Today I opened the book,
the one you had given me to bring home rain-clouds,
there I found water,waist deep.
On turning the page ,
I saw
that water gathered into a small river
and drifted afar.
On the book full of flora,
that you had once given,
I cannot take another step,
so dense the forest now.
The trees so high,
they wont let a single ray of light
to touch the floor.
That book you had given to learn fountains,
now has a waterfall ,
gushing all day long.
Even that book which held
the feather you had gifted as a book mark,
has many birds flying all over now,swimming,resting.
All those books you have ever given me,
Are now deserts and mountains
All those books you have ever given me
Are now the sun and the horizon..
But yet, today friends are coming to see my library.
Coming to see if I am well-read!
What can I show them?
How shall I face them?
(translated from a bengali poem 'Premik' by Joy Goswami)
Friday, July 22, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Cynical
Our world believes in division of work ,so the state commits rights and people commit duties.In essence,this seems to me like the old tendency of pushing labour onto the other's table.
In this push and counter push,the thankless morality task has fallen on the common man's lap.It is his daily fight to keep integrated his body and soul,keep his moral world untouched from the price rise,corruption and degradation of the state's moral world.
On the other hand,the politician and his associates (read state) are free from this inhibiting moral business altogether.
In this country,only the powerful are the deserving.Otherwise how do candidates with grave criminal charges against them (murder, rape, kidnap) have the audacity to think of fighting an election?
In any other modern democracy,a politician merely suspected of embezzlement comes under fiery scanners.
But in India,the EC wont hear of debarring candidates with criminal charges,
I wonder exactly how many ‘innocent’ victims,falsely implicated by enemy camps,will suffer if such a law was passed?
Is it really so easy to charge an enemy with murder and rape ?If charging were so easy, why then do young women find it so difficult to even file a complaint of molestation or harrassment with the police?Recall the case of model Kirtana Krishna from Bangalore.
Ofcourse it could be,that police apathy is specially reserved for the common man,while the service is specially reserved for the 'deserving' again.
We on the other hand pay for both the police and the politicians ,to ensure firstly,that we commoners are well betrayed,and secondly,that they can serve each other in their times of need.
Our fish ,we know ,is rotten from the head down.That is why,tainted ministers,while lodged in jail,can spend days reading poems without a trace of tension in their demeanor.Our political elite has set very low standards of ethics for themselves,hence institutionalized corruption for the entire state machinery.
What can we do in times like this?Can the common man's moral world expand into the parliaments ,judiciary,police systems?Can 'deserving' mean cleaner candidates instead of cash rich ones?
In this push and counter push,the thankless morality task has fallen on the common man's lap.It is his daily fight to keep integrated his body and soul,keep his moral world untouched from the price rise,corruption and degradation of the state's moral world.
On the other hand,the politician and his associates (read state) are free from this inhibiting moral business altogether.
In this country,only the powerful are the deserving.Otherwise how do candidates with grave criminal charges against them (murder, rape, kidnap) have the audacity to think of fighting an election?
In any other modern democracy,a politician merely suspected of embezzlement comes under fiery scanners.
But in India,the EC wont hear of debarring candidates with criminal charges,
I wonder exactly how many ‘innocent’ victims,falsely implicated by enemy camps,will suffer if such a law was passed?
Is it really so easy to charge an enemy with murder and rape ?If charging were so easy, why then do young women find it so difficult to even file a complaint of molestation or harrassment with the police?Recall the case of model Kirtana Krishna from Bangalore.
Ofcourse it could be,that police apathy is specially reserved for the common man,while the service is specially reserved for the 'deserving' again.
We on the other hand pay for both the police and the politicians ,to ensure firstly,that we commoners are well betrayed,and secondly,that they can serve each other in their times of need.
Our fish ,we know ,is rotten from the head down.That is why,tainted ministers,while lodged in jail,can spend days reading poems without a trace of tension in their demeanor.Our political elite has set very low standards of ethics for themselves,hence institutionalized corruption for the entire state machinery.
What can we do in times like this?Can the common man's moral world expand into the parliaments ,judiciary,police systems?Can 'deserving' mean cleaner candidates instead of cash rich ones?
Monday, July 11, 2011
Cupid's Coffee (Part 3)
There is something about loneliness that reminds her of him.Or perhaps he sends loneliness her way so she never forgets the runaway prince?
Our princess often visited coffee shops.In this distant land,she sat alone at some quiet coffee table for a while before retiring to her chambers for the night.Here in summer,the sun shines till late.After her duties were done for the day,she stole a moment or two to walk by herself or spend it over a cup.
Most days,she read colorful magazines ,watched the crowd through the glass windows of the shop,gazed at the pretty young waiters and waitresses and idly heard the boys arguing at the next table as she drank the hot stirring liquid.
But even as she looked kindly at a yonder couple kissing,she could hear her prince whisper into her ears from another time'Princess,I'll be your genie,your guardian angel.'
'That's a tough promise to keep.You will have to be at my beck and call'she had said to him,and they had both smiled.
She had believed in that promise,held on to it for comfort.It still kept her warm in those spells of solitude.And yet she knew in her heart,she would never call him,neither in her times of distress nor to test his veracity.She did not have the courage to see it proved to her,that she had meant nothing to him.
In truth,she knew,this was not love.Only a melodic theme of a prince and a princess ,though far away from each other, and busy in a thousand ways in their own world with other people,who were strongly under each other's enchantment of love.
Our princess was either a romantic,or too attached to her captor.
Our princess often visited coffee shops.In this distant land,she sat alone at some quiet coffee table for a while before retiring to her chambers for the night.Here in summer,the sun shines till late.After her duties were done for the day,she stole a moment or two to walk by herself or spend it over a cup.
Most days,she read colorful magazines ,watched the crowd through the glass windows of the shop,gazed at the pretty young waiters and waitresses and idly heard the boys arguing at the next table as she drank the hot stirring liquid.
But even as she looked kindly at a yonder couple kissing,she could hear her prince whisper into her ears from another time'Princess,I'll be your genie,your guardian angel.'
'That's a tough promise to keep.You will have to be at my beck and call'she had said to him,and they had both smiled.
She had believed in that promise,held on to it for comfort.It still kept her warm in those spells of solitude.And yet she knew in her heart,she would never call him,neither in her times of distress nor to test his veracity.She did not have the courage to see it proved to her,that she had meant nothing to him.
In truth,she knew,this was not love.Only a melodic theme of a prince and a princess ,though far away from each other, and busy in a thousand ways in their own world with other people,who were strongly under each other's enchantment of love.
Our princess was either a romantic,or too attached to her captor.
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