Man's Power- Push

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

That man is not a bread-alone creature is a given in history. The first humans ran everywhere, dug up every surface and fought mentally and physically to douse the fire in the belly. They moved and   lived together in groups to find food and water but if the food was insufficient they fought with each other. The powerful among them subdued  the others and monopolized things. He distributed what the submissive weak needed. The weak utilized their intelligence to plot and plan to eliminate the strong and mighty. The rat race began like musical chairs. The strong had their advisors, mostly from priestly class, and suppressed mutinies  and rebellions. Man became strong by suppressing men; wanted to expand land for land and water, invented weapons, laid traps for enemies. Chanakyas and Machiavellies  came up to fortify kingdoms. Rules regulations, laws and strategies were crafted by intelligent men for man's power push.

Man essentially needs power and authority, to lord over all that he encounters. He domesticated the cow for milk, the horse for his transport and other beasts of burden for his comfort. He cut down trees, mountains; killed  and subjugated  animals. He could  not, however,  domesticate the lion and tiger hence trapped them in cages or drove them away to distant forests; made exhibits of them showing to other men how he is the most powerful on earth. He kept the woman behind closed doors. Did not educate them, never treated  them  as free humans capable of all feats he is master of. Women were sexual  toys, mothers of his children. He framed laws for them, gave them rule books seldom treated them as humans. As civilization grew technology advanced, he bound nature  to serve his interests.  He became the head of the family, head of  a city or village, king of the state, President, Primeminister- that is the Prime Mover. He created gods and temples for them. Be it family, society, kingdom, state he was  the master wielding power: for power is what man has gained over the march of centuries.

When politics, ethics, administration and bureaucracy were established in a systematic manner he became more powerful. The lathis and swords of early  times were replaced by guns and bombs. Science and technology gave him Atomic bombs, Ballistic missiles and he terrorised other men. The Second World War ended with the stilled nerves of Nagasaki. Man proved that he can wipe off man from the surface of the earth. Wow what power!! Then he vowed for peace and market economy. The rich exploited the poor and became richer. Rivers were bridged, courses diverted for his economic growth. He became also charitable thereby showing his moral power and authority. You are hungry  take food and sing our praise. You want money to grow  take money and be loyal to us. Man's power grew over man.

The world today is divided by two groups: The powerful and the meek. But the meek too have come up with a new power push - terror. The Satanic energy of man  rises in the dark to destroy the powerful. The  innocuous are the  collateral victims. The power tussle is ceaseless. Power is meant to kill, destroy and harm the others who could not become powerful. In the human society today the corporate are the  refined substitutes of Timur and Aurangzeb. The East India Company perhaps is the best illustration of  the refined powerpush which loots ( the first Indian word to have  entered the English dictionaries) with bowed head and silken words. The modern day democratic representatives of people also are powerful. Modestly dressed they seek votes with folded hands but once they are elected they can slap you publicly and abuse your power by trickery.

The entire march of the Homo Sapiens is a march towards power and more power. Power over nature, birds and beasts and ultimately man. But  Power for what? To be immortal ? To be wealthy? To  be famous?   For what really? All your love, compassion, sympathy, knowledge wisdom are used only for power. Vasistha by his spiritual powers will shame Vishwamitra. England  will flaunt Shakespeare and India  Kalidas to shame Jinping; China will flaunt I Ching and Confucius, Russia the first Sputnik, America the Triumphant Dollar, for what and for whose shame or  glory? Man has killed Christ, Gandhi; man has destroyed nature, caused this climate  change poverty and fear:  For what?

Power games are now seen in Maharastra; in Hong Kong, Pakistan and almost everywhere. Veer Savarkar is a freedom fighter, Shivaji  is 'Lord Vishnu' ( in Kaviraja Paramananda's Sivabharata). Hitler is the best German  for the millennials in Germany and so on- the power push of man has invaded all spheres of life in history. Power prides itself everywhere notwithstanding the generosity of the human heart. But power ultimately is futile, meaningless like an abandoned cadaver. The much hated Mougal emperor Aurangzeb's last letter to his son perhaps will awaken Man to shun his powerpush:

              I came alone and go as a stranger. The instant which has passed in power has left only                          sorrow behind it. I have not been the guardian and protector of the  Empire. Life , so                             valuable,  has been squandered in vain. ( Death bed letter to his son Azam).

Catching Life

How easy it is to say

I am happy - isn't it !

But when memory swings

south goes all dreams

leaving us to churchyard gloom:

we alone wonder in the dark
long silent streets
without an exit.

Sometime somewhere life halts

to listen to the footsteps-

Whose footsteps ?

Yours or mine in mingled confusion.

Yes, happiness we search

running from corner to corner

in the deep turbulent sea of life

applying coats of foundation

to hide the wrinkled sorrow

pretending what we are not.

But can we escape

time's rigmarole  fated afore!

Yes we can by removing masks

catching life's drooping wings

and steering the course 

to create happiness in the
earthly sky of your making:

Not in dreams or fancies

but in the motions of life.

Sabita Sahu

Living From Moment To Moment...

.Prafulla Kumar Mohanty.

Unborn tomorrow and dead yesterday/why fret about them if today be sweet - wrote Omar Khyayam. But the catch in the second line : If today be sweet. Every living being lives in the present moment, inevitably. But the moments are fleeting into future tomorrows chased by the yesterdays. Memory and dream inescapably crowd the present moment. A moment comes as eternity, lengthens the present both ways. You stand before the mirror after a lukewarm shower, humming a tune of a name- forgotten film, pick up the comb. The mind slips back to the shop where you picked it up yesterday and could not bargain as your phone rang and the sweet voice of your childhood friend invited you to her wedding anniversary dinner at May Fair. You were delighted to hear the loving voice of your friend after a long time. You promised to attend and thought of buying a present. You looked around the shop for something memorable. You remembered her wedding day. You were happy that day, you sang and were very happy seeing the match. The scenes of feasting and the flashy silky girls decorated from top to toe widened your lips a bit. You forgot your bargain and collected your change and stepped out when the  shopkeeper called you to collect your comb. You now smile and comb your hair and do your make up all the while trying to imagine how she would be looking now. She has married a top businessman, lived abroad for quite some years  and later settled in Bombay- oh, Mumbai. Before  leaving your dressing table mirror you think of your own party wear for the evening.

No moment is frozen. Moments tick away carrying the past and future. The present moment too is flowing from the past with its memories which lead you to your future plans and actions.  When you say "I live  from moment to moment" you perhaps think that you move from one dynamic situation to another and the situations are not related. Time and human mind are not like moving from one typing table to another. Its not like a disjointed progression of time where the consciousness moves with shifting logic to meet what a moment brings up from the maws of time . But what is this living moment to moment ?  Only when one is frustrated and has no hope for the morrow nor does he fall back upon the memories which his life lived in all his yesterday's thinks that all moments are eventless or loaded with horror and boredom. Who thinks like this? Only a person who has lost control over his life or is unable to give his personality thrust to the moments to flow in a certain direction, he alone gives up like Estragon saying, 'nothing to be done'. Such people blame faith and if they are believers they blame god. Life, as it were, ends every moment. This is an unmanly  or unwomanly  feeling which comes to  weak minds.

But these men and women will argue : What do you know about my life ? What has life given me except pain, misery and frustration? Well my dear, yes life has not given you anything because life never gives anything. You make your life worthwhile  by utilizing the potential which nature has given you. Intelligence, feelings, emotions, physical prowess - all have come with you naturally. If you are in a prison unlawfully break the prison. Escape by  collecting the keys to your cell by trapping your guard.  If you fail write to all authorities to reopen your case.  Write to the print and electronic media to give  you a hearing. If you fail to get any response write your own story. But if you are of Caliban material you will knock the door once and once only and give up if no response comes. That means you are denying life yourself. Life means pain, sickness, betrayal and all such negativities. But life has also given you courage, love, bravery and such positivities. Why give up at the slightest onslaught of misfortune? Life is not meant for sufferance. Life is a mental fight to conquer your share of glory in the world.

What if the son hasn't got a job for which you had trained him? What if your wife is a  bluestocking in spite of your love?  What if your boss trapped you to ignominy? You are man enough to find and seek alternatives. Shakuni in the Mahabharat is physically imperfect, all members of his clan including his parents, died before his eyes. But he did not give up. Like Milton's Satan you should say- What though the field be lost? All is not lost - the inconquerable Will  will pierce through the tunnel closed at both ends by his willpower. By his soulforce, if any, he will dispel the imposed darkness.

Man, I agree, is a delicate creature. His nerves are extremely sensitive to pain and the  diabolics of misfortune. But he must draw on the inner resolve  never to yield to even god. Prayers, Yajnas, fasts, temple visits are for the defeated. Those who cannot bend the moment and use them as bows run after the unseen powers which are impalpable. But Man is his own destiny maker. Try to overcome your misfortunes by taking them head on. Never submit to the injustice of  man and god. Fight till the end. Make your death crown your life with glory. Therefore make your moments flow with memories and dreams however distressing they may be.

ChandaMama

Millennia have passed

we call you uncle, beloved

Phoebus, silver globe and such

other names in many

tongued rhyme: Today

Chandrayana touched you

your craters ,boulders

like ruins of global beauty

stared  at us.

Human foot has
already soiled you

camera eyes have shown

you like a pimpled face of

trampled glory.

The Indian Moon,

Odia, Bengali moon,

Janhi osha moon,

Kumar Purnima moon

the Autumn moon is gone.

But my dearest I'll still  dream

in dark nights of your cool grace

watch you on the sea shore sands

at midnight high tide and noon

still compare you with my face

scarred by time's ruthless ways

and love as  I love my beauty.

Sabita Sahu

If Man Is Not Born To Die...

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Anything that begins must end: This truth reassures man's story of life. The motivation to live intensely  comes only because there is the certainty of death. No death means no life. Plants animals and all mammals pass through the process of birth-copulation and death. If this process is altered life is unthinkable. The seasons change . Spring dies into summer and summer into rains. Vegetation dries up and dies in winter. The trees look bald, the hills and mountains get shrouded in snow. The sun- moon- stars and all that the eye sees lose lustre, the earth shivers and shrinks. But spring blows his mighty clarion and nature awakens into a maiden look. Flowers, greenery and life activities resume like the beaming tabla player changing into Drut. Nature is renewed into a new lease of youth. The humans, however, have no renewal. Once born, man grows, stabilizes in a full form like the Saal tree: Then follows the sear and yellow leaf, the sword falls off  the nerveless hands, the parched lips fail to kiss, the riotous nights of sexual fantasy recede from memory, the proud golden conches droop in defeat, the luxuriant hair falls off for the plait makers make- belief industry, the knees buckle, the breath gets puffy, the eyes see illusions, the romantic savour leaves from flutes to bleatings, pills, tonics fail to revive and one day at dawn or midnight he dies, that is he gives up everything  he prized and sleeps never to rise again. He is buried or burnt lest the festering body stink the living to vomit hate. The story ends . But another begins in the labour room. And the world moves in its diurnal rounds.

Imagine there is no death, only life, youth, energy endless!  Well Utopia wouldn't have come to the human mind. No poetry, arts or science, no politics, history or philosophy- nothing. Men and women would have rolled on mountain grass or leaning against craggy places looking at the blinding sun to disappear.  If there is no death there is nothing to celebrate life. Nothing to dream , nothing to plan for the morrow : For there is no tomorrow. Life is an eternal today.  No starry nights, no waxing waning moon; the sea would be still, wave less, the shores would be empty of men, no boats would venture into the sea to catch fish or to conquer distant shores, no dolphin  depths of love, no desire, no hunger - hence no life. Man would be without feeling, sensation, just a flesh bone form, a  moving statue incapable of love. No quest for anything. The wind's whisper, roar, soft winnowing caress will die on the insensitive body.

The mind- if any - will not think ,will not invent ways and means of escaping from anything for there wouldn't be anything to escape from or to. Time would be still . No past or future, no experience , no memory. Life would be an eternal present sans everything.

Death shapes our dreams to weave designs of pleasure and happiness. Death warrants human creativity. Man in order to satisfy his desires, cravings, wishes and hopes creates opportunities for himself. If he fails he goes mad and writes of his agony in woeful measures. He loves, writes poetry, paints, sculpts and invents. Man tries every moment to meet the challenge of death. This death consciousness makes a man/woman to love for love conquers death. The story of man is a constant struggle to conquer death. He creates new avenues of life. He also kills, hates, protests, fights to survive all hostilities which negate life. The Vedas, epics and philosophical treatises are all attempts of man to know his reality, to understand the human condition. He records his achievements which posterity often devalues. But record he must. This inner urge to express and record made him invent language and script. He wanted to unravel the mystery of creation, wanted to reach and walk on the moon and mars. He now proposes to reach the sun and other solar, lunar or unknown systems. All sciences, arts and life - prolonging exercises, medicines, surgery and all that man has achieved today have been possible because death stalks life and finally conquers. Life's journey and progress has been possible only because of death. Easeful death has been the prayer of all living beings. He seeks the balm of life and tries to overcome death. But the day death is conquered life will  cease to be on earth.

Today modern medical science has reduced human suffering. Human longevity has increased. The Vedic mantra of Saradam  Shatam - hundred Autumn- is now almost real, attainable. But man tries to go beyond  a century to double century. Google scientists are researching for that. Once the double is achieved man will think of  a millennium. But death will  come and should. If no death life will be  a loveless automaton lingering fruitlessly without purpose. Death gives meaning and purpose to life. Man should accept this truth. He may consider death as his Krishna - Marana he tu hi mama Shyam saman (Tagore)or his Nemesis. But death gives excitement to life. Man lives better, struggles for achievements, for glory in creativity simply because one day life will end. Death is not a conqueror of life; death is the chief inspiration, the real life breath which ultimately ceases. Victory be to death.

My Sofa...

Looking at the sofa

I feel the  warmth and

the scent of my flesh

like  lilac perfume spreads

whenever I pass by it

Kids sit on it, watch TV

change the cushions to side,

dust away the cover

play for a moment and go

still no claim of excitement

on its face to be seen.

All I know the sofa lies

like a dead piece of wood

for everybody , in the room

that is made of bricks,

but my presence turns it

to glow with a smile,

it is my bed of truth

and unspoken secrets ,

waits for my body to fall

on it  and to give me

thoughts of dream and

wakes me up with a
loving hope to begin anew...

Sabita Sahu

Jyotirgamaya

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

The ancient wisdom always emphasized light, purity and soul values for human beings. In all cultures this wisdom is adored and human activities are geared to that end. But what is that light and why light? The day begins with light and gets sucked into darkness. Birth of man is for a long journey towards death. Any joyous beginning ends up in tears. Civilizations after glorious decades or centuries collapse into decimation. The fullmoon terminates in decline, the sun is swallowed by night. Then what is the journey to light which never fades? And does man bask in that light or burn in the heat which light generates? These questions are legitimate in the assured context of perpetuity which the ancients promised. But is there any sustaining truth in the promise beyond symbolism?

Darkness and light are the eternal binaries which have been used by sages, philosophers and poets. The common man too uses  these as metaphors. But when we think of life's journey, symbols don't matter. The sages who preached and practised these binaries in their different shades have advocated  abstinence, renunciation, charity, compassion and love for  attaining the illuminated path. But if death is the finality what relevance have these enlightened  virtues in the context of a single life? If I deny myself all pleasures, material comforts and finally die what is that enlightenment for?  How do I utilize my enlightenment ? The anagnorisis which comes to a man of heroic temper does not give him any scope to undo what wrongs he had done nor does it  permit him to improve the quality of life around for he takes his enlightenment to the grave. The other aphorism- live as you wish for you  live only once- is also tempting. But how can a person create his personal , private world without treading on the corns in others' feet? That is when I project my wishes on the world the others  projecting their own wishes come in the way. Ambition, aspiration, wishes and desires are never ends in themselves. Desires clash, wishes strike walls, ambitions come to conflict with others' ambitions. How can man live a life  without contacting, conflicting with other human beings who have the same or similar desires? If I avoid conflicts and clashes my dreams and wishes are enclosed in self-denial. If I wish to have my own way the world around will not allow me to go ahead. May be to live  an enlightened life means burying your own desires as the Buddha said. But a man who withdraws from all frontiers is called a coward. If he does not fulfil his potential, he will deny himself a life that was given to him to perform the fullness of his being. For this perhaps man kills another man  calling him his enemy. Rapes a woman to satisfy his pleasure instinct. And these things are  called sin, crime and dark nonvalues. But when he moves on the illuminated path, he does not move further. He reads the scriptures, eats bland food, does not pluck a flower, does not appreciate beauty, does not enjoy royal power: What he really gains is knowledge about the given world. What is this knowledge? Man is born to add to the goodness of the world by his soulforce; to wipe off tears from another eye; to bring a smile in another face. Life is meant to foster and nourish life values which will conquer death and deathlike values.

This path of Light is shown by all great men almost in all civilizations . But history reveals that in no civilization man follows  these impersonal, otherworldly values to create an imaginary  heaven on earth. Has there ever been such a unidirectional civilization  in recorded history? The Indian civilization always emphasized the Vedic values. The dark instincts of life should be conquered by the light of wisdom. But could this wisdom save  civilizations that came up  in India's history? Dharma, Artha, Kama (Moksa) have their own paradigms of life.  But those who believed in hate, bloodshed, domination and loot came from beyond the borders and destroyed us. India could not retain its freedom. For more than 1600 years India was subdued, suppressed and ruled by foreigners for whom light meant power, hate, cruelty and masterdom. How is it that light could not dispel darkness?

In the modern world we notice clashes everywhere. For land, fossil fuel, water and riches people and governments fight. The internet has opened up vast space for human darkness. The twitter, FaceBook, Whats App have given free space to speak and write lies, hatred and abuse in words  which are swaddled in darkness. Is there any way out? How to go towards light? Or is it man's destiny to be in darkness despite the enlightened words of saints and sages? Well, I don't know.