Private Property

As I went walking, I saw a sign there,

And on the sign there, It said "no trespassing."

But on the other side, it didn't say nothing!

That side was made for you and me.

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;

By the relief office, I'd seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

Is this land made for you and me?

(Lines of protest against social inequality by Woody Guthrie in his “This land is your Land.” However, these verses -fourth and sixth- were often omitted in compositions and singing. We sing, write and discuss to maintain the social status quo. Will ever our singing become a revolutionary praxis that shakes the foundations...???!!!)

Buried in the Sunset

Sun is crawling down
I wait for you
Two yards under
I was buried in the sunset

Im still alive here
Still waiting for you
Two yards under
I was buried in the sunset

Days are passing by
Its getting hard to breathe
Two yards under
I was buried in the sunset

I faked my death
since i felt a threat
Two yards under
I was buried in the sunset

Now real death is drawing near
as the sun breaks the new dawn
but Im no longer waiting for you
I sacrificed,
Two yards under
I buried myself in the sunset

(“Buried in the Sunset” by FaraM Siddiqui)

Nestless on the Branches of Memories

“Please give this to our son Rajan. I trust only you.”





She didn’t utter a word after that. Cold death had already touched her. The next day after her death, I had a nap on the couch. The weight of that packet of coins, which she entrusted to me, was still in my hands. (From “Memories of a Father” by T.V. Eachara Varier)

 

 

 

Piravi is 1988 Malayalam feature film directed by Shaji N. Karun bagging 31 awards. The film is thought to be based based on the 'Rajan Case' that occurred in Kerala during the time of the emergency in 1978. The Chief Minister of the State attended a college function where a boy sang a song against him. The boy was caught by the police, brutally tortured in the police station where he died. After the Emergency, the boy's father filed a case against the government thus sparking off a big debate.





Plot: Raghu is one of two children born to Raghava Chakyar and his wife. Born quite late in his parents' marriage, Raghu is brought up with immense devotion and love until adulthood.



Now studying in an engineering college far from home, Raghu must return home for the engagement ceremony of his sister, but fails to turn up. His father Raghavan waits endlessly for his son to return. Raghavan takes daily trips to the local bus stop, waiting all day in the hope that Raghu will eventually come home. Soon it emerges, and the family come to know through newspapers, that Raghu has been taken into custody by the police for political reasons.



Raghavan sets out to try and find his son, and he eventually reaches police headquarters. However the police pretend not to know about Raghu, or his whereabouts, and furthermore, deny the fact that Raghu was taken into custody. Raghu's sister eventually comes to the realization that her brother probably has died as a result of police torture, but hasn't the heart to tell her father. Raghavan slowly begins to lose grip of reality, and starts to dream of his family reuniting once more.



(Plot summary from Wikipedia film review)



Words of Rajan’s father: “I was caught inbetween the father and the son, or rather, my father and my son. Did my father wait for me like this? Will my son go away like this? My father, the late Sri Premji, acted in the role of this father in the much-acclaimed film Piravi. In my journey through this book he was with me, telling me how painful it was to act out the role of a father who lost his son, but went on waiting for him. My dear father walked along with me into this wilderness, holding my hand. At the end of it, here I am looking back to see whether my son is still there or not. I now know that no sun sets. There is life even after death. Memories are the branches where the dead nest.



It is raining. I too am drenched. The rain cleanses everything, but scars of old wounds remain; they cannot be washed off that easily. Because of these scars, the struggle should continue, to recreate us as more beautiful people. The day has not dawned yet. It is still raining.” (Concluding words from “Memories of a Father”)









 

 

“There is life even after death. Memories are the branches where the dead nest.” Will he able to nest on the branches of the memories of our generation even after he is dead and gone….?!

Nestless on the Branches of Memories

“Please give this to our son Rajan. I trust only you.”





She didn’t utter a word after that. Cold death had already touched her. The next day after her death, I had a nap on the couch. The weight of that packet of coins, which she entrusted to me, was still in my hands. (From “Memories of a Father” by T.V. Eachara Varier)

 

 

 

Piravi is 1988 Malayalam feature film directed by Shaji N. Karun bagging 31 awards. The film is thought to be based based on the 'Rajan Case' that occurred in Kerala during the time of the emergency in 1978. The Chief Minister of the State attended a college function where a boy sang a song against him. The boy was caught by the police, brutally tortured in the police station where he died. After the Emergency, the boy's father filed a case against the government thus sparking off a big debate.





Plot: Raghu is one of two children born to Raghava Chakyar and his wife. Born quite late in his parents' marriage, Raghu is brought up with immense devotion and love until adulthood.



Now studying in an engineering college far from home, Raghu must return home for the engagement ceremony of his sister, but fails to turn up. His father Raghavan waits endlessly for his son to return. Raghavan takes daily trips to the local bus stop, waiting all day in the hope that Raghu will eventually come home. Soon it emerges, and the family come to know through newspapers, that Raghu has been taken into custody by the police for political reasons.



Raghavan sets out to try and find his son, and he eventually reaches police headquarters. However the police pretend not to know about Raghu, or his whereabouts, and furthermore, deny the fact that Raghu was taken into custody. Raghu's sister eventually comes to the realization that her brother probably has died as a result of police torture, but hasn't the heart to tell her father. Raghavan slowly begins to lose grip of reality, and starts to dream of his family reuniting once more.



(Plot summary from Wikipedia film review)



Words of Rajan’s father: “I was caught inbetween the father and the son, or rather, my father and my son. Did my father wait for me like this? Will my son go away like this? My father, the late Sri Premji, acted in the role of this father in the much-acclaimed film Piravi. In my journey through this book he was with me, telling me how painful it was to act out the role of a father who lost his son, but went on waiting for him. My dear father walked along with me into this wilderness, holding my hand. At the end of it, here I am looking back to see whether my son is still there or not. I now know that no sun sets. There is life even after death. Memories are the branches where the dead nest.



It is raining. I too am drenched. The rain cleanses everything, but scars of old wounds remain; they cannot be washed off that easily. Because of these scars, the struggle should continue, to recreate us as more beautiful people. The day has not dawned yet. It is still raining.” (Concluding words from “Memories of a Father”)









 

 

“There is life even after death. Memories are the branches where the dead nest.” Will he able to nest on the branches of the memories of our generation even after he is dead and gone….?!

Haritham

Greenery is in roots of earth,
outside there is it's dearth.
Rains have ceased to dry,
summers are just passing by.
All the hell that air surrounds,
clouds the sky by leaps and bounds.
Its a bane if not goin to decrease,
threats to melt, our breaths will freeze.
To see this ideal planet of life,
perishing in this human strife
Of ignoring love & soaring hate,
why not believe its never too late.
To pick a positive shade of tryst,
from the nature's love and mist.
Its a hope to raise the blooms,
All the world in greenish rooms.
That prosper to let possible a birth
Greenery is in root of earth!
(“Earth’s Greenery” by Reetesh Sabr)

To my unborn son

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said,
"Speak to us of Children".
And he said:

Your children are not your children,
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but are not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and
He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
So he loves also the bow that is stable.

(from "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran)

She is very proud these days

More than ten we buried in the shade of the orange tree-
Ten cats in less than ten years, poisoned by the neighbors
Or crushed under cars. We wrapped them in towels
As we buried them. To keep them warm. To shield
Them from our eyes as the rusted shovel pierced
Through dirt and roots.

I think of them when I can't find a towel, when I stand
Over the bathroom tile and shiver as I dry, drop
By drop. I think of them at night when the tree taps
Against my window, and I imagine a strong wind ripping
Their bodies from the ground, and I wonder if it's their bones
I hear tapping against the glass.

If I meet them in heaven, I will lie down and let them
Crawl on top of me and around me, and stroke their chins
And bellies the way I used to individually, but now altogether,
A warm and purring blanket.

Some days I eat the oranges whole- peel, seeds, and fruit
And imagine kitten corpses decomposing in the soil,
Absorbing through roots and trunk and branches, into
The fruit I eat, into the juice that drips down my chin and sticks
Between my fingers. The fruit that slips down my throat
And stomach, that courses through my blood and fuels
my guilt.
(“The Orange Tree” by Alicia Adams)

“All that is not given, is lost”

City of Joy (1992)

In life a person has three choices: to run, to spectate or to commit.

One day a surgeon named Max Lowe walks away from the operating theater and Houston and everything his life stands for. He's dropping out, and maybe in some kind of leftover '60s reflex he decides to travel to Calcutta. He hopes to disappear into the sea of humanity, I guess, and find himself, or peace, or tranquility - he's not quite sure.

Calcutta has other ideas for him. Within a few hours of his arrival he is thrust into the maelstrom of a city where thousands live in the streets, where he is a highly visible rich man, where his medical training is desperately needed. This film of Roland Joffe is based on "City of Joy," a novel by Dominique Lapierre. In the City of joy Max comes in contact with an Irish woman, named Joan Bethel (played by Pauline Collins), who runs a clinic which ministers to the sick and homeless. When she discovers that Max is a surgeon, she exerts quiet but unrelenting pressure on him to help at the clinic. Max resists at first. But later he becomes a convinced and committed doctor cum social worker standing for the downtrodden people and outcaste lepers of the city.

From other side the story develops through Hazari Pal who once lived in a small village in Bihar, India, with his dad, mom, wife, Kamla, daughter, Amrita, and two sons, Shambhu and Manooj. As the Pal was unable to repay the loan they had taken years ago from a moneylender, their land and property were auctioned, and they were rendered homeless. Hazari and his family re-locate to Calcutta with hopes of starting life anew, save some money and go back to Bihar, as well as get Amrita married. Things do not go as planned, as they lose their entire savings to a con-man, Gangooly, who took their money as rent by pretending to be a landlord. Then Hazari gets an opportunity to take up driving a rickshaw manually through a local godfather, Ghatak. Meanwhile Hazari gets to meet Dr. Max and together they strike up a friendship along with Joan Bethel. Misunderstandings crop up between Joan and the Godfather, resulting in the shutting down of their shanty medical clinic. When Hazari sides with Joan, his rickshaw is taken away. Things get worse when the Godfather passes away, leaving his estate to his way-ward son, Ashok Ghatak, who has plans to do away with the slums, especially the lepers who have now started frequenting the locality.

It is the story of a hopeless people who can simply fall into despair; still who live on struggle and glimpses of hope, and much more on the goodness of heart. Dr. Max who arrives in the “city of joy” depressed by the complex life and relations of a plentiful and bureaucratic society of America at the very outset of the film begins to fit in with his fellow slum-dwellers. And he begins to see that his life isn't half bad. There are many around him whose lives are much worse, but they look on each day with a hope that gives new strength to the depressed doctor. (Edited from three review article on the film)

“Maybe the world if meant to break your heart. From the moment we're born we're shipwrecked, struggling between hope and despair.” (From ‘City of Joy”)

A man once asked Diogenes what was the proper time of supper, and he made the answer: “If you are a rich man, whenever you please; and if you are poor whenever you can.” And above all the age old saying comes to us thus: “Hope is a poor man’s bread.”

“All that is not given, is lost”

City of Joy (1992)

In life a person has three choices: to run, to spectate or to commit.

One day a surgeon named Max Lowe walks away from the operating theater and Houston and everything his life stands for. He's dropping out, and maybe in some kind of leftover '60s reflex he decides to travel to Calcutta. He hopes to disappear into the sea of humanity, I guess, and find himself, or peace, or tranquility - he's not quite sure.

Calcutta has other ideas for him. Within a few hours of his arrival he is thrust into the maelstrom of a city where thousands live in the streets, where he is a highly visible rich man, where his medical training is desperately needed. This film of Roland Joffe is based on "City of Joy," a novel by Dominique Lapierre. In the City of joy Max comes in contact with an Irish woman, named Joan Bethel (played by Pauline Collins), who runs a clinic which ministers to the sick and homeless. When she discovers that Max is a surgeon, she exerts quiet but unrelenting pressure on him to help at the clinic. Max resists at first. But later he becomes a convinced and committed doctor cum social worker standing for the downtrodden people and outcaste lepers of the city.

From other side the story develops through Hazari Pal who once lived in a small village in Bihar, India, with his dad, mom, wife, Kamla, daughter, Amrita, and two sons, Shambhu and Manooj. As the Pal was unable to repay the loan they had taken years ago from a moneylender, their land and property were auctioned, and they were rendered homeless. Hazari and his family re-locate to Calcutta with hopes of starting life anew, save some money and go back to Bihar, as well as get Amrita married. Things do not go as planned, as they lose their entire savings to a con-man, Gangooly, who took their money as rent by pretending to be a landlord. Then Hazari gets an opportunity to take up driving a rickshaw manually through a local godfather, Ghatak. Meanwhile Hazari gets to meet Dr. Max and together they strike up a friendship along with Joan Bethel. Misunderstandings crop up between Joan and the Godfather, resulting in the shutting down of their shanty medical clinic. When Hazari sides with Joan, his rickshaw is taken away. Things get worse when the Godfather passes away, leaving his estate to his way-ward son, Ashok Ghatak, who has plans to do away with the slums, especially the lepers who have now started frequenting the locality.

It is the story of a hopeless people who can simply fall into despair; still who live on struggle and glimpses of hope, and much more on the goodness of heart. Dr. Max who arrives in the “city of joy” depressed by the complex life and relations of a plentiful and bureaucratic society of America at the very outset of the film begins to fit in with his fellow slum-dwellers. And he begins to see that his life isn't half bad. There are many around him whose lives are much worse, but they look on each day with a hope that gives new strength to the depressed doctor. (Edited from three review article on the film)

“Maybe the world if meant to break your heart. From the moment we're born we're shipwrecked, struggling between hope and despair.” (From ‘City of Joy”)

A man once asked Diogenes what was the proper time of supper, and he made the answer: “If you are a rich man, whenever you please; and if you are poor whenever you can.” And above all the age old saying comes to us thus: “Hope is a poor man’s bread.”

Goodbye to Normalities

Die Slowly
by Pablo Neruda

He who becomes the slave of habit,
who follows the same routes every day,
who never changes pace,
who does not risk and change the color of his clothes,
who does not speak and does not experience,
dies slowly.

He or she who shuns passion,
who prefers black on white,
dotting ones "it’s" rather than a bundle of emotions, the kind that make your eyes glimmer,
that turn a yawn into a smile,
that make the heart pound in the face of mistakes and feelings,
dies slowly.

He or she who does not turn things topsy-turvy,
who is unhappy at work,
who does not risk certainty for uncertainty,
to thus follow a dream,
those who do not forego sound advice at least once in their lives,
die slowly.

He who does not travel, who does not read,
who does not listen to music,
who does not find grace in himself,
she who does not find grace in herself,
dies slowly.

He who slowly destroys his own self-esteem,
who does not allow himself to be helped,
who spends days on end complaining about his own bad luck, about the rain that never stops,
dies slowly.

He or she who abandon a project before starting it, who fail to ask questions on subjects he doesn't know, he or she who don't reply when they are asked something they do know,
die slowly.

Let's try and avoid death in small doses,
reminding oneself that being alive requires an effort far greater than the simple fact of breathing.

Only a burning patience will lead
to the attainment of a splendid happiness

the way to Sky

The Road not taken
by Robert Frost

In his light our lights are all dark and dim

"Be light unto yourself"

As the Buddha was dying,
Ananda asked
who would be their teacher after death.
He replied to his disciple -

"Be lamps unto yourselves.
Be refuges unto yourselves.
Take yourself no external refuge.
Hold fast to the truth as a lamp.
Hold fast to the truth as a refuge.
Look not for a refuge in anyone besides yourselves.
And those, Ananda, who either now or after I am dead,
Shall be a lamp unto themselves,
Shall betake themselves as no external refuge,
But holding fast to the truth as their lamp,
Holding fast to the truth as their refuge,
Shall not look for refuge to anyone else besides themselves,
It is they who shall reach to the very topmost height;
But they must be anxious to learn."

In Memory of a Serene Evening

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

Claded in Sky

Love said to me; "Be transparent for Me,

        Live a life of My transparancy

    For with this style, you are a witness,

        My glow will sparkle from you."

   

    From me, "Oh! I wish I could,

       But how could I survive?

    Don't you see; my sins I must hide,

        Let others see, Oh, no!

    My human nature says; hide in my house,

       Hide in my clothes and speech."

   

     Love says, "Know you not,

        On the cross before all,

    I was naked, whipped and left to die,   

        How transparent is that?

    Can you not be

        As transparent as I?

    

    Remember it is my spiritual nature

        That will glow,

    Not your human nature."

        From me, "Oh, show me

    The way to sparkle

        A transparent beacon for you to others."

 

    By Frank E. Henrich



There is a time for everything??!

The Phiolosopher is mistaken to say "there is a time for everything." This time our spring tree is full of flowers in winter. We have managed to upside down even the wisdom of the seer through global warming and climatic changes.

***
A man in his Life
by Yehuda Amichai

A man doesn't have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,
to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest
what history
takes years and years to do.

A man doesn't have time.
When he loses he seeks, when he finds
he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves
he begins to forget.

And his soul is seasoned, his soul
is very professional.
Only his body remains forever
an amateur. It tries and it misses,
gets muddled, doesn't learn a thing,
drunk and blind in its pleasures
and its pains.

He will die as figs die in autumn,
Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,
the leaves growing dry on the ground,
the bare branches pointing to the place
where there's time for everything.