The cursed year 2021,
Was for me the worst one!
Forever missing Aai,
tho' normalcy I did try!
Let 2022 bring new cheer!
Tho' dear memories are forever!
With 2021, let eternal sadness be buried!
Thy portals, 2022, let Joy be thence ferried!
Pratima@grief will no longer the soul tarnish/with new creativities, let 2022 burnish!
There are always funny people around you. Actually, you are not even interested in, you are, in fact, least concerned with their being there. Often you do not even have any, forget contact, basic acquaintance with them. Most probably, they are being paid directly and/or indirectly to keep a close watch on you. No, the intention behind that close watch is not to help you in the tough times. On the contrary, their handlers cum masters are paying them to harass you.
These creeps know more about you than you do about yourself. They would stand on the street/lane next to your house, and keep on guffawing loudly amongst themselves about how you sleep the whole day! Yet another favourite theme is how you are going to be thrown out of your job, for instance. They know absolutely every aspect of/about your nonexistent Love Life!They would not be decent enough to upfront take your name. That dignified transparency is priceless. Where will they gain it at all? Not possible in the next ten lives for them.
Such stupid smear campaigns about what you do/are, actually never do/have been, go on daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, decades long! If the intention is to break you, the cheap skates do not realise that they, their handlers/masters, their useless intentions do not even exist for you. Their stupid remarks, however loudly made, are so brainless that you tend to completely ignore them, and you continue (with) your preferred activities, your clean life style, and go about all that you want to do anyways. Yes, it is utterly useless picking a fight with such weirdos for whom the new technology is a vicious tool of harassment. May be, that ugly fight is what they always want so that thus they can continue canards they love to spread. Does anyone believe them? If some do, then those faithful believers are also as cheap as these hecklers. Both absolutely to be ignored!
Otherwise, it would be the same old story of fighting with a hog. The pig enjoys the fight, anyways, but you are unnecessarily rolled in the ugly, sticky mud! Why bother!?!
Pratima@remember the Kabir Doha, "hathi chalat apni chal/gali ke kutte bhonkat jai" Aai and Papa had both quoted it to me!
Heart is free of jealousy and malice
Earning income with a sense of peace
Attaining life goals late but with ease
Love the family, can sacrifice in a trice.
Touch me can not the ugly fancy wor(l)ds
Head, heart,soul fly content, free like a bird.
Pratima@ Such pure health/Aai-Papa loved/this real wealth/brightest gem like glowed!
In the terrible world today, there are horrible people of all varieties. There are hypocrites, there are cowards, there are swindlers, but the worst ones of all such crudities are the gossip mongers. Why? They try to steal an identity through their vicious nonsense, that is why!
Why do these cheapies gossip? They do not have anything else to do or discuss, that is why. A person busy with her own life would not even have the time to gossip about anybody else. A person with truckloads of vacant time on hand usually swindles it thus.
Yet another possibility is that such cheapsters are psychologically maladjusted. Absolutely useless, worthless, and unsuccessful in their own lives, personally and professionally, they need to show a better person down so that they get a vicarious, vicious pleasure by spreading notorious nonsense about others. They themselves, their immediate family and its meanness do not need to face the light if they can steal some innocent, absolutely unrelated person's limelight.
An example can be Iago, the ultimate Guru of gossip mongers. It is his vicious, jealous, evil gossip that ruins an innocent life. Often compared to a vulture or a hyena, he is actually an insult incarnate to the clean animal world that lives by the gut actually. While guts is precisely what the worthless gossip mongers lack!
How to deal with them? They would never have the daring to do or say anything openly. The best way hence is to ignore them completely. If they can be exposed by a direct confrontation, it is worth it, too. Ideally, it should be recorded, too, so that they can thereafter be shamed with/in their own petard. The worst vengeance, however, against such third rate fools is to become better by the second literally so that their tar can never darken our bright image, while never overlooking the fact that only worthless people as meanies as the gossip mongering cheapskates would believe them. None believes the gossip mongers and their ilk anyways as all know the truth in their silly, dirty minds if at all that contraption can be so called at all! So worry a nary about the cheapos. Without and instead of them, let your wor(l)ds grow!
Pratima@gossip monger, gossip monger, go away/ your lies here have no sway
Ever since this danger of a "dis-ease" started hovering over the world horizon, Corona is indeed the oh-my-coron(a) moment of the Corona, what with the new omicron variety!
The present avatar of the dreaded disease is a bother precisely because it is so very banal. The two major indicators of the omicron infection are headache and fatigue. How very helpful! Headache happens! For many, it is almost a chronic condition. Exceptions to this universal condition are people, like me, who lack the head part of the personality. Anyway, we belong to a very, very, very insignificant minority, as it is. In other words, headache cannot be a distinguish-ed/-ing fieature, right?
The second symptom of the omicron infection is is indeed "frightful" in all senses of the term. Fatigue, it is! Well, such are the psychosomatic realities currently that most everyone is currently facing multiple types of fatigues!
Can such be the defining features of a new variant that has already enveloped the entire Europe in its dis-eased, though, hopefully less dead-ly arms? It is such pathologies that make one wonder if the conspiracy theories are indeed true! Is it indeed a farce by the pharmaceutical companies in cahoots with transnational finance and certain 'arms' of the nation stat(e)s! Oh- my -cro(w)n! Crowning glory of the headache disease!
Pratima@ why fear a disease now declared mild/ is its now target the child!?!
Rest they in our hearts
Eager ever to again start
Latent is their subtle art
As our soul-wards they dart.
Together we are, though oft apart,
In our minds, that route they chart
Of memories, never wayward depart,
Never winds that road wide, taken oft
South or west, it never lets you part.
Hark, your feels heartwards they cart
In despair or fear, support they impart
Past in future via present, they are smart
Summer ever blooms thus in our heart!
Pratima@ relationships are forever why through embers them tar?
It is the Christmas time yet again. Spent a lovely half an hour this morning trying to locate who/why prefers "merry" over "happy" christmas. Fun it was, though 'merry' pronunciation wise is much closer to 'Mary', and Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code" has already established the centrality of "Mary" , of the Magdalene identity, too, in Christ's life.
That set me thinking about the real meaning of the cross, of Christmas. Surely, it is not the ceremony, though the festivities, beginning with the carol-singing, are fun, especially if the diocese is Catholic. Beyond such razzmatazz, however, Christianity is the rejection of the powers that be, of the 'norm'ative, and instead the re-instituting of the alternative, and of the accommodative way of living.
Look at his birth itself! His supposed father is a carpenter. He is born to a virgin mother, that, too, in the cowshed. Yet the magi have to follow the star to reach him. His apostles, and followers, are the societal lowly, too. Why, he is the first one to think of the child as an interesting metaphor! The end is thus the beginning! In brief, christmas is merry because of such prioritizing of the alterities!
pratima@the other is the center/the center shifts to the non-foci/Christ is thus the I/of those who the discourse re-enter!
Oh, no, please do not think that I am going to grumble or eulogize the teaching/learning processes of the online variety. Not at all.
Rather, I am going to discuss a lesson or two I learnt online today. Well, I wanted to send eats as a Santa surprise. Simple, clean wish! So searched for the Dunzo. They promptly cut Rs. 35/- online for registration.No one came for quite some time. So called up the supposedly Dunzo office nearby, that is, Bibvewadi, as found on the google. It was open, too. So the guy online kept on saying that since their representative who just did the vanishing trick after having come to my address, the money would be returned. He kept on repeating the offer, and started sending forms and online e-addresses to my wapp number. The very second form along was declared fake by the wapp message system. I also got a message by the bank that there was an order placed for osmepherpn by me which I had not. So I immediately reported it as fraud. So the messages stopped. Tomorrow I am going to the main office to get my Rs. 35/- back.
In the meanwhile, we fast couriers offered to deliver the goods. The guy took the booking money from me, said that he wd require one more client so that he gets the petrol money back, then he said he wd deliver my parcel first, then the second that side, he did not take my signature, said he did it himself, I repeatedly told him the address orally, it was written in block letters on the bag, I had entered the entire address in the message box of the app, too.
He said his Name is mahalinga(m?!?). He said he wd deliver the order i had booked first, and then go to the second order when I called him at 8.30. Then he started saying it was not Baner area, then said he had taken up another assignment so that he can manage the return to pune tariff, will complete it first. After many a prevarication and somersaults about being in Baner, he finally delivered at 10.40.
Let us imagine he went to Baner even after ten times my having said that it was near Nexa show room and Sakal Nagar, how much time and petrol wd be needed from Baner, or from Sus Road as he initially said, to reach Nexa show room? Tops fifteen minutes, thirty minutes? He needed two hours! After every half an hour, when I called him, he had a new story!How much Petrol for 10 kms? Tops would be Rs.25/-
If he comes prancing tomorrow for more money, I am going to ask him for the company office address. Earlier, too, the guy from the same company read the address wrongly, and started giving me lectures. He also read my, sender's address as the target address, and was giving me lectures!
If we are boasting about the new online economy, what security, is there for the honest common citizen whose hard earned money is to be thus pilfered, phished? How about the simple desire for good wishes reaching on time going waste? Do not clients have any rights?
If the representative did not want to deliver, he need not have accepted in the first place! Why lie about Sus Road? What has Sus Road got to do with Baner Road? They are absolutely different areas! And from either place to Nexa show room, cannot require 125 looooong minutes!
The online trade, the crypto-currency are thus horrors intended, it is thus clear, to hoodwink the honest common citizen indeed! There has to be an transparent, genuine openness about such transactions. Otherwise, the system, daily lived, would get corrupt and inefficient, and daily disbelieved, and thus disbelieving it would be the soul of the system, the common citizen. Hope the government goes for checks and balances to contra/counter-attack such jugaads and chicaneries!
Pratima@deception, duplicity/must not get the systemic authenticity!
Best to ignore-n-forget the pigmy Bully
Unlearn that Vicious Harassment
Live your innocent life to the fullest
Let go of that ugly, conscious ill treatment
Your triumphs must trounce him-n-his truly.
pratima@ Why discuss thrice the bully?
To remove the serpent truly
From consciousness coolly
Better your future ideal-ly!
Bust the bully? indeed? why?
Under his pretences, let him lie!
Leave him to his countless sham(e)s!
Let him carry on with his games!
You, instead, juggle the magical aims!
Bust the bully not.
Under such harsh boots
Surely get crushed not.
Touch thou the stars in thine routes!
Pratima@Why bust the bully?/
Why allow him any tally?/
Let him be a sadist/
Never were you a masochist!
*B*ully of the cancerous type is the fool!
*U*nder the illusion tho' that he is cool!
*L*ie he would the worst way about you!
*L*ikes him not the world, they believe you!
*Y*es, ignore him ever, be to yourself true!
Pratima@A crook he is, to be disregarded/ thus alone gets the bully bullied!
Post scriptum:
Why fight a fool?
and thus be his tool?
Intact let be your dignity.
Thus blooms your identity!
When we were small, it was a great happiness when birdies would build nests in our garden. Given the number of trees, there used to be quite a few every year. It used to be a great fun feel watching the pair build the nest, guard the eggs, get the chickling their feed. We used to be party to the entire procedure, feeding the mama/papa birds with tidbits, standing guard to the nest, and so on, without touching the small ones because Aai used to say that birds do not accept the babies that human beings have touched. Once, there was a lovely blue bird that had thus nested. We used to literally keep a vigil to guard its nest against a big, kite like bird.
Once the chicks had grown wings, felt sturdy and strong, they would just fly away. A chick, I remember, whom I used to feed drops of water and fine grains of rice because its mother seemed to have deserted it and it opened its beak each time I would go nearby, just flew away in my face.
For a few days, the empty nest seemed very lonesome, especially if were a sparrow's nest. All that busy f(l)urry activity, that eternal chirping would suddenly go mute, silent, lonely. At times, a new pair may build a new nest or settle down in the old one. The same lovely process of generation and re-generation would continue the whole season. We used to keep the lovely, at times plain crude, nests with a soft, downy mattress of cotton, thread and plumes inside. At times, some other pair would loot it and build its own nest anew.
I suppose, every couple faces this feel, that empty nest syndrome, when children grow up, leave home for further education, for a bright future, for their togetherness with their partner. Busy with their new worlds, they cannot even imagine the happy, content, proud and yet deeply sad, lonely feel of the parents left behind. The home, ringing with the loud banging and the cheery singing/whistling, beginning with bathroom to the porch, suddenly appears deeply silent, and yet, for the parents, each shuffling step, with the now creaking knees, is full of the echoes of the little baby now a grown-up adult with a different horizon. Content, happy and yet lonesome, the empty nest syndrome!
Pratima@the eternal advices of happy yet worried Aai-Papa each time Raju was to board the ship, Sanju the plane or I the train!
Actually today I was going to continue my loud thinking on memory. I got to read a dissertation on the Great Wapp University, however, which disturbed me a lot. Hence this blog.
The long wapp message would beguile most all. This hunch of mine was proved right by the spontaneous overflow of the powerful (or power-fool) responses. What was said in this write up that got such congratulatory ooh's and aah's?
Apparently, a teenager, in a road side shoppie with even its name wrongly spelt, could unravel the problem in a Blackberry phone, a skill rather rare then. Wonderful so far! Such a young guy should indeed be encouraged, though one does guess that such fancy mobiles would be abundantly available in the black market even then, and the kid must have tinkered with such fancy gadgets in his kind/line of business in multiple ways, including selling, and substituting, the original parts.
Sadly such a parallel economy is the reality. Why, people prefer the Chinese goods, despite all sorts of jokes. True, such kids must be encouraged, must, in fact, be made to join the mainstream education. Absolutely necessary! True, every child, meritorious or otherwise, should have an opportunity to develop the EQ, the SQ, and whatever could be the latest, the 'in', "Q", nor to forget the ubiquitous soft skills. Undoubtedly! So far, so good!
What I found rather wonky was the glorification of the "jugaad". The buck did not stop there. Next, there was a pious attack on the meritorious children of the middle class. True, merit must be critiqued. So, too, must be such jugaad! As it is, most all have lost faith in mainstream education, especially given the pandemic . Students do not feel the need to attend lectures even online, delivered directly in to their living rooms. Even when a sincere teacher tries to make it a kind of additional input that goes beyond whatever is available on the internet, students are so blase with what the mcq would be like that they pity you that you are actually bothering to make studies profound!
Given such mix-up's, glorifications of jugaad's, while conveniently forgetting that the kid would have had ample encounters of the Blackberry variety on the black market, is downright dangerous.
Wish I could ask certain basic questions. Would such critics send their own children to such shops cum road side schools that would teach their children the great life skills? No way! Their own children must attend the best schools, biggest universities, preferably abroad. Would they be happy if their child was a drop out?
And, oh, yes, actually, for every one success story of a drop out, there are hundreds of terrible tragedies that never ever even get explored, forget mentioned. Look at Vinod Kambli, for instance. True, he had apparent temper issues which sure are/even then were manageable with kind advice, some behaviour management treatment/therapies. Similarly, it is not as if behind the successfully, carefully crafted brand(ed) icon, there are not any temper tantrums. Kohli, for example, is precisely praised for these! Given such realities, why praise a Sachin as a drop out achiever, and worse still, why mockingly dismiss the "meritorious" as a dreadful drudge?!?
A parallel would be (p)raising to the skies the gangster in phillums, laughing all along at the good guy reduced to a caricature! Surely, mere survival instinct based jugaad's cannot be (p)raised sky high, and surely not as education, moreover, of the life variety. Try, however, raising such an alternative idea about their pet peeves, and, voila, you have raised/roused a proper beehive. There would be a group baying for your blood. Well, their kind of democracy allows only their opinions as valid, you see!
Sure, education needs constant overhauls. Sure, like Germany, for instance, after compulsory education till the eighth standard (because the necessary conceptual base would emerge then, and thus), students could branch out in to skills of their choices. These very people cry hoarse that under the guise of skills, lower class children are being pushed out of formal education. I would not like to even get in to the casteism that would immediately be implied.
I would, however, like to point out that education cannot be focussing on the latest technology/trend in the market/business because these would constantly shift. Education has to create an intellectual capacity, or rather, a mindset, the favourite word these days, that enables you to build, to address the base underlying the fleeting superstructures that current technologies/businesses, by definition, temporarily, build.
We ignore such praised platitudes (without much, forget, thorough, thought) at our own peril because , in the entire process, undoubtedly, the whole field of education, and indirectly society, gets so much more murkier that "cry, my beloved country" remains the only try!
Pratima@intellectual hypocrisy gets one five high's/while the real issue shrinks and d(r)ies!
How unique is this phenomenon called memories! Life, you think, is getting back on rails. Oh, no, not at all indeed! Suddenly an intense memory hits you like a huge tsunami wave, gulping down the nascent routine. Past once again becomes present.
The curious aspect of a memory is that you remember the minutest details with a vividness that is absolutely astonishing. You feel as if you are back at that place, in that moment. You know very well that you must rule your emotions, and not the other way round. Such shores of banal common sense are washed off in a trice though. You are the same sobbing -to- yourself simpleton.
Suppose, when in the throes of such strong memories, better to submit to them. May be, they are an inevitable stage of grieving, a step out of the trauma. Necessary, though painful!Bear them to overcome them, however slowly.
Pratima@penning pain!
Is there any meaning as such? Or does it emerge in a given context? In that sense, is not it mean-in-g? Oh, no, do not worry. No, I am not going to give you all a lecture on semiotics. For sure! I would like to prove through a fun example of how meaning emerges in context, how we mean in a given context.
Let us take the simple most sentence: "the door is open". The dictionary meaning is rather obvious. Do we, however, use the sentence as it would mean as per a dictionary? Never! Its meaning emerges absolutely in the context.
If a boss is very angry, as he/she often lives/loves to, the sentence would mean, "just get the hell out of here", right? If a couple is fighting bitterly, as often is their wont, too, it would mean " do not scream at the top of your voice. You are entertaining our neighbours, that, too, without a tax," right?
If two thieves ate passing by, and one of them informs the other with a huge glee, "the door is open", it would mean " we are indeed lucky today". If your bestie knocks, you holler this very statement to mean "just walk in without much ado".
The meaning in brief is never a given. It always emerges in a context, as per the relationship shared by the speaker and the listener, moreover. Meaning is always "mean-in-g"!
Pratima@Context makes it mean all.
Victory Day celebrations again
In memory of the pangs of a new nation
Countless hopes were thus born
Tho' soldiers died in many a battalion
Order new was thus awakened
Rare in Asia fifty years ago of a woman
Yea, who granted a new grace to salvation!
Pratima@the Shakti, the Durga
Thus hailed India Indira!
P.S.: Aai admired Indira Gandhi, like most people of her generation.
Do read my status today as it gives a unique version of liberation.
No, I am not talking today of the Jane Austen classic which continues to be one of my favourite most reads. Each time one (re)reads it, the novel allows a newer version of the wor(l)ds contained in those delightful and much loved pages.
Right now, however, the novel is not the focus of this blog.The blog today deals with a unique presentiment of the contemporaneous context.The mores of today are marked by a curious binary. Everywhere it is the 'with us' or 'against us' positioning. Let me give you an example of this 9/11 kinda argument. You are either pro Trump or anti Trump, for instance. In such a discussion are overlooked such subtle points as an honest critique of the real difference, if any at all, between the economic/financial /social preferences/policies of either the Republicans or the Democrats. Actually, there is hardly much of a qualitative difference in both these flip sides of that much used coin, the American dream. Both are butlers at the MNC/TNC unholy alliances the world over crossing all the borders of the nation states. But the current scenario is such that Trump is all evil and Biden is the pre-lapsarian Adam! Anyway, who cares about Afganisthan? Such a huge drain on the economy for such a long time! Convenient half truths rule the roost everywhere!
This rhetoric is echoing the world over. Pandemic? Anti China or you are not normal! Who then cares for the fact that trans-national pharmaceutical companies could have played a subtly vicious role in the entire 'profit-able' scenario. China, moreover, leads,nay, rules the manufacturing sector! Facts forgotten conveniently! Sacrificed at the altar of the 'white versus black', 'we or they' mantra that has vitiated the discourse.
In India, for instance, everybody is accusing everybody else of all that is possibly vicious in the whole world. Given such proctoring of the processes of discussion, in an argumentative country like ours, truth goes for a toss, given the agitated and vicious attacks on each other.
Currently there is no realisation on any side that reality is never black nor white. A dull gray, it is a delicate balance of kaleidoscopic fragments. So divided is the polity now that any such calibrated deliberation is marked by its absence! Pride only for/in my vision is actually nothing but a mere prejudice!But who cares for such fine tuning in the din that is all sound and fury, signifying nothing!
Pratima@when we accuse anyone, three fingers of our own hands hit our own palms!
*G*od Himself, explains concepts, Incarnate
*E*ach word destroys every lifelong threat
*E*ach solution He suggests is a Treat
*T*hat can each individually regenerate
*A*s though He thus us does recreate!
*Happy Geeta Jayanti*!
Pratima@ Geeta studied Aai/as well Dnyaneshwari/Both followed every/vrat, yes, Papa-n-Aai!
A jagged, rugged, craggy pass
That was what an exam used be
Once upon a time
Long, long, very long ago.
Myths it would make
Out of ordinary disciples.
Their travails bursting at seams
Their chronicles filling reams!
Now
Exams are a dry river bed
after a severe draught
lasting a parched decade
Excavate though a little!
Underneath could be civilisations
of cultured critiques
rooting themselves in
streams unseen
of intuitions unknown
where float visions
of futures exotic uncertain
that let us anew begin!
Pratima@ mcq's make markists!
We all, whatever age group we may belong to, whether some "guys n babes" as they call themselves, and others, who are just pretending to be 'oh so young', or those actually young, or those ageing gracefully, all of us believe that we love to hate the social media. I do not belong to that vast majority.
True, I do not hang out on the FB though I am apparently supposed to have four accounts there. I am not even on the twitter or the insta. Yet I would say that the wapp university need not always be a waste of time. True, most often, on wapp groups members do forward for the heck of it or for sheer time pass. The likes and dislikes there can be deceptive, too. I have a slightly different take on it. I am the type who believes that even the jokes popular on the social media teach us a lot. For one thing, such a joke or two lets you know the way the wind is blowing. It, moreover, reveals the mindset of the common man as those of us living in ivory towers believe others to be. For all you know, Prashant Kishore may thus be guessing whether or not "khela hobe". Who knows?
We do have two celebrities at least who rule all that they survey on the social media. Chetan Bhagat is one of them, while the other is THE Shashi Tharoor of the fab vocab variety. True, the social media does not have the sanctity of a university. For sure! Yet it does provide an informal training of its own, and nestled within your palm and with your index finger. True, indeed, no knowledge ever goes waste!
Pratima@ never alone/alone, all all alone/ are you on the social media/awaiting you for sure is some trivia!
Measureless
Outstanding
Unique
Notable
Towering
Awesome
Immense
Nearing the skies
Superb they rise!
Wish the universe, "Happy Mountains Day"!
Mysterious Guards of life seem they!
Pratima@ craggy, rough n rugged are they
Yet climb each mountain we may.
The second world war was in a way the defeat of the very humanity. The Enlightenment belief that humanity was leaving behind barbarity and definitely, and fast, was progressing towards rational self betterment was shattered due to the carnage carried on in the concentration camps. As if the ethnic cleansing during the holocaust was not vicious enough, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima-Nagasaki wiped out two living cities. Both these blots on human history were warning bells that had to heard. In 1945, on this very day, the U.N. General Assembly floated the proposal of the Universal Human Rights. Desperately needed, these were clearly enunciated by 1948.
Actually a project forever in the making, given the emergent contexts constantly shifting, these international laws grant a human(e) treatment to each and every person without any reference whatsoever to any issues such as race, gender, nationality, region, religion, class or caste.
A clarion call to the basic rights of/to life and liberty, the charter grants freedom of opinion and expression. No power, however mighty, can take away the right to dignity and equality, maintains this charter. It grants the right to education and to work, too. Ethical and normative principles, their efficacy and need have often be tested in the last seventy five odd years. Despite all sorts of violations by the vested interests, these laws, however toothless the U.N. may appear, have managed to maintain a semblance of sensibility in a world otherwise gone wild, drunk especially on the AI and the AR, and powered by their digital cousins. In a world dreaming to inhabit the moon and the mars, they are the hope that life on earth can be a heaven!
Pratima@ ethical empowering and betterment of self, and others!
Today happens to be the anti corruption day. What is corruption? As India is often equated with it the world over, may be, to many a people, corruption would refer to the monetary variety. In my opinion, however, that is an illness that can be easily cured. Tough measures, tight rules and regulations especially by the powers that be, some cultural and sociopolitical will by all the institutions, including the civil society, any country can aspire to Number One @ the Moodies, or any other such index.
Not so easily curable is the other, the real corruption. It is the dis-ease of the head, of the heart, of the soul which infects those who cannot boast of such mental capacities, to begin with. If at all they have any such contraption, it is of the pigmy size. Such meanies and their cronies can go to any hellish levels to stop the progress of those of a taller stature. As their own line (and/of thinking, if possible to them at all) is real short, and can never ever be lengthened in any positive way as everything else about them, brains to be begin with and character to end with, is small, shrunken, and short, their only satisfaction lies in viciously wiping out others' lines.
What they, however, forget is that somebody's fortune is not lined up by their mischief. Due to their dastardly cheapness and harassment, a good person may indeed lose opportunities. Though, when one door closes, a better, a bigger gate sure opens for the good, however dis-abled the vile vicious think they may have made you to find themselves victorious. Better to stay away from such( especially the lady versions) Iago's and their subtle net spread and cast much worse than the spiders'.
I can think of a much worse corruption though. In my opinion, this kind of corruption is the real taint that one must protect oneself from.The worst corruption in my opinion lies in allowing the bad to make you worse, to be like them, to be their spitting image. Momentary anger is obviously okay. But they must not be able to 'de-sign' you like them in any way. One must have the strength of purpose and character to better one's earlier self due to the temporary setback thus suffered, learn from it, strengthen oneself in areas one realises one needs to work on, and be a better version of oneself by the day. Thus can corruption be conquered.
Pratima@ the real corruption is the image/by you yourself mirrored vague!
Contentment
A child absorbed in her game
Of rag dolls with tattered limbs.
Contentment
A pariah fed with left overs
without a kick in the shins.
Contentment
mallet calloused palms
in parkinson's frenzy
chipping out the
last dream in to a shape.
Contentment
a grandchild's kiss
for the cavernous cheeks a bliss.
Contentment
Epiphany
Ecstasy
A bliss
An eternal togetherness
Of contrarian companionship!
Pratima @ fulfillment
Old time films are indeed great. One such film is Udan Khatola. A tribute to true Love that transcends death, not to forget horrible machinations by powers that be, we are here referring to it because it begins with a great excitement for flying, for winging wonderfully. Flying, a great adventure, a miracle in the skies, is what instigates the action in the film.
Icarus myth onwards, flying has been a passion with human beings. Wright brothers made it a reality. Now flying is made so very normal by the aviation industry. Flying is indeed a priceless experience. You are literally on cloud nine. Metaphorically, too, of course. Indeed it broadens your prospective every which way. It is indeed an arch that made space imaginings a possibility.
Rich by definition, this adventure is a wondrous celebration of all that is imaginative and brilliant in human brain and mind. Let us celebrate this hyper creative activity, now made a daily routine, on this civil aviation celebration day!
Pratima@to fly is to try/to cross beyond and pass by/the limits set by the sky/Thus we come in to our real I!!!
A pleasure it indeed is to keep a promise
Thou giveth thyself in a trice like a novice
Woods then are lovelier, who cares if darker
Of thine self control hath thee thus a marker
Dust thou art, and to dust thou returnest, insists every religion. There is this lovely Kabir doha, for instance, that narrates, "Mati kahe kumbhar se/tu kya ronde mohe/ek din aisa awega/main rondungi tohe". Some reminder it is of how we are just dust particles despite our bombast and despicable attitudes, our prides and our prejudices.
As per the Bible, too, man was made of dust and God blew life in to it let man come alive, and after death, the rituals re-turn man to dust whence he came. The birth of Eve is a different story altogether, not the concern right now.
Why the need for all these discussions, you may ask. Well, today is the soil conservation day. Actually, the earth, the soil is the mother of not only the farmer, but of us all. In our consumerist greed though, we have completely ruined and rubbished it. The chemicals in every possible form, the cruel and vicious excavations in search of minerals, the erosions due to deforestation, we have devastated dust, too.
If life is to thrive, we must let soil survive! Only a rich soil can get us healthy food, any water at all to drink, if you remember the life cycle we studied during our school days. A child is born, lives healthy-n-happy if and only if the mother is hale-n-hearty. That is the relationship human beings share with the soil, too. Let soil revive, and we would all survive!
Pratima@ if ill is the soil/life would have to toil.
There was this video that I watched this morning. It was shot by some citizen journalist who was on a tour of some national park. The safari jeep had dived very deep in to the wild. A herd of elephants grazing quietly was deeply disturbed by all that sound and fury. The big ones charged at the human beings, initially to their amusement! All escaped safely, but the incident shows how we treat the wild animals. Wildly indeed!
The video reminded me of an essay by the formidable George Orwell. The essay talked of his helplessness when it came to the killing of a majestic elephant. The animal was on heat. The crowd thought it was wild, and would stop at nothing short of shooting the poor animal! Indeed wild, who though?
We, the human beings, have encroached their habitat, destroyed the forests, and hence the life chain, interfering thus in the very cycle of their existence. We kill them for our lusts; their body parts are aphrodisiacs for weirdos. Wild and cruel, we, the human beings are, destroying them, while blaming the victims! Look at the leopard attacks! Some proof they are of my assertions so far.
Indeed we need to conserve the forests, their inmates, the wild animals, and all this anxious "activ(e-)ity" not for their, but our own good. Otherwise, it would be a mad, headlong rush in to our own extinctions. Long live wild animals, safe and sound!
Pratima@ tigers and such wild ones at their own site/in the forests, day and night/treat them and their ilk right/in such wise might lies our future bright!
Such are the business oriented lives of ours these days that the title of the blog may make you believe that I am referring to a company and its market share, and so on. You are absolutely wrong there. I am referring to the high seas, beyond limits, beyond easy measurements, beyond simplistic control. The about to attack the eastern coast typhoon should prove the limitless might of the sea. That is not the occasion though. The blog is a celebration of the navy day tomorrow.
In a way, inevitable it is that I should remember the navy day as my almost twin brother is a merchant navy guy. In fact, the navy, whether merchant or the national is proof of how human intelligence used creatively, can create wonders. On the high seas, with the deep waters and the infinite skies as the only companions, a small little human vehicle can cut across huge, horrible, high rise waves to reach the shores successfully is a tale told by infinite intelligence, imagination and integrity.
Be it the erstwhile mast ships or the majestic ships today, the navy proves how human intelligence used creatively can navigate the mighty measureless seas. Hence the need to celebrate the navy day. During the COVID era, too, the merchant navy ships scaled the high seas. The omicron suspect from Dombivali proves this irrefutable fact. Covid could stop the world, not the merchant navy. The coast guard duty of the navy is so centrally important that 26/11establishes it irrefutably. Of the three arms of the army and their duties, Navy's is the toughest, but it has neither the glamour of the air force nor the glory of the army. Time we wake up to the stalwart contributions by the navy. Happy Navy Day!
Pratima@infinite our hopes, infinite our tropes/finite is your might, finite your scope!
Anti Pollution Day it is today. Absolutely necessary! The pollution levels in Delhi, for instance, are such right now that schools had to close down. In fact, the only advantage of the Corona virus was that it showed the extent of pollution. Due to the lockdown, vehicles were offline, that is off the road for a change. Apparently that made the air so pure that, after decades, from Chandigarh, the Himalayan peaks were visible.
Pollution is of various types. Air, water, sound, soil are rather well known. Now such environment pollution types are appreciably often part of school discourses as well. Today let us hence talk of two types that are now truly deserving of serious discussion.
The first of these is the visual pollution. We have on the social media, for example, so vitiated the language that now emojis express better than many an individual. Emojis is the preferred mode of communication. In a way, such an insistence is vitiating the linguistic abilities of individuals and societies. Who cares though? Similarly, as the mobile gets the wor(l)ds in to irresponsible palms, under the garb(age) of fun videos, ultimate insults (who "upvotes" them?) to human intelligence get uploaded. Truly inhuman(e) they are, though touted as innocent fun! This visual pollution truly, and immediately, needs a serious debate.
Much worse is the mind/thought pollution. Such viciousness is in the air that on many a wapp group, pogroms of the opinionated are absolutely appalling. What the dominant group in that wapp group considers is THE mode of thinking HAS to be the ultimate truth. Try supporting what THEY think is ridiculous, why, you have raised the hornet's nest, indeed you have hit a beehive. In unison, they attack, target you. These very people would otherwise cry themselves hoarse over comedy being attacked. In the group though, one line in a doggerel that they think is not right, the sporting spirit does the vanishing trick immediately! That is not targetting in their opinion as they are always 'right'. Yet they call themselves intellectuals attacking the 'right'!
There was this forward, to give another example, about how Krishna's life could be an example of how to face uncertainties due to multiple diseases. Immediately, a great scholar/intellectual/academician retorted 'why Krishna alone? Why not Kabir, Meera, et al, for example!' Well, who is to point out to the opinionated minds that Kabir, Meera and the others of their ilk, too, worshipped Krishna! Why not Buddha, it was argued. Why indeed not? Who stops such people from writing another (re)post(e)on how Buddha's ideas are equally valid as bolsters in days made difficult due to multiple viruses. How can anyone instead attack someone else's choice? The answer to such hatemongers would be, 'why not Krishna, (too)'? One needs time on hand for such slug fests! So much propaganda of extreme variety on so called liberal groups, too, is floated that they commit the sin they are accusing others of, out-gobbelsing-gobbels! Such identity politicking has absolutely weakened the civil society indeed. The ideology pollution is so dense a thought fog that we are like armies, to quote Arnolds's great quote/image, fighting by night! Ideologies zindabad! Who cares (why/how)for dispassionate balance!?!
Pratima@yet again fervently I remember George Orwell who repeatedly pointed out such chicaneries!
April is the cruellest month. This quote by T.S. Eliot is a much used one, by all sorts, beginning with students. Especially in the pre-covid era, so it used to be. The covid and its multiple variants have taken away both, the fear and the queer charm of the exam, what with the mcq's made as simple as is humanly possible.
In my opinion, however, December is the cruellest month. A curious feel of fatigue, anxiety and some worry get the control of the entire system. This panic attack is much worse than the Corona scare , and it happens habitually every early December.
The first week of December is an awakening that an entire year is almost 'past'. Thus starts the realisation of the much that is yet to be completed, while the year is almost over. The first week of December is an acute reminder of the transience of everything, and the permanence of nothing.
In India, the festive feel is on the ebb. With the cold setting in, the smudgy smog envelopes all. A pessimistic blue mood is in the very air, in the distant horizon with its skeletons of trees. Very few flowers bloom, trees shed leaves copiously, much faster than the tears of a lost soul. No hopes illumine the bleak scenario. April is indeed the cruellest month!
Pratima@know not whence /attacks this mood tense!
