Wondrous

 Life is full of wonders. So i believe most firmly. There are very many grand, gorgeous aspects to life around us. In fact, so many are there that at times you feel as if just one life would not be enough to experience and admire them all. 

Just an hour ago, I watched this video of a train. I came across it quite accidentally, while browsing through news online. The viral video, so the newspaper portal reports, is seen already by millions.

 The video shows a train. It is indeed a beautiful view when a train appears curve shaped while changing tracks, i suppose. What makes this video special is that the train is up a hugely high bridge. Below is a truly deep ravine, and the train is merrily crossing it. Wonderful indeed!

Have you read about the railway tunnel that joins the two shores of the British Channel? It is below the sea bed! An entire sea, imagine the water pressure, is up above the tunnel that regularly is open to railway traffic. 

Superb must be the engineering and technological acumen in building such  wonders! Well, at least now are available engineering tools that have  such absolute finess and precision. How about the ancient forts and sculptures? How exquisitely carved out of sheer solid rocks! Just remember the Raigad and the Ellora caves! What wonders indeed when the gadgetry available now was not even thought of!

Indeed life is full of such unique creativity that shows the best of human head, mind and soul. Life is truly a wonder!

Pratima@ Wonders never cease.

Infectious

 Yes, it is yet again that time of the year. It is the time to celebrate, and it is  the time to worry. Why worry? Oh, well, the super-spreader is here yet again. Yes, these days, infections are hugely around, and rampant yet again.

Oh, yes, but currently there is  so much more that is  infectious, too. The parting year hath given us foreboding regarding the super-spreader. But this time round, we are far more prepared. Nobody hence is much worried about the variant, number whatsoever. 

Infectious instead is the joy ini  waiting for the New Year. Infectious is the sheer hope it brings along in its wake. Infectious is the smile that promises the rosy future! Infectious is all that is positive that awaits us as the calendar turns a page yet again!

Pratima@Despite the Covid, we continue to believe that infectious is not always a bad, dirty word. That itself is a miracle post 2020!

Threat

 All of us feel threatened now and then, right? We perfectly very well know how to deal with it, too, right? I suppose, initially, we should plain ignore the threatening presences, right?  If that does not work, I suppose, we should confront the source, right?

We are on the same page so far, it seems. You would hence agree with me that it is a wee bit little too difficult when one has to face a constant threat whose source cannot be located, but one senses its presence 24x7! No, no, it is not at all paranoia. An example or two may suffice, right?

Well, since early morning till midnight, if some mobike or two-wheeler zooms past the lane, you cannot question it as the lane happens to be a public road. Well, right under the huge neem tree in the compound of the house next door, such vehicles stop, how can you question that either?

Such surveillance goes on though. Someone constantly seems to keep a tab on every move of yours, when you wake up, when you eat, when you sleep, what do you do during the afternoons, evenings, and so on, and so on! Who you speak to, where you go, why you go there, whom you wapp, whom you e-mail, the weird interest never, never ever, stops.

Such surveillance, being easier with the ubiquitous technology, is no longer frustrating or irritating. It honestly gets plain amusing as this invisible presence, constantly interested in each and every activity of yours, seems so pathetic and  appears real stupid because you learn to plain ignore it, and you carry on with life.

The purpose of threatening you by constantly keeping tabs on each and every movement of yours, in fact, starts getting hugely comic. Well, if you are, for example, going to sing at a semi-public function, and the driver of the auto you hire at the nearby auto stand continues singing for all the  forty-five minutes of the busy traffic, you learn your musical notes better, hone them  by contrast, i suppose!

 In brief, when the threat is palpable, extremely real, but the perpetrator (and his minions) is coward enough to be absent and indirect, laugh to yourself at the fool, oh, yes, that is the best solution! What say?

Pratima@ Plain ignoring a cowardly crook is the best solution as nothing else could correct such a creepy fool, and his cohorts, whether paid and/or unpaid!

Contentment

 Contentment is more than mere happiness.

 One feels then absolutely no stress.

 None can from you snatch this perfect feel.

 To your soul travels the divinity that heals.

 Each moment is thus thence blest.

 Never hence any deficit of trust.

 To fullness, every moment treads.

 Mind n moods no negativities dread.

 Each minute now genuine and full.

 No griefs, no worries have now any pull.

 Till eternity, peace and joy your life fill!

Pratima@ Blessed and content, in peace!

Tribute!

                         Tribute                                 

 What is a good tribute? 

  Forever keeping in their name a fast?

 Trying in their memory to reduce my faults?

 That at times must have left them aghast!

  Indeed, what is a tribute?

  Sure it is keeping their memory alive! 

  Do  keep a fast early morning to eve!   

 Better still in life keep their memory safe.

 Let me improve many a quality.

 Thus mock measuring mere quantity. 

Vision thus helps us envision our re-vision!

Pratima@True tribute is neither obituary nor donation/Empty rituals trash the tribute genuine!

The Christmas Feel

 Can anyone and everyone, anywhere and everywhere, even when  one does not have  a Christian friend, enjoy the Christmas Feel? Oh, Yes, absolutely, for sure! For one thing, the market forces would almost make it inevitable for you. 

 So many sales, rebates, 'one on one' schemes would get thrown at you that unless you follow a strict financial régimen, you are sure to get drowned in the Christmas special offers. Do not believe me!?! Just have a look at the overflowing street bazaars to swanky malls. My assertion would get more than (im)proved. 

The Christmas feel, however, is much more than this. Honestly, it is much more than the Carol Singing though that eventide vigil is sheer fun, too.  It is much more than the Christmas Mass which has its own gravitas. 

Remember Tolstoy's soul stirring description of the Easter Mass in 'Resurrection'? Believe me, the Christmas Mass is much more holier - yes, I am consciously using the double comparative - than that. I should know as i attended one. 

A hostel mate felt very lonely on Christmas Eve, far away from family. To cheer her up, we had all attended the Christmas Mass. Even when it was a Protestant congregation, wonderful was the Christmas decoration, the crib to the church rituals. The Catholic church sure would be more opulent and dazzling in capturing 'that magic in the air on this night' . 

The Christmas feel is much more than such rituals. To understand it better, yet again, as usual, we have to get back to literature. Remember Dickens' Scrooge? Remember how the Christmas spirit makes a new man of him? So, yes, the Christmas spirit is much more than the decorative tree full of lights. It is not merely the Santa gifts. It is not  just the lovely cake fragrance, either.

To understand the Christmas feel, i suppose, we have to get to know the Jesus goodness and compassion. He was innocence itself. Yet he was harassed most cruelly. He knew very well how one of his own inner circle, his seemingly pious disciple, was to give him away for a few ducats. Remember 'The Last Supper'? Yet his pity for the lost Judas, despite the knowingly cruel and vicious betrayal, never wavered.

He knew the difficulties of the downtrodden. Most all of his miracles consist of the hope he awakened in the lost. Despite being so very good, he was the sacrificial lamb for the evil. He bore that pain even when he was getting cruelly crucified. Yet his last words were, 'Forgive them, Lord. They know not what they do'. 

That pure state, that divine decency, that self understanding, common to all the religions, is what the Christmas spirit truly is. Even if we were to imbibe an iota of it, every day would be  Diwali, and every night the Christmas Eve!

Pratima@ Blessed indeed are the pure of the soul/Malicious ill treatment and jealous villainy of them taketh no toll!

Consumer Consciousness

 We live in a world that has transformed us all into consumers. By definition, a consumer is someone who buys a product or a service for himself/herself. That is to say, a consumer is the end user.

This definition may be technically ideal, but it is defective and deceptive in my opinion. That is because in this definition, a certain agency is granted to the consumer as end-user. In my opinion, the reality is vastly different though.

The market forces are such that as the end user we are left with very few informed choices. The market believes in utmost simplification, and uses very persuasive technologies, mostly in the form of advertising but basically as opinion making formats which mould our very mindsets, thus disabling our genuine choices.

This fact holds good in every field, food to fashion to education. Look at how subtly career choices are chosen for us! Much worse is the case of educational technologies. The IPEM or the Byju's can be good examples of this phenomenon.

The persuasion power is so subtle and severe that those who do not adhere to it or do not fall prey to it are subtly and viciously targetted, literally made to feel outcast. Necessary, however, is to stand up to these, and such, pressures for the health of both, the individual and the polity. Long live consumer rights!

Pratima@ And that would be a fair judgement! 'Daniel come to justice' as Shakespeare would say! 

Farmers framed!

 The world over, a tribe that is weak and worried, and hence open to manipulation, is that of the farmer. Causes are aplenty. Let us discuss some major one's behind the typical plight of the Indian farmer.

The most vital cause behind the farmer's plight would be the technology. Well, it is costly on the one hand, and, on the other, takes away from the farmer his traditional friends/co-workers, the farmhands and the farm animals such as the bullocks, both getting rarer and costlier each season. 

Yet another major problem is the divided land. With the joint family splintered, the land that would belong to a family would now belong to many families. Let us say if a farmer earlier had some twenty acres, when divided among the multiple stakeholders, given the fractured family, it would he hardly two to three acres, the expenses for which would eat in to the basic capital investment so heavily that the typical farmer would almost be broke.

Thus begins the horrible issue of private money lenders and their harsh methods. Given the vagaries of the climate currently, the farmer's life is tough! Add to it the social prestige which results in very many grand ceremonies, be it the marriage dowry or the grand celebrations, for example, even of birthdays which now are almost always in swank hotels. 

Technology is developing so fast currently that individuals can already grow their own food, quite organically and on the wall vertically. That would render the farmers  a severe blow, especially because they belong  to the produce  economy, and lack any skills needed for the service sector, for instance!

Pratima@Farmers feed the world, they say. Who would how feed the farmer!??!

Corona returns!

 Corrosive

 Order invasive

 Rowdy disease disastrous

 Only for the immunised

 Not a severe though sure

Addition to the griefs of life!

This acrostic verse mirrors the slow but sure (one word in the first to six words in the sixth line)  program of destruction the corona virus harbours. It threatens to bring the economic and social life of each and every country literally to standstill. It generates awful disasters in the physical and psychological lives of each individual and every society. Not to be easily controlled, this man-made contamination would now never go away completely. Hoping against hope that the newest variant and the current most wave would neither last long nor add hugely to body bags!

Pratima@ Bio-war or a lab experiment gone wrong/Corona can totally weaken even the strong!

No waste ever/zero waste

 Everyday we read reams and reams of messages blasting the social media. The irony of the situation is such that social media thus get blasted on the social media! 

I take a slightly different view of the situation that appears dim and dumb to many. Indeed i feel that (lam)b(l)asting the social media is the reverse version, the flip side of the social media "andh bhakti". Visceral hatred is the other, darker side of the deep-rooted  obsession! People choose to blast everything that they hate because deep down there is an intense love-hate bond.

Instead of going to such extremes, i prefer to use the social media for knowledge acquisition. On the YouTube, for instance, there are Tedx Talks galore. There are the major influencers with their gift of the gab. We can sure learn a lot at least from their presentation style.

Let me give you a concrete example. Dementia, Alzheimer's steal the very identity and selfhood of the victim. The YouTube Short films on this theme are Oscar nominations, and both the Oscar nominated films and Tedx Talks add value to our awareness of such silent killers. They sensitise us regarding this rampant reality.

In brief, used sensibly, the social media can be a great help. What to watch, when to watch, how often to watch the social media are our preferences. Knowledge, like energy, never ever goes waste!

Pratima@ Nothing ever goes totally waste/Knowledge garnered manures the mind the best!

Resolving is re-solving

 Repeat not thy laments, why that mistake?

 Each moment honour and grit at stake!

 Proudly worthy each second better make!

 Every minute in glory recourse Thee take.

 Actions  wiser thy resolve sure make.

Tough thy road, no careening on thy track.

Every minute, a firm resolve to bliss re-turn.

 Thus re-solve all the bother n trouble

Life again with joy would sure bubble!

Pratima@ Happiness is a curious child who would peep through every slit in each closed door. Stay strong!

HOPE

 Have you ever met a person who never ever had a single problem, who never ever faced any setback in life? Well, you must be the rarest of the rare if you have actually managed this feat. Well, everyone, i repeat, everyone, faces countless difficulties in his/her life, and often practically every day. 

Would you agree with me if i were to say that we are absolutely far, far, far luckier than many? To prove this point of mine, let me give you the example of Stephen Hawking. Hyper intelligent, a Cambridge doctorate to prove this assertion, his was the last word in a field like cosmology,  incidentally,  just one of his countless specialisations.

He wrote, amongst many other theoretical and popular treatises,  the Brief History of Time. He had a rather happy family life, despite a very busy professional career. He had a great sense of quite cheeky humour. So what, is that your question?

Well, let me tell you that in his early twenties, he was diagnosed with an auto immune kind of motor neuron condition that would severely debilitate his physical control. When for no fault of his, his body, so to say, started rebelling against him, did he give up, throw in the towel, grovel in self pity and inertia? NOPE! He took control of himself and his extremely difficult situation. Well, when he died at the ripe old age of seventy six, he had literally changed the profile of cosmology! 

Roughly fifty years of a rare auto immune disease! How many countless difficulties he must have faced? With an indomitable will power and an intelligent use of technology that must have caused excruciating pain each moment, he remained resilient. 

Would you agree with me if i were to say that we have the choice of leading our life with a mock at all that tries to pull us down? I do not know if you would share my opinion but i very strongly believe that negativities avoid us, misfortunes start getting afraid of us when they realise that they cannot really cow us down!

 Sure, times do get terribly tough. No one is denying that. Yet why not look at each such stiff step as a passing phase? If nothing is permanent in life except change, why not constantly change for a better self by the day, why arrest oneself in adversities? Do not we thus belittle those who continue to love us, have faith in us that we SHALL overcome? Well, there never has been a night that could cancel out a sunrise!

Pratima@ i suppose, it is wiser to let our hopes, not our hurts, to shape us! HOPE= High Optimism, Problems (E)lapse!

Harassment

 Harassment as a concept is a binary as far as the in-law relationship is concerned. In a country like India, it is often believed, for instance, that the mother-in-law would harass the daughter-in-law. That was the old equation. 

My generation onwards, the scales were completely turned upside down. Most often always, in my generation, it was the daughter-in-law, ably helped especially by her bossy, boringly interfering mother,  who would without fail be the harasser, and the traditional victimiser, the son's family, got downsized to the role of the victim. 

Multiple were the reasons. The major one, however, was the legal issue. Till its recent amendment, the law was such that for the first seven years of a marriage, if the daughter-in-law so much as complained, the entire in-law family would be incarcerated without any counter-check. Against the complaint of the daughter-in-law, it was the legal bounden duty of the in-laws to prove their innocence. 

Unfortunately, in the urban, middle class and the upper class families, many brides/newly married women took extremely unfair advantage of this legal provision. They literally made the in-laws dance to their tunes and/or ruined not only the mother-in-law, but the entire unfortunate family. Peoples' innocent lives were thus devastated, careers destroyed.

Often the shallow feminist support to such scheming daughter-in-law female seemed to overlook the fact that the other ladies  involved, the mother-in-law, the sister-in-law were women, too! Lives were thus ruined by the manipulative daughter-in-law who would have basically married a walking/talking ATM to begin with! 

Well, some solace it should be to such victims that the shrewd, shrewish, manipulative, lying through the teeth daughter-in-law tarnishing the innocent in-laws is not merely an Indian phenomenon!

The erstwhile  master, the British royal family, in fact, is currently experiencing many such consciously cooked up charges by Prince Harry's wife. It is the hot debate there, raging like wild fire.  As a woman in her forties, she obviously knew whom and into which family she was marrying, and yet she has managed a huge rift in the family, tarnishing its reputation through her trumped up charges. The sad saga is monetarily manipulated, too.

Well, harassment IS harassment, whatever pretensions may get paraded!

Pratima@ Sceptre and crown are made to tumble down when manipulation marries in to a family. Like death, the scheming smartie of a daughter-in-law is thus a leveller, too!

H(a)unted

 Like a half dead mouse 

 a kitten plays with

 So life leaves us often

 Neither dead nor alive!

 Life is a mosquito

 Hums near (y)ears a siren song

 Attractive though

 would never last long!

Life is a festive cracker 

Forever pollutes

Hardly hence none

its sound, fury nor show salutes!

Life sure is a pun

Which unravel can none.

 Its ambivalences can none shun

 H(a)unted, forever on a pyre we burn!

Pratima@ Our sweetest songs tell stories                            that are the saddest!

  

Pollution

 What is 'pollution'? I suppose, most all people would refer to air pollution, water pollution, sound pollution, and so on. Really dangerous these are. If immediately not controlled, especially by the developed countries, all the efforts of the World South in this direction are going to go waste. 

Personally though, i find the other type of pollution, of thinking, of ideation, of imagination, truly vitiating. Let us discuss it. Oh, yes, the current controversy raging wildly! I suppose, the real nasty aspect of the silly song under consideration is its refrain, "besharam rang".

Sure, this consciously crafted refrain seems to have a knowingly provocative crookedness to it. Whatever might be the pretensions of innocence to the contrary, the refrain sure appears to be intentionally teasing even to a neutral observer.

Ideally, however, the response should have been to completely ignore the deliberate mischief, covered up -- incidentally, more completely than Deepika -- under the oh-so- innocent garb of freedom of expression. If it had been totally overlooked, the intended insult, which the concerned people now get a chance to contradict/justify in multiple ways, would have absolutely lost its sting. 

By responding to it, the mass appeal increases. Curiosity whets which could be the marketing strategy of a business smartie. Actually, the song is picturised in the most vulgar and cheap way. I thanked my stars that i did not have to watch it in the company of either any adolescent or the elderly. 

Honestly, initially, i did not realise that most depressingly the depraved dancer was Deepika! Such are the horrible swayings and thrusts, that, too, in the public space, that the entire ensemble unfortunately looks like the typical Sunny Leone type of moves. Actually, to even call it a dance is an insult to a wonderful art. Wonder what the censor board was up to! 

By stoking a raging controversy over a knowingly provocative refrain which, as i said deserved getting overlooked/ignored absolutely, this cheapening of taste, such demeaning of an art form get completely overlooked. These issues do need more discussions actually as they affect an entire way of thinking.

As for the refrain, anyways, the common spectator would have understood the deliberate mischief, and if ideologically involved, would have himself/herself boycotted it anyways, i suppose. Why give ignoble gyrations the grandeur of a great ideological debate!

Of course, the great(!) voices did rumble, now that the dirty monies must be (in)directly involved. I suppose, these days innocence is so much and so early vitiated, so utterly lost that everyone must have understood this game, crafted as per convenience, however covert it may be under the sophisticated bravado. 

In my opinion, all this ugliness is the real pollution that needs to be addressed. Hence i would like to mention here the famous quote that an individual's freedom ends when it consciously encroaches someone else's!

 Let me end my blog with a wonderful interview i enjoyed  the  good luck of conducting. For the New Indian Express, i interviewed Bhishm Sahani who so maturely analysed the touchy topic of the freedom of expression that "ripeness is all" was the only possible response!

Pratima@By stoking ignoble issues, does one make minor moles in to mountains?!?

A Word of Appreciation

 Yesterday, almost towards the end of the day, i got a wapp message by my student.  Vikram has ever been a good student. Even at the end of his teens, he was in a big way in to world cinema. Ever helpful he was as far the technical hitches n glitches went while watching films with the entire three hundred strong Additional English batch or conducting the two hundred big group of the World Mother Tongue day programmes. When such a sincere, focussed student writes to praise the blog posts, it indeed makes one feel happy. 

Vikram's wapp message of appreciation made me think of the act of, the process of appreciation. True, whatever one does, teach, write a blog, it is out of a genuine commitment as well as sincere work ethic. Without sounding pompous hence, one can say that the teaching, the writing would be, and are, their own prize. 

Yet we all are human. A response, a word of appreciation sure are welcome. Why, forget us human beings, even gods themselves love praise, right? I do believe in appreciating everything i like, enjoy, admire. I sure do write small little notes of appreciation. At least, i do send an emoji or two. 

Indeed appreciation, i think, makes us large hearted as we thus learn to think beyond our own immediate self-centered concerns. We learn to accept that others are as good as ourselves, if not better. In brief, a line of appreciation is an expression of all that is good in us. Long live the ability to appreciate others!

Pratima@ Appreciation of all that is good, whether in the inanimate (indeed!?!) nature or in other human beings, enlarges our being, b(e)aring, and thus our becoming better!

Difficult days!

 Turning and turning 

 in the widening gyre

 the falcon cannot hear

 the falconer!

 Such a Yeatsian image no longer

 suffices to depict that complex scare

called life as death which we bear!

Futile shows, never felt, never fair

 at breaths much worse than pollution tear.

Crows these days like not the shradha fare..

Owls now at days darker than nights glare!

Pratima@ When confusion confounded  decency attacks/the whole life is nothing but brutal barracks!

 

Ignoble Prizes!

Have you ever heard of the 'ignoble' prizes? No, i am not pulling either a punch or anybody's leg. Yes, indeed, 'ignoble' prizes exist. They are awarded each year with much pomp punctured with hilarity.

Personally i find this spoof, treated with levity presented most sincerely, simply SUPERB. Wonder why? Well, in my opinion, the very tradition proves how not to take oneself terribly seriously. I do feel that many, why, most in our midst , could learn a lot through this practice.

One wonders at times if it is indeed very necessary to be terribly touchy about every issue which most often is nothing but  socially sanctioned mean politicking. Once nasty politicking is awarded a grand name, people feel free to harass, to throw the remnants of conscience to the winds, I suppose. 

You do not believe me? Well, try applying for the post of a lecturer in a college or, worse still, university. You would know the true colours of the otherwise oh-so-liberal, modern, progressive, etc etc etc and etc intellectuals. The kind of meannesses and extremely cheap politicking involved, not to forget the monies and THE contacts doing the pulling and pushing for you, leaves nothing to imagination!

 These very grandees, who anyways would land the jobs as they know the ropes, would otherwise be eternally spouting oh-so-very sensitive statements, in a stance of or personification of eloquence and equity, et al, et al, et al, and et al!

Even if you have not applied for, but, may be, you appear a tough contender for some such position in very near future, you had it! Life would be made (through all sorts of impossible rumours and canards) so miserable on mere suspicion that you immediately understand why Desdemona chose to die at Othello's hands!

 Suppose there is a written test before the supposed interview and you actually have the gall to appear for it, during the exam, the favourite daahlings would snatch the question paper and allied material from you. 

Of course, everything would get done oh so ceremoniously! I suppose, it must be worth it as thus future is settled once and for all as who would dare touch such dear ones during, and beyond the probation?Thereafter, all sorts of goodies such as paid journeys for seminars within and beyond the country, monies for book publishing, for instance, are yours to grab, whether or not you actually teach!

In brief, such wonders would eternally ignore the dirtiest politics they continually play, but they would be at the vanguard of each and every one of democratic etc etc etc depositions! Instead of such spuriousness, sorry, sorry, i meant seriousness, i do prefer the gentle mockery of the  ignoble  prizes! What say?

Pratima@ Actions, activities, attitudes when confronted with life deciding choices tell us a lot about people than all the wow words worthily wafted whichever way!

 

Corruption

 Oh, what is corruption? Does it merely exist in the market? In the world outside?  Well, not really! Coz we certainly, and most mistakenly, associate monetary misdeeds to be routed off as corruption, we miss the real focus while thinking of corruption.

In my opinion, corruption is within. It is the mind, the soul that gets corrupt, and thence follows the external manifestation thereof which can be in every and any field.  Let me explain this concept through a simile. If an apple, for example, is rotten from within, then and only then, its skin, the pulp, the taste, the look, all would be bad. On the contrary, however, it can never be the case that only the skin is bad. The skin may get a tint or two while the merchant handles it, but it cannot touch the core, for example. 

If you are honest with your own self (and with those who truly care for you, close as they are to you), you would remain on the best terms with your soul and your conscience. You would not hence need any pretensions. Thus away from any innate falsehoods, you would not care for any protestations of your cleanliness and innocence as these would inevitably just be there. Corruption, which detests such august and pure company,  would run away from you then, not you from corruption!

Pratima@ Real integrity, the true base of a non-corrupt mind and life, is what you do when none is looking on!

Mesmerizing Mountains!

 Mountains are magical. Unique indeed they are. A special mystique they have, grand as they are. Majestic is their glory. What a riot of colours they are! The multiple shades of green, the brown of the rocks and often the white of the snow fulfil the mountain palette. At times, it could be the lovely beauty of waterfalls glowing with the resplendent rainbows every inch. When the snow, the waterfalls and the rain wash away the dross, there glint gorgeous the minerals in all their unbelievable shades.

Not only are mountains a visual treat. They are a rich natural library of sounds, the lonely wind whistling, the foliage rustling, the wild animals calling, and what have you. But natural such a symphony is as mountains are the real hometown of unique flora and fauna, right?

Not only are moutains merely marvellous, but they are the very source of life, almost like the sea, though far above they tower over the seashore. Well, mountain ranges make rains possible in a way, right? They block the way of the sea fed, water rich clouds thus causing the rains. Oh, yes, rivers, the very source of human life and hopefully humane civilization, begin in mountains their final journey towards the sea.  

Mountains make our natural guard-ians, too. Born of the clashes of tectonic plates and their ancient rumbling movements, they may be fragile seismically. In the human mind though, they are steadfast stability itself. Hence, in every religion, they are the abode of the gods, of penance and spiritual guidance, and of the afterlife, too. 

Mountains are sheer poetry. Long live the beatific mountains. Let not human greed and the climate change thence destroy these ancestral presences!

Pratima@ The majesty of mountains make their mythical mystique.

Of Human Rights

 Human rights! Are they new or are they old concepts reclaimed anew? Well, both these stances are both right and brand new! Why? How? Let us get to know now.

Let us begin with the religious treatises. What do they all chant? Let all be happy, let all be healthy, let all be wealthy, and, oh, yes, let all be wise! This prayer for the (w)holistic growth is what the human rights, too, aspire to. In that sense, the concept of human rights is ancient. 

Yet, in a way, it is absolutely rooted in the recent past though. It was the unthinkable cruelty unleashed during the World War II that made the need for human rights urgent. The Holocaust proved the  thoughtless beastliness inherent in the so-called human heads and hearts whose vicious cruelty would make the weirdest animals, if any at all, blush with mortification. 

The Jews were massacred en masse because of their superiority and the mean jealousies it fostered, and the ugly misconceptions fuelled by the vested interests. If this genocide was not enough to shame humanity, the Hiroshima havoc proved how technology, abetted by hurt nationalistic/racist ego, could wreck total destruction.

The World War II proved wrong all the rational ameliorative promises the West believed in since the Enlightenment, nay, even before, since the humanism that the Renaissance homocentric or anthropocentric vision glorified. The evil, in brief, dominant and latent in human hearts-n-heads needed to be tamed.

Hence the assurance thence of human rights that promise a fair and just treatment, whatever may be the class, caste, creed, religion, region, gender, language, age of a human being. Any discrimination due to any one and/or all of these intolerances is criminalised due to the introduction of the human rights paradigm.

Well, the problem with the human rights is double currently. In a way, the U.N., the agency meant to assent and assert human rights is toothless on one hand, while, on the other, the Industrial Revolution 4.0 is  drafting newer injustices in its wake. Well, we all are already more than neck deep in trouble, even if we were to forget the climate bubble about to burst! For our own good, for our own survival, human rights are the need of the hour! 

Pratima@Let us all pledge to observe the human rights at both the macro and the micro levels.

Teaching English

 Teaching Foreign Languages is fun. The brand new  learners do not carry a huge baggage of acquired and ingrained errors as in the case of English. Poor English! Most users use it as if they are teaching the erstwhile masters a proper lesson! Quite a vicious revenge it is, taken out on  the poor language, believe me! As the motto is "wat laga denge", "mar dala" is the theme song of  most users as far as the colonizers' control over/of/on their mother tongue goes!

"According to me", "you are having a lecture, isn't it?" That is mostly the level of the English usage. Poor language! No use correcting ''the faculties" or their "family members". "What mistakes you are finding ", they would snap at you. Our "faculty members are doing  speaking like that only," they, moreover, assure you!

"Before i am forgetting", they suddenly remember, "you are not putting the sign on the backside". You stare open mouthed at that gem of a speaker. "Hear, hear, take pen,"they continue while you are thoroughly confused. "Their is the backside," the murder of the language now  wears a written cloak. "Hear is pen, put, put your sign, not here, on the backside!" Though you blush at the horrendous suggestion, you do the needful. "That more better," the worthy grants you a certificate. "Since two months i waited for your sign," the relentless attack refuses to subside. Before you faint due to constant gasping, you somehow manage to run away!

The worst part is that such is the decades old habit formation that it would never ever get corrected. It is the proverbial dog's tail! Moreover, it is quite a fashionable fancy currently to teach fluency and communication rather than grammar! Lord save the language, in brief!

Pratima@When mighty ignorance speaks aggressively, it is wiser, I suppose, to leave the venu, eh, the arena quietly!

Argumentative Indians

December 8 was indeed a day that proved that we are truly an argumentative country. Yes, it was the day the Gujarat election results, among others, were to be declared. Though opinion poll after opinion poll declared the possibilities much in advance, there was a nation wide curiosity and eagerness about the results, especially the Gujarat voters' response.

Yes, the results were as predicted. And, yet, all the major television channels began the election analysis as early as 7 a.m. if not earlier. Each channel had its own set of analysers. Indeed it was intellectually energising listening to those debates. The multiple perspectives that would emerge were indeed fabulous. 

The debates did not stop after the Prime Minister's victory speech. In fact, that talk gave the panelists yet another vista on to the debate.  Already have begun the predictions for the elections next year, not to forget the 2024 general elections.

These debates on practically every channel were indeed enriching because they proved the plurality of opinions inherent to Indianness. These debates proved, too, the importance both, of the public space and of the civil society, both  truly central to the rich Indian tradition.

True, every channel would have its own favourites. Yes, there was the inevitable politiking. Despite that, the debates had an intellectual gravitas beyond mere rancour of the anchor and the faithfuls. There was a certain bonhomie and sheroshayari, oft associated with the Parliament. Hence watching the debates was quite some proof of the fact that we are indeed argumentative Indians, as defined by Prof. Amartya Sen in his eponymous treatise. Long live the punditry and the ribbing and the pungent attacks of the  election debates!

Pratima@True, these T.V. debates were rather like the Nura wrestling. Yet they analysed, they entertained, they informed!Long live post election debates!

Wondrous indeed!

 Wonders exist on the YouTube at times. One such ultimately beautiful video was a view of the Kailas absolutely bathed in gold. One for sure could understand the principles of physics involved, the optics laws that resulted in this grand vision, and yet all such information excess pales when you are face to face with such lyrical ballads of-n-by nature!

This evening suddenly flashed on the mobile screen a programme called "Drishyam" which showed the Hath Yogis' Himalayan home. I could not get to see the whole of it. Yet i loved it. To begin with, the ice bedecked Himalayan ranges were incredibly beautiful.  

Still more gorgeous was the vision of this Hath Yogi, the swamiji, who knew how to control breath in such a way that the cold did not at all seem to matter to him. In the freezing cold where the temperature was minus something, in knee deep ice, he was wearing only a kashay vastra, with the upper torso covered with some three rudraksh mala's.

Such seemed his control over the breath, and hence, over the body that the external context just did not seem to exist to him. Wish i could see the programme till the end. Obviously the shooting team had huge issues. The Hath Yogi Swamiji could, however, create a huge shivlinga with his bare hands while waiting it out for the narrator and the cameras . Very helpfully, moreover, he was explaining how to make it, and with the glee of a child making a snowman!

Much to learn, in brief, from this vast universe!

Pratima@If one can conquer the interior, the exterior is an eternal, and excellent, companion!

Passion as Profession

 These days, the internet algorithm, based on your views, determines what you like. I have subscribed to the Rahul Despande collective. Thus i came across this superb video of a few Gujarati artists performing the raga based Bollywood songs. The singers and the musicians were indeed very good. The sitarist was brilliant. Most probably, it was a commissioned programme. Yet the hall was half full.

That made me think. Can an artistic passion currently be a full fledged profession? Or is it inevitable to lead two lives? That is, whatever be your profession, perform it passionately, be excellent at it, and moonlight for the artistic passion, i suppose. 

Let me give you a concrete example. Suppose one is a doctor and one loves acting. Should one give up medicine and be a full time actor? Is it practically possible if you do not belong to a clique, a gang, a mafia, in that field, whatever you may choose to call it? Is not there a Sushant Singh phenomenon, the rejected, consciously destroyed talented outsider? How many internet sensations a la Yohani , the Sri Lankan singing sensation variety,  do actually continue to flourish?

With every channel pouring profusely such talent, what happens to the dancing feet, the singing throats, the painting fingers, the answering mouths once the show is over? After the arch lights, what next? What compromises are necessary to continue, if at all?  How about the fragile psyche when it faces to an uncertain future once the stage lights are dimmed? Many questions, few answers! A sociological issue that urgently needs a full serious exploration in my opinion! What do you think?

Pratima@ For every star in the limelight, there are millions of stones, burnt out, right?!!? Who cares for them, for those who love them?!!?

Never Lost, Always Found

                       Never Lost, Always Found

Like that thin girl in the faded pic

With the slender smile

A self that was, is and will forever be you.

So is life.

Dim and dark like memories vague 

Often bereft of meaning

Lost in the superfast schedules blurred

Forever dreaming of days dazzling.

Appears lost at times.

Though it only is:

Never Lost but always found!

Pratima@A forever search for the never lost.

Slogan

Simple Slogan: Relevant, Important Message

                           Slogan 

Save the soil, is the slogan.

 From whom, that is the question!

 Of the destroyer, how to expect creation?

Wake up, Man!

Do pay attention.

How else would survive the next generation?

Save the soil, save life.

Chaos or else would be rife.

Pratima@Time we realise the compost modernity/So that life can go on till eternity!

Disability

                        Disability

Disability! Where does it dwell?

 In the mind that makes life a hell?

 Sure the body bears the face value.

 All is not merely it, lemme tell you.

 Better know, resides it in the mind.

 In THINE self belief, canst THEE defeat it.

 Let not the wor(l)dly pity to doubt thee bind

  If travails tire, turn not chores to a hell pit.

  Try instead with destiny a tryst peerless.

   Yet 'get set go' anew, win prizes matchless.

Pratima@Disability Day:A Clarion Call to Defeat Destiny Anew!

 

Addled

 A lie is a lie is a lie

 It is not a dilemma

 called the road not taken.

 A lie is a lie is a lie.

 It is a crossroad whence 

many roads branch out to nowhere

and return to square one.

The real sin 

mystifying misguiding masters

ho-ho-hoax juggling chicanery 

whimper awhile the holier-than-thou

and the truer-than-the-true

thus is aforetime buried the birth of belief.

A lie is a lie is a lie.

Cynics find fact stranger than fiction!

A lie is a lie is a lie.

Life thus splinters in

a glasshouse where mirrors reflect mirrors

whence echo silent screams full of (t)errors!

Pratima@ When lies wear the cloak of truth/breathe cannot  the honest, forsooth!

With an Apologie to Emily Dickinson

 You ARE a nobody! Why such promos on the FB tho?

Are you indeed a somebody? Hey, you, your own foe!

Yup, there are many such pairs of algorithms.

Don't sell the whole!Helps often to keep mum!

How dull- to be a social media star!

The public memory , like a sieve, porous

Why then sell your self to the weblong metaverse?

None ever got any life in right reverse!

Pratima@Why be 'social'ly media-ted?

Interference

                         Interference

In other lives, uninvited, spurned, to intrude

Nosey, bossy, crook, Thou art, hey, Dude!

Terrible lack of integrity why show?

 Eager, tho', Thou art to bother others so!

 Reckless, ridiculous, pompous fool

Fatuous, tho' Thou thinketh Thyself  cool!

 Eager to please the powers that be Thou art.

 Ratting on innocents, Thy mollah dust cart!

 Earth hath nothing to show more unfair.

Nasty n mean, of the hell Thou be a creature!

 Cast aside serpent like Thine villainous skin

 Ersatz, shady Satan, cruel Thine ancient kin!

Pratima@ Bad need blasting!