid of Old Age ?

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

W.B Yeats wrote, An old man is a paltry thing/ a tattered coat upon a stick. While I applaud the apt metaphor, I am tempted to ask: Who is an old man? One who is 60+ or 80+ or one who withdraws from the external world and sinks to self made depths of depression? Growing old is nature’s way of weeding out the canker from the earth to fill it again with greenery. If death is the finality of all forms of life, age is the only uncountable, for, age, is only a number on everyone’s palimpsest to be defaced by progressive numbers. The earth is old, the sky is old and imagined immortals of heaven are old but they are all ageless. Man perhaps is the only creature who bothers about old age as it is the declining phase of life in which the senses weaken, the vital parameters slow down and eventually stop functioning necessitating a final discarding of the body. If you are a Charbakite you say this life has now come to its useless stage and will be consigned to flames. But if you are a believer, the immortal soul will take another frame somewhere. Why fear old age then?

You may think, I am the most incorrigible optimist or the most irrational idealist, impractical and even inhuman. I am prepared to wear all your sobriquets and all your pejorative adjectives on my head with the same irrational pride: But I will reiterate that the old age is the crowning time of life where the mind is mature after the fitful journey of a long life. It is a period where wisdom reigns; a balance sheet of credit and debit, merit and sin, achievements and failures, enjoyment and sufferings are subconsciously analyzed to give the individual the judicious energy to say the final farewell to a world in which he/she played life in a given field, large or small. And now he would leave with this satisfaction that he has played well unmindful of victory and defeat.

Old age is of course dreadful. Man’s energies snap. His vertical existence in many cases ceases and his horizontal existence begins, at times bringing horror for self and dear ones. Sickness, disease, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans everything man becomes a burden on those who care for him. Yes, this stage is dreadful. But this is what life is. Anything which is bright, loses essence and sinks into dark sea. But life is more than all these built in horrors. Often blindness makes you see the ultimate truth. Sickness makes you dream of lofty encounters with the divine. Like Emerson you dream of youth. Like Hemingway’s Santiago you dream of lions in pre-final slumber.

Today medical science provides ease and comfort. Life expectancy increases decade by decade. Man lives up to hundred or more. But old age comes, as is natural, to everyone. What is expected of us is to make our old age the final conflagration of the spark of  life that we are. I have seen old men and women who think that the end is near; therefore all the more urgent to bring your creativity to its highest pitch. Death will come but since time is short we must make most of it. The last flicker of the dying candle is definitely bright. Have you seen sunsets? The sun too paints the west with golden hue. Dissipation of energy is a given. But it should not mean that you have hung up your boots for good. You may not climb the Everest anymore but you can paint, write, speak and even love. Love of life never ends. No old age can sap the energy and instinct to love another human being.

Yes we need care when old age hastens the wasting process. The young ones you created will definitely care for you if you give them your most mature, sober and autumnal love: For life is a display of the rainbow of love. All colours will merge in the final glow of love. When your personal resources  of time flows to a different shore you must ride its slowing waves. Prepare your unfulfilled desires, regrets and also your vituperative moments to unite to give an account to your Maker. You have lived a life with some faith, some defiance and also some compromise. Make your Maker to listen to you and speak of it to the young, your flesh and blood : Tell them that Newton's Third Law operates in all branches and offshoots of life , therefore  before you act reorient your self in the light of  the late wisdom you have gained. Above all be content , be happy you have made the world of your wishes and desires to the best of your  potential. Ask for more births to give more to life and before you breathe your last smile and bless all creatures to live behind.

Swacch Bharat Zindabad !!!

You are happy to see me

carry your excreta on my head,

You smile when my belly is exposed

through my torn saree

you ogle and wave a 10 rupee note

and indicate a room in the

neighbourhood  after sun down.

I never attended any school

my mother-in-law induced me to do

what they have been doing for centuries

to please your sacred thread

over your pot bellies.

I was not a quota girl

only a victim of upper caste mercy.

Today I was beaten abused

my new sari was removed and thrown

into your proud dustbin

I could not cry, stood like

Draupadi without Krishna’s help

you raped me gleefully and

threw money on my bruised breasts.

The police took me in his jeep

in the cell all Kaurav brothers finished

the half eaten meat of my endowments

I have only one thing to say

Swacch Bharat Zindabad!!!

Sabita Sahu

School Prayers

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Why do students pray before the teaching in the classes begins? Why do students of a school and the teacher(s) gather to pray the Almighty before learning Maths, Physics and literature etc.? When such questions are raised one is provoked to say that those who ask such questions are still in the quagmire of ignorance. Learning is not a mere commercial proposition where paid teachers and paying students are engaged in the knowledge enterprise. The modern world may believe that knowledge should be gained to equip oneself for a lucrative job for the ease of living in a competitive world. May be to make a resource person for the country’s development, to participate in the process of economic growth: But the primary aim of knowledge is to be a good human being to contribute towards the general well being of the society. Life is a challenge of uncertainties,  unforeseen situations and no one can be a winner. T.E.Huxley rightly said, one must be equipped with knowledge to play the game of life to the best of one’s capacity. And for this we must approach all knowledge and the learning process with humility. A prayer is an expression of humility and for that we must bow down before the unseen powers- call it God or anything – and seek divine help to learn the art of living through certain books which must be mediated by teachers. The Guru or the teacher is also revered as Brahman; the Guru is the refiner of the soul, the maker of personality. A prayer before the lessons begin, therefore is essential for the composed integrity of the mind.

In Military training too the supreme powers are invoked. A musician starts his alaap only after prayers- to a Guru or the Supreme Guru. Any learner in any discipline starts with a prayer which prepares the mind to concentrate and stay focused. Knowledge does not come easy. It necessitates hard work with a sense of surrender to the powers governing reality. Only for this reason, all over the world, schools begin the day with a prayer song. The language may be English, Sanskrit, Latin or any local language but the purpose is to learn with humility, for humility is the beginning of all knowledge. In all government and private schools prayer is almost mandatory.  There is nothing dictatorial or authoritarian about it. Learning is the most sacred human activity and the learner should submit to the Supreme Powers so that knowledge will dawn on the infields of ignorance.

In 2012 in all Central Schools in India a beautiful verse was introduced as a prayer song: Asatoman  Sadgamaya, Tamashoman Jyotirgamaya, Mryturiman Amritamgamaya ,Om Shanti Shanti Shanti. It means to reach the truth, moving away from untruth, To move towards light away from darkness and To move towards immortality from mortality.  This alone will lead us to the roots of the universe. Om, (AUM) means the three stages of man's reality and those of the universe; the Awakened state, the Dream state and the Sleeping state. Knowledge of the Om will lead to the peace of mind and also of the universe. The Central Schools have wisely chosen this from the Mandukya Upanishad for generations of students as prayer before they settle down to classwork.

But sadly or unfortunately a PIL has now been filed at the Supreme Court of India seeking its removal, citing the constitutional provisions, as it interferes with the freedom of non Hindus. This is ignorance of the worst kind. Sanskrit is a store house of poetry, philosophy and wisdom.  Sanskrit is much above Hinduism or any sectarian faith. This prayer is not religious nor does it have anything to do with religion of any kind. This is wisdom, pure and simple. But the saddest thing is the Supreme Court of India instead of rejecting it has decided to constitute a Constitution Bench to examine its validity. When T.S. Eliot in his Nobel Prize winning work The Waste Land used Om Shanti Shanti Shanti, no one in the English speaking world raised objection of any kind. Eliot has enriched his poem by borrowing from Indian Wisdom. But in India the source of this wisdom, is now facing a legal challenge. We have no other better example of irony than this!

Dharma is the most misconstrued word in India because of the minorities who always contest anything that extols the majority community. But the greatness of India’s culture should transcend such contestations. There is nothing comparable with India’s wisdom contained in the Sanskrit language. The computers use Sanskrit grammar and all over the world the wisdom and philosophy of India is admired. Such controversies raised in the name of certain misinterpreted constitutional provisions should not vitiate the sacred atmosphere of the schools.

Skin Fit

The tree smiles at the
moth eaten grass,

the pot holes of the road
mock at the driver,

the politics mocks at the
brow beaten politicians
nothing fits nothing.
Lover's complain day and night

she is not my type, he is a snob.

Filmstars fit into the designers devices

and not to their characters ,

some fit into jail cells

and make wads of money,

word does not fit ideas

and ideas don’t fit logic.

Does love fit the lovers

no one can ever say

we are made for each other.

It is the skin that fits the flesh

like the blue sky with the empty space.

Sabita Sahu

Resistance for What and How!

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Resistance is built into the human condition. Nature has its own energy to achieving equilibrium after mutually stultifying clashes. But man, in the history making process of his long march into civilization has not accommodated his aggressiveness in his quest for order, balance, harmony and progress. For thousands of years oppressive regimes of chieftaindom and kingship refused to acknowledge the freedom of fellow human beings. Discrimination in the name of race, creed and colour, even language, segregated weaker segments of humankind as though they are non-human or of a different stock. Personal liberties, economic opportunities and political rights were denied people who compulsorily accepted the philosophy of tolerance, fate and destiny. But man’s resilience as well as resistance to forcefully imposed political and moral values slowly but steadily challenged oppressive regimes in all civilizations. Democracy replaced authoritarian empires, the free movement of ideas and goods, free markets replaced controls and public distribution, and liberty of the individuals was grudgingly recognized. Fences and walls were broken creating openness and a liberal temper softened all arguments around power, rights and entitlements. But the champions of liberalism also used oppression, like the ancient counterparts, to convert stubborn adherents to alternative ideologies, which resulted in rebellion, protest, terrorism and guerrilla warfare. Resistance to change also became bloody insurgencies.

Three important things happened in mid twentieth century Europe. Before that in 1776 the American Independence had almost done away with slavery and the built in hate of the racial system. In 1939 the Second World War was fought to defeat for all time to come Fascism. In 1945 fascism ended but Communism continued which had flourished since 1917 Bolshevic Revolution. In 1968 with Perestroika the beginning of the end of communism was officially declared and liberalism was finally accepted as the chief value for man’s honourable survival on earth. Many thinkers, poets and futurists were ready to declare the end of history: But the liberal story did not have a well conceived plot nor a language palatable to everyone. In the early1990s a total break away from the past seemed possible by the new package of democracy, human rights, free markets (Globalization) and several welfare schemes of elected governments. But the schemes did not percolate down to the historically suppressed segments of the society. To add to these woes religious fundamentalism, caste conflicts, ethnic discriminations and now emmigration have emerged as the new menace to the ideological framework of the new history in the making. Nationalism has now entered in a big way disorienting all balances into tilting upheavals. Trumpism and Brexit too have come as a rude shock to the vision of the human species. Nostalgic dreams of reviving some golden Utopia in the past in each country chases away all isms: liberalism, communism and humanism. As a result of all these the communities which feel sidelined claim their identity and right to live as civilized human beings. This claim is no more verbal. They rise in revolt to proclaim their authority and often take to arms. To support their claim to power, authority and well being they create a literature which at best is of negative emotions of hate and protest. Naxalites, Dalits even terrorists  have their literatures.

The resistance literature does not have any definable character as it does not celebrate man or life. Instead it is against man and his civilizational paradigms. It highlights poverty and deprivation, and condemns citadels raised by other men who have dominated life systems in the past. The Black movement in America had started it. The Palestinian poets wrote of hate and revolt. The urge to express one’s identity is now contagious and affects all subalterns equally. Islamic State is a fight for world domination; naxalite-dalit movements too are a fight for physical capture of state power. But the basic difference between mainstream literature and dalit or subaltern literature is that man is no more a hero, he is a dark operator scheming to kill or destroy. But as inequalities increase protest literature too becomes more and more anti heroic and at times desperately anti human. Protest has its own place in life but protest in the name of group identities destroys all virtues. We must remember that the arch of history is long but it always bends towards morality. In the absence of universal morality any movement by groups which feel deprived of their share of national or regional wealth and glory is at best identity seeking and at worst nihilistic.

Poetry all over the world has almost lost its moral authority: Now it is losing its aesthetic charm and imaginative content. Hate cannot replace love, as death cannot replace life. What matters in literature of this kind is a bold projection of self without soul values. Denigrating historical memory and demolishing myths long respected by men this literature does not celebrate anything except negatives like anger, hate and sarcasm. While we admit what Appadurai says, ‘Globalization (or liberal values) being a force without a face, cannot be the object of enthnocide’ we must also admit that ethnic issues cannot be a force against liberal civilization.

This conflict between liberal and soul values like love, courage, compassion, heroism and inferiority, self-loathing hate and revenge will never end. The present surge in dalit or subaltern literature will also become passé once social- political justice reaches all sections. But new issues will crop up. The process of life is endless till the end game is played out on man. I will close this very brief presentation with the lines of Aime’ Cesaire’ where the truth of human situation is honestly presented:

            For it is not true that the work of man is done

     That there is nothing more for us to do in the world

            That we leech off the world

     That we should be content to be brought to heel by the world

            For the work of man is only just beginning

     And it falls to man to conquer every latent restraint

              Retrenched in the recess of his passion

     And no race has a monopoly on beauty, on intelligence and on strength

      And there is room for us all at the rendezvous of history.