Masterful Museums

 Museums are unique. They are a city's subtle 'knowledgeable' identity, in the sense that they enable a city with/through knowledge. In this context, it would be interesting to know that etymologically, the word 'museum' comes from a Greek root which means the 'house of muses'. That would mean that the root ca(u)se of museums is literally a 'temple to muses', the inspirations invoking knowledge, invoking all that is the best in the human breast/breath.

Our world indeed has fabulous museums. Why, Berlin has an island and a square nearby entirely devoted to museums housing arts as well as knowledge systems from the prehistoric times  to right now.  The 'Prada' in Madrid is well-known, too. Those who love Spanish know that Madrid, too, is a city of exquisite museums. Why, the Royal Mall in Edinburgh is a road full of superb statues as if it is an open air museum!

In fact, every major metro, London, Paris, New York boasts of great museums which these days allow us a virtual tour, too. In our very own New Delhi and 'apli' Mumbai, there are magical museums, too.

All these are undoubtedly wonders. I, however, like museums that are 'man-made', that is to say, they are a one-man show, they are created by an individual. The 'Salarjung Museum' in Hyderabad is an interesting example of this phenomenon. It is literally a wealth of  wonder pieces. The most interesting in my opinion is the Mephisto/Margareta  Statue carved in wood.

Hardly a foot in height, it depicts the binary Goethe immortalised in his version of the Faust myth. Dr. Faustus lusts after knowledge. In the process, he is ready to trade his soul. Margarita,his muse, tries to veer him away from this self-destructive obsession, while he is egged on by Mephisto who is leering after his soul. 

The exquisite Salarjung figurine is carved of a wooden piece whose two sides reflect these two poles of the same soul, so to say. Faust's choice reflects on his real identity. The unknown artist is so masterful that the same line holds an absolutely different, even mutually exclusive, interpretation. Margarita's angelic smile is Mephisto's cruel and vicious sneer. Put in a case with mirror on all sides, one can 'see' the statue ad infinitum to understand the realities of soul most subtly.

Yet another wonder in the museum is the 'Veiled Rebecca' statue. It is so exceptionally carved in marble that every fold, each pleat in  the gentle Rebecca's diaphanous veil appears real. Wondrous indeed is the Salarjung.

My favourite most museum, however, is in my hometown, in Pune. It is in a quiet lane off the busy Bajirao road. Once you enter its portals though, you are sure to give up your vanities. It is the creation by, a brain child of a father wounded by his only son's death. As a tribute to his son's memory, he painstakingly travelled the length and breadth of India to get the very many varieties of wonders here. Worth a visit indeed!

Be it the mysterious Mona Lisa in the Louvre or the cute childhood utensils in the Kelkar museum, each artefact in a museum is a tale telling of human(e) wisdom. Long live museums!

Pratima@Would you agree with me that each one of us has a special small little museum of his/her own, right? Tucked away most often in the ancient school bag, it has our old pictures, our erstwhile attempts at drawings, and various other arts. Every scrap there has a story to tell, has memories mounds of monies can never buy!

Memories: Life is short, memories are forever

 When someone very close to you passes away, and right in front of your eyes, it shakes you up from within. Well, you know perfectly well that one day you yourself are going to die, too. Death is inevitable for sure. There are people who advise you that it is better that a person dies instead of suffering hugely. Some of them mean extremely well, too. Yet your heart is not ready to accept what your brain tells you. 

Well, when the dead body is being taken away for cremation, apparently you are supposed to say "punragamnay", it seems. It means "return/come back". What exactly is the big deal? Even if the person were to be born again, he/she would never be the same one whom you knew, whom you loved deeply your own way, though you may not have been able to make a huge show and a big exhibition of it.  Neither may you ever howl and holler in public. Often, in this show-off world of ours, the amount of tears you shed in public are supposed to be the measure of your care and concern!

There are others, once again a few amongst them care for you deeply, who advise you to let go of the departed. The deceased, it seems, feel wretched (and irritated) because of your grief. Their happy future is marred by your mourning is the suggestion. Obviously, the kind ones amongst such advices are actually for YOUR well-being. 

You understand that. You feel their concern. Yet the heart has its own reasons the head or the world knows nothing of. You carry on with life. The intensity of the grief is equally heart-wrenching. Yet the bouts take longer to return. The scab starts getting thicker and drier. When you worry the wound, the gash does lacerate, bleeds. You sure struggle, and bounce back to normalcy from all symptoms of depression.

Life goes on. The sun rises, the moon sets, some flowers bloom, some trees wither away, birds chirp the same way every morning, the strays howl the same chorus every night. 

Yet after every loss, your heart is like the lunar surface, full of a huge pothole that no amount of cementing can fill or smoothen out. Memories rush in like the mad sea waves drunk on the monsoon winds. The mindscape then belongs yet again to desolation. And memories! Memories never wither with time. Well-fortified they are against that mugger!

Pratima@ On May 18, to commemorate their wedding anniversary,  I did get the eggless cake for a simple celebration as I used to. Empty rituals! They cannot bring back those lost forever. But sure they usher in memories that burst like summer showers!

Om

 When can one say that a country has truly arrived? I would say that a country has made its mark in the world when its soft power impresses the rest. Well, the political clout, the financial might, and all the other material paradigm shifts absolutely matter, and they sure do in a big way in the globalised world today.

My submission right now is that India has made huge strides in the arena of the soft power. Yes, there is the Yoga day. Sure the Indian arts and crafts are wondrous for the rest of the world.  A unique Indian way of thinking is markedly visible now, be it the writings/speeches by Shashi Tharoor, S.Jayashanker, and more markedly, J. Sai Deepak, and others of his ilk. But would you know that America celebrates the "Om" day? In my opinion, that salute to the Indian way of life is the sure proof of India's absolute welcome by and in the world. 

In a way, ever since the Chicago speech by Swami Vivekananda, the curiosity about Indian philosophy and religion has been quite an obsession in the U.S. The celebration of the Om day is a manifestation of that curiosity.  In the Western imaginary, Om is vaguely associated with Yoga, with spirituality, with being centered within the self, and inner peace.

In India, Om means all these significations, and much, much more. For one thing, in India, it is associated with Hinduism, and other major religious faiths. Why, it is associated with the alternative mode of medicine as well.

Yet, in India, Om has a far deeper symbolic value. It is the primordial sound of the universe itself. It is the essence of the supreme Absolute.  Om hence includes a tribute to the Brahman( the larger universal soul) and the Atman (the self within). It is hence a realisation of the greatest awareness "Ahm Brahma asmi" which unites the self with the cosmic whole in a symbiotic way. 

Sure, the American transcendentalism of even Emerson and Thoreau may not completely comprehend all these subtleties. Even then, the Om day being celebrated in the U.S., even when it does not happen in India itself, is quite some tribute to true Indianness!

Pratima@ "Acceptance," to quote a part of Eckhart Tolle's assertion, "looks like a passive state, but in reality it brings something entirely new in to the world." 

The AI Magic

 What can be the greatest grief for a singer? Losing his/her voice, right? Randy Travis, an American country music and gospel music singer, was a regular top winner at the Grammy Awards function. In 2013, he went to hospital due to heart trouble, suffered a stroke, and lost his ability to speak, forget sing. 

Recently, on the eve of his birthday, May 4, his latest song "where that came from" was released. Surprised? Well, this miracle comes from the AI. All his hit songs were fed to the AI. With two British programmers, Warner Music Company in the U.S. and another singer, Dupre, as the bed rock voice of the "demo" version, the final magic happened. This AI produced song is an exact recreation of the Travis style of singing.

That is the AI for you. Artificial intelligence can do literally anything already. At least Travis is alive. In his song "Thimiri Ezuda" from "Lal Mahal", A. R. Rahman has made two dead singers come alive in his track with the help of the AI. 

The Ukraine foreign services department obviously has much too much on hand. So there is an AI help, with the voice of a famous Ukrainian singer, for the harried diplomats. Well, if the recently deployed Russian wmd's are any indication, the AI model seems to be rather helpless. Sure it is not hopeless though!

Well, one can already make short films using the AI. Why, in Thiruvanthpuram in Kerala, there already exists a start-up of a film studio that can make an entire feature film, script to storyboard to the final cut, pre- to post- production with the AI. 

The AI is highly creative, in brief. Already content creators, authors, script writers, film directors, actors with unique brand taglines, newspaper/magazine magnets,visual designers are up against the AI for using their copyright stuff. The ChatGPT has already found ways to wriggle out of this technicality. Why, teachers at all levels, LKG to post-PG, know that students use the AI to generate assignments.

Is the AI going to take away jobs? There are dire predictions that by 2025, 85 lakh jobs would be lost. Sure, new jobs would emerge, too. Hence the need to work on your HOTS (not the physical one, silly!) and to get proficient with the AI. 

Anyways, human labour, apparently cheaper than immediately revamping an entire system, would further lose its negotiating power in the saturated job market. Especially noteworthy in this context is the fact that the recent most version of the ChatGPT is better than most search engines! As Professor Richard Baldwin put it at a Geneva institute, "the AI will not take away your job. Somebody who knows the AI sure will."

Pratima@Hail, the AI! Beware, the AI!

'Thrill'ers

 I am a pukka 'serious' literature type. On the Google search, often there are lists of twenty or fifty, or whatever, number of books one must have read at least once in a lifetime. Most often than not, I would have read each one from such lists at least twice because I would have taught them, and each time I teach a text, i read it thoroughly yet again. 

I am not in to social media in a big way either. Why, I am not on to insta or X. FB I do check, may be, twice a week for about half an hour. My wapp contacts are mostly minimal or professional. I do check the messages/statuses ASAP which takes me very little time though.

My e-mails, too, are either professional or deal with high-funda stuff like New York Times or specialist sites related to literature, psychology, pedagogy, neurology, medicine, newest I/T or space or medical developments. 

Why, I do not like silly, under-the-belt, personal attacks kind of comedy either. The YouTubers I watch, while carrying on/multi-tasking with some other activity,  deal with high-funda stuff. Believe me, all this apparently 'serious', high-funda, intellectual, heavy trappings are simply great fun that truly charges you 'up'. No wonder, silly serials kinda stuff bores me to death.

The only exception to such 'serious' reading/entertainment habits is reading Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, Robin Cook, and the types. Why, I watch 'Crime Patrol' episodes, too.

Why this quirk? Well, it is not an oddity. You see, I have been brought up by extremely sincere, straightforward, god-fearing parents in a very clean, honest way.  In addition, all that 'high' stuff mentioned above is very ideal-stic. 

Well, in this wicked world of ours, life is never this clean, Sane Guruji's "Shyamchi Aai" type. Every nano-second and every centimeter here are bound to be fraudsters of all types and varieties. Such crooks think that being straightforward is being silly and foolish.

How to save oneself from such sick traps without being sullied by their very many wickedness-es? Well, 'thrill'ers vicariously show me the evil without scar(r)ing me much in the process, I think. Hence, watching 'thrill'ers is not any timepas. It is for me bitter medicine as sweet pill!

Pratima@Evil exists. No use denying it. Life is no fairy tale either. 'Thrillers' can be the 'open sesame' against the forty (actually very many) thieves of all types, right?

It is a special day today!

 In the world today, any day is a special day because making days special makes consumerism an easy game for the market forces. The laissez-faire economy Adam Smith advocated has f(l)attened itself in to crony capitalism, and the MNC/TNC conglomerates. Well, in the world of Bitcoins and the dark economy, even these are ancient tales. Hence market is the king. As a result, you have quite funny 'days', too. It seems today is the buttermilk biki day.   

Well, buttermilk is the best of all the milk products, say the experts. But buttermilk bikis do not exactly make the mouth water, right? May be, that is because I have neither tried nor tasted them. Even if I had, I would not like to waste an entire blog on trivialities.

Hence let us talk of a few truly important events that took place on May 14.  In 1956, on this very day, an impossible dream transformed into an actual reality.  On this day in 1956, the heroic duo, Hillary-Tensing conquered the Everest for the first time. Thereafter, there have been gritty tales such as Bachendri Pal's or Arunima Sinha's. Why, recently, near the peak, there was even a huge traffic-jam of mountaineers!

Yet another inspirational and truly radical event that took place on May 14 is the 'father of immunology', Dr. Edward Jenner, trying the cow pox vaccine on a human patient. This human trial led to the vaccine revolution whose fruits we have tasted recently during the COVID years. Jenner could thus invent vaccination for the dreaded disease then, small pox, which vaccines have now almost eradicated.

It is such tales of trials and tolerances that truly make a day great, right? Long live such heroes and hail, such days!

Pratima@Personally, for me, the day is great because my brother, Parag, fondly known as Raju, left for England to make there yet another professional presentation, quite an honour. Accompanying him is his wife for whom this tour is his present for her sixty-first birthday, recently celebrated.

Voting Woes

 I expected May 13 to be a happy day as it was to be the eagerly awaited voting day. Yes, till today, I have never ever missed a single voting exercise, from Municipal to the Parliamentary elections. At times, I got off the train at 8.30, and was at the polling booth at 11-ish. Polling is one of the central duties/responsibilities, more than a mere right, of a citizen, is my firm belief.

The voting process has never been easy for me. I have not got the voter's card. I never get the booth slip. I have to always search for the polling booth which once was at a Gangadham School some five kilometers away from home.

Yet the experience today was the worst. In the Mukund Nagar ward of the Parvati legislative assembly section, only my name vanished from the voters' list. Women who died ten years ago, men who died some five years ago, all these names were intact. I saw all these dead people as existing voters with my own eyes! So it cannot be the argument that 'the Municipal Corporation revamped old data' as i was told at one booth. 

Aai's name was removed because we did inform the concerned authorities. But I am very much alive, however much certain crooks and vamps may want me dead! As for that favourite "old data'' stuff, women and men older than my Aai, why older than my Papa, voted!

Honestly one gets the feel that there was some huge hanky-panky.  I did everything strictly in accordance with all the rules and regulations. Well, there was one "Nitin Ramchandra Agnihotri" in the voters' list, but no, my name was noteworthy because of the vanishing trick! Now, neither Ramchandra nor Agnihotri is a very common moniker. The combination of both being one is still more an impossible stretch of imagination. But, yes, it was very much there. The only missing name was mine.

I was cooly told that nothing can be done. One of my colleagues asked me to register a complaint with the ECI which I sure did! One of the candidates had come to the booth. I informed him as well, but it was no use. You can very well guess why.

I was told that my voting woes were shared by very many, which is a very sad comment on the administration. This kind of conspiracy is much worse than that much touted 'voting machines getting hacked', et al kind of shenanigans.  Why, here the very identity of a law-abiding citizen is hacked! 

Well, I do think that, as they used to earlier, the candidates, too, must see to it that all the voters, who are alive, whether old, middle-aged or first time, get the voters' slip in each booth. At least that much they can do for the voters, and for their own good! Their booth representatives should do such yeoman service rather than foolish comments about "old data'' or selfies with "first time voters"! 

Sad, bad experience which ruined my day as I was searching any dim possibility of my name being there till 2 p.m., and thereafter felt rather low the rest of the day! Who cares though? A mere voter cannot be the king even on the voting day!

Pratima@ "A man who neglects his duty as a citizen has no rights as a citizen". Apparently there is some such quote on the insta, it seems. For once, the social media is actually saying something sensible!

Better beware!

 Do you like old Bollywood films? I sure do. They have a few stereotypes though, such as the 'beta who passes B.A. with first class' and dances in to the frame saying" muze bahut badi naukri mil gayi, Pitaji". Well, those days, students actually studied! Their degrees hence were worth it, not a mere piece of paper like the students' today who hardly attend a lecture during the college days, and talk about it most proudly! Any wonder they never get a job? 

Well, thereby hangs a tale which let us talk about some other time, okay? Let us get back to the stereotypes in yesteryear films. Those films would have a mother who would either eternally stitch or be constantly coughing. 

Remember, she would cough, cough and cough, especially in the dread of the night? She had to be bolstered along a pile of pillows. She used to be terribly short of breath. All such symptoms suggest a classic case of acute asthma. 

Asthma is a common enough condition. Truly it is a 'dis-ease'. The patient cannot properly breathe. Often, asthma would be due to some allergy. It may not be life threatening. It is life debilitating for sure. No wonder, films today show the kid with an asthma pump so as to sentimentally manipulate the spectators!

Why remember all this? Well, yes, it is the World Asthma day today! And like asthma that weakens the lungs, there is a fast spreading new variant of our old friend, COVID!

The symptoms of the new "FLiRT" (ha! how unromantic, certain people may say!!!) variants are similar to that of JN.1. Individuals should be careful about symptoms like sore throat, runny nose, coughing, head and body aches, fever, congestion, fatigue and in severe cases, shortness of breath. Reminds of you asthma patients, right? Oh, yes, many individuals might also have symptoms like diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.

So, better beware! Remember to keep social distance, to wear masks, and to wash hands. Well, the newest variant has low immunity, and is spreading fast, especially in Pune as earlier! Well, the disease seems to know where the company is that created its cure!

Pratima@Better be wise beforehand than regret later, right?

Evermore Mother's Day

 Remember that day long long ago? You were a tiny tot, hardly three. She was taking you to school. All along, she kept on cajoling you with sweet dreams of your very first day at what looked like a lair to you. At the doorstep of the classroom, the bell rang. The teacher pulled you in rather hastily. Her typical duty year after year, right? It was your first ever 'away from Aai' mo(ve)ment. You exploded in to a huge sob. 

Her eyes full of unshed tears, she had to leave as per the teacher's terse, strict orders. She reached home, your loud sobs and wails accompanying her every step. Those three hours lasted a lifetime. Back at school, through the window, she peeped in to the classroom to find you happily lost to the new space.

I suppose, this initiation in to the wide wonderful world is the fulcrum of the mother-child bond forever. It hurts her deeply, and yet she is the happiest, given your joy, and this pattern goes on and on, in every new sphere that you continue to explore, your studies, your lows and highs, your career, your bright chances here and abroad, your friendships, your marriage, your child(ren), your first flat, your second car, your hobbies, your pastimes, and on,  and on.

Far and further you orbit, away from her. The umbilical cord refuses to snap for her.  Your unspoken aches pain her. Your weak moments she knows instinctively, and she stays put there, silent but strong for you. You quite casually do something rather routinely for her. For days on end, that is her happy mantra. 

Despite your chilly chidings, your rough snapping's, your being lost to your wor(l)ds, till her last breath lingers her Aai-ness, happy to see you grow, while she lets go, as on that day long long ago!

 Pratima@ Evermore the Mother's Day!

Undiminished forever!

 Well, special days and unique fests have now gotten to be undiminished occasions for buying and more buying, anything from artificial jewellery to dress material to new furniture or utensils, or whatever. In this eternal zest for shopping more, more and more, have we forgotten relationships? Are emotions only for yesteryear ads, as they no longer make even them as before? 

On Akshay Tritiya day, Aai always used to make the unique daliya/rice grain kheer in a separate pot she specially reserved for this very purpose. Papa would without fail visit the Sarasbaug Ganesh temple. On the way back, there would be the buying of Alfonso mangoes for the weeklong feast. Neither insisted that gold must be bought, but they felt that precious moments of undiminished togetherness-es needed to be spent forever. 

Why are the next generations becoming more and more self-centred? Why is personal space so diminishing that it has no place for immediate relationships either? Given the pace of life, none expects that you meet your siblings, for example, every day. Yet a two-minutes-call every fortnight or a wapp message once a month is not much too much to expect, right?  

I always choose to daily send my brothers one really worthy/info-rich wapp message. It could be a video or an audio or a text. Raju often sends at least a thumbs up. At times, he sends a worthy message or two, too. Well, as I am not the "no news is good news" type of person, unashamedly I am happy even with a blue tick by His Lordship's!

Oh, yes, Raju bothers to respond to my insistence on the "reached" message. In my opinion, somehow it seems to continue the "Aai is there" feel. Senti for sure, but that is the way mental bonds remain "akshay", undiminished forever, I think, as I believe that such simple sincere actions speak louder than the actual words of/in a wapp message, right?

Pratima@Being too formal, excessively professional, consciously maintaining distance in close familial bonds is killing the warm mother feel in one's own self, I feel. That could be a better interpretation of the Parshuram Jayanti  celebrated on the Akshay Tritiya day, right?

Ray shine(s)

 May is the month when/in which great people are born. You do not believe me, right? Well, just check the details about dates, okay? Especially remarkable is the greatest May Day (remember the nautical language? "May Day, May Day" means saving life itself, fine?), that is, May 2. Why? Simply superb souls are born on May 2.

Yes, you guessed it right. Yours Truly, too, was born on May 2. Geniuses share May 2 as a birthday!  Satyajit Ray, for instance, boasts of May 2 as his birthday. Yes, Yours Truly, too, is multi-talented. Yet the scales are indeed vastly different. Hence enough of this tomfoolery. Let us concentrate on Ray who shines bright like the summer brilliance.

Ray is truly a Renaissance figure. Reading his literary works, studying his scripts, looking at his 'set' sketches, listening to the way he designed music, the list would be endless. Honestly, each of the frames of his every film is sheer poetry on celluloid. Even his last film which was unmistakably 'drama'tic proves this point.

I can write a book each on every one of his films. In this small little blog though, today let me talk of his finesse in choosing THE perfect artist for a given role. Let me give a few examples to prove my point. Have you seen "Pather Panchali"? Even a minor character like Indir Thakuran, Durga's Pishima, comes alive because Chunibala Devi literally lived the role.

Remember the 1959 "Apur Sansar", one of the most lyrical presentations of love in Indian cinema? You cannot imagine anyone else except Sharmila Tagore as Aparna, while Ray's favourite most actor, Soumitra Chatterjee,  who enters the Ray world in this film, can alone be the lovelorn Apu, upset with life itself, and yet beyond the contemporaneous Devdas iconography.

In fact, Sharmila Tagore of the bouffant variety is the best in her Ray films, and without attracting any attention to her famous dimples. As the distraught "Devi" to her 1960's 'modern' avatars in Ray's Calcutta trilogy, it is difficult to believe that this actress is the same simpering miss of  Bollywood.

I suppose, that is the true talent of a great director who can locate the perfect, the ideal face which makes every character come alive in the casting stage itself. Ray, moreover, makes his actors emote so naturally that spectators can easily identify with the characters.

Madhabi Mukherjee, Utpal Dutt, Robi Ghosh could be a few of the other illustrious examples of his perfect casting.  He repeated all these talented actors film after film. He had an equally devoted team in Soubrata Mitra, Soumendu Roy (cinematography),  Dulal Datta (editing), while masters made music for him. No wonder, the Ray oeuvre has the shine of a glistening May morn!

Pratima@ Ray's perfect casting has a very personal connect for me. Subir Banerjee as the young Apu of "Pather Panchali" looks exactly like my brothers (Sanju more) when they were young. Aai used to love that entire sequence of Durga and Sarbojaya getting Apu ready for the school. She adored that  still often used as the film advert.

Laughter as yoga

 You must have come across this site, mostly in the mornings. Evenings such sightings are rare. No, no, do not worry. I am not talking of any wild site. True, we do live in a jungle. But that is the cement concrete type. And, yes, most 'citi'zens are wild, if the road rage is any proof. Even then not to worry. I am not talking of any danger.

Instead I am referring to a very happy and healthy practice, the hasya yoga, to laughter as medicine. Often in parks, you would see a group of mostly senior citizens throwing their arms up in the air, and laughing away to glory. Oh, yes, there are very many types of laughters they try.

They laugh like a lion roaring. They laugh as if tickled. They laugh like a smile spluttering.  Looked at from a distance, too, the look of this club brings a smile to our lips.  Of course, even in real life, we do know people who laugh like a donkey braying, right? So such a sight is a pleasure in comparison.

True, this laughter is artificial. Yet it is a stress buster in its own way. Alongwith it is often tried pranayama. Thus at least some more oxygen reaches our lungs which is good for our overall health. Worth a try is this low cost, high benefit medication without any side effect.

Since 1998, under the Mumbai based Dr. Madan Kataria's guidance, the first Sunday every May is celebrated as the World Laughter Day, a welcome move indeed. Let us all join this fun movement, and laugh our way to better health.

Pratima@Laughter, they say, is the best medicine!

Of death

 Death enters our life the day we are born. As certain as our birth is our death. The weird complexity of death is that it is so very known, and yet is completely unknown. 

No wonder, death has forever fascinated poets. The list is long. As it is the birth anniversary of Rabindra Nath Tagore, today I am going to talk of some of his images of death.

What is an image? Is that your question? Is it a symbol? Is that you next question? Well, an image is a sensory presentation of  experience. There need not be any similarity as in a simile. Nor there need be any  implication nor suggestivity as in a symbol. Rather it is an evocation of a feel, be it physical, mostly felt by the mind, the soul through the five senses.

Suppose I were to describe a morning not directly but as a blooming bud of the golden yellow champak, I am not comparing the flower with the dawn. Suppose if I were to write," It was 6.30ish. The blooming bud of the swarna champak..." , through the unstated, dormant yet clear associations, my reader can understand the break of a soft, fragrant day with a gentle dazzle of golden beams. 

In my opinion, Tagore's poems are abuzz with images. It could be the effect of imagism, dominant both in poetry (in the 1910's and 1920's of the Imagist Movement) and in paintings(of both the Impressionist and the Expressionist varieties). Anyways, that would be the spacious traverse of a proper research paper.

In this short little blog, let me present two images by Tagore of death that I find fascinating. In the first one, it is the soft gentle maternal love. A mother is breastfeeding the baby. She removes the right nipple from his lips. There is a murmur of a whimper before the eager lips find the left one. All is quiet gentle sleep yet again. That is the glide from life to death. 

This uncomplaining acceptance of death as an absolutely natural, normal transcendence is most beautifully captured by him in yet another image. The soul is the bedecked bride awaiting eagerly the arrival of the beloved, death. 

Those days, "Stree" and "Kirloskar" used to be published every month. For the May issue, I wrote a piece on Tagore. The article ended with my translation in to Marathi of that great Tagore poem, an intensely lyrical image of an eager awaiting for the complete total togetherness.

Aai loved it. The poem is great, and my translation was not exactly bad. She was in her mid-sixties, absolutely healthy. So the subtle edge of her appreciation of the image did not unsettle me a lot even when we discussed the poem. Now it does.

Death, said Donne, 'thou shalt die'. Yet Donne was the very same poet whose superb image in most sensitive terms reminds us,"no man is an island". Hence "never ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." "Every death", as Donne stated, " diminishes me"!

Pratima@"Death smiles at us all," wrote Marcus Aurelius."All we can do is smile back at death "

Journalism

 The freedom of journalism is indeed an interesting theme. No wonder, the U.N. chose  a day to dedicate to it. Independent, fair journalism is absolutely a dicey situation currently. Why?

 Well, in contemporary times, there are two major problems regarding news generation and distribution. The first one of these is the inevitable interference of the deep fake. The AI-generated news, views, images truly create  parallel wor(l)ds which create a world wide web which is vast, glib, and absolutely a concoction, a falsehood whose range, both generation and distribution wise, is so gigantic that it need not even crush the truth. Well, truth as an alternative would hardly (be allowed to) exist at all as there would not be the alternative space for it!

The second problem about journalistic integrity, honesty, probity is rooted in the finances/economy of the deep fake. For deep fakes to erupt, exist, evolve are needed deep pockets. Obviously in a clearly globalised world, international (crony) cartels with their own agendas would be the big brother watching, nay, dictating, every mo(ve)ment of everyone via newer, sharper, more incisive technological tool (kits). Forget small time alternative media creators like the YouTubers, can a local media house sustain such onslaught? The answer is obvious!

Instead of hating for the hake of hating, opening up, standing up to such real and inevitable totalitarian tendencies has to be the genuinely public intellectual's (a journalist should be one) prime duty.

 Instead of blaming, back-biting, bitching over temporary tussles which would settle down once the election fever comes down, media houses zee-lously (pun, obviously a p.j., but very much imminent in the current contexts) should support the coherent narrative, and not the planted narrative with an obvious eco-system rooted everywhere, and yet nowhere! In brief, in the deep fake future, already present, truth willl not prevail. 

Pratima@ The most important quality of a good foot soldier is locating/lambasting the looming large shadows. Like a good captain trying to tow away a ship from the dark continent below whose tip, too, is not visible!

Protest

 Noam Chomsky! Indeed a great name in the field of linguistics! In fact, it could be said that his generative-transformational approach changed multiple fields, from linguistics to cognitive psychology/ philosophy, and beyond.

I enjoy hugely his critique of America. In great works such as "Manufacturing Consent", "Responsibility of Intellectuals", he tears open the mask of American international goodwill, and shows the underlying capitalist greed for power, often couched in trenchant criticism (and terrible treatment) of other less(er) (powerful) countries, and thus he exposes the American grandstanding despite its essential (underlying) bullying. 

  Well, I can go on and on. In fact, when he had come to Hyderabad during my Ph.D. days, I had literally  satellited his itinerary for two days. Well, the reason for such remembrance of him today is the protest movement in the U.S.

With his very own Columbia State University in the lead, across university campuses in the U.S., the "encampment" movement is so strong that many universities had to cancel graduation fetes. Of course, many so-called liberal-democratic intellectuals hereabouts did not understand the long list of universities with encampments. Of course, in Indian universities, even if  the  chalk were to grate a little harsher on the now non-existing blackboards, these greats would have created a huge hangama!

That is not the tale today. Anyways, it never is worth it. The blog today is referring to the pro-Palestine, anti-Israel protests on American University campuses, especially because the entire chain of events and the western media response to it are indeed interesting and educative.

In Columbia, for example, like everywhere else, the mighty America sent its anti-riot, fully fitted squads to control the peacefully picketing students! Students have been imprisoned, thrown out of universities (surely at least out of campuses) for exercising their right to protest!

How is Chomsky related to it? Here I do not have the (scholarly) space required to state his position on Palestine. What I find interesting in this context is his attack on American doublespeak. The American intellectual/academic circles (though not as 'dumb' as here) as well as media are either downplaying the quite brutal police action, or even justifying it! 

Now! Remember the  "Bharat, tere tukade" type campus sit-in's in the JNU and other such supposedly intellectual campuses? Remember the reporting of the agitations by women players, the farmers, the 'dadis' in Shaheen Baug?

This very American media, like most of its European/the Western counterpart, was tearing apart the Indian treatment of the sit-in's even when they were literally causing inconveniences to millions. Nothing mattered actually, as these protests were a huge long stick to beat, nay, bludgeon India with, for especially the American, and in general, the Western, media. 

The fun is that now the great Western, especially American, media is stating that there exists some foreign interference behind the student unrest! Poor India! How (and how much) we were lambasted then, literally for months on end! We dared not mention then the 'invisible' foreign hand either! Hence my remembrance of Chomsky who so very brilliantly exposed the American doublespeak, browbeating the powerless, thus manufacturing consent! 

Pratima@"I have become tired of hypocrisy, stupidity, gross arbitrariness, and of our bowing, and scraping, dodging, and hair-splitting over words," says Karl Marx, whose birth anniversary was on May 5.

 

Existential Issues:II

 Yes, it does bother and harass one when one is ill-treated constantly, for no reason, and for a long long time. 

To give an example, just now I got an email from Birmingham Hospitals regarding a job I possibly could not even apply for. Currently, such cheap examples of emails I have been getting rather regularly.

Sun, 5 May, 2024, 4:38 pm , <noreply@uhb.tal.net> wrote:

Dear Pratima,

Thank you for taking the time to apply for the role of Band 8c Head of Procurement- Out of Hospital Services and your interest in University Hospitals Birmingham.

We are currently reviewing your application.

For updates on your application, please click here 

As a reminder, your username is pratim.agnihotri@gmail.com.

We appreciate your interest in University Hospitals Birmingham.

Kind regards,

University Hospitals Birmingham Recruitment Team 

Tel: 0121 424 8993 (options 3 & 2) 

Web: www.uhb.nhs.uk 

The following was the answer i sent them.

Sun, 5 May, 2024, 4:57 pm pratima agnihotri, <pratimagnihotri@gmail.com> wrote: 

Hello,

  I am sorry but I must inform you that I have never ever applied for any such job. I do not realise nor understand why I am getting such e-mails staying here in India. May I request you to please stop bothering me thus. Otherwise, I might have to take recourse to strong legal action. 

Regards, 

Pratima Agnihotri

I have literally quoted this sample so that nobody dare accuse me of "imagining" harassment.

Yet again I thought through the whole of it, and decided that

1. I shall NOT allow such and other such bothers to weaken me in any way. I shall always continue to be what I have always been.

2. Better to stay away from people who could possibly be the source of harassment.

3. Always keep concrete records of everything.

Continue to be your true genuine self, come what may!

So, despite a horribly acute attack of cough and cold, and lots of despair, I AM back to being myself. Nothing else would matter now!

Pratima@ To bow down to bad is the worst crime! 

Existential issues

 Why does evil exist? I have been thinking through it a lot. I realise now evil exists  because one is very straightforward, nay, actually very stupid. One feels that because one thinks, behaves cleanly and in a very straightforward fashion, the others, too, do equally so. 

Given such extreme stupidity, it never occurs to one that even the so-called close ones have their own cheaply selfish motives. These can be extremely small gains for them. To such people, it never bothers how much it could hurt you. Anyways, your pain is their gain, in small to big ways.

It could be due to their jealousies (actually, in reality, they are way too below you. Anyways, it has never even occurred to you to compete with them in any way), their huge egos (actually inferiority complexes. For example, in the twenty-first century, it is creepy to pride oneself because one's skin is fair. Anyone can look 'beautiful' these days!), their power games, their frustrated careers (even when they would not be able to pass the basic most qualifying step), their closeness to parties that have extremely cheap fodder, their relatives who have dicey professions with cheap labour, may be, even the religious groups they belong to, their extreme closeness to your so-called relatives who eternally, and only, want the "वाट लावली" stuff for you, who approach your professional space every which way to destroy your every progress, if and as much possible, who would link you up with every person existing, even when no proof exists.

Evil exists thus. It is never "motiveless malignancy." There are motives, so vacuous that they ARE there, but you would require really high contacts in the police/CID to pin down the blame on the perpetrators! So evil exists, and the real reason is your stupidity in believing in the goodness or straightforwardness of others.

Pratima@ So when such cheapsters through their multiple agents, who near your home or everywhere on the road, constantly call you "चुड़ैल", "थेरडी", "बुड्ढी"(even when in their houses they have men/women, older than your mother, and who are in their very late eighties), "चुतीया"  "रण्डी", "भेञ्चयोद", "जनी", "हडळ" for no rhyme no reason, you should just ignore it because it proves their frustration that they could not demean you by making you like them.

  If such people were to like you, it is a total dishonour as it would prove that you are in their league. The very fact they dislike you to this extent means that you are absolutely unlike them. A great victory against evil indeed!

You should also constantly remember that these crooked characters have tried such traps against extremely innocent people earlier, too. Such are these creeps that they can cause/manage an accident, and call it (attempt to) suicide. 

So best choice is always to be wary. And pray to the Almighty, if he exists at all, that people who unluckily you care for, and are unfortunately in close contact with such weirds, remain safe! 

And, yes, laugh a little when you are reading, and their agents go about screaming "ए, ती झोपली".

Dance

 Recently was celebrated the dance day. Hence this blog. Actually it is the dance of democracy going on currently, and in full form. I did think of writing on the political mahaul. Then I thought through it, and felt frank opinions deserve YouTube videos and those kind of channels as the opinion would reach a larger public, right?

As for dance as a form of art, it is indeed unusual. Why? Well, unlike a full-fledged play, it can be a solo performance, and yet the "abhinaya" in dance is as powerful as in a play. It has the poetry both of words (though typically traditional, though at least modern themes are making inroads in this field),  and of movements. Like music, it has the sur, tal and 'laya'. In other words, in its own way, it is a confluence of arts, whether as a solo or as a troupe performance. 

True, mastery in dance, like in any other creative area, requires proper, thorough training, and lots of constant practice. Well, given the huge obsession with reel (if not, video) making, these days, anybody and everybody is a dancer.

Supporting this trend is the Bollywood dance phenomenon. People watch the video repeatedly, and manage the steps, whether solo or troupe which, given the three minutes run of the (mostly) dream sequence in a film, cannot anyways be tough.

The Ganapati festival street dance is a curious mix of the western pop and the ugly movements in the Bollywood dance. Well, the dancers are anyways high on liquor, and know not what they do.

In other words, dance is not throwing all parts of the body in whichever direction possible. There is a science and an art and a tradition to it.  Unfortunately, most people think of dance as a cheesy 'come hither' gesture popularised by Bollywood bimbos in extremely revealing clothes. The French cabaret, unlike such vulgarity, is artistic. 

Well, the worst part of the dance dilemma currently is the dance competitions on the television. It is hideous to see kids gyrating to ugly songs. Much worse than the masks worne delirium of 'vote de do, tab tak many a crazy creepy renditions of dance drama dekho'!

Pratima@Beautiful are the folk forms such as 'Yakshgana', while 'kalariypattu' is more a mode of self control gained through self reflexion.

Studying Abroad

 Going to the U.S. or the U.K. or any other country for further studies is a fad these days. Why, people are ready to go to Ireland for further studies! Is this trend worth it at all?

The American or British or Irish, or whatever, universities do love this trend. Well, a solid chunk of their finances comes from foreign, mostly Indian, students! Actually studying abroad is a very expensive proposition. 

Beginning with the TOEFL/the GRE, and the tuition classes for these, to the actual applications for at least five universities, everything is hyper costly. Once selected, which does happen rather easily as the universities abroad do want such fund generation, the astronomical fees, the board and lodging there, everything is expensive. 

After that pricey education, what is the future? A family friend of ours has both her children study in the U.S. and settle there. Her daughter, a top ranker here, has a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins. Yet the research grant she has managed is, informs her mother,  minimal. One can just scrape through. The son, with an M.S., constantly has to go for the search for relevant jobs.

People pretend that these stark realities do not exist. The facts cannot be hidden though. Why, to give an example, recently Sundar Pichai declared that twelve thousand I/T workers are not needed. In this context, it must be remembered that the Indians, now going there, are not exactly the best or the bright here, too. In the 60's and the 70's, it really was brain drain. The best Indian students went abroad, and were lost to the American dream.

Currently, it is the 'parents have money, children study abroad' phenomenon. Ordinary students here scrape through the courses there, and are the fodder for cheap labour in the sense that they are happy with the minimum wages with the constant 'pink slips' every Friday, and so obviously are the companies. The job situation is indeed tough, what with the AI.

What is the solution? May be, allowing foreign universities campuses here? That tough competition would make the sluggish Indian education system wake up which would be finally good for the students. India would retain a lot of its educational seed money, currently lost to universities abroad.

Till that happens, people who can splurge twenty lakhs per year would send their wards abroad to prepare cheap labour market there. Macaulay must be giggling in his grave!

Pratima@ Realities most often are as scary as nightmares!

Unique indeed!

 May 1 is indeed unique for Marathis who, moreover, believe in the grace of labour. In 1960, on this very day was born our state, Maharashtra. Sure must I check my facts, though I think I am not wrong if i state that Gujarat, part of the erstwhile Bombay Province, was separated from Maharashtra on linguistic grounds, and thus Gujarat, too, attained separate statehood on this very day.

Now we Maharashtrians are truly, and quite justifiably, proud of our regional identity. Sure 'Sahyadri rushes to help Himalaya' as and when needed. That is to say, we are Indians first for sure. Yet we revel in our regional identity. 

Outside of Maharashtra, too, Marathis are respected a lot. Our saints like Sant Namdeo have a place of pride in the Guru Grantha Sahib. As far as history is concerned, from the days of Shivaji Maharaj up to the 1857 Freedom Struggle, it was the Marathis whose efforts helped carve a unique identity for our country.   

As for the Indian Independence struggle, it was Lokmanya Tilak who was hailed as the Father of the Indian Discontent against the British. He was the first to creatively use festivals as a fount of folk resistance. Thereafter continues a lineage of great patriots, thinkers, reformers such as Agarkar, Savarkar, Phule, Karve, to name a few, given the spatial limitations. 

Take any field, music, films, musicals, drama, the Dalit literature, science,education, commerce, feminist awareness, Maharashtra has always been at the helm. In brief, May 1 is indeed a happy day for us Marathis 

Well, as for the Labour Day, unfortunately, in tandem with the rest of the world, there is a disrespect for hard work hereabouts as well. Currently, there is a curious disregard for any blue collar work. Why, people do not even study, but they demand the cushiest white collar job.

 Our country is overflowing with doctorate degree holders who cannot frame a single correct sentence even in the L1, forget English. Nor do such 'educated' people know the basics of any field. Such ignoramuses look down upon any physical work.

What is wrong in cleaning up your own house, the small patch of garden, your clothes or your utensils? Why not iron out unstarched clothes? Given the crazy ideas of modernity, however, most look down upon anybody who is in to any physical activity, while our intellectual labour is not much to write home about, busy as most 'workers' are with petty politicking!

Time to get respect back to labour of all sorts as labour truly forges our genuine identities.

Pratima@ Workers of the world better unite as they have nothing indeed to lose except all sorts of invisible chains, right?

The pot calling

 Have you heard of this very picturesque proverb ; namely, 'the pot calling the kettle black'? It means accusing others of the fault(s) one is overflowing with. Why am I referring to it? Therein  hangs a tale!

April, T S Eliot wrote, is the cruellest month. Let us re-write the dictum a little. April is the most dangerous month. Why so? Well, yes, it is the month of the exams which used to appear life-threatening to many in the pre-MCQ days.

There is yet another terrible reason though. Well, why hide the inevitable? In April was born (April 20) and died (April 30) one of the most hated human-beings, Herr Hitler. Hitler is a by-word for inhumane injustice and cruelty as the Holocaust horrors unfurled. His Nazi party symbolises hideous harshness and cruelty. Worst of all, he stands for dictatorship.

Well, whenever anyone wants to revile someone, the easiest cussword is 'you are a hitler', and all is said, and done! Especially in the political circles and the intellectual arena, it is the most bandied about term.

As for politics, one can understand the loose usage. Politicians would, and could, kill the foe thus. Well, it is the intellectual  circle that is the funniest when it comes to using this term.  

A so-called intellectual, especially in academia, but in most all cultural/creative circles, would go to any extent to create her own fiefdom. She would pull all possible strings to land a plush n plum post. A so-called intellectual can literally murder, but metaphorically surely does, any candidate whom such mafiosi are excellent at gauging as a more than a worthy competitor.

Remembered only when useful somehow,  preferably though for her death, such a worthy candidate is actually constantly on the radar of the culture vultures. They would try their level best to gang up against her. They would try to tarnish her through their carefully calibrated gangs. Such mafiosi would release subtly vicious and absolutely baseless scandals against the poor victim. As it is the word of mouth game, the poor thing cannot counter it either!

The fun thing, in brief, is that their own behaviour is such that Hitler, Mussolini, Franco would all blush beet root red, but they would constantly harp on calling the politician they conveniently hate 'Hitler'! Some example of the pot calling the kettle black!!!

Pratima@How you describe others deciphers your inner reality the best! Tell me how you talk of others, and I can tell who you truly are, right?