The Call Of Life

She keeps her soul in the locker

and moves out for a body bargain

in the bright night killing her dreams.

Her voice sleeps in the quiet,

on-off of lights no more bother her

no hands left or right wipe her tear

as no hands are  the  same every night

for them, she is a body for  a night.

Her scarlet dress has no letter on it

all eyes stare at her, faces ogle

but she walks on high heels

the click-clack wakes her senses

to return home for a wash.

The Ganga  water in soap

makes her Draupadi again.

Takes out her soul from locker

wears and marches in pride

in the morning sun temple wards,

priests rush at her with vermilion

to touch her cheek and forehead

to put their holy mark.

Sabita Sahu

Publicity Craze

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

When I see today a group of individuals crowding around a victim of a car accident, gasping for breath, and clicking videos my blood boils. Is a dying man too an object of salacious publicity? I can understand the photo ops of ministers doling out freebies to the poor and hungry , although that too is inhuman exploitation of man's infirmities; for the minister too is hungry of publicity. But why should an accident victim or rape victim be used for publicity material? If publicity is communication to the larger  public for information, how is the common citizen edified by such information? Human poverty , destitution, depravity, nudity and even helpless tears are all now amateur camera fodder and unthinking persons find a surrogate of sexual excitement in such pictures. When young shoppers go to a Mall they click  pictures and release them on the Face Book for the wows of their FB group. The Birthday celebrations and parties are all on the FB and other Apps. A picnic or a book launch or even sightseeing are all publicity material.

May be I am an old fashioned prude or alienated from the new reality  but I feel this is a self-obsessed complex to show to the circle of your acquaintances how significant your activities are, and what a man/woman  of fashion-taste-choices- fancies you are. I may however be countered  by many that there is nothing wrong in self-publicity. In these times of information if your friends and relations enjoy seeing your activities, why not give them that pleasure? Well, I can't agree more. But what about the countless others who do more important things for society or nation without any publicity? Bureaucrats, Scientists, writers , thinkers and also nation builders and politicians do more important things without bothering for publicity. A true lover never lets the world know what a great lover he is. Einstein never had a camera man by his side when he was spending sleepless midnight hours to show to the world how he perspired  over minor problems.

But the world was curious to know how he worked, what he ate and wore  after his relativity became a  gamechanger in Physics and Mathematics. The nonentity wishes to show his meaningless activities to his circle, the bigger the better. Prasun Joshi never uploads pictures of his frenzy over the choice of a word. Amitabh Ghosh does not publicize what research materials he collected and how, for his Hungry Tides or Sea of Poppies: We have not seen videos  of Churchill  working all night during the war although that would enlighten us about the ways of a genius. The true celebrity , the real genius does not bother about publicity: It is the Mr. Nobody(s) who is eager to let the world know how he shopped in a Mumbai Super Market. People are hungry to know how Harivansh Rai Bachchan performed before  midnight audiences and wrote Madhusala after his duties as Professor of English at Allahabad University. But the poetester's video goes viral showing his writings table and pen and (pegs) stacks of books.

Publicity is required to inform people about their rights and what the state  proposes to give them. Publicity is must when new taxes are proposed by Government or when a life saving  medicine is released to the market. But what you wear for your marriage or who made you up is too private to be publicized. But wait-wait- if that pumps up your ego or elevates the status of your family or makes your circle envious, well do it . But spare us mortals who believe in silent work. If our  work is appreciated  others will do our publicity.

Imagine the immortals- Vyasa, Valmiki, Shakespeare, Copernicus and a host of greats who had no camera phone nor any publicist. Vyasa- Valmiki did not even write the date or name- for they  believed in Eternity and the  vastness of the world, too large for human signature. Perhaps for that they  are read and researched even today although we never know what they looked like. Publicity for the genuine is a post -appreciation chase: For the Fake it is an obsessive hunger. Choose and cheers.

Gandhi 150

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

The future historians of the world would be amazed that in the first half of the twentieth century there were two oxymoronic value systems dominating the story of man. In the European theatre and in Russia we saw the rise of a self-resurgence of human dignity that challenged the Czarist regime: The Bolshevic movement in Russia gave rise to the belief that man, whatever his hue, will not tolerate the unreasonable inhuman domination of brute force. This inspired poets like. H. Auden and others to assert the rights of man. But immediately after the Bolshevic  revolution and the First  World War, the world saw the rise of a more powerful fascist force, racially motivated and ruthless, in Hitler's Germany . At the same time in India we experienced another kind of elevation of the human spirit. After Gandhii-Mohandas Karamchand- returned from South Africa to his homeland, India, he started  a unique human movement which could be safely termed as a spiritual uprising. Gandhi started a Freedom Movement in a country dominated by the British powers that had almost destroyed the human spirit in India- not to speak of the decimation of India's identity as a ten thousand year old civilization. Gandhi united the hungry, unfed unclad millions with his call for Swaraj, self-rule. In other words the Gandhian Movement was for the rights of man to make his own destiny by utilizing the human resources of free quest for identity.

Before Gandhi the world had not seen any movement without arms - the arms to wield the sword or a gun- without violence and untruth. In one sense it was  not a war or insurgency : It was man's birth right to be free and to manage his and his country's affairs without fear or tyranny. Gandhi's weapons were truth and non violence which were the soulforce of this ancient land. Gandhi historically unites India's great past with the turbulence of the present and evolves a method -if method it was-of assertion of rights without resistance.

What Gandhi did was not an Indian exclusive . He was admired and followed by others in the world who found the human spirit  suppressed by inhuman authority. Martin Luther King(Junior)in America and Nelson Mandela in Africa were inspired by Gandhi's ideas. The American writer Thoroeau too was   edified by  Gandhian values . The world saw in Gandhi another Christ. Gandhi  made the Indian past his present by updating  the Buddha-Ashoka values. The sword was not the ornament of the brave. Human bravery is built in and  in born: It is the Soulforce. The first manifestation of the soulforce is courage, the courage to stand erect when the British lathis fell on the head. And to speak the truth without fear. And not to kill or retaliate, for revenge too is a violent answer to the oppressor. These values he tried to inculcate in the fellow Indians by demonstrating the unity of thought- speech  and action. What Gandhi thought, he spoke and what he spoke, he did.

When the post-Gandhi world, especially the younger generation in America, saw Attenborough's film Gandhi, it was stunned  into the realization that there was a lean, naked(half) man, not so handsome or powerful, who could subdue the power of the mighty British empire by his whispered values of love, truth, non-violence and above all by his soulforce. HIs presence was divine but he was human to the core.

Today while celebrating the 150th year of his birth we Indians have made him a brand. Remembering Gandhi and following his ideals are laudable but branding him is blasphemy. The political context and the life scenario is totally different. Let us celebrate Gandhi but let us also try to be a  Gandhi in our own arena of human activity. Gandhi is for mankind: Let us not monopolize him for our own ends.

Night Aches

When night comes

mind wanders to

seen and  unseen lands,

aching bone dissuades my

dreams to incomplete

texts of irrelevance.

Why do nights come ,

when the bright sun

caresses the dew,

night suddenly creeps into mind

laughter ceases in acrid silence

burning my soul in apathy,

my world recedes into

paradigmatic oblivion.

I try to gather myself

sweep away the litter of the past

the pricking pins of present,

but images recur and often

I fail to wipe off the slate as

the moving finger uncleans  it again.

I pray take away the day

make my world the reign of night

at least give me my moon and stars

if night I deserve

I deserve my share of joy too

without aching bones

and nagging memories.

Sabita Sahu

The Aryan Invasion Myth

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Most Indians have grown up with myths: Myths of divine origin, myths of Indra killing Britra demon to cause beneficent rains and what not? But when it comes to the Origin of Indian Civilization our minds are clouded by historians both Firangi and Indian. When were the  Vedas, supposedly the first serious effort in poetry, philosophy, worldview and man's position in cosmic reality, written? The answers have been given by foreigners. It was Max Muller and Mortimer Wheeler who have built up the trenchant narrative that the Vedas especially the Rig Veda was written around 1500 BCE after the Aryans invaded/ migrated to India. Basically, the people of the Steppes of Central Asia was the original homeland of the Aryans. The Aryans had horsedrawn chariots and greater firepower. They drove the dasas, the dark skinned inhabitants to south of India and reigned over the whole of north- western India. If this is true that the Vedas were composed by the Aryans how is it that the place of the origin of the Aryans has no great poetry or philosophy to offer? They have built Pyramids, Sphinxes, Mausoleums, in fact, structures for the dead and their living cultures have not shown any continuity. Iran , Iraq, Mesopotamia even Greece are now languishing under the weight of their own contradictions of mythic confusion: Whereas India has cultural continuity despite all Mogul, British invasions and its past, however shadowy, is still a large part of our inheritance. The leftist historians of Independent India have merely perpetuated and fortified the colonial legacy, therby shielding the Aryan Invasion- Migration Theory ( IAMT).

The colonial archaeologists claim to have discovered the Indus Valley Civilization in 1920; a civilization at par with the Civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia guessed to be the cradle of human civilization. The IVC has no reference to Saraswati although in the Rigveda there are 74 verses in it as a paean to river Saraswati: The Nadi Sukta (Rigveda 10.75.5) praises the Saraswati as the sustainer of life and nourisher of a civilization. If the Aryan migration is true and the Rigveda is composed by the foreigners who invaded /migrated to India in 1500 BCE, how come that the carbon dating of the Indus Valley sites in places dates back to 9500 BCE? It suggests that this 'newly' discovered civilization is much older than the so called cradle of human civilization. The Indus valley civilization was spread over a vast territory of two million square miles and the Harappan and Mohenjo Daro sites have shown a more advanced civilization than the Cradle was. The IVC has shown that it was a civilization where there was no slave trade nor continual wars. It had its currency, weights and measures and also the figurines, terracotta works and especially agriculture and bullock carts. They had their scripts- which unfortunately has not yet been deciphered, thereby stifling our claims to being the cradle of human civilization.

The foreign archaeologists claim that the IVC was destroyed by whatever factors, around 3500 BCE. But none have advanced a plausible theory of its decline.  But recent research has revealed that more than the Indus (Sindhu) the Saraswati river was the life breath of this civilization.  An American Satellite for the first time brought out a picture of the dried out bed of River Saraswati. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) too has given clearer satellite imagery of Saraswati's bed. She flew from the Himalayas (Glacier melt-water) and had a length of more than 3000 kms, finally ending up in the The Arabian Sea. The Landsat of America was the first to image its course followed by ISRO. Scientific studies have shown that Saraswati flowed from 8000-6000 BCE and dried up and desiccated around 1900 BCE. If this is true the IVC studies are not authentic. Most of the so called  Indus sities were in fact Saraaswati sites. The river was desiccated, perhaps, because of tectonic plate shifts. Yamuna was a tributary but she changed her course. Saraswati had created a civilization that was peace-loving and contemplative. The cities on her banks were prosperous. India's trade in the steppe regions might have caused some cross fertilization of cultures but to say that the indigenous people were uncultured natives who were driven out by the so called invaders is now not acceptable.

Further study will definitely reveal as have been shown by the DNA studies of David Reich, Vasant Shindhe, G.D. Bakshi and others that the Saraswati of the Vedas and the great epic Mahabharat had given rise to a culture which was the beginning of human culture. The river is now gone but the memories of her still linger in the minds of the  modern Indians. In view of these facts the History of India should be rewritten.

Dark Room

She turned on the silver knob

of a dark room and the

dark fancies to which she is used,

at least it hides ugliness  where

beauty and love are of no matter.

She the  'five minutes'

queen of  visible darkness

knocks the doors

for living in minutes and hours

by selling her wares uninvested.

While dressing up she  picks

her earnings of 'five minutes'

from the teapoy moves away

with a smile -even less

having no scorpions on head

walks into another dark room.

Sabita Sahu

Odia Swaviman

 

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Call it self-respect, an ingrained sense of dignity, Swaviman is Pride. It is never adulterated by  insolence or defiance, it is a realization of Soulforce which makes an individual operate in his socio- intellectual environment with a natural confidence born  out of his/her cultural inheritance and historical glory. Mr Das( Madhusudan Das ) was perhaps , the first Odia to use this Swaviman to raise  the moral of the Odia when Odisha did not have her own map, that is, no clearly defined  geographical identity, no record of its glorious past and no officially recognised language. Supported by Fakirmohan Senapati, Gopabandhu Dash and other worthies Mr Das started the Utkal Sammilani and moved for unity of the Odia speaking people despite all odds. The movement gathered steam and forged ahead and eventually  in 1936 Odisha was formed. The Odia gained his voice and spoke  and wrote. Literature, fine arts, sculpture for which the Odia had already carved out his place in the history of India's cultural past. The resilience of the Odia, temple architecture and his music and dance traditions were revived in a renascent fervour.

After Independence the nascent democracy paid attention to eradicating poverty which was ( and is) the bane of the people. A state rich in mineral deposits, a 480 km coastline, native intelligence bravery had another bold and proud voice Biju Patnaik. It was Biju Patnaik who gave a new dimension to Odia Swaviman. If Mr Das was the first graduate , lawyer, industrialist, freedom fighter, cultural hero and energizer of the Odia Soulforce; Biju patnaik was the first dreamer of Odia resurgence. Biju infused into the dormant youth the dream of big Industry, Engineering , Higher education, Port-Airport- Expressways of speed to raise high and wide. He added " Kalinga " to Mr Das's Utkal and gave the Odia a larger world of ideas and vigour. Despite his heroics, however, due to lack of political and social support and the typical crab mindset of people he could not realize his dreams for the people of Odisha. But he made the people aware of a vibrant destiny which the proud Odia could achieve by self-reliant pursuits.

It is a pleasant Irony of  Time and History that what  the father aspired for , the son achieved. Nabin Patnaik , the worthy son of perhaps the greatest Odia, Biju Patnaik, arrived on  the desolate post-super- cyclone  scene like destiny's child to turn the Biju legacy into a realizable practical reality as his legatee.  A man of creative and critical thinking, least interested in his father's stormy World of Politics and overreaching dynamism, Nabin Patnaik, by a decree of fate was  thrust with the ruins of Odisha's administration in his pen holding  hand. I don't know whether  he soliloquized like Hamlet, "O' cursed spite that I was born to set it right" but he has ruled and reigned Odisha  to unimaginable heights. Biju Patnaik , somewhere in the stars in the blue canopy overhead  must be sipping his morning tea with a sober hint of a smile , in his charming face.

After about twenty years, Nabin's Odisha has carved out her proud place in the world map. Political stability, social accord apart, he has changed the mindset of Odisha by his work- without fanfare    He is almost in godlike isolation, in no way   overexposed to the public,  never advising  on  do's and don'ts: Yet he is recognised in India and abroad as a master craftsman  in the art of political administration. Today the Odia is in the highest chair in  the Supreme Court, The Reserve Bank of India, ambassadorial assignment, hospital , Universities, Sahitya Akademi and Gnanapitha chairs. And also in the honour lists of Army and CRPF. The people of Odisha are now in Silicon Valley, World Bank, Apple Microsoft and everywhere. In disaster management and post- devastation reconstruction  Odisha is admired by the world.  Well, I, am not writing a panegyric on Nabin Patnaik, although he deserves it.

 I wish he had created a workforce in the lower rungs of the social ladder. The bureaucracy, Police and other Government functionaries are doing excellent work with single minded dedication. But what pains me is the dole politics. Why should people be given everything almost free? Except air nothing is free. But  because of pollution (self-created)even "pure" air is also sold. Water has now become a scarce resource. If people would be compelled to buy the elements for survival, why should food items and other things be given free or almost free to people? Yes, during  calamitous situations and disasters, it is incumbent upon Government to give everything free, as ours is a welfare democracy. But when everything is normal why should people be encouraged to idle away their time  thanking the Sarkar? An idle mind is the Devil's Workshop- is always true.  Make the poor work and pay them more. Let them be proud of themselves and say- Yes we have deservedly earned by utilizing our energies. They would have their Swaviman and work hard to improve their capabilities. Biju Patnaik dreamed of the Odia, working , inventing and innovating with pride. His son has already prepared the basic infrastructure to some extent. May Odisha become the new Paradise and the Odia a proud specimen of humanity.