The Forced Farewell

My friend was almost in tears, when she saw the middleaged man in tears. It is not common to come across a middleaged man shedding bitter tears. He was shedding tears thinking of the plight of his daughter. She, the girl in her twenties, cared very little for the emotional outburst of her father, who but had to struggle from morning till evening to make both ends meet. But she cared less for the father, who could not even afford to provide two square meals for his family members. The plight of poverty-stricken family had found a safe haven for the daughter in a secure convent walls, hoping they may see their daughter have atleast three meals a day, and a worry-free life.

But the dreams of the parents were shortlived, when the young girl decided to quit the secure life, just because she found the "correction" of the sisters too harsh. She might have had an ego, that was too bloated, and she could not think of anyone correcting her. She would do what she wanted, and everyone will have to accept it as coming from God almighty. She found these corrections excruciatingly painful, and her pain was perhaps more than the pain of her hungry father, who was proud to think that her daughter was in a town, growing up speaking English. If he too was as adamant and unrelenting as his daughter, life would have been quite different for this girl.

Life for a young girl in this world is not a bed of roses, or a smooth sail; it has its own share of toils and troubles, especially if a girl is not brought up in a conventional mould. The dropouts and distracted will have to find ways to kill not only their time, but also people with whom they can build a world of their dreams. But who is there to help this girl to start life anew, with renewed vigor and strength? Surely not her father, who is too tired of life already in his forties. His pleading with his daughter could not soften the heart of the girl, and she was leaving pastures green, in search of dry deserts, to find an oasis!

The playful heart of this girl has not taught her a lesson, that the world is not as friendly and warm as it always looks; she had taught the mirages as real, and when she is thirsty and rushes towards the mirages in order to quench her thirst, that would be the moment of self-realization, and that would be the moment she may remember what her father meant for her; what it means to be under the safe and secure care of someone you can trust. When buffeted by the never-ending currents of life, she might look for a breathing space, where she may find someone to wipe her tears. It may be too late before she finds herself in such a situation.

No one on earth has the audacity to decide the fate of another human person; not even God has the power to do that. Each one decides his/her own fate, and that would determine what we make life of. One may tell me that the fruit of a particular tree is bitter or sour, but if I am determined to taste it for myself, who can help me? But unfortunately, in life there may not be second chances, and there may not be avenues to take a U-turn. But she will find her way one day, and remember with gratitude those men and women who had corrected her to mend her ways, for it is only by pruning can a tree reach its full maturity!

Groping in the Dark

It was a festival of lights, and there were non-stop bursting of crackers all around, and the fireworks filled the firmament; the capital did not mind flushing out millions of rupees in order to keep the children feel the festival of lights in their ones. After all, they all said in unison, the people who make crackers and fireworks, need to make a living out of them, and they could afford to burst even after midnight. But from the window of the room where I had taken asylum for four days, I could see the bursts of a different type. And the noise of these ‘crackers’ was far more violent and louder than the ones which filled the already polluted sky.

These are the people who had no place of their own in this metropolis; the citizens of the mega city had a place for every conceivable amusement and enjoyment, but for the people who had been pushed outside the limits of human society, there is no place, where they could sleep in peace. They had managed to squeeze themselves in between two buildings, touching the wall of the building I stayed in. If there was a strong wind, then they may not find the roof of their hutments, and all they had would he gone within no time. Every moment for them is uncertain, but still life was going on. These are the people who burst their voices in the middle of the night, mingling their voices with those of the lifeless crackers.

The protagonist naturally was under the influence of alcohol, one day when the men make the best excuse to drink to their heart’s content, and the women who knew the logic of the men, would not force the bottles away. The young man did not bother to mind his language, it was as crude as he could be. There was another to counter his claims, and the counter claims of the friend were equally loud. It was not clear what they were shouting at, but one thing was sure, these people had no crackers or fireworks to amuse themselves with. Who knows if these people were bursting their empty stomachs, as they went to bed yet another night!

Then all of a sudden, out of the blue came a series of crackers bursting, almost for about a minute, and one of the my friends later said that they were sure to have burst about five thousand rupees worth crackers. Momentary happiness was what kept the people from the high society to flush their “hard” earned money. If all the money that had been spent on crackers and fireworks on the day of Diwali in the capital were to be augmented, it would have been enough to feed all those who were going hungry to bed from at least five states of the sub-continent.

Where can one find true happiness in a celebration as the festival of lights? Is it in the bursting of crackers and displaying the colorful array of fireworks, each one competing with others, or is it in something else! One thing for sure, more and more environmental conscious activists have recommended foregoing the bursting of crackers and amusements with fireworks, which can choke the already polluted air of the capital. I only wish if the nation as a whole decides to forego the colossal waste of crackers and fireworks, and instead find other positive ways of lighting up the lives of others! I wish all those who wanted to celebrate Diwali in a meaningful way could light up diya in the houses of the people who have nothing to eat, and share a meal and joy with them! If that is done, then it might not take too long to brighten up the whole nation.

Marichjhanpi

Probably I will never forget this name, and there are still more than a thousand men and women who too will never forget this name. The massacre of hundreds of men and women of this lonely island in the Sundarbans in 1979 may not find much mention in the history book of West Bengal, but if we go slow going through the history of Bengal in that year, we may be shocked to know that the voiceless men and women who could be dispensed just because they received the patronage of an opposition party, which was not in power. Police joined the vile tactics of a political leader who has his name in the Guinness Book of records as the longest surviving chief minister in the world. Did the people deserve such a gruesome treatment just because they were refugees?

What can power do to a person is so very conspicuous in the story of Marichjhanpi; human beings are pawns who can be bought and sold, made use of to reach one’s selfish gains. If this game on the lives of people were to continue, there may be hardly enough people to inhabit this world. What the guru had done about 30 years ago, that is what precisely his faithful disciple tried to do in Singur, Nandigram. But if the chief minister was an opportunist, who wanted to remain in the seats of power at the expense of the people, the opposition leader was no different; with her sentimentality going beyond all reasonable limits, she too was trying to sell the sweats and blood of the peasants to get into ministerial berth in Delhi.

The world we live in today seems to be so corrupt that no one can be easily spared; each one of the leaders we have today have a dream which is sure to put the lives of the speechless, voiceless and sightless people into danger. The leaders of today have no hearts; all they have in front of their eyes is power, prestige, and wealth. They would do anything in order to get their dreams fulfilled. It may be hard to find a leader who is prepared to shed his/her sweat, leave alone the blood, for the sake of the people they work for. In that case, I take my hats off for such people’s leader as Medha Patkar, who may sit in hot sun with voiceless people, to stand by the peasants and farmers.

One great consolation in the whole process is that there had been some leaders at the ground, who were prepared to face gun firing, lathi charge, teargas in order to get justice done to the people. They may not have succeeded in reaching their dreams; they may still have lots of grudge against the political systems of today and yesteryears, but one thing is true, their indomitable hope and trust had probably given the much needed stamina for people to face all opposition. These men and women are like stars who brighten up our lives, and thank God there are still men and women of such stature, and it is their sweat and blood which is the vital link between life in its fullness and our lives.

The dark pages of history cannot be easily burnt and be forgotten; they will have to be embraced with all their sweat and blood; it may be too hard for the people who had gone through those bone-chilling days and incidents, and still we have no option. We may only wish that history does not repeat in the case of our future generations. We need to open the dark chapters of each of our histories, full of tear and blood, and relive our past, because out of these pages may emerge phoenix, with new vigor and energy, and that may be enough to change the world. We each one then will have a greater responsibility to fulfill.

The Twelfth Hour Virgins

There are some people who cannot foresee things, and would love to keep things pending until the last hour, and when the hour has come, they get so worried that they either get stomach ache [a psychosomatic disease], or head ache [result of tension in the body and mind], and so would have to be relieved. Yesterday when one of my friends told me that she was wanted to help out a companion of hers to organize the inauguration of a new Formation House, and today my friend said that there were far too many things left undone, kept for the last hour. If my friend had not gone to help her companion, then probably many of the important works would have remained undone. We cannot blame the people who cannot plan out things well ahead of time, and execute them one by one; they may have their own limitations, but we also need to look at the other side of the spectrum.

It may sound judgmental if I were to say that if people who keep important things for the last hour are perpetual procrastinators, a definite sign of disorder in their personal life. This may also imply a tendency to distrust companions and co-staff, to delegate the works that need to be accomplished. Ultimately such people may find enough and more excuses to say why they were not able to complete some of the important works on time, one of the most common and vital is what is known in psychology as the ‘blame game’. They may blame everyone on earth, not sparing even God and nature, the wind and rain.

There is another group of people who prefer to give their best shot when they are kept under pressure. If they are given a month to complete a particular job, probably they may not be able to do it, or their output may not be as satisfactory as when they are given just three days to complete the work. How and why this happens is simple psychology: when they are given a month to complete a job, their energy is diffused and so is also their attention and concentration. When they have just three days to finish the job, then their energy is concentrated on the job, and thus they are able to do a better job. I find myself under this category, and that is not to say that I can work only under such pressure. There are certain jobs which may require on-going monitoring and supervision, which cannot be asked to be done within a few days.

Those who wait for the last minute to get things done, can be very well compared to the five foolish virgins, who had taken their lamps but not the oil, and they realize this only when the hour has come. This parable of Jesus has a lot to teach us. If we had to complete a work or two, because of sheer ignorance or circumstances, it is understandable, and at such circumstances people may not find excuses to justify their failure to do the job. Whatever be the logic or rationale that the people who keep things for the last hour give, we cannot forget the fact that the order and discipline that people have in their personal lives is reflected in their social and community life.

It is said that one of the main reasons for people to keep things pending until the eleventh hour is because they starting addressing a particular task or work from ground zero, and what may bring out better result is when they begin to start from the final result and start working from the end backward. That is what is so very obvious in God’s creation of the world and the history/mystery of salvation. Keeping the end in mind always [and keeping a visual representation of the end in some form or other at a place where the eyes will fall on several times a day, such as in front of the study table or beside the bed,] can be highly rewarding. That may also give the person satisfaction that the end is slowly taking shape, and that itself maybe enough reason for him/her to hasten the completion of the work.

Living by Gods

The story of Avinash Nayak is quite unique. He is only 12, but he knows how to make a living. He is making a living in the name of gods. He can be spotted at one or another street corner in Kolkata’s busy street. To tools of his business, if we may call it so, are tiny pieces of chalk and charcoal, with which he draws the pictures of religious leaders and symbols. He has more than enough number of people to admire his art, as he makes for his ‘canvas’ one or other busy street corner, where more number of people pass by. And anyone who may pass by his ‘masterpieces’ is sure to stop for a while to take a glimpse of the combination of gods and religious symbols he draws so meticulously on the floor.

But Avinash is only 12, and he does not hesitate to declare that he had never been to school. However on the top of his drawing he does write artistically ‘God Jesus, Help me’. One may wonder if the boy understands what he writes. Most probably he does not know the meaning of these words; who knows he may not even be aware that he is invoking the name of a ‘Son of God’, or God Jesus, who came to proclaim good news to the poor. It does not require any proof to know that Avinash is poor, and very poor, given that he wears only a dirty vest and short pants, and does not care to keep his hair neat and tidy. Since he lives in a slum with his parents, he cannot be any better, one might think.

There is something strange about Avinash, who does not smile, and his face is as serious as that of any angry young man. Even when he speaks to anyone who might ask him his name and whereabouts, he answers them without even looking at their face. There is an unknown fear, preventing him to look at the face of the people standing around his art work with much enthusiasm and wonder, and seems to show himself as a typical business man, who is only interested in completing his drawing, so that that might bring him more money, through the generosity of the bystanders.

Whom do we blame for the plight of this lad? His parents, who make use of this ‘child’ [according to Unesco, anyone who is below the age of 13 is considered a child], and force him to earn a living to support the family. It is true, the father of Avinash, who also does drawings on street corners of Kolkata might not earn as much as his son, given the fact that there would be more people who would willingly donate a few rupees to a child-artist than a middle-aged man. But in the meantime, one may justly ask, who is to be blamed for this situation. We do not know if Avinash likes this way of earning a living; and even if he likes it, is this justifiable to force him to work at the age, he should be attending classes in a school? You ask him, why he did not attend schooling, he is mum!

Often in life, we are left with no alternatives; we may have only one way, with all the other paths closed. Even if one desires dearly, there might be no way. Should God be so cruel with Avinash, that his childhood is robbed from him, and he is lifted away from a normal childhood, which is life-promoting and in conformity with human dignity. Or is the fate of Avinash human made, the handiwork of a handful of selfish, money-minded, greedy people? It may be hard for us to know who actually is to be blamed, but we cannot shirk away our responsibility. Even if there is one child on earth who is deprived of its childhood, the whole humanity can be held responsible for it, and no one, however holy and pious, can ever be left out!
Kolkata Airport

Pat on the Back

While discussing with friends about one of my very senior friends (a 75 year old nun, who became very affectionate towards me over the past year), one of the common comments I hear is that she was in need of a pat on her back every now and then. She needed exclusive care from the other nuns, who lived with her; she would be delighted if the Superior of the house were to visit her a couple of times during the day and enquired about her health. She felt sick when the other sisters did not seem to take special note of her! That is the reason why, when I visited her during my monthly visits to the Sisters, she was more than joyous, to get the much needed attention, and she was very different during the few hours I spent with the sisters.

But she is not the only one we can blame for seeking this kind of exclusive attention of the dear ones. As we grow old, we in fact return to our childhood days, and we behave exactly like children do. It is a proven fact that children look forward to the exclusive care and attention of their parents, or relatives or even siblings. When they do not get it, then they do all pranks to get the much needed attention. All of us go through this stage at sometime or other! Sometimes when this psychological need becomes compulsive that we feel life so meaningless and dry without the attention of others, then every hour may turn out to be a hell.

Today while talking to a neighborhood bishop, I heard a similar story about a middle-aged priest, who began to find a hundred and one mistakes to blame the bishop, until he was given an office which is respectable, and now he is more than normal; he does not find fault with the bishop anymore and has even begun to find some good things to appreciate the bishop for. But once these people become addicted to the pat on the back, they may not do anything, until they get the pat! It is an addiction, just like addiction to smoking, or alcohol, or any kind of compulsive behavior. One may do this even without being conscious of it.

Many of us stop growing, when we are halted by such things as this compulsive behavior to get recognition from those who matter in our circles. This happens largely because we have not adequately recognized ourselves, what we are, what we are capable of, what we have achieved through sheer personal charisma. If I look for recognition from outside, that only implies that I had not boosted my self-image and worth, by asserting my strengths. When I feel the need to get recognition from others, I may as well ask, what has stopped me from giving a pat on my back, all by myself?

It maybe time that I begin to look for recognition from outsiders, but start giving a pat by myself. All that you need to do is to put both the hands across the shoulder and gently pat the shoulder. Use any sweet sounding words to accompany this action.Those who are tied down by recognition from others, may stop living, when others begin to show their attention to someone else, or something else. When I recognize myself, I begin to recognize the Inner Self which is dwelling deep within me, and that is my God, that is my true Being, that is Brahman, that is the Spirit! When I recognize myself, I recognize God, and the world then may look so very different in my eyes!

Riddles of Life

The faces of Payel and Megha are still fresh in my mind, so also their young mother Mohua! There is a stamp of sadness on their faces, even as they recall the one who is languishing in Presidency Central Correctional Home. Megha is 8 and Payel is 6, and yet they miss their father. Circumstances had forced their father to murder a partner in his petty business, and today he is a lifer, and has already completed four years, and if he is good in the correctional home, he may see the light of day after about 10 years, but there is no guarantee that he would walk scot free if his character is not up to the mark!

But I shudder to think of these two kids growing up without the loving care of the father; they meet him behind bars once a while, but that is not enough for them to feel that they have someone they can lean on to meet their needs. They seem to chase clouds, and the moment they think that everything will be fine, they realize that they are caught by unknown fears! How can life be so cruel in the case of some hapless victims of circumstances! I do not much worry about the punishment that their father needs to accept, but the plight of these two kids and the young lady, who has to live each day of her life, hoping that one day her husband would return home and everything may be fine!

With none to support her materially and financially, save her father, Mohua's life is a big question mark; thanks to the Apostolic Carmel sisters, who support the education of Payel and Mohua through their Back Home project, but then what about their two meals a day, and their clothes, medical bills. The two girls have a whole life before them, and after a couple of years, they might think life is too cruel for them to go through and may look for avenues to ease the burden of their mother. Will they follow the footsteps of their father, while attempting to face the harsh realities of life? Time will tell us about it.

The elder daughter Megha is aware that her father may not return home, and her consoling words to her father, when she meets him at the correctional home is this : Do take care of yourself, and dont worry about us! She does not expect her father to return home, and deep down there is an unknown pain in this little heart. Even when she tries to smile, some where in the corner of her lips, she betrays that pain. Can anyone on earth fulfill the void that had been created by the "loss" of her father? The dark episodes of her childhood may mar her entire future, and that maybe a sad thing.

Is there God, and if he is there, then why should this happen to me, I can hear 32-year old Mohua murmuring, and no one can give her an acceptable answer. She would be forever grateful to God, even if part of her dreams of a happy family is redeemed by the return of her husband, but that can only be a wish fulfillment. If there is a simple support system to stand by the two girls and their mother, then there are chances that they will be able to face the many scorching summer and torrential rains and nail-biting winters. There they might find consolation that not all is lost!

Lively Answers

When friends meet after ages, one question which they ask each other is this: where have you been all these years? Whatever be, there cannot be a satisfactory answer to this question from anyone. All the answers may only sound as nothing more than a matter of fact! Now, let me turn this question to myself. More than a month since I visited the blogger, and a few friends of mine enquired some days ago, what had happened to the blog! Had I forsaken it altogether? I knew that any answer to these volley of questions was not going to really address the question. In fact, I have come to understand the different levels of questions and answers. Not all questions require answer; literature calls them rhetoric questions. I may smartly pass off some of the vital questions as truly rhetoric questions, while frantically trying to run away from addressing real questions.

Questions are generally asked in order to elicit an answer; but there are other kinds of questions, which carry a cart-load of pre-suppositions and pre-judgements. Anyone is wary of these kinds of annoying questions, which may sometimes cross the boundaries of decency and decorum. One of the best and most difficult answers to such questions, I have learned from life is silence. Are there more questions, then the better way to face them is through more and prolonged silence. And there can be no better way to retaliate to the questioner's mean and narrowmindedness than by keeping mum!

But am I going to exercise that way of answering the question, where I had disappeared for more than a month, since I last visited the blogger! Nope! There are answers which are implied in the questions, and even when one does not speak out the answer, the questioner is sure to get the answer by looking at the face, or the body language. But lucky that I am hiding myself behind the screen of this laptop, and those who would toss questions to me are not here to observe my face to get a clue to the answer. But the fact is that feastive moments are not the kind of time that should be spent behind the lifeless screens of the laptop or the desktop. There has been so much of life around me, and it would have been a sad sight were I to sit down in my room to "imagine" what was happening outside.

The feastive season is not yet over, and the air is still mingled with magical fragrance; the tiny flowers of the bokul on the road have spread a carpet, and their fragrance have added to the drunken state of the early winter. The fragrance was lively, and it appeared to me that she was frantically looking for her lost lover in the alleys and bylanes of the city. The early morning wearing a chill weather, forcing the lazy babes sleeping long to pull the sheets over their bodies! There was life outside, and there it is still. How can one leave behind life to go after the lifeless notions!

I wish I was able to take home a handful of the fragrant bokul flowers, and fill my room with its fragrance; but when the fragrance of the bokul flowers mingled with the morning air, was nothing less than bloodymary! I was out all these days searching, finding and treasuring life - life in a thousand forms and shapes, and it was a joyful experience to life spreading her wings and fly in the limitless blue sky, all in a wonderful array! When one is guided by the spirits of life, then one becomes out of control, and everything then becomes a journey in faith! That is where one can find the true self of one's being, whose other name is but God!

Once upon a time

Story-telling is an art, and not all are capable of telling a story, be it real or fiction, in an engaging way. Nor is it easy for one to learn this art; but lucky is the one who can tell a story meaningfully and engage a person or persons. This art can be likened to that of painting; here one is required to pain with words, the seemingly lifeless words becoming alive with the feelings, sentiments, breath of life blown into them by the narrator. Once the canvass is full of color, one may not even see a picture, but an array of color so soothing that the viewer may even forget the central object of the art work! Such is the work of art that story-telling involves one into! And fortunately this has been one of the favorites of our foreparents, and I was fortunate to listen to at least a handful of stories from my grandmothers, and some of them are still ringing in my ears.

But why have I landed into the art of story-telling? This is one art I love a lot; I like to tell stories, both borrowed and creation of my mind. Sometimes these stories pop up in my mind when I least expect them; when I find myself helpless, a dose of story is enough to change the situation. But some of the great masters I have come across in life have had a million stories up their sleeves, and they have left behind a rich repertois of stories that I find myself so small in front of them. To enjoy a story is also part of the art of story-telling; here one tells the story to oneself, translating the words on a page into living words.

There is nothing called good and bad stories, and I wonder if there are first class stories and third class stories; they all depend on how they are expressed. But when a story-idea is ripe, it may be capable of enthralling the reader and the narrator beyond all expectation. I have developed a way of measuring the influence of a story in me, by observing deep within how long the story has stayed in my mind. If I wake up the following morning and still realize that I remember the story, then I can tell that it has the potential to touch others too.

But I cannot forget the one man in history, who can be considered an ace story-teller, and many of his stories have become the skeleton of many blockbusters in the Hollyhood. Jesus the Nazarene. His stories touched the core of one’s heart, and they still disturb many men and women in our societies; and such are the stories which I would like to go back again and again to draw strength and sustenance from. Another man who loved to tell stories is Anthony de Mello, and his books are full of stories, some of which are too profound for me to digest.

There are a few stories, which have become part of my psyche, and whenever I think of them (and a couple of them were told by my grandmother), something in me stands up; there are stories which were related to our social status, and it is possible they may die with me. But there is a desire deep within me to fill my world with stories that not only entertain, but also take the listeners to their inner selves, where they can meet their true selves, without the need to put on a mask or hide the ugly part of their selves. That is the tip of the iceberg of my mission.