The Village Temple

The village temple stands as a sacred abode of HOPES, DREAMS, PROGRAMMES and IDEALS.

A woman comes with a basket full of flowers, agarbati and coconuts and carries back a heart full of divine solace and verdant hopes. She is contented and is assured of the lord’s blessings. The happiness beaming on her face is born of a sense of great security provided by the all-powerful village deity. The village temple is all hopes for her.

A student comes. He bows his head before the idol and dreams of a good result in the recent examination; he dreams of a good job and imagines his Sanskrit teacher’s daughter in bridal dress. The village temple is the abode of his tender sweet dreams.

The local politician comes and declares a programme of 3 day long Sankirtan for world peace. The temple becomes a ground for mass gathering and the venue for chanting of sacred names through Public Address system. An unknown passerby devotedly bows his head while the programme goes on and the politician smilingly introduces himself as the organizer.

That day the temple was silent. The idol was standing in grave silence. And a woman who was mistreated yesterday by a group of local dadas fell before the idol. Her body bore many bruises. But her soul was more brutally bruised when she was told to keep silent. She fell before the idol helplessly but when she rose up she had garnered enough strength to put the anti-socials behind the bars and she was determined to set a new IDEAL.

   

Conferer of Togetherness

Before the child drifts into sleep, he hums and his mother lulls him to sleep. The mother pats the child’s back. The humming of the child gets rhythmical with the pat. And then the humming of the child gradually grows fainter and fainter as his eyes feel heavier and heavier with sleep.

Now the child sleeps. He is a small innocent figure who sleeps contentedly. On the table nearby a half filled feeding bottle stood. The mother put the sleeping child on the bed. All day’s work has made her dog-tired. She now throws herself in her husband’s arms and the husband lovingly holds his tired wife. Both of them close their eyes in deep togetherness. By the time the child also opens his eyes. He finds his mom and father now fast asleep. He slowly climbs over them and joyfully holds both of them and once again sleeps most contentedly with a divinely attractive smile that truly lights up the family.

A CHILD IS TRULY A STRONG BINDER WHO CAN HOLD A WHOLE FAMILY TOGETHER WITH HIS SMALL HANDS.

Social Networking Sites: The Common man's press

Everyone knows that the beetle shops, tea stalls and the coffee houses are the hot seats of political discussions. In some way or the other they are truly the best platform for exercising one’s freedom of speech. These are the places where we Indians are convinced or reassured of the existence of democracy. Sometime in a day with every sip of hot tea/coffee, many hot discussions on the fate of the country or on the meanness of our politicians or on the widespread corruption form the matter of discussion. No doubt, sometimes other issues like cricket, anti-rape propaganda, and terrorism also go in making the most animated talks of a day. These talks may be half-backed, rumour-like or biased or ill-informed but they bear the authentic stamp of a human-being’s real-time sentiments and response. They are not like those deliberately and masterfully tailored news pieces that appear in the print or electronic media. Most news items in the media distort the truth according to the news makers’ convenience. But the news and opinions served at the tea/coffee houses are the waves of human responses unedited. And the same human sensitivity can presently be found nowhere except in the social networking sites. The social networking sites enable the common man to reach the millions. This advantage can be exploited to counteract the biased media. A vigorous involvement of more and more people in such sites can help lay bare the truth. The day is not far when it would be more wholesome to depend upon social networking sites to know the reality behind a scene.

In short social networking can serve as a common man’s press whose laws and news are not dictated by the corporate tycoons nor the corrupt officials or politicians. And truth prevails everywhere.

A wish.......

A wish.....a deep yearning

Strong waves of a mind

Beautiful & unreachable

Like the full moon

Quickening Heartbeats

Open arms and face skyward

And a Strong wind blowing hard

Rattling each hair

An intake of fresh breath

And unfurling of a new flag of life

With golden lining all where

Love, rose and peace in someone’s hug.

The beautiful trees that I admired would be felled

It was the day before spring equinox. The sun was gaining heat and the onset of summer was felt. I was on my bike to a world famous pilgrim site (Gupteswar cave shrine) situated just 60 kilometres from my work station. The slender road stretched through the dense forest of Sal trees (Shorea robusta) and biking through it was a rare joy. The sunlit open sky was pleasantly obstructed by the canopy of the roadside trees and their shade was not only cooling the breeze but also invigorating the journey.
Now I was moving in the company of those tall and green Sal trees. Their calmness and stoic endurance were inducing the belief that God is present in all natural things. I loved my journey through those Sal trees. I was most over whelmed when I saw that almost all the road side trees were very neatly coloured with white and brown circles. These coloured circles on the tree trunks gave a godly look to each and every tree.
In my mind and heart I thanked the forest department for decorating those trees with so much care that it imparts such an aesthetic value to the journeyers. The intensity of gratitude grew so strongly that I stopped my bike on the way and gave a ring to one of my friend who works as a forest ranger in that area. I thanked and admired their departments concern to make the place so beautiful. But his replay to my admiration dumbfounded and hurt me like hell. He informed me that those marked trees will soon be felled under the upcoming road-widening project. Those trees are just the guests for few more days and their days are numbered.
And man’s insatiable greed is gnawing its teeth to devour the innocent, uncomplaining and life-giving shady trees for his sophisticated wide roads. But the irony is that the road will be soon constructed and more and more people will rush to their destination with all ease and comfort and at the same time man won’t know that such destination of ease is nothing but the valley of DEATH or DESTRUCTION. By the time he realises it, he would have very little to do in his hand.