SOCIAL MEDIA IN A FEW LINES

From the pen-APN

"In a crowd, we stay alone, digitally absorbed and emotionally detached. Although sharing is today at the optimal level, feelings of caring are at sub-zero level. May it be selfies or may it be videos, a lot of such stuff is incessantly made and dumped into the cyber world where a cybercitizen may show an apparent empathy by giving a thumb or an emoticon but genuinely nothing is cared or felt deep inside. Everything is just a cycle of continuous mechanical clicking, like robots, on trails of some unending posts surfacing one after another. Such robotic dance of fingers on the keypad while attending the posts on various platforms is nothing but a hullaballoo that adds more noise, which further aids to choke the serene early life-style of human beings as a responsible and cohesive partner of a precious society which  has taken a long time to evolve in the human history.”

Write Your Life For Your Loved Ones!

From The Pen-APN

By love and writing only you can transmit the interpretation of your life and the existential knowledge that you have gathered. The wisdom and experience of your life that you have already lived must be gifted to someone who makes your next generation. But to establish a link with your past and the consciousness and conscience of another human being who is your future representative you need the strength of spirit and an elevated consciousness to establish a connection between your next generation and your generation. Perhaps this thought is best represented by the word, SAMSKARA.

Holding your son's or daughter's hands imagine the time when he/she got birth and then remember the moments how he/she started experiencing the world around. It is true that what you have already experienced, he/she is yet to experience them. However, your views about your world are no more congruous and they have already changed and have taken some new form. And in such a new context another human is born as your son or daughter who is unaware of your era. He or she has all new and fresh vie-points which may jar with your conception and this is how the monster of generation gap is born.

Every moment we change but it seems to us that we have not changed much. But the irony of life is that the changes are so continuous and so deeply ingrained in us and they are so imperceptible that we fail to sense it. Often, people around us complain that we have changed radically but we say a curt, "No, not at all."

At last, it can be concluded that "as you write, you uncover the hidden gems inside you that you didn't even know were there."

Write your life and help your near and dear ones understand the world better.

RAIN

From the pen-APN

When the music of rain

Soaks the green leaves

And the rivulets dance

And muddy fields are reborn  

Then in a lonely place

Far from sight

Splashing with joys

Of togetherness and love

Life gathers up

The Golden moments

Of love and human bonding

While the clouds are still raining…

Milk

From the pen-APN

Utter poverty had sucked the lifeblood of the mother and her feeble body was no more lactating. And the famished baby in her lap was crying desperately for a few drops of milk. All her efforts to relieve the child went in vain. Then gradually the cry stopped, and the baby showed no signs of struggle for attention. The helpless mother stood like a motionless statue looking with hunger-filled eyes at the vibrant coloured packets of milk winking through the glass doors of a well-stocked shop. The baby was no more crying and tears had dried at the corners of her eyes…
N.B.
(What is the value of that policy which does not include the welfare of the poorest of the poor of my state???)

A Kingly Madness

From the pen-APN

Standing in the middle of a busy road, he was stretching his body to his full height like a great emperor. His bearded face like Chatrapati Sivaji, his skyward gaze to the mid-day blazing sun and his hand movements in kingly gestures were all creating an unusual but spectacular sight for the onlookers.  

His eyes were replete with flashes of happiness and it teemed with courage. He did not seem to belong to the world around him but he was stamping his feet rhythmically on the earth like a monarch and was turning around sporadically not caring a damn for the people passing by him or around him.   He was just happy in his own ways irrespective of the remarks and the sneering looks of all spectators. He was the king of his own world.

The sun above corroborated his king like manners by shedding its light upon him.  He was talking to the lampposts, to the tall buildings and to himself. And all of them stood motionless as if they could recognize a regal importance in him and never interfered with the frenzied ecstatic movements. His torn clothes, unkempt hair and dirty appearance rightly matched the appearance of a warrior who had returned from a war front after a deadly struggle.

They chuckled and called him, “MAD” but he was a king of his thoughts. Neither the sun, nor the tall buildings, nor the lampposts revolted against his claims…..And he indeed enjoyed the king’s life in spite of his torn clothes, unkempt hair and bearded face, because he cared not a damn about the remarks of the so-called sane persons.   

Immortalizing Some Moments of Joy

   

From the pen-APN

In life’s journey, sometimes you stop for a while, not because you are caught in a storm but because the journey seems more delightful than your desired destination. And you with your good companion discover joy, beauty and sunshine all dancing around you on a musical note of togetherness……

And maybe your companion, who loves you now most, draws her cell phone and clicks your photos because all such blessed moments may slip away in the passage of time but the memories will linger for all times to come .    

Musings of a Footpath Dweller

From the pen-APN

I am sleeping on the footpath and the only torn blanket that I have wrapped around my body is my world. The blinding street lights, colossal edifices, crowded malls, wide roads, the bustling traffic and restless crowd around me cannot excite me. I am a non-entity in the fast-moving and fast-changing world. For years, the footpath has given me shelter and the glittery world by the sides of footpath has thoroughly convinced me of my littleness. All know I am in poverty and poverty is in me and I am alive like grass which is crushed under feet but stubbornly clings to life……..My life pitiably lingers on the footpath.

Needless to say…..I experience the gnawing poverty and at the same time, I bear testimony to the moral poverty of my country’s rulers and the insatiable greed of big shots who are seated at the helm of power.  

My impoverished shabbiness is jarringly out of place with the glitters of the swanky supermarkets and the posh city culture but I am undone. I have to stay in them unwanted like a cacophony in a beautiful piece of music. I cannot do much to mend my fate but, in these days, I have learnt to stay oblivious to the tall promises of “Achhe din ayenge” made by many politicians who hold power, wield power and swag power.   

Today morning, I was hired to carry a political party’s banner in a rally for half a day’s wage. I carried my old body and hurriedly advanced in spite of my advanced age because the party worker won’t pay me unless I held his banner high and walked straight in the rally. The pity is that my back is irrevocably bent by my leaders and by their faulty policies whereas I have no option but to hold their banner high in exchange of a half day’s wage or a few kilograms of subsidized rice.

They frame laws for me to make poorer so that I can hold their banner high in rallies at a little expense. I am no statesman but from deep within my heart a voice painfully cries and asks a question, “What is the value of that progress which cannot touch the lives of the poorest of the poor?”

Tomorrow, I may be hired by some other party but the question will remain the same.

Now I am almost dead with my own struggles and I am assured of one thing that I have to go on like this a few more days till my body lies motionless on the footpath and the municipality people come to remove my corpse. But until that day I have to carry their flag because the show must continue…..

A Revelation That Comes with 5 September, 2018

                                                                                         

From the pen-APN

Life finds a meaning when one’s own familial well-being is ensured and the individual’s inner attitude to serve others shines spontaneously and out of gratitude towards society. It feels good to be an instrument of progress in peace of mind and accompanying ease of action arising from a clear conscience. I will say it is God’s grace when your life is blessed with such invaluable gifts. The first gift is that all the minimum requirements for a decent life are fulfilled and the second gift is that you are in good health and in sound state of mind to serve the world around. When these two things meet together life becomes a beautiful song.  

September 5, the special day dedicated to teachers, made my heart supple and made me understand the above truth amidst the love and joy of some happy students.  

Into a Life Mechanical

From the pen-APN

In the fast-changing world, every moment the norms of life are changing. Man is continually changing. His/her attitudes, beliefs, thinking and the situations around him/her are changing from moment to moment. In such an ever-transforming world, every individual is toiling hard to keep balance.

Newly invented tools, new scientific discoveries and use of modern technology in all walks of life have given super speed to these processes of change. In short, the world has become super-dynamic. The world shows kaleidoscopic changes as if it was the trailer of a super-fast Hollywood action film with time-lapse effect.

Today a preschooler of the twenty-first century can amaze an adult of the 80’s by his/her agility to deal with modern gadgets, computers, smart-phones and allied technologies.  

In such a world where there is steep competition to survive and where everything is valued on the basis of utility and where everything is judges basing on skills, profit-loss implications, the vocation of poetry, drama, literature and fine arts seem incongruous.

It seems Literature will soon fashion itself on the notes of some jarring metallic sounds of industrial machines. Now, literature is losing the charm of the morning sunrise and the magic of dew-laden grass. In the opposite, Literature has started to accommodate in its body the digital rhythms of robotic operations, breathless run of automobiles, the strife between warring zones, the extreme fight for depleting resources and the dying voice of morality.

The nature-poetry, the fresh puff of breeze, the burbling cascades, the varied tall and short plants, which give a characteristic green to earth, are all going to fade away in the closed cubicles, which are artificially chilled with air-conditioners.    

If all things run like machines and with machines disrespecting the fine sensibilities of literature, we will soon turn into some robots and we will be no more the human beings. We will be like the battery-powered doll which mechanically beats the drums to declare that there is some life in it but all know that such liveliness is without a heart. It is simply mechanical and functional.

Whitish Ash of Burnt Memories

From the pen-APN

A lamp was glimmering somewhere but its light was visible to me in the night. It was a starless night and the atmosphere was humid and the soil was wet because for two days it had rained continuously.

The glowing lamp’s hope , the dark night’s despair and the teary rain’s anguish were somehow whispering my life’s tale.  

I was standing inhaling the smell of wet ground and listening to the mixed sounds of so many nocturnal insects. In the shrill noise of those unseen creatures and in the thickness of darkness, I was experiencing a fleeting night, which would soon end, heralding a new morning with some sunshine.

As I internalized my attention to read the scars on my own heart, to my surprise, I discovered no scars but some burnt out whitish ash all ready to manure the substratum of my heart with more feelings, with more compassion and more humanity. And the ash was nothing but my burnt out memories arising out of an unhappy relation.

Fixing my eyes in the distant starless dark sky, my lips produced a faint smile and  a thought-wave crossed my mind bringing a conclusion that  “she was nothing but a strong fire and she burnt me like hellfire. But, lo! I was not killed and the remnant dusty ash deep in my heart is but a sign that I am now a purified one- free and blest, like a winged creature chasing the morning sun.”

The night had passed and a smiling sun was rising in the east sky.

A Meditative Joyful Song

From the pen-APN

With many Smiles of hope fading in despair,

With much of life murdered by unfaithful affair,

Life still stands tall with a meditative joyful song,

Of forgiveness, of humanity and a heart strong…