Hold Me If You Can

I know death stalks every moment

life cheats me, but I have

my ways to live on

without blackening my heart.

To please others I cried alone

wiped others' tears despite my own

smiled at everyone knowing well

how they mock my smiles 

so what if they are stuck in time

with paralyzed nerves.

I give light like the Sun

give breath like the air

do I wait for permission to give,

I give because I have to keep

my senses on line

I don't wait or need recompense

my being and sense of existence

all that I have for myself

and for you.

I own the earth, air and light

I have the  lease till death.

I am proud as I own you

and will leave this earth

to the other world , you in me.

Sabita Sahu

No Cooperation : Only Competition

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Yuval Noah Harari the best selling historian of the world, in an interview to India Today, passionately advocated  cooperation between nations as the only panacea to fight the Corona menace. But he has been proved wrong.  All efforts by global thinkers and leaders to organise the human order into a cooperative system of humanity have failed in the past. The Country, Bharat that is India which always believed in Basudhaiba Kutumbhakam ( The World is one Family) never could demonstrate  its efficacy in any crisis. The Mahabharat War is a typical case in point. Man by his very nature seems to be a dominating animal allergic to cooperation or fellow feeling. For this failing in man all scriptures, literatures and humanitarian philosophies advise cooperation. Man seeks cooperation, if at all, to tide over a crisis but there too the aim is always individual not universal. In today's Covid 19 dominated world too man does not want to share the suffering of others nor does he cooperate with the fearful to alleviate his suffering. This pandemic is used as  an opportunity by scheming men to control the purse strings of the world to control the political and economic powers of the impoverished  countries. China which gave this Corona to the  world is now overbusy to coronate itself over the world with a world power coronet. China is now trying to browbeat the neighbours and small countries by military might and also fancifully tests the patience of great countries like India.

Globalization today is dying if not already dead. The reason is the obvious rise of rationalistic temper even in the democracies. This has happened primarily to save democracies from the MNC's- Multinational  corporations. People vote for governments not the corporates whose  main aim is      to spread their business and make money. With this in view corporates even influence  voters in small (even big) democracies. Take the case of India. She sends Mangalyana and Chandrayana. But she has not yet produced an Aircraft, not to talk about fighter jets. The country which has produced ICBM's, Agni- Brahmos- Akash, the same country has  come out only in 2019 with Tejas  which holds no  candle to F16's or Raphael. India has not yet produced an assault  rifle like what it imports, AK 47. Even a howitzer is at present  beyond its ken. Even Ganesh, Saraswati icons swarm our markets from China. Our food habits have changed, sartorial  habits have become outlandish. Yet we say India once in history was the golden bird...

In the Corona Age changes in attitudinal dynamics have become fast and furious. Donald Trump won the American Presidential Elections giving the slogan 'America First'. It was however not original. Roosevelt had  given the first cry of America First. The American Dream of the thirties of the last century with the Acres of diamond pride made the post war America rich and prosperous. How could it come? It came not by cooperation with the world powers but by competition in the world market with their local products. The Kentucky Fried chicken, Coca Cola are not Jesus Fish or Manna Dew. Indian Chicken Tikka is more delicious. But a Liberal temper to cooperate  and accept universal variety made the world globalised in many ways. Yet Globalization was a mere economic exploitation of the MNC's of the rich and crafty nations .

We have not yet  entered the post Covid world. If at all we ever attain that stage, we cannot accept  cooperation between nations. The symptoms are now loud and clear. America, whether Trump gets his second term or not will try to avenge China for Corona spread.  Germany, Italy, Japan, Australia and also India, in a more  reticent manner, will endeavour to see the fall of China.  A new kind of strategic partnership will emerge isolating each country from the general good of mankind. A new identitarian  politics will be played by all nations. Trump has already done it  by withdrawing from WTO and now from World Health Organisation. Modi in India has already given  a call, for 'Jan' (individual )to 'jug' (world)', that is from the Indian to the  Universal. For this he has given the call 'be vocal about the local'. Produce here; from toothpaste to fighter jets,  from the halwa to howitzer, from new inventions to space craft. All this mean only fierce  competitions and not cooperation. All industrially rich countries will now try to surround China and checkmate its territorial and super power ambition. It is true that china very cynically tried to exploit the Covid -panic world. Much before China  let the WHO know about the outbreak of  Covid pandemic it was ready with masks, Personal Protection Equipment and some drugs. All Chinese Kits have been rejected by the countries of the world as ineffective and faulty. India too has rejected the Chinese kits. As a consequence China is now trying to use her military powers to subjugate  smaller countries and browbeat countries like India.

In this scenario most oil importing countries will find energy substitutes. India farsightedly has already made advances in the sphere of solar energy. Now today's call for local manufacture. All this will change the topography of the world. If countries which are not self sufficient in oil go in for alternatives the gulf countries will fall. A new Islamic backlash similar to the IS may create mayhem. But the victim will be cooperation . In India the states too will compete with each other. Cooperative federalism will get a shock. The approach by corporates will change. The world may not be a happy place to live in.

We Have Shamed The Maker

You created the Universe

Sun, Moon, Stars, Trees, Animals

men of diverse  dreams rose and sword,

but you never visited to see your handiwork.

We have grown multiplied spread

cut jungles, buried rivers broke hills

our cities have more glitz and glamour

surpassing your imagination and fancy.

You created us equal, we divided

we created rich and poor

hated each other, fought on land

air and sea we have invaded,

we killed for faith by stonewalling

ourselves with stubborn logic

we destroyed temples, mosques

gurudwaras and built anew in its place,

our islands of pride.

Will you ever come, at least once

if ever you come you will seal yourself

with self hatred and disappear

leaving us orphans

for the way we nail you

every moment, unredeemed.

Sabita Sahu

Bhishma

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Watching B.R. Chopra's Tele Mahabharat serial compulsorily during the pathless lockdown I was struck by one shot : Bhisma lying on a bed of arrows in a forlorn corner of the Kurukshetra battle field with countless bleeding zones in his white clad body.  A man whose bow's thunder sank the hearts of the high and mighty and melted all stubborn heroes to fearful cowardice before the murmur stopped, the same hero lay half awake on a bed of arrows! The man fortified with a boon from his father Shantanu to die as per his wish was still thinking of his motherland, Hastinapur, wishing to see its secure future before wishing his breath to cease! It was an imaginative shot bringing the irony home that life is not a biological process, what matters in life is the will to counter the unseen vicissitudes by wisdom and fortitude which ultimately betray man's sole purpose of life. This stately scene  in the sunless battlefield of life stands out as the ultimate worth of man. Even after a full life of dedication and service man fails and falls on the arrows shot by the very things he loved to protect.

 Arguably Bhishma was the tallest figure  in Aryabarta. He was invincible in archery. His own Guru Parshuram had to acknowledge defeat. He was godlike in his resolve  to rise above the worldly ties of family, power, royalty and other luxuries of life which accompany them. He took a vow not to marry and raise a family when  the father of Satyabati apprehended that his children may rival her daughter's  children to the throne of Hastinapur. But here one is tempted to ask the question: Should he have taken such a vow? Only to pave the way for his old father Shantanu to marry Satyabati which in any case was lustful to say the least why, should the Prince, the most suitable and rightful inheritor to the throne make  a sacrifice of his own future? A future which was made uncertain by the unholy and  unequal marriage between Shantanu and the daughter of the fisher king, Satyabati. Bhishma's personal sacrifice was not for any noble cause. It was a vain sacrifice for a weak willed man, the king of Hastinapur who could not make his divine wife Ganga a queen or a woman. Sacrifices are made to save lives, to speak out Truth, to reveal wisdom; but Bhishma's sacrifice was for his father's lust.  Was it not a deviation from the course of nature and also politics? In return, however, he was given a boon of Death by Self will. But what is the utility of wishful death for a  man who has alienated himself to a metaphysical level by his own volition only to watch life flow without his effective controlling hands and even mind?

He had given his word of honour to his father to protect the throne of Hastinapur and accept the person who sat on the throne as his king. But we may ask legitimately whether his understanding of his own commitment was clear. Throne is a symbol of royal authority and kingship is another symbol of power wielded by a person to protect and serve the people. If Bhishma  accepted the person sitting on the throne as his master, he has reduced himself to the state of a subject if not a slave. How then could he control and guide the Person on the Throne and by what powers?  The king was responsible for Hastinapur and Bhishma's vow to protect Hastinapur was lost in his obedience to the throne.

His vow is in a way  responsible for the moral corruption which the Rajmata Satyabati had to submit to in the name of saving the clan. Shantanu's two sons were physically weak ; perhaps that was the way of destiny's revenge on Shantanu's indiscretion. Satyabati invited her own rape- son  Vyasa, the great scholar and sage to mate with the widows of Bichitravirya which definitely flouted the moral codes of society. Bhishma became  a mere witness to the gradual decline and fall of all values. Blindness to reality and loss of natural virility set on the Hastinapur throne to which Bhishma's oath bound loyalty had to acquiesce in. Bhishma definitely had a throne - loyalty that was skewed. He never questioned the Barunabrata crime and conspiracy. He never could hold the integrity of the Hastinapur throne. The kingdom was divided between the cousins.  He was responsible  by his assent to the division of territory. Like Shakespeare's King Lear Bhishma too treated the 'earth' as family property. He allowed the dice game  in the Royal  Court of Hastinapur and unprotestingly sat through the inhuman sight of  the denuding Of Draupadi by Dussasana at Duryodhan's orders.  Had he raised his voice or calmly walked away from the court the Hastinapur Royal Court would have been  spared  the moral  accusations of history. And finally the Mahabharat war could have been avoided had Bhishma stayed neutral like Vidur . Bhishma's vows to protect the  throne have no significance as Bhishma failed to protect the values of the famed kuru clan. The throne is a lifeless material frame of authority but the symbol is more important than the substance. Bhishma tried to protect the substance at the expense of the symbolic majesty.

But history will pay its due tributes to this great helpless Hero. He had the right perceptions and also the right commitments. But never imposed his sense of order  on the chaotic minds around him. In short he did not walk away. He stayed in the rut and till the final moment was true to his convictions.

The final scene of his life is a loud statement of his true position in history. Bhishma's glory did not have a verticality: He lay horizontally oh a bed of arrows . But the angels and humans threw petals on the dying, bleeding body while his great soul was adored and admired by Time and its unending manifestations.

A New Future

If the present  is full of chaos

disturbs your sleep

don't worry -

dream of  a new beginning

make the present  the bricks

and mortar of your new home

plaster it with exotic distemper

draw pictures of man's future

that will guide and direct you.

But the question is what is new-

Is it the same chores of life?

Then what else could it be-

Yes- create a world without

the hunger of body, don't

confine it to your past again.

Stars planets they will be there

think of man -  that man who

can design life with a starry vision

of Humane togetherness:

How will you do it???

You will do it

by making the world

the home of mankind

where Men, Women and Nature

will sing  anew birth of  life.

Sabita Sahu

Dharma Is Reason Not Religion

Praeulla Kumar Mohanty

All systems are based on law and all laws are based on reason. Some laws are written and others are unwritten. Those unwritten too are based on reason where the authority is not specified but  surmised or experienced. The written law is  backed by authority, the authority of king or council or the People. Any breach is punishable after  a trial where  men and women of reason discuss, listen and proclaim a judgement to punish or pardon or release. But no system works or operates without law. The earth too is bound by law, she cannot deviate from the orbit, cannot stop moving wilfully. The cosmic laws too are based on reason. One may ask, what is this reason? The Greeks claim to have invented reason. But the Indians had practised Reason much before the Greek Enlightenment. Reason for the Greeks was mostly logical. For the Indians it was moral. Rationality for Indians was Dharma not religion. The rational faculty however is not a given constant. The cosmic constants are never changing but the human constants change  when the living conditions change. In other words laws made by men change when society changes. For instance when war is accepted as a human institution the peace time laws change. When food and shelter and peace are available  a liberal temper modulates human logic. But when there is scarcity the changes come in terms of a new logic where survival determines  the new law.

Man in the beginning thought of a divine origin of everything. God has created the world of man and nature. Very easily people thought that he who has created man must provide for him. But the same man later challenged the anthropomorphic origin of man. Darwin  changed the entire system of life and life management with his book Origin of Species. But the two systems exist simultaneously. Rationality  and irrationality exist as twins. Today the world is conflict ridden. The desire to dominate the human order by the rich and powerful comes into conflict with the idea of universal brotherhood. The Indian thinkers believe that the world is one  Family. But this belief was challenged  by several marauders and aggressors. India never learnt to defend herself as its logic was that there is moral reason everywhere and members of the same human family should not attack or defend each other. But  this logic was changed when the country and its people were ruled by the aggressors. Chanakya changed the obtaining logic  and gave a new system of  moral reason. It is obvious that in the evolutionary process of life reason too evolves. New efforts are made to change  the behaviour of man to suit one system of logic.

The Indians today are stay at homes because of the nature of the Corona Virus. To keep them entertained  and enlightened the masterly epics of India., Ramayana and the Mahabharat are serialized after a gap of about 30 years. Every day people hear one word- Dharma- in the epics, especially  in the Mahabharat. There is a confusion in the minds of the modern generations over the word Dharma. Almost all people, particularly the bigots and the politicians use the word Dharma to mean religion. But Dharma is not religion. Dharma fundamentally is moral reason which should help life management. Duties, responsibilities, loyalties, political systems, family systems are all modulated by Dharma, that is, responsible behaviour, respect of the  worthy and dignified behaviour. The attitude to life is primarily sober, culturally courteous and intellectually  refined. But in the Mahabharat particularly we notice a blind king behaves and functions more as a father foolishly overfond of his son than a king  who should treat all the subjects as his own children. This blind king, Dhritarastra who could never have become  the king if his brother had not died, never accepted the Reason that a blind man cannot be a king. He also thought, that his son although younger to Yudhistira ought to succeed him. This is politically and morally Adharma that is unreasonable. It is unreasonable because it does not  have any moral base. In the context of the then Arayavarta.

On the other hand in the Ramayana we see another kind of  unreason. If a noble and virtuous king treats his subjects as his children and tries to please them we should think that Reason's reign has begun and all systems - society administration and family  will grow  and  attain moral perfection . But if a king sacrifices a noble, chaste and loyal wife- the Queen- to pacify or appease the people, his reason is flawed. Injustice, cruelty and irrational action cannot justify Rajdharma.. Sita was sacrificed for political expediency. This is not Dharma. If Dhritarastra was politically and literally blind to moral logic, Rama was blind to innocent virtue. If Dharma is used for personal aggrandizement it butchers logic and rationality. These ancient epics of India should teach the present generation that Dharma is not religion. There is no Hindu or Muslim in the world. There is only man and  his moral logic should be sound enough to lead him in life.

Unsung Melodies

I never saw the rise and swell

of Baitarani waters from my window

the boatman's song eluded my ears

father's concern for my  mother

never reached beyond the sheets.

My high jumping  feet cute and shapely

kicked the medals  to ignoring friends

I sobbed in dark rooms for lonely relief,

the gathering clouds went without tears.

From frock to saree I grew unripe

my diary poems were dreams torn

when results graduated me to love

for the man who never looked at me.

Silent he was to my unsaid words

while the sandy beach counted waves

He went away leaving his silence

for me to fill with painful rhythms.

Wifehood came followed by whines

motherhood filled me with pride divine

book racks grew dusty and mouldy

I croaked in the kitchen the old melodies.

Now I have cleaned up the stables

my Pegasus is opening its wings

I'll move in space time-defying

and sing of life in forbidden rhyme.

Sabita Sahu