Earth Mother's Resolve

Corona has wiped  off my smile

snatched away my children  raw and ripe

my motherhood is ashamed and abused

my vast seven sea girted state is now

a skeletal frame, all my children are in distress.

Whose curse has brought you Corona

Who has sought you like Aswathama's arrow?

But I'll save my Uttara and her child'

come on - I dare you fight with me.

My rivers, mountains, green valleys

will suck you, my fertile fields

my waters of sacred Ganga, Jamuna

will melt your body and you'll fall

in the sacred purgatorial flames

of my inner soul for final release.

I admit my children are stubborn, proud,

lustfully they invade my inner space

all my warning they defy and ignore

but bear their sins - I am the Mother.

I stretch the limits of forbearance

I too punish them, the arrogant fools

but you have no right to take them

my best and worst are all mine, my own.

Now return to the hole whence you came

my children are in a brown study

they regret, their heads are down

I have put them in solitary confinement

a loud shame has alienated them all.

I know the beginning and the end

You are an intruder, an enemy of  my creation

I'll reform my children with Love and Pardon

you get lost else I'll burn you

and wipe off your unseen hostility

without a trace on my bosom.

Sabita Sahu.

Where Is Bharat Akhand!

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty 

My heart gets a chill when I hear the term ‘Akhand Bharat’ from political and cultural platforms. Celebrating the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, many admirers, political – apolitical, praised him and rightly so, for his unifying effort to make India whole and undented. While I join all admirers of Sardar Patel in lauding him as the unifier of India post- partition; I bleed internally for the historic dismemberment of a great subcontinent by the shamheaded Britishers to prioritize religion over human togetherness, thereby ruining the future of a great country which they looted to their treasury’s content. The communal violence and hate that followed partition continues to ring ghostlore in the generations which are not allowed to move ahead with a guilt free conscience: hate, violence, and fear crack their dreams. No country ever was divided into two in the history of the world yet we celebrate Akhand Bharat! Is it a self-patting palliative to our sagged ego or an acceptance of our dismembered ‘whole’ as the new normal.  I know this question disturbs the equilibrium of India’s chequered history but it is time we asked to find out the answer for our complacency.

 

India was Akhand culturally since the Harappan civilization although language, dialects, idiolects were always in a flux because of internecine wars and demographic diversities. But the Epics Mahabharat and Ramayan give us a fair idea of the wholeness of a civilization despite local variations in cultural practices. But the whole(ness) of India was never under any stable political dispensation. Only during the reign of the Mauryas from Chandragupta to Ashoka there was political stability in North India. Alexander was gone (later he died) India despite Ambi’s mischievous ambitions came under a single political administration thanks to Chanakya’s wily strategies. But Chanakya was not necessarily a champion of freedom or patriotism. His primary goal was to decimate the Nandas for reasons purely personal.  He trained Chandragupta as a revenge hero and drew vicarious joy utilizing his energies. Alexander was not invincible, he was made invincible by the lack of awareness of freedom and love of one’s own country. The epics never teach freedom or patriotism although Valmiki had written in no uncertain terms, “Janani Janmabhumischa Swargadapi Gariyasi”: The kingdom –king centric values included freedom limited to the kingdom and throne. India was always culturally one but politically many as small chieftains ruled over territories by force and to retain it they fought wars with neighbours or invaders. The freedom of these small kingdoms never stretched beyond their unmarked boundaries. The idea of a hero too was of narrow connotations. Our “ Veerbhogya Vasundhara’ is a very silly vision of a hero who enjoys the earth by military prowess. This phrase is often wrongly quoted to celebrate a man of physical and mental energy. The implications however are primitive and mostly barbaric. If the Vasundhara, the earth is enjoyed by military victory of a hero, the earth has no sanctity. The Geeta too suggests, the same idea. When Krishna says: if you win you enjoy the earth (Jitwa ba vokhsase mahim), that is the earth is all yours. Love and reverence for the earth came much later. Mother earth was not for worship but for enjoyment. And the hero who enjoys Hastinapur, Ayodhya or Chittore thinks of protecting the territorial integrity of his kingdom only. The people knew nothing of freedom or love of the earth. The mother was king’s mother and the paid soldiers fought to protect the king’s (hero) freedom and patriotism. In Brindabanlal Burma’s Hindi novel Mriganayani, this has been illustrated lucidly. India was under the Muslim rule since Delhi Sultanate (712) and after about 800 years of Muslim rule the British could conquer our wholeness through commercial deceit.

 

I would like to ask how did every foreigner who came to India to loot and conquer succeed? When the marauders came where was our love for mother India? Where was our sense of freedom? Was patriotism asleep after a Soma orgy? I know I am deeply hurt when such questions come to mind. But when I see and hear the very Indians plotting like villains and asking questions of the present elected Government why is Indian territory allowed to be forcibly occupied by China I cannot supress my cold rage. I would like to answer my way: what’s wrong with that? The hero conquers by physical powers. Other heroes protect the Indian territory by the same heroic energy. If China wins will Veerabhogya Vasundhara be falsified? I hope my readers do empathize with my agony.

 

Pakistan is still in occupation of Gilgit- Baltistan: Siachin is being defended. Twitter has the cheek to show Ladakh as Chinese territory. Yet we use Akhand Bharat for ego massaging on birth anniversaries of great sons of India. Now Akhand Bharat should mean the post-partition Bharat. But what about the emotional, cultural wholeness? We have been speaking in forked tongues all these 73 years. Religion, caste, so called ideology and poor understanding of the values have kept us ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. We have no real education for everyone; no jobs for the qualified. Freedom for most Indians simply means freedom to abuse the patriots, the good and the rich and wise.  We are holes apart in our whole. Let us first of all teach ourselves what is freedom and how to protect it, and how to establish our wholeness by our rich tapestry of institutions. And behave as true sons of India that is Bharat.

Silence is (Not) Golden

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty 

Those who taught us this maxim, perhaps, imagined life and world as moral order, where human rationality directed all human doables. Silence is for contemplation. The yogis, philosophers and thinkers thought of silence as the endpoint of all irrational volubility that makes man a nervy, distracted person who loses the fulcrum of his authentic self. Silence restores the balance to weigh events, actions, words to get the proper measure of reality. But silence does not mean the universe would be still, motionless and almost soporific. Nature is never silent. The rivers, oceans continue their roar,liquid, limpid flow in varying rhythms. The moon and the stars speak in soundless lean whispers the romance of life. Even dreams speak a language to make man laugh or cry or to get up with a start at the dead of night. Man at times, however rare cries eureka as though he has found out the absolute truth of all mysteries. The sensor of the mind never sleeps. A guilty mind as Lady Macbeth in her somnambulistic awakening speaks of blood in her hands which the multitudinous seas cannot wash off. All creative minds whisper to no one in particular words and ideas while in total abstraction from time and space. The grass blades murmur when the spring breeze soft - fans them to playfulness. The man who feels lonely in a noisy crowd mutters disbelief at the range of vocabulary of the gushing multitudes. Waiting for a phone call too is not a silent surrender to the whims of the expected caller: he groans in disgust, sighs his impatience and often breaks the phone if the wait is longer. Man, nature, society are not meant to be silent. Silence belongs to the realm of death.

 

But what is purported by this ‘wisdom’ is noninterference in complex, complicated things or affairs. If elders are discussing a problem better not to speak something silly. In the present border situation of India at Ladakh if someone says “… I would have chased away the Chinese soldiers in 15 minutes” that would illustrate the maxim’s efficacy. The speaker here is a mindless person. It smacks of puerility. Silence in such situations is golden if you have any psychic problems against the people responsible for the peace and security of the country. When you hear wrong facts from people who matter automatically you keep quite. And if the audience is silent when the speaker thought they would burst out in laughter, he would rewind the tape in his mind and know where he was wrong. He would rectify. A true scholar listens to the wrong suggestions of peers in silence. Often the women in the family listen to the irrational tirades of the parents out of respect. But silence should never mean acquiescence or acceptance of imposed lies and false accusations.  Silence is golden as long as your inner being is not hurt; your rights are not infringed upon, and your character is not compromised. Silence can also be defiance. It is the most subtle kind of protest provided the authority or people against whom protest is made are not dumb nincompoops. Gandhi’s fast against the British administration and his silence as a response to torture were the most potent weapons: and the perpetrators understood Gandhi’s strength. Silence in certain situations is “trumpet tongued” to borrow a phrase from Macbeth’s soliloquy. Silence however, should not be allowed to be misconstrued as admission of guilt. If you listen to false accusations in silence you are more guilty than the accuser, however respectable and powerful he might be. One should remember that the Accuser is not always Caesar’s wife. Mindless silence before Royalty, Nobility or Justice and the Tyrant is suicidal – if one is not guilty of anything. A secret agent may keep silent to protect his country and that is honourable silence. If by opening your lips you jeopardize peace, security well being or integrity of a country or a great man, one should be silent. Sealing your lips to protect someone from the wrong side of justice you may save a reputation. But if your silence makes a guilty man escape your silence is homicidal.

 

Today in India and some other countries we see a new trend of so called civilization: and that is synecdochic of the new values of prudence. If you see a crime committed on the road you  go blind. If you are called to testify you will be silent on truth and vocal on irrelevance. If your friend or a neighbor harbours terrorists you should keep quiet for dear life. A modern, educated person is a self-whole, he is the total life system. Nothing exists beyond his own safety, security and well being. He is not responsible for anything. His charmed circle of life has a radius of half a centimeter, and that too is large enough to maintain.  The justice system in the world is awry because testimony is truth- blind. If you saw a rape you will try to prove you were not in the country; you were abroad holidaying with nymphs from another galaxy. Of course, truth in the modern society is hard to digest.  A whistle blower is done and dusted if he breaks his silence on personal or institutional corruption. Yes in such cases one has to choose between heroism and self centered cowardice. But if you remember your lessons of childhood and say Silence is Golden, you are unworthy of living a life.

 

In love and faith silence is never golden. If you love someone confess everything and if your sweetie is guilty of anything make a sacrifice of her: for your silence ruins someone else and also your love. Couples who are silent in love live not like saints but like animals. Sex too is animalish if there is no poetry and music in your union. Faith too deserves the respect of your being. Hypocrisy of silence is not a culpable crime, it is a moral failing which reduces man to the quintessence of dust. A man should be open, free and use silence either as a weapon to save people or as a shield to protect innocence. Silence is unnatural and evil if it is a fig leaf to cover your unmanliness.

He Is Good I'm Good

He is good I’m not bad

I’m good he is not bad at all

We are good both are good

Yet nothing good happens to us.

 

He is sober I have a temper

He is not ill tempered I’m quiet

He too is quiet when I clam up

Yet we shout for the other joy.

He is healthy I’m a bit sickly

He too gets sick when  I run wild

He runs too when I sit tired

But we never move like statues.

 

He is the sky I’m the earth

No no he is the earth he holds me

All my skiey delights are on him

Yet we are morn - even shadows.

 

 He is with me I am with him

 I am in him he is in me

We are in each other forever

Yet we are apart like wind and rain.

Sabita Sahu

 

Legacy

What is there to be happy,

unhappy and gloat about it

some shed tears and

some try to suppress,

I watch the scene and smile

and try to count the stars

without losing focus

and forget the total

as numbers don’t define

laughter and tears.

 

All are born here on earth

to carve out destinies but

they just grow and produce

and die unceremoniously

perhaps to be born again

like the returning spring year by year.

 

Children you leave behind

may never sing your story

if they remember your day of death

consider yourself fortunate.

 

You are alone in marriage

parenting serving and dying

leave your mark behind

your creative sparks undying

your emblematic work and love

should be read like poetry

by posterity like history

and the history maker shall

guide them to create a new history.

Sabita Sahu

 

 

I Am Free to Speak My Mind!

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty 

Freedom I have always maintained is a defiant energy. The human species always tries to break barriers, cross hurdles and demolish opposition of all kinds. Bridge the rivers, break the mountains, kill the enemy-these come very naturally to man for he is a growing animal (physically, mentally, spiritually), a doing animal and above all  a speaking animal. Speech is the master weapon of the human race. Man will speak his mind in all circumstances as he is a free being. His limitless freedom, he thinks, permits him to speak on and about everything. No secret no, mystery shall remain undiscovered. This mindset is not reflective of his quest for truth, rather his freedom is to unearth everything- real, unreal, imaginary and impalpable or unreachable. This is how he has grown from the amoeba to the present form and has multiplied himself to live and explore every nook and corner of this multilayered universe. The atom of knowledge must be further exploded to discover its components. And this process is endless: within the country, society, family and even within his own mind explosions go on – the Big Bang still reverberates and the universe still manifests changes.  Man’s freedom to ‘ask’ questions about everything is self- guaranteed. He now asks why doesn’t Nature speak my language? Some claim to have understood what the sky- earth- fire etc speak; what the birds speak? His last question is why should man die? He has already asked why does man grow old, and has found some solutions to prolong youth and age.

But man’s nastiest use of freedom is to interfere in almost everything and not to accept anything as final. The social media – FaceBook, Whatsapp, Twitter have given a platform to the free- biased, subjective and partisan expressions to reach the known and unknown multitudes; even the  half lettered village folk too have confident gossip propagations untaxed and uncurbed. The law is bound to remain silent, for any legal action shall be deemed to be an authoritarian interference in human free speech. The constitutions of all democracies have given guarantee to free speech. Views opposing any institutional policy or public proclamation of governments can be criticized by any idiot (I too have the right to use the mild hurting words empowered by the same constitution).

 

If right to speak freely on any subject, person, decision is man’s democratic prerogative a cacophonous society deafened by noise will be the only end point achieved by democracy. Freedom is not an unbridled licence, nor is  it a birth right as claimed by all political groups. In one of my recent pieces I had commented on the fakery and abuse of language and decency, which makes democracy somewhat farcical. The right to speech is definitely welcome but the speaker must talk sense. But often we notice that speeches are made according to party line ethics- if there is any. What the free speech advocates forget is that speech is bound by rational articulation on an issue of social and national importance. All speeches free or commandeered are fundamentally founded on Reason. A sentence is constructed to mean something rational. But some people spread lies not out of malice but due to ignorance. For instance those who say that global warming is caused by holes in the ozone layer are ignorant. But such false statements or ideas are followed by others who get easily panicked by any kind of rumour – scientific or political. This happens because people do not know the difference between Idea and Opinion: opinion and rumour. And this ignorance stems from a weak sense of Reason. Often the cultural allegiances to certain Belief Commons or Superstitions are expressed with gay abandon. The herd instinct enjoins them with the rudimentary voices of the culturally – religiously motivated people. The vicarious satisfaction of having joined a so called worthy betrays their below average minds.

 

There are in the world today, including in India, people who have a form of motivated reasoning which was not noticed hithertofore. Biased logic, fault finding mindset, sheer instinct to hate, these days have gained more voluble space thanks to the Internet, we do not have public debates except in Assemblies and Parliament. There the debates are party-focused but are substantiated by statistics. But the common man and women use words and phrases in a cavalier fashion.  At times personal frustration and suppressed feelings find Freudian outlets, especially in the non - artistic, non - scientific people. The social media users are mostly intellectual imposters with inflated egos. They do some point scoring by using swear words against celebrities.

 

It has been noticed all over the world that the genius never uses the social media. The genius as Kant put it is “the innate mental disposition (Ingenium) through which nature gives the rule to art.” People who have no eye for beauty, form, symmetry; no ear for rhythm, no mind for nature’s integrated variety and vast amalgam of contrarian matrices can never ever comprehend the scope and sweep of reason of human affairs. And such people claim free speech as their birthright, the constitution is only an added prop to their claim. In India the political ideologies are sacrificed to manipulative power politics, hence the higher the decibel the stronger is their ‘right’. The Supreme Court of late is critical of the PILs which are filed merely to distract judicial attention. And the vocal lies, fakeries and deceitful narratives shut Reason and good sense to desperate wordlessness. If some politician abuses the country and praises the enemy the mindless blokes are happy:- This definitely opens up the empty space in our socio-political reality. But who will inject reason into these dead veins? Hope they will utilize their minds and become reasonably human.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Is That?

 

Before falling on the bed I leave

My world and my specks with which I see it

On the bedside table and lo

The waves invite me the twinkling stars wink at me

My receding world bids goodbye

And I move between the starry waves

And twinkle which my own eyes rise up to.

 

The fantasy is so calm

The words I hear are so soft

My senses strain in expectant joy

The lies are so sweet

The visions are so beautiful

I fail to decide how to respond

Yet in the company of fairies

I float and swim

In the fantabulous symmetry.

In the morning when I wake up

And put on my specks

My world lost in fantasy

Returns with roaring distractions

My senses alerted

I rush to this and that

All the time asking

What is that, what is that?

Sabita Sahu