Literary Vibes - Edition CXXXIV (27-Oct-2023) - SHORT STORIES & ANECDOTES
Title : Spending Time (Picture courtesy Ms. Latha Prem Sakya)
Prof. Latha Prem Sakya a poet, painter and a retired Professor of English, has published three books of poetry. MEMORY RAIN (2008), NATURE AT MY DOOR STEP (2011) - an experimental blend, of poems, reflections and paintings ,VERNAL STROKE (2015 ) a collection of all her poems. Her poems were published in journals like IJPCL, Quest, and in e magazines like Indian Rumination, Spark, Muse India, Enchanting Verses international, Spill words etc. She has been anthologized in Roots and Wings (2011), Ripples of Peace ( 2018), Complexion Based Discrimination ( 2018), Tranquil Muse (2018) and The Current (2019). She is member of various poetic groups like Poetry Chain, India poetry Circle and Aksharasthree - The Literary woman, World Peace and Harmony)
Table of Contents :: SHORT STORIES & ANECDOTES
01) Ajay K Upadhyaya, MD
MAGIC OF MUSIC
02) Prabhanjan K. Mishra
LONG SHADOW OF LOVE
03) Ishwar Pati
DISASTER IN THE OFFING
04) Late Manoj Ku. Panda
BEYOND THE MOONLIT SKY
05) Gourang Charan Roul
HIRAKUD DIAMOND RUSH (1988-90)..
06) Madhumathi. H
NOW IS THE TIME...
07) Ashok Kumar Mishra
SOULMATES ( YUGALBANDI)
08) T.V. Sreekumar
WALLS REPEATED
09) Hema Ravi
OLYMPIA’S WASHINGTON STATE CAPITOL...
10) Nitish Nivedan Barik
A LEAF FROM HISTORY: ABOUT THE PRIZE FOR PEACE
11) Sheena Rath
DAY 6
12) Bankim Chandra Tola
LIVE AND LET LIVE
13) Subha bharadwaj .
SANJI MATA
14) Destiny Amakwe
IMPRINTED SCARS
15) Anasuya Panda
DOES SUCCESS HAVE ANY END?
16) Sreechandra Banerjee
SCULPTURE OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE
17) Mrutyunjay Sarangi
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
"LV134 collaborates with the special Pooja edition which contains 12 interesting stories published on 24th October. Please click on https://positivevibes.today/article/newsview/507 to read those beautiful stories."
I - Music and the Mind
Music, arguably, is the most creative of all art forms. Unlike painting or sculpture, which generally has as its substrate a concrete object in the physical world, the constituents of music are almost entirely abstract in form. Unlike literature, appreciation of music does not require a level of intellect or knowledge. Enjoyment of music has an immediacy which bypasses thought process, which makes music more penetrating than all other forms of art.
According to philosopher Schopenhauer, “The inexpressible depth of music, so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being but entirely without reality and remote from its pain.”
Despite its elusive nature, music is capable of moving our body and rousing strong emotions. Although man is described as a “visual” being, emotional arousal has a stronger association with hearing than with vision. Psychiatrist Anthony Storr postulates, this may be because at the beginning of life we can hear before we can see. According to him, “Our first experience of hearing takes place in the womb, long before we leap into this world and begin to look at it.” The cacophony of mother’s womb provides the earliest indication of an external world for the baby in the utero.
The powerful effect of music on our mind is undeniable but the key to its magic remains an enigma. Reduced to its basic ingredients, music is a series of sounds or tones arranged in a particular way. It is the relation between the tones, not the tones themselves, which constitutes music. The brain performs the mechanical task of perceiving the tones but our mind generates an intangible experience, we call music. Music creates a pattern or a gestalt which appeals to the human mind. Perhaps, it is the ability to impose some order on the complexity of the world around us what gives music its special affinity.
As the legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin puts it, “Music creates order out of chaos; for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent; melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility among the incongruous.”
No wonder, music has been equated with mathematics as a paradigm for our mind to make structured sense out of chaos. Both Music and Mathematics are in the business of linking together abstractions of the universe at a non verbal level. As mathematical equations shed light on the workings of the nature, patterns in music creates an awareness of the order in the universe in our mind from the emotions it induces in our body.
Intriguingly, in its ability to impose some order on the world around us, music has been compared not only with mathematics but also with something as diverse as religion. As Anthony Storr writes, “All religions seem to be attempts of the human mind to impose some kind of order on the chaos of existence. Religion provides us with a belief system, which makes a sense out of this world and our place in it. Although music is not a belief system, it offers a way of ordering human experience.”
Given our “susceptibility to music” through its profound links with the workings of our brain and mind, it is hardly surprising that music has been used as a form of therapy for several neurological and psychiatric disorders.
Oliver Sacks, the eminent neurologist, describes, the transformation induced by music in patients with Parkinson’s Disease. These patients, who were previously completely immobile, could be roused into fluid movements, albeit transient, akin to the effect of the potent medications for their disease.
Music can lift us out of our tangible world, transporting us to an ethereal realm. It is true that all forms of art including music provides a release from the pain of mundane existence. For a moment we are taken out of our world of time and space, of our selves, even out of our own bodies. This has been sometimes described disparagingly as an as an attempt to seek an escape from reality.
But what music achieves is not merely an escape. Great music has the power to transport us into a metaphysical realm and put us in touch with the essence of things as opposed to its shadow, as experienced in the physical world. What music expresses is the inner spirit of things and thus symbolises the essence of nature. As Schopenhauer puts it, “Music expresses only the quintessence of life and of its events never these themselves.”
The next section explores how this powerful effect of music on our mind can literally save our life. We shall examine the role of music in tackling an important challenge: how to prevent suicides.
II - Suicide Prevention: A Personal Perspective
The oft-quoted line from Hamlet’s soliloquy - To be, or not to be: that is the question, is a reminder that suicidal thoughts are common. It is rare for someone to never experience a thought in their lifetime to the effect that life is not worth living or there is no point carrying on. But, suicide is fortunately rare. So powerful is our life force that we successfully fend off such gloomy thoughts and plod on despite life’s trials and tribulations. But very occasionally, this inbuilt safety mechanism breaks down and we are struck by the disaster of suicide, the most devastating of all life events.
Suicide is the end result of a complex interplay of multiple psychosocial forces. This is what makes suicide prevention neither simple nor easy. Firstly, because of its relative rarity, identifying the suicide victim accurately is like picking a needle from a hay stack. More importantly, we don’t fully understand how these factors operate in this tortuous path from suicidal thoughts to the deadly action.
In the event of a suicide, what is the most likely comment you hear in reaction to the news? “Oh, I did not know, he/she had a psychiatric problem!” As hopelessness is a core feature of Depression, the “Depression paradigm” is a prime candidate for explaining suicidal behaviour. By now, it is common knowledge that mental disorders are the main cause of suicide. Suicide is such an aberration of human behaviour that it is easy to see why we think someone must be mad to kill oneself.
In the West, psychological autopsy studies, which reconstruct from medical records and interview with family and friends the victim’s life and ascertain his state of mind, prior to the suicidal act, have shown that about 90% of suicide victims suffered from a psychiatric condition. The vast majority of them had what could be diagnosed as a Depressive Disorder. This is the basis of the conventional wisdom that improving access to early diagnosis and effective treatment of depression would prevent most suicides.
But studies from South East Asian countries like India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Indonesia, which account for 26% of world’s population and 40% of suicides globally, show a different picture, The proportion of people with a mental disorder among suicide victims is generally lower and varies widely from 88% to 10%. Even after allowing for some missed cases of Depression amongst suicide victims, the contrast is stark. The Asian studies also show a gender reversal, with a preponderance of women and furthermore stressful life events figure prominently in them. Although depressed affect is likely to be the immediate antecedent to the suicidal act, the causal link between Depression, as a psychiatric diagnosis and suicide is probably an oversimplification.
These studies point to a constellation of powerful social factors, which play a larger role in suicides in developing countries. Significance of social forces in suicide was first highlighted by the French sociologist, Emil Durkheim, generally regarded as the founder of the academic discipline of Sociology. In his seminal monograph, Le Suicide, published in 1897, he demonstrated that social integration and social regulation are powerful determinants of our sense of well being. Both deficits in this integration or regulation as well as their excess can disturb our mental equilibrium and extremes in these imbalances can lead to suicide. He treated suicide as a social fact and explained it as a symptom of collective social deviance. He argued, there was more to suicide than very personal individual life circumstances such as unemployment, divorce or bankruptcy. He considered social forces such as lack of connection between people and lack of regulation of behaviour were more powerful than individual feelings and motivations.
In fact, far from being confusing, such contrasting results form studies across the globe are illustrative of the complexity of suicide. We can see from the following examples, how the “Disease” model fails for many instances of suicide.
Consider the case of an 80 year old, previously active and healthy man, dying from terminal cancer. Or, a twenty-year-old woman in India whose family is dead opposed to her plans to marry her lover form a different caste or community, or a 15-year-old school girl who is heartbroken to receive her school examination score at 89% in stead the expected 98%.
Or, take the example of a suicide note, which read: “This world is so harsh and unfair that it is fit for only two groups of people - geniuses or idiots. As I am neither, I must die.” Worldwide, these examples make up the vast majority of people who die by suicide. What about the extreme scenario of the Japanese soldier performing Hara-Kiri, a form of ritual suicide, because it is the honourable thing to do?
In all such instances life seems to have suffered from an abrupt loss of purpose or meaning.
To pigeonhole their predicament into the medical category of Depression does not really advance our understanding of their suicides. A more convincing explanation is provided by their existential or social crises as the driver to the desperate act of self destruction.
At a risk of overgeneralisation, I shall summarise the multifaceted phenomenon of suicide as:
First, Suicide is more a social malady than a psychiatric problem.
Second, Not all suicides are preventable without massive social reorganisation which in turn require political will. Arguably, across the world, reducing inequality of wealth globally is perhaps one of the most effective suicide prevention strategy.
Finally, Suicide prevention is a knotty concept: Even if we come up with an effective prevention measure, it is difficult to judge its effectiveness. For example, spotting a suicide is relatively easy although it is sometimes a challenge to distinguish it from accidental death. But, can we confidently spot when a suicide has been averted by our intervention? Probably many of our actions do prevent suicide but most such success stories remain unaccounted for as it can be fiendish hard to conclude that a suicide has been prevented.
A common theme emerging from the studies, which can explain the sense of profound hopelessness preceding a suicidal act, is the loss of belongingness. If we feel disconnected from our group or social circle, life loses its meaning. This is why suicide is common among single or separated men living alone and a strong religious affiliation is a protective factor for suicide. Paradoxically, the advent of internet, which has excelled in getting the world connected has left us feeling more disconnected than ever. In Asian countries rapid social changes aggravating the deep-seated structural imbalances in the society have amplified the stressors driving people to suicide. Sadly, there is no easy or obvious remedy to correct them in sight. But the sense of connectedness can be improved by individual action and collective social efforts.
In light of the obvious obstacles in fixing the structural faults in the society, in our mission of suicide prevention, the emphasis must be to reinforce the inner reserve and emotional resilience of the individual against the external stresses.
Here, we can broaden the concept of connectedness, beyond the obvious approach of improving our social links with people to “Connection with our inner self”. The goal is to make our inner world more cohesive, thus increasing our resilience to withstand the social stresses impinging on us. There is now growing interest in meditation or mindfulness as a way of reducing our inner turmoil by training our mind to adapt to our environmental adversities positively.
Another approach to bolster the life force, worthy of consideration, is to harness the ineffable charm and the aesthetic beauty of Arts. As we saw, of all forms of art enrich our lives but music has an immediacy and universality which surpasses all other art forms. The effect of music on our body and mind is truly magical because it is so deep in its reach and sweeping in its impact. We all know from personal experience, music induces a surreal sense of floating in the wispy world of intangibles and through great music we come close to experiencing oneness with the creation.
It is this penetrating power of music, which can also change our mood from the despondence at our hopeless social situations to one of exhilaration from experiencing the essence of life. As Nietzsche put it, “Music allows passions to enjoy themselves and by exalting life as it is, transcends its essential tragedy.” Effectively it can make us forget our self pity and the ensuing suicidal thought, albeit temporarily, by realisation of the awe-inspiring cosmic design and our own insignificance in its grand scheme.
Ironically, this profound realisation is possible only as long as we continue to exist. For, however insignificant our individual life might be, we need to remain alive to experience this bliss. By cultivating an interest in music, this aesthetic experience can be an effective antidote to the nihilism of suicide. This insight can replace the sense of futility of life by a new meaning and purpose, which can be truly fulfilling.
Now, consider this scenario for a person contemplating suicide: If an individual life is so immaterial to the vastness of creation, why take the trouble to end it? As suicidal impulses come and go, this exhilarating musical experience, however transient, can potentially save a life. I have already alluded to how hard it is to gauze effectiveness of suicide prevention measures. Intuitively it feels, here is an instance of a suicide being averted, even if it is hard to prove it in a scientific paper for an academic journal.
(Author’s note: This is based on a talk given on the occasion of the World Suicide Prevention Day, held on 10 September 2023.)
Dr. Ajaya Upadhyaya from Hertfordshire, England, is a Retired Consultant Psychiatrist from the British National Health Service and Honorary Senior Lecturer in University College, London.
(Dedicated to Louise Gluck, the American Poet)
Prabhanjan K. Mishra
That Saturday Prabha was excited from the morning about all that would happen during the following twenty-four ours. The first thing she did after getting up was to make her special egg omelet with cheese and veggies for Sadashiv adding a lot of love and attention. For her there was an enchantment in the air.
But after the morning’s great expectations by Prabha, the day sailed by in routine polite gestures exchanged between her and her husband. Sadashiv, who though not unhappy but looked evasive and absentminded. Prabha thought, “It happens once in a while in middle age.”
Once Archana, a friend to Prabha and her husband Sadashiv, who dabbled in psychology, Tarot, and literature, was telling after reading an article, “Men don’t menstruate but in menopausal age like women, may feel a vestigial feeling of menopause-related disturbances like inadequacy and no visible achievements in life’s race, forgetfulness, irritation, feeling unsure and tentative, and lethargic. Careful handling of them in matters of emotion would stand such individuals in good stead to win over the syndrome.”
Sadashiv was perhaps feeling a bit of that, Prabha concluded. She relaxed finding him playing solitaire. There were no win or defeat, she knew, but just a desultory game to keep the mind occupied. Except that she felt all was well.
That Saturday, after the smooth, though uninteresting sailing through the whole day, the night arrived with anticipations. Prabha felt that their age was catching up and pushing them into a more sober domain every passing week. Bodies’ fire was sparking less and less, often getting buried in grey ash to be scrapped out. But she felt it was a necessary need, not a nuisance often the body demanded as routine. It was like revving an engine once in a while. Finally, after a simple dinner they retired and slipped into their twosome privacy behind closed door.
Flapping wings and screeching of bats in nearby Chiku trees outside their bedroom windows alerted Prabha that it was quite late night and it soon be the midnight hour. The birds were fighting over fruits for food and over mates for making love, Prabha knew.
The Saturday night was their appointed weekday, assigned for privacy and intimacy as arranged by her husband Sadashiv. He had fixed every week day for some activity like going to temple, visiting friends or the other household errands like tending the flower patches. He had informed Prabha that he had read it in a novel that had won a Nobel to its author and he wished to follow the system if Prabha had no objection. Prabha had no objection. It had been years.
She knew, the bats were fighting over fruits and mating partners. The dark and silent night before the daybreak was signaling her to be cozy with Sadashiv. Prabha smiled and looked at Sadashiv, and thought to herself, “Is it so? My Shiv? Let’s check it with you.”
Prabha sensed Sadashiv was awake. She placed a hand on Sadashiv as was her wont, her signal for an echo signal from her husband. She sensed Sadashiv coming out of his grumpy cocoon of the day and was ready to meet her midway. But Sadashiv unceremoniously removed Prabha’s hand, kind of throwing it down, and turning away from her. He lay inert on the other edge of bed.
Prabha took it as his reaction in sleep-induced lethargy. She had thought he was awake. But he was not. So, she started it all over again, putting more honey, warmth and love to her fingertips, and making her signal louder and gripping. But what Sadashiv did was unmentionable for Prabha.
He not only threw away her hand again with force but uttered harshly, “Don’t do it, Prabha. Have I no other business than entertaining you?” She realized it was a deliberate and coldblooded rejection, not less than the coldblooded murder of a tender bird, called soul in Indian philosophical expositions. It was an all-out insult to her feminine identity in his life, rising from Shiv’s inner being. Surprisingly, the bats were still quarreling over the two most basic hungers of any life form, hunger for food and hunger for sex.
Prabha sat up. Were the bats quarreling over mating partners or ripe fruits? She was least bothered about which. But surely, she bothered about who was it, the female or male bat who screeched and fought for her or his mating partner.
Suddenly, it became an important question to her. How natural were their needs, might it be food or love. The bats were marsupial mammals like humans, not really birds. They tried to claim their partners from competing claimants so fiercely.
And what would a human do, bound by the social discipline, modesty and shyness, often going to the level of feeling ashamed. She was amazed how delusion ruled human life. In the name of modesty and civility humans would go too far even to give up the natural instinctive demands of their bodies, and rather would dwell in illusions and false beliefs.
She felt the bats had a better social order, freedom of expression. Females had not to hold their tongues for the sake of modesty or civility. But coming back to her personal issue, Prabha was not sure over what and with whom would she fight? Would she fight over Sadashiv who just expressed his utter dislike for her touch? Even so, with whom? She realized humans suffered from handicaps of their own making, their so-called civilized sense. The human life had not been as simple as a bat’s in matters of either food or love, the two fundamental needs of life.
She felt hot around her face. Hot flushes. Shame burnt her within. She felt ashamed like she was in her buffs in bed with a fully-dressed Shiv and her bedroom blazed with bright spot light and bats were clapping and jeering derisively in the dark from outside the windows.
Fumed and flushed, Prabha felt frustrated and totally disillusioned. She felt devastated. She sat a long time like a sphinx - silent, gaunt, and unmoved, hardly two feet away from her husband. She knew Shiv was fully awake. But he didn’t move a finger in her hour of distress. She couldn’t believe Shiv was not aware of her suffering.
She forgot the count of time until a rooster in some distant farmhouse announced a new day arriving. Her spell broke. She realized hours had passed. She walked out of the house into the flower patches between her house and then into the Chiku orchard.
Unlike other days, she went out without her handle-fitted small bamboo-basket in which she would collect fresh flowers for her gods. She was not sure if she could face her gods that morning or any day in future with her own facelessness and identity. She had an identity crisis, she felt. She had to find out who she was before facing her gods.
It was mid-November. There was a nip in the air in her area, Palghar, a sleepy small native township about a hundred kilometers north of Mumbai. It was a very pleasant dawn in the garden. A mist was billowing in the slow breeze, gathering thicker among the distant Chiku trees. Like the hazy outside, her mind was in a painful haze. She felt numb, also dumb.
***
Prabha recalled Archana talking of the delusionist poet Loise Gluck the previous week. Louise Gluck, the American Nobel Laureate poet, who had bagged the Nobel in literature for poetry on austere beauty, failed and clashing relationships, agony of self, grappling with disastrous encounters with family, friends, lovers.
In Gluck’s poems the poem-persona was disillusioned even during celebrations of life or occasions. She wrote about the smooth relationships with her friend and family members but the happy tidings invariably showing contents of blemishes indicating falsehood and lies. Even most beautiful blooms and blossoms in nature withered away pushing her into sad vibes. Anything and everything had an association to a delusion.
Archana, Prabha’s intellectual friend, was explaining that the poet Gluck had a distinct poetic genre of creating a faded beauty and sad aesthetic out of frustration, sorrow, and delusion in life. She kind of sang hosannah to sad thought and presented them as the most beautiful.
Prabha had disagreed, however, with Gluck’s philosophy. Life could not be that harsh, and how would poetic aesthetic flow out of anger? Poetry was sublime and it must worship loveliness, beauty and love. Today Prabha had a doubt that it could very well happen as Gluck feared. She had a distant desire of writing down her angst of rejection by her beloved for no valid reason, it could be a poem, story or article, if she could command over those artforms.
But having never done any creative artforms, she felt unequal to the task of writing a poem or anything for that. Had she been a poet or had she had the flair in any sublime art, she would have penned her first piece in earnest. But it had not to be. Sadashiv’s rejection visited his mind, filling her with blushes of shame.
“Love, said to be the enchanting Elixir of life, is in fact could be the crucial factor of disenchantment in life, Gluck says.” Archana, her writer, and intellectual friend, had been pontificating only last week. But Prabha, in her earthy experiences of life, having little knowledge of, or reach to life’s distilled intellectual experiences, had disagreed with her friend, “No, Archana love is so beautiful. Love enchants and enchants only.
Their discussion over delusion started after the newspapers, YouTube, and TV channels went gaga over Louise Gluck, the American poet in her late seventies, bagging the Literature Nobel of 2020. Madam Gluck was described by her reviewers as a poet of disenchantment and disillusionment in life’s rite of passage in her poetry embracing family, home, childhood, relatives, interpersonal relationships, love, aging, et al.
After reading the articles and erudite discussions about the poetry of this English professor Ms. Gluck of the Yale University, unknown to her until almost yesterday, Archana had expressed her allegiance to the Nobel Laureate’s idea and her general world view.
Archana was of the opinion that during the long period she had been associated with Prabha, she had also felt disillusionment at many turns of her personal life but could not comprehend or express that in organized terms as Gluck did in her poetry and articles or the Nobel Committee’s keynote while selecting her as the laureate of the year for literature.
Prabha, the housewife friend of Archana, had little exposure to Gluck, in the present or in the past, but had by now had an overall idea of the Nobel Laureate’s life-philosophy from Archana’s elaborate exposition. Gluck, Prabha gathered, elaborated ‘disenchantment and disillusion’ as the loadstones of life in her poetry.
Prabha had read a little from certain Indian poets, including India’s own son of the soil Rabindranath Tagore, who had bagged the Nobel Prize as early as 1913. She had read Tagore’s vibrant poetry including Gitanjali in original Bengali, and a few poems of Tagore’s overseas friend, like those of eminent poet W B Yeats. The two poets wrote celebrating life in their way in poetry, rooted in hope and optimism, enchanted by luminous imaginations. Often, they might be beautiful illusions. Archana, before knowing Gluck, had also adopted Tagore’s poetic philosophy like a fish to water.
Prabha immediately reminded Archana of her own words and views based on Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry a few days earlier. The life-philosophy embedded in Tagore’s works that Archana had espoused earlier, now clashed with the latest one preached by her as her ‘worldview’ from Gluck’s expositions. Archana responded with a look of sobriety, rather grim and somber.
She said, “Yeah Prabha, I was a great fan of the idea that life had been a celebration all along. I assumed that life was sunshine and we were hay-makers; we make hay when the sun shines. I saw the pits not as my falls but as chances to prove I could rise out of them, and the experience of rising from a fall would be ecstatic, rather than staying above the pits on high grounds all along.”
She hesitated a bit before adding, “But you will admit, things have not been hunky-dory in my life. Rises have not followed my falls. I have lived in endless hopes but my hopes have been dashed, defeated. I have been disillusioned, rather concluding that guiding allusions have been, in fact, delusions like adage. A delusion, say, ‘The humble … would inherit the earth’, how false? Would they ever?”
“Often my life has been a tailspin and I am caught in that whirling downfall, nosediving. I realize, all along like a damn fool, I lived in that golden chrysalis, dreaming of good tidings, that never came. Poet Gluck or no Gluck, I have walked out of that billowing smoke into clear air, and that’s the reality.”
Then they had not argued further. Prabha had felt the weight of Archana’s gloom crushing her own jest for life. Vicariously she felt the disillusionment-bubbles bursting all around her. She would recall cases of tear in her life, that had never been healed after the best efforts, prolonged attempts for recovery. The two friends sipped their peaceful tea. Their peace felt like that of a graveyard, that neither was enchanting, nor disenchanting. Their peace stood silent and unmoved, a peace without movement.
The two friends noticed, Prabha’s husband Sadashiv pottering about in the garden among flower beds. He looked tentative in his movements, a desultory figure not knowing what exactly he wanted there. As in the garden, so in life was her Sadashiv, he was bending at a rose bush or a jasmine bush with his small pickaxe but straightening up without doing anything. Prabha wondered, “What does this most important man in her life think about love, life, and dreams?” Her question remained hanging in the midair of her mind like a soap-bubble.
Her husband Sadashiv had always been a reassuring figure for Prabha, and he without saying a word from his posturing in the garden, bed or indoors had exuded a hope that nothing was lost after all, Gluck or no Gluck. There reigned peace and silence all around, enhanced by the deep tooting of a brown bird of pheasant class, that had been identified by a visiting friend from Odisha as ‘Kumbhatua’ in Odisha’s native tongue. It was a nesting bird found by water edge, but was a frequent visitor to their Chiku (Sapodilla) garden; was perhaps now calling its mate.
Things were changing, however, in looks, style, norms, habit, and almost in every other aspect of life, kaleidoscopically; Prabha thought at that very instant over quiet sips of tea by her friend Archana’s side. All the nuts and bolts were as if loosened and they needed rebooting and restructuring after listening to Archana’s explosion minutes ago.
Even her Shiv’s pottering around the flower beds, tooting of Kumbhatua bird, the wind lightly singing among the sapodilla foliage of their large fruit garden seemed insufficient to hold her peace. The two resolute figures in her life, Sadashiv and Archana, each like the Rocks of Gibraltar, were pulling her apart like a crack in an earthquake.
***
Prabha and Sadashiv were married for almost two decades, had no children, and they lived on a patch of land at Palghar, around hundred kilometers north of Mumbai. They lived in a bungalow in an orchard of Chiku or sapodilla fruits measuring around twenty acres, inherited by Shiv from his father. Producing and selling Chiku, the fruit of sapodilla trees, was the source of their livelihood.
They had day labourers who looked after the trees in their orchard under their supervision. The labourers were local and permanent. For house-help, Prabha had employed a permanent middle-aged widow Shraddha, who lived with them, given a room with a toilet-cum-bath facility. She was treated like a family member. Shraddha had been a social derelict, but a good help and very good company for Prabha, a few years younger to her, honest, hardworking, and grateful. Life for Prabha was bonhomie, hunky-dory, or whatever, the best and positive adjectives could define.
They lived a restful life with very little excitement but a lot of contentment. Prabha was the apple of her husband’s eyes and basked in his affection. Not to be ungrateful, she reciprocated her husband's affection with equal or greater measure. Shraddha, their house-maid, was accepted by the couple as a relative with a nameless relationship. The maid deeply felt the glow of mutual love in the couple's life and their kindness and affection towards her. They made a threesome drifting in an ideal positively rippling life-stream.
Despite her approaching middle-age, Prabha and the already late-middle-aged Sadashiv loved mutual company in and out of their house, as well as in bed or out of the bed. They sought mutual company mentally and physically. The childlessness had not blunted their bind of almost twenty winters.
The innocent little unremarkable games in the yards of their bodies kept their interpersonal relationship fresh and sweet like the Chiku fruits ripening in their orchard, filling their house with a rich aroma of love and ripe Chiku. When she read Rabindranath, or discussed the Bengali poet with Archana, Prabha would always draw parallels in her mind of the poet’s amalgamation of sensuality blended with spirituality with her own happily married life at Palghar.
Materially, however, she had nothing to call her own. She wore little gold. She had no land to her name, no house, no money in any bank, or savings in hand or at home in her cupboard. She did not jointly hold any bank account with Sadashiv either. But she never felt a scarcity. She was free to dig her hand into Sadashiv’s pocket for all the money she needed for whatever purpose. She neither felt the necessity to ask her Shiv for it, nor she felt the necessity to explain her expenses to him. She felt as one with Shiv in financial matters.
To hear this weird theory of Prabha on finances, her and Sadashiv’s friend, Archana would crinkle a nose loud-thinking, “How cute, but how unreal. You are a sweet little quaint fool, my Prabha!”
Prabha knew she was the unquestioned queen off her husband’s heart, body, bed and world. Sadashiv belonged to her lock-stock-and-barrel. She would sigh with satisfaction that none except her, shared with Shiv those sacred spaces. To her Sadashiv was her lord Shiva and their house, her Kailash Dham. She loved him almost worshipfully, and felt his reciprocation in abundance in the deep core of her awakened senses and spirit. Her life was an unceasing celebration, full of festivity, though often lowkey.
***
But the night of that Saturday was different. Rejected in bed by Sadashiv, lying sleepless the rest of the night, tossing between Tagore and Gluck, Prabha walked aimlessly in the orchard, without gathering flowers for God, and without having her cup of morning tea with Sadashiv in addition to other morning regimen.
She heard Shraddha, her house-help, calling her name aloud. It first appeared like a call from another world, incorporeal. But that call repeated and brought her back to reality. She walked back to the house, sat at the daily tea table where Sadashiv was stirring sugar into a cup of tea.
He proffered the ready to drink cup of tea in his hand to her, but she neither accepted it nor rejected it. Rather, with robotic hands took another cup, poured tea into it, stirred-in sugar, and got busy sipping at it soundlessly. She felt she was a dead ancient carcass of a woman in a glass-case of a museum. After half an hour, she realized her cup of tea in fact had been over long minutes ago and she sucked an empty cup. She suddenly discovered an unknown man sitting opposite to her and took time and concentration to know him, it was Sadashiv.
Sadashiv unlike his routine got up and had left her alone. Gone. He had not spoken a word to her as they would be routinely using words playfully, teasing each other, at the morning tea session. She felt that Sadashiv had put his seal and signature on his rejection of her in bed the previous night. It had not been an accidental, or unmindful, or the ‘spur of the moment’s impulsive reaction as might have happened to any one in some time of life, in bed or otherwise.
The maid Shraddha came to ask, “Madam, give me an idea, what would you two like to have for breakfast?” Prabha could not look at Shraddha, because her sweet words were enough to make her eyes ooze, and her throat going dry. She did not want to show her maid that she was on the verge of crying. She took a little time to reply, “Whatever.” The clever maid felt something was amiss and stopped bothering her.
Without a telephone or WhatsApp message, Archana arrived in her car and announced, “I have invited myself to breakfast with you both. Don’t mind.” She came and sat by Prabha in silence. Prabha didn’t know how or why had Archana come. Did she come just like that on an impulse or was given a call either by her husband or maid to cap the volcano before it spewed lava? She felt so indifferent that she had no desire to know the reason of Archana’s coming. Her curiosity had died last late night and its dead body was cremated in the early morning, hours ago. Her ashes were scattered during the morning tea.
Archana after a while, started sipping from the cup that the maid had placed before her, and talking desultorily with Prabha, nothing in particular. Sadashiv remained away, as if sulking, in the bedroom. He was visible in a mirror, standing at an open window, looking out, his face inscrutable as could be seen from the verandah where Archana sat with Prabha.
Suddenly, Prabha asked Archana, “Archie, can I come to live with you for a few days? I would shift as soon as I find an accommodation in a working women’s hotel or in a suitable PG arrangement.” As if Prabha had asked for the most natural thing, and as if Archana was expecting that question and was ready with an answer.
She replied “Yes, Prabha, why not? Come and stay with me, as long as you like. I will love it.” She could not hazard how much did Archana know about her crisis. She felt awkward to blow a trumpet before Archana over Sadashiv’s rejection of her in bed
Prabha got up and went inside, was back in five minutes with a middle-size traveling bag, said a formal bye to her husband, “Shiv, I am going on a holiday. Bye.” She had no courage to say bye to Shraddha, and sat in her friend’s car as if she was doing the most natural thing. She knew Sadashiv would live comfortably and Shraddha would take care of him like his doting sister. But who would fill up the space that she, Prabha, had left? When they drove together, Prabha thought to herself, “Now, it is immaterial anyway.”
Prabha was thinking, “I may return to Sadashiv today, tomorrow, in a few days’ time, or never. But would I be me, the Prabha of yesterday, at all? The person in my guise and garb, might not be the Prabha of yesterday, who had owned Sadashiv. An imposter might live on trying to invent herself. She, now, could appreciate what Archana had said about the Nobel Selection Committee on the year’s winner, Gluck, and her poetry.
Her world was crashing around. She felt love was an illusion, rather a delusion, a self-painted abstract. A portrait in water-paint. A drop of rain was enough to smudge its defined lines, contrasts, and impressions; even to kill it like the humming bird walking into a honeytrap, a pitcher plant’s sweet-hued trap.
Prabha was wondering, if the next morning, Sadashiv comes to her on groveling knees, with rose held in his teeth like a sophomore to propose, “Would you Prabha …..?”, what should she do? Celebrate it, or doubt it as a mirage, or reject it as delusion?
Archana was calling, “We are home, Prabha.” Prabha blurted out, “Home? What home? Whose home?” (END)
Prabhanjan K. Mishra is an award-winning Indian poet from India, besides being a story writer, translator, editor, and critic; a former president of Poetry Circle, Bombay (Mumbai), an association of Indo-English poets. He edited POIESIS, the literary magazine of this poets’ association for eight years. His poems have been widely published, his own works and translation from the works of other poets. He has published three books of his poems and his poems have appeared in twenty anthologies in India and abroad.
Ishwar Pati
Who knew that a day with such promise would end in near disaster? Ten of us from three families took a van to this gorgeous hill station. It was dusk by the time we reached the homestay where we had booked our accommodation. The mood was set by the setting sun as it quietly disappeared in the western horizon, accompanied by the melody of birds' chirping as they returned to their nests. After settling down in our rooms, I enquired from the proprietor of the homestay about the beauty spots we could visit. He suggested that the waterfall nearby was worth exploring, though we had to hazard a long and ardous hike to get there. But it was worth it. The scene with rolling greens and whispering trees was picturesque beyond measure. The sound of the waterfall reached us even before the falls came into view. We turned a corner and there it was, Nature's beauty and splendour in full flow. The water came down in two stages to form a pool at the bottom. The kids were so excited that they promptly jumped into the pool for a swim. Shrieking and frolicking, they extracted every ounce of fun while we elders looked on with indulgence.
As if mocking us, dark clouds hove into view and overshadowed the rolling greens. The rains came, first in droplets and then in a torrent. We tried to take shelter under the trees, but it did not prevent us from getting thoroughly drenched. Mothers hurried to gather their children who were more keen to dance in the rain! We herded them towards the van, only to be told that the heavy rain had brought down a huge tree and our van would not be able to reach us. The rest of the world seemed to have been cut off from us.
But there was a silver lining. One jeep had escaped being trapped behind the fallen tree and its driver agreed to rescue us. He had to make numerous trips to transport all of us back to the homestay. By that time the contents of the snack boxes we had carried with us had been consumed and digested. We were so famished that we pounced on whatever edibles the proprietor had to offer. The senior citizens in our group heaved a huge sigh of relief that the ordeal was over. Their sore joints had started complaining.
On our way back from the homestay the kids set off a loud roar. 'Once more!' They shouted in an encore.
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.
(Translated by Dr. Snehaprava Das)
Her marriage ceremony was an event of great revelry.
A terrain of twelve acres was decorated with awnings of bay leaves.
The spacious cooking space was hedged on all sides with branches of blackberry trees.
Mattresses of straw were spread out in the shady corners of the mango orchard.
Invitations were sent to villages all around.
Crows, cranes, pigeons, and sparrows flocked together to for husking paddy.
Dogs and cats got busy cleaning fish and prawns.
Swans, ducks, hens, and their chicks drew patterns (art decor) on the courtyard with rice-powder.
The flames of lamps on the lamp stand glowed brightly.
The swing, the hanging-rope shelf, and the bird-cage danced in the air.
Drumbeats sounded, conches blew and trumpets blew too.
Frogs, cranes and bats sounded the auspicious ululation.
Grass sprouted in the sky: stars sparkled down below on the earth.
The marriage ceremony was a grand, deluxe affair.
The girl, now a bride, stepped into her new home.
It was a beautiful house, like a painting in dazzling colours.
There were lovely designs drawn everywhere—
Beautiful patterns drawn with powdered rice--
On the floor, on the walls, on the door and window panels—
On the mirror- on the bride’s porcelain smooth body—on her velvety dreams
On the canvas of her coy smile---
Her sari, her feet and the anklets around them, her hands—
And the bangles around them—all flashing ornate patterns-
The bride herself was an ornate, bejeweled, floral-design;
All craved to step on to the tiny, lovely imprints her feet made on the earth
All were infected with her smile—
Her soft voice echoed in all hearts;
Nothing to object, no complaints from any body-
Everyone was served with refreshments of sweet cakes
Everyone received a gift of a photo album too;
The husband was served with seven types of delicious curries and ten types of pan-fried items.
The guests were served with more number of such dishes;
And then---- joy and satiation of a heavy, rich meal
The time for burping, hiccupping—time to feel drowsy, time to yawn
The time to sleep and snore;
The bride’s new family--- her sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law and their friends
All put together ten in number;
Her father-in-law and her mother-in-law and their kins—twelve in total;
Servants , farmhands, and their relatives and their own people—twenty in total again—
Neighbors, friends, known characters, familiar faces— all put together—the whole village;
Cows and their calves in the cowshed, dogs and cats and other pets, and hens and pigeons –
The puppies, kittens, the chicks –and the other animals and birds they made friends with-------
Not possible to count---
And all such-like birds and animals fly and graze cheerfully—
Their eyes twinkling in some secret excitement;
The newlywed bride sits her sisters-in-law by her and asks them not to while away time;
“You can play and swing; or sing verse-parts, or couplets----”
“Or enjoy the sight of the birds winging through the patch of clouds;”
She gifts them the sparkle of her smile, and the scent of inspiration—
“You could be an achiever through constructive efforts”—she assures them;
“You could be a great poet, say one like Sarojini Naidu, or Kuntala Kumari— You must not sit idle or laze away time”
“Why don’t you engage yourselves in adventures like climbing a mountain or swimming across the Pak-strait?”—she persuades her brothers-in-law;
“Build igloos in the Iceland—or fight the desert with the spirit of a Beduine.
Learn to grow wings and scan the unfathomable heights!
You can even play games with words—play the game of hide and seek
With letters and alphabet-parts; “
“Go to the fields with your plough—and sail through the earth;” She suggests the farm-hands and the labourers. “Play ‘cops and criminals’ with the earth and the seeds and enjoy the thrill of the game. Dig canals from the house to the cowshed and let the cow milk flow in the canals. Float paper- boats in those canals. Fill the dream boats with creams, butter, ghee, cheese and export to lands unknown. Why sit idle? Spread out food grains in the courtyard for the birds and animals- let the prey and the predator pick their food together. Watch and enjoy the crows, the pigeons, the sparrows, the parrots, and the mice and the cats and the dogs eating and learn the art to exist. Enjoy the music in their chirping, barking and growling----”
‘Do not just read sacred texts—enjoy reading classics and romances like Tapaswinee and Pranayaballari too’, she would suggest her mother-in-law. ‘Eat bitter-gourd and its leaves as well. They are good for health.’
‘ You can keep up the habit of chewing tobacco and smoking marijuana,’ she would plead to her father-in-law, ‘ but it would benefit you greatly if you go for a swim in the village pond regularly and read chapters from Regobeta Manchu as well. These habits will take care of your physical and spiritual health.’
It was something no one had spoken to them before.
They had never heard a velvety voice like hers.
Words spilled out like golden hymns when she spoke.
The courtyard where rainbow coloured chicks hopped and ran and fluttered looked like a huge appliqué art with glimmering multihued patches. And happy, colourful days rolled on.
Then one day, a blind woman in rags walked up to the front door of the happy house.
‘O pious mistress of the house!’, she begged, ‘Be merciful to donate me an eye’.
Those who heard couldn’t believe their ears.
The entire village thronged in—shocked beyond wits.
They asked her to repeat what she had just said.
‘O my pious mistress,’ the blind woman repeated obediently, ‘Be kind to donate me an eye’.
The bride swished out of her room like a waft of fresh breeze.
‘I ‘d certainly let her have one of my eyes—poor woman! A blank curtain has kept the variegated glory of the lovely earth and the silver moonlight hidden from her sight for so long. Order a cart to carry us to the eye-hospital in the town.’
As was wished by the bride they went to the hospital in the town. The procedure of eye-transplantation took about ten days. The blind woman received gratefully the rare gift of sight. She smiled happily. The bride, now with one eye, also smiled happily.
‘How colourful is this world!’, the blind woman exclaimed, marveling at the beautiful sight that now stood unveiled before her. ‘How very red is the sky, and how strikingly black is this grass field!’ She turned to glance at the bride and said, ‘How lovely is your sleek yellow hair! Wonderful!’
‘ The colour of the sky is blue, not red,’ the bride corrected her. ‘The grass is green, not black. The hair is not yellow, it is black. Come with me to the garden, I’ll acquaint you with the colours there.’ The beggar woman went to the garden with the bride. After being introduced to different colours there she bade a thankful goodbye to the bride and left
But things did not come to an end at that. Every day thereafter a crowd of beggars gathered at the door of the bride’s home. Each had his or her individual needs and submissions.
‘O my pious lady, please let me have a ‘heart’ , one begged.
O my pious lady, be merciful to donate me a kidney, prayed another.
O pious lady, take pity on me and let me have some of your blood!
A hawk prayed, ‘O pious mother, lend me some of your flash.
‘O father, please permit me to peck a cote on your body!’ A woodpecker hopped in and said to the bride’s husband.
A couple of babies demanded some milk from the bride’s breast.
With one severed foot, a millipede crawled in labouriosly. ‘I need a foot,’ it begged.
An unknown goddess with eight arms out of which one was broken somehow, appeared and asked for an arm.
All their needs were met with. Everyone’s demand was fulfilled. The earth floated in an ocean of colour and scent.
The sun rose bright the next day-
and shone on a sinister picture in the bride’s house.
A huge number of sparrows, no one knows from where, flocked in to the courtyard. When the space there became insufficient to accommodate them they flew up to the terrace and the roof and perched there blocking the sky. More birds fluttered in, angry now, that there was no space below for them to settle, nor a sky above to take wing to.
The impact of abnormally accumulated good could often get disastrous.
An excessive load of light and tender things could be heavier than that of a mountain and crush the very existence.
The countless sparrows and their scary, raucous chirping distinctly spelled it.
The village was gripped by shock and surprise.
Where did the sparrows come from, and why? What do they want?
They did not touch the mustard seeds and rice grains the bride’s family sprinkled about and kept on chattering and flapping their wings. Nothing seemed to detract them or frighten them away. They ignored the scarecrow, and the sound of the gongs beating or blowing of conch cell failed to make any effect.
When the bride and her in-law tried to shoo them away the sparrows sneered at them with a savage delight.
For the next seven days the sparrows carried on a relentless invasion. They occupied every possible place available, in the courtyard, on the roof, in the barnyard, on the trees around the house, and the cowshed. They even entered the inside of the bride’ tastefully decorated home and boldly settled on the bedstead, on the chairs and the tables and on the top of the closet.
People even in the neighboring villages were filled with strange misgivings. The abnormally large throng of the sparrows and their unusual behavior spelled out some oncoming mishap, they were sure. They lived under the shadow of an unknown fear and spent long sleepless nights. In the end the fear got so overwhelmingly oppressive that people began to abandon their homes and left the villages. The bride’s in-laws also left. The farmhands, all the domestic helps, and even the livestock ran away for their lives.
The bride and her husband were left alone.
The village wore a desolate, forlorn look. There was no trace of a human being there. Sparrows and only sparrows filled the entire village.
The couple made all efforts to placate them but to no use.
They laid out all the provisions, food grains, clothes, curtains, bedspreads hoping to draw the interest of the birds. But the sparrows did not glance at those.
After meeting the needs of every one the bride was left with half of the volume of her blood and half of her flesh. She had just one arm, one leg, one eye, one kidney and just a half of her heart. Even those were not spared. Now there was nothing left to give away, but the claimants were countless.
The violence resulting from their frustration turned the tiny, tender-plumed sparrows ugly and ferocious. Their small innocent eyes bulged out belligerently. After two more weeks, when the enormity of their hunger grew beyond all proportion, the sparrows, millions and millions of them, began circling around the couple. Slowly , almost with a fierce determination they moved menacingly closer and closer.
‘We need flesh’, they screeched ominously.
And without waiting to watch the reaction of the couple, or their permission, they began pecking at them, first gently then with an obnoxious, tenacious ferocity.
The day after—
Millions and millions of sparrows lay there, dead. But there was no sign of the benevolent couple.
Late Manoj Ku. Panda, a writer of eminence is widely known for his experimentation in narrative style. His stories earn their special quality from a unique oddity of expression which is described as the ‘aesthetics of the bizarre’ by his translator and the scholars who made a close observation of his narratology. He has received the prestigious Sarala Award for his collection of stories titled Hada Bagicha (The Bone Garden and other Stories) This is a translated version of one of his widely acclaimed Odia stories.
Snehaprava Das, former Associate Professor of English is a noted translator and poet. She has five collections of English poems to her credit Dusk Diary, Alone, Songs of Solitude, Moods and Moments and Never Say No to a Rose)
HIRAKUD DIAMOND RUSH (1988-90) : ITS AFTERMATH
In 1988, sensational news spread about the recovery of a 75-carat blue diamond from the sandy bed of the Mahanadi River near Boudh. This news grabbed the attention of both national and international diamond traders, sparking a rush of diamond smugglers and mafias to the area in a bid to claim these precious stones. Additionally, reports emerged about the presence of diamonds in the Mahanadi gravels between Sonepur and Boudh, as well as in Sagaranala, a tributary of the Tel River near Bhawanipatna. The Tel River is a significant tributary of the Mahanadi, meeting the main river at Sonepur or Subarnapur. Gravels mixed with mud or clay found in the sandy layer of the Mahanadi River bed was considered a potential source of diamonds.
The diamond rush gained momentum during the tumultuous period of 1988-1990. With media reports of the recovery of a large blue diamond from the Mahanadi River near Boudh, and word of sporadic discoveries of valuable stones in the surrounding areas led to thousands of people flocking to the riverbed. They staked their claims along a 49km stretch of the riverbank running from Sonepur to Boudh, representing a diverse cross-section of society, united in their quest for these precious gems. As news broke about the smuggling of imported gold biscuits in the area, used to entice tribal people to aid in recovering precious stones from the riverbed, the government's law enforcement agencies swiftly moved to apprehend the tax evaders.
Classical literature from the 17th and 18th centuries provided descriptions of the methods used to mine the alluvial gravels of the Mahanadi River as it flowed through Hirakud. The Mahanadi River was described as Ratnagarbha, meaning "filled with jewels" in these classic texts. The name "Hirakud" itself signifies "Hira" (diamond) and "Kud" (mound), indicating a mound of diamonds. Historical records note that in 1766, Raja Abhay Singh (1766-1778), the King of Hirakhanda State, recovered a 16.5-carat diamond from the Mahanadi River near its confluence with its tributary, the IB River. Before the construction of the multipurpose Hirakud dam, the area was renowned for its extensive diamond deposits, and people used to search for diamonds there. An island with a substantial deposit of precious stones covering 829.32 acres was submerged under the Hirakud dam reservoir, taking with it the history of diamond collection at the site, lost beneath the deep blue waters.
The foundation stone of the Hirakud dam was laid on March 15, 1946, by Sir Hawthorne Lewis, the Governor of Odisha. The first batch of concrete was laid by the Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, on April 12, 1948. The dam was completed after nine years of construction, with Sir M. Visvesvaraya serving as the chief consulting engineer. It was inaugurated by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, then the Prime Minister of India, on January 13, 1957.
During the British colonial period, occurrences of emerald, ruby, and diamond were reported in the Bira-Maharajpur-Sonepur belt in the undivided Bolangir district. In 1856, the diamond mine in Hirakud was put up for auction. Local individuals, Sri Saraswat Behera and Sri Panu Behera, leased the diamond mine. However, as they failed to make lease payments, the British administration canceled their lease and granted it to Diwan Bahadur of Sambalpur in May of that year.
Reports in the media about transactions involving imported gold biscuits drew the attention of Customs officials. They gathered intelligence using local informants to target economic offenders active in the trading centers of the Boudh-Sonepur belt along the Mahanadi riverside. Acting on this intelligence, Customs preventive officers set a trap by posing as prospective buyers of diamonds and other precious stones from Surat, Gujarat. They arranged to purchase precious stones, especially diamonds and emeralds. In November 1989, a raid was conducted at the residence of Sri Rabi Padhi in Boudh town, situated on the right bank of the Mahanadi River. During the search, officers recovered 15 pieces of 24-carat gold biscuits, each weighing 10 tolas (116.64 grams), with foreign markings from 'Credit Suisse.' Additionally, currency notes in denominations of 1,000, amounting to Rs 150,000.00, were found in his iron chest. As Sri Padhi could not prove his legal possession of the foreign-origin gold biscuits and cash, the contraband gold biscuits and the money were seized under various provisions of the Indian Customs Act, 1962. Considering the gravity of the offence, which was punishable under Section 135 of the Customs Act, Sri Padhi was arrested after receiving an arrest memo under Section 104 of the Customs Act, 1962. He was then taken to be produced before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (Special Court) for Economic Offenses located in Cuttack.
On the day of the presentation, when we reached the office of Sri Dayanidhi Singh, our department's Special Public Prosecutor, situated near Purighat Police station in Cuttack, his family informed us that Mr. Singh had gone to Chennai for a medical checkup. This situation posed a challenge, and when we arrived at the special court premises, we learned that the designated Judicial Magistrate was on leave. This caused considerable concern among the Central Preventive Officers, as we had to figure out how to handle the case in the absence of our departmental public prosecutor. As the Investigating Officer for the past couple of years, having managed numerous gold seizure cases, including the spectacular seizure of 11 metric tons of imported contraband silver ingots valued at Rs 60.76 crore in the previous month of October 1989, I had built a good rapport with the Special Court and was familiar with the Bench Clerk and other staff. Sensing our predicament, the Bench Clerk Sri Sarojkanta Mohapatra assured us not to worry and escorted us to the Court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, where we submitted our documents and produced the arrested economic offender, Sri Rabi Padhi, before the Magistrate (C.J.M). In the absence of the departmental Public Prosecutor, I took counsel from the Bench Clerk, and with renewed confidence, decided to opose the bail application presented by the defense counsels.
According to practice, when the designated magistrate is on leave, the arrested economic offender is usually produced before the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Cuttack. Anticipating a challenging day at the CJM court on that November winter day, I was nervous and tense, awaiting the legal battle over bail or jail. The defence was represented by a legal heavyweight from the Cuttack Bar, with the sitting Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) of the Boudh constituency, Sri Sachidananda Dalal, a senior advocate from the Bolangir District Court, acting as the advocate on record for the defendant. Nevertheless, the Chief Judicial Magistrate, in whose court the accused was produced with forwarding memos, allowed the case to proceed. The defence counsel argued vigorously to protect the personal liberty of the accused, emphasizing his social status as a respectable citizen and a ward counselor of the Boudh Municipality. They appealed for the release of the accused, Sri Rabi Padhi, on bail, with a sufficient amount of money as security and sureties, as determined by the court. At this crucial point in the court proceedings, as advised by Bench Clerk Sri Mohapatra to argue as a prosecutor, I decided to represent the prosecution as the Investigating Officer. I requested permission from the learned Magistrate, who granted it. I rose to speak and presented a compelling case, opposing the arguments put forth by the defence counsel. I drew the attention of the learned Magistrate to the gravity of the economic offence committed by the accused, emphasizing that he had 15 imported foreign-marked contraband gold biscuits in his possession and an unaccounted amount of Rs 1,50,000.00, with the intention to evade taxes. I highlighted the accused's clear connection to an international smuggling racket and his role in jeopardizing our country's economy through his illegal gold trading activities. I argued that this warranted a harsh penalty and exemplary punishment to serve as a deterrent and should not be viewed leniently. I urged that bail should not be granted under any circumstances, and the accused should be remanded to jail custody for at least a fortnight to allow for a smooth investigation. Finally, I respectfully submitted that the court lacked jurisdiction to decide on the matter of bail and urged the court to reject the bail application and remand the accused to judicial custody, with an order to present the case before the regular and designated Special Judicial Magistrate for Economic Offences. The learned Magistrate, after carefully considering my arguments, remarked that the customs officer was correct. Following my arguments, the Magistrate passed an order rejecting the bail application and remanded the accused to judicial custody for 15 days. It was indeed a victorious day for the Central Preventive Unit (CPU) officers of the Bhubaneswar Customs and Central Excise Commissionerate.
Gouranga Charan Roul (gcroul.roul@gmail.com) : The author, after completing post graduate studies in political science from Utkal University, Odisha in 1975, worked as a senior intelligence sleuth in the department of Customs, Central Excise & Service Tax and retired as senior superintendent. As a staunch association activist, he used to hold chief executive posts either as General Secretary or President of All India Central Excise Gazetted Executive Officer's Association, Odisha for 20 years. Presently in the capacity of President of Retired Central Excise Gazetted Executive Officer's Association, Odisha, coordinating the social welfare schemes of the Association. Being a voracious reader, taking keen interest in the history of India, Africa, Europe and America. In his globe tottering spree, widely travelled America and Africa. At times contributing articles to various magazines.
Dear young girls/ women out there! Don't stick to 'Age is just a number', please. It is true, but not "always." (This is for all genders indeed, but girls/women need to hear this often.)
Age, is also time, energy, health, responsibilities, phases of life... Not just a number!
Never lose sight of yourself, trapped in the mundane 'to do' tasks, forgetting or ignoring your dreams and passion. Start right NOW, the moment you find your calling. You never know what awaits, on the other side of 30, 40, 50+... with added/unexpected responsibilities, and situations in life.
It is not smooth and easy for all. Each one's strength to juggle challenges, differ.
Sometimes, you won't even find time to close the umpteen tabs open on your mind; often, you can't! You might be too tired, numb, to even tick the task you have already done, and stare at it as if it still needs a plan for execution.
Do not live a life, filled with ''If onlys''...
Just do what you love NOW, and stop worrying, "what will others say/think?!"
Stay away from people who abuse your love & kindness, who drain your time, & energy, and from those who lack integrity.
Prioritizing yourself, is NOT being selfish.
Only YOU can love yourself, in the most beautiful way! Celebrate the IMPORTANT YOU.
A bilingual poet-writer(Tamil, English), Madhumathi. H is an ardent lover of Nature, Poetry, Photography, Music. Her poems are published in Anthologies of The Poetry Society(India), CPC- Chennai Poetry Circle's EFFLORESCENCE, IPC's(India Poetry Circle) Madras Hues Myriad Views, Amaravati Poetic Prism 2015, and in e-zines UGC approved Muse India, IWJ - International Writers Journal, Positive Vibes - LiteraryVibes, Storizen, Science Shore, OPA – Our Poetry Archives. e-Anthologies Monsoon moods - Muse India, Green Awakenings - On Environment, by Kavya-Adisakrit.
Ignite Poetry, Breathe Poetry, Dream Poetry, Soul shores that have 10 of her poems published, Soul Serenade, Shades of Love-AIFEST, Arising from the dust, Painting Dreams, Shards of unsung Poesies, are some of the Anthologies her poems, and write ups are part of. (2020 to 2022). Besides Poetry, Madhumathi writes on Mental health, to create awareness, break the stigma, believing in the therapeutic, transformational power of words. Contact: madhumathi.poetry@gmail.com :: Blogs: https://madhumathipoetry.wordpress.com :: http://madhumathikavidhaigal.blogspot.com/?m=1
Sadajharan for village-folk, Som river in official records, flows down amidst lush green surrounding from distant Chitalghati mountain range with its two distinct streams- a minor one shallow, sandy, with lots of gravels and rocks around, but the major stream with frightening depth and width. In between runs a long, bald wide sand bed. On river bank is sleepy village of Gualpara. Dilapidated small country boat of Bhola is the only means of transport available to Gualpara residents other-wise, cut-off from outside world, to cross the major stream of Sadajharan. Imagining life for the rural folks of Gualpara without boatman Bhola’s country boat- the only span of relationship with world outside is next to impossible-Bhola’s boat being available from dawn to dusk on all days, in all seasons. Every morning before sunrise milkmen of Gualpara load their milk cans and cycles on Bhola’s country boat, cross the river to sell them in nearby market before returning back to village. From essential merchandise of daily use, purchased from outside mandis, to cattle purchased from animal market across the river, to newly- wed bride married to a groom from Gualpara, a patient from village visiting a doctor for emergency medical attention, dead leaving village for good to the burning ghat on the other side, every one has only Bhola’s boat to depend upon. In life, living and death of every Gualpara residents Bhola’s boat has a significant role to play, irrespective of whether he is male or female, rich or poor, from lower or higher social echelon. The dilapidated, manually driven, wooden boat of Bhola is surely the only means available for Gualpara folks to cross the flow of the worldly stream.
Scorching sun or heavy rains or freezing cold Bhola rows his boat to the river ghat before daybreak without fail and waits for passengers. When Sun goes above his head and mercury reaches its zenith, he goes back to his riverbed hut on the high ground on a mound of gravels and sandy hill, surrounded by a few shrubs. In nearby areas villagers carry on farming activity without restraint, on the alluvial soil deposited, year after year by floodwater of Sadajharan. Around his small decrepit hut there are a few tall trees and bamboo groves. Gulping in some food in a hurry Bhola hardly takes rest and goes out again to ferry passengers post noon. Gualpara children come to take bath and dive into the river from high mound or from tree trunks. From sunrise to sunset Bhola spends his time on river or the riverbed without complain and without companion. On occasions he even has ferried villager in dark of night with lantern lights in emergency. Bhola accepts whatever ferry charges paid by the villagers. On festive occasions some villagers offer new dhoti and food to Bhola. While returning from market some passengers hand him over some pleasantries. In his solitary existence Bhola, the boatman has no need and no greed, no complaints and no dreams. Long back Bhola dreamt of purchasing a homestead, build a house of his own and raise a family, when he brought Sumi to his hut after marriage. But Sumi soon lost patience to lead a solitary life with Bhola in this river island. One day she left Bhola, went back to her parents to never return again. The hut is in ramshackle since then.
Every morning when day breaks with sun rising in the eastern sky, Gualpara rises to life and colour. Vibrancy and festivity fills the air. The same is repeated each evening when the cattle returns back. It goes on, every day and all the year round. Early morning calm gives way to intense energy and enthusiasm. Gualpara cowherd with their rhythmic hoof steps fill the streets of the village, stomping the village road below and march ahead kicking and competing with each other for space and mooing occasionally. Young calves run around and bleat along with goats. The golden hue on the eastern sky looks hazy with the veil of dust, rising from below, due to continuous stomping by the animals. It wraps every inch and everything gets a mystic overlay. Accompanying the march is the divine melodious music of flute. Entire cattle population, feel intoxicated and swing their heads sideways; their owners too fail to escape this magical take over. The maestro, in the front leading the procession with flute glued to his lips is none other than Sahib who leads the cattle folks to grassy patches on the riverbed every morning.
Dusky Sahib, with half covered sun tanned body, only a loin cloth around the waist, long hairs tied with a colourful tiny headscarf, a staff on one hand a flute on the other, a wood cutter and bunch of flutes placed around his waist, a tyre sole slipper to protect his foot and a long scarf on his body oscillate his legs as if dancing his way. Bleeding wounds on both feet covered with thin cloth prevents him from walking with ease and forces him to lean to a side while walking. Villagers sometime pass some food to Sahib and village children run behind for a free gift of flute from Sahib.
In ferry-ghat Sahib greets Bhola while crossing the shallow stream of the river to take his herd to grasslands in the middle. He takes rest under some shrubs on the sand bed, tying the scarf around his head tightly and resting his staff on the ground beside him, while the cattle graze on the succulent leaves and grass. After resting a while he brings his flute nearer to his lips and the mellifluous music of his flute create ripples in Sadajharan, envelopes the riverbed, Bhola and his ferry passengers, the entire lush green flora and fauna including his cattle, village folks and resonates in the air reaching the sky and vanishes into ether. Sahib sinks himself in music and forgets the limits of time and space. His cattle munch grass and drink water from river stream and crowd, encircle him and listen to his enchanting music. Sahib forgets hunger and thirst and in between, some time moves to the bamboo groove to cut bamboo suitable for making flutes. At noon, Bhola brings his boat, moors it, tying its rope to a nearby tree and calls Sahib to his hut. Each one gets felicity in each other’s company.
“Hi buddy, have you forgotten hunger and thirst while rendering service to your cattle?”enquires Bhola.
“No dear, I was counting your steps. My soul-mates are dumb . They can read my mind but fail to express in words.” says Sahib fondling the animals.
“I was all alone, now that you have come, let’s sit for a while, smoke and talk to each other.”
Then they stoke the fire place. Bhola enquires about Sahib’s wounds.
“ You know it has no cure and has to be endured. Have you seen leprosy getting cured? At least with your medicine and care it is not spreading further and contained to my feet.
“ Who said leprosy is not curable. With advancement of medical science it’s now curable, I was told. You have to have patience and take medicines regularly” says Bhola.
Bhola regularly prepares hot water, cleans the wound, applies medicine and covers them with new bandage. He arranges to purchase bandage and medicines regularly for Sahib from market. After dressing the wounds, he makes Sahib wear new shocks and proceeds to river to bathe. On return both eat their lunch. When exhaust Bhola lie down for a while, Sahib slowly pushes a folded loin cloth, below Bhola’s head as a cushion. Sahib takes a little warm oil in a pot and applies on worn out hands and legs of Bhola. Sahib never listens to Bhola, when the later prevents him from doing so.
“Rowing boat in the deep gorge of Sadajharan is physically taxing and tiring, moreover, nobody is at home to take care of the fatigued and aging limbs of Bhola” ponders Sahib. When motionless body of Bhola takes rest, Sahib starts a new raga with his flute and the soft, enchanting, mellifluous music fills and encompasses every available space and resonate the entire biosphere. Sahib drowns himself and everyone along with him in his music and as if it sends a reminder to Sun begins to descend towards Chitalghati in Western horizon. He looks for his herd, gathers and guides them to water stream, when Bhola moves to the ferry-ghat with his country-boat. The herd play and take a shower in cool Sadajharan water and Bhola helps the cleaning process and takes special care of the weak ones. He makes a few flutes from bamboo, collected earlier, when the herd shakes off extra water in the afternoon sun after a bath in the river.
The whole afternoon both Bhola and Sahib remain busy. Ultimately, when the sun start to set behind Chitalghati mountain and a shroud of darkness descends Bhola brings his boat back and moors it firmly for the final time calling it a day. Sahib and Bhola fire a chillum and enjoy smoking marijuana, together for a while, before saying goodbye to each other. On special days they drink toddy together. The Returning procession of the cattle wealth of Gualpara begins and is as spectacular as it was during day break. A small cloud of dust follow the procession of Gualpara cattle folks, with soft music of Sahib at the head mingling in the air rises above to vanish in ether again. Smoke from above the huts in the village rises upward, the sound of conch shell from houses after house greets them and lamps start to twinkle, throwing small light. At distance few glow worms compete with stars twinkling in the sky. Sahib puts his unsteady steps humming a song and returns to his hut.
Meanwhile, wounds of Sahib gets bigger.
One noon returning to his hut, Bhola found Sahib has collected some bamboo poles and straw from farms and has started repairing his hut. He joined hands with Sahib and completed the repair work. Both were happy to find a neat and descent cottage in place of Bhola’s wretched ramshackle hut. That night Bhola arranged some toddy and cooked fresh river fish for dinner and forced Sahib to spend the night in his cottage. Both filled their belly drinking toddy and smoked marijuana after a good meal. Moonlit sand bed in solitary river island along with bubbling sound of the river provided ideal backdrop for Sahib’s flute recital, which resonated far and forced Gualpara folks to lend their ears. The stars in the sky and the glow-worms on the trees became silent spectators. Nature stood still to listen to the fusion of boatman’s song with flute recital of Sahib and the soul mates could not know when day broke next morning.
Time gets wet on Sadajharan water and flows, Sahib’s wound grows further and both Bhola and Sahib were getting weaker day by day. One noon Bhola felt dizzy and fell down on the ground unconscious. For a while he could not get up. Sahib started sprinkling water on his face and brought some medicinal herbs and put it’s juice in Bhola’s mouth. The local medicine worked on Bhola and he slowly gained consciousness. Sahib became ecstatic with joy. “My Krishna has listened to my prayers” and fell flat on the ground with folded hands to express his respect.
During Rainy season when Sadajharan swells, river water crosses both the banks and inundates major parts of the sandy riverbed within except the sandy hillock . Both the streams merge at several places for days together and Gualpara cattle stay home. Bhola’s hut is on top of the sandy hillock within bamboo groove and safe from flood water, but he remains water-locked on these days. Bhola’s country boat operation gets suspended as long as the surge continues and Gualpara remains cut-off from outside world. Once the deluge subsides life becomes normal and Bhola resumes his activity and ferrys passengers as before. Slowly cattle folk start visiting their favourite grazing place, on sandbed, in the middle of Sadajharan along with Sahib.
Once during monsoon it rained continuously in Chitalghati and Gualpara for days together. Incessant rain forced everyone to stay indoors as Sadajharan started getting water from smaller mountain streams. The weather did not improve for about a weak and Gualpara residents and their pets remain water-locked. Bhola and Sahib remained confined to their huts. Bhola silently thanked Sahib for repairing his hut, which otherwise would not have withstood the heavy wind and the rains. Sahib was down with high fever and remained inside his hut. After three days of rains, there was no food available in his hut. Bhola used to think why Sahib’s flute is silent. High fever and severe body pain and hunger made Sahib further weaker. He felt severe pain is spreading from his wounds to across his body. He had no strength left in his weak legs even to stand. Somehow he moved himself slowly to the water pot to drink some water. He felt as if all his limbs and his entire body is getting paralysed. Cold sweat drenched him. His head started reeling and he felt as if the whole world around him- the earth below, his belongings, his hut , the sky outside are moving in circles.
Temperature rising, he felt several volcanoes started erupting within him. Sahib felt the earth below his feet are moving away and the roof of his hut is collapsing suddenly and falling on him. He could lay his hand on the flute and dragged himself slowly to outside his hut and started playing his flute like a mad man. Heavy rains drenched him. Sahib spread his hands and felt as if he is becoming lighter and lighter and he is flying in the sky and his hut, entire Gualpara, Sadajharan and the lush green surroundings becoming smaller and smaller- almost invisible. The flute fell from his hand and his body fell on the ground with a thud. All of a sudden a flash of rains fell from above.
After a week the flood water started receding and Bhola’s boat started operating again. Bhola could not believe his ears when he heard about Sahib from villagers. Sahib’s body remained lying still in rains and mud near his hut. Bhola came to know that not a single villager of Gualpara came forward to touch the dead body of a leprosy affected Sahib and undertake the last rites. Bhola was heart broken. He could do nothing during Sahib’s suffering. Nor he could do anything to arrange honourable exit of his buddy. Raising his hands towards above he cried like a child and uttered “buddy, how could you leave me behind and how will I live without your company?” He remembered each moment he spent with him. He became angry with the selfish villagers of Gualpara. He could hear the music of flute at a distance. He felt, it’s his buddy Sahib playing his flute. After a while he could feel nothing except the music ringing – from far and near, everywhere, from every corner. He took a fire-wood from the fireplace and threw it above his hut. Immediately the straw roof was in inferno. He could see huge dark smoke rising from above his hut towards the sky and within it he could see someone, playing the flute and calling him with a smile on the lips and urging him to sing along.
Ashok Kumar Mishra, Retired as Dy General Manager from NABARD-
Did his MA and M Phil from JNU.
-Made pioneering contribution in building up Self Help Groups in Odisha
-Served as Director of a bank for over six Years
Has authored several books and written several articles on micro credit movement
Four tele films were made on his book titled “A Small Step forward”
Written Short Stories in Odia and English, several of them published
“Mathilukal” (Walls) is a famous Malayalam novel written by the well known writer Vaikkam Muhammed Basheer. The story is about two prisoners a male and a female who accidently starts talking across the high prison wall and the story builds up with conversation between them on and off sharing their life happenings with only voice being carried over the high wall. The highlight of the story is the lady never appears physically in the story but in voice character only and the story proceeds and ends with no physical meeting.
Almost similar happenings at the last lap of my life when the light of life starts flickering and this virtual meet accidentally gives a new life, new energy and joy unlimited.
We meet on a literary social site where ideas and thoughts are exchanged where I happen to notice these scholarly posts which enriched my thoughts and ideas and it was learning the language way beyond what was learnt and exposure to unheard words its usage. Had to compliment her on her academic brilliance and slowly and steadily the thoughts and ideas got bonded where the alignment of views got fused gradually. The literary passion strong in both went to the next level of exchanging ideas and thoughts verbally over phone. It was wonderful talking to one who was on a high pedestal intellectually in her field and intellectual compatibility to me a must for any relationship to survive and flourish.
Once this lovely story “Walls” came into our discussion and both of us were vociferous in talking about it. We had our views and vision about this great author and in this book his unique way of storytelling though conversation with the prison wall obstructing their emotions, desperation and suffocation reflecting in their conversation. The beauty of the illustration was one the best and our exchange went on and on with the other picking up from the last line spoken. It was enlightenment at its best and other than this book many other books also came into our discussion but “Walls “always stood apart high and strong.
Our friendship bloomed and picked up strength and values as it progressed. At an aged age there was something to look up to with inputs of information of what was read and unread. It was happiness in a spectrum wide and colourful. Other than the literary part personal issues also came into our interaction and together we delved into the happening’s life played on each of us.
Then it happened. It was my making, my doing my act which ruined a good relationship. Right or wrong my nature which came along maybe with age took me to the silent zone of wilderness and solitude and it was just following the mind following the leader. Having gone through the rough and tough patches of life an insatiable desire to cut off and be without attachments and be in the company of oneself creeps in. It can be absurd to any other person but I get drawn into it and like a zombie, follow it and the damage done and no looking back. No explanation for an act which I acted instinctively. No guarantee that it will not reoccur and none will tolerate or pardon the act and I was at fault for acting in a crazy manner which ruined a relationship which stood shining like the pole star.
The happenings almost similar to the happenings in the book. We had been talking and exchanging slices of our life story separated by distance. It was only talking without seeing. Understandings and misunderstandings have relevance here as relationships are sacred and should be protected at any cost sacrificing personal pleasures.
My only wish and strong desire is that this happening should not have an end like in
“Walls”
T. V. Sreekumar is a retired Engineer stationed at Pondicherry with a passion for writing. He was a blogger with Sulekha for over fifteen years and a regular contributor writing under the name SuchisreeSreekumar.
Some of his stories were published in Women's Era. “THE HINDU” had also published some of his writings on its Open Page..
OLYMPIA’S WASHINGTON STATE CAPITOL & BILLY FRANK JR. NISQUALLY NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
(Mud Flats at Grays Harbor, Nisqually Refuge, Olympia. Photo Courtesy: N. Ravi August 2023)
Holidaying in Seattle in the summer of 2023 has been a pleasant experience. Unlike the past years, this summer has been warmer than usual, extended too, (Hot! in the locals’ language.) which proves beneficial for visitors from the Tropics. Seattle, the most populous city in the State of Washington in the Pacific Northwest region, has grown in leaps and bounds since the 80s when the technological giants began setting up strong bases here. Well connected through air, water, and land, it is a melting pot of cultures, with people from diverse ethnicities moving here in search of greener pastures literally and otherwise.
There is no dearth of entertainment for nature lovers in this evergreen State, with innumerable daylong trips to the nearby places – Portland, Olympic Peninsula, Idaho, Spokane, Wenatchee, Tacoma, Everett, Bremerton, and more; splendid views of Mt. Rainier, Mt. Baker, the Cascades ranges, and the Olympic Mountains are observed from various spots while on the move.
Interestingly, despite its iconic location, not Seattle, but Olympia, about 60 miles southwest of Seattle is the capital of the US State of Washington. Olympia not only boasts of several historic buildings but also has an abundance of natural scenic spots; it is the cultural center of the Puget Sound, which is a coastal region of the Pacific Northwest, characterized by distinguished saltwater bays, islands, peninsulas, estuaries, marshlands… carved out by prehistoric glaciers.
Our itinerary last weekend was to one of the most fascinating spots close to Olympia- the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually Wildlife Refuge, which offers a plethora of opportunities for hiking, wildlife photography, wildlife observation, fishing, environmental education, and endless enjoyment. Billy Frank Jr., a Nisqually Indian, fisherman, civil rights leader, and a recipient of the President’s Medal was a respected activist and spokesperson for Native American rights. Frank dedicated his life to ensuring that future generations would continue to have abundant natural resources. Not in vain! This refuge is particularly important for migratory birds besides providing year-long shelter to over 300 species of birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, and amphibians that inhabit the woodlands and marshes. The distinct habitat includes a riparian forest, freshwater wetlands, an estuary, and open saltwater which provide food and shelter for wildlife.
The sheer diversity of the landscape can be experienced by a leisurely walk on the boardwalk, which promises a mindboggling, humbling experience. The mudflats on the Grays Harbor get flooded at high tide and are among the foremost to be exposed as the tide recedes, twice a day. Shorebirds aplenty that rested earlier on islands above high water, swoop down over the vast mudflats aka ‘banquet tables,’ where thousands of invertebrates thrive just beneath the mud. As migrants to the Arctic in the Spring and down South again in the Fall, the avians need to fuel up at stopover areas to continue their long journeys. We were fortunate to spot plovers, sandpipers, dunlins, bald eagles, cormorants, seagulls, tree swallows, and harbor seals. A glimpse into the information booklet revealed that estuaries- where salt and freshwater mix, are some of the most biologically productive ecosystems on the planet, preserving the food chain. (My thoughts raced to the Adyar Estuary back home, which has not been cared for adequately.)
At one of the lunch tables where we sat for lunch was the sign about the most dangerous animal there- and to keep our distance from the squirrel! Squirrel! Yes, you heard right. They are fearless and ready to charge if provoked. I am not exaggerating when I mention that we kept a ‘watchful eye’ while eating.
After an extensive boardwalk in the vast idyllic surroundings, our next stop was Olympia, the capital of Washington. Located just at the base of the Olympic Peninsula, the city is the gateway to the Olympic National Park and Forest. (We had a three-day sojourn at the Olympic National Park last year.)
The Washington State Capitol Building with its rich history and architecture was mighty impressive. The Legislative building, which is the home of the government of the State of Washington has chambers for the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and other executive agencies. As it was a Sunday, the chambers were closed; moreover, we reached the place late and missed the conducted tour. We were lucky though to have a relaxed walk inside the four-storey building.
(Capitol Building, Washington State, Olympia. Photo Courtesy: N. Ravi August 2023)
While entering the vast campus, one cannot miss the lovely Tivoli Fountain, which is a replica of the fountain at Tivoli Park, Copenhagen, and ‘adds beauty to the Washington State Capitol grounds.’ Passing through the vast grounds that lead to the stately buildings, a halt at the veterans’ memorials invokes deep feelings of patriotism and respect to the warriors of a bygone era.
(Photo Courtesy: N. Ravi August 2023 Tivoli Fountain Replica, Olympia )
A remarkably striking feature of the capital grounds is the tall dome that extends about 270 feet, is said to be among the tallest in the world, surpassed by a few gargantuan structures such as the St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome, the St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, Vipassana Pagoda, Mumbai and Santa Maria Del Fiore, Florence. The massive interiors, with a large bust of George Washington, state seal, Tiffany chandeliers, the marble floors, the large bronze doors, the granite staircase are breathtakingly remarkable; the iconic chandelier suspended above the rotunda by a lengthy chain with 200+ bulbs is an awesome example of man-made marvels in the building.
Giant Chandelier inside the Washington State Capitol Building
Photo Courtesy: N. Ravi August 2023
The other imposing buildings in the precincts are the Temple of Justice, Insurance Building, Joh. L O’Brien House Office Building, Joel M Pritchard Building, Joh A Cherberg Senate Office Building and more.
Our final stopover before tea and snacks was a brief walk alongside the lake in Heritage Park, which offers a spectacular view of the Capitol Building.
The day trip was a thoroughly enriching and rewarding experience. A must-do for all travellers to the West Coast of the USA.
Hema Ravi is a poet, author, reviewer, editor (Efflorescence), independent researcher and resource person for language development courses... Her writings have been featured in several online and international print journals, notable among them being Metverse Muse, Amaravati Poetic Prism, International Writers Journal (USA), Culture and Quest (ISISAR), Setu Bilingual, INNSAEI journal and Science Shore Magazine. Her write ups and poems have won prizes in competitions.
She is the recipient of the Distinguished Writer International Award for excellence in Literature for securing the ninth place in the 7th Bharat Award, conducted by www.poesisonline.com. In addition, she has been awarded a ‘Certificate of Appreciation’ for her literary contributions by the Gujarat Sahitya Academy and Motivational Strips on the occasion of the 74th Independence Day (2020) and again. conferred with the ‘Order of Shakespeare Medal’ for her writing merit conforming to global standards.(2021). She is the recipient of cash prizes from the Pratilipi group, having secured the fourth place in the Radio Romeo Contest (2021), the sixth place in the Retelling of Fairy Tales (2021), the first prize in the Word Cloud competition (2020) and in the Children’s Day Special Contest (2020). She scripted, edited, and presented radio lessons on the Kalpakkam Community Radio titled 'Everyday English with Hema,' (2020) a series of lessons for learners to hone their language skills. Science Shore Magazine has been featuring her visual audios titled ‘English Errors of Indian Students.’
A brief stint in the Central Government, then as a teacher of English and Hindi for over two decades, Hema Ravi is currently freelancer for IELTS and Communicative English. With students ranging from 4 to 70, Hema is at ease with any age group, pursues her career and passion with great ease and comfort. As the Secretary of the Chennai Poets’ Circle, Chennai, she empowers the young and the not so young to unleash their creative potential efficiently.
A LEAF FROM HISTORY: ABOUT THE PRIZE FOR PEACE
Talking straight, this piece is about the Nobel Peace Prize. Here we take a few glimpses from history relating to the struggle for Peace and its recognition by the world. Though facts are well-known, its reiteration is necessary to say how the clamour for peace and journey for Peace is unending despite many a peace battles fought and sacrifices made, many a victory won by the valiant ones, through their toiling and sufferings , prize or no prize, yet enduring peace as a whole is eluding humanity.
At the beginning it may be pointed out that it is not difficult to see how international armed conflicts or war are antithetical to peace. The currently raging atrocious and devastating wars ,Russia -Ukraine War , the Palestine -Isarel armed conflict (Hamas’s inhuman terrorist attack and equally Israel retaliation making civilians and innocents the victims) , forgetting even the great wars of last century , are so serious concerns for normal peace loving ordinary people who become victims in such mindless inhuman holocausts /massacres .However, while the world should be free from the scourge of war, peace is just not the absence of wars. Peace has wider connotations. A country may not be at war with another country, there may not be overt violence or armed conflicts by groups within a country, yet there may be violence, on account of social structures or institutions, denying equality and freedom to quite large sections of people, based on colour, gender, ethnicity or class. Such outwardly invisible violence goes by the name of structural violence.
Though different from direct violence, structural violence does hamper people’s wellbeing, health, education, income, human rights and dignity. Racism, sexism, classism, colonialism and neo-colonialism can be said to be some examples of structural violence which disturbs peace in a larger or deeper scenario. Thus, Peace calls for positive social relations, justice, human rights, cooperation, and harmony among people and groups. Peace is both a goal and a process that requires constant effort and creativity and the Nobel Peace Prize serves to recognise those who are fighting for that goal and have been active in the process for its realisation – from finding solutions to knotty interstate and intra-state armed conflicts to fighting structural violence and contributing to building positive peace as Mother Terrasa did by her humanitarian care.
According to UNESCO, peace is "living together with our differences – of sex, race, language, religion or culture – while furthering universal respect for justice and human rights on which such coexistence depends." Peace is not something that can be imposed or achieved by force, but rather something that emerges from dialogue, understanding, and mutual respect.
As the fact is well-known, the Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel. He wanted to reward those who have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.
Some of the most famous recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize are Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai and Barack Obama to name a few . We may briefly highlight some of these crusaders for peace who were awarded Nobel Peace before coming to the recent most significant awardee – Narges Mohammadi !
Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his non-violent struggle for civil rights for the Afro-American population or in other words for equal rights for the Blacks in America. King Jr had been influenced by Mahatam Gandhi and had followed a peaceful path for attaining the political goal of equality of citizens of America. He had donated the prize money of $54,123 to the civil rights movement. King as we know was assassinated in 1968.
Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her work in bringing help to suffering humanity. She was the leader of Missionaries of Charity, Calcutta. Mother Teresa’s organization-built homes for orphans, nursing homes for lepers, and hospices for the terminally ill in Calcutta, now Kolkata. Her organization also engaged in aid work in other parts of the world.
Nelson Mandela, the South African leader who fought against racial discrimination known as apartheid, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 ( with Frederik Willem de Klerk, the last State President of apartheid-era South Africa). They were awarded the prize “for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic system in South Africa.
Mandela was a leader of the African National Congress, a liberation movement that fought against racial discrimination and oppression for which he had to spend 27 long years in prison for his resistance activities which were non-violent and Gandhian . Needless perhaps to mention that Gandhi had shown the efficacy of his non-violent methods in fighting racial discrimination and securing the rights of Indian and other Asian workers in a series of campaigns that he led from 1893 to 1914 . Like Martin Luther King Jr , Mandela was a great admirer of Mahatma Gandhi and acknowledged Gandhi as one of his role models and sources of inspiration in his struggle against apartheid in South Africa. He also received the International Gandhi Peace Prize in 2001 for his peacemaking efforts. Mandela said that Gandhi’s message of peace and non-violence holds the key to human survival in the 21st century.
In 2014, Malala Yousafzai, a 17 years young Pakistani girl , became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her fight for the right of every child to receive education. In 2007, when she was ten years old, the conservative Taliban had practically taken control over the Swat Valley of northwestern Pakistan . There was a ban on Girls attending school, and participating in cultural activities like dancing and watching television. The group made its opposition to a proper education for girls a cornerstone of its policy through terror campaign. By the end of 2008,it is said that the Taliban had destroyed some 400 schools. Malala maintained a diary of the events, published in 2009 by BBC Urdu , revealed the atrocities of the Taliban that hugely affected rights of girls.
Determined to go to school and with a firm belief in her right to education, Malala stood up to the challenge of Taliban which had issued threats against her life. On October 9, 2012, Malala was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman who boarded her school bus in the Swat Valley. Fortunately, she could be rushed to a military hospital in Peshawar in time, where she underwent a three-hour surgery to remove the bullet from her skull. She was then flown to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, where she received further treatment and rehabilitation. She made a remarkable recovery and thus survived to resume her education and activism for girls’ rights.
In 2013, TIME magazine named Malala one of “The 100 Most Influential People in the World.” On her 16th birthday she spoke in the United Nations. In her speech Malala called for the equal right to education for girls all over the world, and became a symbol of this cause.
In her Nobel acceptance speech, Malala had said, “This award is not just for me. It is for those forgotten children who want education. It is for those frightened children who want peace. It is for those voiceless children who want change.” She had famously said, “One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution” .
Maria Ressa (a Russian journalist) and Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov (a Fillipino were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. They were awarded the prize “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace”. The Nobel committee called the pair “representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal”.
Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian activist, 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner is now the talk of the people all over the world. The award is recognition for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all. The Norwegian Nobel Committee referred to last year’s protests in Iran, following the killing of a young woman named Mahsa Amini , (a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman )while she was in the custody of the Iranian morality police for not covering her head, Iran’s mandatory headscarf law. The protests’ motto ‘Zan –Zendegi – Azadi’ (Woman – Life – Freedom) “suitably expresses the dedication and work of Narges Mohammadi”, the committee has commented.
Ms. Mohammadi is currently lodged in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison known for its harsh conditions. In fact, the Iranian regime has arrested her 13 times, convicted her five times, and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. She has been separated from her family and not seen her husband or children for an extended period due to her imprisonment.
Ms. Mohammadi has advocated against death penalty in a country that is reported for most state executions. A strong advocate of women’s rights since her days as a college student, Ms. Mohammadi was arrested for the first time in 2011 for her efforts to assist incarcerated activists and their families.
Back to prison, she began opposing the regime’s systematic use of torture and sexualised violence against political prisoners, especially women, that is alleged to be practised in Iranian prisons.
Mohammadi, an engineer and physicist, over the years, has been awarded several prizes like the Alexander Lang Award (2009), the Pen Anger Award (2011), the Andrei Sakharov Award (2018), and the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize (2023) for her fight against oppression of human rights in Iran. Her husband , Taghi Rahmani, a pro-reform Iranian activist lives in exile in France with their two children.
In the conclusions we may note a few points to bring the above discussion to a close. Alfed Nobel did a great job by leaving his fortunes to be used for a better peaceful world. The Nobel Peace Prize being, one of the most prestigious awards in the world, the Nobel Committee has taken into account, the expanded meaning of peace – from peace-making to peace keeping to peace building . It honours not only individuals or organisation for peaceful resolution of armed conflicts through diplomacy or negotiation, but also those who have struggled for racial equality, gender justice and humanitarian to environmental causes.
Mr Nitish Nivedan Barik hails from Cuttack,Odisha and is a young IT professional working as a Team Lead with Accenture at Bangalore.
(Dedicated to Ma Katyayani also known as Mahisasurmaradini.)
Colour green.
Today it seemed a little difficult to reach the pandal early, car was not available, kept thinking if it gets late,the venue would be overcrowded and it won't be possible for me to take Rahul for darshan,kept my fingers crossed, was not sure what would be his reaction once we reached the pandal. Last year it had gone off smoothly,what about today?These thoughts kept bothering me as I waited for the ???? car,was told there could be a delay because of heavy traffic. For these children waiting time has always been an issue.I had to divert his mind to other conversations so that the thought of the car was totally wiped out from his mind.I really wanted it to be a successful day like other days,anyways I was not going to give up without trying.
Finally the car came to a halt at the gate.I quickly pulled out a Cadburys chocolate from the freezer(a big one,smaller ones wouldn't work for such a big task)and pushed it inside my purse.We got into the car and we moved on.I had mentioned to him before leaving home as to where we were going.
Finally we reached and the car was parked.I asked Rahul to get down, he shrugged his shoulders,all through the drive I was praying to Ma that only she could help me and for some reason my eyes were moist and a few drops rolling down my cheeks,I was tired hadn't slept well last two nights. Rahul is always part of my morning prayers and loves to chant..."Ganapati Bappa Porya (Morya)!!...""Jai Dugga Ma!!(Durga)".
I asked him again, he refused, I suddenly remembered the chocolate in my purse, pulled it out,with the sound of the wrapper,he turned his head and looked at the purse ????, yes!! she has it,out came the seat belt ,he opened the door and was ready to March ahead. I held his hand took him in and made him comfortable on the chair, coolers were blowing cool air,much respite from the heat.The driver followed us and he sat beside him.I quickly took permission from the volunteers if I could take him closer to the idol,they were much too happy to let him go.He bowed down in front of the idol seeking Ma's blessings.I asked one of the helpers if Aarti was yet to happen, but to my dismay it was long over.I was late,I had missed it,a bout of sadness gripped me over sending shivers down my spine.Holding his hand we came down the steps and he settled down on the chair. I meanwhile stood in front with hands folded.A little later I realized pandit ji kept looking at me for a prolonged time, it was a sustained eye contact for that period, I frowned for a while and then he said...."this is the last "Pushpanjali "I'm doing, I will not consider anymore people after this, my eyes gleamed with joy,I spread my folded palms to take the colourful flowers which I could offer to Ma Durga along with others, a few who were seated on the chair came running ?????? to offer flowers.He chanted the mantras..."Namastasye Namastasye namoh namaha....!!"
"Ya devi sarwabhuteshu shakti rupena sansitha.....!!
Hushkoo ???? ???? stayed at home ???? while we finished our task for the day,I thought he too could have been part of Pushpanjali after all he is her shadow.
Jai Ma Durga!!
Elo elo Dugga elo!!
Ma
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)
It is believed that the invisible, indestructible, transcendental units of power emerging from God, the whole, the Creator enter human forms or bodies as soul or Atman to enliven them for predetermined period each and at the end of that period they shun those forms by making them as inert as matter and then move out to animate other forms to make them living. The rise of soul from God, the whole is explicit from the text 4 and 5, chapter-9 of Gita, being a compendium of eternal advices of Sri Krishna, the great incarnation of Lord Visnu, given to his close friend Arjuna in the battle field of Kurukshetra in Dwapara Yuga when Arjuna expressed his reluctance to fight against his opponents who were none other than his own relations.
Text-4 –
“Maya tatmidam sarbam jagad avyakta-murtina,
Mat-sthani sarba bhutani na chaham tesw-avasthitah.”
That means, – “By Me, in My unmanifested form, this entire Universe is pervaded. All beings are in Me but I am not in them.”
Text 5:
“Na cha mat-sthani bhutani pasya me yoga-maiswaram,
Bhuta-bhurna cha bhutastho mamatma bhuta-bhabanah.”
That means: “And yet everything that is created does not rest in me. Behold My mystic opulence! Although I am the maintainer of all living entities and although I am everywhere I am not a part of this cosmic manifestation, for My Self is the very source of creation.”
As regards journey of Soul or Atman of human beings from one body to another, Sri Krishna clarified to Arjuna: (Text 22 chapter -2 of Giita)
“Basansi jirnani yatha bihaya nabani gruhnati narahaparani,
Tatha sarirani bihaya jirnanyanyani sanjati nabani dehi.”
That means: “As a person puts on new garments after giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless one.
Sri krishna further cleared doubts of Arjuna about the choice of Yoni for entry of soul to enliven a new form or body after leaving the previous one as quoted from text 6, chapter 8 of Gita:
“Jam Jam Bapi smaran Bhabam Tyajatyante kalebaram,
Tam tamebaiti Kaunteya sada tadbhaba bhabitah.”
That means whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, O the son of Kunti, that state he will attain without fail.
Atman or soul neither perishes nor stays in any particular form forever. As matter is discrete; it is neither created nor destroyed but changes its shape and state the soul is also eternal unit of power emerging from God simply changes its position from one form or body to another when the existing body is dead or terminated. In this regard advice of Srikrishna given to His dearest friend Arjuna as quoted from text 13 of chapter 2 of Gita is pertinent.
“Dehinosmin yatha dehe kaumaram jaubanam jara,
Tatha dehantara-praptirdhiras tatra na muhyati.”
That means – As the embodied soul continuously passes in this body, from boyhood to youth and then to old age; the soul similarly passes into another body upon death. A sobre person is not bewildered by such change.
Thus the journey of soul in human forms starts with its entry into an embryo, which is in the process of formation of a full-fledged human body in mother’s womb after fertilization and converts it into an independent living entity. The moment mother delivers it, that living form or the body which is called the baby either male or female, is released to the real world to resume its functions until completion of the term for which it has come to the world. Nowhere it is mentioned either in Gita or anyother scriptures about the period of stay of soul in a particular body and who determines that period? As long as the soul stays in a body it goes on energizing it by some mystic power called consciousness for which the body can feel, think, move, talk, work, judge and so on but never compels or impels the body to perform any action either verbal or physical. It is the body itself being equipped with several physical parts, physiological systems and above all, different organs, performs various functions/actions for fulfillment of its needs either material or spiritual being motored by consciousness. Perhaps for this matter every form or body of human is subjected to decay and finally ends in death being worn out over a period of time which is unknown to human beings but the soul being independent of all actions carried out by the body remains as silent spectator and moves out upon termination of the body.
In regard to termination of human body Sri Krishna clarified to Arjuna as quoted from text 27 of chapter 2 of Gita:
“Jatasyahi druva mrityur-druva janma mrityusya cha,
Tasmat pariharye-thena twam sochitum-arhasi.”
That means – One who has taken birth is sure to die, and after death one is sure to take birth again. Therefore in the unavoidable discharge of your duty you should not lament.
The Divine presence of soul in a person’s body can be felt if one observes with keen attention before going to start an action either it may be good or bad, harmful or helpful that a faint signal comes from within to indicate whether it is right or wrong. This could be a supernatural instinct which is flashed in one’s mind for fraction of a second like the lightening. Once it is captured and followed, there won’t be any tension, problem or any hindrance in performing the action as contemplated. But when it is lost, one may go directionless and land in an unknown world with no guarantee of success nevertheless it may, at times, bring in success, satisfaction and enjoyment which are merely transitory because, the results of these actions invariably lay the ground for generating further actions or Karma. Actions have no end and they force one to dive into the ocean of actions (Karma) from where there is no escape.
In that respect Ramana Maharshi says, “Kriti mahodadhou patana karanam, phalamasaswatam gati nirodhokam.”
That means – As one dives into the ocean of actions (Karma), the results of which are transient, they go on inducing the body to do further actions which block the passage for liberation from mundane ties.
Further It is believed that the results of all the actions (Karma) done by a person from birth till death ought to be experienced, felt and/or enjoyed by the same person during his/her life time and if it remains incomplete, the remaining portion of the effects of Karma are carried over to the next birth which the soul assumes after it leaves the body through which the actions were performed. The scriptures say, “Karma phalam agre dhabati dhabati” that means, the fruits of action run and run in front of the soul until they are fully enjoyed or experienced. Obviously therefore the unpaid effects of all actions done during the previous lives take the role of a guide for soul to lead it to enter into an appropriate body after termination of the previous body through which actions or Karma were done to make a conducive environment for experiencing the past impressions carried over with it.
Similarly, the effects of the conduct and dealings of previous form or body with others if not squared off during that life span, the remains go on to determine the relationship it would have with others in the next birth after assuming the new form, so that the balance of past impressions are fully accomplished. Thus the relations, friends, and foes that one has and the happiness and sorrow that one experiences during the life span are nothing but the carried over unpaid effects of actions and conduct of previous lives together with the results of the actions done during the current life. It is said, nothing goes unpaid in one’s cycle of births and deaths. Sri Krishna while advising His closest friend Arjuna in the battle field of Kurukshetra clarifies as quoted from Text 8, Chapter 15 of Gita:
“Sariram yad avapnoti yachhapyuktamatiswarah,
Grihitwaitani sanjati vayur gandhanam vasayet.”
That means, the living entity in the material world carries his different conceptions of life from one body to another, as the air carries aromas. Thus he takes one kind of body and again quits it to take another.
Then in Text 9, Chapter 15 of Gita where Sri Krishna says,
“Srotram chaksuh sparsanam cha rasanam ghranameba cha,
Adhisthaya manasaschyam visayan upasevate.”
That means, The living entity, thus taking another gross body, obtains a certain type of ear, eye, tongue, nose and sense of touch, which are grouped about the mind. He thus enjoys a particular set of sense objects.
Now for better understanding if some samples are taken at random from a society as a test case, it will be transparent that the probabilities of incidence of previous life’s impressions are visibly manifest in them. To illustrate, let us take the case of two or more children of a person. Out of say two children, one is normal and the other may be mad or physically handicapped or sick. Similarly, in another case one of the two may be intelligent, sharp and handsome while the other may be stupid, ugly and scoundrel. In many other cases both the children may be seen intelligent and gentle. Again out of two children of a person one is sweet spoken and friendly having many friends by virtue of his suave nature whereas the other might be a rogue, bad tempered having no friends. How do all this happen?
Biologists may explain that it is a genetic effect. Their scientific explanation of gene mutation, aberration of genes and exposition of dominant or recessive factor of genes controlling different traits in a human form may be logically acceptable but it is not enough to establish as to why and how this happens at the root when the donors of genes spotted on 23 pairs of chromosomes donated by male and a female each for formation of a human body for both the children are the same. Now coming to another case study, it may be seen that a man is born rich and many others are born poor and helpless? Why and how?? Perhaps no convincing scientific explanations to all these questions are available. So everything seems to be an enigma and therefore believed as the effects of own karma or Karma Phalam.
Why it was not said ‘Karma Phalam Paschat Dhabati Dhabati’ instead of ‘agre dhabati dhabati’? (That means why not the fruits of action run behind the soul instead of infront of soul?). Most probably it might be the reason that if unpaid effects of actions of a man done in the previous lives run behind his soul, it may not guide the soul to enter appropriate yoni for rebirth so as to experience past impressions. Perhaps Providence might have set the system in such a manner that all past impressions run in front of the soul to lead it to appropriate Yoni for due manifestation.
Mortal human beings not being able to find a convincing answer to all these questions rely on fanatical belief called destiny or fate. Thus the belief goes: every child is born with a destiny. The term destiny is illusive and incomprehensible. What could be the destiny after all? Destiny or fate is defined as something decided or planned for a person to bear in future. Who decided it and how? If it is not taken as a fanatical belief, it may be taken as a conglomerate of all accumulated unpaid/unrealized effects of actions done and conduct displayed in previous lives and that is how destiny might have conjured up. So those unpaid effects of one’s Karma run as destiny with the soul for due manifestation in next birth like the aroma being carried with air.
(UBUNTU - I AM BECAUSE WE ARE)
In the infinite Universe one can think of insignificance of one’s existence when nothing about the journey of one’s soul from one body to another together with its destiny if any and the period of its stay in a body ending in death together with incidence of happenings causing happiness and sorrow in life are unknown. In that case, should anyone be proud, arrogant and narcissist for being wealthy, powerful, intelligent, clever, good performer and knowledgeable? Alternatively, should one lie bottom-low being weak, poor, sick, physically handicapped, suppressed, tortured, humiliated and stupid?
Numberless souls have emanated from God to animate human forms for populating the Earth so that all the human beings empowered by consciousness and prudence live together happily and peacefully by making proper use of resources available around them without disturbing the ecosystem and disfiguring the nature so as to maintain eternity of creation and sustain the whole system undisturbed.
But what do human beings do? Barring a few wise people, all others are engaged in endless fights, arguments, confrontations, unholy competitions for personal gain and doing destructive exploitation of nature thereby distorting the order of creation only for self interest. The Evolutionist Charles Darwin says survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence. This is okay as far as sustenance of creation is concerned. Because all human beings, either weak or strong are engaged in doing some work to accomplish their desire to live a happy and peaceful life and in that process their actions drag them to dive into the ocean of actions for survival. The results of their all actions go to manifest their expectations and at the end of their life time if any remains of effects are left, that goes to make their destiny which may either be pleasurable or miserable.
The age-old proverb goes - as one sows so one reaps. and the third law of motion of Newton states “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. So is it not wise to do good, think good and live together amiably without any confrontation and fight and without disfiguring the nature? The saying in Rural Africa goes - “UBUNTU”, that means “I am because we are” conveys a soulful message for everyone to lead a healthy social life by upholding peaceful coexistence.
Unfortunately the life style of people today engineered by high ambition for building visionary projects has turned out to be a paradoxical utopia. Hyperbolic aspiration of people has driven them to acquire wealth and power by any means even by bidding good bye to honesty, humanity and peaceful coexistence. For fulfillment of own interest people seldom hesitate to wage swords even against own kinsmen, what to talk of others. Humanity has been relegated to background. In such condition what more these people can earn for making their destiny brilliant? Perhaps people think that this life is for own enjoyment only and not for others welfare.
Nobody has time to think about the wellbeing of others rising above own interest. Whenever any mishap takes place or misery befalls people remain busy with searching remedy to heal the wound without sparing a moment to think that what could be the reason for unexpected incidence of such mishap or misery. People are so much self-centered that they never hesitate to cast aspersions on destiny and even on God to assuage mental stress and never bother to unearth what for his destiny spoke ill upon him and no care is taken to assess his past actions and appraise them for self purification. Nobody thinks that his/her actions might have harmed others, might have impinged on others interest earlier or in the past. On the contrary, in most cases many people take pleasure in causing harm to others and at times some also enjoy in others failure and misery. By doing this people have no time to think that what they have been doing to earn thereby and what would be the aftermath? Should the unpaid effects of their actions (Karma) go on to build a good fortune? Perhaps it will never happen. So for building up of peaceful life and a bright destiny for lives to come it calls for - LIVE AND LET LIVE in addition to doing good and thinking good of others.
Good Luck and best wishes to all.
(Bankim under a purple Magnolia flowering plant while at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China)
Bankim Chandra Tola
Versatile, ambitious Bankim has a passion for debunking all that is recondite and doing something different in addition to travelling; yet he aspires after more delicate aspects of life such as attaining perfection in his spiritual pursuit. He had a long innings of nearly forty plus years of service both in Odisha State Govt. and then in a Nationalised Bank where he enjoyed his work through experimentation and observation by making his working environment a laboratory.
In regard to writing, he is not a professional writer but after retirement, he opted for culturing a habit of writing on human behaviour, conduct, mutual relation in human complex just to make a prudent use of his spare time. With this end in view, to begin with he started posting his blogs on various topics in blogging portal of Sulekha.com for more than fifteen years until the said portal was discontinued. Meanwhile he has also got his three books, viz. ‘A Man In and Around’, ‘Man is Beautiful But’ and ‘Echo Unheard’ published. Oneday, one of his blogger friends, Sri T.V. Sreekumar introduced him to Dr. Mrutyunjaya Sadangi, the editor of literary vibes Bhubaneswar who encouraged him to join the stream. Thus he is here to ventilate his concept on miscellaneous topics through this literary vibes subject to approval of the editor.
Durga Puja, Navratri brings in a fervour and anticipation of great festivities not only in India but globe over.
Popularly celebrated in various parts of the country with gaiety, food, music, dance and festive swish of new clothes.
The common people also celebrate navratri in simple and pious manner.
Sanjhi is the Goddess of common people, mainly peasants and their young children especially daughters to whom Sanjhi is considered to be a friend who understands their problems.
Sanji mata, A daiety hand crafted by young girls and revered for a good life and partner. She is made out of a mixture of mud and cow dung. Shaped like Durga, accompanied by her lion, Sun, Moon and stars, depicting a man and woman praying to the goddess. Everyone decorates their walls as per their skill and imagination.
The goddess is made on the external walls of the mud houses and worshipped for 9 days during the navratri called 'Sanji Parv'
Sanjhi used to be observed in parts of Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal and Western UP. A 10-day festival where people, particularly women and young girls worshipped Sanjhi
Every day women from the neighborhood are invited for singing bhajans and performing aarti. The young girls also gather there and offer their adoration to the mother who is believed to get them suitable husbands. The aarti or the bhajans are chanted daily and some elderly woman guides others.
Subha Bharadwaj, environment and safe food activist, poet.
"I'm sorry" I screamed as my voice echoed through the tops of the mountains. It's just a year yet everything seems like yesterday. I let him go yet he still lives rent free in my heart.
Love had come knocking on my door during summer and I embraced it with all that was inside of me. As I sit on my bed going through our pictures, reminded me of indelible memories and I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned quickly hoping he was the one but my face fell seeing the furs of my pale looking kitten whom I had starved while in my feelings. I hated how it reminded me of how I walk by his side in my flowery printed skirt he had got me and a knitted top to grace it, with my head resting on the comfort of his shoulders while he takes my arm and guides me across the streets taking a stroll to the beach.
Then I stumbled on a picture we had taken on one of our visits to the beach. "I remember" I said to myself amidst tears. We stood watching the boats tossing around on an endless sea of waves, heading for a distant shore, the breeze blew and my hair ruffled with the breeze brushing his face, arousing his senses and leaving him thoughtful. I tucked my hand against his as my thoughts wandered away to forbidden realms. He sent me a smile that gave me the warmest feeling ever, more than a summer heat wave and I begged a young lady passing by to capture the moment.
I held the picture close to my heart, shut my eyes and let my rivers flow, everything happened so fast.
Winter came and my heart grew cold and weak. Even his smiles couldn't keep me warm. I had sent him a text the previous night that I wasn't even sure about and he rushed to my house in no time like a superman ready to save our love. He got tired of pleading with me to change my mind and he decided to leave. I watched him walk through the door in pains and a flicker of sadness in his eyes that picked my interest. I wanted to call him back but pride shut me up and I let him go and then it dawned on me that I made the worst mistake of my life. I loved him so dearly. Never did I ever think,I'll let him go but I just did.
It's been less than three weeks and on a fateful morning while I sat by the fire place to keep warm, my phone beeped. I got up to get my phone only to see the most scary text I had see all my life. "Nuel is on his deathbed and he wishes to see you" underneath the text was the location of the hospital. I felt a sharp pain go through my spine.
My love on a deathbed? How is that possible?
I got ready in less than two minutes not minding how I looked and I drove to the hospital. I pulled a chair beside his bed and sat shaking as I held his hand. The nurse whispered in his ears and she left. He tried to turn……
"Do you need help?" I asked, leaning closer.
He opened his misted eyes gently "No" he replied. His voice sounded hoarse and strained. I listened to his struggling breathing, my heart in my throat, all I could do was send a prayer heaven ward. As my amen flew into the air, he broke the silence.
" I prayed for a backbone and God sent you to me. You filled the vacuum I thought would never be filled. Thank you for bringing sunshine into my gloomy life. But just when I thought you'll stay forever, you disappeared. Just when I thought the injury had been healed and closed, little did I know, it's been opened in double folds. I do not want to die with grudges and pains in my heart. Christy, I forgive you. I'm tired and I'm ready to go home"
"No please……." The words hung in my throat as I fought to hold back my tears
"Nuel, I'm sorry I hurt you, I love you. Please not now. I'm sorry…"
"Save your strength christy. I know you love me. I love you more than you can ever imagine. I want you to be happy when I'm gone christy"
"How can I be happy?" I asked letting the tears flow freely down my cheek. He took my arm and kissed my fingers and his hand fell. I shaked him hoping he did respond but it seems what I feared the most had happened. I dashed out of the room hurriedly to get the nurse and she came in with me. She checked him and shook her head as she covered the blanket over his face.
"Ashes to ashes and dust to dust"
The pastor's voice carried on the breeze as he sprinkled Nuel's casket with earth. He prayed for his soul and his grave was covered.
It's one year today and I am yet to forgive myself. I dropped the pictures on the table and stood in front of my mirror. Each day as the sunrise, I go to the mirror hoping to see a new me but all I see is a reflection of my broken heart with scars imprinted on it by myself. I wished the hands of clock will turn back so I could correct my mistakes but it never did. The clock kept ticking and went forward. I lived with guilt for the rest of my life.
"I'm sorry" I screamed again as my voice thundered towards the heavens and falling back to earth, hoping he will hear and reply me but he never replied me.
Amakwe Destiny Chidera is a Nigerian who hails from Abia state. She is a poet,writer and screenwriter. She has written quite a number of books yet unpublished. She published her first poem "who is the greatest" on 5th of July 2019. Destiny is an aspiring sociologist currently studying at the Enugu state University of science and technology.
"Mama! You know, today soon after I delivered the Independence day speech, teacher appreciated it, saying very good and patted my shoulder" said my daughter in joy,
"Ok, good, but did anyone deliver better than you?" my question burdened her.
"That I don't know, but you always say, try to do better than yesterday", she replied,
"True, but the road to success is always under construction", I tried to make her understand.
"Then what one needs to do to get success," her next question bothered me,
"Drop your comforts to push and grind down others to win the cup," I returned an ambiguous answer.
She questioned, "What are the key actions one does to get this pricey success",
I added, "You may not necessarily be mature and understanding but talk precise and matured to impress."
"Does the action to get success get frozen at some point to give us satisfaction?" she again queried,
"Like Maslow's law of hierarchy, one climbs the ladder of success without an end and contentment," with smile I responded.
"How it is then called success if no one cares for self and others, shows no emotions, and no happiness?" In doubt, my daughter asked,
"In reality, success is achieving what makes you and others happy without any regret later, but now a days the definition is changed, as success is to market self and to show up one's pride," I concluded.
A software engineer by profession, Ms. Anasuya Panda is a voracious reader, a happy mother and a versatile writer, poet, essayist, translator and blogger. She has contributed to numerous magazines in Odisha and other parts of India, a daily article on women's empowerment to the online magazine Positive Affirmation being her signature creation. A recipient of many awards, she has published a popular collection of short stories in Odia in 2021. Anasuya has this to say about herself: "A traveller in perpetual search of life, to know self, to unlock the secret of who I am and why I am here."
SCULPTURE OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE
Some days back, came to know that a sculptor had clay modelled this statue of Rabindranath Tagore.
The bookshelf, books, flower vase, easy-chair, etc., all have been made with clay by a deft artist who has given a new life to Tagore in his study, attentively reading a book.
Tarit Paul (or Pal), who is a National Awardee (2012), lives in Ghurni, Krishnanagar in Nadia District of West Bengal.
Ghurni is the main clay crafting hub of West Bengal. These days, idols and dolls are also made of other materials.
(Will write more about the crafts of Krishnanagar later.)
Says the artist Tarit Pal: “Mine is one of the few families that work with innovations. It is true that we work with fibre moulds but that does not mean we compromise on quality. Fibreglass has been in vogue for the last 15 years or so. It became popular because a certain kind of monotony had set into the market….
..
If I am asked to make a terracotta piece, I make it clear to the customer that it will take at least eight months to finish the project. But most do not want to wait that long. They want something that looks aristocratic yet will not take long to complete. That is when we ask them to opt for fibre models instead”.
(Terracotta is a type of fired clay, usually of brownish-red colour which is used in building and crafting).
Whether with fiber models or with terracotta sculptures made in the traditional style, may Tarit Pal and other artisans of Krishnanagar continue to amaze us always.
Sreechandra Banerjee is a Chemical Engineer who has worked for many years on prestigious projects. She is also a writer and musician and has published a book titled “Tapestry of Stories” (Publisher “Writers’ Workshop). Many of her short stories, articles, travelogues, poems, etc. have been published by various newspapers and journals like Northern India Patrika (Allahabad), Times of India, etc. Sulekha.com has published one of her short stories (one of the awardees for the month of November 2007 of Sulekha-Penguin Blogprint Alliance Award) in the book: ‘Unwind: A Whirlwind of Writings’.
There are also technical publications (national and international) to her credit, some of which have fetched awards and were included in collector’s editions
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
The small girl came to Neel at the party and said,
"When will I have my birthday party"?
He asked, "Why do you want a party"?
She smiled sweetly at him, "So that I will get a lot of gifts".
He told her "Come with me, I will buy you lots of toys and dresses". She again smiled, "But uncle, I also want a cake, candles and balloons". He promised her all that. But then, she walked away dismissing the whole idea, "Nah, I also want a crowd to sing Happy Birthday to me! You seem to be so alone"!
The man looked wistfully at the receding figure of the cute little girl. Ah, such a pretty child! It is as if God had made her in his own image - beautiful, innocent and playful!
Neel looked across the hall, to the other end where the ladies were chatting. His guess was right. Madhu was looking at him. She had seen the girl approaching him and then walking away. Her face was sad and she was shaking her head in a very subtle way which only her husband could decipher.
She knew, as he did, the emptiness in their heart when it pined for a child, cried for peals of laughter in the house, for toys strewn on the floor, the incessant demand for munchies, pastries, and ice cream. The rosy cheeks, the curly hair, the hunt for cosmetics in Mom's closet, the endless fight with Neel for candies - all this and much more were missing from their lives.
This is what Madhu's elder sister Anjali talked of incessantly, when she visited with her three daughters, all in their teens. They were a bunch of livewires, never sitting quiet, constantly picking up fights with each other. Madhu always cried silently for a few days after they left.
Neel knew he could not father a child with Madhu. The doctor had told them in no uncertain terms about his deficiency, the low sperm-count. Their little world had got devastated the day they heard the verdict. And by the time they reached home they had discussed so many possibilities.
The discussions had continued for days. Since Neel's low sperm-count was the problem they had decided to go for artificial fertilisation by getting sperm from a donor. The doctor had agreed to help them. They just wanted a few more days to decide.
And then the new maid came. A young girl of around twenty five, Shanta was efficiency personified, doing her work in a silent, professional way. Yet, one look at her and there was no mistaking the shadow of sadness hovering over her all the time. It took just one week for Madhu to win her confidence; she had a way of dealing with people which endeared her to them. Shanta poured her heart out to Madhu on the tenth day. Yes, she was sad, carrying a devastation of her life on her young shoulders. She had lost a two years old child just six months back. It was a baby girl, so beautiful that Shanta used to put an extra dot of kajal on her forehead to ward off all evil. Yet that could not save her.
Madhu was sympathetic, consoled the crying girl and asked her what happened. Shanta told a story which would melt the stoniest of the hearts. Shanta had married Lalit at sixteen, as was usual in their community. They were childless for five years and then it was found that Lalit had a kamjori, a deficiency which prevented conceiving of a child. The doctor suggested artificial fertilisation by getting sperm from a donor. Lalit agreed, but very reluctantly, and the child was born, the prettiest girl in their basti. Shanta was delirious with joy, they named her Meena. Lalit's celebration was muted. He would often look at the child in a strange way, as if he was trying to know who she resembled, who was her father. Shanta knew that Lalit never accepted her as his daughter but looking at Meena's face she didn't care.
And one day when she had gone out to attend to her work, leaving Meena in Lalit's charge, her darling daughter died mysteriously. Lalit could never explain how she died, except that she was sleeping after food and didn't wake up. Shanta knew he had killed her by giving her some poison. Shanta kept sobbing, "A man will never allow his wife to carry another person's child Madam, he will burn with jealousy and his ego will be shattered. If I knew Lalit would not accept Meena I would not have brought her to the world Madam. God will never forgive me."
Madhu of course knew an educated man like Neel would be different from Lalit. But a slight doubt had seeped into the mind and lingered there. The idea got shelved.
Neel was immersed in thoughts. He woke up from his reveries when someone tugged at his hand. He looked down. The same cute little girl smiled and said, come Uncle, the birthday girl is waiting to cut the cake. Neel walked in a daze, looking at the sweet face of the little girl. A crowd was gathering around the table in the centre of the hall.
Madhu was standing a little distance away talking to two ladies; the dark clouds in her heart were covered by a plastic smile on the face. Neel wanted to lift the cute little child so that she can see the cake cutting directly. But she had left. Neel felt crestfallen. His eyes kept searching for her. And then he found the little angel guiding one more uncle to the centre of the hall. Neel sighed. His heart ached and cried out for a little angel he never had. And he felt so alone!
(This story is a part of my book “Anjie, Pat and India’s Poor” published by Notion Press, Chennai in February 2023.)
Dr. Mrutyunjay Sarangi is a retired civil servant and a former Judge in a Tribunal. Currently his time is divided between writing poems, short stories and editing the eMagazine LiteraryVibes . Four collections of his short stories in English have been published under the title The Jasmine Girl at Haji Ali, A Train to Kolkata, Anjie, Pat and India's Poor, The Fourth Monkey. He has also to his credit nine books of short stories in Odiya. He has won a couple of awards, notably the Fakir Mohan Senapati Award for Short Stories from the Utkal Sahitya Samaj. He lives in Bhubaneswar
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