Did You Say Liberty?

Did you say liberty or was it something else?

Was it for a cause, young blood like water spread?

As wilted roses, pride of beauties lay under the feet

And wails of distressed mothers till heavens did reach

Marches of freedom to new dawns paved the way

But tyranny crept in though old evils you did slay

In joy, savagery danced once the aims were over

Liberty’s flag lost color to coercion’s exposure

With both the hands you snatched the crown

Too hastily, in love of their bleeding throne

Once shining arrows, meant to break all clamps

Now lie affronted like boats left rusting on land

Freedom in the morning was control by the noon

Vile were evenings, finally sadism by the moon

But what goes around comes too, it doesn’t stay

Power absolute corrupts fully, all the wise men say

A new wave will rise soon to break the patterns

Again young blood will be profusely splattered

Even then, the wheel will move on the very path

Till some other wave breaks that epoch of wrath

It will fill old shoes in the name of a novel cause

But none would care taking the road traveled less

This order never will cease; it’s destined to repeat

Thus, same end each crusade inevitably shall meet

Did you say liberty or was it something else?

(I penned this poem a few years back)

Wings

'Far and wide my wings I spread

Cutting the untamed winds I fly 

Calm is my mind, high is my head, 

This whole universe is my sky'

I did this work using masking tape (for this indicative bird)

Done in watercolor and Pitt pens on 5*7" watercolor paper.

Freedom

Men often take pride in ‘granting’ freedom to their women, which they think is a grand favor on their part. Sadly, women too feel or are made to feel lucky upon having such a liberal man in their lives. However, freedom is one’s fundamental right and cannot be granted, given or permitted by anyone. Sadly, in our culture, women are made to feel thankful for basic rights and apologize for everyone’s mistakes. Such things, in the long run, make them feel guilty about everything that goes wrong with anyone around them. Society turns them into blame absorbing sponges. 

Even though one may face hateful remarks, I feel personal freedom is something that must not be compromised upon. A woman's freedom is not a piece of cloth that can be trimmed as per someone's idea of freedom or perceptions.

The Turmoil of Change

The recent spat in BHU campus in Banaras highlights an underlying pattern. The birth of new ideas is never easy; the change from the league always faces much turmoil and resistance. The old mentalities take centuries to change and this change has started, albeit late, in the very ‘Hindu’ campus of BHU. If we look closely, any religion or ideology, if applied upon the masses in rather its ‘pure’ form, tends to decay. The traditional ‘Hindu’ ideology which has always vociferously opposed the Muslim one, tagging it as ‘barbaric’ and ‘misogynist’ has put its foot in mouth by asking girl students to ignore lurid remarks and to stay indoors post evening. Similarly, nations where a comparatively ‘pure’ Muslim ideology rules, horrendous condition of women has attracted international flak. Even the elite and powerful snooty Great Britain that has ruled almost every country and looks down upon Hinduism and Islam, the ‘Georgian’ as well as the ‘Victorian’ periods of pure ‘Christianity’ have been atrocious for women. Jane Austen’s novels describe how women suffered, for they had absolutely no rights and were dependent upon the males for everything. From being forced to study at home to developing coquetry skills, women in Britain were raised with a single goal- to find a suitable husband. Austen’s another famous novel ‘Sense and Sensibility’ makes this point far more clear.

So, the pattern is that any religion if given a free reign in application of its core ideology on subjects tends to restrict the liberty of its women folk first. Clerics all around the world have been insecure of women and their education. In her seminal work ‘A Room of One’s Own’, Virginia Woolf reveals that women were not given entry inside the Oxford University library and also that the university allowed a separate girls college only after much protest. So, be it any religion, core ideology is always polar to women and their rights, even most fundamental ones. The society has always been male dominated and as usual, in BHU also, girls were asked to ‘ignore’ the molesters and ‘shut up’. What can be more unfortunate than to encourage dirty psychopaths?

Surprisingly, the interior areas of Mongolia, tribes of Africa and Jews (hated even in the poems of ancient Greek poet Homer and Shakespeare; the Song of the Witches’ in Macbeth has these lines about Jews- ‘Liver of blaspheming Jew; Gall of goat; and slips of yew’) can boast of a high gender equality. People we cast off as ‘wild’ and ‘uncultured’ can teach us a lesson or two on respecting women.

The change never stops; it arrives gradually and like birth, like a plant it has to claw its way up, break the seed and then ground to come out and survive. Anything that is forced in its unaltered form tends to suppress the weakest parts of the population first. Hence, any religion or ideology must be flexible and must be altered with time, and most importantly, must not be forced. After all, gender equality is the foremost sign of a culture that keeps up with change and adjusts well with its flexible framework.

Ironically, all this is happening during the Navratri festival. By the way, fresh sprouts are appearing on the rusted saffron ground in Banaras and from all of my heart I want them to survive and grow.

Half-Dead Liberty

RIP veteran Indian journalist Gauri lankesh and other such crusaders of truth who were silenced forever. However, truth always finds its way out. 

Thanks, But No Thanks

 Love, thanks for being a knight in shining armour

For all uptown chivalry and being a charmer

But, some damsel in distress I am surely not

And I don’t need a knight, but my own sword

Love, thanks for being a gentleman on his knees

With a posy of roses, nice words to please

But, I am not a lost fairy crazy for some prince

And I don’t need a castle, but my own wings

Image link 

Book Review: Lajja

Title:         Lajja (Shame)

Author:    Taslima Nasrin

Publ.:        Penguin India

ISBN:        978-0-140-24051-1

MRP:         Rs 250

Pages:       216

The Sanskrit word ‘Lajja’ literally means ‘Shame’. This book makes one think about the basic tenets upon which a nation must be built. The firebrand writer Taslima Nasrin shot to fame with this novel that first came out in Bengali language in 1993 and was banned by the Bangladesh government after a few months of release. Since then Ms. Nasrin has come in the hate-radar of Islamic clergy and fundamentalists. This novel is more of a mirror that shows the society and the government of Bangladesh their real faces that are indescribably ugly. However, despite getting numerous death threats and after years of exile, the author still refuses to apologize or to be silenced. I think Ms. Nasrin can be called a writer in the truest sense because her work is powerful and deep enough to bring a change in thinking, to show a whole nation its ugliness and to make a dent in the rotten perceptions, changing their track to some extent. That is why Lajja is considered an important book.

Through a fictional story, the disastrous effects of the ‘Babri Masjid’ demolition upon Bangladeshi Hindus are shown. Many true-life incidents and census analyses have been provided so that each point made has a factual backing.

The story revolves around one Dutta family that resides in a place called ‘Tikatuli’ in Bangladesh. Dr. Sudhamoy Dutta, the head, I think, represents the ideal fundamentals upon which the country was conceived. A true patriot and honest to the core, Dr. Sudhamoy fervently takes part in all the national movements but is left alone, ill and paralyzed in his later years; his idealism fails him and he gets reduced to a mute spectator to the crumbling principles, increasing hate-crimes and death of secularism in his beloved country after its liberation. This is what Bangladesh has been shown to become after gaining independence- weakened by injustice, stripped of idealism and paralyzed by genocide.  

His son Suranjan Dutta represents the educated and optimistic Hindu youth. At 33, he remains unemployed because of hatred and unfriendly laws against Hindus and thus unmarried as well. He is somewhat of an idealist too and loves his country ardently. However, just like most Hindu youths, he gets nothing but discrimination and antipathy. Finally, his spirit of secularism dies out leading to depression. The way he takes his revenge on a street-worker Shamima, is heart rendering.

Kironmoyee Dutta, Suranjan’s mother is a silent, religious, sacrificing, but unhappy woman who broods in the background throughout the novel, though she puts up in any and every situation stoically with her family, esp. her husband. She represents the under-privileged Bangladeshi Hindu masses that love their country but desire to leave for a ‘safe’ place like Calcutta. After a point, her tears dry out and she submits to her husband and her fate.

Twenty-one years old Maya, the youngest child of Duttas’, is a beautiful and educated young woman and represents the dignity of Hindu women that gets brutalized and lost in the sacrilege and torture inflicted upon the Hindus by their own Muslim brethren.

The family keeps holding on to its idealism, loyalty, and patriotism even when they face poverty and destruction by Muslims enraged over the Babri demotion. However, when the old bonds get strained by bias and intolerance, their hopes hit a hard ground and start cracking up. Apprehensively, Duttas arrive upon a decision they could not even think of earlier.

It is surprising that the book has been written by a Muslim as the author rips apart the hypocrisy of the Bangladeshi government, hell-bent upon Islamizing the entire country and their apathetic and barbaric behavior towards the very same Hindus who once stood by their side in various movements against the oppressors. She openly accuses the religious fundamentalists and even the common Muslim citizens of a prejudiced behavior. There are no purple passages because the purpose of the book is altogether different. Interestingly, Ms. Nasrin completed this book in seven days.

Lajja is not only revealing because of the facts and figures given but it makes one think about the disastrous effects of power going in the hands of fundamentalists. It shows how intolerance, fanaticism and bigotry eat-up secularism and peace in such a nation. 

Listen

Listen to the tranquil sky

It is the color palette of heavens

Listen that little birdie fly

How she flaps her lovely wings!

Listen what the leaf tells her tree

“Good bye sir, I am now glad and free!

I’ll fly and fly, miles and miles,

I’ll visit far away shores on my solitary journey

And all lost castles once brimming with symphony

Good bye, I am not tied to ye

May ye stand tall forever, at this last goodbye I say”

Ponder why these new leaves crackle

Do they too long to break their shackle?

Listen, what these new born buds say

What plans do they design the whole day?

“Lo! Wait is over and we arrive!

Young and innocent, pure and naïve

But we fear those rough hands

That will pluck us to faraway lands

Ah! World is but a cruel game we see

Unlike leaves we don’t wish to be free”

Listen to the water as it falls over

Can’t wait to meet its beloved river

What does the fall confess?

To that elderly rock at the edge

“I am impatient and young

Dreaming of her all day long

She loves me though but him much more

Alas! She longs to kiss the ocean’s shore

I love her still, knowing all of this

For my love is chaste though one sided

So, deaf to every wit and numb to logic”

Listen till your senses smoothen

Listen till your soul is calm

Listen till you reach eternal shore

Listen till you listen no more…

Images: http://www.robertmichie.com/photography.html

http://www.forestwaterfalls.com/waterfalls3.htm

http://www.123rf.com/photo_5645073_autumn-maple-leaf-flying-away-against-the-background-of-blue-sky-with-clouds.html

I Broke A Million Strings...

The maze is eternal with roads galore

Deeper I gaze, sink I more

Simply an endless swim without a shore

Keep passion hidden and face stoned

For each one is wolf in angel’s robe

Not a soul can be trusted, nor can be loved

Still a million strings tie me to the web of world

Let me break all ropes and take a road straight

Still keeping safe spaces on both the ways

 

I sever all strings once I feel Thee

All cravings go numb and

Soul feels like a bird set free!

I soak His light and sleep deep inside

Lo! I am the new sprout in the womb of light

Pains and joys are trivial now

From a raging fire and flaming ember

Here I beam with the joy of surrender

I am but a clay with scent of Thee

Ah! I can be anything I wish to be

For I have broken those million strings and

Soul feels like a bird set free!

Image:http://freegreatstockphotos.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/a-bird-in-the-hand-set-free/

Bal Ganagadhar tilak ( 1856-1920)

He was a renowned freedom fighter. He strived against untouchability.