Soupçon III.2 In III.i

                           Soupçon III                                                        In Memoriam Series.                                                           III.ii

A cute circular juncture/gesture

 No, I am not particularly a football fan. Sure, I would be aware of the date of the World Cup Final. Yes, I would know the two finalists fighting it out. Undoubtedly, I have chosen the word 'fighting' pretty consciously as I like immensely George Orwell's most interesting essay on "The Sporting Spirit."

 This time round, the battle was not merely between Spain and Argentina, two countries cemented together by "español, la lengua materna." Rather, it was a continental war, between Europe and South America, between "el mundo viejo" and "los porteños y guachos." 

Apparently, highly exciting it should have been. Yet, despite the extra time required for the final decisive goal, the match, it seems was not as high on adrenaline as the post match fights between fans (Orwell is a prescient author!) or the erstwhile Egyptian lament.

That, however, is not the theme of our blog anyways. Our post today deals with a cute movement rarely seen in the football arena, a warm embrace between the setting sun and a rising star. Yes, let us celebrate the 'love'ly moment between Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal. 

Why call it circular? Well, the story goes back to 2007 when the twenty  year old Messi was the young kid on the block, and Yamal was in a bathtub. Literally! Yes, there is this cute photo of a grinning Messi bathing the beaming baby Yamal!

Apparently, the Yamal family had won a raffle which granted them a chance to pose with a Barcelona player. Thus was clicked THE pic with Messi, the UNICEF Goodwill ambassador. The shot adorned the calendar for the month of January that year, and the fifty per cent of the proceeds went to the UNICEF.

Flash forward to July 2026 when the then baby, too, is now a Liga Barcelona product, a UNICEF ambassador for children's rights, and a star player like the icon who, in a way, baptised him in to these roles two decades ago! Life surely turns  a full circle wherein a warm gesture grants that the end is the beginning, and vice versa!

Pratima@ This World Cup, possibly Messi's last one, may not have fetched him many accolades. In fact, the Egypt fiasco got him solid brickbats. The Egyptian fans, furious with FIFA, vented their ire against Señor Trump, too. Quenched, however, that warm embrace embers of bitterness. Surely, all those hug well, goal a fine finish!

Quote of the day:                                                            "With one kind gesture you can change a life. One person at a time, you can change the world. One day at a time, we can change everything," says Steve Maraboli.

Word of the day: camaraderie                                   Camaraderie refers to a spirit of friendly, loyal, and trusting fellowship that develops among people who share common goals, experiences, or time together. It represents a strong, unifying bond, often forged when individuals work and/or face challenges together. 

Soupçon continues ... anew!

                         Soupçon III                                                      In Memoriam Series                                                            III.i

Let us yet again, despite the unavoidable hiatus, resume the Soupçon series in its original form, that is, as a forum to discuss, analyse, understand literary issues. 

Let us henceforth begin the "In Memoriam" series. We would thus meet the literary greats, be it authors, texts, mo(ve)ments, whose respective anniversaries announce a welcome chance to get to know them better. Each week, Monday through Friday, the discussion would continue. It has no weekly barrier though. That is to say, the analysis could spill over in to weeks, nay, even in months, if necessary.

 Let us begin the series with "Gulliver's Travels", a text that was published in 1726, exactly three hundred years ago, and still has us all in thrall.  

Apparently, this narration in the travelogue mode is now considered a text meant for children! Actually, however, it is one of the satirical most, severest critique of the society of Swift's times. Most interestingly, Swift's passionate critique of societal follies remains relevant even today.

 Hence our "In Memoriam" series begins with 'Gulliver's Travels', originally titled 'Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships.'

 Let us tomorrow analyse the genre of Swift's not-so-very 'modest proposal' written"for their amendment, and not for their approbation' to quote Gulliver's prefatory epistle!

Pratima Agnihotri

Balance(d)!?! Motivated?!??

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,/Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,/To the last syllable of recorded time;/And all our yesterdays have lighted fools/The way to dusty death." Thus laments Macbeth the impending doom in Act V, Scene V in Shakespeare's eponymous play. 

A universal truth this quote states. Look at whatever is happening at Jantar Mantar. Sure, in the world today when information is exploding every nano second and in each nook n corner, students, too, are highly aware. In fact, teachers from primary to the post-graduate level have been relegated to the status of a facilitator. 

Given such realities, how far right (and/or correct!) it is to blame the authorities alone for the NEET debacle? Are not the parents, who encouraged their wards in to malpractice by allowing them to buy the leaked question papers, responsible? Sure eighteen year old kids would not be to dole out lakhs on their own, right? 

Is the society thus self reflecting? If not, why? Any regret by the parents who bought the leaked question papers? Or by the students on the Telegram groups who happily downloaded the question papers and the best/right answers? Are not all thus involved in the dirty practice floated by the leak masters!?! 

Undoubtedly, the government has to check the malpractice. Surely, there was some quick-fix attempt the second time the unfortunate NEET was conducted, right? Next year, hopefully, the exam would be better conducted. 

Hence the entire CJP led dharana at Jantar Mantar and the intended 'morcha' appear politically motivated. As if the usual ruckus in the parliament is not enough, here is the ideologically motivated p(r)ogram in/on the streets!?! 

Hence our blog maintains that balance has to be 'the be-all and the end-all' of our protests, too. If the reportage of the 'dharna' is any proof, absolutely irrelevant issues are getting piled on in such a way that the protests appear as if organised by zealots who disagree for the sake of disagreement, and hence the protest, the 'morcha' appear suspect. Why thus dishonestly dilute genuine issues thereby alienating the majority? That, finally, is the real question! 

Pratima@ The actual loser in this entire fiasco is poor Sonam Wangchuk. He lost weight, both literally and metaphorically. Everybody knows now that he is from a rich, powerful family; in fact, it turns out that he is a minister's son who completed his engineering from a Jammu college.                                                                         All know now that the ice pyramid model, et al, was not his invention at all. It seems, he does not have a single patent to his name. Moreover, the institute he has established in Ladakh has huge FERA violations apparently. The worst bleeding cut, however, is Aamir Khan dismissing publically the perception that his Rancho from "Three Idiots" had anything to do with Sonam Wangchuk! 

Quote of the day:                                                         "Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion, against injustice." Absolutely,  William Faulkner! 

Word of the day: Politically motivated                        "Politically motivated" describes actions or decisions driven by a desire to gain power, advance an ideological agenda, or damage a political opponent, rather than by objective facts or neutrality.

Chapter VI, Verse 10

 The Bhagwad Geeta, however little you may understand it, is a great text. Literally, reading it is like wandering into a treasure trove. Anything you see, touch, find there is priceless. 

Refer to it any number of times, you are sure to garner genuine gems. How may you mine it so? Do not some extreme reading misinterpret it? Is it possible to misunderstand it, misread it consciously? Apparently, yes, it seems!!! Hence this small little attempt to understand Chapter VI, Verse 10, given the now notorious nonsense regarding it. 

Chapter VI is entitled "Atm-sayam-yog." In other words, it explicates the modes n means of self control, self regulation, self restraint. Sant Dnyaneshwar compares it to a thirsty person getting the divine nectar, the elixir, the ambrosia itself as testified by 'owi' number 3, and 'owi' number 14 would corroborate It further.

The Lord, Bhagwan Shri Krishna, is defining the "yogi" in this chapter. In each verse till verse number ten, we get to know the distinctive qualities of a yogi such as somebody who has a truly equitable vision, someone with an equanimous personality. 

In Verse 10, he advises the devotee as a yogic practitioner, as someone who is trying to understand self, to prefer solitude, to contain body n soul, to transcend desires, to rise above attachment. Sant Dnyaneshwar explains this verse most lyrically as it authentically captures the very 'i'dentity of a yogi beyond empty ego.

Honestly, in all fairness, most secularly it can be asserted that no way, by no strech of imagination is it possible to justify the awful Ansari attitude regarding it. The least one could say about the controversy is that the Ansari argument is not merely unjustifiable. Essentially it is mischievous.

Why thus create communal hatred? The anger regarding such misconstruing is understandable, and yet unnecessary are awful rewards to be awarded to someone who would cut the erring tongue!

Pratima@ Why the multi-pronged manipulation to create unrest consciously? Who indeed is the puppet master? Is it the Deep State or some vested interests nearer home? 

Quote of the day:                                           "Disinformation is more than just lying: it's the denial and twisting of reality in order to present some desired image to the rest of the world," explicates Will Hurd.

Word of the day: manipulative                                Manipulative means skillful at unfairly influencing somebody.

Binaries b(l)ind!

 She is a doctor with an MBBS from a much respected institute. Used to practise, too, and for the good of the poverty stricken women. In fact, her patients' plight sensitised her to multiple injustices. Fearlessly arose her bold voice. 

The erstwhile Central Government as well as the erstwhile State Government of Bengal would not support this much hounded lady as at stake was their kind of voters' mindset! Any feminist, any Marxist, at least Leftist protest against her conscious ill-treatment, nay, open threats to her life? Hardly any! 

Hence the intelligent, well-read, aware citizen without any party affiliations, without any enjoyment of any convenient political patronage, without any compulsions hence to criticise for the sake of criticism finds it difficult to digest the hypocritical building of b(l)inding binaries! Such (hi)story repeats ad infinitum in all fields, moreover!

Yes, my sympathies are with both Sonam Wangchuk and Taslima Nasrin, both intellectuals, both dissidents, both creative, both much-felicitated. Hence it surprises me that as per convenience, one is lionised, while the other was literally thrown to wolves, and is now blithely ignored! 

Hence the doubts about the highjacking of Sonam-ji's fast by all sorts of parties, new to ancient! Why is not there any simultaneous hoo-ha over Taslima returning to Kolkatta? How about the Nupur Sharma incident? 

Forget the ideology, as they would they say, it is the money, stupid! Well, the Adani-Ambani duo is close to ALL political parties; in fact, flourished, and continues to do extremely well, in ALL the regions/reigns, right? 

Every leader, each decision is always, undoubtedly dictated by the contemporary contexts within and beyond the country, too, right? Historicise, Historicise, Historicise! Otherwise, even a worthy cause appears partisan, and so divisive that good will withers, and bitter binaries blind! 

Pratima@ The Government and Sonam-ji should begin a discussion ASAP. Is it the case that the lakhs and lakhs of students who personally suffered the NEET  paper leak would prefer an actual 'better'ing of the education and evaluation systems rather than delusional politicking over resignations?!? 

Quote of the day:                                                          "Sheep only need a single flock, but people need two: one to belong to and make them feel comfortable, and another to blame all of society’s problems on," argues James Rozoff. 

Word of the day: partisan                                          Partisan refers to an attitude showing excessive support for one person, group or idea, especially without considering it, or the multiple other aspects/sides/versions  carefully and conscientiously.