KILLING WITH LOVE

Rameshchandra Mukhopadhyaya


I am not a polyglot or a linguist .I have not read any survey of the
languages of the world. But I guess that there is not a single
language in the world which does not have the notion of an enemy.
Exogamous marriage may have tried to overcome the enmity between two
families or between two rival races. My sister becomes your wife . So
the enmity between you and me is resolved. Such ideas teem in the
heads of the social anthropologists. Who is an enemy? One who wants to
deprive me of my rights. Some people say that the enemy is not to
blame, his mind set is to blame. Can you destroy the ill will of the
enemy without destroying your enemy. If that were true there could be
no enemy in the world except winter and rough weather .Civilisation
has divined many a device to outwit enemies and rivals.Well there
could be rivals and enemies on different planes. I have myself devised
a method to put one’s enemy on the backfoot. Let me share the secret
with my honourable members of the Sefrah.If you want to eclipse your
enemy go straight and meet him and tell him that you are shocked to
see his brightness eclipsed . Ask him whether he is ill or not. Tell
him that he should take care of himself. The phrase Take care
fits in the lips of an enemy; he forebodes your ill ness. If you were
as concerned with your enemy’s health your enemy might think twice
whether he has really lost his brightness. Appoint ten people to say
hi to your enemy . Let them be as concerned with his health as you
are .I tell you your enemy will be abed with fever in eight hours.
Then I know a lady who speaks honey. Hers is the human heart
overflowing with the milk of human kindness.Just tell her that Mr so
and so is looking sick. At once she will be concerned with the health
of that Mr so and so. Give her the mobile number of your enemy.She
will at once ring her. Honey will trickle down her tongue.However much
your enemy protests that he is hale and healthy lifting a weight of 40
pounds at ease, flowing honey will convince him that he must
immediately either take Complan or Chyavanprash. I assure you if
someone is ill this method can kill him with love. And if some one is
hale and hearty this method can make him suspicious of his strength.
Hurrah this is the method of killing with love. You can stuff honey
into some ones ears and kill him . Hamlet’s father was killed like
that. None, not even Sherlock Holmes can detect the murderers in such
cases of killing.And even if you are detected, you cannot be
prosecuted. In fact the world suffers more from politeness and show of
love.Everywhere there is the serpent in the grass


Comment:1
yes.a serpent in grass.reminds me of my forefather,he used this phrase a
lot.how r u doing?regards. indrajit
P.S tht was a captivating piece.incisive.


comment:2

An attempt at humour ? I will call it a mock-Nietzscheian piece with similar
'provocative bitterness' .


A rather less provocative piece from the Gay Science :


"
Health of the Soul. The favorite medico-moral formula (whose originator was
Ariston of Chios), "Virtue is the health of the soul" would, for all
practical purposes, have to be altered to this: "Thy virtue is the health of
thy soul." For there is no such thing as health in itself, and all attempts
to define a thing in that way have lamentably failed It is necessary to know
the aim, the horizon, the powers, the impulses, the errors, and especially
the ideals and fantasies of the soul, in order to determine what health
implies even for the body. There are consequently innumerable kinds of
physical health; and the more one again permits the unique and unparalleled
to raise its head, the more one unlearns the dogma of the "Equality of men,"
so much the more also must the conception of a normal health, together with
a normal diet and a normal course of disease, be abrogated by our
physicians. And then only would it be time to turn our thoughts to the
health and disease of the soul, and make the special virtue of everyone
consist in its health; but, to be sure, what appeared as health in one
person might appear as the contrary of health in another. In the end the
great question might still remain open: Whether we could do without sickness
for the development of our virtue, and whether our thirst for knowledge and
self-knowledge would not especially need the sickly soul as well as the
sound one; in short, whether the mere will to health is not a prejudice, a
cowardice, and perhaps an instance of the subtlest barbarism and
unprogressiveness?

Milton Mukhopadhyaya

IF WE KNEW HOW TO HATE

RAMESHCHANDRA MUKHOPADHYAYA



The world suffers more from love than from hatred. See --to love is
the ploy of the weak to outwit the strong and to out wit those who are
in power.Christ the prophet of love came upon the scene when the Jews
were tied to the chariotwheels of Roman empire.How could you pick up
arms against the almighty Romans?The Romans were almighty because the
Jewish elite were but the agents of the Roman masters.And it were the
Jewish elite who posited that Christ’s kingdom of heaven was a
challenge flung at the Roman empire.Gandhi knew that one could not
resist the Britishers with arms . Hence he also preached nonviolence
and love . Chaitanya Mahaprabhu also appeared in the days of Islamic
reign. The weak Hindus could not fight Islam. Hence the Hindus
preached love through Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.We have not seen any one
who is in power and who preaches love Gandhi style.When Gorbachov came
to power and preached love he was thrown out of power .We have not
seen Gandhi to rule. Of course he was so strict in his preachings of
love and nonviolence that he would not allow any dissenting voice in
his party .When Subhas resigned the Congress Presidentship only
because of Gandhis noncooperation they raised the slogan Gandhi Hitler
Long Live at the Congress Bhavan..Gandhi admitted of violence only
during the 1942 movement. It was a spontaneous uprising against the
British almost all over India . The falcon did not hear the falconer.
The Congress leaders ,most of them were in Jail. The Chauri chaura
incident where people spontaneously took to violence was condemned by
Gandhi . Because it was a local uprise. But when the uprising became
widespread it was not practical to condemn violence . However with the
1942 insurrection Gandhi lost his control over Congress. Of course, he
remained the Father of the nation But his will no longer remained the
law. Let us now see what great losses the nation incurred through his
love and nonviolence.Nationalism is an alien concept like Marxism or
capitalism imported to India . It is like Coca Cola an American
product. Nationalism implies one nation one state. President Wilson
preached one nation one state.presently after the First Great War. But
it was not practicable. There was no one criterion for a people to
become a nation. May be people belonging to same language might make a
nation. People belonging to same religion might make a nation. And one
set intersects with another. We Bengali people are not one nation. And
so on.India has several language speaking and several
religionpreaching people and still it is a nation . So is America and
so is England. So ,true that one nation one state theory is discarded.
Every political unit called so called sovereign state tries to impose
upon its various kinds of people the notion of a nation. Thus one
nation one state theory of President Wilson has been reversed and
today one state one nation is being preached In the case of India;
this was more or less achieved under the leadership of Gandhi. Before
the advent of Gandhi people from different parts of the country and
different walks of the people never united themselves against the
British Raj.The extremsists among the Indian nationalists always claim
that India was a nation since time immemorial.True that the concept of
India is as old as the Mahabharatas or even before that. But that does
not mean that India was a nation since the days of the Mahabharata.
Because the word nation for all practical purposes implies one
political unit .India was never a nation in that sense before the
Indian National Congress came upon the scene Here Indian history could
be compared with that of China. The China we know today was more or
less the same as a political unit since the Han rule that dates back
to befoe Christ. Foreign invasions disrupted the unity of China for
five or six hundred years But later during the Tang period China
became once again united .It was say seventh century AD. But this was
not the case with ancient India.And it was the decadent ancient India
that invited Islam to India.Sangram Singha who is acclaimed to be the
hero of Hindu patriotism was responsible for initial victories of
Babar. Be that as it may a large part of India was united only under
Muslim rule. And it was under the British that the whole of India came
under one political aegis.While Bhakti movement could not liberate
India from the Islamic rule the bhakti movement with a tilt under
Gandhijis leadership could help the Indians to unite against the
British rule.Yes Gandhis was a kind of Bhakti movement. True that the
bhakti movement took off in the South with the alwars at its fountain
head. When it expressed itself through Guru Nanak or Chaitanyadeva it
embraced every caste and creed and followers every religion.Gandhijis
prayers were addressed to any God and every God whatever and defined
Truth as God. The truth he pursued was the truths of political
necessities of the contingent for the people of India. Thus he led the
people of India first time united under his leadership to freedom. In
a sense he was a bodhisattva. A bodhisattva does not seek his
salvation . He seeks the salvation of every thing under the sun.There
has been a dispute regarding whether the law is the command of the
sovereign or not.Gandhi the Bodhisattva proved that law is not the
command of the sovereign. Law exists as long as the people observe.it.
Gandhi through his noncooperation movement largely proved that if the
people donot obey the law law is not there and the sovereign who is
apparently the guardian of law becomes superfluous. But by way of
preaching nonviolence love and noncooperation he caused immense damage
to India.During the first Great War Indias economy was at per with
the economy of any country in the West. The boycott movement that
started with the partition of Bengal Movement was sponsored by Gandhi
on a large scale with love. And noncooperation movement shattered the
production system of a strong economy. This is not all . It made the
people indisciplined. Thus todays developing economy and the
countrywide indiscipline are the legacy of Gandhism which is all
karuna love and the urge for truth or Satyagraha.The legitimation here
however is not that violence was preferable to nonviolence in the
context of Indias freedom struggle. In fact freedom struggles are
already dated. Think of Japan. Two of its major cities were turned
into ashes. Japan accepted the reality without a demur the way they
accepted the offers of Conmmodore Perry without any demur.Japan
focused itself on economic development and in the capitalist society
today no one can keep the rich in shackles.Japan is a world power now
although she doesnot display her military might. Similarly if Indians
had not paid heed to the freedom movement and if they had plunged into
economic activities with gusto the already strong economy of India
during the First Great War would be as strong as any economic power of
the world today And who could then bully India today in that case.I
donot say hereby that Gandhi was a real misfortune in the Indian
context. With Gandhi Truth is God .But he never ended his experiments
with Truth.So Truth with him was the truth of the contingent. He was a
pragmatist. True pragmatism has caused a lot of damage to the world
and civilization . Science is pragmatist and it not only helped the
explosion of two great wars , right now it is causing disasters
through generating consumerism. But as long as you do not get at any
absolute truth you have to be a pragmatist---a scientist like a
Gandhian or a Gandhian like Science. The urge for truth however is
supposed to dispel personal desires that might cloud the truth.Gandhi
however characterized his scientific approach with nonviolence.But
nonviolence is not possible unless it acknowledges the fact that
violence is at the root of the world of appearance.The world of
appearance is the synonym of a world of forms. Forms exist through
differences among them. And differences make love and hatred
possible.between two or more forms.Love is a kind of violence.It
bullies the object of love into slavery. And one who makes a slave of
another is himself transformed into a slave. Suppose you have twelve
servants in your house and your whole day is spent in running after
the twelve servants, yourself being the servant of your servants. That
is the attribute of Lord Visnu. It is said that he is the servant of a
devotee. No human being could be like Visnu, To become the servant of
a servant is a Herculean feat.And love for us limits both the lover
and the beloved. Two lovers are like two spent swimmers clinging to
one another to be drowned in the Tiber.In fact Gandhis true
contribution to human thought is not the received interpretation of
his satyagraha or non violence. His satyagraha wanted that every
family should live in peace and every village should be more or less
self supporting. If dishonesty stealing cheating could be driven away
from every village community no foreigner could bully them Yes I am so
fond of thinking that he was absolutely right. But so many primitive
societies even today are naïve and live in perfect peace when they are
left to themselves . But the onslaughts of civilization will not let
them livr in peace. A half naked Maori with a Coca cola only reveals
the true shape of things. Despite that Gandhis stand that the state
should have minimum power and that the true development means the
development of the villages in their elements with me is as true as
the words of the Vedas. I am all for Prince Kropotkin, the anarchists
Tolstoy Gandhi and the Vedanta. I look forward to a world where love
is itself the law and where the law itself will be love, where men
will delight only in lawful things. I am being carried away by words.
True. man might love each other to multiply and survive. But what
happens if man loves every animal and plant. Then we have no other
alternative to think that Nature out of her own bounty will feed
animals. Or else the whole humanity will have to starve to death by
choice just as Vinoba Bhave did or Jain Sadhus are wont to do. May God
give us the strength to die . Of course death is preferable to doing
harm to others despite yourself. If you say- that way human race will
be wiped off from the face of the earth, so what?And if then another
nuclear warfare destroys mankind it is all the same. Only thing is
that if you starve to death on your own you have to take initiative.
Why take that hardship. Better a third world war. You die in comfort
without taking any initiative to die. Hurrah Let us bless science and
technology with all our heart. Death instinct is in the fore of the
collective mind and the world teeming with warheads do not scare us.
The greatest modern English poet TS Eliot has already announced that
we are stuffed men and we are hollow men living and half living. Let
us set aside these fruitless speculations. That which is not does not
exist. The third Great War is not there yet. So it has no existence .
So why ponder over that. Be an optimist. Think of bettering the world
you inhabit. But don’t say love can achieve the object. Earlier it
were the tool of the poor. But right now the rich and the powerful
also have learnt the language of love. The state often lets lose
terrorism only out of love. Ask every man in power. His heart is
always overflowing with the milk of humanity. And he everyday kills
his children flinging their heads at the marble floor. Hence the real
disease from which the world suffers is love. If each one of us were a
little more arrogant and if each one of us were born to hate each
other the shape of things could have been different. If the father in
law of my brother-in-law happens to be a GM with the Union carbide I
lie down in his feet in awe and respect. Do n’t you think that to
become a manager with the Union Carbide speaks of great leadership
skill? But if I knew how to spit at him when he visits my house
because he has killed thousands of men in Bhopal the world would have
been a better place. We saw Tata bragging, when thousands of farmers
at Singur were bleeding.. If we knew how to hate Tata, if hundred
crores of Indians spit at him and at his name where ever it is found
the world could be a better place. Oh! God we are tired of love , give
us the strength to hate. The world is in dire need of hatred.

Surface Economy and the Reality Oh Give back the Kabuliwallah Take away the banks

A time will come when the sparrows and kabuliwallahs will control the
world-

RAMESHCHANDRA MUKHOPADHYAYA

Economics only gives you a fragment of the real state of economic
affairs.And when state policies are decided on the background of such
economic readings they are sure to fail.For example when they speak of
Indian economy they speak of the white money. But just as the
conscious mind is only a fraction of our total mind and just as the
iceberg which is visible to the eye is only a fraction of the real
iceberg so is the white money in fact is a fragment of the total money
circulated in the country.What is white money? It is the amount of
money on which tax has been paid.The total exchange formally taking
place is far less than the amount of exchange informally clinched
up.There taxes are irrelevant.And one cannot infer the quantum of
informal exchange from the data available of formal exchange. There
are no data of the subconscious and the unconscious mind.They often
clandenstinely express themselves through the expressions of the
conscious mind and they often unsettle the conscious mind . So does
black money often appears in the garb of white money and unsettle the
country’s economy . This is true everywhere in every country. Let
globalization do whatever it can it cannot baulk the world economy.
Rationality is only a part of human mind . You cannot turn every man
into a rational being or robot. Besides if everyman were a robot who
would conduct the robots. But that is a different issue. The point is
that no man is a robot and no man can be turned into a robot. Give us
the most rational of the human beings. He also dreams. He cannot but
dream. There are some people who think that they do not dream . In
fact they do not remember their dreams unlike others. Why do not they
remember dreams? The answer is simple. They do not dare to face their
dreams. They are like some righteous persons who think that they
cannot do any wrong. But with hand on heart ask yourself whether you
could not commit any crime whatever that takes place on earth. As to
me I feel for every criminal because I think that I am no better than
any criminal under the sun. In my fantasy I have wished the death of
so many people. In my fantasy I have so many times coveted this mans
wealth and that mans talent. So man cannot be rational. It is these
men who take part in getting and spending. How could they be turned
into the agents of a globalised rationalized system. Let the bank go
to every village. Let them spread what they call universal education.
But we will never be educated in the way those in power want us to be.
Why so much emphasis on education today. Suppose you are a
moneylender. You live in our village. I go to you for taking loans.
You know me . You know my father mother and uncle. You call me by my
first name. When I told you--- Uncle I need some money for sowing in
this present harvesting season, either you give me the money or you
don’t. But when you give me the money there is no need of writing on
my part, no need of submitting application or guarantee on my part.
These moneylenders are being replaced by banks. The banker who comes
does not belong to my locality. So he does not know me. Hence unless I
know how to sign a form etc unless I am literate how can I get loan
from the banker? So to rationalise the banking system they have jumped
into illiteracy removal programme. But we rustic people, we are
incorrigible. We cant be taught reason.Much has been done against the
private money lenders. If I were a private money lender people would
pooh pooh at me . But if I were a GM with a national;ised bank people
would address me with soft and respectful words. But let education and
banks do whatever it can the private money lenders exist and will
exist. Globalisation of the world economy cannot be there as long as
black money is there. I am speaking in the Indian context.Those who
have lot of black money donot want to keep the money with them.
Because now and then the government might harass them although they
made the black money only with the passive consent of the people in
the government and administration.So what the blackmoneyed people do
is to give away the money to the private money lenders in lieu of
getting minimum interest say 2% . The private money lenders might
charge apparently a high rate of interest. But you need not
hypothecate your house to the bank if you want to have houseloan . You
need not submit with the moneylender collateral security for getting
loan. You need not take along with you a person who will stand
guarantee for you to the moneylender. You need not fill up forms . You
need not wait for months together for the loan. If you go to your
moneylender at one AM in the night you might get loan immediately.
Your money lender never asks for the principal. He is satisfied with
the interest. But sometimes you may not pay the interest regularly.
The moneylender comes to you shouts at you etc. But that is all .
Besides there could be human relationship between a borrower and a
private money lender. The latter might waive the loan if he feels
like.But who dares imagine to have a human relationship with a banker.
He cannot waive your loan. Now a days small financing agencies have
cropped up with government blessings. They are not money lenders ,
They have no human face. If the loan is not paid back in time they
send goons to poor villagers and dispossess them of their hearth and
home . Even the big banks do that. With law as their backing they keep
an eye on your hearth and home. The bank will proudly attach them if
you cannot pay back in time the money that you borrowed from the
bank. In the competition I tell you bank despite their lot of
paraphernalia and impressive buildings must give in to private
moneylenders if there is no nuclear war in the meantime. Why? Because
the banker chooses between those who ask for loan. So does the private
moneylender.You cannot give loan to everyone who asks for it. Now the
banker is educated. He is used to answer hypothetical questions On the
contrary the private money lender is uneducated. He knows that if he
does get back due interst against the money he lends his family will
starve. Things are different with banker, So nationalized banks suffer
losses through the decades. But private money lenders continue let the
law do whatever it can. Thus the sub conscious and unconscious mind as
to which we donot have much data will rule below the surface of
conscious mind where law and order prevail and all hopes of
globalization are destined to be dashed into pieces. Long live the
Kabuliwallah. Give us back the kabuliwallahs. Take away the banks. Do
you know that the kabuliwallahs donot have money only in their
wallets . They carry mewa in them . And earlier when they used to come
to India on camelback across the Thor desert in the night the.
sandscape would be thrilled with their queer song . They would sing
seated on the camel back. Each stepping of the long leg of the camel
would unsettle the rhythm of the song . Rather it would be a fresh
genre of song where rhythms leap from one note to another with a jerk.
It was tappa. Kabuliwallahs give us loans They give our children mewa.
They brought to our land the musical genre called tappa. If I were a
poet I could write in praise of kabuliwallahs and sparrows. I know
that sparrows are no longer found in the cities But I tell you the
private moneylenders the kabuliwallahs and the sparrowswill come back
again and they will once again take the contol of the world if there
is no nuclear war.

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.