वेदाआधी तू होतास - बाबुराव बागूल




वेदाआधी तू होतास, वेदाच्या परमेश्वराआधी तू होतास,
पंच महाभूतांचे पाहून, विराट, विक्राळ रूप
तू व्यथित, व्याकूळ होत होतास,
आणि हात उभारून तू याचना करीत होतास,
त्या याचना म्हणजे  ‘  ऋचा  ’
सर्व ईश्वरांचे जन्मोत्सव, तूच साजरे केलेस,
सर्व प्रेषितांचे बारसेही, तूच आनंदाने साजरे केलेस
हे माणसा, तूच सूर्याला सूर्य म्हटलेस
आणि सूर्य, सूर्य झाला
तूच चंद्राला चंद्र म्हटलेस, आणि चंद्र, चंद्र झाला
अवघ्या विश्वाचे नामकरण
तू केलेस
अन् प्रत्येकाने मान्य केले, हे प्रतिभावान माणसा,
तूच आहेस सर्व काही, तुझ्यामुळेच संजीव सुंदर
झाली ही मही

-  बाबुराव बागूल #BaburaoBagul

Translation

You existed before the Vedas, you existed before the Lord of Vedas
Witnessing the huge, monstrous form of the five elements
You were getting distressed, anxious
You raised your hands in the first plea
Thus was formed the first 'Richa' (Hymn)

You created the Gods and celebrated them
You created the apostles, and rejoiced with them
O my primordial man! It was you who called the Sun, “Sun”
And so it became the Sun
You called the Moon 'Moon', 
And so it became the Moon
It was You who created this universe and named it so
It was You who validated everything in it.
O omnipotent man, you are everything
And it is because of You that
This universe is alive, beautiful

Image Credits: Adam and Eve (Marc Chagall)



Game of Thrones Meets Dushyant Kumar

उनके लिए जिन्हे गेम ऑफ़ थ्रोन्स या हिंदी कविता से प्यार है.
हिम और ज्वाला का गीत, दुष्यंत कुमार के शब्दों में

















Things That Make Your Day: The Elder Brother

No words can describe this...

The Zen Master and a Little Girl



Life, birth, death are the constituent questions of philosophy. The complexity of these subjects is overwhelming and hence the explanations seldom have continuity. I came across this anecdote about a Zen master (a Japanese school of Mahayana Buddhism emphasizing the value of meditation and intuition rather than ritual worship or study of scriptures) Seung Sahn Soen-sa, which channels the knowledge into a childlike simplicity. Soen-sa recounts his conversation with Gita, the seven-year-old daughter of one of his students at the Cambridge Zen Center, after the death of the center’s beloved cat, cleverly named Katz. (“Katsu!” is a shout that is described in Chán and Zen Buddhism encounter-stories, to expose the enlightened state (Japanese: satori) of the Zen-master, and/or to induce initial enlightenment experience in a student). Katz had died after a long illness and was given a traditional Buddhist burial, but the little girl remained troubled by his death. One day, she came to the him for an explanation. 

“What happened to Katzie? Where did he go?”
Soen-sa said, “Where do you come from?”
“From my mother’s belly.”
“Where does your mother come from?” Gita was silent.
Soen-sa said, “Everything in the world comes from the same one thing. It is like in a cookie factory. Many different kinds of cookies are made — lions, tigers, elephants, houses, people. They all have different shapes and different names, but they are all made from the same dough and they all taste the same. So all the different things that you see - a cat, a person, a tree, the sun, this floor - all these things are really the same.”
“What are they?”
“People give them many different names. But in themselves, they have no names. When you are thinking, all things have different names and different shapes. But when you are not thinking, all things are the same. There are no words for them. People make the words. A cat doesn’t say, ‘I am a cat.’ People say, ‘This is a cat.’ The sun doesn’t say, ‘My name is sun.’ People say, ‘This is the sun.’
So when someone asks you, ‘What is this?’, how should you answer?”
“I shouldn’t use words.”
Soen-sa said, “Very good! You shouldn’t use words. So if someone asks you, ‘What is Buddha?’, what would be a good answer?”
Gita was silent.
Soen-sa said, “Now you ask me.”
“What is Buddha?”
Soen-sa hit the floor.
Gita laughed.
Soen-sa said, “Now I ask you: What is Buddha?”
Gita hit the floor.
“What is God?”
Gita hit the floor.
“What is your mother?”
Gita hit the floor.
“What are you?”
Gita hit the floor.
“Very good! This is what all things in the world are made of. You and Buddha and God and your mother and the whole world are the same.”
Gita smiled.
Soen-sa said, “Do you have any more questions?”
“You still haven’t told me where Katz went.”
Soen-sa leaned over, looked into her eyes, and said, “You already understand.”
Gita said, “Oh!” and hit the floor very hard. Then she laughed.
Soen-sa ends the anecdote with an exchange intended to be funny, but in fact a tragic testament to contemporary Western education being a force of industrialized specialization, deliberately fragmenting the unity of all things and de-conditioning our inner wholeness:
As she was opening the door, she turned to Soen-sa and said, “But I’m not going to answer that way when I’m in school. I’m going to give regular answers!” Soen-sa laughed.

One may disagree with the explanation and have so many cross questions but there is no doubt about the strength of the single fabric answer which even a child can understand.


[This anecdote appeared originally in brainpickings ]
[Picture Credit: Octavio Ocampo, The Buddha, Surrealism]

Things That Make Your Day: Dear Daddy


'Women empowerment' and 'Open Letters' are probably two of the most abused phrases around us. Every one talks about the first and writes the second, to further a third -hidden agenda. What is different about this video is it has no masquerades. It is actually an advertisement (By CARE Norway) and easily one of the most powerful adverts to come out in the recent times. What makes it extremely powerful, is the transcript-an 'Open letter', that an anonymous girl writes to her father. The letter, a mini autobiography, leaves a message... and a mirror with our faces



Dear Daddy,
I just wanted to thank you for looking after me so well, even though I am not yet born. I know you already try harder than Superman, and you might even let mommy eat sushi. But I need to ask you a favor. Warning. It’s about boys because you see, I will be born a girl, which means that by the time I’m 14, the boys in my class will have called me a whore, a bitch, a cunt and many other things. It’s just for fun of course, something boys do. So you won’t worry and I understand that. Perhaps you did the same when you were young, trying to impress some of the other boys.

I’m sure you didn’t mean anything by it. Still, some of the people won’t get the joke and funnily enough it isn’t any of the girls, it’s some of the boys. So by the time I turn 16 a couple of the boys will have snuck their hands down my pants when I am so drunk I can’t even stand straight. And although I say “no” they just laugh, it’s funny, right? If you saw me daddy you would be so ashamed because I am wasted. 

No wonder I am raped when I am 21, 21 and on my way home in a taxi driven by the son of a guy you went swimming with every Wednesday. The guy who always told insulting jokes but they were of course only jokes so you laughed. Had you known that his son would end up raping me you would have told him to get a grip. But how could you know, he was just a boy, telling weird jokes and in any case it wasn’t your business. You were just being nice. But his son, raised on these jokes becomes my business.

Then finally I meet Mr. Perfect and you are so happy for me Daddy because he really adores me. And he’s smart with a great job and all through the winter he goes cross country skiing three times a week just like you. But one day he stops being Mr. Perfect and I don’t know why. Wait. Am I overreacting? One thing I do know, I am not the victim type. I am raised to be a strong and independent woman. But one night it is just all too much for him with work, and the in-laws and the wedding coming up, so he calls me a whore, just like you called a girl in middle school a whore once.

Then another day he hits me. I mean I’m way out of line, I can really be a bitch sometimes. We’re still the world’s greatest couple and I’m so confused, because I love him and I hate him and I’m not sure if I really did do something wrong and then one day he almost kills me. It all goes black, even though I have a Ph.D., a fantastic job, I’m loved by my friends and family, I am well brought up and nobody saw this coming.

Dear Daddy, this is the favor I want to ask:

One thing always leads to another so please stop it before it gets the chance to begin. Don’t let my brothers call girls whores because they’re not. And one day some little boy might think it is true. Don’t accept insulting jokes from weird guys by the pool or even friends because behind every joke there is always some truth.

Dear Daddy, I know you will protect me from lions, tigers, guns, cars and even sushi without even thinking about the danger to your own life.

But Dear Daddy, I will be born a girl. Please do everything you can so that, that won’t stay the greatest danger of all.
Credits: #DearDaddy Campaign, CARE Norway. 

I'll Write a Song for Them



I'll write a song for them
A song about you.
And the passage to 'Us'
Like the interstice between
The dreams and the dread
From which the yarns
Of passion are made
In the desolate moments
When the morning was far
When the twilight waited
For a moon or a star
A song for those moments
To the music of dawn...
I'll write a song for them 

I'll write a song for them
About the river you are,
The meadow I am.
How you dissect and nourish
Me, all at once!
On a boulder of basalt,
A tender sapling
That breaks it open,
Yet makes it alive.
Between friction and spirit
Only love can survive,
For a poem the wind
Will write on the water...
I'll write a song for them

I'll write a song for them
For a promise of life
Green, and so merry.
With tulips so slender,
And lilies so white.
On a porch in the sun
When I seem all so lost;
While all I am thinking
Is nothing, but you.
A noon spent swirling
Like sugar in tea.
A story of finches
That flew in the morn.
A story for finches
That came back to home...
I'll write a song for them...


Picture: Water Lilies, Claude Monet


अकेली रात काली क्यों होती है?

अकेली रात काली क्यों होती है?
अँधेरे में इतना कालापन किसने डाला?
सजा मिलने पे चमड़ी
काली क्यों हो जाती है?
या चमड़ी काली होने पे सजा?
जादू बुरा हुआ
तो काला हो गया!
जुबान बुरी हुई
तो काली हो गयी
ये काले को अंक लगाया
तो कलंक कैसे लग गया?
वो जो फन काढ़े काला नाग बैठा है
वो हमसे-तुमसे विषैला है क्या?


सुनने में ये बकवास सवाल
कुछ पुराने बही-खातें खोल दें
कहीं सफ़ेद दाढ़ी वाला
गोरा हमारा ईश्वर
खुद को काला बोल दे
वो जो सफेदी नापने
वाला फीता है 
कहीं धुंधला हो जाये
गोरी राधा का मोहन
कोई सांवला हो जाये

शायद...
इसी डर से कुछ चीज़ों को

हम काला कहते हैं




Pic Credits: "Negro", Pencil, Charles Wilbert White

Summer Rain




By the tracks with the violet blooms
By a brook with the scattered moon

In the groves of those misty pines
We’ll swing from the serpent vines

Under realm of a drunken night
On the sands both grey and white

I shall search in your oyster eyes
For the foams of the Venus to rise

Through the mast of that fading ship
With my songs on your tulip lips

Seeking shells from a silent shore
We will sail to the land of lore

Whence heart meets the sea and sky
We’ll jump with the birds and fly

Will you listen to the cobalt sea?
Will you run to the rainbow tree?

Will you jump on the passion train?
Will you walk in the summer rain?



Picture Credits: Rain in Oak Forest, Ivan Shishkin, Realism


Poems Are Our Honesty That We Can Sing



Poems are our honesty that we can sing. 
Poetry, or for that case all forms of creation, are one of the ways, human meets the superhuman.
They are not written. 
They happen. 

Just like a childbirth, there is a moment of singularity when you conceive a verse. 
Then you nurture it in your soul.
It grows with you, and then one day it takes a form… written or spoken. 
Once it has a form, it is free and so are you. 
It is painful. 
Like all forms of creation, it begins with a chaos and ends in light. 
Just like a childbirth. 
This is why in the Hindustani tehzeeb of Shayari, the poets plead you to listen to them by saying “Arz kiya hai”.
That is all that a poet really wants. 
To be heard.

Nothing makes one a poet. 
Just like clouds have rain, everyone has a poem, waiting to precipitate. 
But it is elusive...
Finding that poem, is finding rain in the cloud. No one can.
We have to become the poem. 
There is either rain or the cloud. 
It needs an ascension, for the clouds to become water and poets to become poems. 
A jolt, a thrust, a toss into the open skies.
It is in those ramblings, we meet our song.
Some of us have the words to express them and some have none. 
But all of us are poets nonetheless. 
Poems are My honesty that You can sing. 


Picture Courtesy : Egon Schiele , Self portrait with black clay pot, 1911, Expressionism

Things That Make Your Day : Gennady Tkachenko-Papizh



Gennady Tkachenko-Papizh calls himself an actor, sound imitator, singer and a comedian. But for us he is a singularity, a point where the man meets the nature and their sound resonate. He has a vocal range from the flutter of the butterfly's wings to the Shaman's call in the wild, and that range is musical.


As per his website, Gennady Tkachenko-Papizh was born on January, 27, 1964 in the city of Petropavlosk, USSA. He spent his childhood in Ukraine, Kolomiya city. Now he lives and works mostly in Moscow and Berlin.

Listen to the sounds of the earth. 
[ Specially recommended for ramblings in the grassland.]










Things that make your day, as the name suggests are a series of short blogs that will be a celebration of hope, talent, love, beauty and life ]
(No intentions to plagiarize)
(pic credits http://papizh.ru )

तेज़ाब और माँ

STOP ACID ATTACKS!! 
इसका भी मुख ढका है

उनका भी मुख ढका था


ये लोगो से छुप रही है

वो लोगो में छुप रहीं थी


इसे कल जो चाहते थे

उन्हें आज पूजते हैं


ये किसी की बहिन-बेटी

वो सबकी देवी माता


इसे कल भुला दिया था

उन्हे कल भुला ही देंगे


हमारे पाप का विसर्जन

दोनों पे हो रहा है ...


ये जल के पिघल गयी थी

वो जल में पिघल रहीं हैं

Camouflage


I want to run away, (she said)
From the idea of 'we'
From everything
From you and me...
 This existence 
Or lack of it
This endless tumult
The burden of wish
This rowing and rowing
to a nether shore
I somehow end up 
back to before
I want to run away, 
From you and me

Yes, sweetheart, 
You are nothing but true
But we have to row
on seismic waves, 
Together perhaps,
separated may be.
Sometimes we surf
Sometimes we sink
But row we must
Row to be free

Those who run
must run to survive
But as with the sheep
or deer or fish,
For those who run
there must be a herd
a flock; my dear
we chose to miss

So we have to be
In the melee
Making the wagers
losing to win
Painting our faces
Chanting the rhymes
Muting our voices
playing their mimes.
Bowing our heads
to absurd adage
We must embrace
this camouflage

But we have to be
In the melee
Together perhaps,
separated may be
But row we must
Row to be free
But row we must
Row to be free


Picture Credits: Sisyphus, Franz Stuck, Mythological Symbolism

Things That Make Your Day : Peeran da Paraga


No one has contributed more to the stereotype of "shayar" in India than Shiv Kumar Batalvi and Mazaz Lakhnavi. Drowsy eyes, those disheveled locks, a halo of nonchalance and a deluge of pain behind a levee of smile. I love Batalvi; and I adore Mazaz. But this post is about neither of them. This is about a little girl singing Batalvi for her school music class (apparently). Looking at her age you might, for a moment think, that she knows not what frying a handful (of corns) of sorrow means; but then you hear her sing, and you know that she knows what she is singing. 


It is cliched to quote Shelley's "Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought." But this one surely proves it.

Every time I listen to her, it makes my day.
ਭੱਠੀ ਵਾਲੀਯੇ ਚੰਬੇ ਦਿਯੇ ਦਾਲਿਯੇ, ਪੀੜਾਂ ਦਾ ਪਰਾਗਾ ਬੁੰਨ ਦੇ
ਤੇਨੂ ਦੇਵਾ ਹੰਜੂਆ ਦਾ ਫਾੜਾ, ਪੀੜਾਂ ਦਾ ਪਰਾਗਾ ਬੁੰਨ ਦੇ,

Lyrics of the song and translation

[ Things that make your day, as the name suggests are a series of short blogs that will be a celebration of hope, talent, love, beauty and life ]
(No intentions to plagiarize)

#TweetReview : Tanu Weds Manu Returns













I would have given this movie a 4/5, had it continued the promise of the first half. The whole thing was like a a very enticing foreplay, which I really enjoyed, followed by a premature ejaculation. But nonetheless, this was one of the most entertaining movies in a long time. Three cheers for Kanagana, Deepak Dobriyal, Madhavan and the supporting cast.

The Sacred Murders




I did not to want tell this story. It is a bad memory, a recurrent nightmare. But the reference to this story or its motif keeps appearing around me. I did some more research and finally I decided to write this story. This is the story of Leela and Bhama. I don't know them. I have never met them. They were brother and sister, born in a lower middle class Bengali Family in north eastern Bihar. Bhama was about ten years older than Leela. Leela was my mother's friend. They lived in the same railway employees' colony and went to the same middle school. Like the middle class colonies of small towns, that colony was also a big burgeoning family. Festivals were celebrated together, children ate together, played in the same courtyard, misfortunes were shared and the fabric of their life was closely knit. Life went on.

Summer vacations started. After a few days, my mother realized that Leela was nowhere to be seen. When enquired about, her mother told that she had gone to visit her grandparents in Bengal. That night my mother had a nightmare. She saw that someone had taken Leela on a boat ride in a river and pushed her into the water. My mother woke up sweating with a scream ringing in her head. Leela was screaming “Naa Bhaiyya naa, Naa bhaiyya naa" (No brother no, No brother no). Crying she told this story to my grandmother who ignored the nightmare and cajoled her to sleep. She could not. But these small town colonies are centrifuges; however you hide the truth at the bottom, it will churn up and surface in a while. Soon people were whispering and one day Leela's mother who was very friendly with my grandmother started crying in our verandah. She told that Leela had developed white patches on her arms and thighs. They took her to doctors. She was diagnosed with leprosy. There was a big argument in the home one afternoon when Leela was in school. She wailed on and told that she had begged her son and husband, but Bhama was adamant. And one day on the pretext of taking her to her grandparents, he took her and pushed her into a river. My mother’s nightmare had come true. Shaken, she fell ill. I inherited premonitions and this dream from her... a girl in faded saree screaming ... drowning. 

The cultural and religious traditions in India have unfortunately condoned and to an extent ratified such murders. One might argue that euthanasia is a separate debate in itself. But this is not euthanasia. This is no mercy killing. In fact, traditionally lepers, pregnant women, social outcasts, victims of curses (like snake bite) and children are not even given proper cremation in Hindu belief system. There is a famous puranic story of Raja Vena, who was shunned by his own folks because of Leprosy and denied proper rites. It was later that Prithu performed proper rites for him and absolved him of his sins (at Prithudaka-Kurkushetra). The death of Leela was less out of mercy and more out of shame and liabilities that disease would bring. These social dogmas and canonical codes had poisoned the head of the brother so much that he thought murdering someone whom the society expected him to protect, was a just and sanctified way. Leela was killed by her brother. And the weapon of her murder was our sacred delusion...

Another instance of such sacred murder came up in my discussions with Abhijeet, a colleague and friend. In his neighbourhood there was a family. The family elder was a retired old man who suffered a stroke and was paralyzed. Bedridden and unable to perform his chores, his care demanded both money and patience which the family bore for a while. Soon the patience became diminutive and medical bill became longer. One day his son, an educated man, religious in his conviction and upright in his morals, proudly informed that his babuji had become very old and it was now his sacred duty to take him to Varanasi for Kashi Karwat.

Kashi Karwat is a very famous temple in Varanasi and also a tradition. Some stories attribute this name to the fact that Kashi or Varanasi is never static and keeps moving. Some say it is named so because Ganga took a turn (or karwat) at this place. There is one more story. Kashi is considered the city of moksha. The Padma Puran mentions that any person who knowingly or unknowingly dies in Kashi will directly attain moksha, the highest state of human soul. It is believed that in Satyug (ancient age of purity) this temple used to have a saw (or a karwat) which was loosely hung from the ceiling of the temple. The saw used to descend upon the lucky few chosen by Gods. The tradition continued. The dimensions of the temple changed with time. The city flourished and the temple sunk. The central room or the Garbh Griha which houses the deity is now around 30 feet below the ground level. For a long time there was a saw placed over the Shiva Linga over which the devotees would jump and perform Kashi Karwat. This was banned by British and the said saw was removed.

But Kashi Karwat continued in another format, a mellower one. As Kashi is the said to be the stairway to heaven, it is a great desire of many old Hindus to spend their last days in Kashi (Kashi Waas), which may finally culminate in death in Kashi (Kashi Labh). There are many muktibhavans (houses of liberation) where moksharthis (those who wish to die in Kashi) can stay in for around 15 days within which they have to die or look for some other abode. Those who do not die are many times left in the city in absolute penury. They eventually die, but not due to old age, but starvation.

So the old man in our story was taken on such a Kashi Labh. Of course no Kashi Labh will materialize unless a dip in Holy Ganga is taken. The old man, unable to move, weakened by age and apathy, was taken to the bone chilling water in the river and given a holy dip. He had the Kashi Labh

There are people who really wish to die in Varanasi. They have absolute faith in the spirit of the city and they have full right to that. But this tradition like Sati, which might have started as a willful expression of love, became a tool of those who want to get rid of their old, unwanted and ailing family members. The ostracism of Lepers which might have been started as a precautionary measure against epidemic in ancient world, turned into an excuse for murder. 

The sad part is that these murders, cold blooded and premeditated, are not at all scorned by the society. Our society which so proudly wears the tiara of benevolence, mercilessly provides a backdoor exit for those who help it shun its less fortunate or less productive members. I have heard of rape victims who were given poison by their mothers, I have known wealthy people trying experimental (read cheap) medicine and spiritual therapies on their ailing parents, we know that female infanticide happens mostly because centuries back some old men felt that only male progeny could provide moksha and carry the family name. Sects still celebrate the sacrifice of Issac and still many people see human sacrifice with bewilderment and as a testimony of utmost devotion. Although modern religions discourage human sacrifice in principle, the silent abetment and the murders continue under the cloak of hypocrisy.

As I said I did not want to tell this story. It is recurrent nightmare. It is a treachery and a murder that went unnoticed and unpunished. And the most unfortunate part is someone somewhere will still justify this on name of religion and culture. These are just two of our many sacred murders…


For more questions read "The Right to be Wrong"
Image Credits: Head of a Drowned Man, Theodore Gericault, French Romanticism

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