Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Stupidity


The moment brain was installed in human body; the weird chance of not using it too was born. We define it by the word, stupidity; a moment of absence of all those intellectual capabilities that we believe we possess. In the Molecular Story below is one form of stupidity called diffidence. The absence of confidence and trust on oneself is the worst of stupidities anyone can commit. Do you know why? Because like me, you too are the best of your kind. 

Lovers

“There is much to say. But words may ruin what I really want to convey.” The lover said.
“Then just kiss me. And I will understand.”

The man hesitated, and then turned away like the clouds near a mountain. He walked away from the girl. In the evening breeze the girl’s tears scattered down and wet her cheeks. 

Months later, the man’s friend asked him why he had not kissed the girl at the time of departure, when he loved her so much.

The lover said: “That was exactly why I did not kiss her. I did not want her to know that I loved her so deep and still went away from her for my personal goals, for working in the Middle East. Now she is far away in India, at her home, cursing me for never loving her. She might have found someone else to love her truly.”   

“But Why? You have a job and can go back to her now.” His friend said to the lover. The lover was silent for sometime. His face turned dark. Then words breached the wall of silence: “At the time I decided to part with her, I did not know I would be successful in life.”

Tears flowed down.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Storm

(A hugely successful poem in Facebook.) 

I let the breeze in,
To cool my heated cubbyhole.
It made me complacent.
Then, without an omen,
It became a storm,
And destroyed my only home.
I had forgotten to close my doors.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

One Love

Once, a Hindu saint was traveling to the southernmost part of India. He was not alone. Samant, a student of his, accompanied him. Samant was not from a high family like the other disciples of the saint.

Unlike his usual practices the saint had started off for his journey alone. He wanted to see India, from north to south and east to west. On his way to the land of Pandya Kings, he met a poor young farmer and asked for some water. The young farmer not only gave him water but also provided him with shelter and the best clothes he had in his house. His name was Samant. Though Samant was a Christian, the saint thought great of him. Just imagine who would give so much of service to a stranger, even if that stranger is God himself. And from that moment the saint took Samant as his Student.

Infuriated by the saints decision, some local Hindus along with the priest of the nearby church protested, by saying: “This youth is from another religion and you are a Hindu. How could you take him with you?”

The young man looked hurt. He said, “I am a Christian. And this saint is not taking me; instead I am going with him for my own spiritual quest. I believe that if a carpenter’s son can change the course of the world with his convictions, why can’t a farmer?”

None of the villagers understood what the young farmer said. Samant went inside his house and asked permission from his old parents. And then he left the village with the saint in his spiritual journey. The villagers, infuriated by the young man’s ego trip did not say anything else. The saint smiled, thinking the time spent with him would change Samant’s perspectives on religion and he would become a Hindu.

The saint was coming from the Himalaya. His wisdom and knowledge were as high as the highest peaks of the snow muffled mountains of the Himalaya. And he knew it too well. His present status therefore, was that of a person making a rope walk. On one side of the rope there was the depth of eternal wisdom and on the other side, the desert of pride. However, of this current state, he was completely ignorant. But being a man of great years of practice, he knew something was wrong. But he attributed this feeling as a result of the environment of the place he was now in: Kerala. Both of them settled down at a place called Trivandrum in Kerala.

It was a city, full of temples. The saint went inside the greatest temple of the city, which was devoted to Lord Vishnu. And for the great pleasure of the saint, the young man too accompanied him inside the temple.

After their visit to the southernmost part, they started their return trip. They reached Calicut, a place in Kerala, famous for its Muslim tradition and cuisine.
“Why are we here?” The young man asked.
“I believe that after satisfying one’s spiritual hunger, one must satisfy the physical hunger. And here we can get some really nice food.” The saint said.
As they were walking through a street, they crossed a mosque. It was prayer time and every one was praying inside. For the saint’s surprise, the young man suddenly kneeled down and started touching his forehead on the earth.
“What are you doing? Are you praying like the Muslims? I thought you appreciated the temple.” The saint said puzzled.

Samant prayed silently. And after completing his prayer, he stood up. By seeing the young man praying outside the mosque, a man came to them. His name was Mustafa.
“Who are you?” Mustafa asked.
“We are travelers. Searching for wisdom.” The young man said.
Mustafa smiled. “I understand.” He said and bowed to the saint. “You look tired. Come with me, have some food.” He invited the two of them.

Samant did not say anything to the saint until they finished the food. Then he said: “It’s not a matter of liking some specific religion, master. I love God. I was not ready to lose some one I loved, just because he was called another name or spoke another language.”
The saint looked more confused and tired. 

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Coincidences

Don’t complain about the horse
Running wild in the desert.
It is the cause for me;
I; dust in the pale air.
I am a creature.
But you see me as a shadow.
The blindness of your eyes is
The world I live in.
I am the horse, the desert and
The world beyond your eyes.  

Thursday, June 16, 2011

The Silent Pastime


Schooling in India requires a minimum age of five years for the admission in the first standard. But at the age of two I had started taking interest in books. Reading was out of question because words were untamable for me at that age. I do remember myself working through the pages, constructing my own imaginary stories from the pictures inscribed upon them, and after some time tearing those pages off in frustration or desperation. Then my father found a way to keep me from frustration. He started reading stories to me. And then my mother from her busy kitchen world encouraged me to keep this practice going by requesting the visitors and guests to help me out by reading me stories. And my reading life started off with a pair of external eyes sucking the nourishment of words for my craving soul.

Before long, I learned how to read and write at school. One day in class the teacher asked what our hobbies were. Stamp collection, matchbox collection, reading, and gardening were the trendy ones. For me the question was confusing. I had never thought of what I did to pass my spare time. And so in order to escape from being the odd man, I said, stamp collection. Thanks to the teacher; she did not ask how many stamps I had collected, or from which ever countries I had stamps from. The fact was that I did not get much spare time from reading. I was that sort of a reader who inhabits the borderlands of addiction and habit. Reading was not just a habit or pastime, but a part of my being, the basic necessity for my existence.
 
I made some attempts to collect stamps, thinking this should be my pastime, until one day, when I discovered an old suitcase full of comic books. They were the result of my uncompromising quest for reading. I collected comic books, but as collecting comics was not a well acknowledged hobby in the academic world, I could never think of it as an acceptable hobby all through my childhood. But furtively and efficaciously, I was using the time when I was not reading for some thing better than and not as boring as stamp collection, collecting comic books; my silent pastime.   

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Ballerina


I am out of my senses.
My logic is insane.
Irrationality rules my heart beats.
The night is long.
Twelve hours or more.
But they get short,
When I see you Ballerina.
Why else!
I am out of my senses.  

Thursday, June 9, 2011

M. F Hussain Husain: The Victim of "Cultural Totalitarianism".


M. F Hussain, the painting prodigy passed away today living in exile. There was obviously nothing more to expect, no return to mother country or a transnational relation with the nation. The exile was an infinitely powerful prison where, unlike Czech novelist Milan Kundera, who celebrates his exile, Hussain suffered his homesickness, and the desire to return to the beauty of his artistic roots. It is hardly deniable that Hussain was a victim of the Indian cultural totalitarianism, due to portraying the Hindu deities in nude.

News reports say that “he was admitted only two days ago for fluid retention in his lungs, and but had otherwise been “in fairly good health".” (Yahoo.com:9/6/2011) He was 95 and according to his friends, he was too eager to make a return trip to India. Hussain’s exile was a result of his paintings released in February 2006, which were nude portraits of Hindu gods and goddesses. In stripping its mask off the democratic promises of freedom of expression and an ‘endlessly welcoming culture’ certain religio-political groups had declared M.F. Hussain, a traitor. Their thirst for his blood had resulted in his exile.
Naked Mother India by Hussain
(One of his controversial paintings)
At this moment, when nature had interfered into a human life and death has taken the artist into a world entirely out of the human-reality, a whole nation is crushed under the burden of guilt. And all is due to the Hindu radicals, the religious power that constantly interferes with the national policies and political scene reiterating the story of an age old nation where every one was born as a Hindu.

May his soul rest in peace.     
The Indian Commentator

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

The Sky Rains Down


The nomad curses sunlight,
He takes shelter under a cloud,
And gazes at the sky,
Waiting the stars to shine.
After the wind that reminded of,
Shattered dreams and withered hopes,
The sky rains down.
The nomad looks for a shelter.
Which the sky and the cloud,
Are no more.  

Monday, June 6, 2011

Destiny


In a half bloomed flower,
The rain drops adhere,
Hoping to slip inside--
In the light of coming day.
The day came and the flower bloomed,
But in the sunlight,
The rain drops evaporated.

[Also Check:http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/destiny-206/#]

Saturday, June 4, 2011

The Archeologist


Meanings dissipate,
Words remain,
Like skeletons…
Poem a fossil skeleton,
Recovered Intact.

The poet: an archeologist--
Trying in futile to flesh the bones.

Friday, June 3, 2011

A Teacher's Vacation

It’s vacation for me. Not the kind of vacation where people go to different places, explore life and nature and feel the extremes of life. The college is closed for exams and it is monsoon season in Kerala. It’s raining everywhere. Water…water…water…Thinking about the life I lived as a teacher now, I feel I miss those days. The days of teaching are days of learning too. Those bright and wide eyes fixed upon you for crossing that edge of knowledge that they feel what they are there for. It is a fascinating image; students in a classroom. The classrooms are cocoons in which the teacher and the students are roommates, or rather cocoon-mates!

It is during this intellectual journey through the classroom in my memory, I thought about this story, which I found months before in Paulo Coelho’s blog. So with all due respect to the author, I publish this wonderful story here.  

Is the bird alive?
The young man was at the end of his training, soon he would go on to be a teacher. Like all good pupils, he needed to challenge his teacher and to develop his own way of thinking. He caught a bird, placed it in one hand and went to see his teacher.
‘Teacher, is this bird alive or dead?’
His plan was the following: if his teacher said ‘dead’, he would open his hand and the bird would fly away. If the answer was ‘alive’, he would crush the bird between his fingers; that way the teacher would be wrong whichever answer he gave.
‘Teacher, is the bird alive or dead?’ he asked again.
‘My dear student, that depends on you,’ was the teacher’s reply.

[By: Paulo Coelho