What I Fear

I fear

to lose your voice

the lilting musical notes

flowing in honey waves.

I fear

losing  my memory

of love's long silent years

without your participation

but which sustained me and

my meditating love all these years.

I fear

losing your shapely shadow

your well turned beauty

which goads me to work hard.

I fear

to do something which may

cause you sulk and dismay

or make you turn your face away.

I fear

to annoy you asking too much

of favours, graces and gifts

of ghost embrace in the void.

If I  fear you

I know I love you

I do not whisper

if it is not for you

nor do I write or laugh

if not for you.

Sabita Sahu 

"The End Of History !" What's That ?

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

The "End of History" champions like Francis Fukuyama have proved to be false prophets  before their personal history ended. Globalisation free market economy and liberal democracy with its capitalistic dreams ended when  the 2007 - 8 recession challenged the inbuilt hubris of their concept of history. It's true that between 1980 and 2008 there were no major wars except 9/11, 26/11 terror attacks and the ISIS violence; a large number of Below Poverty Line people were freed of their tag;  democracies thrived and new democracies sprang up:  But history is not subservient to certain Enlightenment thinkers' concept of human welfare.  The West is not the entire world nor can ever be. What America and Europe think is not the thought of the Asian countries or the Gulf countries. No ideology is acceptable to man for all time for the human mind is often sick of its own ideals  after a crisis  blows over and thinks of dream alternatives and contrarian architecture of life. The mind is often at war with itself for a prolonged state of peace, prosperity, happiness creates its  own stasis. The experience of the two Great Wars  provides enough material to disprove all our logic. The League of Nations, humans (in the west) thought would create a new human order which would embrace  every man and ultimately a global harmony will lead to peace and happiness.  Russell wrote of World Government and much before that the American President Wilson sang of World Governance in lyrical terms. After the Second War the League was beleaguered by self contradictory squabbles and the United Nations was born. The idea was virtually fathered by the visionary Franklin Delano Roosevelt a former President of USA although he did not live to see the UN take shape. His successor Harry Truman on June 26, 1945 addressing the signatories said, "You have created a great instrument for peace and security and human progress in the world..." My dear readers know what World Governance came out of this World Body!

History did not end with the Wars. The UN has not created any trust or faith in the minds of men and women in East or West, in the Ist, IInd, IIIrd Worlds - now no more unipolar or even multipolar if you take polarity as a benchmark or metaphor to explicate the equations ­­­­­­­­­­­­­- all countries are inward looking except China.  And this China now is  poised uneasily to retract her own history. America is on the decline, the entire European Union countries may follow the Brexit path to protect identities. History today is like an atom in a magnetic field uncertain where to stick.

India in the pristine past had the chance to end history in the Western sense during the Mauryan Empire. From Gandhar in the north to Magadh, later Kalinga  was freed from unethical domination, Alexander, Ambi and Dhananda were decimated  by Chandragupta Maurya with the mastermind of Chanakya leaving almost  the whole of India for Ashok to unite in peace and prosperity the entire country. After the Kalinga War and the transformation of Ashok from Himsa (violence) to Ahimsa, from brute muscularity to Buddhist nonviolence, peace and human togetherness, there was indeed a time for history to end, at least to take a breather. But that was not to be. Gandhi's India had raised some hope that the world may follow Gandhi's satya and ahimsa to make the world pause on the cusp of a new history of mankind, awakened to life  sustaining values in the inner being. But no, that was also not to be. Not to be because time and history are two different dimensions. Time, after Einstein is the fourth dimension of reality, but history is not bound by cause and effect dimensions of  Space.  Nature and human destiny are independent of each other, hence the directions of their movement or stasis are different.  The Indians have been attacked by the Western pundits that they have no sense of time and history. But the West does not understand that in India the philosophers always believed in the circularity of time in contradistinction to the rectilinear of the West. Oswald Spengler in his Decline of The West (1918) perceptively writes:

      We men of the Western Culture are, with our historical sense, an exception and not a rule. World history is our world picture and not all mankind's. Indian and Classical man formed no image of a world in progress, and perhaps when in due course the civilization of the West is extinguished, there will never again be a cultural and a human type in which "World History" is so potent a form of the waking consciousness.

Nature does not interfere in the freedom of human destiny which however is mostly determined by human responses to the situational dynamics of moments. History is recorded by humans and their understanding of a nation or mankind's destiny is never a true statement. In any case history is never a changeless document and that too is coloured by the ideology and bias of the historian concerned. Arnold. J. Toynbee in a 1947 essay has clearly stated that - He is a middle aged Englishman belonging to the middle class and these conditions of his birth, class and nationality will definitely impact his perceptions. Hence we may safely conclude that history is one mind's interpretation of a people's activities in a time frame.

If the human spirit is predictable (or static) in behaving in a particular fashion, that spirit is not Free. But freedom is the self contained existence of the spirit. The emotions, actions, thought, response and reaction are man's material essence and the action-reaction are seen: But very often man's response is not free. What Nepal's Primeminister Oli did in may - June 2020 is not free action dictated by Spirit. It was opportunistic action under pressure. If this action is judged by historians as betrayal of India's  trust in Nepal's friendship, that will be as wrong as the other judgement, unarticulated or stated, "India's ill treatment and Big brotherly attitude had it coming". Therefore any judgement by historians is temporary, for all human decisions, actions are "true" of the given moment.

If we discard Nicolas Berdyaev's The Meaning of History (1923) as a typical Christian view, we may also reject W.B. Yeats'  A Vision(Book V) as an imaginative foray into symbolic logic. The sphere and the zyres, one representing eternity and the other (zyres) symbolising the world of change are poetic visualization of a great mind. But the Two Thousand year rotational repetition of civilization and the phases culminating in a cycle peeking at the "Great Year" the interpenetrating cones etc, have not been demonstrated by our recorded history. What I like to emphasize is that no culture or civilization comes to an end even if the imagined 'heaven' is experienced on earth. All humans can never be free. All humans can never be equal. All humans cannot be democrats: Unless robots of the same artificial intelligence in degree,  order, emotion and feelings replace human beings. All our science and technology can accomplish is a forward movement towards an ideal state of well being. Keynes, Lincoln, Mao Tse  Dong, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Hitler, Churchill, Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar,  Xi Jinping and also Modi -  these and many others, not listed, have tried pursuing their ideals or negatively,  'Political Vulturism', to give a form and shape to people in their own countries or area of influence: But none have given us an Elysium or Hades beyond a few years. History has its own dynamics. It has its own Darwinism.

Those who try to make the Present, the Future of mankind must remember, we have a Past too and that Past was once the Present which the historians wanted to make the Future to make themselves ridiculed by posterity. To end this piece, I may quote from Martin Rees's On The Future (2018): "Suppose they( Scientists) could simulate a universe as complex as the one we perceive ourselves to be in. A disconcerting thought ( albeit a wild speculation) then arises: Perhaps that's what we really are!"

Time is the context not the content of the human mind.

Sunny

Rising up on time order bound,

from scarlet to golden orange you set

drowning my world in sticky darkness

yet you are  there again when I open eyes.

You laugh, nay smile when you

turn red hot in anger at midday

when you recount youth in archly turn

your indrawn energy pale before death

robs my afternoon hope in pale yellow.

Are you not tired of this silly routine

I am tired, hoping for suave light

this repeating futility dies momently

but you laugh again-

You achieve what you know best

I have achieved the cracked crown

after my long wait and endeavour

to rise from Princess to Queen.

Sabita Sahu

Atmanirbharta (Self Reliance)

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

During the Covid 19 pandemic Primeminister  Narendra  Modi in his exhortation to the nation asked the people to be self reliant to ward off the threats from the outside world. He did not refer to the belligerent posture of China but the Indians understood the context of Modi's self reliance emphasis. While no debate or discussion is warranted by this age old idea, we may examine its feasibility in our present Global situation.

Biologically  man is not an auto fulfilling creature. Man for his sustenance is bound to depend on nature, society and process. Indians in their early civilizations were mostly  nature dependant yet they marvelled at the mysteries of life, nature and the Beyond. They never believed in attacking other countries for wealth or natural resources.  And this explains why their defence preparedness was very weak. Whoever attacked India, conquered. The attitude not to go for adventure into other territories was reflective of a self - reliant mindset searching  for plenitude in the available resources. They definitely  produced what they needed and more for export. How else does  one understand India referred to   by others from,  Europe to China and Persia as Sone Ki Chidiya -the Golden Bird? But 800 years of Muslim rule  and 150+ years of British rule almost decimated the urge to self conscious assertiveness. India lost not only her freedom but also the desire to be self reliant and prosperous. Today, after 73 years of self rule Modi's  Self - Reliance call comes as a new thrust of adrenalin: But is the Indian heart strong enough to accommodate and function with renewed vigour?

The world today is almost in an ideological stasis. The post Enlightenment thinkers who took liberal humanism, freedom, market economy and globalization almost for granted, are being opposed by nations tending towards nationalism and insulated economies. Most democracies of the world  are beset by self- isolating  patriotism. America, India have prioritised their countries and  implore the populist "First" slogan to sway minds. Modi in India has already started almost  a movement: Make in India,(and now) Be vocal about the local. While all this is quite exciting the question still arises whether in the modern world it is possible to live  in self - sufficient isolation without craving for more  enticing luxuries that stare at us from the outside world?

The first thing to remember is that the context of life and living is no more nature alone. We now live in a world of networks. The world of science and technology , the vast expanding cyber space  and luxuries of a kind the world never tasted before the twentieth century, are the new context. Man is no more a food dependant body; he is not satisfied with bread alone; he needs more for his fancy and imagination. He needs more than sustenance and as the new technotronic gadgets roll out to give him ego trips to his personalized space, he demands more to invade all space. Roti - kapada-Makan or roads, electricity and water are now removed from his demand list. He needs security , personalised entertainment unlimited freedom and no interference of any kind by the society or state. With such a demand list can any Indian be self- reliant?

Of course Modi's call is timely. Our neighbours, especially China, followed by Pakistan and even Nepal, try to checkmate India. Chinese and Pakistani divisions are at our North- east and North- west borders. Nepal too claims three of our areas. Trade has come to a standstill with Pakistan, China and Nepal. The people of India have long since been habituated to Chinese goods as they are cheap comparatively and India has no substitute. Modi's call of Self Reliance is an attack on the Indian mindset of blank ideologies. The common Indian does not understand universal freedom, market economy or globalization. His sense of his country is weak. He has no national pride. He does not think of India as a great civilization with a Ten thousand year old history of cultural and moral excellence. He is not proud of India's architecture, music, moral reason and spirituality. In short an average Indian leads a superficial life unguided by an ideological frame where India figures. Modi's call is therefore an attack on the mindset.

If this mindset  should actually respond to Modi's call, the Indian must first of all be proud of being an Indian. He must sing paeans of India's natural grace, her rivers, mountains, songs and cultural matrices. He must assess his own worth and produce, create, innovate things which the body needs and the mind appreciates. He must buy what his fellow Indians produce and praise them before the world community. But he should not make compromises on quality. If China's medical components are blocked, Indian companies should produce indigenous substitutes. Excellence should be the credo. Particularly India's defence needs are  foreign dependent. A country which boasts of the  epical Brahmastra should show to the world her innate potential and produce something more lethal than what the U.S China and Russia have stockpiled. Atmanirbharta is not a new thing in India, not an alien concept : it is  an Indian value right from the beginning of human history. The now Indian should excel in all kinds of manufacturing- existential needs, spiritual needs, material needs, fanciful needs. The Indian mind should redefine human freedom and redesign human civilization .In a world of competitive supremacist ideologies India must demonstrate its own maturity which will attract mankind. Self Reliance is or should be the ideal of human spirit. Modi's message is: Be a Self and make it  a Soul which will embrace humanity.

Quarantine Fury

Time is incorporeal like God

but I have a body birth - death

dated entity in city streets

I share the sun, moon , stars

the rains, summer heat, winter chill,

why should I not share the bodyless God.

My hopes never come in shape and form

my love is masked quarantine of fear

my mind is a restless piece of nerves

why I ask when no one answers

maybe -

none hears, except the wind which

breathes for its own mood in anxiety.

I am neither a ball of fire nor a slab of ice

I am normal - human

But where is my share of love,

my little touches of joy and peace?

I know, no one hears my whys

For I do not perhaps know

how to ask the whys in prayer

I have no claims admitted in the  Bench.

Sabita Sahu

Reason Unreason

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Democratic liberalism without nationalistic xenophobia, Enlightenment without totalitarianism, free will without an imposed moral order (or erratic chaos); globalisation without self- enclosed national pride; a borderless world without fortified borders, secularism without communal feelings, a wordless prayer in peace without voluble violence and all such binaries like life and death are inconceivable in the world: For that is the inscrutable mystery of life. Nature, society, civilization also consist of internal contradictions seldom resolved. Nature's plenitude and the deprivation  of social beings too cannot and have not been reconciled. In fact nothing in life and world can ever be solved, resolved or reconciled as long as the individual mind thinks not in conformity with the cosmic mind or social psyche but in terms of a personal - private  cosmos. The individual always thinks as though he is pitted against the world. All relationships are his/her own and he is  or tries to be the master. He has no time for 'peace' for peace is a negative state, dull and uninspiring. He wants his energies to be on a white hot pitch to create, invent, build and call everything his own. And here we come face to face with the primordial debate between reason and its twin unreason. If rationality is the holding principle of the world, irrationality is its romantic countermeasure to disturb the equilibrium of the holding principle. If reason creates order, irrationality creates chaos as a contrapuntal balancing rhythm. The universal human is always poised against the individual who makes the world his own playfield of imaginative aspirations, thereby creating his own rationality which may be construed as irrational but it has its own logic and self justifying myth. Thus the obvious binaries are reinforcements of the perceived idea or phenomenon by the other dimension of the same perception. Order and chaos do not cancel each other out rather they project the complex balancing of perceptions or things.

Good and evil are not mutual exclusives like Spirit and Matter (we presume they are different); Good is meaningful in the context of evil for these two are always in mutual engagement. If good is the spirit of the universe it contains evil and always tries to dominate to give the process of history a forward movement for its own self-fulfillment. If the spirit or Good is blocked history becomes directionless. Therefore the spirit discards, by whatever means, the 'matter' or the impediment for its course correction. The Hegelians view it as the Freedom of the historical process of the self- defining  order of the  universe. In the Bhagbad Gita the Idea of Spirit is Dharma (not religion by any stretch of imagination) and this Dharma is the principle which holds the universe together. If the balance is tilted by Adharma the result is chaos. Dharma is moral reason which controls the irrational projection of the self on the World Soul, that is , the Spirit of the life force. But how does this happen? In the Gita there is a clear suggestion of an external authority, call it God or a Supernal Spirit which intervenes when the moral balance of the universe is tilted. This authority is either God or the Prime Mover and it is outside the world. Therefore Krishna says " Yada Yada hi Dharmasya Glanir Bhabati Bharata ...Sambhabami Yuge Yuge."  Whenever , in whatever age the moral reason is flouted to deeply hurt the orderly progression of the world of life and matter, (I) the controlling spirit takes form and shape on the world to save Dharma, to protect the  good and honest and to destroy the evil transgressors to finally restore balance so as to reinvigorate the free movement of life.

But here comes the question: If Dharma is the responsibility and duty of human beings to follow truth, order, social good and non interference in the freedom of beings in the world why does it have  the brittleness to crack when the self projects  another "Dharma" of heroic temper to privatize the world by deceit, brute force and manipulative logic? Is Dharma not capable of self protection that an external Authority must take Avatar to rescue it from the clutches of the transgressor? Without going into the details of the  Dharma - Adharma combatants of the great epic Mahabharat I may say that Dharma and Adharma are both almost  indefinable terms. If Dharma fails when the self displays ambitions to dominate the order by chaotic forces how is  dharma a superior moral design of life and world management? And this leads me to ask further, why are the good and life friendly elements in this natural (manifested) world come and go? Spring comes and goes. The sun sets every evening , the hopes always end (almost) in despair. Nothing is permanent. The sick get cured  and the healthy get sick. If this is the Dharma of life and nature, Dharma - Adharma are too impermanent to register a moral norm.

History's only lesson is change. If Trumpism is bad for the triumph of reason so was Ashoka's (Buddha's  and Gandhi's) inadequate for the triumph of reason. We may take consolation from the fact that both tyranny and benevolent kingship are shortlived. If one thing is adored and admired as good the contrarian idea raises its head in no time. If the rational is liberal democracy, the irrationality of Ji Jinping's expansionism  and attempts at world domination is irrational. The pity is they exist simultaneously. Ji is doomed to fail not  because he is irrational, he will fail because no idea, system or 'dharma' is permanent. The world is such that binaries will always dissolve into unity to again lapse into internal conflict. The problems of the now world after two decades will appear in different forms and the future intellectuals will again launch tirades against unreason. This world will be in perpetual conflict for that is our fate. Order and chaos are the human  conditions, we may reject to display our incomprehension of reality.

Better Not To Be Born

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

In glibtongued nonchalance almost every human, except a few (very), say life is such a difficult challenge, so hard, so nasty, brutish and short. Poets  in all languages and cultures sing of life  as futile time serving in a hell hole where even to breathe is a Herculean effort. The eighteen year old Chatterton, wrote a few insipid poems and killed himself saying: The world is too much for us. Despite the warranty of death, the inevitable end of life, people commit suicide. The Romans and the Japanese are famously suicidal. But Macbeth refused self-slaughter (why should I play the Roman fool ? As  long as I see heads before  me gashes would do better on them.) Some worthies who respect the cannons of the everlasting against self slaughter  desist the impulse. All these and many other vocables  which I don't wish to record for want of space  lead me to the question, is  life such a debatable proposition ! Man is born one day dies another day. Sunrise and sunset is a multi splendored procession of light , glory  rain, clouds, crimson to golden orange colour spectrum between dawn and dusk: The sun never stops, never falls on the ocean in disgust of repetitive boredom! Why then some men (women too)  cut untimely the journey with  morbid scissors? Is suicide so very attractive to engage human passion to fatal termination?

All sages, thinkers and wise men during the course of the relentless journey of the Homo (erectus) Sapiens have said life is God's greatest gift to man. A scientist, denying Darwin like, divine origin to life will at least credit it to nature. Man is a natural phenomenon with an unrechargeable life force. Life on earth is psychosocial energy which  achieves things by physical and mental work. At least man tries to survive the process by trying to wriggle out of his hunger, sickness, frustration, failures and other antipathies of nature - society by his native intelligence and physical energy. Why should he be afraid of the built in fears and  impediments  natural or self-caused and think of an escape route half way? When he succeeds he never pauses; he becomes a king, a godly  person, a warrior,  an inventor,  a scientist, innovator, writer, administrator, a saviour of life and also a fighter, a killer, a master political strategist and what not!! When he fails to climb the throne in the legitimate manner he invents devious ways, murderous short cuts and other  strategies which he himself would hate - only to succeed. Why  should then failures, defeat, disappointment, setbacks, penury or loss of honour and frustration lead him to the bare  bodkin? He sees the most beautiful roses rotting in a state of half bloom in a snow storm. Wanton children ruin many a  butterfly their  humming courtship; lightning strikes many towers to ignominious fall; many Ramas are exiled on coronation moments, Nelson Mandellas waste their manhood in dark cells: Do they all kill themselves? Does Sita jump into the nearest river after Laxman  left her in the trackless forest? She fought against  all odds with remarkable dignity. She was defamed as a  queen but she retained her feminine grace by silent non submission to calamity. She respected life and finally returned to her mother earth. All hungry men do not beg, they struggle for their bread.

Shall we then tentatively conclude that those who make peace with knife or poison are afraid of life? A moral coward strikes his head against temple walls; a shrunken soul writes homilies, "He who patiently wants  burden bears... is a king". Yes silent and unprotesting suffering is advocated  by many so called poets who depended on borrowed sustenance . But those who rushed out to meet headlong the bullets and bombs to save others are greater kings. Man has to choose between  worthless suffering and heroic death. But this death is not  self slaughter. If one makes a  sacrifice to save people, to make others feel reassured, is a higher soul. But one who withdraws from the performance stage of life into the dark wings is a sub man, less than human.

The suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput for me was a cowardly act. I have watched his career right from his Pavitra Rishta days. An actor, dancer and a good man, naturally ambitious.  He got a break in Bollywood, gained some reputation and also success. But he accepted his victimhood and put the rope around his neck in his lonely bedroom. What a shame! What a waste of human vitality! What an insult to his share of the life force! If people around you try to throttle your talents it means you are talented and a threat to the starkids who monopolize the industry.  And you yourself surrendered your talent to your victimhood. Amitabh Bachchan after his ABCL was gone but even with repeated failures at  the Box office did not feel defeated, did not surrender to the victimizers, did not beg for mercy from any powers - human or divine. He fought on with calm determination  for he had immense and unshakable faith in his talents. And look where he is today!

The greatness of man lies in steering the course of his life. He discriminates  between the raw and the cooked between dignity and ignominy. He fights not for survival alone, he fights to place himself on the pedestal of glory. What people say 'mental health', in my view is irrelevant unless it is a disease.  But those who take anti depressants and run to the head shrinkers are depersonalised by their own incomprehension of life and the human reality.  Man must know his own strength and weakness and choose his course. If he cannot climb to the top let him build a road around and walk. But if he cannot walk that is his funeral. Man chooses his destiny. He fights fate with his free will. If his life cannot accept his new failures, he is not human. All mental problems are egocentric. if the ego fails to perceive the challenges it is weak. And this weakness is to be overcome by more persuasive determination to win to conquer  and to strive to the epitonic limit of the nerves. If you can't nurse and nourish your nerves better not to be born.