SHE IS NOW LIKE THOSE SWEET SMELLING FLOWERS

From the pen-APN 

While groping through some old image files on my computer I saw a photo of Suhana. I maximized the photo and the charming girl instantly lit up my desktop and my mind as well. During my studentship Suhana was the most charming girl of my class.  I knew Suhana very well and I could remember every little bit of things related to her even though a decade had passed in the mean while.  

In the photo she was standing behind the speaker’s table with a microphone. The photograph had been clicked when she was delivering her speech in a college function conducted for welcoming the new-comers. Suhana was standing tall in the photograph and her beautiful lips were twisted expressively as she was uttering words of friendliness to her juniors. She was an impassioned speaker who could readily touch anyone’s heart. With an endearing smile looking at the new-comers that day she had told, “All say, give respect and take respect; But I say, give respect and take love.” When she had uttered the word ‘Love’ in that gathering, all students had clapped enthusiastically which had continued for more than a minute. After winning everyone’s heart, by her sweet words and charm, when she was getting down from the dais, she had shot a meaningful glance at me. That day I had spoken to that gathering prior to her. However, in my speech like a despotic ruler, in a Hitlerian voice, I had over-stressed the need for being respectful to the seniors. I was serious and authoritative but Suhana was humane and friendly. With smiles on her lips she had flatly contradicted me and had over thrown my stand by spreading the message of love. And that day I had been completely defeated by her wit and charm in the midst of thunderous clapping of the overjoyed audience.     

I clicked upon the ‘close mark (X)’ on the right-hand corner of Suhana’s photo on the screen. And at the same time, at the corner of my eyes tears also came involuntarily. No doubt, I had become nostalgic but I was sure that those tears were composed of both the joy of her appearance in my life and then her resulting disappearance from my reach.

She is now like those sweet smelling flowers at night which remain invisible from eyes but go on spreading its delicate fragrance in the gentle wind.     

Rain, Rain Go Away

From the pen APN, 19.09.2015

It was raining hard outside. Big rain drops were hitting the ground and then they were getting scattered into fine droplets. The music of the rain had filled the environment. The clouds had made the afternoon dim and the sun was missing. 

The window of my room was open and my son was completely absorbed in looking at the rain washing the road that passes by my official quarters. He was silent for a considerable time and was completely lost in observing the Nature.

My wife drew my attention to my son’s deep meditation at the rain with a comment, “Looking at the rain, like father, the boy has also set out into a dream-world.” 

I felt a little proud. After all, my wife recognized that I am a dreamer, writer and poet-like person. Such types of comments are very rarely heard from wives. (The word ‘WIFE’ is made plural to denote all the wives of the world married to persons like me or you) 

I looked at my son; he was really lost in viewing the dance of the rain drops. His serious silence was heralding that he was deeply thinking about some philosophical questions of life. I wanted to read his mind but I failed. He looked like a saint of very high order who was lost in the highest plane of meditation. 

I went near him and slowly touched his shoulder. The young child’s shoulder was indicative of his natural softness. He was still looking at the rain intently. So he did not respond to my touch. I softly asked him, “What are you looking at?” With his eyes still on the continuing rain, he told, “I am looking at the rain.” He described me the obvious and my intention to get into his mind was checked as if by a protective fire-wall. I mellowed my voice and asked him again, “What are you thinking, my son?” This time he looked into my eyes and in a serious complaining tone muttered, “Because of this rain I cannot go out and I have not played for last two days.”  

I suddenly realized how rain could affect a child so deeply. I also understood the veracity of the nursery poem which says, “Rain, rain go away/Little Johnny wants to play/Rain, rain go to Spain/Do not show your face again.”

  

A HUNDRED RUPEE NOTE, A TIFFIN BOX AND A CERTIFICATE

From the pen APN 

My son knows well how to demand things and also knows how to get them fulfilled. Whenever he requires anything, he would pull my face close to his face, just keeping bare minimum distance, and looking deep into my eyes, he would speak to my daddy-heart about his requirements. Every time he does so, I feel a sort of hypnotic message put into my brain and sparing no efforts, I do my level best to fulfill his demands.  

His recent demand was a costume of Lord Krishna. Three days back, his school had declared a fancy dress competition on the occasion of Janmastami. So he was extremely excited about it. He gave me an impeccable description of the requirements like feather of peacock, crown, the flute, armlets, anklets, bangles, Chains, necklace, floral garlands, etc. Every hour he added new items to his list and accordingly the list grew bigger and bigger. 

As I stay in a remote village, procuring the enlisted items from the local market was next to impossible. The nearest town where such things can be available is about 55 kilometers far from my work station. And the pitiable thing is that a visit to that town will demand a valuable day of your life. So I was reluctant to go there. But I had to eat the frog because every child thinks his/her father to be a superman who can fly to the skies to bring new planets to their little ones.  

In the morning time, my son had made the demand to me and by the afternoon I threw an application at office seeking permission to leave Head Quarters. After a couple of hours, I was at a big shop of a big town, choosing costume for my son from a variety of options. Almost all his items were neatly packed and I rode back home.

The smile that I saw on the face of my son was broader enough to engulf both the exhaustion and the distance between the town and my village. I smiled back and I saw how delicately my son was examining all those items in his small hands with flickers of smiles on his face. 

Next day he was all Krishna. Clutching his flute, in his new avatar, he left for the school and I left for my office. When I returned, I saw him sleeping on the bed as Krishna. Besides his flute, a new spanking tiffin box was laying beside him. He was asleep like an innocent little angel and in one hand he had clasped a hundred rupee note. My wife came silently and embraced me. Before I could understand anything, she smiled and handed me a certificate which stated that my son was second in the school for his costume and performance.  

The little Krishna was still asleep and the proud papa and mama were silent in a deep embrace. They never knew that a hundred rupee note, a tiffin box and a certificate could make their life so heaven-like.

“I love you deeply but I will never meet you.”

From the penAPN…..30 August 2015

 

When a beautiful lady informs that she stays alone for the next few days in your town, you will be unfailingly overpowered by a bright eyed and bushy tailed feeling. Suddenly, you may feel butterflies fluttering around you in variety of colors. And if you happen to be a man of normal testosterone level, you will feel activated and charged for embarking on a romantic adventure. And that happened to me when the voluptuous lady, who was once my co-trainee in a short journalism training program, accidentally met me and told that she had come to my town to attend a youth conference for 3 days. 

I was enchanted and dumbfound because she had been the lady for whom I always used to feel an irresistible love-attraction.  A few months back during an orientation programme on journalism I had first met her. And there she had caused me the deepest and fastest heart beats of my life. The programme had ended by clicking photographs and awarding certificates to the participants. In the same line, my love affair also ended that day when she had left the training programme clicking her boots and awarding a big zero to my unborn love-imaginations. She had abruptly vanished from the range of my radar and as an obvious consequence I was plunged into a gloomy sea of despair. And the most poignant thing for me was that she had not even taken note of my name correctly because whenever I had found myself in her presence, I used to become utterly speechless and dumbfound. I mean I was never noticeable to her. 

But this instance, when I saw her in my home-town, I dared collect her number. I saw her smiles and they were as magical as they had been before. Her beautiful cascading forelock and child like face made me fall in love with her again and again. For the first time, she talked to me standing on a pavement of my home-town and I talked to her using my bike as a prop. With a modest smile she gave me her number and went away to the lodge where she was staying. I wanted to stop her and say that I loved her. But neither did she turn back nor did I have the guts to express my love. She slowly thinned out in the crowd and I stood looking at her departure as it had happened earlier in the orientation programme.  Her physical form disappeared but she lingered in my mind. I never knew her particular address because I had never asked her about it. What I knew about her was that she was extremely beautiful to my eyes and her name was Jasmine.

The next two days were the days of intense pressure. I rang her phone a lot of times but she had not picked my phone. On the third day I got a message from her number that said, “It is needless to call me because I love you deeply but I will never meet you.” I got confused at her response. I was both happy and sad. I was happy because I had not expressed my love to her but she could sense it. And I was sad because she had given a premature death to my love before it could blossom.

That night I looked into the sky. The sky looked unfathomable. In the moon lit night, sitting on the terrace, I vividly remembered her smiles, her ways of glancing at me and those speaking eyes. It seemed to me that her eyes contained in them a sea of love for me. I was utterly perplexed because she had expressed her love to me but she had never wanted to go with it. And I failed to figure out the reason. The more I analyzed her ways, the less I understood her ways. At last, I was completely baffled and utterly confused like a helpless baby amidst strangers. 

And at the same time I was truly thankful to her because she had understood how I felt about her. Although I tried hard, I failed to understand her perhaps because ‘women are meant to be loved, not to be understood’. Now I clearly knew that she is never mine but in her memory on a page of my diary I wrote, “Men play the game but women know the score. And it is the women who give the final judgement”     

Meditation and Creative Visualization

From the pen APN, 27.08.2015

Recently I came across two techniques. First one is ‘MEDITATION’ and the second one is CREATIVE VISUALIZATION’.

By meditation I understood keeping the mind blank and effecting into a state of non-thinking. I practiced it for 10 minutes for 3 days. I saw many thought bubbles being formed but I ignored them and they eventually died away. This activity taught me how to ignore my thoughts and see my thoughts die calmly by my non-participation and non-reactivity. This helped me free myself from the unstoppable process of incessant thought bubbles surfacing in my mind. I could see my mind in non-action.

Then I came to know about the technique of creative visualization. It is better expressed in very simplified terms in the famous dialogue of Saharukh Khan in the movie ‘Om Shanti Om’ where he says, “Kehte hain agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaho….to puri kainath use tumse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai.” The same idea is put across in Paulo Coelho’s famous novel, ‘The Alchemist’ in the lines, “When you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you achieve it…”

I felt that this life-changing idea, when put in action, is CREATIVE VISUALISATION. There is a beautiful book written by Shakti Gawain on the very title, ‘CREATIVE VISUALISATION’. In that book, the author says, “The moment of your life is infinitely creative and the universe is endlessly bountiful. Just put forth a clear enough request, and everything your heart truly desires must come to you.” This is further corroborated by Norman Vincent Peale, in his famous book; “The Power of Positive Thinking”. The author says that man can be immensely guided to reach at his goals by following the techniques of prayerizing , visualizing and actualizing.  

I experience that a combination of Meditation and Creative Visualization can work wonder. Use meditation to clean your mind and eliminate confusion as the first step and then take the second step. Activate your power of imagination and use your imagination to create the clearest and the best picture of your dream life. Think with emotion and involve your heart to feel for the changed new life for which you dream. The creative laws of nature will work and soon the universe will restructure its creative forces to accommodate your dreams.

Is it not fun to create your desired life? Then why delay? Take the best idea and go on a voyage to discover the best life.

On Spreading Positivity

Negativity easily attracts and rules the mind.

In Odisha the cheap news of Baba Srimad Sarathi eclipsed the death news of a truly legendary figure of India, Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam. Dr. Kalam’s wide visions and missionary zeal for transforming the nation into a progressive and prosperous state failed to achieve due media coverage in Odisha because the vernacular electronic media showed more interest in Srimad Sarathi’s hotel visit with lady escort than in Kalam’s ennobling visions.

The empire of Baba Sarathi collapsed like a house of cards and political forces fanned the fire to make it a sensitive state issue. But my question is that when a great soul like Kalam departed leaving a legacy of so much positivity, why we deliberately shut our eyes to the noble aspects of a statesman like Kalam and go on discussing all day long the so-called baba’s jeans-clad avtar and his hypocrisy.

Pleasure can be derived from various sources. Scratching one’s itches is pleasurable but such pleasures cannot initiate a big change for the better. On the other end, pursuing intellectual pleasure and inculcating nobler feelings can truly enrich life manifold. Mass media should be a vehicle for guiding and realizing the aspirations of general public by spreading life-changing inputs for quality life. No one can deny that at present mass media plays a more prominent role than the teachers or educators of all colleges and schools put together. However,the frantic propensity of almost all news channels to spellbound viewers by flashing breaking news captions on the screen is utterly unhealthy for the well-being of the society. Moreover, these channels’ mad desire to hold the highest TRP is nothing but a spiraling course to mediocrity or gradual degeneration.

Classics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata have always provided us magnificent ideals of reference to lead life with basic human values unaltered. Many scriptures and good books are there which have opened up new vistas for social and spiritual amelioration. There is no dearth of exemplary lives which make us shine with the glory of an awakened soul. But we never cherish such positive influences. On the contrary the print and electronic media is happy to spread the bad smell of rotten fish all around because it is easily available and is capable of shaking off every member of the society with its terrible unhealthy smell. But one thing should be kept in mind that TRP is not everything. Celebrating the joy of life and staying positive is the greatest achievement of human faculties.  

There is a funny quote, “Be like a proton and stay positive.” This quote is best applicable to the electronic media of Odisha. They need to stay positive and should encourage constructive forces of the society for effecting appreciable changes.