Literary Vibes - Edition LXX
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the 70th edition of LiteraryVibes. A bouquet of sweet poems and a bunch of entertaining stories await you in this collection, embellished by four new contributors.
Ms. Mini K. Antony, a Fashion Designer from Kattukuzhi, Kerala, is a prolific writer in Malayalam whose story in today's edition is bound to take your breath away by its sheer beauty and lyrical quality. I thank Mr. Sree Kumar for translating it for LiteraryVibes. It's through such efforts that we can convey to the literary world how rich and universal our regional literature is. Ms. Uma, an educationist based in Ooty, an enthusiast in Performing and Literary Art has delved into a child's psychology to bring forth emotions of unparalleled beauty. Mr. Murukesh Panayara from London, who writes both in English and Malayalam, is a well published writer. And the brilliant Sanjit Singh, a Final year B.Com Student from Loyola College, Chennai, has a wise head on his young shoulders. He specialises in dispensing unconventional wisdom through simple solutions to complicated problems of his generation.
We heartily welcome all of them to the family of LiteraryVibes and wish them abundant success in their literary career.
This week I came across the story of a great poet and lyricist of Indian cinema who has captivated our heart for many decades. But the way he got his break is the stuff dreams are made of. Sampooran Singh Kalra was born in 1936 in Dina, in present-day Pakistan. At the age of eight he left for India along with his father and came to Mumbai where they struggled for survival. When he grew up, Sampooran Singh worked as a mechanic in a garage to earn a living, but his love for music and poetry was phenomenal. In the year 1963 when Bandini, the epoch making film was being made, Bimal Roy, the legendary director and S. D. Burman the maverick music director were looking for a lyricist for the film. Someone told them that there was an automobile mechanic who wrote wonderful poetry. Both Bimal Roy and S. D. Burman, perfectionists to the core, scoffed at the idea of approaching a car mechanic for lyrics but were somehow persuaded to offer a chance to Sampooran Singh, who wrote Mora gora ang lailey, mohey sham rang deidey...., a song of exceptional beauty which was later made immortal in Lata Mangeshkar's voice. A legend was born, a maestro who would rise to the greatest heights of lyrics writing, music direction, script writing and film direction. He would be known and adored by millions of fans as Gulzar. Those who have seen the movies directed by him, notably Mere Apney, Aandhi, Masoom, Machis, Mausam, Angoor, Kinara, Koshish, Khushboo and Namkeen would know to what unfathomable depths of emotions art can transport the viewers. As on 2019 he has won 36 awards including 5 National Film Awards, 21 Filmfare Awards, 1 Academy Award (for best original song, 2008), 1 Grammy Award (2010), and Dada Saheb Phalke Award (2013). The Nation honoured this genius by conferring Pama Bhushan on him in 2004.
Gulzar's poetry is par excellence originating in a corner of the heart illuminated by a rare glow of love, passion, melancholy and nostalgia. It is my great pleasure in presenting a couple of samples from his great repertoire:
COME, LET US BUILD A NIGHT
Come, let us build a night
On the marble edifice of silence
let us swathe ourselves in the sheets of darkness,
and ignite the twin candles of our bodies . . .
When dew arrives on tiptoe,
let it not discern even the whisper of our breaths
In the silken fragrance of mist,
entwined let us lie, like fragrance itself —
Draped in the earthy aroma of our bodies,
Let us, like spirits, rustle forever . . .
(Translated by Salim Arif. Source : poemfortoday.wordpress.com)
UNCONCLUDED
On a white bed
lies a body
dead,
abandoned,
a forsaken body
they forgot to bury.
They left
as if death was not
their business.
I hope they come back,
look
and recognize;
bury me
so I can breathe.
(Translated by Rina Singh. Source : poemfortoday.wordpress.com)
There are thousands of youngsters who write poetry and short stories for LiteraryVibes and many similar magazines and literary journals. I dedicate today's edition of LV to them with a prayer that they should keep striving and should reach the pinnacle of literary success. I know in my heart that success has a way of sniffing out talent, otherwise how could an automobile mechanic become a Gulzar - 'a veritable garden of resplendent flowers'?
Hope you will enjoy the sumptuous fare offered in this 70th edition of LiteraryVibes.
Please forward the link http://www.positivevibes.today/article/newsview/305 to all your friends and contacts. Kindly remind them that all the previous sixty nine editions of LV including four anthologies of poems and short stories are available at http://www.positivevibes.today/literaryvibes
Take care, stay safe
With warm regards
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
Table of Contents
- TIDE AND EBB Prabhanjan K. Mishra
- APPROVER Prabhanjan K. Mishra
- IN HIDING (ANTARAALA) Haraprasad Das
- LOCKED DOWN Dilip Mohapatra
- THE RETURN GIFT Dilip Mohapatra
- MAA Krupasagar Sahoo
- KRISHNA PANDIT Ujan Ghosh
- MY WINDOW PravatKumar Padhy
- THE BOMB THAT… Ishwar Pati
- LOVE Sreekumar
- LOVE Murukesh Panayara
- OH MY GOD Sundar Rajan
- GETTING EVERYTHING Dr. Bichitra Kumar Behura
- WHY I FEEL BOOKS.. Thryaksha A Garla
- BRIGHT COLOURS AND. Thryaksha A Garla
- O’ THE DISGUISED ONE Ravi Ranganathan
- THE VAMPIRE SERIES Sridevi Selvaraj
- WARS THAT TAKE... Dr. Molly Joseph
- ARE YOU TO BLAME... Hema Ravi
- TERRACE Madhumathi. H
- HIS SILENCE WINKED... Madhumathi. H
- THE MANTRA OF… Akshaya Kumar Das
- THE GAME OF DICE... Akshaya Kumar Das
- ADULT RHYMES Padmini Janardhanan
- ART OF GIVING Sheena Rath
- KHUDURUKUNI Gokul Chandra Mishra
- MEET NANCY Malabika Patel
- LOVE TO LIVE, LIVE TO.. Setaluri Padmavathi
- PEARLS FROM THE SKY Geetha Subramanian
- ENCHANTING MADI... Meera Raghavendra Rao
- THE STRANGER Anjali Mohapatra
- TO THAT ONE NAUGHTY Uma
- FARMS IN THE SKY Mini K Antony
- THE POWER OF… Sanjit Singh
- MONALISA! O, O... Mrutyunjay Sarangi
Hands sleepy on Tanpura,
fatigue nestling on eyelashes,
her tired body goes for forty winks
between the soft sheets.
But why would the snake
care about her fatigue? Its hiss
makes her blood course in veins,
she obliges like the guest in an inn.
Quickly exhausting itself,
poison squirted, earnest
empty and shrunken, the snake
retreats, leaving her in a burning pit.
Hoping for it to return
she smoulders like a cigar,
placed lighted in the ashtray,
a Pingala in vigil at her door.
From indifference to avarice,
desire for a fun-filled night
tortures her unrequited flesh.
Her vigil seems endless.
Uninhibited, the blood rushes,
threatening to jump the banks,
spilling like unstable mercury;
caressed by the shameless wind,
her body is arching like a bow,
tense before shooting arrows,
hope is electric, and impatient,
a question mark at the open door.
The flames reach the navel,
go up and lick the heart,
smoke is choking the control,
the night is a river of desire
flowing out of a little crucible,
buried and fathomless,
a mystery beneath dark curls,
the night’s palpitating hunger.
Vibhuti was a bit worried. He felt as if he was standing between the Devil and the deep sea. On one side were his friends who had picked him from a kind of gutter and fed him, supported him until he joined them as one of the important spokes in their company’s hubs. On the other side was his own future and safety. He was of late informed by the police that his rescuers were a gang of high-profile robbers. Their so-called business firm was only the outer façade to project them as white-collar professionals besides being an instrument for laundering the loot, converting the black into white.
He was told that the keys that he made for the company’s clients, either studying the technology that went into a lock’s making, or once in a while from oil or soap-impressions, were not duplicate keys to replace original lost keys, or meant to be given to lock-maker companies as prototypes, but in fact, were meant to open doors of people’s homes and cars or hotel rooms for facilitating theft. Even certain master-keys he made for hotels and motor-companies were not for any honest purpose, but were used for stealing valuables, cars, and other two, three, and four-wheeler automobile vehicles. The hotel and automobile companies were just names dropped by his colleagues to divert his suspicion.
The police were persuading him to turn a government witness or approver, and help them to arrest his colleagues who were in reality thieves, search their living quarters and business premises, and find the booty, cash or kind. At the starting of this brainwashing process, Vibhuti did not believe the police who had implicated him earlier two times in false cases. But this time what they said appeared to have some truth.
He recalled, in fact, the firm his friends ran had hardly any documents, files, or records relating to any business. Its head office had two rooms and a few tables and chairs scattered around the outer room. The inner room was exclusively for business meetings that he had never been asked to attend. Often their whispers beyond his earshot and suddenly stopping the discussions in the middle of a sentence if he came into their meeting room, had seemed meaningfully suspicious to him, indicating secret activity, might it be organized robbery as the police were trying to convince him, or whatever. Now he was full of doubts, who was telling the truth, his friends who had claimed to run a Risk-Management-Consultancy firm, or the police who had framed him twice with false allegations in the past?
Another angle fed fuels to his doubts against his friends. He knew that except the headquarters office address where they held meetings, all other addresses printed on their website, cards, and advertisements were false. Even they never revealed to anyone about their umpteen number of offices in the town and other towns, all one room affairs. They also never had outside friends beyond their small circle and never invited anyone home. Rather their residence premises were a strict hush hush matter. But Vibhuti had, as an employee, access to all that secret and the police knew that.
Vibhuti thought he was an employee of that company and his job was making keys for the company’s clients whenever necessary. Before joining, he was told by the man who acted as the chief that their clients were companies manufacturing cars, scooters, and locks, or dealing in their sales and servicing activities; and also hotels and resorts, and certain high-profile finance companies for whom their locks and keys mattered. Vibhuti would handle the company’s section dealing with locks and keys with an assistant or two to help him in his job. They were on the lookout for an expert and they had found one in Vibhuti.
The company gave consultation and assistance to its client companies in their risk management areas, which included locks and keys. Out-of-order or damaged locks, or eroded or distorted keys are a risk-hazard and Vibhuti would hold the key in their distress. So, he would be a very important asset for their company. He would be paid well if he decided to join them. He had to take the oath of secrecy in that case, a part of their policy. So, would he join the job? Vibhuti had accepted the terms and conditions after consulting his wife and joined the job. He had only one problem. His colleagues were educated, and their technical jargons were beyond his school education, he had been a high-school dropout.
He had a tool bag with him all the time. When he joined the company, he was encouraged to study more and more complicated locks that the company procured for him. He dismantled them, did research on their components, and learned to make keys for them. He became so adept in his craft that even from soap or oil impressions or using doctor’s stethoscope to hear the fall of levers or pin-tumblers in sophisticated locks, he could open the most complicated locks using the keys made in his tool-room.
Before the police took him into confidence, he was considered an expert in his field of locks and keys. Even a few banks were contacting him privately for advice to procure theft-proof strong rooms for keeping their lockers. His company had no objection to his earning the extra amounts from private consultations outside his company’s working hours. The only condition was, after each of such outside engagement, he had to submit to his company’s chief a detailed report of the help extended. Later, he would know that those reports helped his colleagues to loot those banks when the opportune time presented itself. In fact, those banks, while taking his services were exposing their vulnerability to the designs of a white-collar gang of robbers.
But before consenting to be an informer and witness for the government to help the police to crack the racket his friends were supposed to be running, he had an honest search of heart, keeping his personal gains or loss at bay. In his eyes his friends were angels and the police were devils, what his past experience convinced him. He doddered on the horns of dilemma.
He lived in a semi-developed town that really was a village in his father’s time. He heard from his father that rapid developments had come during Indira ji’s reign as prime minister, and the conversion into a township was quickly achieved during the roughly two-year period of emergency. Might be the press was gagged, but his father and the people in their village-town never felt gagged, rather found their roads broadened, their ponds and wells cleaned, electricity provided, deep-wells set up for quality drinking water and irrigation of farm-lands etc. etc. The small hamlet got converted into a smart township, the magical conversion of the humble Cinderella into a refined princess.
He himself was not good at studies. He was a school dropout, was married to a comely and homely girl at twenty-five, the girl being a science graduate herself from a poor family. Her name was Amrutaa,who came into his life like a pot of Amrit or honey, in keeping with her name. He had a small lock and key making shop at a street corner on the verandah of his humble house and a few acres of land in the countryside a few kilometers from the township. He made ordinary small and medium size locks by assembling parts from dismantled old and rejected locks he bought from ragpickers. His locks from assembled parts sold very cheap cost-wise, but as per his buyers, were of extremely good quality. He made keys for the locks assembled by him, besides to replace lost keys or for opening locks whose keys were not readily available.
Often, he would be called to open a locked door in the neighbourhood, and people knew him as a helpful man to go on an errand to open a door even in the middle of the night. He was loved by people. He earned enough money to keep his wife happy. People would compare him and his wife with the proverbial inseparable pair of swans.
Once there was a big theft in the house of the local industrialist. A few days earlier, Vibhuti was called to make a key to the same multi-lever lock in the strong room of the industrialist that housed his valuables and cash, and the lock was not broken but picked by a duplicate key for the robbery. There was a baseless rumour that Vibhuti could make keys from memory for a lock if once he was called to open it in absence of the key. While he made the key, he memorized the precise measurements of its lever-grooves, and subsequently could make duplicate keys from memory.
But well-informed people of the area knew it would be next to impossible to do such multi-lever precision keys from memory. It needed impossible precision and on-the-spot repeated trials. They knew the rumour was based on innuendos of jealous friends and relatives of Vibhuti himself. But after the theft, the police arrested him because of the rumour, and took him in remand for questioning as a suspect.
As it happen-chanced, the high-profile case got a lot of political attention and press mileage. The police were under so much of pressure to solve the case that they thought to be wise by following a universal adage ‘a bird in hand is better than two in the bush’, and Vibhuti was their bird in hand. They quickly solved the case, Vibhuti was implicated and framed in a watertight case as the thief, and was sentenced to three years of rigorous punishment.
But the police and jail staff forgot a thing, that Vibhuti was a lockpick, even by insinuation. If he could enter forbidden zones by picking locks, as they had insinuated, so, why couldn’t he come out from isolation of a jail, where he had been imprisoned by framing him falsely, using the same art from the inside of the jail to freedom. There was no news of jail break, but people found Vibhuti outside the jail in his locality.They presumed he might be on bail. Wiser citizens gave the credit to a recent dictum, briefly expressed as ‘law is taking its own course’. But when the reality came to light, the police and the jail authorities, of course, couldn’t take the ignominy of losing face to a petty lockpick, so they made post-regularizing documents, and amended registers to give a new respectability to Vibhuti’s jailbreak as ‘parole’.
But the police were not a benevolent lot, neither by intellect nor by qualities on the basis of which they generally got recruited, euphemistically described as treating goons with the same weapon, i.e. goonda-ism. They were by and large a violent lot, and more violent than the social miscreants. So, they hated the humiliation they had suffered in the hands of a lockpick. They looked for opportunities to have their revenge.
Another case of big theft presented itself. The procedure adopted was similar again, by picking locks and not breaking in. They coolly implicated Vibhuti in the case, and took him in remand for ten days. Their hands and feet were itching and now was their chance of ten days when Vibhuti would be in their custody for a leisurely well-thought out torture with punches and kicks. But, ‘man proposes and god disposes’, the adage, every Tom, Dick and Harry of the country side would know by heart
God had other plans for Vibhuti outside the concocted plans of the police department. From the blue came a few angels, a bunch of Santa Clause, not yet known to Vibhuti, who brought a powerful lawyer to fight his case, and on the second day of his remand when the torture ritual had only its opening hand, he was out on bail. Again, the itching pride of the police personnel decided to wait for more propitious times. The moment the lawyer brought him out of the courtroom, he was greeted by his new friends who were heads over heels to shower their care and concern on him. They said they had found the man they were searching for many days.
Vibhuti was overwhelmed to know that those educated and well-groomed youths were engineers and science graduates. They had set up a company of consultants to advise on risk management. Big companies dealing in automobile, hotel industry, and bank-lockers, either manufacturing them or selling the articles or services, were their clients. They were on look out for a lock-expert. They were in receipt of recommendations for Vibhuti from various responsible sources, but unfortunately before they could approach the latter, he was implicated by police in a false case. They knew Vibhuti was honest, not a thief, and was so far twice victimized by the police just to save their own skin. They informed that one of the high-ranking police officer was their source of information and was on their company’s secret payroll.
In usual course, Vibhuti was called for an interview and he formally joined the consultant firm run by his friends. His monthly salary was three to four times of his regular income from his shop. He was asked to work from his home or shop mostly, only on rare occasions he was called to office for some knotty cases. Few people knew Vibhuti had joined the consultant firm. In fact, very few in the area knew about the firm, its two-room office, or its other executives.
The only surprise to jealous neighbours was Vibhuti’s rise from a cycle-rider to a scooter-rider, and shifting house from his two-room affair under a tin-roof to a sizeable bungalow with a small garden and portico. Another thing bothered them. He looked relaxed, and with wife on pinion he was found at various romantic locations like gardens, riverbanks, and joy-parks. His time spent in back-seats of balcony areas of movie theatres, and in bedroom behind his locked doors increased. The consequences were obvious. His wife was found to be on the family-way.
Despite all his recent prosperity, and relaxed life, Vibhuti had not changed a bit, he remained the same good Samaritan to his people, known and unknown. The love of a few of his close friends who had borrowed large amounts from him, and felt ashamed to ask for more; and had no intention of returning the debt, started to churn their brains for escape routes. At the outset, they whispered to the beat-constable about the new prosperity of the accused released on bail. The beat-constable, who visited Vibhuti to inquire after his wellbeing, was asked to stay for dinner. He was served with an excellent homecooked meal by Mrs. Vibhuti, and was coaxed later to take home a big bowl of chicken curry and a plate of caramel pudding.
But the beat-constable was a police officer by caste-creed-and-religion, and a policeman must bite the hand that feeds him, because unless the hand had been stealing, how could it afford to feed a policeman, whose stomach and pocket were abysmally deep? The police beat-constable reported the dinner to his boss, just skipping his take-home package, and the information crossed many steps with added mirch-masala at every stage of climbing a rung in police hierarchy.
When it reached the Dy.S.P. level, it was recorded as a ‘Zero-F.I.R.’ and a secret investigation into, along with a hawkish watch on Vibhuti’s dealings started. The company that employed him was already under their watch and under the local crime branch, but except suspicion they had little evidence against it. They had finally recruited a lockpick and that gave impetus to the police suspicion.
Vibhuti was called on several occasions to open locks in the police station but they were just ploys to hoodwink Vibhuti from their real purpose, extracting information. They had not lost any key, but wanted to see Vibhuti’s dexterity in opening locks and making keys. His advanced technique amazed them. He could make a key in seconds for a multi-lever lock, and could open any sophisticated lock.
The police also knew from their many casual talks with him that his involvement with his consultant firm was limited to making keys for any type of lock that was presented to him. They came to know about his big salary packet. Also, they knew, if he had been a part of the gang of robbers, he had no whiff about that, and he served them without conscious knowledge of the irregularities. He had been working as an honest worker in a firm that he honestly thought as a consultant firm. He had been a victim here of a gang of robbers, as he had been twice their victim earlier, framed by them, the police, knowing well that he had been innocent.
The police had found their match in cheating, framing, and hoodwinking in the consultant firm. Apparently, they, like the police, cheated all in broad daylight, not sparing the police who cheated the administration and judiciary at every turn. It was a big slap on their face. All the executives of the firm were well-read, educated, well-versed with law, and were slippery bandicoots. The police badly needed a mole, and decided to choose Vibhuti as one. They started to work on their mole starting with a debriefing as if Vibhuti was one of their spies. But they found Vibhuti had no knowledge whatsoever of his firm’s wrong doings.
The police changed their technique. They applied one of the recently developed weapons, called ‘nationalism’, that had swept the government to power for a second term against all odds. It was invisible but very powerful and lethal to work on the minds of most people. Some were simply swept away by its obligatory force, and others followed it just out of guilt. No one would like to be called an ‘anti-national’ was the catch concept. The trick it was decided would be applied on the key-maker.
During a heart to heart discussion with the Superintendent of Police, the high-ranking officer in his air-conditioned office, stirred a cup of tea for Vibhuti with his own hands before he prepared a cup for himself. He apologized to the lock-expert before him on behalf of his lower officers for framing him earlier on two occasions. He promised to compensate him with cash award. Then he indirectly opened up his topic on nationalism involving the pan-Indian brotherhood, their trials and tribulations.
That hot and humid noon, the discussion floating from tea over to a mutton biryani lunch, brought from a reputed restaurant, laced with Gandhian thoughts and Nehruvian socialism to Modi-nomics, the clever IPS officer haunted the mind of Vibhuti, entering into its soft labyrinths. Vibhuti was brainwashed and slowly a national pride was stirring in the still waters of his placid Deshbhakti. Like a few other countrymen he felt like believing that he was having a mission to save his people from hands of a few corrupt marauders.
When he was rising to leave, the clever officer thought that he had poisoned the fellow’s mind with a lot of false bravado in the name of serving the people, and it was time to hit the iron that was hot. So, he hinted about Vibhuti’s company’s sole business being high-profile robbery and the consultation being only window-dressing and a mask. He reserved the details for the next meeting.
Standing up Vibhuti smiled ingratiatingly for the treat, “I am a humble lock-smith. I have no standard to invite home a senior IPS officer like you. Still I dare. Sir, if it won’t be much of an inconvenience, would you have lunch at my residence tomorrow. Please bring along the SP-madam, she would enjoy my wife’s cooking.” The SP was sort of overwhelmed for the opportunity presenting itself in the form of Vibhuti’s invitation. He thought he could brainwash the fellow and use him as decoy to lure the culprits soon. So, he said, “It would be a treat for me Vibhuti ji. But if your wife does not mind, we spare my wife who is not well. She would come to meet your wife some other time.”
During lunch the next noon at Vibhuti’s bungalow, the Mussoorie trained IPS officer used a gambit. Before the food and discussion started, his hawk eyes over a glass of chilled beer detected certain lassitude in Mrs. Vibhuti’s movement, “You didn’t tell me your wife was also not well. You shouldn’t have invited me and put her into inconvenience of cooking an elaborate meal. How is her health? What is her problem?” Vibhuti hesitated and blushed, then said shyly, “She is in family-way. Our first child, but it’s in a very early stage, detected last week only by our street-corner path-lab.”
The young SP guffawed, “O’, O’, you are blushing like a coy bride, Vibhuti ji. The nature’s law is taking its course.” Vibhuti cringed to hear a modified version of ‘law is taking its course’. He wanted to add that it all happened out of conjugal living, the law had nothing to do with it. But the SP had not finished his say, “Same with my wife. Expecting our first child. She is also in very early stage. Same lassitude, languor.”
He now assessed the pros and cons of this new information. He thought, he could use it as a ploy, send Mrs. Vibhuti to the same doctor with his wife for pregnancy-related checkups. His wife could brainwash Vibhuti’s wife, in turn she could brainwash Vibhuti in bed. Excellent, he thought. Two-pronged strategy!
Over a homely but excellent lunch, the SP went into more details about the secret activities of Vibhuti’s consultant firm within hearing of his wife with a view to recruiting her also into his plan, but all along keeping Vibhuti on an unblemished high pedestal, and repeatedly telling him “Wah, you bloom like a pink pristine lotus in a foul dark dung-pit, wah!” Even, his metaphor surprised his own iron-studded mind. While leaving, he casually asked, “What doctor checks your missus’ pregnancy?” “None so far, it’s too early, as I told you” replied Vibhuti.
Here the SP took the matter into his hands more firmly. He went dreamy and said, “Vibhuti ji, Dr. Panna is the best lady gynaecologist in town with the best maternity home. I have taken appointment with her for checkup of my wife for tomorrow evening. I will ask her to add your wife’s name there as a double appointment, she would say it's her her younger sister, what’s her name? (Vibhuti gratefully filled up the information as ‘Amrutaa’), ah, Amrutaa, that way she takes the position of my Saali (younger sister-in-law). I think I can joke a little with her after this.”
In spite of Vibhuti’s modest protests, the arrangement progressed. The two wives visited Dr. Panna together. They exchanged wisdom relating to pregnancies and had happy laughs how their husbands behaved hornier in their wives’ pregnancy days, might be the result of supply-demand mismatch. All along, at every opportunity, Mrs. SP brought about the story of Vibhuti’s consultation-company and its hidden agenda.
The next two weeks saw many exchanges of visits between the two families over dinners, lunch, tea, and tete-a-tete. A new chapter was opening up in the relationship between the high-profile IPS officer and the humble wife of the lock-maker, a sweet relationship of an Indian man with the younger sister of his wife. Even the SP’s wife took a serious view of the progress between the two in the light of the SP’s cheap comments in the guise of jokes growing appallingly vulgar. After she brainwashed Amrutaa against her lock-maker husband’s consultant firm, as programmed by her husband, and her job completed, she felt almost discarded to the wings, and her husband taking the full floor. She was disturbed to hear her husband reporting to duty on some days at Vibhuti’s house, when Vibhuti was called away to local police station for questioning.
Pressure of prosecution and persuasion was built up on Vibhuti to be the government witness-cum-informer to crack the robbery-racket. He finally agreed to share information, when he was told, “OK, you say your friends are honest. But we have complete dossier on each of your friends and your company to indicate a big racket of looting and money laundering. Help us by giving locations where they might have hideouts for their secret activities, records, keys etc. and their real residence addresses. Let’s raid the places, scrutinize documents, check their computers. If they are found innocent businessmen, let them walk free after that.” Vibhuti thought, if his friends were innocent, let it be proved and let them carry out their honest business outside police suspicion. He, however, gave the details in a video-tape to SP himself, a copy kept by his wife. It was conversational and recorded by Amrutta who was a computer-buff herself. Besides video taping, written and sign statements were taken. Amrutaa kept photos of the documents as well.
The SP had given his word, “That you are our witness and informer, would be maintained a secret. It is between you and me and only a small trusted team working under me. But, we would arrest you along with them, interrogate you as if you are an equal culprit, may be, you would face a little bad treatment which would keep your colleagues’ trust on you intact, and our team would be careful in your case, I guarantee.” He advised Vibhuti to cooperate with the police team, and promised to see that all would be well.
Next week, by a midnight operation all residents, office premises, secret addresses, and bank lockers of the company and its executives were raided and seized. All executives including Vibhuti of the consultant firm were taken into the police remand. Lots of cash, jewelry, other valuables with computer hard discs, pen-drives with evidence were recovered. Documents and computer transactions leading to money-laundering were found on record. Vibhuti’s wife visited her husband in the lock up and found swollen marks all over her husband. He appeared to have lost confidence in law, after being beaten ruthlessly. Vibhuti informed that none of his company colleagues were beaten but he was chosen for the third-degree.
She telephoned to the SP, who had turned into a brother-in-law by recent developments. She asked him to come to her husband’s help. The SP promised to help her immediately. Later, he telephoned her that he would come personally bringing her the good news. He was late and it was almost ten-thirty in the evening by the time his car parked under the small portico of Vibhuti’s bungalow. SP took the sobbing Amrutaa in his arms and cuddled her in the most delicate manner as one would console a little sister.
He told her that Vibhuti was now very fine, and he would have his breakfast with Amruta the next morning, walking out of the lockup, a free man. When an overwhelmed Amruta hugged him to expresse her gratitude, and went limp in his arms out of fatigue and a relaxed mind of a little sister in the arms of a brotherly figure, the SP took her to bed, and coolly raped her. When she protested, he shushed her saying, “Don’t you want to have your tomorrow’s breakfast with Vibhuti?” Amrutaa knew that she and her innocent husband had been trapped by a troop of bad men, the SP was a crocodile, and when hungry, the animal wouldn’t spare its own offspring.
Amrutaa knew the game by now. She didn’t protest openly, not even cautioned the SP who had raped her in her hapless state of pregnancy and without her husband to protect her. After an hour the SP progressed to enact an encore, by raping Amrutaa a second time the same night. Her only aim was to get her husband released from the monsters called the police and punish the guilty including the police personnel and their head, the SP, her recently acquired brother-in-law, her two-time-rapist. She was not an ordinary pawn, as events would show. She would in fact act henceforth as a queen on the board of chess that was being played. She could move in all directions, any distance or any number of squares to kill her opponents.
Without anyone’s knowledge and beyond their estimation, she proved smarter than any of them. She had recorded most of the discussions between SP and her husband that took place at her place to prove that Vibhuti was playing the role of approver to crack the racket of high-profile robbery and money laundering. After being set up for the rape by the silk-tongued SP, she was alerted about the real intention of the police and recorded her second rape by the over-confident SP that included his cajoling words, bravado, boasting on his powers as an inviolable Police officer, that like a king an SP of a district could not do any wrong, including Amrutaa’s hapless requests to be kind and just. However, the clever IPS officer had underestimated the plain-Jane Amrutaa. The recording was carefully saved in various storage devices to prove her later ‘Me Too’ moment.
The breakfast with her husband, as promised by the SP, she knew was just hogwash. At nine in the morning, refreshed and bathed, she went to police lockup with freshly cooked breakfast for her husband. He found her badly bruised husband lying almost unconscious on the floor in the same room with his company colleagues from the consultant firm.
She came to know by eavesdropping on police sitting around the police station that her husband had not been given the status of approver as committed, but been treated as one of the gang members. Further, to take the revenge of their earlier two humiliations, they had put him with his frustrated colleagues after revealing to them that they had obtained all the secrets from Vibhuti. So, under the nose of pleased police officers, each of his colleagues had practiced his punches and kicks on the punching bag called Vibhuti. The police staff sounded so pleased.
Amrutaa approached the senior inspector, “Bring out my husband, your approver, so that he can have his breakfast with me here. I was promised this facility by your SP.” He laughed on her face, and whispered, “Ah, approver! What approver, sweetheart? SP promised you, when? In bed, when he was whispering sweet nothings into your ears?” Her request was outright denied, “He is no approver, madam ji. He never gave us any information. His cooperation was zero, a big zero. You get out of here, or we would detain you.”
She insisted, “Let me speak to the SP. He recorded my husband's statement and made him write all the addresses and other information for the police at my place before my eyes. He asked my husband to cooperate with you as a pretended acting so that he would be in good faith of his friends who might divulge more details before him in the lockup.” The inspector laughed again, “Our kind hearted SP is tired after dealing with one of the suspects’ wife till late last night, you probably know who she was, and he is still resting from that tiredness.” Amrutaa’s telephone call was not answered by the police chief as anticipated. All along her mobile phone was on recording mode, and every bit of the ongoing conversation was being recored for use as evidence.
Amrutaa was poised and cool now. She went from the police station to the chief minister and after waiting a few hours could meet him. With some recorded video she won his confidence and the case was handed over to a Special Investigation Team (SIT). Surprisingly some police personnel were not yet soul-dead. To Amrutaa’s luck one such young IPS headed the SIT. In a day, Vibuthi was with Amrutaa and his approver status was restituted. The SIT found out the involvement of the senior inspector himself. It was out that the process of diluting the case and turning the table over Vibhuti was in the process already. A deal was already made with the consultant team to whitewash the allegations by exchanging a handsome amount for the police. The SP was sent on leave and all the racketeers including the inspector were booked for robbery, and money-laundering.
Then came Amrutaa’s two hours of fame. Under the umbrella of Me Too movement, that was spreading like wild fire over the previous months, she filed a complaint against the SP. She submitted the recording of the activities involving her and SP as a secret document to be examined by judges in camera. The SP was arrested under non-bailable sections of rape by misuse of power and authority, while misbehaving with the wife of a falsely implicated man, Vibhuti, who was framed for actions he never had done. Amrutaa gave interviews to various channels how she recorded the words and actions of the erring and corrupt police personnel in spy devices and exposed them.
Amrutaa went alone to meet the SP in his lockup room. The SP hissed at her, “I will first screw you and then finish you off when I am out and that would be soon, I give my word, Saali ji.” Amrutaa jeered back in whisper, “This time I will introduce you with my little sister for your joy-ride, her name is Razor, Jija ji. Razor would chop you to pieces like a banana, you bastard." Without SP’s knowledge, even this piece of dialogue was recorded and produced before the judges hearing the sensitive case in camera."
Prabhanjan K. Mishra writes poems, stories, critiques and translates, works in two languages – English and Odia. Three of his collected poems in English have been published into books – VIGIL (1993), Lips of a Canyon (2000), and LITMUS (2005).His Odia poems have appeared in Odia literary journals. His English poems poems have been widely anthologized and published in literary journals. He has translated Bhakti poems (Odia) of Salabaga that have been anthologized into Eating God by Arundhathi Subramaniam and also translated Odia stories of the famous author Fakirmohan Senapati for the book FROM THE MASTER’s LOOM (VINTAGE STORIES OF FAKIRMOHAN SENAPATI). He has also edited the book. He has presided over the POETRY CIRCLE (Mumbai), a poets’ group, and was the editor (1986-96) of the group’s poetry magazine POIESIS. He has won Vineet Gupta Memorial Poetry Award and JIWE Poetry Award for his English poems.He welcomes readers' feedback at his email - prabhanjan.db@gmail.com
Translated by Prabhanjan K. Mishra
Where do I hide you?
In my bleeding heart,
in my teary eyes?
There seems to be
no place for you,
your larger-than-life image,
it makes you too obvious -
a mountain in daylight,
a knight in shining armour,
an actor barging into
an empty stage
full of spectators.
So, where do I find
a hiding place?
Won’t it sound ridiculous
and unreal to camouflage
you with artificial praise
after decades of bitterness
in a relationship that rankles?
Wouldn’t it be impossible
to mask your caustic-self
with a coat of sweetness,
having no flavour,
my soul drained of feelings.
But where does vanish
your fear
when you touch me?
Does the fear hide from you?
or you hide from the fear
behind your shut eyes?
Bring your hands,
place them on me,
pamper mm body,
its innocent demands,
put out the lamp.
Our oneness in the dark,
may it be shot-lasting,
a line drawn on water’s face,
but it’s the truth
as long as it lasts.
You merge into me,
losing your identity for others.
It would be like our oneness
of our novice days,
when we faltered
in forbidden zones
keeping eyes shut,
pretending even to ourselves.
Mr. Hara Prasad Das is one of the greatest poets in Odiya literature. He is also an essayist and columnist. Mr. Das, has twelve works of poetry, four of prose, three translations and one piece of fiction to his credit. He is a retired civil servant and has served various UN bodies as an expert.
He is a recipient of numerous awards and recognitions including Kalinga Literary Award (2017), Moortidevi Award(2013), Gangadhar Meher Award (2008), Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award (1999) and Sarala Award (2008)”
I have acquired the eyes of an eagle
and perhaps those of the owl
sometimes the eyes of the fly
or the incinerating eyes of the tiger spitting fire
to see around and within
or through
or beneath and beyond.
I have crawled into my skin
yet have grown million sensors
to feel the serpent slithering up my spine
to decipher the doodles that
you draw on my back with your nails
and withstand the lava that engulfs me
or to bear the brunt of the glacier.
I have chewed a mouthful of bhut jolakia pepper
bitten the acrid quince
licked the licorice and lollipops
gorged myself on chunks of Roquefort cheese
ordered on line
gulped mouthfuls of Zinfandel wine
yet my taste buds are not numb.
My ears have puckered
and I can hear the spiders in Madagascar
weaving their gossamer webs
and the flapping of the
butterfly wings in Amazon valley
and the foot steps of the polar bear sneaking on the seals.
I can now sniff better than the African elephant
I can smell the roses from the
Gardens of Versailles
the exotic perfumes from the Sheikh’s harem
and the musk deers from the alpine scrubs
of the Himalayas.
And you think
you have locked me down?
' Show me the list of the candidates who were rejected in yesterday's interview,' I asked Sethuraman one junior member of my HR team, during a campus recruitment drive in the Central University of Hyderabad. I had just joined as Head of HR in one of the premier IT companies, Cyber Consulting Services, popularly known as CCS. As a process we review all rejection cases before finalising the select list and ensure that no deserving candidate is deprived of a job for any wrong recruitment decision. When I went through the papers, I found that one candidate Sukanya Reddy from the Computer Science stream was rejected on the grounds of poor attitude, but had otherwise scored very high in subject knowledge. She also had an impeccable academic track record, always positioned within top ten. When I asked Sethu what made them feel that she had a poor attitude, he replied, ' Sir, this girl entered the interview room with a sullen face, curtly wished the panel and took her seat. I found her body language very aggressive. When I discovered that she had left the details about her family blank in the application form, I thought she might have skipped it by chance. When I asked her about it, she asked me what would the company do with her father's name and family particulars? She said that the interviewers should check her suitability for the job and how does it matter who were her parents?'
' What did you do then?, ' I asked. 'I wanted to discontinue the interview then and there. How can a campus candidate be so insolent? But the other technical experts on the panel went ahead with checking her subject knowledge,' replied Sethu. 'How did she fare ?', I asked.
'She answered all questions well. But Sir, while closing the interview when I asked her if she had any questions to ask us, she told me that she knows about CCS very well and has nothing more to ask then. I found her overall demeanour disagreeable and recommended her to be dropped.'
'Hmm, please arrange for me to meet her for another chat,' I asked Sethu.
'May I come in Sir,' there was a knock on the door of the interview room.
' Come in my dear. I was expecting you,' I replied, as she entered.
She looked confident but the smile was missing. She was dressed in a plain khadi shalwar kameez and wore no ornaments. Her hair was neatly plaited and she held a folder in her hands. She looked unglamorous, rather dowdy by today's campus standards but looked every bit dignified and confident. She walked slowly towards me, wished me good morning with a slight nod of her head and quietly stood behind the chair opposite me.
' Please take your seat,' I offered.
Now was ice breaking time. I asked,' So Sukanya, how are you feeling this afternoon?'
' I am fine Sir,' she spoke in a matter-of-fact tone and took her seat.
' Good. Have you had your lunch ?', I asked.
'Yes, Sir,' was her curt reply.
'Do you stay close by? Who cooked the lunch for you?', I asked.
'No Sir, I stay in the hostel and I usually have my lunch in the college canteen,' she replied.
' By the way, how was your first round of interview with the CCS panel?, I changed course towards the deeper waters.
' I think it has gone off very well,' said Sukanya confidently.
' Oh, that's very nice. But tell me, did you have any argument with any of the panelists?' I probed.
' Arguments? No sir, I only didn't agree to give the details about my parents and family. I thought that was not very relevant to my job for which I was being considered. I only pointed out that my selection should be based on my own merits and should have nothing to do with anything else,' Sukanya reasoned out.
' Absolutely right. It's your suitability that is paramount,' I continued, ' but let me confide in you about the real reason why we try to find about your family and parents. You write difficult computer programs and you think in algorithms. When you know the real reason, I am sure you will appreciate the need better.'
' Fine sir, please tell me,' she showed some interest.
' Alright. When we interview a candidate for his or her suitability for a job in our company we explore to find out two main aspects about the candidate. One concerns with the candidate's potential in terms of competencies and the other his or her personality. The first aspect is seen from your academic performance and problem solving ability while the other is not so straight forward. We try to gather multiple inputs about you to construct your personality. Your family background gives us a lot about your personality . Your parents are the start point since your very identity is directly linked to them. Their influence on you during your growing up matters a lot. The values that you imbibe, the social traits that you acquire from them and a balanced family life matter a lot in shaping up of your character. Your parent's education, their love and care for you helps to build your personality in good measure. We in our company look for a matured, balanced personality with good social qualities so that you fit into our team culture better. Hope you appreciate why it is important to know this side of yours as much as your technical skills,' I explained, following the tenets of good interviewing, almost with text book precision.
' Oh, I didn't see it that way. If that helps you to know more about me and examine my suitability better, I will surely give you the details, however painful it may be for me,' offered Sukanya.
' I am glad that you understand. I will be happy to hear about your parents and family,' I encouraged her to come out with the details.
' Sir, I belong to a village near Srikakulam and my family consisted of my parents, my younger brother Raju and me. About three months ago, my brother had been to the school picnic to Araku valley and while taking a selfie on the edge of a cliff, slipped and his body returned home. My father was employed as an engineer with Vizag Steel and my mother, a home maker. Losing Raju was a big blow to all of us. Our happy and small family was really devastated,' Sukanya's voice choked.
' I am really sorry to hear this. I can understand how difficult it would have been to all of you. But life has to go on. I am sure you will fill the gap and make your parents proud,' I tried to console her.
' Seems God has snatched away that possibility too,' Sukanya continued with her eyes welling up in tears, ' I lost both my parents in a road accident only a week ago.'
' Oh, that's shocking,' I blurted out.
' I think sir, God felt that Raju's needs up there were more than mine down here !' Sukanya sniffled.
' No, please don't think that way. May be God throws a larger challenge to you. He surely wants you to come out stronger and more capable to face the world on your own. And He definitely is confident that you can do it. Like the soft iron becomes tougher when heated and hammered, this is perhaps God's way to make you tough, tenacious and self reliant. I am sure He has a larger purpose for you to serve,' I offered.
' Thank you sir. I am feeling better,' Sukanya tried to get back her composure.
' Tell me how do you manage your expenses?,' I asked.
'Sir, my maternal grandfather is alive and the only family member I am left with. He stays in the same village I belong to. He has few tracts of cultivable land and a mango orchard. He lives on the yield of his farm produce and supplements my expenses. My father had some savings too and that helps. In addition, I teach some school students in my spare time and earn a little as tutor's fees. All in all I manage my expenses fairly well,' she responded.
Then I wound up the discussions and congratulated her for having been selected for the job.
As is the normal practice in campus selections, the selected candidates are given the job offer well before they complete their final examinations but they get their joining letters later when they pass out. The waiting period varies from three to six months depending on the on boarding schedules of the company. In her case, the waiting period worked out to be about four months and in the interim with her consent I took approval of the Director of the college to take the responsibilities of her local guardian and mentor. I even offered her some advance pay as a monthly stipend to ease out her financial burden, which she politely refused.
During the following weeks I used to call her up periodically and check about her progress in her studies and to find out if she needs any kind of assistance. All these interactions were professional but she always looked forward to these telephonic conversation. Once she surprised me to drop in my office just to say hello. She had come to the nearby mall to pick up some essentials and wanted to call on me. She needed some help in developing a software program which was part of her college project and which needed a specific skill set that she was not conversant with. I found one of our young developers with the skill and attached her with him for few days and she completed her project on time. During this attachment we met off and on and exchanged the usual pleasantries. One evening I asked if she would like to meet my family and she readily agreed. I brought her home and introduced her to my wife and my daughter who was around the same age group. And the girls quickly bonded with each other.
The days rolled by as she completed her MCA and came out with flying colours. We issued the joining letters to the selected candidates. She was batched to join our induction training program at Bangalore in a month's time, after her summer break. One Sunday morning , while I was having a cup of tea with the newspaper in hand, my usual morning routine, the door bell rang. There she was standing with a bag full of ripe mangoes and a big smile on her face. She had just travelled from her village by train and these mangoes were fresh from her grandfather's orchard. My wife asked her to stay for lunch and she readily agreed. My daughter treated her like her long lost friend and soon the house was filled with their giggles and laughter. Later in the evening, I drove down to her campus to leave her in her hostel where she was to hang around for a week or so before proceeding to Bangalore to join the CCS training program. Before leaving her, during the small talk in the car, I asked her if she needs anything for the journey, to which she replied in the negative. I felt I was getting a little mushy to see this orphan child getting ready for the big, bad world and like a protective father I told her that she can always be free and frank with me and should not hesitate to accept my help. She must see in me her father. In fact she was like a daughter to me and if she wishes, she may call me 'papa'. To this suggestion her reaction was rather unnerving. She almost shouted,' Sorry sir, I cannot call you papa. No one can ever take his place. I know you have been very kind and generous, but my papa is irreplaceable. I will remain ever grateful to you sir, but please don't ask me to call you papa ever.' I didn't know what to say. With all my experience and maturity I couldn't fathom why did the girl get so agitated. I left her at the hostel gate and wished her the best and drove back home a bit crestfallen.
We kept in touch through email exchange for the next few months and I was happy to learn that she was doing well in the training program. The training period was for six months and was quite intensive. This was more of a conversion program which was designed to transform the raw campus products into revenue earning software professionals. Meanwhile I was chosen to head corporate training and was transferred to our headquarters in Chennai. After taking over the new assignment, I made plans to visit Bangalore and take stock of our induction training. Our training academy head planned an address by me to the trainees, as is the tradition. I delivered my inspirational address to an auditorium full of trainees and I noticed Sukanya, bright faced and eager soaking in each word that I spoke. It was 18th of November and suddenly I recalled that on this day Sukanya was born. I always had a penchant for remembering dates but it was unusual that I would remember the date of birth of an employee from the recruitment application form. After the address I met Sukanya and asked her how she found the training and how was her life in general. I didn't mention anything about her birthday but I had made some plans already. I asked her if she was free in the evening and would she like to have dinner with me? She agreed and later in the evening I picked her up.
I asked her to choose the restaurant and she chose MTR South Indian restaurant on Lal Bagh Main Road. While on our way to the restaurant I asked the driver to stop at Vega City Mall. When she looked at me questioningly, I told, ' Sukanya, I need your help. My daughter's birthday is round the corner. I want to pick up a dress for her. Will you please help me select one?'
' Sure, sir. Let's go to the Fab India or Westside. We will get something really nice,' offered Sukanya.
She meticulously examined the merchandise on display and picked up a nice maroon and beige combination. I could notice the change in her taste in clothes. I got the dress gift wrapped and we headed for the restaurant.
After dinner, we drove back to her hostel in the training academy campus. While bidding her bye, I wished her, ' Happy Birthday Sukanya, God Bless you,' and handed her the package containing the dress that we had picked up.
For a moment, she didn't know what to do. Then she slowly extended her hands and accepted the package reluctantly and with moist eyes said, ' Papa, you remembered. Thanks a lot. But my return gift is pending.'
I was overwhelmed and said, ' My dear, you called me Papa. This is the best return gift I ever could have.'
Dilip Mohapatra (b.1950), a decorated Navy Veteran is a well acclaimed poet in contemporary English and his poems appear in many literary journals of repute and multiple anthologies worldwide. He has six poetry collections to his credit so far published by Authorspress, India. He has also authored a Career Navigation Manual for students seeking a corporate career. This book C2C nee Campus to Corporate had been a best seller in the category of Management Education. He lives with his wife in Pune, India.
Translated by Malabika Patel
Bidyadhar returned to his village after a gap of fifteen years. To see him and mostly to know about his escapades, his neighbours and other villagers congregated in front of his house. The white amby car which had brought him was standing under the jacaranda tree in front of his house with its bonnet open, as if gasping for a breath of fresh air after traversing the long potholed dusty roads to the village.
Fifteen years before Bidyadhar had stirred a hornet’s nest in the village which had completely changed the contours of his life. As if a boat had suddenly changed its course midway in the river. He must have been thirteen or fourteen years of age then. One night, while quietly having his dinner he blurted out to his mother, Kausalya, “Maa!! Tell me am I the child of a barber? “
As if a hot brick dropped on the heart of Kausalya. “No! Who said that you are the child of a barber? You are the son of your Father.”
After a quiet pause the next missile “Why does Nila Mausa come to our house?”
Kausalya kept quiet for a moment Then she said “Why such a question son? You know he is your father’s best friend. He stands behind us solidly in good as well as bad times.”
Every evening after a round of kabaddi, Bidyadhar used to sleep like a log. But that night sleep had vanished from his eyes. Kausalya went to his bed and lovingly caressed his head. The loving touch opened the floodgates of tears from Bidyadhar’s eyes. “Maa did my Father die before I was born?”
“Yes son. Till now I could never broached the topic before you. Now that you have asked, let me recount those terrible days and nights. As if the skies were pouring out water in buckets. Your father wanted to go out to our field and sow the rice saplings. I was telling him “Don’t go. My right eyelid is flickering”. But he was adamant. “I have already engaged two labourers. In all other field rice saplings have started growing. Mine is waiting. And if I don’t go others will take the water out of my field by cutting the edges.”
“Shall I take rice to the field?” I had asked. “How will you go? He said “Your feet are heavy. I will come back early in the afternoon and have rice”.
Soon after, heavy lightning and thunder struck the sky twice. The rains were intermittent but heavy. Your father had earlier freed the two bullocks from the shed for grazing. But the two bullocks came back running to the shed helter skelter; I felt something untoward was happening. Somebody from the field came to give the message. The two labourers had lost their senses in the lightning and thunderstorm. They were being carried back to their homes. Then started the downpour as if there was no tomorrow. In that rains Nila Mausa brought your father’s charred body.
When they took me to the pond side and broke my bangles on the stone and wiped off the sindur I fainted. Everybody thought the child in the womb would not survive. I was lying still in the house when some movement in my womb brought some life into my soul.
Many of our kith and kin advised me to get betrothed again to your Raghu dada, your Father’s much younger brother. But I said a strict no.
Your Nila Mausa went to Gaya with your father‘s asthi. All the obsequies (kriya karma) of your father were duly performed by him. All other kith and kin are for namesake, when the real trouble comes nobody comes forward. But Nila Mausa has stood behind us like a rock in all times, good or bad. He looks after the field, the only asset we have, an illiterate dim witted woman that I am, how do I arrange for the nitty-gritty: seed, fertiliser, bullock and the plough?
And you were a sickly child. All the time, cough and cold. Looking after you took all my time. So for all other work I had to take his help. That is why people whisper. But you don’t think of all that my son”. Kausalya’s voice quivered and choked.
“I shall kill him”. Bidyadhar’s sudden utterances sent a chill down Kausalya’s spine. “Who are you talking about son? Why do you utter such god forsaken words?”
“Saala Rattan! telling me you have no father.... you are the son of a barber!!”
“My darling, my treasure! Don’t do anything like that my son! For my sake”.
Next day in the school Rattan again came and stood in front of Bidyadhar. Though he was in 9th class he was looking like an eighteen year old with strong arms and imposing height.
“Hey I am not fatherless you know. Neelmani Barik is my Mausa. I am like you...A farmer’s son” Bidyadhar announced with great pride.
“Hey since when are you calling your Father Mausa jabbed” Rattan. Then something happened. From where the strength came to Bidyadhar to attack Rattan with the tree stalk he does not remember. That afternoon Bidyadhar fled from the village.
Much water has evaporated from the village pond since that fateful day fifteen years back. Now it has shrunk to half its size with slit. Half the palm trees have been struck by lightning and thunderstorm. The once lush banyan tree at the entrance of the village has become older and much denuded. Under it dhaba, teashops, vegetable stores have sprouted up like ugly weeds.
Kausalya now looks like a grandmother with sunken and wrinkled cheeks, veins looking more prominent on her arms, with thinning and white hair. Bidyadhar felt like hugging his mother and crying his heart out. Instead, he only touched her feet. Already there was a crowd of relatives, neighbours, and kith and kin surrounding them.
They went inside and looked at each other with surprised eyes. As if they could not fathom from where to pick up the pieces.
A woman came with a glass of tea and said “how long mother and son will look at each other. Arrey.. I forgot to bring some fluffy rice what a forgetful person I am becoming” and the woman went back to the kitchen.
“Who is this lady Maa”? “She is Sumitra, Nila Mausa’s wife.” Then a voice came from the kitchen... “Tell the son to wash his feet and hands. I have taken out water from the well... let me go and serve some tea to the driver. They have come a long way”.
Kausalya broke the silence. “You know son, the day you left there was a panchayat of the villagers, and they all called me. They blamed you and me for Rattan’s condition. Nila Mausa tried to defend me. But they all decided to boycott him. Slowly he lost all his jobs in the village. So he went to Cuttack and started a hair cutting saloon. He had no children. So he used to send me some money now and then. But he also never came back to the village. “But where is he now”? Interrupted Bidyadhar. “Is he still in Cuttack?”
“Naa re.. Nila Mausa has left for his heavenly abode. He could not adjust to the city life of Cuttack. Two years back he had brain malaria and God called him .Perhaps those who are not wanted by men, God calls him back. After his death, Mausi has come back to the village and is staying with me.
An unnatural silence fell between them. Again the voice came from the doorstep. “Go son and have a wash”. “Mausi your tea is nice” – quipped Bidyadhar. Actually it had twice the sugar, a bit of salt and tejpatta. Sumitra felt overwhelmed as if she was waiting years to hear this.
Kausalya said “go have a bath son. I have built two Samadhis at the backyard. I want you can put flowers on them”. There were two: one for his father, Kulmani Raut, and the other for Mausa, Nilmani Barik. Bidyadhar remembered how Nila Mausa had traced him after a long search and tried to look him up in Kolkata. Though he had not been impolite to him, he does not remember being nice either. Now he felt sad while putting the flowers on his Samadhi as if he was saying forgive me Mausa. And to his father he was saying Father I am unfortunate to have never seen you and could not do anything for you. Forgive me.
A lot of relatives were there in the backyard too. Bidyadhar felt conscious. Covering his torso with a towel he was hurrying back to the inner rooms. A middle aged bearded person came in front and greeted him with a bow. “Namaskar Bidyadhar Babu”. Something more he wanted to say. But Bidyadhar avoided him and went inside to his Mother and asked “Who is this person with one eye?” “You don’t recognise son. He is Ratnakar. Your attack had blinded him by one eye. Panchayat wanted me to bear the cost of his eye treatment. I had sold a bit of our land and given him the money but he could not get back his eyesight”. In one breath she said. “Now you are a big man in the city. See if you can get his son a job”.
Bidyadhar smiled to his self. Is it the same Rattan who had spread bad words about her? Yet Maa was asking to do his son a favour. He wanted to say, you are great Maa. But instead he said, “Ok you go and give me rice to eat. I am famished to have your hand cooked food.”
All this while, Sumitra was busy preparing several dishes. She served a steaming plate of rice with all the rustic delicacies and sat with a fan in hand. Kausalya and Sumitra kept staring at Bidyadhar as the prodigal son went on negotiating his hand and mouth from the rice plate to the many curry bowls spread out before him. Midway Bidyadhar said “Mausi, come I will take you to Kolkata this time.”
“Na re... Where will I go at this age? You take your mother.”
“I have come precisely for that Mausi” said Bidyadhar. She is coming with me. But you also come along.”
“Let me get one more baigan fry” Saying this Sumitra got up to go to the kitchen. Kausalya picked up “No son I am an old fashioned person. Why will I go to Kolkata and be a burden to you.” At this Bidyadhar left eating and held Kaushalya’s hand with his left “Are you still angry with me Maa? I have committed a big sin by leaving you in the lurch. Are you holding that against me?”
“No son, how can I bear grudge against you.”
“Then are you angry because I have married a Bengali girl?” There was a tremor in Bidyadhar’s voice.
“No son, I don’t hold it against you that you have married a Bengali. What is caste? Everybody is human. It is the same blood in all bodies.”
“Then will you not go and see your Bengali daughter in law?”
“I have seen her”.
“Is it?” Bidyadhar was startled. “You have seen Rita, where? How?”
“You and your wife’s photo had come out in a matrimonial newspaper. Nila Mausa had cut it and kept it. Mausi brought and showed it to me. Where would you have got such a beautiful wife? Certainly, not in this village or around. You have done the right thing. You are going round the country and abroad. Such an accomplished and beautiful girl will be your true life partner.”
“I thought you will be sad Maa!” Bidyadhar said feeling greatly relieved.
“You know after running away from the village I was staying in Rita’s Father’s house. The day I left the village I went to Jajpur railway station and got into a train. Where the train would take me I was least aware. Rita’s family was in the same train coming from Puri after Jagannath Darshan. Rita must be six or seven years old then. I was almost caught by the TTE for travelling without a ticket. Seeing my disarranged state Rita’s Father bought me a ticket and asked me where I was going. Perhaps he had an inkling of the runaway state that I was. He asked me to accompany him to his house. I stayed as a household help but he helped me to pass Matriculate as a private candidate. When I passed out with high marks he was so impressed that he wanted to sponsor my college education. I told him I would work in your house and study in Night College. But he said No house work for you from now onwards. He got me admitted to Presidency College and asked me to teach Rita in the evenings. I passed out BA again with high marks and appeared in the competitive examination and got the job. Behind all this is Mohini Mohan Chakraborty’s magnanimity for which I am indebted for life. But Mr Chakraborty died in a heart attack. Rita’s mother said that Mr Chakraborty had the last wish to give away Rita’s hand in me. He could not see that. I had to bow down to his wishes, Maa.”
Now Kausalya started sobbing.
“Who is this great man who looked after you, made you such a big man and then passed away?”
“How long will you people talk? The rice is left unfinished” interjected Sumitra Mausi.
Bidyadhar got exhausted and slept off. When he got up it was evening. The setting sun was sprinkling orange dyes on the velvety sky. He was watching it from the veranda. Kausalya came behind.
“When are you leaving Son?” Bidyadhar was mildly surprised.
“Are you driving me away Maa from this house” he teased.
“No son. I wanted to send something for the Bahu. I have told the goldsmith to make something.”
“Maa will you not come at least once to my house?” Bidyadhar was pleading.
“How much you have toiled your whole life. In your last days wont you like to be with your son?”
There was no emotional lines on Kausalya‘s face this time. It was calm.
“Your Father and Mausa’s memories are here, entrenched in everything. Your Mausi Sumitra is with me. For two people we have enough here. The banana trees are giving so much fruits. The backyard is overflowing with vegetables of all kinds; beans, lentils, tomatoes. Here, we are comfortable. In the city what will I do? You are a big man; you have to move around with big people. Why will you saddle yourself with an old woman?”
Next morning the driver got ready and sent word. Bidyadhar used his last weapon.
“Maa think again... your daughter-in-law is going to be a mother soon”.
Kausalya’s face lit up for a moment. An array of images fleeted across her mind, cries of a newborn baby, and the excitement of holding a newborn. But she kept her silence.
“You think Maa, You need not have to work in my house. I have enough servants to take care of the household. Don’t you worry on that score?”
But Kausalya was thinking otherwise. She was thinking in what moment was she born that she has brought tragedy to her near and dear ones, her husband and Nila Mausa. It is good that Bidyadhar is away. Let her shadow not fall on him. She will not like to see any harm coming on him.
“You don’t worry. After your son is born I will definitely go to see him.”
“You have disowned me Maa.”
“The elephant belongs to the king even if he roams in the forest.” Kausalya was muttering under her breath.
The amby car left leaving a cloud of dust behind.
Krupasagar Sahoo is a leading name in contemporary Odia literature. With twelve collection of stories and six novels to his credit he has created a niche for himself in the world of Odia fiction. Many of his works have been translated in to English and other major Indian languages. Drawing upon his experience as a senior Railway officer, he has penned several memorable railway stories. He is recipient of several literary awards including Odisha Sahitya Academy award for his novel SESHA SARAT.
(Viswanath Bidyapitha, Athagarh)
It was the summer of 1971.I was in our house in Athgarh. Squatting on the floor, I was having my lunch. Ma sitting next to me was fanning me with a palm leaf hand fan. I was yet to reach my favorite fish curry, when our domestic help Chema came and announced that someone was at the gate asking for me. Ma was more annoyed than me by this disturbance. I went and met the young boy standing with a cycle at the gate. I didn’t know him. He said with a straight face: “Krishna Pandit is no more” and left. I stood at the gate for a couple of minutes before coming in. I didn’t go back to finish my lunch. Ma didn’t insist either.
Krishna Pandit was a teacher in my school in Athgarh, BiswanathBidyapith. He taught basic subjects in middle school. My father was a lawyer in the civil courts of this sub divisional town of Odisha. We were the only Bengali family in town and were respected by the local Oriyas. My siblings and I were mostly taught by our father at home and we joined school or college at various levels. For instance, I joined school directly in class seven. Our father taught us all subjects, except Oriya.So before I took the admission tests for the school, our father engaged Krishna Pandit to teach me Oriya . That is how I came to know Krishna Pandit.
Those days Krishna Pandit was probably around 55 years of age. But he looked much older and kind of haggard even at that age. He walked slowly with a slight limp. He wore short sleeved kurtas over a dhoti and lived alone in a temple, yes in a temple called Raghunath Temple, right across the school. This temple is at least 150 years old and it looked even older due to lack of maintenance. He lived in the Natyashala part of this North Indian style temple. He was the only one who lived inside the temple, other than Ram himself, not even the priest. His family stayed in a village near Athgarh. I went to the Natyashala every morning for an hour to learn Oriya. Sometimes, he also came home in the afternoon to teach. He didn’t mind that, infact preferred it as he got tea and biscuit from Ma. In the temple, we sat on the uneven stone during the tuition. In our house, we often sat on a Chatai (straw mat) in the grassy outdoors, accompanied by our cows. One of them apparently was a gift to me in one of my early birthdays. Krishna Pandit must have been a good teacher. Within a short time, he made me ready for class six. His teaching worked well for even class seven, where I was admitted instead of class six, because apparently I did very well in the admission tests.
Besides being a good teacher, Krishna Pandit was a very affectionate person. He really loved me like his own son. He always insisted on sharing his meagre breakfast with me in the temple. In my childhood I was very frail and weak. He often showed his concern about my health to my father. Being a popular teacher and because he was staying alone, he often used to get gifts mainly in the form of fruits and vegetables from some students. He used to pass on the good ones to me to take home. He had an unkempt kind of a look on him. His kurta and dhoti were clean but never ironed. His greying hair was never combed. A tuft of hair always hung on his forehead. His teeth were bad and were stained due to chewing paan. In fact he had already lost quite a few of them even at that age. One of the front ones was loose and actually fluttered when he spoke.
(Raghunath Mandir where Krishna Pandit lived)
During one tuition session in our house, Ma forgot to give him tea. Tea used to be his main attraction and naturally he was not very happy but couldn’t ask for it. Instead he asked me to go inside the house and check whether Ma is sleeping. I hadn’t guessed the purpose behind his question. I went in and told Ma that sir was asking whether she was sleeping. My intelligent mother got the hint and immediately prepared tea for sir. On another occasion I showed sir some large and bright black and white wedding photos of our sister. Such photos were not common those days in a small place like Athagarh. They in fact had come from Calcutta and that’s why I was showing them to him. Such an innocent simpleton he was, after seeing the photos he was upset and showed his concern about my sister’s health. He thought photographs take away some life out of a person. Such are the small small anecdotes one remembers about Krishna Pandit.
In school he taught me only in class seven. After that I went on to senior classes and contact with Krishna Pandit reduced. Whenever I ran into him, he would always put his hand on my head to bless me, and invariably ask about my parents’ well-being.
Then one day the time came for Krishna Pandit to retire from the school. I was perhaps in class eleven at that time. As was customary, a full assembly was called in the school grounds. Students stood class-wise in straight lines. The Physical Education teacher was a great disciplinarian and very strict. Everyone stood in rapt attention and silence. The Headmaster and a few teachers spoke. Krishna Pandit gave a touching lecture at the end. Tears flowed from his eyes and from mine too. The assembly dispersed, line by line in strict order. But I kept standing and crying, and could not follow the assembly rules. This time the strict PE teacher did not punish me. Everybody left, leaving me and Krishna Pandit standing alone in the middle of the large ground, with his hands around me, crying.
That’s the last time I met him. He probably went back to his village. I finished school, went to college and kind of forgot about him till that fateful summer afternoon of 1971.
Ujan Ghosh did his under graduate studies in Architecture from School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), New Delhi in 1975. After working for two years in Delhi he went to University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia where he completed Master of Architecture and Master of City Planning in Urban Design. He worked for few years in USA before coming back to India and joining Upalghosh Associates as a partner.
Since then he has been practicing architecture and urban design in various parts of the country. He is also a visiting professor at SPA, New Delhi and has been teaching Urban Design for the last 38 years. He was nominated to the Senate of SPA, Bhopal and has been a member of the Board of Studies in different departments of SPA, New Delhi. Presently he is a member of the Academic Council, DIT Univercity, Dehradun and on the Board of Studies,Sushant School of Art and Architecture, Ansal University, Gurugram.
He is the founder member of Institute of Urban Designers-India and its former President.
(Photo courtesy Narayana Panda )
Today I am looking
For a fresh air
Of reverie
Garden of hope
Power of a new sun
And wish
Calmness of the spring sky.
I never mind
And forget
The boisterous wind
Foggy attitude of time
Rudeness of the rejection
That tried to eclipse me
From my back door of yesterday.
I do not know
What is there
Awaiting for me
In future.
But I am sure
The sun will rise
Flower will bloom
And morning will smile
Amidst the muse of birds
When I shall open
My window
Of tomorrow.
Publication Credit: Contemporary Indian English Poetry: An Anthology, 1988 (Ed. I H Rizvi)
Pravat Kumar Padhy, a scientist and a poet from Odisha, India, has obtained his Masters of Science and Technology and Ph.D from Indian Institute of Technology, ISM Dhanbad. He has published many technical papers in national and international journals. He is amongst the earliest pioneers in evolving the concept of Oil Shale exploration and scope for “Ancient Oil Exploration” (from Geological very old strata) in India.
His literary work is cited in Interviews with Indian Writing in English, Spectrum History of Indian Literature in English, Alienation in Contemporary Indian English Poetry, Cultural and Philosophical Reflections in Indian Poetry in English, History of Contemporary Indian English Poetry, etc. His Japanese short form of poetry appeared in various international journals and anthologies. He guest-edited “Per Diem, The Haiku Foundation, November Issue, 2019,” (Monoku about ‘Celestial Bodies’). His poems received many awards, honours and commendations including Editors’ Choice Award at Writers Guild of India, Asian American Poetry, Poetbay, Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival International Haiku, UNESCO International Year Award of Water Co-operation, The Kloštar Ivani? International Haiku Award, IAFOR Vladimir Devide Haiku Award, 7th Setouchi Matsuyama International Photo Haiku Award, and others. His work is showcased in the exhibition “Haiku Wall”, Historic Liberty Theatre Gallery, Oregon, USA. His tanka,‘I mingle’ is featured in the “Kudo Resource Guide”, University of California, Berkeley. The poem, “How Beautiful” is included in the Undergraduate English Curriculum at the university level in India.
He is credited with seven literary publications of verse, Silence of the Seas (Skylark Publication), The Tiny Pebbles (Cyberwit.net). Songs of Love - A Celebration (Writers Workshop), Ripples of Resonance (Authors Press Cosmic Symphony (Haiku collection), Cyberwit.Net, The Rhyming Rainbow (Tanka collection), Authors Press), and The Speaking Stone (Authors Press). His poems are translated into different languages like Japanese, Chinese, Serbian, German, Romanian, Italian, Irish, Bosnian, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, Punjabi, Telugu, and Odia.
He feels, “The essence of poetry nestles in the diligent fragrance of flower, simplicity of flow of river, gentle spread of leaves, calmness of deep ocean and embellishment of soothing shadow. Let poetry celebrate a pristine social renaissance and beautiful tomorrow of the universal truism, here and beyond
New publications of Pravat Kumar Padhy
1. Cosmic Symphony - A Haiku Collection, 2019, Cyberwit.net, Allahabad
2. The Rhyming Rainbow- A Tanka Collection, 2019, Authorspress, New Delhi
3. The Speaking Stone - A Collection of Poems, 2020, Authorspress, New Delhi
The sound was deafening. “Run, run!” some smart fellow shouted, “It’s a bomb!” Chairs were overthrown as people ran helter skelter from the café where they had been having a quick cup of tea. They ran blindly onto the street, leaving behind slippers and sandals. There was chaos with drivers blowing their horn and applying the brake frantically to avoid hitting the men running. Cars soon stood behind cars in a gridlock. They continued to blow the horn though, as if that would drive the traffic jam away! Someone informed the Police, for soon a patrol car came with lights flashing and siren blaring even louder than the car horns. Two policemen forced their way in through the crowd. The owner of the café told them he heard a loud bang followed by shrapnel falling from the air. Then everyone rushed out in panic.
Cautiously the policemen entered the café and found abandoned bags, broken glass, spilt tea and strewn footwear everywhere. Strangely, one man was still sitting at a table. Was he the bomber? Why hadn’t he dashed out with others? The policemen approached him slowly and shook his shoulder.
“Huh!” the man jumped up as if from a reverie.
“Who are you? Which terrorist group? Where’s the bomb?” One policeman fired the questions while the other held him firmly by the arm.
“No bomb,” the bewildered man replied. “Me having tea and loud sneeze come in me. No able to hold back and—achoo!” The policemen stepped back in alarm. Corona virus, no ordinary bomb this!
Literally shaking with fright while maintaining a safe distance, the first policeman addressed the culprit authoritatively, “You are charged with endangering public safety by openly sneezing and releasing deadly droplets in the air! Your case would be handed over to our corona virus squad for investigation and necessary punishment.”
The sneezer frantically searched in his pockets and took out a small document. He handed it over to the police. “Negative,” read the representative of the law. “You have tested negative for corona virus! Well, we are withdrawing the charges levelled against you. You are free to go, but remember: sneeze into your elbow!” The policemen briskly walked out to their vehicle after handing back the document and drove away.
When the crowd learnt that the man was in the clear, they came forward to express their empathy. But far from acknowledging their gesture, the sneezer took to his heels shouting “Social distinct please!” He didn’t want their warm hug to gift him the dreaded COVID-19!
Ishwar Pati - After completing his M.A. in Economics from Ravenshaw College, Cuttack, standing First Class First with record marks, he moved into a career in the State Bank of India in 1971. For more than 37 years he served the Bank at various places, including at London, before retiring as Dy General Manager in 2008. Although his first story appeared in Imprint in 1976, his literary contribution has mainly been to newspapers like The Times of India, The Statesman and The New Indian Express as ‘middles’ since 2001. He says he gets a glow of satisfaction when his articles make the readers smile or move them to tears.
love is not what it is
so long as there is a sense
lying bleeding white
along your presence,
sending signals out and in
a stranger who
left without leaving
his business card
mortal dust
on hidden talents
flying up in the air
fogging the view
everything goes over rated
everyone goes over prized
as love breathes life
into a lump of clay
stuck in the throat
love has the texture
of raisins on breasts
and nipples in
a shady summer vineyards
love sucks like
a well rhymed
metrical romantic poem
explained to
kids of another tongue
another clime
love is not
a person, place or thing
it is tables
memorized after
a maths exam
love is humidity
lingering in armpits
hair cascading through
spread out fingers
cocked ears
harmonizing to the pitch of
unheard answers to
unspoken questions
love is barriers
of age, caste and gender
missed calls and mislaid letters
of not being there
when you are most needed,
as always
Sreekumar K, known more as SK, writes in English and Malayalam. He also translates into both languages and works as a facilitator at L' ecole Chempaka International, a school in Trivandrum, Kerala.
It was an overcast evening.
We sat on the veranda, working on our lessons. We were 9th graders.
My mother and Valsala’s stepmother (actually her mother’s younger sister) would reach home only by 8 pm.
Valsala used to spend the evenings at my home until her stepmother returned.
I secretly loved her. I wrote a letter on a sheet of paper torn off from a ruled work book and kept it in my pocket. I had copied a few lines from a pulp fiction to make my letter appealing.
I had taken a bold decision to give that letter to her, on that day, declaring my love. I had also decided to plant a faltering kiss on her lips quite unexpectedly to reinforce my love.
Hardly had I pulled the letter out or my country style trousers’ pocket, lightning flashed on the sky. The power supply went off simultaneously. As soon as the bang of thunder was over, the power supply was regained. Such things were a regular occurrence in our little village.
I was visibly trembling with fear. I dreaded thunder.
Valsala stayed bold calm as if she were the Rani of Jhansi, whom we got acquainted with in our social studies handbook.
Then it happened.
A house lizard just left behind his duty of supporting the roof of our house and caught an insect, a flying termite, on the wall. The predator waggled the prey to its left and right and banged it on the wall in an attempt to kill it quickly.
We stared at the preying.
Within no time, Valsala threw herself on me and hugged me tight.
She was shivering too.
In a quivering voice she uttered.
“Oh! Look. My dad thrashing my mum to death!”
I was spell bounded.
I pushed the letter back into my pocket.
Vlasala kept on crying until the adults joined us.
I disposed of the love letter. I do not remember how I did it.
Yesterday I had a call from her, from India.
Somehow Vlasala managed to get my number. It could be from social media.
Her voice was moist and vibrant.
She said:
“How are you buddy? Safe? ….Stay safe…please”
For the first time in my life I felt really sorry for my action.
I felt sorry for not keeping that love letter, that torn sheet of paper from the ruled work book where the declaration of my LOVE was printed upon.
Murukesh Panayara is a Published Author & Lives in London. He writes in English and Malayalam.
My bus came to a screeching halt at the bus stand. Being a Sunday, the bus was not too crowded. I alighted from the bus with ease unlike the normal working day, when the buses are always crowded and it is quite an exercise to wriggle out of the buses. It would have done a contortionist proud to see one enter and get down from the bus in such situations.
“But thank god I am spared of that today”, I thought to myself as I found my way to the safety of the platform, if one may say so, as the platform was reserved for the hawkers.
I looked round for the familiar face. Yes! There she was, on the platform abutting the wall. She was seated on a wooden box over which she had placed a pillow, which I presume must have aged along with her. She had a couple of more such boxes to her left and right with adequate space in between them for her to stretch her legs. Across these boxes she had placed a long plank that doubled up for a table. Over this she spread out a white sheet of cloth that had turned brown due to efflux of time. She had sprinkled water over the sheet to keep it wet. On the sheet she had displayed variety of flowers threaded together with flowers evenly placed in a sequence. These were rolled into a ball and placed in the front, visible to the passersby. In front of her she had loose flowers of jasmine. Talking to her neighbour, she was deftly picking up the flowers and mechanically stringing them into a knot.
On seeing her regular customer, she gave me a wide toothless grin and kept aside the flower bunch she was handling.
She placed her hand on the roll of tulsi and looked up at me.
I shook my head in ascent. Even before that, she had started to unroll the tulsi bundle and measured out two arms length and a little extra. Taking the small blade lying on the sheet , she cut the flower. She neatly rolled them, took out a small banana leaf and packed the tulsi in it. She stretched out her right hand and extended the bundle of flowers to me. She also gave me a couple of customary small lamps with ghee and wick, She then took the money I offered her for the tulsi and the lamps, opened a small sweet box and placed the money carefully in it.
I was about to leave, when she asked me to wait. She made out another roll of flowers and handed it over to me.
“Please give this as my offering at the temple”, she said.
I took it gingerly from her and asked “Which temple do you normally visit”.
“I go to the nearby amman temple”, she said.
“But I am going to the Anjenaya temple. Is it alright if i place it there?”, I asked.
“I worship amman but let me have a change to day”, she said and gave me a wide grin.
I left my slippers with the flower vendor and walked towards the temple.
Washing my hands and feet, I prostrated at the customary place inside the temple. I then moved into the sanctum and waited for the poojari for my turn to give the offerings. I placed the tulsi mala on the plate which the poojari held in his right hand, where there were offerings of the other devotees also. The poojari neatly adorned the deity with the tulsi mala and started the archana. I closed my eyes to seek the blessings of the deity, with the prayers of the poojari reverberating in my ears. After the prayers, I heard the peal of the temple bells. At times, while praying, flowers fall from the deity and I presume it is a good omen. I eagerly opened my eyes and looked up at the deity to see if any flowers were falling down from the deity in answer to my prayers. But I had no such luck that day. I saw the poojari holding the lighted camphor in front of the deity. The poojari then brought the lighted camphor, the sacred water, kumkum and tulsi for distribution to the devotees. Consoling myself, I collected the kumkum and the tulsi that the poojari offered and came out of the sanctum.
I then moved round to the deity where I usually light the ghee lamps. A few lamps had already been lit by several devotees before me. As I was about to light the lamps from the ones that had already been lit by someone, a lady came up to me and said that I should not light my lamps from the ones that had been already lit as any difficulties being experienced by those who had lit those lamps will fall on us too. She told me that I should light the lamps from the temple lamp which has been lit and pointed out where it was, to me. These are but superstitions but I silently did as I was told. I then looked up at the lady, who gave a smile and moved away.
I closed my eyes as I silently prayed before the lamps. I then continued with the customary pradakshanam. As I came round to the deity where I had lit the lamp, I noticed a young girl placing her two lamps near the deity. She then took out her match box and started to strike the match. Suddenly in haste she put the match box down and rushed away from the deity, her hand frantically pulling out her mobile.
I was dumb stuck. “Oh even before she had lit the lamps her calls were getting answered. That too on her mobile. Even the gods have become tech savvy!. Imagine what would happen if only god had heard her request fully. I must also bring my match box next time to light the lamps,” I sighed as I started my pradakshanam. And my mobile too. I should also remember to not keep it in the “switch off” mode.
I picked up a piece of paper and placed the kumkum in it, neatly folded it and along with the tulsi, kept it safely in my purse.
I joined the small queue to pick up the prasad, the popular chakara pongal, with ghee oozing out of it. I picked up the prasad, placed it near my eyes as a token of thanks giving, took a little in my fingers and ate it. I then covered the prasad with the banana leaf on which it was given and came out of the temple.
I came back to the flower vendor and told her, “ I gave your flowers to the poojari and he bedecked the deity so neatly. Very soon your prayers will be answered”.
I asked her for a banana leaf and shared a part of the chakara pongal with her.
She looked up at me and her eyes were moist with tears.
She said, “So many people come to me daily maa. But only a few like you have shared the prasad. God has answered my prayers through you. I had been wanting to visit the temple but none of my relatives would accompany me. They are all busy either chatting away with friends or messaging or playing games on their mobiles, with little time for me. Her smile and her eyes said it all.
The pleasure I felt on how I had touched an innocent heart by my simple act was profound. I gave her a smile, wore my slippers and walked away to take my bus back home.
As I turned round, I saw a few locals milling around the flower vendor with smiles all over their faces. I found she was sharing the small quantity of prasad I had given her. Now my eyes were moist watching this noble act of sharing.
Oh! What a simple but large hearted person. That was when I experienced the joy of giving.
Mr. S. Sundar Rajan, a Chartered Accountant with his independent consultancy, is a published poet and writer. He has published his collection of poems titled "Beyond the Realms" and collection of short stories in English titled " Eternal Art" which has been translated into Tamil,Hindi, Malayalam and Telugu. Another collection of short stories in English titled "Spice of Life" has also been translated in Tamil. His stories in Tamil is being broadcast every weekend on the Kalpakkam Community Radio Station under the title "Sundara Kadhaigal". His poems and stories have varied themes and carry a message that readers will be able to relate to easily.
Sundar is a member of the Chennai Poets' Circle and India Poetry Circle. His poems have been published in various anthologies. He was adjudged as "Highly Recommended Writer" in the Bharat Award - International Short Story Contest held by XpressPublications.com.
In an effort to get the next generation interested in poetry Sundar organises poetry contest for school students. He is also the editor of "Madras Hews Myriad Views", an anthology of poems and prose that members of the India Poetry Circle brought out to commommorate the 380th year of formation of Madras.
Sundar is a catalyst for social activities. He organises medical camps covering general health, eye camps and cancer screening. An amateur photographer and a nature lover, he is currently organising a tree planting initiative in his neighbourhood. Sundar lives his life true to his motto - Boundless Boundaries Beckon
The little bird
Escaped my heart
Feet deeply fixed
Wings flapping
Trying very hard
Soaring high in the sky
To kiss the stars.
The little fish
Danced out of the sea
Diving inside
Touched my heart beneath
Clearing the mist
In search of the shells
That holds the pearls
Unknown to me.
The little boy cried
Unaware of the feeling
Dawning on him
Neither sad nor happy
The stars on lips
Hands full of pearls,
As the heart smiles
With a new ecstasy.
The little sparkle shines
Spreading the universe
With a bright light
The sea and the sky
Lose their identities
It is just one consciousness
That seems to exist
Love supersedes
The lover and the loved
No more distinguish
Who takes and who gives
As they both, lose themselves,
To get everything.
"Dr. Bichitra Kumar Behura passed out from BITS, Pilani as a Mechanical Engineer and is serving in a PSU, Oil Marketing Company for last 3 decades. He has done his MBA in Marketing from IGNOU and subsequently the PhD from Sagaur Central University in Marketing. In spite of his official engagements, he writes both in Odia and English and follows his passion in singing and music. He has already published two books on collections of poems in Odia i.e. “Ananta Sparsa” & “Lagna Deha” , and a collection of English poems titled “The Mystic in the Land of Love”. His poems have been published in many national/ international magazines and in on-line publications. He has also published a non-fiction titled “Walking with Baba, the Mystic”. His books are available both in Amazon & Flipkart.". Dr Behura welcomes readers' feedback on his email - bkbehura@gmail.com.
WHY I FEEL BOOKS ARE MORE THERAPEUTIC THAN MUSIC
When I read a book, I forget my pain, only sympathizing with the character's pain, making it my own. I forget my own, putting their problem before mine. But when I listen to music, I put myself in the shoes of the singer. I am the one singing the lyric. I am the one suffering through the pain. Their pain is my own. Now I'm carrying my pain along with theirs. The tear down my cheek could be mine or theirs. My mixed emotions are further mixed, splayed all across the vinyl record.
Maybe I'm not the girl who's in the music video of a song. Maybe I'm the girl who's trapped in a book, within the pages, bathed in ink..
I didn't know heart ache,
Until i felt this one.
I didn't know pain, so blinding,
Until it crushed me.
The many books I've read,
The many songs I've heard,
Didn't strum my heart strings,
I didn't believe.
I didn't think it was possible,
To feel more dead with every breath,
I felt my heart beat quickening,
When it should have been stilling.
I didn't know love,
Until today, I see,
Love mixed with hatred,
Harbored for myself for loving.
Why oh why, I thought,
I'm a happy person, aren't I,
So why am i always sad,
So why is my smile a sugar-coated frown?
Maybe the happiest people get the saddest,
So much emotion coursing,
Through their veins like acids and bases,
Always threatening to explode.
Maybe the biggest smiles,
Are hiding the biggest frowns,
And if I cry myself to sleep today,
No one will have to know..
Thryaksha Ashok Garla, an eighteen-year-old, has been writing since she was a little kid. She has a blog and an Instagram account with about 200 poems posted till date. She touches upon themes such as feminism, self-reliance, love and mostly writes blues. Her poems have been published in two issues of the 'Sparks' magazine, and in poetry anthologies such as ‘Efflorescence' of Chennai Poets’ Circle , 'The current', 'The Metverse Muse', 'Our Poetry Archive', 'Destine Literare', 'Untamed Thrills and Shrills', 'Float Poetry', and in the 'Setu e-magazine.' She won the first place in the poetry competition held by India Poetry Circle (2018) held in Odyssey. She's pursuing psychology. She's a voracious reader, a violinist, and dabbles in art. She can be reached at: thryaksha@gmail.com by e-mail, Instagram: @thryaksha_wordsmith and on her blog https://thryaksha.wordpress.com/.
O’ the Disguised one, O’ the Disguised one
Why this mysterious ‘play from afar’
You know you cannot disguise a star
Are you waiting for my withering days in the sun
when my penance will strike a chord ?...
I recognise you in all my happenings
All my events, In all my attempts
You pitch your Grace in all my tents
Your rarefied presence is condensed
In the epicentre of all my contents...
I perceive you deeply in inured subtleness
In inner recesses of whatever sacredness
Is left of me after a scorching, ruthless sieve
In the embalmed etherealness of my mute silence
After your forgiveness that follows my repentance.
Before I leave pray do not reveal your disguise
I leave it for seekers, for the ones who are wise
For they are realised beings, hallowed ones,
My quest ends with a shelter, a refuge
A homage that I recognise you in all ages....
Ravi Ranganathan is a retired banker turned poet settled in Chennai. He has to his credit three books of poems entitled “Lyrics of Life” and “Blade of green grass” and “Of Cloudless Climes”. He revels in writing his thought provoking short poems called ‘ Myku’. Loves to write on nature, Life and human mind. His poems are featured regularly in many anthologies. Has won many awards for his poetry including , Sahitya Gaurav award by Literati Cosmos Society, Mathura and Master of creative Impulse award by Philosophyque Poetica.
‘You are a Dracula,’ screamed the boy.
His cheeks were hollow with malnutrition, and the sunlight pierced through his linen shirt to reveal a skeleton inside. His eyes looked like a thin scale fixed on an upside down cone, narrowing sharply with anger and suspicion. His entire body became a sign of resistance in the pouring sunlight inside the room.
The room itself looked like a vampire kingdom. Posters and drawings of blood drinking vampires decorated the walls. The plague in the town had quarantined the people and our boy, after a month, had got into the habit of imagining that he was a vampire. He imagined he was sucking the blood of his accountancy teacher who bullied him for asking questions to clear his doubts.
The accountancy teacher hated questions beginning with ‘why.’ The boy hated the accountancy teacher when he was bullied in front of everyone without being given an answer. So we need not take this very seriously. This is how class rooms are now. The ‘why,’ we all know, comes from dull headed people’s minds. Quite naturally, teachers hated these stupid students. Let us not digress.
Every day the boy planned an attack on the teacher. He began drawing vampire models of his teacher. His poor mother thought her son was creative, and believed he would tackle all problems well when he would become the CEO of a global company, just as her friend’s son. She encouraged him to draw more and smiled and laughed, admiring the ‘genius’ of her beloved son. She was highly educated, you see, and she knew if a boy was creative, then he would be fit for the greatest jobs in the world. How many self-development books she had been reading! She knew. That’s all. Let us not ask too many questions about her ideologies and move on.
The crux of the matter is that he began drawing more and more vampires, and pasted them all around, and also printed vampire posters downloaded from the internet, and pasted them too.
The mother of the boy became more creative now and she too sat with her son and began using her time well. She was so busy that she did not notice her son losing weight. ‘My son is very obedient. He doesn’t go out at all,’ she was texting her whatsapp group friends. Texting is the trend now, you know. You have to fall in line.
The point is, the boy began visualizing the blood sucking vampires. Everyone looked like a vampire to him. He asked his mother for tomato juice and drank it as if he was drinking blood. Mothers don’t train their sons to make a juice for themselves, we all know that. They love patriarchy and talk about male domination. That is another story.
The boy hero and the hero worshipping mother lived happily till one day the boy screamed at the mother.
The mother woke up at last, shocked by his outburst. She saw all the posters and drawings with a new eye. She saw the soup in which she and her son were caught completely. And it was then that happened, and because of such happenings we have celebrated the woman as a mother, and as a Goddess. What did she do?
She began weeping and her son felt bad, and they cleared the room of those pictures, and she cooked his favourite meal and she fed him with her hands, tears streaming down her face.
The father was watching this drama with a philosophical detachment, as usual.
Prof. S. Sridevi has been teaching English in a research department in a college affiliated to the University of Madras for 30 years. She has published two collections of poems in English: Heralds of Change and Reservations. Her prose works are: Critical Essays, Saivism: Books 1-8 (Co-authors-C.T.Indra & Meenakshi Hariharan), Think English Talk English, Communication Skills, and Communicative English for Engineers (Co-Author-Srividya). She has translated Thirukural, Part I into Tamil. Her Tamil poetry collections are: Aduppadi Kavithaigal, Pennin Paarvaiyil, Naan Sivam and Penn Enum Perunthee.
WARS THAT TAKE AWAY PAAs.....
Dr. Molly Joseph
Running through the narrow divides between the paddy fields, Ramu was careful not to slip but he was in a hurry to reach home.
The yearly exams were over, it was going to be a long vacation.
Paa would be back home on leave from his military duties. He was a soldier with a high rank in the military. He had promised, this vacation he would be with family taking them for outings and tours. Maa along with Ramu had already worked out so many plans, sitting late into night discussing.
Hah, how wonderful would be those days..!
Ramu felt a thrill simmering through his veins..
Ramu had never seen snow. How would it look like? To touch and feel....ice cold?
He had seen pictures of children playing in snow. He very much wanted to make a trip to a place where there stood snow capped mountain tops.
Or if it was that far off, he would ask Paa to take him to big cities where there existed snow worlds, artificially built up. To hide, hover around those snow covered caverns, what an experience it would be....!
Humming a song to himself, throwing away his sandals, schoolbag and uniform, Ramu went to the sitting room.
Why everybody so serious, watching the T V.? Some news flashing on screen....who cares....
His holidays had started. Nobody seemed to share his enthusiasm. Maa, instead of greeting him with a smile offering evening treats and endearments was sitting grim faced.
He wanted tea, he wanted treats..
“I am hungry.Maa....." he shouted.
No one was listening. He repeated.
Maa turned to his side and said.
“Go. It is there on the table.”
What is wrong with everyone? He gulped his tea and snacks. Time to go out and play.
He got out. Aravind his friend nearby, would be ready. They would play in the open yard.
Aravind came out with the news. A war has broken out in the South East. Army was deployed. There can be shelling, shooting, bombings..
Cold shivers went through..
War ! Why should there be war? Why should people kill each other?
Aravind added.
Ramu’s father, a soldier himself may not be with them for this vacation. He might be fighting against the enemy at the borders.
Ramu was aghast!
What! Paa would not turn up.. Oh, no...!
Fighting against enemy. Who is his enemy? Paa only taught Ramu how to love everyone, do good for everyone. How can he have an enemy?
Aravind told him, Ramu’s father is odered to fight, to shoot down and kill soldiers on the opposite side. How could his Paa do that, he who would not hurt even a fly. Again, how could he bear the sorrow of the soldier’s family who lost a son, a husband or Paa?
No ..no.. such thoughts, confusing thoughts crowded his mind.
He lost all mood for play.
Back home something worse awaited him. Maa was weeping miserably on the lap of Grandma. Seeing Ramu her wails grew louder.
Whats up? Many other people were coming home, milling around, talking in whispers.
They say Paa will be brought home in two days. What is wrong with Paa?
Why these wars take away precious Paas and bring pain and suffering? He very much wanted to hug his sweet and smiling Paa who always returned with so much of goodies and goodness.
Ramu yelled out, he started crying his heart out..
PAA....
He lay on his mother’s lap, sobbing..
Dr. Molly Joseph, (M.A., M.Phil., PGDTE, EFLU,Hyderabad) had her Doctorate in post war American poetry. She retired as the H.O.D., Department of English, St.Xavier's College, Aluva, Kerala, and now works as Professor, Communicative English at FISAT, Kerala. She is an active member of GIEWEC (Guild of English writers Editors and Critics) She writes travelogues, poems and short stories. She has published five books of poems - Aching Melodies, December Dews, and Autumn Leaves, Myna's Musings and Firefly Flickers and a translation of a Malayalam novel Hidumbi. She is a poet columnist in Spill Words, the international Online Journal.
She has been awarded Pratibha Samarppanam by Kerala State Pensioners Union, Kala Prathibha by Chithrasala Film Society, Kerala and Prathibha Puraskaram by Aksharasthree, Malayalam group of poets, Kerala, in 2018. Dr.Molly Joseph has been conferred Poiesis Award of Honour as one of the International Juries in the international award ceremonies conducted by Poiesis Online.com at Bangalore on May 20th, 2018. Her two new books were released at the reputed KISTRECH international Festival of Poetry in Kenya conducted at KISII University by the Deputy Ambassador of Israel His Excellency Eyal David. Dr. Molly Joseph has been honoured at various literary fest held at Guntur, Amaravathi, Mumbai and Chennai. Her latest books of 2018 are “Pokkuveyil Vettangal” (Malayalam Poems), The Bird With Wings of Fire (English), It Rains (English).
With forelimbs adapted as wings
You fly overhead each evening
unmindful of the turmoil beneath-
accused of spreading the virus.
You seem to depict a picture of grace
as you manouevre
with your spread out digits
Yet, people do not hesitate to blame!
Do you know what trauma
humanity is going through?
Socially distanced, life at standstill
living in perpetual fear
of loss of life, money, family
Grieving, and grieving more...
Are you to blame?
Hema Ravi is a freelance trainer for IELTS and Communicative English. Her poetic publications include haiku, tanka, free verse and metrical verses. Her write ups have been published in the Hindu, New Indian Express, Femina, Woman's Era, and several online and print journals; a few haiku and form poems have been prize winners. She is a permanent contributor to the 'Destine Literare' (Canada). She is the author of ‘Everyday English,’ ‘Write Right Handwriting Series1,2,3,’ co-author of Sing Along Indian Rhymes’ and ‘Everyday Hindi.’ Her "Everyday English with Hema," a series of English lessons are broadcast by the Kalpakkam Community Radio.
Ravi N is a Retired IT Professional (CMC Limted/Tata Consultancy Services ,Chennai). During his professional career spanning 35 odd years he had handled IT Projects of national Importance like Indian Railways Passenger Reservation system, Finger Print Criminal Tracking System (Chennai Police),IT Infrastructure Manangement for Nationalized Banks etc. Post retirement in December 2015, he has been spending time pursuing interests close to his heart-Indian Culture and Spirituality, listening to Indian and Western Classical Music, besides taking up Photography as a hobby. He revels in nature walks, bird watching and nature photography. He loves to share his knowledge and experience with others.
Terrace...Synonymous to solitude
I submit myself to the chirping birds
Fly with them, as they lift my mind
The wind ruffles my heart
Psithurism in my soul
The sky wraps me in all the shades of dusk
As it melts into a crimson river, from gold
Tangerine, blue slithering all over
Blushing, and finally hiding into grey pandiculation
Leaving my moon, and the Venus for me
We look at each other, the world around zoom out
All my words, absorbed by the moon
The venus shuffle them, and
Scatter all over the sky
Each star that winks, are my poems
Tears flow, in joy and pain, simultaneously
For I cannot bear the distance
From my poems
Yet, they are up above the world so high, on my behalf
With the moon...
As I climb down the stairs
I feel a thud
Like children following their Mom, after play
My words jumped from the sky
Back into my heart, and tickle me
I laughed until I cried...
Terrace, and the Sky
Remind me often
I can let go of anything, but poems...
Into a myriad moulds of languages, metaphors and similes
She poured Vanilla, jaggery syrup, rose sharbat, and more
To watch the sweet-smelling words
Metamorphose into delectable verses...
High on chocolate, how restless was her heart
To hold the shapes of emotions
Inhale the deliciousness of thoughts
She kept looking at the moulds thinking of him, and nodded off...
It was time, to meet the shapes of poems...
But, her curious eyes were shocked
As they were still lilting, as liquid alphabets...
Tears quivered, holding the eyelids tight...
"Why pour vanilla jaggery, strawberry or rose?!"
Spoke a voice from within
"Pour your love, like honey that
Fills the moulds in mellifluous silence
From whatever height you pour..."
She did, without delay
He took shape as her poems, like magic
How did she forget
Poems are born out of love...
How did she forget
She is born to love poems...
Madhumathi is an ardent lover of Nature, Poetry(English and Tamil), Photography, and Music, Madhumathi believes writing is a soulful journey of weaving one's emotions and thoughts, having a kaleidoscopic view of life through poetry. She experiences Metamorphosis through writing. Nature is her eternal muse and elixir. Poetry, to Madhumathi, is a way of life, and loves to leave heartprints behind in gratitude, through her words. She strongly believes in the therapeutic power of words, that plant love, hope, and enable a deep healing. Madhumathi loves to spread mental health awareness through writing, breaking the stigma, and takes part in related activities, too.
Madhumathi's poems are published with the Poetry Society India in their AIPC anthologies 2015, 16, and 17, the multilingual anthology 'Poetic Prism' 2015(Tamil and English), Chennai Poets' Circle's 'Efflorescence' 2018, 2019, India Poetry Circle's 'Madras Hues Myriad Views'(2019) celebrating the spirit and glory of Madras, in the UGC approved e-journal Muse India, in IWJ-International Writers' Journal (2020), and e- zines Our Poetry Archive(OPA), and Storizen.
Blog for Madhumathi's Poems :https://multicoloredmoon.wordpress.com/, http://mazhaimozhimounam.blogspot.com/?m=1
A vacuum with no bubbles,
Life faces the barriers & hurdles,
Time & again an invisible viral infection,
Behaves insane causing pain,
Corona virus spreads mounting tension,
Life becomes a burden for every one,
Bound within the cordons,
Humanity struggling to escape out of the situation,
Isolation brings some hope as solution,
Every one spells the word quarantine,
Stay home to stay safe a lone solution,
Maintain a safe distance men & women,
Wash your hands & face with proper sanitation ,
Doctors & health care personnel struggling to contain,
Obey the prescriptions, routines & regulations,
Never allow yourself to be a victim of the pandemic situation,
Prevention is better than cure often,
Impose self discipline & sing isolation,
Until life bounces back to normalcy again,
When a game of dice begins,
Injustice just reigns,
When guru taught you weaponry,
He did not teach you treachery,
You use treachery to win the throne,
Imposed unjustified conditions ,
Imposed a thirteen year ban ,
Over & above sinister plans,
Sinister plans of ignorant hideout,
Justice was just crushed,
A full court of warriors & wise men,
Just helpless watched the helpless situation,
Even the wife of the valiant warriors was pawned,
Pulled to an offensive court of mad laughter,
All the wise men & warriors along with the blind king,
Enjoyed the injustice meted out to the brothers,
Brazenly bereft of justice in the game of dice,
That played a game to be a war of cowardice,
Sri Akshaya Kumar Das is poet from Bhubaneswar , Odisha the author of "The Dew Drops" available with amazon/flipkart/snapdeal published by Partridge India in the year 2016. Sri Das is a internationally acknowledged author with no. of his poems published in India & abroad by Ardus Publication, Canada. Sri Das is conferred with "Ambassador of Humanity" award by Hafrican Peace Art World, Ghana. Sri Das organised a Intenational Poetry Festival in the year 2017 under the aegis of Feelings International Artist's Society of Dr.Armeli Quezon held at Bhubaneswar. Sri Das is presently working as an Admin for many poetry groups in Face Book including FIAS & Poemariam Group headed by Dr.N.K.Sharma. Receipent of many awards for hos contribution to English literature & world peace. A featured poet of Pentasi B Group. Sri Das presently retired Insurance Manager residing at Bhubaneswar."
Set to the tune of nursery rhyme: Bits of paper, bits of paper lying on the ground
Bits of ideas Bits of ideas
Popping now and then popping up now and then
Take them, keep them work on them
Innovation. Innovation.
Set to the tune of nursery rhyme: twinkle, twinkle little star
Time and money and all other things
How I wonder how to use
Using them, a winner to be
Tell me how and I’ll thank you.
Set to the tune of nursery rhyme: Row, Row, Row your boat
Try, try, try again
And you’ll improve each time
Slowly, surely, steadily
Failure is no crime.
Set to the tune of nursery rhyme: Humpty dumpty
Arrogance now sat on the wall
And success then had a great fall
Not all the grand models
Nor all the great experts
Could get success back again
Padmini Janardhanan is an accredited rehabilitation psychologist, educational consultant, a corporate consultant for Learning and Development, and a counsellor, for career, personal and family disquiets.
Has been focussing on special education for children with learning difficulties on a one on one basis and as a school consultant for over 4 decades. The main thrust is on assessing the potential of the child and work out strategies and IEPs (Individual Educational Plans) and facilitating the implementation of the same to close the potential-performance gap while counselling the parents and the child to be reality oriented.
Has been using several techniques and strategies as suitable for the child concerned including, CBT, Hypnotherapy, client oriented counselling, and developing and deploying appropriate audio-visual / e-learning materials. Has recently added Mantra yoga to her repository of skills.
She strongly believes that literature shapes and influences all aspects of personality development and hence uses poetry, songs, wise quotations and stories extensively in counselling and training. She has published a few books including a compilation of slokas for children, less known avathars of Vishnu, The what and why of behaviour, and a Tamizh book 'Vaazhvuvallampera' (towards a fulfilling life) and other material for training purposes.
Gift me a Bag of Happiness
Gift me a Bag of Kindness
Gift me a Bag of Dignity
Gift me a Bag of Creativity
Gift me a Bag of Possibility
Gift me a Bag of Responsibility
Gift me a Bag of Gratitude
Gift me a Bag of Aptitude
Gift me a Bag of Brightness
Gift me a Bag of Awareness
Gift me a Bag of Politeness
Gift me a Bag of Solutions
Gift me a Bag of Articulation
Gift me a Bag of Sensitivity
Gift me a Bag of Accessibility
Gift me a Bag of Miracles
Gift me a Bag of Eatables
Gift me a Bag of Friendship
Gift me a Bag of Scholarship
Above All, Gift me a Bag full of Love
And I will Gift you back a Bag full of Blessings, today, tomorrow and always.
Sheena Rath is a post graduate in Spanish Language from Jawaharlal Nehru University Delhi, later on a Scholarship went for higher studies to the University of Valladolid Spain. A mother of an Autistic boy, ran a Special School by the name La Casa for 11 years for Autistic and underprivileged children. La Casa now is an outreach centre for social causes(special children, underprivileged children and families, women's health and hygiene, cancer patients, save environment) and charity work.
Sheena has received 2 Awards for her work with Autistic children on Teachers Day. An Artist, a writer, a social worker, a linguist and a singer (not by profession)
For Manish it was an unfamiliar tone from an unknown number as he picked up the mobile. In dilemma, he could not identify the caller immediately. The caller, a lady from far off, was emphatically addressing him as Manu, a prerogative preserved for his near and dear ones only. Nostalgic on being addressed as Manu, he wondered for a few moments before recognising the voice. His exuberance knew no bounds when he asked " Is it Maminani"?
"Yes, I am Maminani, from Cuttack."
This longing voice was a surprise to Manish, heard after almost twenty years. Kadambini (Kadu), Manish's wife, was also overwhelmed at the call as she had a good enough mental picture of Maminani, having heard about her from Manish a hundred times. She had not seen her, and was always eager to meet her some day. Manish finished the call and informed Kadu that Maminani was coming over to Bangalore with her two children and she was planning to stay with them for a couple of days. It was a pleasant surprise for both Manu and Kadu, to spend few days with Maminani, who occupied the prime time of the talks of Manu's childhood days.
Both Maminani and Manu belonged to the same village and Manu was three to four years younger to her. She was the most charming, flamboyant and beautiful damsel of the area, coming from a relatively well to do family. Her younger brother was studying in the same class as Manu. Whenever she walked through the lane, it was as if a deer from the nearby forest had strayed into the human dwellings. No body could stop noticing her when ever she was on road with her salwar and frock, the plaits of hair on two sides of her body.
For Manu and others, Maminani was a super leader. She used to be friendly with them, drag them to play in the village lane, kabaddi, rope dance or even "gulli danda". She often ordered them to climb trees to pluck ripe guava, or cucumbers from neighbour's gardens, and many other mischiefs. For Manu and four of his friends, any direction emanating from her was like a Gospel truth, to be carried out immediately. The Director and her team of artists were called a gang by the villagers. She used to ask them to bring different type of berries from forest, tender tamarind, and unripe mangoes from the nearby trees. She used to prepare tasty chutneys and served to her gang members. Although she had studied only upto class Eighth, for the chellas she was the most learned entity in the village. In the evening, accompanied by the gang she used to pray at the village GopinathJew Temple and after that she ordered them to go home and concentrate on studies for at least two hours. They would assemble again the next day to enact a new drama. Life was as smooth as it could be for all of them in the same age group.
During the month of "Bhadrab" the unmarried girls of the village used to take part actively in "Khudurukuni" puja in a community environment. Maminani also used to participate in the puja following some tough laid down austerities. This puja was reminiscent of Odisha's famed maritime valour where the brothers went to foreign countries to sell their products and return with lots of wealth. The unmarried sisters prayed for the safety of their brothers and their long lives.They used to worship "Maa Mangala" on the occasion. It was a surprise for the gang members to see their leader in a different incarnation during this month, consuming only vegetarian diet, observing fast on Sundays till the Puja was over by afternoon. She instructed the gang to supply her plenty of flowers by Sunday morning such as different coloured Lily, red hibiscus, red rose etc. She used to make long garlands with the flower and offered them to the Goddess. Of course, after the Puja, the gang members were given sumptuous Prasad. But Maminani used to be more serious looking on that day to the surprise of her chellas.
Manu was engrossed in his memory of the past village days, how Maminani got married to a Doctor, Pitabas bhaina who had his job in Medical College and a clinic outside, how Maminani cried the day she left the village after marriage, looking at him and her gang members, how her visit to the village became rare etc. etc, when a taxi stopped near the gate of his quarters at Dollar's Colony. Shortly after, a lady with two children got down from the vehicle and rushed inside. Manu met Maminani after almost twenty years. There was no change in her vivacious looks. Manu and Kadu welcomed her and made her feel comfortable within the modestly looking official house.The children were greeted by their daughter and taken to her room to freshen up. Kadu requested Maminani to get fresh but she did not listen to that amidst her garrulous talks. She was asking Manu when he had gone to their village last and enquired about every body, some of whom Manu had forgotten to track. She revealed that she had kept track of every body although she had visited the village only once or twice in last twenty years.
Her son, Paresh was to appearing in a JEE test the next day and that was the purpose of her visit. Of course she informed that she wanted to meet Kadu and Manu especially and therefore, she had collected Manu's address and contact number from his friends.
Leaving the children at home, they decided to find out the venue of the examination centre. It was not difficult to find the centre at the old airport road. While returning Maminani wanted to make some purchases from "Cauvery" at MG Road, the Karnataka govt shop. She was taking extraordinary interest in scrutinising the products and selecting few sandal works, silk sarees, and other decorative pieces. From her purchases it was evident that she had become a "Sethni" by then, thanks to the rousing medical practice of Pitabas bhaina.
They returned home and relaxed after dinner. Maminani was inquisitive about Kadu and wanted to spend some time with her that night. Next day they had the return journey in the evening to Cuttack. The JEE exam was scheduled to be over by 2 pm. There was no time available for talks
Intermittently, Manu was intervening in their talks and asked her why she avoided visiting the village after marriage.
"Your Bhaina never wanted me to stay overnight in the village and he insisted that I should be accompanied by him whenever I go there. He was awfully busy for his patients and seldom got any free time for a visit to our village". She was also candid enough to admit that city life had its own charm and smoothness when compared to the struggling challenges of village life. Power and water were always ready at one's command and one did not need to pond to take bath or a common well to fetch drinking water. Life was always enjoyable with busy kitty parties and clubs. Entertainment had no limits with the presence of at least a dozen cinema halls. Her children were also used to the comforts of Cuttack life.
Next day the JEE was over in time and after having lunch she was busy packing . She called Kadu to help her and showed all the sarees she had purchased from Cauvery. Not knowing her mind, Kadu praised her for selecting the best ones from the show room. She held Kadu's hands tightly and requested her to keep half of the sarees for herself. Kadu was trapped but could not free herself till she received four sarees from her.
A taxi was called to take them to railway station . The children occupied their seats. Maminani bade farewell to Manu and Kadu in teary eyes and left for the railway station.
Paresh qualified in the entrance test and took admission in one of the best Engineeing colleges of Bangalore, Visvesvaria Institute of Technology. Manu was the local guardian for him. He was a good student and was apparently busy in studies. Seldom did he get time to visit Dollars Colony and meet Manu and his family. In the mean time, two years had lapsed. Paresh used to get good grades and his performance cards were sent to his parents and local guardian by the college.
Suddenly, one morning when Manu was about to leave for his office, a telephone call came from the college asking him to call the parents of Paresh immediately as he was hospitalised the day before. Manu could not decide what to do. After reaching office he sought permission from his boss to go to the hospital. He met the doctors and passed on the information to Maminani. In the mean time, the college authorities had also made calls to the parents urging them to reach Bangalore as soon as possible
Catching the afternoon Bhubaneswar-Bangalore flight, Pitabas Bhaina and Maminani reached Bangalore and immediately proceeded to the hospital. Pitabas bhaina discussed with the doctors there and went through the history card and treatment schedule. Paresh was in ICU.
With a grave face clouded with worries, Pitabas bhaina kept weeping, saying that God alone could save his son. He revealed that Paresh had cirrhosis in lever due to prolonged drinking habits for more than five years. Condition was stable and he was responding to medicines properly. Pitabas bhaina and Maminani returned with Manu to his quarters but daily visited the hospital. In the night, Pitabas bhaina was heard admonishing Maminani for her negligence in properly bringing up the son. She was sobbing profusely. She was also heard accusing herself for taking life for granted and how she could not notice about his drinking habits at Cuttack itself.
She also blamed her life style and the hollowness of city life which had taken her away from temples to tea parties, from kitchen to clubs. She remembered how she was worshipping Ma Mangala for the good health of her brother and participating in Khudurukuni puja, following the prescribed austerities. Her eyes were visibly swollen due to the deep hurt caused by her own neglect. She was repeatedly saying, "This time I will ensure that my daughter follows the rituals of 'Khudurukuni brata '. If not possible in Cuttack, I will take her to the village during the 'Bhadraba month."
After a couple of days, Pitabas bhaina got Paresh discharged from the hospital and directly proceeded to the air port for his further treatment at Cuttack.
Manu and Kadu bade farewell to them at the airport, chastened by the harsh cruelties of human life.
(Khudurukuni Osha, also known as Bhalukuni Osha, is a festival observed in coastal Odisha in the month of Bhargaba (August-September) when young girls observe fast and pray to the Goddess seeking divine blessings for the safety, prosperity and good health of their brothers.)
Shri Gokul Chandra Mishra is a retired General Manager of the Syndicate Bank. He is passionate about social service, reading and writing.
Nancy gave finishing touches to her get up and had a good look at herself in the full length mirror. Attired in a tasteful western dress, a tall and slender figurine looked back at her. The thick mop of black wavy hair, the peach colour of her skin with aquiline features had a fresh shine and a smug smile crossed her face. She had the looks. Hasn’t she caught the fleeting look of admiration in Mr Rakeshji’s eyes? The moment the thought crossed her mind, she tried to flick it off. A professional like her should not be bothered about such distractions. Well Rakeshji, her Boss is equally a professional not to let her good looks come in the way of office affairs. Nancy knew it well. What she should gloat on, she should. She knew her strengths: soft polite voice, immaculate English diction and a smart body language. But it was her proficiency in data management; her flawless paper work and dexterity in retrieving precious records were considered an asset more than her attractive looks. Perhaps that is why she has not been given a change of desk for the past twenty years. So many Bosses have come and gone, but Nancy goes on forever, was the rhyme in her office corridors. Let the swines whine, she thought. If she is efficient, she is. Why be apologetic about it? And she has taken a lot of trouble to reach that level of competence. Company secretary ship and much training in soft skills had made her as accomplished as she is known to be. She had always wanted to wield some influence in the power corridor. However small it may be. Well who doesn’t? As the Personal Assistant to a powerful business tycoon, she knew her position was indispensable.
But today is not the time to revel. Today she has to take extra care on her appearance and voice modulation. She has to remain more alert than ever. A business delegation from Singapore, with a new business proposal was coming for a discussion and she needed to be at her professional best. After the talks, there will be business lunch at the Office Lounge. Her presence by the side of the official host will add verve to the formal affair. She donned a smile along with a dab of French perfume and stepped out with the flagrance lingering around her.
Nancy made a spirited entry into the well appointed office hall, her cubicle being far down the hall next to the corner room, literally. As soon as she flung the glass door open, a sweet female voice-over greeted her with a bright “Good Morning.” The voice was cheerful and full of warmth.
“Please be seated.”
After a pause, “Would you like to have a glass of water, tea or coffee?”
Before she could give her response more surprises followed.
“It is quarter past Nine.”
“The temperature of the room is 22 degree Celsius. Outside it is 25 degree Celsius. The sky is clear and cloudless. The day will remain dry.”
“Today’s Sensex is 500 points above than yesterday. The top gainers are banking stocks like SBI, Axis bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank among others.
“CEO, Mr Rakesh Malhotra, will be meeting foreign delegates till 1 pm. He will be hosting a business lunch with the delegates. Post lunch he will be attending a meeting of the Company Executives in the Board Room.”
Finally the hackneyed, “What can I do for you?”
Nancy found herself speechless to respond. Then the ultimate,
“Please take your time.”
Nancy looked around to see where the voice was coming from. Not finding anyone near, she gingerly entered her Boss’ cabin and there it was; standing tall, a blonde mannequin dressed in office attire with soft expressive face, almost like hers. Suddenly Nancy felt a pain go through her. Is this the product the foreign company was coming to give a demo to her Boss?
Her Boss was yet to come. Nancy hurried to the auditorium. She had to confront him. Why was she kept in dark about such a product?
She would definitely accost him. In what ways the Robot would outperform her? Can the Robot talk to every Boss’s wife? Can the Robot strike a friendship with Maya, the present Boss’ wife? Can the Robot convince Maya Madam that there is indeed work at office and he will be late? Can the Robot talk to his kids studying abroad and fix any problem they may be having. Can the Robot converse with the Boss’ doctor and administer medicine in time?
At the auditorium the techies were busy fixing the wires, while her Boss was supervising the final touches being given to the dais meant for the guests. Nancy saw the tiewallahs and suited booted people trickling in. Will this be a good time to talk to Boss? Perhaps, not. Well she should look for an opportune time. But nothing was pacifying her agitated mind. Not even the soft channel music in the Auditorium. Her ears kept resonating with the Mannequin’s impressive voice.
Her mental maths went on an overdrive. What about the monthly rent, her ailing mother’s medical expenses and her annual summer trip abroad? What about the EMI for the flat she has booked in an upmarket apartment?
No, this cannot be true. In what ways is she inferior to the Robot? She will find out from the foreign delegates.
The lunch tasted insipid. Small talks with the guys from Singapore did not reveal much. Her Boss was well known for keeping all business secrets to himself.
Two weeks passed uneventfully in the office. Only Nancy looked pale, listless and not in her element. Her colleagues made no enquiries whatsoever. Nancy’s old mother kept asking her about her Boss which was answered in silence.
On the first day of the next month, the auto rickshaw which ferried her to office daily did not turn up at her door. The door was found locked.
********
(Inspired by the iconic short story “Maguni ra sagada” of Late Godabarish Mahapatra, a doyen of Odia Literature)
Literature, both Odia and English, fascinates Malabika Patel. She has been experimenting on poems and short stories. Her first translation “Chilika –A love story “ of Shri Krupasagar Sahoo’s Sahitya Academy award winning Odia novella, “Sesha Sarat” was published in 2011. She is also into translating of rare old Odia documents and classics into English. A banker by profession, she retired from Reserve Bank of India as General Manager in 2016 and is presently settled in Bhubaneswar.
A flower cannot blossom without sunshine
A child cannot bloom without affection;
A child and flower flourish on the earth
As they get support from their warmth.
A place can be loved for its beauty
A person can be loved for his creativity;
A place and person can be attached
As they each other very much attracted,
A brother is lovable when he’s honest
A sister is lovable when she’s sincere;
Honesty and sincerity are the two sides
Which help us to identify the true love.
Friends are lovable as they guide us
They are bearable when they glide us;
Parents are lovable when they tackle us
They are bearable when they miracle us.
Teachers are lovable when they handle us
They are suitable since they train us;
People are lovable when they support us
They are bearable since they rapport us.
Mrs. Setaluri Padmavathi, a postgraduate in English Literature with a B.Ed., has over three decades of experience in the field of education and held various positions. Writing has always been her passion that translates itself into poems of different genres, short stories and articles on a variety of themes and topics.
Her poems can be read on her blog setaluripadma.wordpress.com Padmavathi’s poems and other writes regularly appear on Muse India, Boloji.com and poemhunter.com
Oh rain! The pearls of grace,
How were you ushered in?
The cloud is the womb of rain
And is a song woven in heaven.
Petrichor emanating from grass;
And the days so cold and dark.
The eerie rustles of heavy storm,
Hushed the quills of koel and lark.
Magical droplets run down
And fall off the bellied clouds,
Gently pouring in every corner
Slides and glides down windows.
Deeply drinking the lord's magic
Rejuvenates all zestful souls
And drowns the heart's burden.
Oh rain! Rhythm of hope & bliss.
S. Geetha, a 16 year old author and a young poet from India. She started her journey in writing at the age of 7. She is a bibliophile and loves reading non-fiction. She has also worked as the student editor of her school magazine for the year 2019-20. She is a mellifluous Carnatic singer. She has won laurels for her sparkling brilliancy in music as well as in writing. She calls herself as the Pink Author Hope. She does her best writing on Women empowerment. She is a blogger and owns 2 websites. https://geethabose.wordpress.com/ & https://thepinkauthor.wordpress.com/
Coorg always fascinated me and when we went to Mysore on a holiday, we included a visit to Coorg as well. We preferred to motor down the distance of 120 kilometres.
The district of Coorg or Kodagu has three taluks – Madikere, Virajpet and Somwarpet. Madikere, which is the district headquarters of Coorg, is the main tourist attraction with its misty hills, lush forests, nearby coffee plantations and paddy fields besides a few places for sightseeing.
After driving nearly for three hours we came across a Tibetan village, Bylakuppe near Kushalnagar. As we entered it through the narrow long winding road, we found there were four Tibetan camps spread out in a large area with road marks directing to each camp. It was interesting to watch the women folk going about their work oblivious to the presence of passers-by. One whole street was lined with small shops which sold locally made goods ranging from gorgeous carpets with dragon designs at the centre, woolen clothing, handicrafts of all kinds, hand bags and pouches and what not. We found it difficult to converse with shop keepers as they knew no other language but their own. We managed to pick up some trinkets at a reasonable price. We proceeded to the Golden Temple, built in the Tibetan style and on entering it found 40 feet high idols of Gautama Buddha at the centre and those of his disciples on either side, all in shining yellow metal. The subdued lighting in the monastery and the fragrance of flowers permeating the air provided the right ambience for one to pray and meditate. I tried to talk with a few monks present there but again language proved a barrier. I was happy that photography was permitted. Resuming our journey we stopped at another monastery but found it was closed. There were a row of rooms inside the compound where the refugees lived. It appeared Panchan Lama stayed in the building nearby during his visit to this place.
Coffee plantations and pepper trees were very much in evidence as we were approaching Madikere. At the end of over five hours which included three halts, we reached Rajbhavan, ( which looked like a house converted into a hotel ) just in time for lunch. Lunch was a great disappointment as the menu comprised more non-vegetarian fare than vegetarian.
Opposite to this hotel was “Raja’s Seat” in the midst of a lovely park. It is believed Kings of Kodagu with their families spent their evenings enjoying viewing the spectacular sunset from the top of the hill situated at the boundary of the town. Hence this viewpoint came to be known as Raja’s Seat. We could have a splendid view of the western ghats from this park. However children who came to enjoy the ride in the toy train had to go back disappointed as it was canceled for some reason.
Abbey Falls is another attraction here with nearly one kilometer pedestrian path lined with coffee and pepper trees on either side .We found it a delight to walk amidst all the greenery. When we were approaching the Falls, we expected to hear the roar of waters cascading down in a thick stream from a height of seventy feet but there were no such gushing sounds. Instead, the sight of water trickling down in a wafer thin stream before us came as our greatest disappointment .It was yet another year the locals experienced monsoon failure.
Omkareshwara temple in Madikere is unique in that there is a combination of Islamic and Gothic styles of architecture with a tank built facing it. It is built by Lingaraja in 1820. The Sivalinga installed in the temple is believed to have been brought from Kasi.
A visit to Madikere is not complete without seeing Bhagamandala and Tala Cauvery, which is 48 kilometers from Madikere. Sri Bhagandeshwar temple is built in the Kerala style and interestingly the rituals and worship followed in this temple as well as in Tala Cauvery are similar to those that are followed in Kerala temples. The place has assumed significance as the sacred rivers – Cauvery, Kannike and Sujyothi meet here. Hence the place is popularly known as Triveni Sangama.
The source of the river Cauvery, Tala Cauvery is on the slopes of the Brahmagiri Hills, a part of the Western Ghats in Kodagu district. It is located at a height of 1535 meters from the sea level. There are two temples here – one is dedicated to Lord Ganesha and the other to Lord Siva. Interestingly, even though Cauvery is worshipped as the Divine Mother by millions of devotees, there is no temple dedicated to her for worship at Tala Cauvery. According to the Puranas, Cauvery is worshipped in the form of holy water only. This holy water pond, the Brahma Kundika reverentially called as Sri Cauvery Kundika, is itself Her abode. Regular worship is offered at this small pond. On the day of the “Tula Sankramana” which falls in the month of October, at an auspicious moment the water in this holy pond raises and this is indicated by a sudden upsurge. At the adjoining bigger tank called Sri Cauvery Punya Snana Kola, pilgrims take a holy bath. The adventurous among the devotees venture to climb the Brahmagiri Hills ( a height of about 300 feet) where the Sapthamaha Rishis are believed to have performed Yagna at its peak. In fair weather one can just savour the scenic beauty in and around these hills.
On our return journey, we stopped at Cauvery Nisargadhama, a wonderful picnic spot just two kilometers from Kushalnagar. The island is surrounded by the quiet flowing Cauvery river, with a hanging bridge built across it and well equipped thatched and tree top houses appeared an ideal getaway for peace lovers. Children were seen having their share of fun with elephant and boat rides while watching deer prancing about the whole place.
N.Meera Raghavendra rao, a post graduate in English Literature, with a diploma in Journalism is freelance journalist, author and blogger published around 2000 articles ( including book reviews) of different genre which appeared in The Hindu,Indian Express and The Deccan Herald . Author of 10 books : Madras Mosaic, Slice of Life, Chennai Collage, Journalism-think out of the Box are to mention a few. Her book ‘ Feature writing’ published by Prentice Hall, India and Madhwas of Madras published by Palaniappa Bros. had two editions. She interviewed several I.A.S. officials, industrialists and Social workers on AIR and TV, was interviewed by the media subsequent to her book launches and profiled in TigerTales ,an in house magazine of Tiger Airlines. At the invitation from Ahmedabad Management Association she conducted a two-day workshop on Feature Writing. Her Husband, Dr.N.Raghavendrra Rao, a Ph.D in FINANCE is an editor and contributor to IGIGLOBAL U.S.A.
The pitter patter of the rain was interminable as I stared at the fat droplets of water race their way down my window. It was a fine evening to stay at home, unfortunately my parents didn't agree and had left for another one of their “very important” meetings. The thunder and lightning did little to soothe my nerves at staying home alone. In a feeble attempt to distract myself from the churning in my gut, I pressed my face against the window, listening carefully to the rain. Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter. The sound got monotonous when suddenly the doorbell broke through it, clear and high.
My parents!
And then he burst in. In my rush to open the door, I failed to realise that it was too early for the meeting to be over.
The man was tall and dripping wet. Blood rushed in my ears and fear threatened to choke me as the stranger stood in between me and the closed, now locked, door. My mouth fell open to scream, but he stifled it with a meaty hand. My blood had never felt so cold.
‘Shh…don't shout,’ he whispered, his body hunched down to my height. Gently, he removed his hand and I rushed backwards, stumbling into the table and letting out a pained yowl. The man took a step forward, seemingly to help me, but the fear on my face must have stopped him.
‘W-who are you?’ I stuttered, this was no good. I tried to pull myself together, to show the stranger that I wasn't afraid, but there was no masking the terror.
‘Relax! I am not going to harm you. Please, don't shout. Just for a few minutes, please, I need to be safe!’, he had backed up against the door as well. We both stood still and I took a good look at him. Tall but not muscular, he had a slight frame and didn't look any older than 26 or 27. His eyes darted here and there and there was no mistaking the emotion reflected in them. The way he'd pressed himself into the corner and tried a hunch to take less space, it was clear. He was afraid.
This struck me as odd, why would he be afraid? Yet it was impossible from the anxiety written all over his haunted face to be anything else. My nerves settled slightly at this. He was dripping all over the hallway, so I gingerly handed him a paper towel making sure to keep a large distance between us. He might be afraid but I refused to take any chances.
The silence continued and it would've been easy for me to run to the nearest phone and call my parents, the police, or anyone who could help…but he was afraid and I wanted to know why. Taking a deep breath I beckoned him over to the table.
We sat at opposite ends, the long table between us being a safe distance. He tapped mindless patterns on the teak surface and my fingers clutched under the table the heavy trophy I'd managed to slip from the mantelpiece. The silence would have continued all night had he not broken it first.
“Are your parents home?”
I considered lying to him, telling him that they were close by, but he had seen the fear on my face and the lack of a response to my initial shout of terror. The question was odd and I considered for a moment whether this stranger is not as bright as he seemed. Silence answered his question, I refused to oblige him.
“Right, that was foolish, it’s obvious you're alone here. Don't be scared, I promised not to hurt you.”
“May I ask you something?”
“Yes, of course!”, he perked up, waiting for the question.
“Why are you afraid?” There was no point in beating around the bush, my knuckles had gone white, fingers wrapped tight around the trophy. Chills still ran down my spine, I wanted him to leave. I needed my answer now.
He paused, considering the question. It was clear he hadn't expected me to be so direct. He took another minute, carefully choosing each word, “I was afraid of you, I am running from some cops, and I feared you'd bring me to them. My only crime was being forgetful.”
Being forgetful? Can the police chase somebody for being forgetful?
My phone buzzed faintly, the sound reaching us from the main hallway where it lay, cracked. My mind was thrumming with different strategies and plans on making the curious stranger leave, yet my curiosity burned brighter and before I knew it, my mouth moved on its own, asking, "Why?"
“I entered the wrong compartment of the train -first class- and the conductor caught me, asking for my ticket. My pockets were empty and I couldn't pay the fine so I did the only thing possible, I jumped out as soon as the train slowed down. However, it seems something had happened in a different compartment, a murder, the local police saw me running and assumed that the crime was linked to me.”
My fear dissipated at this, if this story was true, then I'm simply dealing with a bumbling fool. A murder…suddenly my mind went into an alert mode.... it could be that he was lying and he actually was the murderer and I may have someone far more dangerous in my house.
“-and then I rang the door bell of the first house I came across. Hey? Are you listening?”
Drat! I had got distracted by my own terror-gripped thoughts. I nodded as earnestly as possible but he didn't seem to believe it. He narrowed his eyes, “You don't believe me, do you?”
“No, no. Of course I do. I do believe you,” the words tumbled out as my heart started beating erratically. My fingers had lost all blood, sweaty palms pressed against the cool metal of the trophy.
During the conversation, his eyes constantly drifted towards the clock. It had already been an hour and a half, there was no message from my parents. That made me a little uneasy.
Another 30 minutes passed in tense silence when suddenly he jerked upwards, “Yeah! I won, I won! Thank you so much miss, for your kind cooperation!”
I sat frozen, uncomprehending of his words.
He smiled at me, waved his hand and only said, ‘I will let you know tomorrow. Thanks again, bye’
He shot out of the door, abruptly leaving me numb with shock. Who was this crazy fool? What had I done?
Sleep didn't come easy that night, I refrained from telling my parents about that mad man, no harm had been done to me. I mulled over his words for a good portion of the night before exhaustion pulled me into a fitful sleep.
I awoke next morning to a text from an unknown number.
It read: “Dear Miss, thank you! I am sorry for any terror I might have caused, I couldn't disclose the truth yesterday. I had a bet with my friend, your neighbour Ashish. He bet that if I managed to spend two hours with you, he would pay for all my expenses to go to Singapore. It was simply too tempting for me to not accept. The only condition was that I didn't enlist your help for succeeding in the bet. I apologise again for scaring you. Truth is, I was afraid as well, I was entering a stranger's house rather abruptly, anything could have gone wrong. I am glad it ended the way it did. Thank you for not calling the police!”
I let out a deep sigh. All that terror, all that fear I had felt yesterday, it was for some foolish bet? So it really was a bumbling fool I was dealing with? I resolved to let rationality win out against curiosity the next time I had to deal with such a silly situation. Deep in my heart, I was glad that it was only a fool I dealt with.
Ms. Anjali Mahapatra is a retired teacher from Mumbai who taught Mathematics and Science to students in Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Lucknow and Mumbai for more than thirty years. She took to writing after her retirement and has penned close to a hundred stories so far. Her stories have appeared in Sunnyskyz and other magazines. Two of her collection of short stories, 'An Amazing Letter to Me and Other Stories' and 'Granny Tales' have been published in Kindle Unlimited.
You came one day as a shy child,
Your speech soft and conduct mild,
You knew not, the ways of the world,
Innocent, as a new life unfurled…
And then came your test of talent,
Were you lethargic or were you gallant?
You ran your way to the finish line,
In gold was your medal, a haughty sign,
Your confidence of course, is praiseworthy,
But, child, don’t you ever feel hungry or thirsty?
Your day starts at all odd hours,
You seem to have unspeakable powers!
Like a curious little meerkat, you look for trouble,
With ghastly ease, you blow a soppy bubble,
Prefer to slide the banister than walk a stair,
You roll in the mud, now is that fair?
You run and slip and somersault,
Your earthquakes are worse than the San Andreas fault!
You pull Mel’s hair and make her cry,
You encourage Bob to poke and pry!
You scrape your knee on a sunny day,
You jabber jabber jabber ALL THE WAY!
On rainy days you jump in puddles,
And with wet, dirty clothes you look for cuddles!
I see that mischievous, sheepish grin,
When that little brain of yours is working to create a din,
You carry stones weighed in your pockets,
In class, with utmost attention, you fly rockets!
Loud are you at the dinner table,
You speak of ghost stories and of unheard fables,
Your tall tales amuse teachers, the sternest,
Backing your little gossips by your pretense of being Ernest,
You clatter your cutlery, spill soup on your knee,
When no one’s looking, you climb a tree,
Back in your dorm, your shirt has a tear!
And your poor governess has a nightmare!
To study, you are, a complete dawdler!
Oh how I wish you were still that sweet little toddler!
But all your antics accepted, though in exasperation,
Your achievements indeed cause proud jubilation.
One day without you makes it eerily still,
Like some unknown presence has taken away the will,
To do anything, for the day is too quiet
As opposed to your little ‘riots’…
Oh, but at last when you are safely embraced in slumber,
With nothing to disturb you or encumber,
Shut your eyes with so much ease,
You’re the perfect angel, and the world has its peace…
Uma is a student of Electronic media and broadcast communication. She is immensely passionate about the performing and literary arts. She is enthusiastic about 3D animation amd gaming. She works at an international school.
Translated from Malayalam by Sreekumar K
Chottu had this question in his mind for days. He knew his mother would scold him if he asked her. She had told him many times not to disturb her when she was busy.
As much as he thought, Chottu could not find another person to help him clear his doubt. Looking up at the sky and watching the bundles of cotton as they moved across it, he waited for his mother to be less busy.
The village office nearby had much business that day and a reasonably big part of it spilled over to Athira's rather tiny photostat shop. She was able to enhance her small income by helping people fill up application forms and giving them reliable guidelines in whatever they wanted to do at the village office.
Chottu found the break he was waiting for and moved over to his mother and wound her shawl around his left arm. This was always his way of catching her attention.
She got the hint and asked him, "OK, what is it this time?"
Chhotu felt a little embarrassed. Everyone knew that he liked toying with the questions in his mind more than playing with the toys in his hand.
"Don't you think it's is a good idea to build a home in the sky?"
"Sure," said Athira, though she sounded totally non-committal.
"How will that sir in the village office go up the sky?"
"What!" She went blank.
"Yes, that grandpa who was here yesterday was inviting him to go survey the sky he has bought."
In an instant she knew the whole story. She laughed out loud and Chottu looked around.
No one was there to join her in her laughter. As long as it was just his mother laughing at him, it was OK.
"Chottu, you can't survey the sky. No one can. That grandpa was joking. Sky is where gods reside. They won't let anyone go anywhere near their home." "Alive, " she added as an afterthought.
"Was he joking or lying? He told me he was planning to share with me a little bit of his land up in the sky."
As he uttered the two words ‘sky’ and ‘land’ together, it sort of became clear to him how foolish he was.
He wanted to laugh but it did hurt to let go a dream.
Athira too felt a tinge of pain as mothers often do when their young ones get hurt.
"He was joking," Athira tried to sound convincing.
"Now, you may go and play. I have some work to finish."
As Chhotu skipped out of the sultry air in that room, the image of a lonely old man rushed into Athira’s mind. Chottu had seen Joseph only the previous day. He knew nothing about him.
She usually left him at home with her mother. For two days her mother was not feeling well and she had to bring him with her to her shop
Athiraa looked at Chottu playing outside. Apart from him, her mother was her only relative.
More memories rushed in. She patted her left leg as if to reassure it that everything was all right.
Long back when a young man, looking into her big eyes and passing his fingers through her curly hair, proposed to her, she looked the other way and pointed out to him her weak left leg.
“Your mind is strong and beautiful. Nothing else matters,” he said
But it took him only six months to go away leaving her with little Chottu.
No idea where he disappeared.
She still waited for him and took her supper late at night. Just in case.
Two days ago when she found the funny old man engaged in an interesting conversation with Chottu, she felt very happy. His own grandpa hadn’t waited to see his only grandson.
Watching Joseph, the funny old man, chat away with Chottu, Athira felt very happy.
Joseph was always in his best appearance: well-ironed shirt, clean dhothi, freshly trimmed beard and a neat stylish haircut.
He had the look of a scholar about him. May be he was.
Nobody would get a clear idea about him when they saw him for the first time. Only those who dealt with him several times would know that he had lost his mind long back.
He had had the biggest jewellery shop in the city and invested heavily in real estate.
The new economic policies took away all that.
His sons had to struggle really hard to bring him back to normal life. His sanity could not be restored completely. So, he went around as a harmless, funny old man.
His lived close to the village office and when his real estate business had been in full swing, they used to joke about it. They said he could not tell which was which.
He frequented the village office though he had no business to be there. Every day he would visit the village office to chat with all his friends there and go out by just before lunch time, mumbling to himself how long he had been going from pillar to post to get just a certificate of possession of his own property.
Those who were not familiar with him would ask him for details.
“O, nothing much,” he would tell them rather casually about his unresolved issues.
“I have bought a few acres of land. These people won’t give me a certificate of possession. They say they have to officially go see it and survey it. It is right in front of their eyes. Why can’t they just look up and see it? I told them I am in a hurry to start a farm there.”
Then he would lower his voice and whisper to them.
“Real estate has fallen headlong, so I am learning new tricks.”
At this point the listeners would get the smell of money and definitely ask him the exact location of his property.
He would point at the sky without looking up at it and lower his tone further and reveal a great secret.
“Farming is not the answer. I am prospecting for gold in the sky. I will start digging the moment I get my certificate of possession.”
Realising the situation, the listeners would slowly move away without taking their eyes off the old man.
Chottu had stopped playing outside and was looking at his mother. She called him to her side and lifting up his face with her right hand looked straight into his eyes. She combed his wavy hair with the other hand and said, “Don't worry. We can ask him when he comes tomorrow. There might be a way of reaching the sky alive, I am sure.”
Holding him close to her heart and looking away from his face she continued as an afterthought, “I am sure.”
Over his mother’s shoulder Chottu was also looking up at the sky.
Among the bundles of cotton which were sailing aimlessly in the sky he was searching for another question.
Mini K Antony runs her own boutique at Thrissur, Kerala. She is a fashion designer whose creations are in good demand. A passionate, prolific writer in Malayalam, she contributes poems and short stories regularly to on-line literary groups and e-magazines. She lives at Kattukuzhy with her husband C V Xavier and her two kids, Seethal Grace and Alen Venus.
Thoughts influence our actions. Every action we have undertaken started off as a thought in the mind. Hence we can simply conclude that “THOUGHTS SHAPE OUR REALITY”. Research in Neuroscience today has shown that the very nature of our thoughts have the potential to rewire our brains and alter our moods. While positive thoughts make the body calm and happy, negative thoughts have a negative impact on the body. In the Fast Moving World that we live in today, stress and negativity have become the leading cause of a majority of physical and mental disorders. Therefore, it is very important to understand the impact our thoughts have on our overall well-being and that is why I decided to address this issue and enlighten you on the importance of “POSITIVE THINKING.”
STRESS – The Kryptonite to our Superman:
In order to completely understand the importance of optimism, we must first understand the impact of pessimism. Physically, stress and negativity have a direct effect on the body’s immune system. Exposure to excessive amounts of stress can result in a variety of health issues. On a mental and emotional level, it can cause mental breakdowns which can lead to depression in the long run. This can affect our personal life as well as our relationships. In a majority of cases, the situation is not the problem but the way we approach it is what makes it stressful. This usually happens when the mind is agitated and unable to think clearly. As a result, it could cause us to make hasty decisions which could have negative consequences. This is why people say that you should not take any major decisions when you are sad/ upset.
Why you should B+(Be Positive):
Now that we understand what stress does to ourselves, let us take a look at how ‘POSITIVE THINKING’ improves the quality of our lives from an ideal perspective. Medically speaking, Positive thoughts can help maintain overall health and well-being as these thoughts secrete chemicals (Happiness hormones) such as dopamine, serotonin etc. all over the body which enables our organs to function efficiently. On a mental and emotional level, an optimistic mindset will help you deal with difficult situations in a rational manner. This will help avoid hasty decisions as the mind is calmer and able to see things as they are.
Why calm is the new superpower?
In life, problems and difficult situations are inherent. Therefore, if you cultivate the right mindset, you will be able to sail through these times in a smooth manner. An optimistic mindset makes you look at life in a positive manner while a pessimistic mindset does the opposite. That being said; let us see how POSITIVE THINKING can help improve our lives in today’s stressful fast-paced World. In the midst of problems, optimistic people can offer better solutions and make wiser decisions as they come from a place of rationality instead of haste. When the mind is calm, it focuses on solving the problem instead of stressing over it. As a result, the problem is solved easily. Moreover, optimistic people don’t allow failure to get the better of them. Therefore, they usually end up more successful than pessimistic people. Thus we can see how Positive Thinking can be practically applied in today’s reality and is not some Outdated Utopian Philosophy.
How to cultivate positive thoughts?
Now that you understand how your thought patterns directly affect your personality, I would like to give you some tips on how to cultivate and apply these positive thoughts in your day-to-day life.
Introspection:
Introspection is the examination of one’s own conscious thoughts and feelings. A majority of the “Problems” that we go through are simply because of our own thought patterns. By constant self-introspection, you will be able to identify the negative triggers in your thought patterns and will enable you to take adequate measures to heal them. A good way of practicing this is to make an examination of conscience every night before going to sleep. This will help you to be more aware of your actions and the intentions behind them. By doing this, you will be able to eliminate a lot of negativity from your own life and will make you a calm and responsible person.
Acknowledge Sadness:
No matter how positive we try to be, there will be sometimes when we get hurt/upset by people and situations. There is nothing wrong in getting upset but it is the way we deal with it that makes it a problem. It is important to acknowledge that these feelings are there and that they are temporary. By doing this, these emotions will come, stay for a little while and then go. This is why we feel a lot better after a good cry. I know that this seems paradoxical to POSITIVE THINKING but bottling up your feelings during difficult times can result in bitterness later on. Therefore, it is very important to balance our emotions and express them in the right way and at the right time.
Live in the Present:
Many times in life, we find that our minds are always busy thinking of either the past or the future. We rarely get to enjoy the present moment. While memory and imagination are essential for living, we should not allow it to ruin the present moment. Rather, we must enjoy the present moment to the fullest as the past is already over and the future is uncertain. Lao Tzu, a famous Chinese philosopher said, “If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”
YOGA AND MEDITATION
In India, Ashtanga Yoga has been practiced for thousands of years in order to keep the body, mind, intellect, and soul healthy. These techniques have been scientifically proven to have a positive and healthy effect on the human body and mind. Practicing Ashtanga Yoga will help you steer yourself in a positive direction. It is important to understand that “Yoga” is not merely just an exercise as many people think but is a lifestyle to enhance our human experience and it requires discipline, dedication, mindfulness, and good intentions.
WISH YOU A POSITIVE, HEALTHY AND HAPPY LIFE. :)
Sanjit Singh is pursuing B.Com (final year) in Loyola College, Chennai. His hobbies include juggling, origami, shuttle badminton, public speaking and writing. He has a blog on wordpress.com named "Sanjit Singh - Unconventional Wisdom." The aim of my blog is to present simple solutions to complicated problems that his generation faces.
MONALISA! O, O, MONALISA!
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
Jagaa and I reached Harishankar's place at the same time. The host opened the door, a big smile plastered on his face like a shining full moon. We knew why he was floating in a wave of joy. It is an universal axiom that when the wife goes away to her mother's place for three days, with the children in tow, smile never fades from the bubbling husband. He starts counting .... seventy two hours! Of freedom, of mad, merry abandon! That too in the company of five yaars and six bottles! Didn't someone say if there is heaven on earth, it's here, it's here!
As we entered the gate of heaven, we found Sundar and Raghav waiting, their gaze glued on the bottles of whiskey, soda and innumerable plates of snacks procured courtesy Zomato. We waited for Ranjan and the wait was painful. Ever since the call came in the afternoon, we were in a state of mild euphoria, walking on a cloud and waiting for the hour of rendezvous. It was Harishankar who had called from the shop dispensing the golden liquid in bottles and asked whether he should get Peter Scott instead of the usual Royal Challenge, since the occasion called for special celebrations. He gave us the happy news that we can have three successive evening sessions at his place, a rarity, and that's why he was buying six bottles of the golden liquid.
We were getting increasingly impatient. Having waited since afternoon with throbbing anticipation, any delay in caressing the life-sustaining beverage in our parched throat was intolerable. Sundar who specialises in using innovative expletives involving different parts of human anatomy and covering a wide range of relatives but with a distinct partiality towards mothers and sisters, had started warming up. Today he was expected to outshine himself, since he was hopping mad. His boss, Madam Malabika Mahanty, the Secretary of the Department where Sundar worked as an Under Secretary had transferred him as Assistant District Supplies Officer to Dhenknal, a small town a hundred kilometres away.
Sundar had a hate-hate relationship with his boss, and it was mutual. She had taken a dislike to him on the very first day of their meeting, when he had gone to ask her for some clarifications on the instruction she had given in the file. She had got mad at his audacity and after that it was a rapid downhill journey culminating on his transfer out of Bhubaneswar. It was expected that today Sundar would use some specially colourful language against his boss and will go the extra mile. And those who have ever enjoyed the pleasure of participating in boss-bashing, know what an extraordinary pleasure it gives, the closest to such exotic experience is probably the reckless scratching of a patch of eczema for extended hours.
Sundar had just started with a mild exploration of Ranjan's immediate ancestry when the door bell rang. It had an electrifying effect on us. Harishankar and I ran towards the door, while Sundar and Raghav sprinted to the table where the golden liquid sat, looking languidly at us.
Imagine our shock when Ranjan entered with a big packet in his hand. The six of us were bound by a sacred bond of exclusive loyalty towards bottles of golden liquid and the idea of bringing a gift for someone was sacrilegious. Jagaa exploded like a bomb at the sight of the unwieldy package, "Abbey Ranjan, how dare you bring a gift for Harishankar? Who gave you this idea?"
Ranjan put the big packet down, leaning it against the wall and looked at us with a rare show of sadness, "Arrey nehin yaar, it's not a gift for Harishankar. It's a painting of Monalisa. My wife Swarupa was throwing it away. I rescued it and brought it here".
I was shocked,
"Throwing away a Monalisa painting? Is she crazy, who throws away a Monalisa painting?"
Ranjan shook his head,
"Swarupa does, she is a specialist in throwing away things. Anything she thinks old and ugly, she gives the boot. Some mornings I shiver at the way she looks at me pointedly, her brows knitted and mind in deep thought. I am sure those are the moments she must be contemplating whether I have become old and ugly enough to be given away to the Kabadiwallah or she has to wait for some more time."
Ranjan shuddered at the memory and continued, "This painting has been with us for more than nine years, on the wall of the drawing room and she says it must go. We had quite a fight before I came here. I told her she must be out of her mind to throw away such a precious painting. I reminded her that thirty thousand tourists come to Louvre Museum in Paris every day to have a glimpse of Monalisa's smile. She got even madder, 'Is it? Ok, ask those thirty thousand people to stand before Monalisa for nine years and see her smile! Then you will know why this damn painting gets on my nerves, I won't listen to you, have you ever cleaned the painting even once, you only know how to give lectures, you are only big talk, no action!' That touched a raw nerve and I put the painting in this big packet and brought it here."
Sundar and Raghav had already prepared the first peg of the evening and handed over a glass to each of us. Jagaa opened the packet and took out the painting. It was beautifully framed in clear glass and was indeed a piece of beauty. I gasped in awe, "Such a beautiful piece and she wants to throw it away! Looks like a very expensive painting. Where did you get it".
"My uncle had brought it for us from Paris. It seems outside the Louvre Museum there are artists who make sketch paintings or oil paintings of Monalisa and sell them for a good price. This one is an oil painting. A really beautiful one, as you can see."
"So what are you going to do with it now?"
"I don't know. Maybe I will give it away to someone"
For some weird reason he looked at Raghav and asked, "Do you want to take it?"
Raghav was a bit surprised at his selection for this show of generosity, but he nodded his acceptance.
Jagaa, his bête noire blurted out,
"I am the one who should take it. What will Raghav know about a Monalisa painting? It is as good as offering Madhubala to Mukri, he will need a ladder to reach her cheek to plant a kiss!"
Raghav and Jagaa in our group are like two boxers with loose underwears. Always charging at each other but not sure if they should first hold on to their sliding underwear to protect their modesty. If Raghav wants one chicken lollipop to go with his peg Jagaa would pick up two mutton chops, and they would fight for the last piece of fish finger like it was the perfumed hanky of Katrina Kaif! That's how they are!
Raghav was not prepared to take this insult lying down. He glared at Jagaa, but before he could roar a protest, Ranjan looked at me and said, "How about you? Are you also interested".
I smiled,
"Of course, who wouldn't want a Monalisa painting? I will hang it on my living room wall, my children will brag about it to their friends."
Sundar asked a pertinent question to Ranjan. Our brain was still functioning, after downing the first peg like a thirsty Bedouin in a summer desert we were about to finish the second peg.
"How can you give the painting to the three of them? You can't tear it to three pieces, can you? And for all that you know I may be interested also in taking this beautiful painting home just to impress my wife, just to convince her that when I go out on my drinking sessions it is not always a loss!"
Ranjan looked excited, the evening was getting livelier with the prospect of a fight over a painting! He looked at Harishankar, "What do you say? You must be thinking, after all Monalisa has come all the way to your home, why should she not stay here? You already have a claim on her, don't you?"
Harishankar nodded, as if the question begged no answer.
Ranjan looked at all of us, a mischievous smile lighting up his face, "Ok, there is one painting and five claimants. So how do I decide who should get it? Let's do one thing. Each of you look at Monalisa closely and tell others what is the meaning of her famous smile. Whoever gives the best interpretation gets the painting...."
Before he could complete, Jagaa used an expletive which roughly translated to 'a habitual molester of an innocent dog', "You xxx xxxx, you think we are school boys assembled here to participate in a debate to win a prize? Are we imbecile idiots? And who are you to be a judge, why don't you give your own interpretation? After all you have been looking at that face for the last nine years?"
Ranjan raised his hand,
"See, what's the point? Even if I give the best interpretation I still cannot take the painting with me. Swarupa has left me in no doubt that if I take this painting back she won't let me enter the house. So? What do the others say? You think we should try an inerpretaion of Monalisa's smile? Jagaa can withdraw from the race if he doesn't want to participate in it."
Ranjan's smile of mischief turned naughty, or that's how it looked to us, since we had quickly gulped three pegs of Peter Scott like we were readying to march to a war with a misadventurous neighbouring country. Sundar had dragged the drinks and snacks table to the centre of the drawing room and we were now making quick trips to refill our glass with the golden liquid.
Jagaa snorted like a bull surprised by a pinch of chilly powder sprinkled on its rear end, "What's so big about that smile? Yes, yes, don't shake your face like a monkey's bum, I know thousands of art scholars have been trying to interpret that smile for thousands of years but tell me is it even a smile? She looks so confused, she is not even sure whether she wants to smile or not. Opening of the mouth by one hundredth of an inch, you call it a smile? Was she doing a charity to the world? She was not only confused, she was being miserly also. Didn't some wise man say, one who cannot smile with an open heart is condemned to perpetual constipation? That's what it looks like, yes, it's a highly constipated smile. It's a reflection of a jumbled up mind, cluttered and cobwebbed..."
Jagga would have gone on, but this show of brilliance was so unexpected from him that we started clapping. Jagaa who seemed to have been carried away by oratory came to his senses and gulped down the few drops left in his glass and hurried to refill it.
We knew Jagaa wouldn't return to his oratory, he had in fact far exceeded his own expectation. So we looked at Raghav, who pounced upon this opportunity to denounce Jagaa. He started grandly, "This Jagaa is an idiot, what does he know of artistry and modelling? A constipated smile? Ha ! What a gross underestimation of a great piece of art? Ask me, I know what that smile means, it has desire for sex oozing out of it. We know how sexually obsessed these foreigners are. When the artist was busy drawing her picture, she was openly inviting him to come to her and take her in his arms. And this idiot Jagga thinks it is a constipated smile? I will say it is the other way, it is an open invitation to the artist to ravish her, to take her to great heights of passion."
With this authoritative statement which Raghav thought was the ultimate verdict on Monalisa's smile, he gulped his drink and got up to refill his glass.
Harishankar, our host, had lifted the painting and was keenly observing it. Jagaa, no respecter of introspection and modesty, hollered at him, "Oye, intellectual giant, don't pretend big, as if you are a bull's hump, tell us what you think of the smile."
Harishankar sat down, took a sip of his drink, "See, I had read somewhere, this painting was made by Leonardo Da Vinci, the Italian artist sometime in early sixteenth century. Jagaa was wrong when he said scholars are doing research on it for thousands of years. The painting is just about five hundred years old. And this Monalisa looks like a big model. Those days artists used to enjoy their models to the full. The smile is a clear indication that Monalisa is sitting happy and content after a good session of love making. The smile is of utter satisfaction."
Harishankar paused, probably to give time for the idea to sink in. To our alcohol soaked mind, the possibilty of wild love making between an artist and his model appeared to be truly tantalising, but Harishankar was not done, he came up with another theory, it looked as if he was determined to lift the painting as a trophy with his brilliant analysis, "Or, it is also possible that the artist asked the model to sit in nude, which was a standard practice those days, painting the models nude. But this Monalisa might have been a stubborn woman, she might have refused to pose in nude. This smile is one of contempt for the artist, as if she is telling him, 'I won't pose in nude, what can you do? I am sitting here, can you even bend a little hair on my head?' Look closely at the smile, can't you see the little smile of defiance?"
Our mind went into an overdrive..shifting the gear from love making to contemptuous defiance needed some manoeuvring and we were not sure if the fourth peg of the golden liquid in our glass would permit that.
We left Harishankar to his smug smile and looked at Sundar who was raring to go, like a dog on leash eager to run in a race. He took one look at the painting and broke into a maniacal laughter, "Ha, ha! Ho ho, this is Monalisa's smile? What Monalisa? Monalisa who? Monalisa Mohanty? Or Malabika Mohanty? This is Malabika Mohanty smiling at me, and she thinks it is a smile of victory! For transferring me out of Bhubaneswar! What does she know? Does she have a drop of intelligence in her thick head, a small drop, even the size of the spit of my paan? These IAS officers only know how to write brilliant answers and pass the exam, do they know how to even spin a paper weight properly? Ask me, I know how to spin a Malabika Mohanty on my middle finger. She thinks she has done a big job by throwing me to Dhenknal! Ha! Dhenkanal, my xxxxx! I will go and join there in the morning and come back in the evening, stay in Bhubaneswar and go again next week. Just for a day and then back at Bhubaneswar. That's what I will do, Malabika witch will be pouring over files, burning her calloused bum in the office, I will be at home watching movies and eating rice and fish curry for lunch and paratha and mutton gravy for dinner...."
Sundar laughed one of his hideous laughters again, sending us into a wave of shock. In sheer nervousness Harishankar asked, "Will your boss in Dhenkanal permit that? And how will the government run if the Asssistant District Supplies Officer remains absent from his district?"
Sundar took off from where he had left, filling his glass for the fifth peg, walking on unsteady feet, but not missing the target of the bottle by an inch, "My Boss? Ha ha, he and I are the same to same. He lives at Sambalpur and comes to Dhenkanal on Mondays, I will live in Bhubaneswar and go to Dhenkanal on Thursdays. But rest assured, the supply chain will be maintained, every one will get whatever is due to him. No one will be denied his monthly bribe. I have already spoken to him, a gem of a person, not like that piece of shit who goes by the name of Malabika Mohanty. And you ask me how will the government run? My answer is, government should not run, it should sit and relax, like this..."
To our amazement Sundar sat down on the floor, but he was not done, in a slurred speech that reminded us of a hen in labour pain, he elaborated, "Government should not run too much, if it runs like that, it will collapse and then come to crawl..."
Sundar carefully held the glass in his hand like a circus clown holding on to his hat and started crawling slowly. In a second he stopped, looked at us smilingly like the baby Krisna on his knees looking at mother Yashoda. We would have laughed if it was not so precarious for the glass containing the precious golden liquid which could tumble unto the ground any moment. There was a collective gasp, our concern for the glass palpable like a mother snake's concern for her fragile eggs. Harishankar, along with Ranjan, lifted Sundar from the ground and deposited him on a chair, a delicate operation, considering that they had to make sure the glass in Sundar's hand remained unharmed. We presumed, and rightly so, that Sundar had finished his interpretation of 'Monalisa Mohanty's' smile.
I was the only one left now. All eyes, barring Sundar's were on me, waiting to hear my views on Monalisa's smile. I looked at the painting for a few seconds and shook my head, "What a wonderful smile! Some say the model was a man, some say it was a woman. But it doesn't matter, the smile is unique. You have to look at it as a whole. As if the the entire face is lit up with a smile, the eyes, the lips, everything has a hint of smile. When a person smiles like that it comes from within, it reflects the heart, the mind and the soul. Unless one knows what was going on in the model's mind or in the heart one cannot understand the smile. Unfortunately, the artist has left no clue to it. That's why the smile is a challenge to so many people, the art lovers, the critics and the academics....."
Before I could complete Jagaa burst out like a cracker, I had forgotten that the word 'challenge' itself is a big challenge to Jagaa, "Challenge? What challenge? You are making a mountain out of a tiny smile. There is no art fart in this painting, she is just a beautiful foreigner, like all foreigners. Here, let me see how beautiful she is....."
Jagaa lifted the painting, looked at it for a few seconds, clasped it to his bosom and broke into a song. Like the famous song Monicaaaaa, O My Darling.....Jagaa shouted Monalisaaaaaa, O My Darling.........
This appropriation of Monalisa by Jagaa aroused the primitive warrior in Raghav, his perennial rival. In a bounce he jumped to Jagaa's side and tried to snatch the painting from him. He managed to do that and broke into his own song, 'Monalisa, O, O, Monalisa, ....Monalisa, O, O, Monalisa...'
To our utter shock, a fight broke out between the two, Jagaa was bent on pulling the painting back to himself, Raghav was holding on to it for his dear life. And in the ensuing melee the painting dropped to the floor with a big clang!
We stopped whatever we were doing, and stood still, our glasses suspended in mid air like trapeze artists in a circus. There was a stunned silence which was broken by a piercing wail from Harishankar, "Abbey idiots, imbeciles, what did you do? Look at the floor, it is full of broken pieces of glass. When Kalyani returns after three days if she finds even one small piece of glass somewhere, she will sit on my chest, drill a hole in my throat and drink blood like a lady Dracula. Don't stand like zombies, go and get the broom and clear up the place, you half witted mongrels!"
If someone had told me before that fateful moment that one can descend from hopeless intoxication to perfectly sane sobriety within a minute or so, I would not have believed it. But it did happen, everyone got busy, Jagaa ran to the courtyard and got two brooms, he and Raghav started weeping the floor. Harishankar stood in a corner, shivering to the roots of his hair, thinking of the worst. Sundar kept sitting on his chair, eyes closed, oblivious to the mess around him. Ranjan kept smiling, relieved that he wouldn't have to bother about Monalisa any more.
I picked up the painting from the floor, took it to the table and leaned it against the wall. It had been badly mutilated by the broken glasses, and was as good as useless. But somehow the face in the painting had been saved from any damage. I looked at Monalisa's face, and the smile which had lit it up. It came alive and captivated me. The beauty of the smile made me think, perhaps it was the smile of a beloved, silently beckoning to her lover to come close and pluck the smile with his loving lips and spread it on his own face like a rare perfume.
The next moment I thought of it as a beloved's reply to a smile from her sweetheart, the flash of a tiny lightning that left her face with a soft glow. Or could it be that Monalisa's smile was a beauty wrapped in mystery, the beginning of a journey in search of truth? Is it that Monalisa was telling everyone who looked at her, 'See my smile, keep it in your heart, feel me, feel my mystery, it will wrap you in a timeless enigma, you will never be able to forget me, my face and my smile. Every time it stirs your mind, you will come running to me, I will be sitting here, leaning against a white wall, to take you on an endless journey of bewitching mystery!'
Dr. Mrutyunjay Sarangi is a retired civil servant and a former Judge in a Tribunal. Currently his time is divided between writing short stories and managing the website PositiveVibes.Today. He has published eight books of short stories in Odiya and has won a couple of awards, notably the Fakir Mohan Senapati Award for Short Stories from the Utkal Sahitya Samaj.
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