1. COURAGE UNDERSTANDS FEAR
You inherit the rashness of Othello and indecisiveness of Hamlet. You are a riddle to your own middle class self. You are neither completely courageous nor cowardly at all times. You have sensed the cowardice of the courageous even in the ranks of the rebels. Hero- worship makes people smaller than they actually are. To you courage means to understand and withstand your fear.
2.ANGER IS A BAD TEACHER
More often than not it is rather easier to sacrifice others’ lives than your own. Think whether it is really helpful to any one. Sincerity is also not all as history tells that the Nazis were also “committed” in favour of racism and genocide. It is better to live and work concretely rather than glorifying martyrdom. A Phoolan Devi’s anger had some genuine ground. Is your anger born of sympathy for the suffering or an attempt at grasping objectivity ? Impractical or destructive anger is a bad teacher and it finishes the disciple without enlightening him a bit.
3..THE PRICE OF OBJECTIVITY
You decry the depressing work ambience and descry hope on the horizon. Empires, humans and books vanish without a trace. You got the idea of immortality from religion/ Marxism / literature. The desire for immortality is the weakness of humanity. You remember your friend who died in an accident or an historical accident. Any time encounter is the price of objectivity. You are put off by futile obsession with murky politics and turn to art as a means of finding meaning.
4.BE INNOVATIVE
Obsession for the old may curtail your progress. You would remain a baby if there were no change. There may be many justifications for the old but it’s pitiable if one can’t find a single reason to go ahead.
Our local needs but not the undue pressures of global capitalism should mould us. There is no need to be slavish to “reigning cultures.” Invite novelty and environmentalism but not cruelty and consumerism, democracy but not dollarocracy.
5.DO YOU LOVE TO HATE?
The Media and the masses gaped at the gap made by Kasab and his men in the heart of Bombay. Every one has real or imaginary reason for conflict. The casualty is the citizen caught in the crossfire. Outraged at the attack on the heart of the country, some call for carpet bombing of the ‘enemy.’ They forget the innocence of the citizens on the other side of the fence. Commentators and communalists, politicals and poets propagate the poison of hatred. No bullet ends evil forever.
6. INCONSISTENCIES
You can observe that in the heart of the hunted Tiger hides a longing to live. In the heart of the ruthless President rests the reason to rebel. You want the eradication of inconsistencies. At the horizon , the sky kisses the layers of the earth which is pregnant with the history of all creatures including man. Every generation has to wage its battles afresh. Coveting change is the sign of the youth. But change imposed by force is like a bandh inflicted on the helpless people.
7. COSTLY FAILURES
Think for a while before condemning violence. Understand its cause and how it is inbuilt in a system. The mighty use their minions to keep the meek under their iron heel. The meek hit back unable to tolerate the blatant injustice. It leads to the spiral of violence. The valiant as well as innocent perish in the clash. The system in general loses nothing whereas the individuals lose their precious lives. Gandhi and Ambedkar taught alternative means and we haven’t learnt to our cost.
8.FIGHTERS FOR A CAUSE
He is dead. His mother is weeping over his body. She has spurned him as a baby for fear of the world. Ancient India.
He has grown young and wanted to fight for glory in a far off land without heeding to his mother’s warnings. Ancient Greece.
When he died, his eyes were looking at the azure sky and a part of his scalp was open. Ceylone.
His dead body bore a wound in the stomach to the size of a fist. He was killed from a point blank range. Modern India.
The young rebel had a photograph taken in which he was holding the pistol bearing hand of his wife. Russia of today.
Later on the his wife or a kin has avenged his death by becoming a suicide bomber. Globalized world of conflicts.
9.THE CLAWS OF KIND CAPITALISM !
He looks an innocent boy in the photograph. His eyes staring far in to future can’t see the noose around his neck. The hangman lives in a white palace. It is an epitome of civilization. To the hangman, his life alone is very sweet and others’ lives are irrational, uncultured and expendable. The values of the hangman were derived from the age-old practice of hunting the beasts and others endlessly for their profit or pleasure. He boils over the rising price of oil barrels. Eternal war is the price of an oil barrel. If many die, it is collateral damage inevitable in shielding his power absolute.
10.THE REMORSE OF THE RETIRED POLITICIANS
Your anger against unjust wealth is unjustified! Your sympathy for unjust poverty is misplaced? When commerce is more valuable than life, one can labour for war and war against the labour. Having a credit card in your pocket , you think you can pocket the whole world. Bail out the mismanagers of banks. Reinforce your troops and fears in a foreign land. Repeat history. After you hand over your power, you can express remorse over the murder of millions of chicken. You can write your memoirs to make money or go on a lecture tour for world peace. You can repent and pray that the souls of the unfortunate and unrepeatable men, women, children, old men may rest in peace.
11.IN A HURRY TO COMMIT SUICIDE
Nature has been conquered but not aggressiveness boundless. You find that both man and woman are social and cultural constructs. Ferocious fathers breed war. Tender mothers tend the babies. Only the hand that nurtures life knows the meaning of pain of death. A baby monkey is still-born. The mother carries her for two days to the dismay of humans. A speeding lorry on highway kills four puppies who are unable to leave their mother dead in an accident. Are those who are eager to eliminate life and other creatures and migrate from the earth wise or otherwise?
Part Two : Creative
1.FROM FIRE INTO THE FRYING-PAN
He is a volatile youth with a volition. Poverty leads to ennui and a mutiny of mind. He flits from book to book like a butterfly. He roams from library to library like a thirsty man till he is satisfied. He agitates against students’ problems. Aesthetic and Asthmatic pain pinches his lungs and nights. He recovers from the fever of adolescence—desire for justice. He frets over the one-sided coverage of Tiananmen square incident. He becomes a warrior of pen for a brief stint. His agonizing nights over what is to be done tahe him to academia.
2.DIFFICULT LOVE AND EASY HATRED
Any one can love when moved by a longing. You know that you love only the fulfillment of your desire. Any one can hate when they are up against a limitation. But limitation can and should be overcome. Selfless love is powerful whereas hatred is to lose that power. Calculated thinking curtails our efforts while circular thinking ends in idleness. Restless mind squanders your energy whereas focused mind ferrets out enthusiasm for achievements.
3.ONE MAN’S MEAT IS…
Some people write their hopes. Others write them off.
Some weave a dream. Others shatter it.
Some scream against injustice. Others call it cacophonous.
Some live for values. Others call it impracticality.
Some die for their causes. Others call it foolishness.
4.ABSURD LOVE STORY OF 2010
Once again another ‘jilted’ lover killed his girl friend. He poured acid over her face. Then he slit her throat with a blade. Then he has thrown her from a three-storied building. When the police tried to nab him they found him a ghost . He has already been eliminated by the law and order machinery or committed suicide. However the ghost has been arrested. In the court, the real culprits- movie, possessiveness and instant gratification were in the audience smiling and smiling… The judge gave the verdict to hang the ghost till it is dead as it is the opposite of the rarest of the rarest cases.
5.PURGE THE CRUEL THOUGHTS
You lie on the terrace and look at the piece of cheese-- the moon. You don’t want to believe that the spots out there are big craters. The cool and nectarine rays of the moon soothe your heart and remove your alienation. You muse whether your dog would shed tears over your body. A dog is not a man and a man is not a dog. If a dog spends its life in looking after the master, can’t the latter do the same? Does the divine feel sorry for death of any creature? Is mutual massacre natural, historically unavoidable in nature? Perhaps, we have to cleanse our cruel thoughts on the stone slab of introspection and beneficial action.
6 .DESTINY MANIFESTED?
I wondered
Umpteenth time about
My destiny
I forgot
I‘ve been living it
It is to teach the brats
And reach the stars.
7.DOGGEREL
Your dogs are dogging
You
Like the ‘hounds of earth.’
A sigh of despair
Over ambition gone with the air.
When a loaf of bread is thrown,
Tony, the curious cur takes it,
Runs and digs a hole to hide it
For future
Like man.
8. ONLY ONE
Can you find one poem
To give up your real life?
Can you find one dream
To dare reach ethereal world?
Can you find one woman
To love in sense surreal?
Can you find one sword
To remove injustice blatant?
Can you find one moment
To fill it up nectar and enliven it permanent?
***
9.Moments of creation
In the dead of the night
I felt a futile sense of fight
Socrates took poison in chalice
I couldn’t pin down source of malice
In the dream I saw my friend
His book published
I lacked courage?
Or sense of rage?
Like a miser was I
In time. money and energy
I saved when I had to spend
I dithered When I needed to love
Slept when needed to remain awakened
died when I had to live
Like a poet longing for a dream
in fact faced dawn
of disappointment.
I remembered
Tagore’s poem
Of one who sowed the seeds
Regretted the time lost
Then awoke to find buds
Blossoming into flowers.
10.Sign of Life
The earth has defied cosmos
The tree rebels against the earth
The bird challenges tree standing
Life opposes death
Rebellion is a sign of life.
***
11.We are moderns
Believe in nothing
Not even in the above words.
12.BEING INSENSITIVE
You stand outside the staff room. The southern wind refreshes and turns the mornings into cheerful and hopeful. You go to the canteen. While you are walking back from the canteen, two students wish you “good morning!” Absorbed in your talk you hardly reciprocate. You rue over the lack of motivation on the part of students. Have you imbibed the much praised “American efficiency” and rejected “Indian indefinite delay”?
13.COMMUNICATE
You think that your friends will understand and respond to you. You know that factors and individuals are changeable. You see that people say one thing when they are down. The same pursue the old values vengefully when they are in an upward mobility. You are pained. Some times friends do not or can not know why you are for or against a certain philosophy. Have you ever asked them why they have become what they are. Do you really want to and act to communicate?
14.CHOICE IS INEVITABLE
Your endless rumination is tiresome. It is self- indulgence or a means of escape. You can’t know everything in advance. No knowledge is gained without experience of pain which is one of the most natural or human means. You can’t have a lot of leisure as well as money. Can you make a choice between environment and greed?.
1.FROM FIRE INTO THE FRYING-PAN
He is a volatile youth with a volition. Poverty leads to ennui and a mutiny of mind. He flits from book to book like a butterfly. He roams from library to library like a thirsty man till he is satisfied. He agitates against students’ problems. Aesthetic and Asthmatic pain pinches his lungs and nights. He recovers from the fever of adolescence—desire for justice. He frets over the one-sided coverage of Tiananmen square incident. He becomes a warrior of pen for a brief stint. His agonizing nights over what is to be done tahe him to academia.
2.DIFFICULT LOVE AND EASY HATRED
Any one can love when moved by a longing. You know that you love only the fulfillment of your desire. Any one can hate when they are up against a limitation. But limitation can and should be overcome. Selfless love is powerful whereas hatred is to lose that power. Calculated thinking curtails our efforts while circular thinking ends in idleness. Restless mind squanders your energy whereas focused mind ferrets out enthusiasm for achievements.
3.ONE MAN’S MEAT IS…
Some people write their hopes. Others write them off.
Some weave a dream. Others shatter it.
Some scream against injustice. Others call it cacophonous.
Some live for values. Others call it impracticality.
Some die for their causes. Others call it foolishness.
4.ABSURD LOVE STORY OF 2010
Once again another ‘jilted’ lover killed his girl friend. He poured acid over her face. Then he slit her throat with a blade. Then he has thrown her from a three-storied building. When the police tried to nab him they found him a ghost . He has already been eliminated by the law and order machinery or committed suicide. However the ghost has been arrested. In the court, the real culprits- movie, possessiveness and instant gratification were in the audience smiling and smiling… The judge gave the verdict to hang the ghost till it is dead as it is the opposite of the rarest of the rarest cases.
5.PURGE THE CRUEL THOUGHTS
You lie on the terrace and look at the piece of cheese-- the moon. You don’t want to believe that the spots out there are big craters. The cool and nectarine rays of the moon soothe your heart and remove your alienation. You muse whether your dog would shed tears over your body. A dog is not a man and a man is not a dog. If a dog spends its life in looking after the master, can’t the latter do the same? Does the divine feel sorry for death of any creature? Is mutual massacre natural, historically unavoidable in nature? Perhaps, we have to cleanse our cruel thoughts on the stone slab of introspection and beneficial action.
6 .DESTINY MANIFESTED?
I wondered
Umpteenth time about
My destiny
I forgot
I‘ve been living it
It is to teach the brats
And reach the stars.
7.DOGGEREL
Your dogs are dogging
You
Like the ‘hounds of earth.’
A sigh of despair
Over ambition gone with the air.
When a loaf of bread is thrown,
Tony, the curious cur takes it,
Runs and digs a hole to hide it
For future
Like man.
8. ONLY ONE
Can you find one poem
To give up your real life?
Can you find one dream
To dare reach ethereal world?
Can you find one woman
To love in sense surreal?
Can you find one sword
To remove injustice blatant?
Can you find one moment
To fill it up nectar and enliven it permanent?
***
9.Moments of creation
In the dead of the night
I felt a futile sense of fight
Socrates took poison in chalice
I couldn’t pin down source of malice
In the dream I saw my friend
His book published
I lacked courage?
Or sense of rage?
Like a miser was I
In time. money and energy
I saved when I had to spend
I dithered When I needed to love
Slept when needed to remain awakened
died when I had to live
Like a poet longing for a dream
in fact faced dawn
of disappointment.
I remembered
Tagore’s poem
Of one who sowed the seeds
Regretted the time lost
Then awoke to find buds
Blossoming into flowers.
10.Sign of Life
The earth has defied cosmos
The tree rebels against the earth
The bird challenges tree standing
Life opposes death
Rebellion is a sign of life.
***
11.We are moderns
Believe in nothing
Not even in the above words.
12.BEING INSENSITIVE
You stand outside the staff room. The southern wind refreshes and turns the mornings into cheerful and hopeful. You go to the canteen. While you are walking back from the canteen, two students wish you “good morning!” Absorbed in your talk you hardly reciprocate. You rue over the lack of motivation on the part of students. Have you imbibed the much praised “American efficiency” and rejected “Indian indefinite delay”?
13.COMMUNICATE
You think that your friends will understand and respond to you. You know that factors and individuals are changeable. You see that people say one thing when they are down. The same pursue the old values vengefully when they are in an upward mobility. You are pained. Some times friends do not or can not know why you are for or against a certain philosophy. Have you ever asked them why they have become what they are. Do you really want to and act to communicate?
14.CHOICE IS INEVITABLE
Your endless rumination is tiresome. It is self- indulgence or a means of escape. You can’t know everything in advance. No knowledge is gained without experience of pain which is one of the most natural or human means. You can’t have a lot of leisure as well as money. Can you make a choice between environment and greed?.
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