Abhijit Naskar's Blog - Posts Tagged "integration"

I need no throne, I need no kingdom,
Human hearts are my heavenly abode.
I need no badge, I need no scepter,
Reason is my partner, warmth my zip code.
I need no praise, I need no offering,
A life of service is my paradise.
I need no reward, I need no award,
Nothing can put a price on sacrifice.
I know no etiquette, I know no manners,
These are all constructs of shallowness.
Humanity ought to drive behavior,
Humility destroys all narrowness.
To forge wholeness and sanity is our mission.
Ending all falsity let's be incarnate integration.

Wake up from death and return to life,
For as living dead we’ve been crawling for long.
Wake up from sanity and return to insanity,
For we've been insane in sanity for long.
Wake up from possibility, return to impossibility,
For we've been slave to the possible for long.
Wake up from reality and return to absurdity,
Habits of past have kept us hypnotized for long.
Wake up form truth and return to love,
For we’ve always confused assumptions with truth.
Wake up form ideology and return to the soil,
Integration means inclusion, not ideological coup.
Enough with nonchalance in the name of practicality!
Let us now rise as tornado and wipe out all apathy.

In the old days tribal chiefs used to fool people,
With talks of tribal honor and heritage.
Today's chiefs in suits manipulate modern tribals,
With talks of national security and lineage.
When our ancestors behaved as tribals,
It is acceptable for they didn't know better.
But when we identify as civilized yet act tribal,
It is but a degrading stain upon our honor.
Though all politicians are not savages,
Paradigm of modern politics thrives on division.
So make not the dreadful mistake to think,
That politicians are gonna bring peace and elevation.
It is a world of citizens, citizens are its lifeblood.
You and I are its caretakers, not some elected vanguard.

I came to life at Dakshineswar,
At Kapadokya I got my sight.
I found my might at Shaolin,
At Liberty Island I came to light.
In Pernik I bathed in love,
By the Volga I tasted sapience.
Lika taught me the role of innovation,
Sudbury gave me the sail of science.
Streets of Calcutta showed me suffering,
Streets of Chicago reminded, I'm the answer.
It's not the place but people who hold magic,
Revolution rose when all of them came together.
You won't know me as the father of a nation.
You'll know me as the maker of amalgamation.

Let me hold your hand,
Let me be your home.
Here, take my heart,
Heart to heart life is honed.
There is no I, only Us,
There is no Us, only I.
Sounds confusing, right!
Because Love is across all Us and I.
In love all of me is you,
In love all of you is me.
In love it’s all messed up,
The sweetest mess we could ever be.
So come, let’s be messed up together.
Perhaps then things might get a little clear.

Give me a spark of your nerves,
I’ll turn it into thunder strike.
Give me a tremor of your lips,
I’ll turn it into landslide.
Give me a teardrop of your eyes,
I’ll turn it into tsunami.
Give me the sweat of your labor,
I’ll turn it into hydroelectricity.
Give me a beat of your heart,
I’ll turn it into an earthquake.
Give me a touch of your fingers,
I’ll turn it into society’s duct tape.
Ingredients of reform are born of your veins.
Renounce your apathy and reform will rain.

There is not one but two imaginations,
One causes stagnation, another expansion.
It’s okay to have a little bit of stagnation,
But stagnation as life causes degeneration.
A stagnant mind raises cognitive defenses,
To guard the stagnation against radical ideas.
An expansive mind brings down their defenses,
To expand perception by embracing new ideas.
Stagnant minds revolting against new ideas,
Are like impressionable kids throwing tantrum.
It’s not their fault that they despise expansion,
Ascension takes a huge toll on minds in stagnation.
So when stagnant souls laugh at your expansion,
It is sign that you’re moving in the right direction.

Everybody loves Rumi,
I learnt his tongue,
So I could pick up where he left off.
Better than basking in borrowed light,
Is to be an original light to the world.

Everybody yells, viva la libertad,
I learnt el idioma, so I could
humanize the paradigm of revolution.
Everybody loves Indus valley diversity,
Annitiki munde anni shaashtralu nerchkunnanu,
So I’m never out of spice for my humanitarianism.

Everybody loves boasting about their culture,
I spent years making all the cultures my own.
Thus my strength was amplified a thousand folds,
My sight expanded beyond all norms of vision known.

Polyglots have more fun – there is no question.
When science, poetry and polyglottery come together,
That’s the beginning of a paradigm bending revolution.

History is not a record of truth, history is a record of triumph. The triumphant writes history as it fits their narrative – or to be more accurate, history is written by the conquerors for maintaining the supremacy of the conquerors, while the conquered lose everything.

Let me give you an example. In a commendable endeavor of goodwill and reparations a descendant of the British conquerors, President Lyndon Johnson started Hispanic Heritage Week, which was later expanded into a month by another white descendant, President Ronald Reagan – fast forward to present time – during the Hispanic Heritage Month the entire North America tries to celebrate Native American history. But there is a glitch – Spanish is not even a Native American language.

Native Americans did not even speak Spanish, until the brutes of Spain overran Puerto Rico like pest bearing disease and destruction, after a pathetic criminal called Columbus stumbled upon “La Isabela” in the 1500s.

Many of the natives struggled till death to save their home – many were killed by the foreign diseases to which they had no immunity. Those who lived, every last trace of their identity was wiped out, by the all-powerful and glorious spanish colonizers – their language, their traditions, their heritage, everything – just like the Portuguese did in Brazil.

The Spaniards would’ve done the same to Philippines on the other side of the globe, had they had the convenience to stay longer. Heck, even the name Philippines is not the original name – the original name of the islands was (probably) Maniolas, as referred to by Ptolemy. But when the Spaniard retards of the time set foot there, they named it after, then crown prince, later Philip II of Spain.

Just reminiscing those abominable atrocities makes my blood boil, and yet somehow, the brutal “glory” of the conquerors lives on as such even in this day and age, as glory that is.

That’s why José Martí is so important, that’s why Kwanzaa is so important, that’s why Darna is so important – in the making of a world that has a place for every culture, not just the culture of the conquerors.

No other “civilized” people have done more damage to the world than the Europeans, and yet, on the pages of history books their glory of conquest is still packaged as glory, not as atrocity. Why is that? I don’t know the answer – do you?

Trillions of dollars, pounds and euros in aid won’t suffice to undo the damage – but what just might heal those wounds from the past, is if the offspring of the oppressors and the offspring of the oppressed, both hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, unravel the history as it happened, not as it was presented – what just might heal the scars of yesterday, is if together we come forward to learn about each other’s past, so that for the first time in history, we can actually write “human history”, not the “conquerors’ history” – so that for the first time ever, we write history not as conquerors and conquered, not as oppressors and oppressed, but as one species – as one humankind.

You are sanity, you are sentience,
You are the lifeforce of destiny.
You are conscience, you are concord,
You are the end of animosity.

Give up your chase of goldmine,
Labor in the caverns of soulmine.
You shall be rich where it really counts,
Beyond the dreams of animalkind.

If you must love, love without any agenda,
If they love you back, your heart grows softer,
If they break you, your heart grows stronger,
Either way, in act of love there is no failure.

Our mutual vulnerability is our greatest strength,
Across all insecurity let us be vulnerable together.
In hopelessness we are each other's compass,
In vulnerability we are each other's vigor.

United we are alive,
Divided we are dead.
Integrated we're lovers,
Divided we are duffers.

Intellect is not the answer,
Belief is not the answer.
These only amplify what we really are,
Good becomes great, jerk becomes jerker.

Be love and be light -
watch the fall of worldly fright.
Be free and be responsible -
watch the society take its flight.