Let us feel the smile

Now-a-days most of us do not plant trees because it is a very slow process. Trees grow slowly absorbing years of sunlight and nutrients. They bear fruits after a long wait. But modern man is impatient and restless. He wants immediate return in a huge a scale. His desire for immediate gain and the tardy growth of trees are two antagonistic things. The trees cannot keep pace with the impatience of the greedy man. The relationship between tree and man is blurred in the thickness of materialism.

In the past man was a jungle dweller. He lived in the serenity of nature. But now he dwells in concrete jungles and hides from the realities of life in the name of progress. Surfing in the cyber space and browsing numerous television channels have pushed human minds into extreme artificiality. Most modern men are lost in a virtual world and when they wake up to reality they need to eat something. So they purchase packaged food and carry them home in polythene packs. These polythene packs choke the environment but they are least concerned about it.  They will soon slip into their virtual world of emails and computer-screen-existence. In the hectic rush of life we burn the world around. Gallons and gallons of fuel are daily burnt to maintain our pace of progress. We burn everything. We consume everything. We stripe the nature of its resources. We loot. In a nut shell we degenerate the world into a graveyard.

But the birth cries of each newborn pose a vital question on our selfish and reckless attitude towards Mother Nature. The smile of a baby is a strong signal to rethink our responsibilities and obligations. Each smile that sprouts on the toothless face of a newborn obliges us to plant a tree and rear that with that human child. So let us feel the smile before turning the world into an ash pond.

For a child father is a great security in life

For a child father is a great security in life and for a wife it is the husband- this feeling came to my mind yesterday when I was journeying from Jeypore to Govindapally. 

I was sitting in a 2/2 bus. Another row of seat which was close to mine was occupied by a young couple. I could see them bubbling happily in the joy of togetherness. They talked, giggled and held each other 's and lovingly. They were lost in their world of new love.

 At a bus stop the bus halted and the man got off for some reason. After a while when the bus blew horn to depart the women became frightened and worried as her husband had not returned. She looked expectantly through the windows. She could not sit patiently in her seat. She got up & rushed to the door and looked both the ways. Nervousness and panic was visible on her face. I consoled her not to worry. But she was so panicked that she could hardly believe my words. And in the mean time the man came with two bottles of cool drink. At his very sight the woman switched into a sunny smile. Her all anxiety calmed down and blushed because her behavior was a frightened reaction to the sound of the horn. 

This incident pushed me 25 years back. I was a boy of 5 years. I was traveling with my parents. My father left his seat and got down the bus to buy some orange for me. He had not yet got onto the bus and the bus started to roll ahead. I looked for my father but could not see. My heart started to beat faster and I burst into a deafening cry. The thought of separation from my father haunted me so deeply that all the consolation of my mother had became useless. My cry was so loud that almost all the passengers had got to their feet to see what happened. My mother was put in an awkward situation but I remember that my cry was for my father and it had come involuntarily because he was synonymous to my life’s security. 

I feel deeply sad for all those sons, daughters and wives who have lost their near and dear in accidents, plain hijack, terrorist attacks, wars or natural calamity.

Let the fall continue

Ego slips

Like rose petals

Lightly and gently

Swirling

Into depths of calmness.

The wobbling waves

Silence

And life sings a prayer

Happily

Beaming in the beams of nature.

And Eyes sleep

Under the lids

And I pray

“Let the fall continue

With openness of arms

And beatific smiles on lips.”

.

Let us be the change we want to see.

From 4^th April onwards my days are spent in scanning and awarding marks to the answer sheets of +2 council examinees. It is in the administrative block of V.D. Autonomous College at Jeypore. There I along with around 60 of other examiners am toiling hard to finish our valuation assignments as soon as possible and so that we can get relieved from the tedious work at the earliest. 

Valuation of answer sheets requires great concentration and persistent efforts. The long hours of valuation duty are naturally punctuated with visits to the washroom when the bladder gets full beyond toleration. But the entry into the washroom of that college will fill your nostrils with the worst kind of smell of stale urine as a result, if you are a male, reflexively you will hold your nostrils closed in one hand and the other hand will guide your penis to pass the urine. But if you are a female then perhaps the horrible alkaline smell of putrefied urine will call both of your hands to close your nostrils tightly to save your lungs & soul. The condition of the washroom becomes very unhygienic because everyday more than 200 bladders get emptied there for more than three times a day but no sanitary measures are taken by the college administration such as flushing the washroom with antiseptic………… 

I condemned the college administration for the washroom but to what extent is it logical and sensible?

In India Gandhi brought freedom and the whole country is indebted to him for all times to come. Most of the time, we fold our hands before the statue of Gandhi but shut our eyes to Gandhism. We never follow the ideals of Gandhi which says, “Do your work yourself”. We know to urinate but don’t know to flush it with antiseptic. We wait for Government provisions & schemes to solve our own problems.  

Let us be the change we want to see.            

BEAUTY

Now-a-days two things are very dearth-the first one is Beautiful handwriting and the second one is beautiful girl. You will instantly agree with me if you are appointed as an examiner in an examination valuation centre. The pile of illegible answer sheets will cause you headache and during the lunch break when you come out to have your meal and some refreshment, you will readily find many girls on the streets who dominate the streets with their thick make-ups. They are the fresh products of those numerous beauty-parlors that remain scattered in the city lanes. The beauty queens ascertain that,         “Beauty is skin deep.”  

I have informally surveyed and found that God sends one beautiful girl in 40 girls. I mean the ratio of beautiful girls and non-beautiful girls is 40:1. (Please verify it in your locality. You will be sure of my accuracy and wisdom.) This may be the reason why all beautiful girls are extremely proud. However, in another perspective, their pride might be a necessary mechanism to protect their beauty from the lustful wolves who move around them in human forms. On many grounds you may not agree with me because we are discussing about something which is very abstract and has no measuring standard rules. What is BEAUTIFUL to me may not be beautiful to you. Moreover, the concept of beauty is very relative. Let us suppose in my colony there is a beautiful college going girl in her sweet 16. So long as that girl shines in that colony the other female members who are in their late 30s and rearing two children on an average will hardly be noticed. They won’t be beautiful in any angle. But when that sweet girl packs up to somewhere else after completion of her studies, the other females of that respective colony will appear before eyes. And they may find places in the list of beauties. This is a natural phenomenon because beauty is relatively appreciated. In a nutshell I can say that in the desert the house maid of Aishwarya Roy may become the most beautiful women but in presence of Katrina and Sonakhsi you may not even find Aishwarya to be beautiful.   

 Up till now we discussed about beauty which is solely female body specific but the idea of beauty truly attains a divine meaning when it is of the mind and heart. I would like to ask the beauty-parlor-queens, “Which parlor do they attend to have a beautiful mind and a beautiful heart?” And I also warn the open-mouthed onlookers who often face accidents because they look the girls on the street longer than they could manage.

I would like to prescribe you BEAUTY YOGA for your general well being. Inwardly think you are a beautiful mind. Think that you are a beautiful heart harboring all good feelings. All the world will look beautiful to you.