Sunday, 2 June 2019

She, Me, and Shakespeare


I stood awestruck
my mirror regressed
like a cinematic trick
I saw myself in my
postgraduate classroom
all alone, humming an
old tune, perhaps waiting for
my friends and teacher.

I in disbelief said what's this?
My image smiled, said-
come sit by my side
the lecture is on Shakespeare!
I said- Shakespeare can wait,
but my son can't! Who comes
for only two days.
I know I am your stretched self
Can Shakespeare make me again
What I was?

Come enter me-
I'll run from kitchen to Rome
to feel Antony's love:
the mirror returned me
to my present, my spirit
sprinting everywhere with her
She was Me and I She
time whispered -patience.

I sang out-
'all our yesterdays have  lighted fools...'
we have conquered death
with the wisdom of love.

Sabita Sahu.






I Voted!


Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

I am a voter, that is, I have a choice to exercise my right to select a candidate who will represent me and participate in the law making process in the Parliament of India. Vote is my alter ego, a subtle superconscious persona which I give a person to empower him to think and act  on my behalf and to do things for my betterment. The choice of my conscience will pass through a button  in the Electronic Voting machine. The candidate will have one more number added to his total tally. He may not know who voted for him and ostensibly wax eloquent on things he knows are far removed from the issues people voted for. This disconnect between the voter and the legislator is inevitable in all elected forms of governments. The Americans who voted for Donald Trump never could imagine that a  man who would shut down a Government for weeks together to build a Great Wall of  America to stop the Mexicans from migrating to America for a living.The Indian Parliament,obviously a hallowed place for debate, discussion, has often been paralysed by stubborn political rancour during the past several years making 'law making' an occasional episode in the general drama of furore. Well, Well, Well I am diagressing : let me come back to my Voter self. This year I decided to vote, that is, exercise my franchise in a polling booth which mercifully was at a strolling distance from my  place.
The D day came, I got ready in a summer defence dress and waited for the driver whose punctuality is unfailing like the EVM. He came and took the keys from the shelf. But I  suddenly asked him to wait: Who shall I vote for? In the 20th century we had a very popular man, Hitler, in Germany who changed the course of world history . At the same time we had another man, revered , worshipped like God, Gandhi in India. When Hitler roared mountains cracked, when Gandhi raised his frail hand  millions cheered and faced bullets with head held high. But Hitler ended his life in a bunker putting a gun in  his mouth: Gandhi was killed by three bullets in a prayer meeting. Both deaths were violent. And both have left  their imprints on the world. Hitler is now famous among people who never saw him. Gandhi , in  India , has now been a reference in speeches or a metaphor. Had he contested in  India in 1953( mercifully he was killed in 1948) he would have struggled to save his deposit.  but Hitler could have won in Germany, India and almost everywhere. But why should I talk or think about Hitler or Gandhi? We have our own macho nationalists, liberators of the poor, dole givers, saints, murderers, terror accuseds, ED saints on bail, stars from tinsel towns, Crorepatis hankening for more, entitled inheritors of royalty, Chaiwalas Chowkidars and god's plenty! O'  I perhaps  have a nasty mind to dismiss cynically all those parties and candidates without whom democracy would falter on the perilous course of history. I asked the driver to take out the car. Then I thought, why the car? I can walk the few steps, the booth is at a visible spot meters away. Well the distance may be short but the May sun is cruel. My summer- defence may be penetrated , in place of blood sweat will sodden my style ! I was driven to the booth  in about four minutes.
But what did I see there? A long queue! Have a heart! I have no patience to stand in a queue and move like a legless cockroach in a laboratory. I had no choice. I mustered courage to feel important. My vote matters. If I don't vote democracy will be in peril! No no , that is too much. I am duty bound to cast my vote as a conscious citizen . By the time I settled to my  dutiful citizen consciousness luckily the line moved from sunlight to a shaded corridor and the polling officers were a few hands away. My turn came . My voter ID was checked. Two slips  were given to me. The presiding officer indicated a booth and I entered with confidence.

Inside a very dim light, some battery fuelled contraption looking like a lantern burned with a still flame. But the light was too poor for my weak eyes to comfort me to press the button of my choice. I raised the lantern; no improvement. I raised the EVM to read the names. Outside the muffled voice of the Presiding officer was heard- Why such a long time! I felt embarrassed and pressed the first button, The VVPAT appeared for a second or two and dropped into oblivion. I can't vouch for it. But I came out, all smiles. Yes, I have done it. I have voted. Whoever has got my vote will certainly find the shortest cut to his/ her salvation.













Sunday, 26 May 2019

My Sugar Free Darling!!


How will he take if I call him
sugar free darling!
I don't know ;
he is a diabetic ,all know.

Nothing pleases him,
he's always sore
his tastes are fantasies
of forlorn lore.

He saunters in the market
from mall to mall
doesn't know what to buy
for he owns  the universe
he can only choose as he has
done only once he asserts.

When I forbid him to buy
he presumes, I carved the stars
and mocks at me  from high on Moon
at midnight when I say , come sleep
he smiles and says- collecting -
yes not buying- moon stones  dear
to make bracelet for you-

O' no- come down to bed
enough stones are there in the yard
for I have the  world in having 'You'.

Sabita Sahu

What Faith My Love !


Prafulla Kumar Mohanty
Yesterday my unseen  friend said, without a faith it is not possible to live. To move forward you must have a goal, to strive relentlessly to achieve whatever you  wish to achieve you must have faith as the propeller. I did not argue for I know arguments too are based on a premise, rather flow from a seminal idea. This seminal idea too is almost incomprehensible as the contextuality or the emotion of the moment determines the premise to draw upon the logic to enforce your point of view. This entails a faith in your premise which is not the only one or the final one with infallibility written all over it. If I say I trust no faith, that too stems from a faith, which apparently is a dismissal of all logical constructs provided by thinking  men over the centuries. If I adhere to one such construct it means I do not accept any other thought construct and blindly adhere to my faith in it. And to defend my faith I can argue till I go blue in my face and if that does not give me victory, I can even murder my challenger.

This naturally leads me to the Rigvedic assertion(1.164.46) " The wise speak of One in many ways". If so what is that One we do not know. Each man( wise or otherwise) had his own perception of the One. One who denies the One  cannot  escape perambulating around it to find  another one which will empower his denial. If you accept the one as the Maker, the Manipulator or the fixer there is hardly any scope for another discovery or invention. The One will circumscribe all your intellect and finally in desperation you may fall in line like  all atheists. But if you think of the One as a conglomerate of many ( and all) and follow your own instincts and live a life, any disagreeable event will paralyse your logic. But is life such a  difficult proposition that unless we have some faith life will be wasted?

We have inherited the idea that life is the greatest gift of God, Darwin notwithstanding. And we have built up theories of Karma, Moksa, Sin etc under the supervisory authority of sacerdotalism. Those who followed the pleasure principle had to eat the bitter pill of unpredictability of life in social reality.The One became the Many as the wise individually had self-flourishing wisdom which they used for power and individual success in the mundane sense. What was their faith? Certainly faith in some  divine power which they used for creating fear in the uninformed; the fear of this world and the other world with rebirth as reward or punishment. The many led to many religions, systems of worship and rituals thereby rendering life in the now reality a journey through self- inflicted restrictions of all kinds- in food, daily routine, sex and even creativity.

If some said life is a penance ritual, others said it is atonement for the Original Sin; Yet others said don't sing, don't dance, pray seven times a day etc. Ok. But why did they become intolerant of each other? How could hate enter faith? How could they kill in the name of faith?

When organised societies came up , chieftains and kings took leadership by their faith on the sword, heroic measures became a new faith for  it fulfilled desires and ambitions in many . If power was the faith, submission to power also is another faith- cowardly though. Kingdoms under powerful kings began displaying their faith in some god or sword in adventurous expansionism and the result was Golgotha or Kurukshetra. Modern, so called scientific education, freed the intellect from superimposed faith but free quest for a new  faith with a vision of freedom and self-fulfillment, could not become inclusive despite sincere efforts of  some open minded rulers. Faith in equality and justice was often betrayed by subversive intellectualism. The judge too was an appointed character who must respect his own faith in survival. Belief in eternal economic growth and development too is controlled and manipulated by powers beyond our comprehension. Faith was a Truth, often belied by the human condition. Faith in institutions too was marred by betrayals of truth. If religious faith or Faith in the One ruined human initiatives and suppressed natural urges, faith in democracy, science and institutions made the questing intellect subservient to other rituals.

The average citizen in the current popular culture is a reflexive pragmatist. He believes in the truth of laws, rules, procedures and considers those as his faith for a good life. For him truth is a tool which  will fetch him his desired things but gets frustrated often by his own beliefs. What faith should I have than my friend to surge forward to carve out my destiny my way? The only faith I can think of is the faith in my love, my abilities, dreams and even in my efforts. But as the day advances I myself betray my love and dreams: As the obstacles are too high to surmount I bifurcate myself as a river does and go to the other side: But not in one  piece, in pieces.





Sunday, 19 May 2019

Why Nature Why??



The media blared mayhem

villages were wiped off

cities returned to the stone age

my diasporic heart bled

shedding silent tears I sat

glued to the TV I don't know

for how long, waiting for what.


All cities are mine, all villages

my roving fields in my births

paleolithic to the technotronic

I have come and gone countless times

man has survived Adam's curse

suffered on the cross and stakes;

I know all that and have outlived

the tragedies of Troy and Kargil.


But why nature , her air and sea

wreck  havoc by raping the earth

the earth is nature's alter ego

why then this self destruction?

I don't worry about my love

I have missed him in all my births

he will survive, his face roasted

body darkened in the heat of May

he will breathe his love and send

woeful songs through the still air!


But why kill birds and dumb ones

they are  mortals all born to die:

why kill man when he moves

hurtles towards death everywhere!

Nature is beautiful when serene

this ugly face is not for you

Oceans, skies , winds and fire

make the earth man's paradise

not his hellhole, for God's sake!

Sabita Sahu







Freedom From Fear

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty
Fear is supposedly the beginning of wisdom! It leads man to think afresh how to reorient life to a new sense of security. But this process is never ending . In the march of civilization we move from comfort to comfort but the same comfort  brings newer  discomfiture . If food security is somewhat assured epidemics and new bacterial enemies sting us to newer  fear. If cancer is controlled the environment threatens, the mood swings of climate cause panic. It's fear and fear all the way with saucy uncertainties stalking our moves to collective wisdom. But the constant fear of nature's fury makes all our wisdom look pale and effete: We cower under typhoons, cyclones, floods and earthquakes, lava vomiting mountains... We have no divine umbrella to take shelter under, and despair makes our fear outrageously violent often on our own institutions like governments and agencies.

The fear that creates faith in divine agents often creates doubts too when the gods fail to save and protect. In the Kurukhetra battlefield God himself enacts the drama of death in the name of saving the honest and upright- as if all those who were killed were monsters of depravity. In 1999 Odisha experienced one of the world's worst cyclones on the Durgasthami day, leaving about 10 thousand dead and taking Odisha back to some twenty years. Pandals, idols and temple tops were blown into space. And so did faith in the Protector in many cases. This year the Fani Cyclone had its landfall at Puri where the Lord of the Universe, Jagannath is worshipped by almost anyone who has faith in the ultimate divinity. Puri today is ghost town. Houses have been blown away, trees , especially the coconut trees of the Puri district which sustained families are gone. Shelterless darkness an eerie sense of helplessness has shrouded the poor in their thousands. The temple, a twelfth century architectural masterpiece has been damaged. The sanctum sanctorum was filled with knee deep water. The deities on the bejewelled platform remained unfed. The temple rituals were stopped. The beach side hotels are now closed for repairs. Tourism has been hit the hardest. The National Disaster Management teams are working hard to restore life in this holy city. The capital city, Bhubaneswar, once hailed as a Smart city has lost all her smartness. The populace in sweltering heat waits for restoration of water supply in smarting indifference. The Government machinery is alacritous but the task is so challenging that the best efforts are not good enough.

Mercifully the elections are over in Odisha. The leaders waiting for May 23, the result day , are blissfully indifferent to the lot of the Fani victims. But relief to the poor is distributed with unexpected promptitude as Naveen Patnaik, the Chief Minister is seriously at work. Promises are made and fulfilled in no time. The confidence of people to live to fight for survival is boosted by both the state and Central Governments.

Fani will be forgotten as the Supercyclone, Failine and Titli. The lights will come up , roads will be built , new houses will be given to the houseless poor,, hotels and shops will again be full. The Car Festival of Jagannath will be celebrated with the usual fanfare and the rains on time will keep the farmers busy, But the question is ; Who is the saviour of man? Is it by now obvious that God is man's creation to celebrate  his creativity. As art, poetry, architecture, Scientific inventions are all man's contribution to human welfare and  entertainment, God too is one such  creative work of man to mitigate his worries  in the here and hereafter. If you ask today any true believer, ' Who saved the people of Odisha?' the answer would be 'Why? It's God who commanded the government and agencies to work for man. All things are His and He manages things, He caused Fani and He evacuated and sheltered people...'

Faith has its own logic. Fear is the Maker's way of raising people to brave the vicissitudes of life and also the vagaries of nature. Man alone rises up to all challenges. And the inspiration, energy to create , invent, innovate is infused in man by the Maker. Fear alone makes people brave all odds for life's driving force is fear. If there were no fear life would have been  dull dissipation. In Eric Fromm's Fear of Freedom one learns that freedom management is difficult for man does not know how to use his freedom. But  freedom  from fear is more important than  fear  of freedom.  Life in all its forms is fear management to be free from fear. The fear of hunger, destitution , loneliness and even boredom is managed in civilizational creativity. Fear brings to the highest tension all human energy. If this is God's device to keep man on his toes all the time - SO BE IT. But fear should not quake your logic or make you denounce things in angry desperation. Fear is your distant lover: Try to reach her instead of shedding tears. That is what wisdom is.

































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Sunday, 12 May 2019

My Mango Tree


Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

I am not a tree-lover; that is except the aesthetic  I am not interested in the botanical part of it. But I love to see clusters of ripening mangoes hanging tantalizingly in others' orchards. Mangoes are forbidden to me but like Adam 's weakness prompted by the temptress Eve I have an uncanny deathwish to taste things forbidden. But the sight of trees lining up country roads in a midnight drive always excite me eeriely. Deep forests are  a supernal elysium for my beauty hungry soul.  But I never plant saplings nor give water nor ever pluck a flower or fruit because I am fated to enjoy things as they are without making them mine own. This trait perhaps is  induced in me by love which is a far off vision, beautiful , lush and exciting but unreachable as I never  believe in snatching things away which do not naturally come to me. I am passionately involved with life's goodies but dispassionately stay apart from adventurous escapades for that would demean my soul.


But  this mango tree was an exception. When my house was ready without my sweat or worry- my son oversaw the design, construction and everything- the space around the house deserved some greenery as was time and again suggested by friends and wellwishers. Prativa Rai ,the iconic novelist named my  house Chitrakavya and donated a few coconut saplings. Thereafter other flower seedlings were planted. My son bought two mango saplings and planted one to the east and the other a few feet from the balcony of my bedroom towards south. After a month or two  one day I saw the mango tree, casually as it drew my attention by her symmetrical growth. She seemed to me like a five year old girl sprightly and vivacious, and admired the growing tree, she had a scent which reminded me  which I could never recognize or identify. But whenever I went to the balcony the scent haunted me with a forlorn charm. Then she grew, I was unmindful, and time flew past like a visiting guest and that was that...

I was busy plodding and groaning, feeling grouchy as my jealous friends were  conspiring to see me  slide down from a position they thought  I didn't deserve. But despite their hungry looks at me I increased my pace with my only inspiration from a distance bestowing energy without knowing about it. I held on and went higher and the mango tree meantime grew taller without my noticing it. One day I went up the roof of the first floor for my morning walk as the roads outside were slushy and a shower was in the offing. Suddenly I saw a big odd circle spread of dark green leaves almost a good four feet over the parapet into the roof blocking my path. The leaves looked so very beautiful and healthy that I could not resist the temptation of taking a whole view of it coming down . Since that moment almost every week I looked at her . Her beauty had an elegant majesty. The trunk was uniform and straight like a fashion parade belle she had tapering torso and heavy bulges at the right place. She had four branches and each branch had long and short sub tranches but she covered a large area, the top part leaning towards our back door neighbour's compound.

She did not bear fruit for a long time. Almost for fifteen years she was barren. I don't know what came to me' one day in 2016 I whispered to her, touching her trunk caressingly: 'Hey beautiful'! Get over your barren state ' people feel you are incomplete if you are not fruitful.' That year nothing happened. In 2017 a few buds appeared and three big reddish yellow fruits she gave. I told her one night , Thank you, you are fulfilled now. Next year she bore about 30  sweet fruits. But this year she was full of buds( Baula) so full and wild that people from the neighbourhood came to see her. My granddaughter made a video of it and sent around. I was happy. Unseasonal rains  destroyed half of her proud buds, but she bravely stood as a young pretty woman  carrying twins much to my joy. It was not for the fruits but for her fulfillment.

And then came Fani on 3rd May . I thought Fani would be fun to watch on TV. But Fani after flattening Puri came over rushing  at 215 kmph and blasted the towers and minarets of the  smart city. She at first swayed side ways, her roots pushed up some soil. But she stood firm. I did not watch. At 12.15 my son said she has fallen. I was sad  went running to see her stately from the ground. She was graceful and majestic in death. She didnot  fall straight to our side; she did not fall straight to our neighbour's side; she sacrificed herself witout causing any damage except the compound wall which she broke along with her fall into the vacant lot. There were no birds to sing her dirge. Only towards evening two squirrels and a few ants paid their respects. I mused: I love you: Take my farewell. Adieu

Forever New