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FOURTEEN WHYS ; A SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET

adhip ghosh — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:50:37 +0000

FOURTEEN WHYS
Why say, `the King of England does no wrong’?
Why, when the list of wrongs is beyond count?
Why did thousands from East Pakistan throng?
Why were they stamped `Refugees’ on account?

Why forced were they into an alien world?
Why, why were they plucked from their ancient roots?
Why West Bengalees sneered at them and quarrelled?
Why did they force their brethren lick their boots?

Why, why did no soul, no where, shed a tear?
Why, because it was the voice of England?
Why should the world be a mute spectator?
Why, because then the latter was her land?

Why was Bengal, answer, torn into two?
Why, because still one plus one is two, too?

< AGO------------------GO----------------------AGOG

adhip ghosh — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 14:28:42 +0000

< AGO--------GO--------AGOG >
Strangely enough, between two disyllabic information agents on either side, one adverbial, the other, adjectival, is tremblingly set a monosyllabic verb. While AGO stretches to the times we have had, AGOG, to the times we claim to have still in our store. Then while AGO is bygoneness, AGOG is becomeness. GO is, however, freed from all these nesses. It has no before, no after. In a sense, it appears steadfast, immobile but as the pendulum of a Grandfather clock, long since unwound. True, while AGO is was and AGOG, will be, GO alone is is. Because it alone exists, it alone ticks, pulsates, and it alone can be seen and felt. It is, therefore called To-day, while its father, AGO is called Yesterday and its son, To-morrow. But there is a but. GO is equi-distanced in time from Ago and Agog, if judged in this perspective, and it is twenty-four hours, precisely. And, it is for this, did I italicize `tremblingly’ in the second line and use the simile of the `clock’ in the sixth line. Just for a while, recall the words of the Gharibabu in Bimal Mitra’s filmed novel, Saheb Bibi Golam, `Ghari ar bajbena’. GO shall cease to exist beyond to-day, it shall then become AGO. Sameway, AGOG shall cease to remain beyond to-morrow, it shall become AGO, too. Aristotle foresaw this fact first, hence his remark,`There’s only one Time, it’s Past.’ In every age, in every clime, this issue of evanescence of time has teased men, of every station of life, out of thought, made them saints or neurotics, optimists or pessimists. But the riddle of life yet persists. Scientists have command over birth-control, but death-control is beyond them, for they themselves are subjected to it. When Man dreams to have reached the oasis of his life in superannuation, he discovers the sunglow of the west, and west is waste. He then gropes in the dark of his AGO `for the touch of a hand that is gone,/ And the sound of a voice that is still.’ And it is only to digress his mind from the ominous to-morrows to come. It is after all a commendable effort though futile in ultimate result. Hence we are left with no alternative but to vote Bentham, The Greatest quantity of pleasure of the greatest number, Live good to-day to live better to-morrow, to live best the day next. Herein is there no escapism of the sages, no self-sale to frenzy. Herein is the assertion of life, the positiveness of life at whose stroke cessation of life can be withstood. After all death is a bugbear, a black minute’s moment, and Death, too, dies.

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Sunil — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 04:31:21 +0000

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Dr Vinayak Sen-the friend of the poor

adhip ghosh — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 10:46:15 +0000

ARE YOU SUBJECT OR OBJECT ?

`Subject of’ or `subject to’, subject of your personality independent of extraneous forces or mandatory social stipulations, having your own ideas, making your own plans, master of your body or mind? If subject to, you are not far from being an object, that is, you are lacking your own volitions, submitting to the desires and caprices of an authority, pseudo or true, controlled and affected by him, in short, you are under a subjection. Now, look at the following physician’s sample, and then give your verdict- Is he a subject or an object?
He and his wife played key roles in founding the Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha’s Shaheed Hospital, thereby translating the long-cherished dream of the local community-based NGO, called, Rupantar. I say, he acted as a fool. He, in the capacity of the National Vice-President of the PUCL and General Secretary of its Chattisgarh unit, helped organize numerous investigations into alleged human rights carried out during anti-Naxalite operations of Salwa Judum, responsible for a split in the tribal community. I say, he acted as a fool. He, in the same breath, did not approve of the Naxalites’violent methods and had spoken strongly against them several times. I say, he acted as a fool. He manoeuvred to be the recipient in 2004 of the Paul Harrison award, given annually by the Christian Medical College of Vellore, for his “lifetime service to the rural poor “, the R R Keithan Gold Medal of The Indian Academy of Social sciences in 2007, for ” his outstanding contribution to the advancement of the science of Nature-Man-Society”, and the Jonathan Mann award for Global Health and Human Rights in 2008, for “providing information that has saved lives and improved conditions for thousands of people”. I say, he acted as a fool. He beguiled the Vacation Bench of the Supreme Court for a grant of bail in 2009 on pleas of deteriorating health conditions, when the Chattisgarh High Court had earlier charge-sheeted him under CSPCA and UAA and thrown him into prison since May 2007, including a 28 days’ spell of inhuman solitary confinement. I say, the fool deserved the latter. And, as a Christmas Eve gift to Indian oligarchic democracy, he was given a life sentence on 24 December 2010 by the kind and judicious Additional Sessions and district Court Judge. I say, he is now eligible to be labelled as a full fool.
“ Poets and pigs are appreciated only after they die”! But never a social activist. But he the fool has been unprecedented ly lucky in this regard. Protests and rallies against the ”malafide intent” of the state of Chattisgarh and against the ”media vilification”, “cooked up” and “vindictive” judgement of the case against him shook India and the West at the same time. Twenty-two Nobel Laureates from around the world stood by his side to appeal to India’s Constitutional Heads. But nothing availed or is likely to avail in any near future.“Such is the state of Denmark’!
Meanwhile, he is lotted to languish in jail, he the fool, Dr Vinayak Sen. If he were an MD, not in Paediatrics, but in Judiciaritrics, he would not have been bracketted this way with the so-called hard-core criminals, politically masked or just blatantly law-defying, of our society in sharing the same fate. To conclude with Shakespeare’s comment, of course re-styled,” As flies to wanton boys are we to the laws/ They kill us for their sport,"

She rains tears

adhip ghosh — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 11:56:37 +0000

(The following is specially intended only for them who have/had been in Calcutta sometime in sometime)

Yes, she does so, she, my Koli, my Kolikata, popularly, Kolkata, British Calcutta. I repeat, she rains tears.
But such tears which no eye can view, such tears that emit no sound, such tears that deny in their
composition the chemical amalgam of protein, carbohydrate, potassium, ammonia, urea, sodium
carbonate and sodium chloride. Yet they are tears true, that are worded in her moans, groans and
whimpers. Accepted, they are tears, idle tears, and we know not what they mean. But who can deny that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy? Even if you cannot see such tears, you can hear them. Actually, we are at present sans all senses, sans visual, sans auditory, sans olfactory, tactile, and, of course, FEELING. We are dead men walking, a clean huddled community of tabula rasa, what we were in mind at birth, void of all ideas or thoughts. Did you yourself hear the cry of the Senate House, when it was being demolished, its ancientness being piteously axed down into humiliating storms of debris, and under the very awestruck but unprotesting eyes of the then Calcuttans? Yes, you heard it from others, read about it in the newspapers, and remember, hearing is accepting, reading is verifying what you have heard about. And, when, over the Senate’s levelled bone- dust there rose a five-storied building, you applauded the coronation of architectonics, its triumph over heritage. And, then, yes then , that very momentous day, if you would have taken a solitary ramble along that site of College Street, you could hear none but Goldighi swirling and snarling in angry reaction under the feebly blue gas lights of the area. Did I then say wrong when I labelled ourselves tabula rasa, an unscribbleable flat white stone slate, feelless, tongueless, heartless, senseless,- creatures who are flung upon this earth’s crust by a sheer Divine fallacy of Creation?

Why move so far by backward steps along the dust-layered corridors of Time? Not so long ago,Calcutta looked slim,lying parallel to the holy Ganga, ending southmost to Jagu (earlier`Jadu) Bazar, northmost to Baghbazar, eastmost to Rajabazar and westmost to Natunbazar,(co-incidentally, all bazars,)not to mention Strand Road, which would have then carried in its trail,by what is called Law of Association in logic, the fearful Nimtola and Kashi Mitra Ghats. After all, to the dying, death is a bug-bear,a `jujuburi’, and we are indeed all dying specimens of humanity in a gradual dissolution, in a perceptible evaporation, to be more precise. Now, that `slim’Calcutta of the bygone days has been raped through and through,her uterus dug open, to pass therethrough the long Tube, linking North and South in a faster and safer fraternity. Calcutta, you would say, had then no option but to bow to the needs of her people that science proudly claims to satiate. Fine! Beauty! No objection, it has helped people, thrown asunder by distance, get closer; but are they at all truly neighboured in mind and spirit and temperament to that height of divine expectation that one’s cry in need reaches another’s heed? You yourself answer, please, yes ,you yourself answer this question. And, I am sanguine, we would catch sure even that unvoiced rumbling `No’, born of your conscientious self in a loud telecast.Verily,`in the sea of life enisl’d /Dotting the shoreless watery wild/We mortal millions live alone!’Another point. Scientific orientation of transportation between man’s Home and the World, especially in Kolkata, has since then been very little availed justifiably for the good of the State’s run. If it were not so, why is in the air thumpingly announced again and again and again, DO IT NOW!DO IT NOW!DO IT NOW! Our Kolkata weeps rains of shrouded despairs, heartbreaks and mute frustration, in not observing THIS spectacle of expressed insubordination of the mass to their authority, but in envisaging the up-and-doing attitude of our forefathers who once did really earn their bread by the sweat of their brows from 10 to 5,and that, too, for six days a week, whether they toiled in a Martin Burn,a Kumilla Union Bank, a Soor Enamel, or a Bengal Chemical, and in great relish. And whence did they come? Suburbs. They stayed in Calcutta messes in close vicinity of their work-places to avert `LATE’ or `ABSENT’ marks beside their names in the attendance registers. You might say, that was a day of tyranny. Now, answer, is it tyranny to compel you to serve your master who guarantees your life’s security? It is not.It does only substantiate the give-and- take core- essence of the much- hallowed Social Contract Theory of political science. Who would feed you gratis, Dear? Even if there is any such phoenix of a human soul,do you not make yourself, unawares ,unworthy of the appellation, HUMAN, in receiving alms from some body in suppliant knees and beggarly look? Contextually, I would just remind you of the oft-quoted gospel, `AADH MORADER GHA MERE TUI BACHA’, Strike the half- dead to enliven them. Might be, the cardiac massage for a collapsing heart- patient as the last frantic physical medicine for a surgeon, attests the veracity of what I say ,a London of bewitching malls, a London of breath-catching speed, a London of dodges and jostles. I want my Kolkata to be only that much of London that enshrines the memorials of her time- defying sons in the domains of art, literature, culture, statesmanship, patriotism, and that London which, carries on till these days her ageless tradition and heritage, as if she were a torch-bearer, even when she marches ahead with the pace of Time that renews and renews itself for the city’s inhabitants in order that they live good, live better, live best.

Enough is enough , I must have angered you to the hottest limit .Afterall,Bengali`angar’(coal)may have in it a secret but tangible image of`anger’(krodh),since both boil in fire.Our Koli rains tears in private. Hers are the `tears from the depth of some divine despair(that)/Rise in the heart,and gather to the eyes,/In looking on the happy Autumn- fields,/And thinking of the days that are no more’. Devaluation of values is now the ethical(!) patent of the day,in every vista of life, be it service, business, public dealings, manners, talks, attitudes, outlooks, not to attempt a complete list. Simultaneously, what ismost alarming and what
modern economists often speak of, Commodity Fetishism `Panyamohabadhhata’,has got so ingrained in our nature that we are obtusely forced to mask our emptiness by peacock feathers in hunt for`a possession! a possession’. Every one of us now trumpets as if he were an Ajitesh Bandopadhyay,an R N Chatterjee, a Kaji Sabyasachi, a Tarak Sen, a Sakti ,a volatile Samaresh, a Binod Behari, not to bring within my purview the aerial stalwarts of world-repute, like Rabindranath, Swami Vivekananda, Netaji, and the like, lest their hallowed images are profaned even in our irresponsibly ill-read and immature references to them. Our Kolikata, yes, the Calcutta of yesteryears bore them all, once upon a time from now, shaped them, made them aware of the life within and the life without. Now, all, all are gone; and the too-deep-for- tears tragic fun is this, THEY did not want to go with the passage of Time,WE forced them to. Because we voted the slogan: Kick out the old, kiss in the new .To-day, alone, all alone, therefore, our Kolikata reminisces them in tears that fall like dews that neither soundingly rebound on the earth below, nor moisten it for public detection on birth of a new day.

If on the `viewless wings of Poesy’ you could at least for an hour transport yourself in the old Curzon Park, you could hear Kolkata’s image of` Arabian Nights’ cultural bonanza manifest in multifarious Jalshas,`Combination Nights’, classical music conferences, Vijoya Sanmilanis, magic and gymnastic shows. And how long was the list of celebrities: Sisir Bhaduri, Ahindra Chowdhuri, Naresh Mitra , Pahari Sanyal , Sarajubala, Hemanta, Sudhirlal, Pankaj, Shyamal, Sandhya, Pratima, Dhananjoy, Satinath, Utpala, Alpana, Alauddin, Bismilla, Bilayet, Bhimsen, Dagar, Palushkar, Ravishankar, Ali Akbar, Bare Gulam, Ostad Faiaz Khan, Allarakha, Hiru Ganguly, Santaprasad, Viswadev, and names and names and names that, I fear, have outwitted me into a temporal amnesia for the present. Kolkata had then been vivacious, vocal, literally a city of joy. Where are gone those theatre halls, Star, Minerva, Sri Rangam, and Rangmahal ? Gone with the wind? Kolkata’s`Sajano bagan shukiye gelo? Her trimmed garden went to waste?And on the celluloid, the imprints of Uttam-Suchitra as romantic duo, Chhabi Biswas-Chhaya Devi as parental epitomes, Guirudas-Molina as deity-devotees, Tulsi-Bhanu -Jahar-Nabadwip-Nripati as court jesters, Kali-Jnanesh-Sekhar as type characters, are yet imperishable. True, Satyajit brought laurels to India,but the earlier names were the bread-guardians for the community of ill-fed technicians. Moreover, then were the days when in every nook and corner of the city one could find a gymnasium and a library to cater to the physical and educational needs of the Calcuttans. Who does not remember Bishnu Charan Ghosh’s College of Physical Education, wherefrom issued forth the first Indian` Vishyashree’, Manotosh Roy? Likewise who would dare to belittle Manohar Aich of 4’11’’, another`Visyashree’, nicknamed,`ThePocket Mountain of the World’? Side by side, there were Sachin Deb, Jaganmoy, Anupam, Nachiketa, Rabin, Gouriprasanna, Pranab to champion the Modern Bengali songs. I remember, how fast we sped to reach back our homes to listen to the Saturday-Sunday`Anurodher Asar’ of 1.40- 2.30 pm duration. Almost hand in hand with the theatre halls cinema halls, too, were thrown out one day of people’s focus. Why and how long should Indrapuri , New Theatres, Arora, Radha, Technician studios keep on catching dust in their echoic solitude? Incidentally, one song of Dhananjoy, sung for a certain Puja album demands to be adjudged the most contextual for my to-day’s motion:`Shunya ghare phire elam jei./Chokher jale porlo mone ar to tumi nei’, Once back to my empty home, I realized in tears that you are there no more.The Pujas came only after the Mahalaya, at dawn of which the Birendra-Banikumar-Pankaj trio awoke all with a message of the advent of the Good and the exit of the Evil. Really, no one could then prognosticate that after Spring would come`Fall’, the season of drought and blight. Kolkata, I should say, was rather well-fated not to lend her sensitive tympanum to the blaring, sky-tearing, noise-polluting `Bands’ of to-day, some of which even dare to stain the ageless sanctity of our Hindu religion, alluding to the love-preacher Nimai Sanyas in a vituperative lyric. What the so-called`Bands’do is blatantly laughable-cum- scoffable public nuisance. But what better could they do other than wallowing in the current of the day? You can take the man out from Texas, but you cannot take the Texas out from the man. If cacophony is song, then there is humour even in the unputdownable khisti that promotes grins and giggles even among the dentured old over their consumption of teacups and combustion of Wills Filters in morning get togethers.

Our Koli, I remember,used to gather her academic associates to throng to hear Narayan Ganguly of City College,detailing every shade and nuance of the love-laden soul of Radha,storm-swept by the enchanting flute-flow of Krishna,while teaching`Gourchandrika’:`Radhar ki haila antare byatha’,What ails the heart of Radha?Vidyasagar College Principal Achyut Dutta taught`Othello’s Desdemona Murder Scene in such a vivisectional style that students,crowded in benches and statue-standing against the walls sighed loud in protest against the class-closing gong of the bell.

True,Kolkata had to wade through spilt blood when communal riots were manoeuvred once by the politics-mongers and fanatic fools. But she held patience and muttered prayers for good sense to dawn on the offenders. She had also Good Samaritans as her children to brave peace mission marches through the most disturbed areas to end the feud between the rival camps,asserting`Hindu Musalman Bhai Bhai’. But Kolkata wept inconsolably when Left Extremism tolled many a promising bud who could be to-day our sunny to-morrows. After all, our Koli was destined `to see life steadily and see it whole’.Hers is the `poet’s eye,in a fine frenzy rolling,/Doth glance from Heaven to Earth,from Earth to Heaven,/And,as imagination bodies forth,/The poet’s pen turns them to shapes,/And gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.’All said,our Koli seems to pass through the most troubled waters of her life,yes, NOW.She just keeps herself afloat on the sweeping tides of the day,and speaks not a syllable.She only moans and murmurs to herself the song of`The Sound of Soul’in desperation:`O my Soul,my Soul console,/Me a meacock I know,/So I moan,I mourn,adorn Thee lone ,/In my tabernacle home./Candid Thy justice,/Conscience Thy mastiff,/Inspan me to God./So-long,Soul.’

How nonsensical ,then,is our dream,`Amader Kolkata ek din kallolini tilottama hobe’,our Kolkata shall one day be the London of the East! Personally,I do not concur with this dream- vision.I do not want my ancient Mother grow one day a London of sky-high towers since both boil in fire.Anyway,the following I would swear to mutter on till my last breath in order to temporarily deafen my ears to the psycho-torturous weepings of Kolkata in a continuum:

`You(Koli) shall grow not old,as we that are left grow old:/Age shall not weary you,nor the years condemn./At the going down of the sun and in the morning/I will remember you.'

Last and never the least. Kolkata is dead,extinct, long,long ago.What we see of her to-day is a spectral corpse of Kolkata,better to call it a carcass.Ruminate now my Dear,what she was once, the most brisk, the most cultured,the most accommodating ,the most sacred hermitage for the saints and the savants,the most perfect artistic congress of self-unaware social reformers and gallows-loving national patriots, who drew their spiritual sustenance from the chanting of`BANDEMATARAM’ often in a choric togetherness,casting aside thereby all the prejudicial bars of religion and casteism that impede the flourish of social camaraderie.
Now in a lighter vein.Why slight the ancient concept of`Pangtibhojan’,Row Dinner,wherein the rich and the poor sat,as if old acquaintances, and ate Luchi,Chholar Dal,Begun- bhaja,Shakbhaja, Chhakka, Rui Kalia,Bangali Patha,Chutney,Papar,Doi,Darbesh,Pantua,Sandesh,Rasogolla and Pan, to end with,to their heart’s ominous fill in bustling jokes and wits.The host then felt that a guest,whatever station of society he might belong to,was as welcome as the`upper ten’even though he had no urgency then to have prior training in,what is now called`Hospitality Management’,Yes,my Dear,guest culture has also been a paper in Kolkata’s hospitality syllabus of the heart; actually,he enjoyed the sight-`forty feeding like one’.Now,all is irretrievably lost,all.Our once-upon-a- time- enviable metropolis is being degraded right under our every -day -eye into a sheer necropolis,and by degrees.She is now, therefore, destined to rack her vocal chords to sigh in secret like the nocturnal nightingale,her throe of the heart.It is a pity for him who is deaf to this;his is also a cursed lot,I say,`cursed’,because he belongs to that category of fools who know not and know not they know not.It is most precisely THE occasion that compels our Koli rain her tears since the uncalendered past and which is feared to be rained even beyond our doomsday in echoing spray about the Lethe, the mythical River of Forgetfulness which Tagore alone could precisely envisage and identify as`VISWARANER TEER’.What else can we now sigh out,my dear Friend, than,`REQUIESCAT IN PACE’,Let the Dead remain in peace?And what else can we now do other than request the curious onlookers at her cremation site,`STREW ON HER ROSES ROSES,ROSES,/ NEVER A SPRAY OF YEW’? My last word last.And this is a harsh apocalyptic forecast: the sea never dries,our Kolkata’s tears would also, NEVER,NEVER,NEVER.Heritage gone,Kolkata gone! Hence tears,tears,tears..tears ever and always.I have no idea whether it is in these tears our Kolkata would one day be truly KALLOLINI,if not a TILOTTAMA. Nothing doing. Fifty percent achievement is not that bad after all, that it would give the Leftists a fillip for another call for a Bharat Bandh.

AN ABSTRACT OF A TRANSLATED AND EDITED TEXT OF A BENGALI NOVEL BY SAIBAL MITRA

adhip ghosh — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 06:12:43 +0000

The following is the abstract of a Bengali novel, penned by Saibal Mitra and edited and translated by me, which is expected to be simultaneously published from Norway and West Bengal and released for the public sometime in February 2011 :
Reared up since girlhood in a parental heritage wherein religiosity and humanity entered into a curious artistic congress, that Catherine Boor- man, originally a homespun girl in academic pursuit of Linguistics, shall one day fly up impassioned to renounce all worldly dreams and confess and expiate for her national guilt of draconian exploitation of the count- less folk children of an oppressed country like India, is a tale writ in tears, believed to be the best water color to paint a tragedy. Initially awed by the murder of two swarthy young men at the hands of some color-prejudiced ruffians in broad daylight in London, Catherine soon leaps into anti-racial campaigns in her own homeland, spear-headed, among others, by an Indi-an Engineer at whose directive she tours his country to truly decipher her sole raison d’etre of life. However, she must needs depart the country because of her suspected links with a banned political party, but only after she had had enough personal smack of the infernal remand centres wherein are huddled creatures that once were men. What would Catherine decide to then, which would then be safer haven, is purported to be another history of social engineering that even now preoccupies many a social economist the world over.
Saibal Mitra’s novel ( in Bengali version, Manab Putri, in its English Transla- tion, Muse of the Heyday ) reads an apparatus of an epic, a brilliant evocation of the life of a single girl in a certain time of history. His unfailing pen delineates, true to the marrow account, on one hand, the imbroglio of political party members, on another, the homely quotidian life of the tribal folks sustaining themselves agelessly on a starvation diet. So arresting are Mitra’s treatments of people and situations that in their perusal no reader would find a pause in his breath.

WHY AT ALL NOSTALGIA, THE BACKPULL OF THE MIND: A SELF-STYLED PSYCHO- PROBING

adhip ghosh — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 00:41:06 +0000

The summum genus in the hierarchical Tree of Creation is MAN. None can supercede him. Man is atop all, the monarch of all he surveys. Positioned at the zenith, whenever there is grasped a spare, he recounts how could he at all attain it. This recounting, this reminiscing is the first symptom of, what we call to-day, Nostalgia, Homesickness. A golden throne cannot be the bed for a night for a king, for he must return to himself. It is this return-of-the-native yearning that works behind Nostalgia. Because the throne is after all the most solitudinous place for a king. Therefrom he has to look adown space to watch his subjects amassed in a curious togetherness. However riven might be their lives with woes and sorrows, they are together to share each other's haps and mishaps of life. The king watches and watches them and soon he realizes the void in his position. He is pitted against a multitude. It is this comparative miss that often engenders some sort of envy in him, that often results in evil designing of war and imperialistic grabbing of people's subjection to him in suppliant knees and folded hands entreating for mercy. But the king cannot, however,retrieve by this what he has lost long, long back and been avidly looking for,a companionship. He must then chew the cud of bygone days when he accosted a farmer's son who played on his humble flute the tune,`Kothay pabo tare',where should I hunt for him? This`him'is his most coveted prize of life which he had been in possession of, but was forced to fling into the dust and desert for his up-hill ascent to the top. Many might have watched Oscar Wilde's Happy Prince bedewing his stony eyes at the sight of poor people sundered from him by traditioal norms of social classification. But no king is reported to rain tears save, of course, the Nero of Rome. But that was just a gimmick. The point is, he alone can reminisce who has once been in the warm midst of a society. In his`ASCENT to the Everest' Hillary and our Tenjing, both, are reported to long for human company,a few moments later,after their being posted on the roof of the world. And, why? Because they, both, realized then, that an achievement, a Knighthood, however unprecedently awe-ispiring it might be, is after all a golden biscuit, not meant to be tasted in private, but treasured for a life and shown to others who have knowingly-unknowingly contributed a lot towards their flying so high.
Man is born for men. They alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive. To live for others necessiates a group. a society, where men, after their day's close of respective exacting toils, get near each other and talk and talk, not just on the issues of their near past, but often on such misty-rusty issues that are being gradually devoured by the gluttonous Time.
Then, we can safely presume that every man is a duality-the man who toils and the man who rainbows his immediate to harbour a haven of bliss.The latter cannot, therfore, help becoming a poet. Indeed, he who looks before is as much a poet as one who looks after. Is not longing, lingering,look behind the most valued trait of a poet? Yes, it is, and none should dare to challenge it.
To conclude, because of our nostalgic mind , we still call ourseves man. If it were not there in us, we would ouselves label ourselves, as CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN. And, to remind all of what we have been sleeping over in our native unawareness is, Respect, Reverence, Gratitude, Love, Solidarity, Obligation, Affection - are all progeny of Nostalgia in one way or the other, for they are all dictated by the remembrance of our elders who wanted us to inculcate, as they themselves did, these holistic virtues against the serpentine intrusion of Satan, the eternal spoil-sport in every eden of Man.

TO HAVE A NEW FACE AS MY FRIEND

adhip ghosh — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 10:59:18 +0000

When now somebody wants to be my friend,
I feel my heart in joy should at once rend,
To show him that I'm no longer myself,
But have somebody by my side to help.
Indeed, if one could enlarge to become
Another's, the latter would have gained calm,
What, as a loner he'd avidly longed.
Indeed, to learn this gospel people thronged

To hear Him born to-day in a manger,
For us fallen in I-conscious danger,
Who've so long lived just for themselves alone,
Ne'er bothering to lend help to another,
As if they wanted crisis to smother
Whosoe'er ill-lotted on way back home.

The Ultimate Breakup.

Chiranjit Chakraborty — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 11:00:17 +0000

I always carried macadam of happiness,
Till the time you were near,
It broke and fell apart,
When you left me all alone and moved to rear.
Though I scrutinized all my faults,
And kept myself away in a vault,
Thinking that you would come someday,
Forgetting everything which you termed assault.

Now I hardly even remember your face,
The face, which kept me in disgrace.
Allow me to be the way I wish to,
I have portrayed myself the way I wanted to,
Let things be the way it is,
Achieving all may spoil life too.

FAREWEL(+- L)COME IN ONE BREATH: a psycho probing

adhip ghosh — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 07:39:46 +0000

On the last day, that is, 31 December,of 1899 was published Thomas Hardy's four-stanza poem,The Darkling Thrush. Reduced to its essence,the poem,at its symbolic level,begins in a sunset and ends in a sunrise,that is,our eyes that moisten in tears at the sight of the departing nineteenth century await to glisten in cheers to hear the first cry of the shortly-to-be-born twentieth century. The poem is timeless in its appeal,for this very reason,because it bespeaks a truth that is never feared to catch dust and rust even at the hands of the worst prosaic obtuse characters camouflaged amomg us.
This is the vortex of life and reality. Indeed, we are at a crossroads of our mind to ponder over this issue, and we cannot just shrug it off on the plea of labelling it as a luxury of depression. A corollary psycho-feeling obsesses the Bengalee minds,in particular,on the Day of the Mahalaya,when we offer holy water to our departed relations,believed to have remained athirst for the whole of a calendar year,while,a few moments later,we leap into a joyous festive mood to herald the Pujas to follow almost on its heels. Very faithfully is this point hammered home into our psyche when one AGD comments:" The rainbow smiles when it drizzles."
Now,the whole world is taking fast preparatios for a grand celebration of the Christmas and the New Year,2011. And hardly should we now find a soul pent-up, morose and self-cloistered,to muse on the corpse of 2010,as if it is lotted to decompose,slowly and imperceptibly,into the womb of the Past. But,are we not like the double-headed,Janus,at least,to look before and after? If the answer is yes, which it should be,it is confirmed,once again,that we are still Man to recognize that the grave of the dead is the cradle of the new.
This blog is not intended to dampen any one's mind but rather to uplift it to a realization which we should not sleep over even for a while.To conclude,here are a few words from Swami Vivekananda:" They alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive!" Then,let us fare forward into the New Year with the heart-sprung bidding of a farewell for the year melting into the Past.

TRAVEL WITH YOUR THIRD EYE : A SONNET

adhip ghosh — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 11:18:10 +0000

Why do we opt for toils of travelling,
When all is quiet on the domestic front?
Because we look for a life pulsating,
Because the unknown and the unseen haunt,
Because our inbuilt poet asks for it,Dear,
Because toils of travel are a welcome fear.

But, there's a but, and we must be alert
Ne'er to overrun our much-treasured purse.
Because we don't earn to spend in the mart,
Because doing that is inviting curse,
Because we earn after all for others,
Because others are yet in life to smart.

More blogs, the more, the more, the more

adhip ghosh — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 11:07:17 +0000

Man asks for more,and to whom but himself,
Knows not,that he's himself afraid of`more',
He's a lot,yet asks for more for his shelf,
It's for this that he often leaves the shore,
And quests for a newer America,
To stun all by his cries of`Eureka'!
But,when night dawns,and he's laid in fatigue,
He resigns to himself and stops to dig.

In total darkness Man then finds a light,
It's the`light'of his own treasured wisdom
That,as e'en after every day's fight,
Must the kings retire to their kingdom,
So,after having`more',Man should cry`Halt'!
Lest his actions stain with error and fault.

THE OLD SEA AND THE NEW SAILOR

adhip ghosh — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 10:21:12 +0000

All about us in this world there's a sea,
Very,very unpredictable,Dear.
Quiet as a nun if now, just becomes she
Angry as a tigress, whom then all fear.
Once,it so happened,that a new seaman
Ventured to voyage a few leagues,alone-
Impelled by youthful impulse rather than
By caring instinct that were his own.

But when the whole world cried out in panic,
Behold,the sea carried him on her lap,
As a mother does her child whene'er sick.
Indeed,if this great truth we'd earlier tap
That she who surrounds us from dawn to dusk
Of our life should lift us up with her tusk!

Simplicity

Chiranjit Chakraborty — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 02:42:17 +0000

There is a huge difference between "Modernization" and "Ultra-modernization". Our culture,beliefs and rituals are very important for us and don't hamper the development and modernization process. But there are many people who have this thing in their mindset.
Recently I was on a trip of South India, and I was really touched by the people's mentality,dress-up, and above all simplicity. It is indeed really cheering to note that people in this part of the country, still follow the rituals. And perhaps is among the most developed part of our country as far as technological advancement is concerned.
It is not only the technological advancement, infact their belief towards god is simply unbelievable. May be our society has come out of that phase in the name of modernization but I would call it "Ultra-Modernization".

Famous saying

Chiranjit Chakraborty — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 11:11:40 +0000

A silent sea can never make good sailor.......