The Interpretation of Politics

From: Rajannya
Subject: The Interpretation Of Politics In Democracy

Politics, it seems to me to be over the years, is that aspect of human
living which expresses the collective will of all individuals. When a
vision finds no place in this broad and complex collective, it is
either all-encompassing and transcendental, or eccentric and
misguided. The immediately succeeding meaning of the word (politics)
is the play involved in authority; in acquiring, mobilizing, and
holding on to it; and the very word, authority, implies the act of
policymaking. Interlinked these both meanings are, for where the
expression of collective will is so tangible, there creeps the concept
of power.
For many among us, politics is synonymous with democracy: indeed so,
from the way the world is actively saturated with the idea. Close
home, Indian democracy has undergone frequent renovations which have
finally enabled us, post approximately six decades of independence, to
boast of a stabler system of democracy that is brilliantly giving
birth to even higher questions. That there should be so many debates
upon democracy, proves the very fundamental success of the same.
Indian politics hence is especially fertile.
In this light, are we disposed to judge the dual import of Celia Green
when she states the following, "In an autocracy, one person has his
way; in an aristocracy, a few people have their way; in a democracy,
no one has his way."? Green might have been taken to hint that one
never realizes their desire fully in such a system of administration
as one gradually discovers their opinion's promiscuity. Even if it is
the other way round, can democratic politics transcend itself, or can
it otherwize stagnate?

As for me, I find it hard to follow our politics; not that I lack
discretion, or even a hot opinion, with regard to what transpires in
and around my state. Whenever I consider the action of those people
who shall vote for the political party I personally appreciate (I can
only consider: I am two years shorter than the lot of legal voters, as
of now), I cannot help but imagine the considerable percentage of
their counterparts who would vote for the party that is wrong in my
opinion. I want my preferred party to rule over all of us, without any
stir of inhibition on either side: with what conviction should I cast
a vote for solely myself, for I do not constitute on my own the
tiniest quantity of voters?
This is where friction creeps into my interpretations. Democracy
prioritizes quantity over quality. It hardly represents the collective
will. Not that I accuse democracy, as is popular, of facilitating
corruption; everything inclusively facilitates corruption, for it is a
habit too deep-seated to be accrued to anything but itself. I envision
a pristine entity which is at once stable and potential; which has the
sincerity and profundity of actively representing collective human
essence. Are our democratic political parties liberal enough to
manifest this idea? I desire that a strong stem sprouts branches in
order to form a tree; whereas, democracy is all about a number of
branches' coming together to form a stem and a tree's being thus
formed.
I detest having to subscribe to the practice of expressing my choice
and then letting it go to the devil of heads-o'-tails. Notwithstanding
the characteristic offshoots of democracy, vote-banking on targeted
susceptible groups and widespread meal-and-money promises, what does
democracy propagate - the importance accorded to the individual, or
the activation of purely selfish interests? Democracy narrows down the
implications of the words, majority and minority. There is always a
right way and a wrong to do things, and basic opinions into the thing
can turn out to be distortions; democracy advocates that might is
right.


(Postscript) I look forward to being enlightened in this subject by my
seniors at Sefirah.

Are Ours Truly Aspirations

Rajannya Lahiri

A recent debate in school put forward the following question to our
young minds: which one is greater? between the jananee (mother) and
the janmabhoomi (motherland). Almost all of the debaters who took a
stand behind the podium pointed out with confident ease that to them
is neither the greater, but money that is. Professionally, I made my
usual moderator that day; however, I remember feeling dazed in my
immediate personal response to their speeches. And finally when I was
reflecting back on that day, my interpretations were shocked about the
blind speeches which I had moderated...
The interest in the goings-on of a human mind and the attitude of
approaching and interviewing people from various strata of our
hierarchy are attributes which had never failed me. Though plush
shopping malls have never been much of a comfortable idea with me, I
had been to some of these spots and always had chanced to catch young
people around my age idling about in groups, or in pairs. I see them
leaning over railings and staring aimlessly out, walking with a gait
that might put snails to shame, and talking with such expressions on
their faces which, after practised observation on my part, give away
the fact that they are talking gibberish. Approaching them with just
as thoughtless yet measured an attitude, I find that most of them are
jobless, or are acclaimed school-bunkers; visit these places for a
chunk of hours every day of the week; and choose to come here when
someone has a "hook-up" as well as when someone has a "break-up" as
well as when someone has a "patch-up". Ask them about the things
happening outside these malls and they are incredibly ignorant.
I know of acknowledged toppers at my school who do not know a thing
without the prescribed limit of textbooks and simply hanker after the
tiniest fraction of marks. I have been under certain "teachers" who
really mean it when they say that the marksheet is all I should live
for. I have interviewed guardians who prohibit our young minds to
think of any future beyond school till we have bagged superlative
grades in our school-leaving examinations. I am aware of some parents
who advise their school-going wards to take up subjects/jobs which
could promise the best of money and fame! Which direction is the youth
heading to?

"Aspirations" of the youth include only marks and money, observing by
the abominable majority. They are ignorant of the Self; their opinions
on the affairs of the globe are limited. They not only disregard
history and undermine the future, but also live in a transient snatch
of the present. Their thoughts are not their own; their disposition is
unstable; and their minds are narrow. I take the liberty of addressing
my counterparts as "they" and not "us" because I do not feel one among
them for I have Rabindranath Tagore and Ramakrishna Paramhansa in my
library instead of Chetan Bhagat and Stephenie Meyer, for I cannot
regard elders and teachers as alien creatures, for I cannot
underestimate with false notions the hobbies of reading and writing,
for I cannot think obvious the decision to settle down in the west in
my future. But even marks and money are not youth aspirations: these
are only volatile ideas hammered into their impressionable brains in
the merciless purgatory created by the practical education system
prevalent not in the board-circulars and chairpersons' speeches, but
in the lives our young souls are choiceless about living.
The people I have been following on Sefirah, who happen to be of my
own age-group, do not nor can represent the aspirations of our youth.
Those who think about the truth of India's progress, the irony of
India's wealth, and the intransient aspect of the world around us,
constitute exceptions from and not examples of the youth. I believe
that humankind is beset with too many troubles and too much ignorance
for me to live a life of self-centred ingesting, digesting, excreting,
and procreating; to let such volatile things as marks and money impact
my education and ambition; to give up my thirst for the purpose of
life and for self-knowledge.
I cannot be dispassionate about the increasing BPL population of India
and the big wheels' contrary claims of India's being a developed
nation. I am unable to derive intellectual pleasure from Dr Manmohan
Singh's declaring that every child in India has now the lawful right
of education when the truth down at the practical levels of our
federation is jocularly apart! I do not have the instinct to place
science before art, maayaa (illusion) before aatmaa (spirit), my own
luxuries before my nation's hunger, perfumes before a bath. I fail to
acknowledge the legal measures adopted to improve the conditions of
our women when at the same time am I forced to clutch my backpack
cautiously against my bosom in the seat right beside the autorickshaw
driver, or cannot walk in peace the Baghajatin Station Road in the
later hours of the dark. My aspirations are my own. Is any space
rendered in the consciousness of our youths inspite of the limited
lives we are made to live, lives limited by an inappropriate system of
education, by the silent scream of unyielding penury?


"Youth Aspirations" is not only a complex term, but also imply a
muddled sense. We are a torn people, a mangled nation, with an
unheroic future in today's youth. We need a spiritual education, an
appreciable emotional quotient, respect for what is actual history,
broadness of interpretations, and the humble knowledge of our
ignorance and of the many liberal fields of knowledge waiting for us
to discover which. Only consciousness to such a degree can
substantiate and add meaning to our aspirations.

WORSHIP FOR THE SOUL
RAJANNYA LAHIRI



I for all times have been at home in the city, amidst the human zoo of
roofs, walls, and barred windows: because I always had the agility to
climb up to the unrailed roof of my building and gaze at the sky in
all colours and tempers. I am brought up with the feeling of being
free under this body of ether. I know that I ultimately belong to that
space and nothing so earthly has the power to impede me in my
security. The most distinct and the most distant thing I recall from
my childhood is the sky in which I visualized everything running
through my mind...
Those plenty moments of reflection I spend on top of my windy roof
actually keep me moist with a fearless emotional quotient when I am
down to earth, lend me such vapour as which defines my very being. I
am in quest for this vapour in every aspect of my surroundings: I seek
just the potential difference between myself and people. This is
sensitivity. And was this sensitivity revealed boundless times more
than it does in the city, at the famed "Gangar ghat" from Sutanuti
Police Phari in Kumartuli the recent evening I had been there? I
cannot tell, for then had I been too flooded to conclude a deeper
sensitivity.

It was simple and usual to the typical. The sky was a billowing skirt
of inky black - like the colour I so love to watch in the well of my
fountain-pen - with a characteristic hemline which was trimmed with
dotted lights, but richly punctuated with portions of lightlessness.
It was the swirling waters which caught the tamelessness, swiftness,
and pride of my mind and absorbed me down to an inward tumult against
my bosom. Of the infinite images, one inside another, which the waves
conspired to throw up to me, I could see the violence of my mind, the
intransient passions of my hungering self, the virgin duality of my
spirit. My eyes met the graceful details of the Divine Mother's face
and figure: and somewhere in the halo of Her sublime form's
interpretation, I experienced the wholeness and the agitated love of
my Guru.
These are the moments when numberless letters, verses, and reflections
are conceived in a state of divine essence, or being; the tangible
birth (in black and white) of which is an affair of complex
interpretations, suffering, and disturbance. Had I sat down till where
the lights from the other end danced over the waters, to pen down a
letter, a verse, or a reflection, I could have lost consciousness and
been one with the waters - such was the potency of my feeling and the
might of my compassion. Instead, I stood leaning over the railings and
ravenously drank in the dance of the waves; I viewed its tiara of
alternating lights and lightlessness in rapture; I experienced bliss
as I had rarely chanced to know before...
Then the minutes slipped by and I was suddenly aware that the people
who I had come with would beckon me away in another handful. I gazed
down the pregnant motion of the waves and felt my self roll along in
ecstasy. The knowledge of the temporary end was dawning on my psyche,
as the waters steadily became one with the skies. Finally, the call to
retreat caused tears to prick against my eyes.


As said, I am intimate with the skies, live and breathe the skies.
Last year too had been a wonderful experience at the "Gangar ghat" (I
make it a point to be attended to visit Kumartuli every year), but
this time it was a sixteen-year-old's heart which responded to it and
that too, unlike last turn, against the backdrop of nighttime for
which I have a deep-rooted magnetism. Now the dryness of the concrete
zoo around glares more loudly out as the memory of those few minutes
continue to haunt me. Shall not solace have mercy on my battling
disposition? Shall pristine experiences such as this continue to mock
in its many ways a hungering beggar?
But my vision has stretched farther and my interpretations have grown
leagues. I shall continue to mature as the images of the night keep
haunting me.

The Muse on the Run

The Muse on the Run
Indrojit Roy
Like I told you, this is just a series of gritty writings from the diaries of the CC (common conscious) man who I run into often: they give me a peek into their uncut diaries from which I tell you these words dripping of lust for breath, and more breath; but the fact remains that many of the present poof generation, by this I mean those boys and girls who have suddenly become aware of their sexualities a decade back.

It is them I wish to read out these dusty diaries of people who have long gone away to another plane, presumably to where God has taken them. It is not that people growing up in idyllic countrysides fare any better than their urban counterparts because in a few years, give or take, they shall be exposed to the same menu of porn and prawn, and broom or brawn, whichever way we twist the narrative. This group of poofs I see growing up cannot be pulled away. And why do we need to pull them away? say some very accomplished teachers - let them decide what is wrong or right :}

Even without being judgmental, I have seen my local CD-seller man go plump and oily from selling lewd stuff for 15 years… You think 15 yeas is okay for people to decide? But they seem to have decided. For example today morning I woke up to decide that I must speak to Somaly Ma’am, the lion-hearted Cambodian girl, who endured sexual abuse for several years to finally become an activist for those God’s children. She set up rehab centres where she receives abused girls as young as five years. The moment she arrives, they scream, mummy, mummy has come… Her name spells hope and light for kid-girls sold to sick people who believe that having physical interaction (read rape...) with kids will rejuvenate them. Afterwards, there are equally helpless doctors who sew them up in a surgery called hymenoplasty.
And they are again sold to some other punk. As virgins.

So much for our civilization of coffee-shops and strong deo-collections. Is there any party, leader or organization which really sweats over these people? Do we really spare a breath? The world gets smaller for the CC each day: not smaller in terms of size or internet reach, but in terms of people they can talk to or make them heard. Each day as the CC puts it is like wading through waist-high slime as well you do not know what could be under. As a matter of fact, it could be your muse floating like Venus underwater. It is getting dark outside as I sit here playing with these keys. See you soon. Amen )(

I see her everyday

I see her everyday

Rajannya Lahiri

I see her everyday. But I also see a certain couple of teachers at school everyday, and there is a difference. As for the latter (the teachers), I have grown to have them bore me already. For her, she is never the material that you could get used with. She visits us everyday in her small thin-and-pale frame; and begins to flit about the rooms with the broom (that is strangely nearly her size) in her hand, then follows it up with great swishes of soapy water and abundant rags, and ends up with the waiting dishes at the sink. Meanwhile, she keeps talking and singing, or humming (both are the same to her), to herownself.
I do not take to write about her simply because I love her salt-senses more than I can put up with my mother's. As is the matter, my sister has landed such a job in a multinational as one that could make any kid-sister feel "posh" out of the blue. And this certain lady named Rupali who works of such accord in a number of households in the urban had invited my sister and me for a big dinner one evening. O, because I am the one whose sister newly works in a multinational!

Two kids, with regular dreams of their own lighting up their eyes, greeted us into her eight-by-three feet parlour where the plaster had fallen off at various, seemingly artistically selected locations on the walls. The kitchen tables ran along more than half the length of one entire wall, narrow and crowded; a long, high bed covered the opposite wall; and you are left with barely a quarter of a foot between the bed and the kitchen. Sleeping on such a bed would give me skin as hard as Rupali's, I now come to think. An agreeably sized table stood at the head of the bed: on it rested a desperate CRT topped with a flowervase, and before the screen were arranged her ten-year-old's dog-eared schoolbooks. A broad, oddly-placed pillar consumed a sizeable amount of space.
Garments piled at almost every direction you turned your head to, everything rest which you might imagine were piled in a dark corner beyond the kitchen and the TV. And she so smilingly served us platters of steaming pulao while we sat on the bed. The children, one her son and the other her niece, were to have their meals later...

It was the short duration before the actual meal that dried me up.
The lad was an absolute rooster. First, he showed me all the expensive points he had scored on the gaudy, cheap "videogame" that he played. Then he said, "You wanna' see how high I can jump? Alright, I'll show you!", and he jumps up on the bed, drawing support with his hands from the TV-table and the pillar, on both sides of him. During the process, his leg painlessly hits the table, and the flowervase topples over on the bed before me. I saw it then - a neck and a bottom, held together by endless rounds of cellotape, gracing plastic "flowers".
Then he brought out his precious collections of a variety of pulses which is mother had given to him from her own precious collection. He told me that he had kept them all because I too did the same for my art projects at school. I stored them in those huge tin boxes familiar to everyone who has a fetish for knick-knacks; he had a couple of broken cassette-cases for the same purpose. He further showed me his toys: a stuffed tiger and an equally stuffed giraffe. Then both kids began telling me about giraffes and tigers; the girl was such a sharp brain! Soon her bright eyes turned up to me with all her standard-one knowledge of numbers: I think, aptitude is the same everywhere after all.
Suddenly, the tiger's nose had disappeared, noticed the boy. He jumped under the bed, and the first thing he got out was a shining, white bottle of glue. But where was the nose itself? When no amount of searching on the part of three very excited little persons appeared to help, the girl (of whom I have become an ardent fan) comes up with this, "Why don't you stick one of those dals on as his nose?" And a host of glue was squeezed before we had a brand, innovative nose on our tiger.

What captured me? Was it the little girl's deep, black eyes set against her young, peaches-and-cream complexion? Or, was it the dismal, the bleak light in the rooms which showed them to me? She touched me, I know. Why did she? I saw through her eyes the same, uniquely individual visions I had seen through my seven-year-old eyes back then. At this point of fifteen long years, I still see myself graduating into the woman I have dreamt. But shall she see yet the same vision when she is fifteen?...

Then the kids left the room while my sister and I had our dinner

My Mother

My Mother
Mandira Chattopadhyaya
Reading about Mandira’s mom reminded me about my own. She is just as
noble as Mandira’s mother is. She is the daughter and granddaughter of
two renowned scholars of India. Studying about different subjects was
in her blood and this helped her as she faced adversity and hardships.
They say adversity and hardships make one strong, developed and
mature. Well, they poured in hordes so far as my mother is concerned.
Her married life was an unending story of pains and struggles. She
never received any money to buy her child’s milk, she had to sell her
gold bangles to get her polio affected daughter admitted into a local
school. She thought of her own school, a prestigious Missionary School
in Gujarat and kept her disappointment to herself. She never
complained because who will listen to her woes?
But someone did help. A tutor of her kid sister pointed out, she could
write such good English, why hadn’t she continued with her studies. At
least it would keep her from depression and it would help her forget
the unpleasantness of her reality. Now the battle started. It was
amazing how she balanced the countless chores her mother in law thrust
upon her and her serious studies to earn degrees. She completed
graduation then Honors in English, even an MA, while she faced
hostility and even violent abuse. In due course she got a teaching job
and received money for the first time in her hand. It was a great day
for her. She at once bought milk for her daughter!
Her father had discontinued her studies and she had to study
privately. But she wanted that I could study in college and university
and made an all out effort to let me have the college and university
life. The rest of her story is very similar to that of Mandira’s mom.
I think almost all mothers suffer because we live in such a society
where exploitation is in order, where individual freedom is an alien
word. However, here is a story which is one of triumph over
tribulations, triumph of spirit over evil wills. She is an ever
spirited lady and the adjective suits her like a tailor made garb.
Thank you for your patience to read my write up about my mother!
I wrote this poem remembering my mother's pain.
Pain
The mother clutched at her emaciated form,
The baby lay limply in her arm.
Can she blame the world, or, only herself?
Who can bring her baby back to her healthy self?
My child, her inner being weep
Can I ever make you walk, or will you creep?
God, give all my health to her,
So I may her weakness bear.
......................
The mother aged and bent now,
Follows her infirm daughter like a tow.
Praying to God does help sometimes,
Worry and anxiety, though gnaws at her minds.
Who will care when she goes?
So she wants to live a long, long life, she does.

My Mom

My Mom
Mandira De(Roy)
My Mom is beautiful.But she never looks like one.She has remained busy her
whole life since she married my ailing father, always nursing him and acting
as per his whims.She has never been allowed to sit and enjoy a cup of tea
.Instead she thought it right to spare that time for her aggresive,
dominating yet seriously ill husband and her daughter.She never told a lie
or skipped her duty only to teach her daughter how to perform one's
duty.She could easily go to a friend's house or enjoy a recitation by her
favourite artist anyday.That could have helped her to remain
cheerful.Instead she taught herself to be happy without any external
help.She never enjoyed a very blissful life with my father.That used to hurt
her all the time.But she never tried to escape her duties to her husband.Now
a days I think what a huge reservoir of love she had stored for my
father!Each and everyday with the morning tea in her hand she used to wait
for her husband to wake.After the important event had happened she
silently used to go to the washroom to wash all her husband's dirty
bedcovers and clothes and so on .EVERYDAY YES EVERYDAY.She never chose to
read any quotation from the upanisada to learn to help her loved ones.But it
was so spontaneous to her to be a lifelong and unpaid yet
uncomplaining friend for her husband.She presented her partner with a fresh
new day everyday.She acted like a shield and protected me and my
father.Everytime I tried to help her she refused to take any help.She went
to vellore alone with my father to give her better treatment.It was oneday
when I was alone with a patient in a hospital at midnight I realised how
much struggle she had undergone alone.But like a hero she never breathed
about the pain.After my father's death she never protested when her inlaws
blamed her for his death.She is no less a sage and knows her point.She need
not be successful but she is a beautiful angel to me from whom I have learnt
the meaning of life.I salute her spirit. each time I see people applying
tricks to escape their duties, their ideal figure,gorgeous hair and skin
make them look uglier.With her wrinkled face and grey hair ,she is to me
beauty redefined.