Saket Suryesh's Blog, page 26
October 15, 2013
Old Friends
We grow up with our own ideas of the world and life. From a weak existence, which is sure of its own ideas, we grow into an existence of power when those ideas take wings. We trust in those ideas, talk about them and argue for them. We love them truly and dream about surrendering our selfish well being to propel those ideas. As the Sun would set in the backdrop of tea stalls, we would speak with the conviction of a sage who has found his truth.
Life hits back. It throws at us a rule book framed out of the lowest common denominator, the law of average. Every word is countered by the already tamed society with a rare vengeance. We conform to the social mold. Each act of conformance is an act of violence against the sacred spirit which we are borne with, a stab on the Will to live. With each small surrender, a word dies, one after another and the next rain flushes away the dead, through the dark night, unseen to anyone. The man retreat in a defeated silence, as dark wraps around the soul which once carried the splendor of a thousand Suns. Then comes a day, when the voice fails him and the words fly away like fireflies into the night. What remains in place of a meaningful voice is a stutter, which is as meaningless as the man himself.
Then one day, the man meets an old friend. A friend that he meets after fifteen years. What is strange is the friend that he meets after fifteen years, was only an hint of a friend back then, a familiar friendly face, an acknowledgement of your existence. The years stand between them when suddenly a pleasant breeze blows them away. They lament the lost years and in a common past which has slipped through the fingers, they become friends. The man, who has tied himself in knots explaining to himself his betrayal to self, untangles those knots and breathes. He opens a dark box in a gray corner of his heart and finds colorful words there, which he hid before they became fireflies and flew into the night. Those words smile at him and a strange silence speaks to him with a rare eloquence. That is the beauty of meeting an old friend, that is a friend I met in Bangalore yesterday. That friend looked at me with the eyes which had once seen the man that I once was. I loved that man and I love those eyes which once knew that man. We must keep meeting our old friends, they keep on reminding of the man we once were. Only when we remember him, will we have to possibility of re-creating him. Nature intended us to be that man. We all struggle to keep our relevance as we grow older, being surrounded by old friends, keeps this struggle bearable to those around us. Make new friends, keep older ones.
October 11, 2013
Book Review- A Happy World of Poems- "A Poet's Journey: Sunlight and Shadows" by Marta Moran Bishop
“ Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of dictionary ” Said Khalil Gibran. It is true not only about writing poetry but also about reading poetry. Ms. Marta Moran Bishop’s – A Poet’s Journey: Sunlight and Shadows is amply blessed with all the three ingredients. I got this book some time back, and it stayed unread for quite some time. The times were cruel as I struggled to write in between whatever time I could get from my day job and mostly failed. The sad grayness hung over my days and a profound sense of despair wrapped around me. All failures bring with them inherent lonelinesreal and imagined. So did mine. Then one day on the drive back to Delhi from a work related travel, I opened this book. The mild Sun of a dying winter day suddenly smiled with such love that could only be attributed to the magical poetry of Marta.
This is a thin 68-page collection of Marta’s Poetry. I had
earlier read Ayn Rand-ish I n Between Times , a work of fiction and the poetic
leaning in prose could well mark the promise her poetry held. When you have a
lot of expectation, sometimes you are worried with disappointment. It is very
rare that a writer’s second work measures up to the first she has written. With a sense of trepidation, I had picked this book,
still in awe of the brilliance of her earlier work. This was one work which lifted
my admiration to a new height.
The book of thirty six poems stands
proof to the immense talent of exceptionally talented and prolific writer, not
that she needs any. Knowing Marta over the time, I know that these poems are
not a play of words. These are the poems through which a sensitive soul
breathes, a soft heart bleeds and a benevolent smile shines.
The book began with the poem “Abused”,
and one cannot miss the powerful strength of words which are very certain about
what they intend to communicate. The words thump with rare confidence of
feelings as she writes the feelings of a victim, left often alone in “Way too
many to count/ The times you left me there/ Spirit broken in two/ shattered,
beaten, bloodied.” You feel the nib of the pen held tight with a fury which
rises through such immense a pain, like a twister travelling through the air with
a rare force- you almost hear the angry pen, piercing through the paper with a
desperate vengeance.
The second poem “Shackled” speaks
of longing the openness of youth, which was ready to take risks and open us to
new friendships and relationship. Everyone who has aged enough to sorely
acknowledge the awkwardness which seeps through not only our new but old
relationships, will find a mirror in her words which longs to be “While in that
crowded room/ Unafraid of outcome/ feeling wanted again.”
Marta is an ever-optimist, which is
a good thing. That is something which keeps her aloft in spite of a rare
softness of emotions that she is blessed with. It helps her soar above the
melancholy and leave "All hurts and troubles behind (me)/ Promise of a new life
ahead/ If I let go of the painful days/And take only love with me” as she
writes in her poem “Melancholy.” When you read these lines, one suddenly again
believes in love. Her abundant faith in human life and love seems to stretch
out hand to lift you up when she says, “Like a phoenix I rise/ Out of ashes and
dust/ Life returns to these limbs” and a heart “that is made whole”. She is an
incorrigible believer with an unwavering faith in the beauty and goodness of
life which could infect the most cynical mind. She truly rises above the
squalor of a heartless world in which we live, she makes happiness a possibility in otherwise bland and desperate
world. She confesses so when she writes that “I’m a woman who’ll give/Till my
heart has hardened/ My spirit is broken” though we know this spirit can never
be broken. She is a woman who, she says, “needs to be loved, heard, and seen.”
Marta is a woman who celebrates individuality and non-conformance in a way which
takes more than a man to celebrate thus. “Lost love” is only sad poem in the
collection, it seems. Even “A Month of Storms” ends with optimistic “When
clouds cover the bright sky/ With luck March will be different.
This is a bright book, which one
can and must read in the days when the weather is gray and life shrinks into a
hopeless, sad corner. In times when faith is shaken, trust is broken and love
has flown away, tears had just dried, but heart continues to weep, read this
book and suddenly a cloud will fly away from beneath which a Sun, benign, kind
and happy will smile through. This is a
book which will bring hope back and revive one’s faith in human goodness.
The language is neat, stylish but
never for once intimidating. It is an easy and splendid book. It will make you
happy when you are sad and will make you dance with rapture, if you are mildly
smiling- A book for all kind of days. Said Samuel Johnson," Poetry is the art of
uniting pleasure with truth ” : Marta’s poetry makes one realize, the pleasure
and the truth singing in unison.
This book deserves not only five
stars, but five Suns.
Rating: 5/5
To Buy- A Poet's Journey: Sunlight and Shadows
An Interview with Marta Interview with Marta
Review of In Between Times In Between Times- Book Review
Marta's Amazon Page: Marta's Page
Marta is available on www.martamoranbishop.com
October 5, 2013
The Story of ShailPutri- First Day of the Goddess
Himalaya looked at her daughter. She was almost seventeen, right around the age to be married. The pink face, so endearing looked up. Her eyes rose from the Basil plant that she was watering. Himalaya, the affectionate father, could not stop comparing her with the little figure which had looked at her the first time he had taken her in the arms. The emotions which flooded his heart at that moment had not aged a day since then.
"A man's vagrant existence is resolved only through fatherhood. Everything else is merely a search for that ever-elusive happiness which is said to be the purpose of a man's existence. Fatherhood, when it touches a man of lowest existence, brings a sense of nobility into him. It offers him a near-god divinity by giving him an opportunity to not only protect, but nourish another human existence." Himalaya thought affectionately and sighed.
He felt a sudden sense of protectiveness towards Shailputri (The daughter of the mountains), who smiled at her father. There is an invisible chord which connects the coldest of a father's heart, hidden beneath the layers of practical hardness, so coherent to the idea being a man. The sun beamed merrily with moderate intensity at the beautiful girl. She was a tall girl, with a majestic glimmer of intellect reflecting through her dark, big eyes. Himalaya was always amused by those eyes which spoke to him even when he held her as a two month old. She would fasten them to his eyes and he would look into them as if he were a man whose salvation lay there. She smiled and the smile touched the corner of those eyes. Her father smiled back.
She walked to her father, who wrapped his strong, able arms around her shoulders.
They walked across the hill in silence as their hearts spoke. She knew her father would every morning walk the serpentine road to the cliff and would watch the Sun rising from there, lost in his thoughts. She didn't know how God looked, but as she would watch his thoughtful, tall figure walk, with his hands locked behind and an immense nobility wrapped around his being- She would believe that Gods must be much like her father. She grew up watching him going up. Today, they walked to the cliff together. It meant many things to her. It meant her own graduation into wisdom acknowledged by her father, it meant a definite camaraderie with the first Hero of her life.
They stood at the cliff and looked at the valley beneath. The greens mingled with the blue on the edges and then lost its character in ambush between the orange of the benign sun, blue of the sky, the dark remnant of the passing night and the multiple shades of green. There were houses there which stood on the bank of blue river which looked like lines of fate from there. She knew there were men there, but father always told her that they were beneath her. She should not waste her intellect to even spare a thought for them. She wanted to believe him, but.
She had seen few months back a man walking very fast towards the higher mountains. He had purpose in his walk. He did not look around to watch the immense beauty of the mountain. He was a very handsome man with a dark texture of skin which told her that he was from the planes. He walked alone through green bushes and wore lion-skin as his cloth. It barely covered him, but he, unlike the plains-folk she had seen and even unlike, their own mountain people, was untouched by the cold which blanketed the mountains. He seemed as if he was carrying some intense, angry fire in his being which pushed the cold away. He held a Trident in his arm and it seemed less like a weapon, rather like an extension of that broad and immense arms, which seemed to hold enough strength in them to even stop the flow of time, should it so desire. He looked at her once with those eyes which seemed well-settled beneath those upturned brows. Was it scorn, or grimace or a smile which those eyes held for her, she couldn't make out? She was lost in discovering if she meant anything for those eyes. His vision floated over her as if she didn't exist and was merely a part of the forest in which she stood. She felt she belonged to him and his glance was an act of establishing ownership. She felt that all she could do was to surrender her being to the all-encompassing feeling. She had asked her mate for the name of that man and she told her that he was Shiva. He was the one great man from the plains, who annoyed by the pettiness of Gods, fighting among themselves had retreated to the mountains. The friends of her mate, who were in touch with plain-people told her this much. She also told her that Shiva had lost her eternal companion, Sati, to the stupid societal regulations which not only brought great calamity to humankind, left this noble soul, alone. They also told her that this man, thought of unimaginable greatness, was known to live with a rage, which was death incarnate. Most men kept off him. Shailputri felt her heart pulling her towards that wanderer who did not look at her. She felt at that moment as if Sati breathed inside her.
As she stood there with her father, looking at the world beneath them spreading out in its glory, she muttered,"Shiva" slowly as if throwing it out with a sense of experimentation, as if trying to find out the taste of that name in her mouth. The word filled her mouth and her being with something which transformed her from being a mere girl. Her father, shocked at the sound of the word, suddenly pulled her away from himself and looked at her face.
He almost hissed," What did you just say?"
"Shiva" she basked in the divine sound of that name.
"From where did you find this name."
"I saw him."
She paused. Her father held hard to his shattering hope.
"I love him, father. I will marry him."
Himalaya felt so weak suddenly. His arrogant pride seemed to hold him so tight around his neck that he almost couldn't speak. He struggled hard to gain his voice and with all the hardness of voice which he could summon," He isn't for you to have. He is not one of us."
The arrogance melted into a humiliating appeal by the time the sentence ended.
"You are mistaken father. I am a woman and I can hear my heart. A woman's heart can not lie to her. I am not seeking something which isn't mine. He is mine and he has been one with me at one point of time."
"He is a man lost in his purgatory, my daughter. He lost his wife in old times and he lives with a grief which has turned him almost inhuman."
"Father, there is no such grief which love can not surmount. I have that love for him, which transcends time. I am the companion, whose loss he laments. Drowning in his sorrow, his vision is clouded. He is not able to recognize me. His troubled soul has no resolution but me and sadly, he, the omniscient, doesn't know that. It is not right for any man to pass through life as if he were passing through death. A man of capability is entitled to the greatest of love."
"I do not know what you are talking about, my child. If you had chosen any man of plains, a mere mortal, I would have tried to stop you. You have chosen the highest divinity for yourself. I know, the journey to reach to him would be difficult, and I fear, even impossible. I can not let you gamble your promising life for a love which today even doesn't exist."
"Father, I have uttered his name with all the purity of my soul. I have to go to his abode. I will serve him, take care of him. There will come a day when he will recognize me. I will burn my soul in his love and be one day worthy of him. In love, we conquer by first surrendering the self. Through ashes this greatest of all human blessings rises."
Himalaya's heart broke and his pain rose from his throat to his eyes from where it found its way as tears. His daughter, his kid, has found love and where has she found it was so unattainable. He held her in his embrace and wrapped his long arms around her as if to protect and insulate her for this insanity. He knew he had to try but he also knew he would fail. His daughter would travel to the high mountains where her love was cleansing his soul in a very private grief. She would walk to the mountains where winds colder than the cold past of her beloved bellowed through the unfeeling ice. As he sat in silence, she would cook for him, take care of him. His cold heart would one day warm up to hers, she knew that.
She reached there, bidding farewell to her father. Shiva, meditating, next to a frozen lake, opened his eyes and looked at her with a blatant annoyance. Those blue eyes seemed at that moment like blue flames. She sat near him, not very close, a little away. She cooked for him. The winds raged as if in defiance of the love which she brought. Her faith, her love, stood firm as she held her arms against the winds and set fire to cook. She cooked and placed it in front of Shiva, who opened his eyes and had his food in silence. Finishing his food, he would go back into his reverie and ignore her existence.
The sun would rise at her, with distinct sadness day after day and the night would sleep into a hopeless dream every evening. She coughed and shivered through the hailstorms but keep cooking. She thought of the loneliness that she had left for Shiva by leaving him alone as Sati in earlier birth. She knew this was her penance. She kept thinking of what if she had not argued to visit her parents. She kept thinking of the nobility of this man who has become a cold, unfeeling monument of failed love, who respecting her rights as a woman, allowed her to go. She thought and thought until she was numb with the guilt and pain. It was sixteen weeks since she was there and the night had befallen that Monday with unforeseen cruelty on already crushed earth. The wind was blowing with unprecedented monstrosity and the tumult in her heart and thoughts grew with the night. She fell on the ice and shivered with pain. She clenched her fists and tightly held to her chattering teeth so as to not call her beloved's name in this moment of weakness. She could barely look at the lithe, strong body spread across the platform covered with ice and held against the rough rock at the back. She sighed at the sight of the divine dignity of pain of a failed love. As the night slipped into weakening darkness, she lost her control as incoherent thoughts would wreak havoc. She longed to be held in those strong arms and break down.
Shiva looked at the pathetic woman who lied limply there. She was almost a skeleton, though her beauty had a sense of timelessness about it which survived all the hardships of the days and depressing darkness of all the nights. She was dying and a wail rose abruptly from Shiva's heart which danced in the lonely mountain to the beat of his Damroo moving in the winds which seemed to have lost its mind. He had lost her once, he could not lose her again. She was not a woman there, it was her love which somehow had survived centuries. He thought of the fire of worship in which Sati had ended her life and in his closed eyes he could still see that loving face of their common future being charred to ashes. He opened his eyes and looked at the numb face which seemed so similar to the one he had lost to the fire.
He walked to Shailputri and lifted her in his arms. A sudden music filled the mountains and a new life breathed in the limp body. Shailputri opened her eyes and a weak smile, drowned in the longing of centuries rose from her face. It caressed the rugged, tired cheeks of warrior-god who stared at her. The night ashamed at its darkness in that moment of glory of a great love, gave way to the orange sun of the morning, in whose light the icy mountain cliffs reflected the rare beauty of love. A tall man on the lower mountains, standing alone at the cliff, saw the reflections in the mountain above and breathed in a satisfaction which he had long forgotten. He closed his eyes and thought of the little girl, who once smiled at him with a toothless grin.
The Story of ShailPutri- First Day of the Godess
Himalaya looked at her daughter. She was almost seventeen, right around the age to be married. The pink face, so endearing looked up. Her eyes rose from the Basil plant that she was watering. Himalaya, the affectionate father, could not stop comparing her with the little figure which had looked at her the first time he had taken her in the arms. The emotions which flooded his heart at that moment had not aged a day since then.
"A man's vagrant existence is resolved only through fatherhood. Everything else is merely a search for that ever-elusive happiness which is said to be the purpose of a man's existence. Fatherhood, when it touches a man of lowest existence, brings a sense of nobility into him. It offers him a near-god divinity by giving him an opportunity to not only protect, but nourish another human existence." Himalaya thought affectionately and sighed.
He felt a sudden sense of protectiveness towards Shailputri (The daughter of the mountains), who smiled at her father. There is an invisible chord which connects the coldest of a father's heart, hidden beneath the layers of practical hardness, so coherent to the idea being a man. The sun beamed merrily with moderate intensity at the beautiful girl. She was a tall girl, with a majestic glimmer of intellect reflecting through her dark, big eyes. Himalaya was always amused by those eyes which spoke to him even when he held her as a two month old. She would fasten them to his eyes and he would look into them as if he were a man whose salvation lay there. She smiled and the smile touched the corner of those eyes. Her father smiled back.
She walked to her father, who wrapped his strong, able arms around her shoulders.
They walked across the hill in silence as their hearts spoke. She knew her father would every morning walk the serpentine road to the cliff and would watch the Sun rising from there, lost in his thoughts. She didn't know how God looked, but as she would watch his thoughtful, tall figure walk, with his hands locked behind and an immense nobility wrapped around his being- She would believe that Gods must be much like her father. She grew up watching him going up. Today, they walked to the cliff together. It meant many things to her. It meant her own graduation into wisdom acknowledged by her father, it meant a definite camaraderie with the first Hero of her life.
They stood at the cliff and looked at the valley beneath. The greens mingled with the blue on the edges and then lost its character in ambush between the orange of the benign sun, blue of the sky, the dark remnant of the passing night and the multiple shades of green. There were houses there which stood on the bank of blue river which looked like lines of fate from there. She knew there were men there, but father always told her that they were beneath her. She should not waste her intellect to even spare a thought for them. She wanted to believe him, but.
She had seen few months back a man walking very fast towards the higher mountains. He had purpose in his walk. He did not look around to watch the immense beauty of the mountain. He was a very handsome man with a dark texture of skin which told her that he was from the planes. He walked alone through green bushes and wore lion-skin as his cloth. It barely covered him, but he, unlike the plains-folk she had seen and even unlike, their own mountain people, was untouched by the cold which blanketed the mountains. He seemed as if he was carrying some intense, angry fire in his being which pushed the cold away. He held a Trident in his arm and it seemed less like a weapon, rather like an extension of that broad and immense arms, which seemed to hold enough strength in them to even stop the flow of time, should it so desire. He looked at her once with those eyes which seemed well-settled beneath those upturned brows. Was it scorn, or grimace or a smile which those eyes held for her, she couldn't make out? She was lost in discovering if she meant anything for those eyes. His vision floated over her as if she didn't exist and was merely a part of the forest in which she stood. She felt she belonged to him and his glance was an act of establishing ownership. She felt that all she could do was to surrender her being to the all-encompassing feeling. She had asked her mate for the name of that man and she told her that he was Shiva. He was the one great man from the plains, who annoyed by the pettiness of Gods, fighting among themselves had retreated to the mountains. The friends of her mate, who were in touch with plain-people told her this much. She also told her that Shiva had lost her eternal companion, Sati, to the stupid societal regulations which not only brought great calamity to humankind, left this noble soul, alone. They also told her that this man, thought of unimaginable greatness, was known to live with a rage, which was death incarnate. Most men kept off him. Shailputri felt her heart pulling her towards that wanderer who did not look at her. She felt at that moment as if Sati breathed inside her.
As she stood there with her father, looking at the world beneath them spreading out in its glory, she muttered,"Shiva" slowly as if throwing it out with a sense of experimentation, as if trying to find out the taste of that name in her mouth. The word filled her mouth and her being with something which transformed her from being a mere girl. Her father, shocked at the sound of the word, suddenly pulled her away from himself and looked at her face.
He almost hissed," What did you just say?"
"Shiva" she basked in the divine sound of that name.
"From where did you find this name."
"I saw him."
She paused. Her father held hard to his shattering hope.
"I love him, father. I will marry him."
Himalaya felt so weak suddenly. His arrogant pride seemed to hold him so tight around his neck that he almost couldn't speak. He struggled hard to gain his voice and with all the hardness of voice which he could summon," He isn't for you to have. He is not one of us."
The arrogance melted into a humiliating appeal by the time the sentence ended.
"You are mistaken father. I am a woman and I can hear my heart. A woman's heart can not lie to her. I am not seeking something which isn't mine. He is mine and he has been one with me at one point of time."
"He is a man lost in his purgatory, my daughter. He lost his wife in old times and he lives with a grief which has turned him almost inhuman."
"Father, there is no such grief which love can not surmount. I have that love for him, which transcends time. I am the companion, whose loss he laments. Drowning in his sorrow, his vision is clouded. He is not able to recognize me. His troubled soul has no resolution but me and sadly, he, the omniscient, doesn't know that. It is not right for any man to pass through life as if he were passing through death. A man of capability is entitled to the greatest of love."
"I do not know what you are talking about, my child. If you had chosen any man of plains, a mere mortal, I would have tried to stop you. You have chosen the highest divinity for yourself. I know, the journey to reach to him would be difficult, and I fear, even impossible. I can not let you gamble your promising life for a love which today even doesn't exist."
"Father, I have uttered his name with all the purity of my soul. I have to go to his abode. I will serve him, take care of him. There will come a day when he will recognize me. I will burn my soul in his love and be one day worthy of him. In love, we conquer by first surrendering the self. Through ashes this greatest of all human blessings rises."
Himalaya's heart broke and his pain rose from his throat to his eyes from where it found its way as tears. His daughter, his kid, has found love and where has she found it was so unattainable. He held her in his embrace and wrapped his long arms around her as if to protect and insulate her for this insanity. He knew he had to try but he also knew he would fail. His daughter would travel to the high mountains where her love was cleansing his soul in a very private grief. She would walk to the mountains where winds colder than the cold past of her beloved bellowed through the unfeeling ice. As he sat in silence, she would cook for him, take care of him. His cold heart would one day warm up to hers, she knew that.
She reached there, bidding farewell to her father. Shiva, meditating, next to a frozen lake, opened his eyes and looked at her with a blatant annoyance. Those blue eyes seemed at that moment like blue flames. She sat near him, not very close, a little away. She cooked for him. The winds raged as if in defiance of the love which she brought. Her faith, her love, stood firm as she held her arms against the winds and set fire to cook. She cooked and placed it in front of Shiva, who opened his eyes and had his food in silence. Finishing his food, he would go back into his reverie and ignore her existence.
The sun would rise at her, with distinct sadness day after day and the night would sleep into a hopeless dream every evening. She coughed and shivered through the hailstorms but keep cooking. She thought of the loneliness that she had left for Shiva by leaving him alone as Sati in earlier birth. She knew this was her penance. She kept thinking of what if she had not argued to visit her parents. She kept thinking of the nobility of this man who has become a cold, unfeeling monument of failed love, who respecting her rights as a woman, allowed her to go. She thought and thought until she was numb with the guilt and pain. It was sixteen weeks since she was there and the night had befallen that Monday with unforeseen cruelty on already crushed earth. The wind was blowing with unprecedented monstrosity and the tumult in her heart and thoughts grew with the night. She fell on the ice and shivered with pain. She clenched her fists and tightly held to her chattering teeth so as to not call her beloved's name in this moment of weakness. She could barely look at the lithe, strong body spread across the platform covered with ice and held against the rough rock at the back. She sighed at the sight of the divine dignity of pain of a failed love. As the night slipped into weakening darkness, she lost her control as incoherent thoughts would wreak havoc. She longed to be held in those strong arms and break down.
Shiva looked at the pathetic woman who lied limply there. She was almost a skeleton, though her beauty had a sense of timelessness about it which survived all the hardships of the days and depressing darkness of all the nights. She was dying and a wail rose abruptly from Shiva's heart which danced in the lonely mountain to the beat of his Damroo moving in the winds which seemed to have lost its mind. He had lost her once, he could not lose her again. She was not a woman there, it was her love which somehow had survived centuries. He thought of the fire of worship in which Sati had ended her life and in his closed eyes he could still see that loving face of their common future being charred to ashes. He opened his eyes and looked at the numb face which seemed so similar to the one he had lost to the fire.
He walked to Shailputri and lifted her in his arms. A sudden music filled the mountains and a new life breathed in the limp body. Shailputri opened her eyes and a weak smile, drowned in the longing of centuries rose from her face. It caressed the rugged, tired cheeks of warrior-god who stared at her. The night ashamed at its darkness in that moment of glory of a great love, gave way to the orange sun of the morning, in whose light the icy mountain cliffs reflected the rare beauty of love. A tall man on the lower mountains, standing alone at the cliff, saw the reflections in the mountain above and breathed in a satisfaction which he had long forgotten. He closed his eyes and thought of the little girl, who once smiled at him with a toothless grin.
September 27, 2013
Shoorpanakha Story and a School Drama
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Saturday steps in apologetically and finds me in a sore and spiteful mood. I am full of spite very often, so much so that it permanently sits on my face. Sometimes it struggles for space with occasional stray lines of happiness, and on extremely rare occasions hide inside, waiting for the next opportune moment to sneak back again. While I am spiteful to many things, a lot of spite is directed towards myself. I have been tought that to arrive at the right behaviour, one must put oneself in other person's shoes. It is not a pleasant experience, mostly for then I observe that the other person has acted totally contrary to the way propriety would have demanded him to.
Anyways, of several things which particularly disfigure this spectacularly sun-less day like the persistent pain in the left knee, getting pushed over at work and re-discovering the fallacy in expecting loyalty in profession, one sore point witch stands out in its grand ugliness is the feeling I have towards a small mythological skit being performed at my six year old daughter's school on Ramayana. Most people would know the story of two divine sons of illustrious king who are sent out on exile to facilitate the ascendancy of third son to the throne of Ayodhya. During the fourteen year exile, they come across the Soopernakha, the demon-sister of Ravana, who confesses her love to Ram, the elder one, declines on the ground of being already married and just for the fun of it, directs her to his younger brother, knowing fully well that latter was also married. An argument ensues which ends with her nose chopped off.
I would always take a light-hearted view of the matter, except now. My six year old tells me of a skit on this being played in her school for Grandparents' day. She came back quite enthused as six year old usually are and handed me over her school diary. The diary had notes by her teacher seeking help in training her for the role. Couple of days back, on the walk after dinner, she had told me that she will be one of the servant girls throwing flowers over Sita as she was marrying Ram. She was quite happy with it, because she gets to stand in the group, in stead of being isolated like the divine bride who will have to go stand with the boys, and that she gets to play with flowers. I so much wanted her to play Sita but I played along. So I had no clue what preparation was necessary for that role, when I opened the diary and saw the dialogues.
She is now playing Soopernakha. It brought multitude of thoughts. Learning that I for the first time identified with the pain and sorrow of the unrequited love. I could live with that but for someone who is paragon of virtue to not understand the pain and haunting melancholy of a love unrequited is distressing. How could someone make fun of it? Love doesn't seek for success, it isn't a business venture to end in success. Love exists to cleanse your soul and make you a better person if you were to give yourself up to it, even in its failure. An emotion so true and grand can not be mocked at. Further here was a woman exercising her choice, her right to chose. She might have chosen which was not for hers to ever get, but why should she be mocked at and attacked and disfigured. I am not a grander person because of this accidental happening in my daughter's school. I still live in the narrow alleys of my thoughts. I am annoyed at never been able to establish a relation with the teachers of my daughter to initiate a possibility of her landing better roles on stage than Pinky pig of Old McDonald's farm in play school and Sooparnakha here (the fact that she was the cutest there and will be cutest here, remains undisputed). We live in a world where stings get pulled, and we rise through the maze of those strings being pulled. We do sometime do not get anyone to pull them on our behalf and still rise on the strength of sheer hard work and determination, but it is a tough road. But from my own experience that it is much more enriching. I think, I should resign to a hard road to excellence for my kid or only pray and hope to protect her soft heart when she learns that being a servant girl isn't fun. Hope I will be able to teach her that your self-pride should rise from inside you and remain unmoved in the face of your external circumstances. If you have to be a servant girl, be a proud and principled servant girl, which would be anyway better than a silly and self-serving princess. Be ready to love, Ready to lose your face for something as divine as love, which Soopernakha teaches you. A love that is yours will find you someday. For you, for any woman, there is not better self-portrait than the one that her father carries in his eyes and that is the picture she ought to believe in even in the worst phase of her life. Believe in that picture. In the meantime, I will need to delve into myself and fight the spite which is by now a part of my life. I refuse to buy in the argument of not expecting anything from people. That is evasive argument, I will continue expecting nobility from the world around me and if it is unable to offer that, it's not my failure. Scared of hurt, tired of spite, I will not compromise on my expectations from the life.
Saturday steps in apologetically and finds me in a sore and spiteful mood. I am full of spite very often, so much so that it permanently sits on my face. Sometimes it struggles for space with occasional stray lines of happiness, and on extremely rare occasions hide inside, waiting for the next opportune moment to sneak back again. While I am spiteful to many things, a lot of spite is directed towards myself. I have been tought that to arrive at the right behaviour, one must put oneself in other person's shoes. It is not a pleasant experience, mostly for then I observe that the other person has acted totally contrary to the way propriety would have demanded him to.Anyways, of several things which particularly disfigure this spectacularly sun-less day like the persistent pain in the left knee, getting pushed over at work and re-discovering the fallacy in expecting loyalty in profession, one sore point witch stands out in its grand ugliness is the feeling I have towards a small mythological skit being performed at my six year old daughter's school on Ramayana. Most people would know the story of two divine sons of illustrious king who are sent out on exile to facilitate the ascendancy of third son to the throne of Ayodhya. During the fourteen year exile, they come across the Soopernakha, the demon-sister of Ravana, who confesses her love to Ram, the elder one, declines on the ground of being already married and just for the fun of it, directs her to his younger brother, knowing fully well that latter was also married. An argument ensues which ends with her nose chopped off.
I would always take a light-hearted view of the matter, except now. My six year old tells me of a skit on this being played in her school for Grandparents' day. She came back quite enthused as six year old usually are and handed me over her school diary. The diary had notes by her teacher seeking help in training her for the role. Couple of days back, on the walk after dinner, she had told me that she will be one of the servant girls throwing flowers over Sita as she was marrying Ram. She was quite happy with it, because she gets to stand in the group, in stead of being isolated like the divine bride who will have to go stand with the boys, and that she gets to play with flowers. I so much wanted her to play Sita but I played along. So I had no clue what preparation was necessary for that role, when I opened the diary and saw the dialogues.
She is now playing Soopernakha. It brought multitude of thoughts. Learning that I for the first time identified with the pain and sorrow of the unrequited love. I could live with that but for someone who is paragon of virtue to not understand the pain and haunting melancholy of a love unrequited is distressing. How could someone make fun of it? Love doesn't seek for success, it isn't a business venture to end in success. Love exists to cleanse your soul and make you a better person if you were to give yourself up to it, even in its failure. An emotion so true and grand can not be mocked at. Further here was a woman exercising her choice, her right to chose. She might have chosen which was not for hers to ever get, but why should she be mocked at and attacked and disfigured. I am not a grander person because of this accidental happening in my daughter's school. I still live in the narrow alleys of my thoughts. I am annoyed at never been able to establish a relation with the teachers of my daughter to initiate a possibility of her landing better roles on stage than Pinky pig of Old McDonald's farm in play school and Sooparnakha here (the fact that she was the cutest there and will be cutest here, remains undisputed). We live in a world where stings get pulled, and we rise through the maze of those strings being pulled. We do sometime do not get anyone to pull them on our behalf and still rise on the strength of sheer hard work and determination, but it is a tough road. But from my own experience that it is much more enriching. I think, I should resign to a hard road to excellence for my kid or only pray and hope to protect her soft heart when she learns that being a servant girl isn't fun. Hope I will be able to teach her that your self-pride should rise from inside you and remain unmoved in the face of your external circumstances. If you have to be a servant girl, be a proud and principled servant girl, which would be anyway better than a silly and self-serving princess. Be ready to love, Ready to lose your face for something as divine as love, which Soopernakha teaches you. A love that is yours will find you someday. For you, for any woman, there is not better self-portrait than the one that her father carries in his eyes and that is the picture she ought to believe in even in the worst phase of her life. Believe in that picture. In the meantime, I will need to delve into myself and fight the spite which is by now a part of my life. I refuse to buy in the argument of not expecting anything from people. That is evasive argument, I will continue expecting nobility from the world around me and if it is unable to offer that, it's not my failure. Scared of hurt, tired of spite, I will not compromise on my expectations from the life.
September 23, 2013
The Changing National Polity, an Ex-General and The New Angels of AAP
I have been of late pretty particular about posting one post every week, if I could get enough time and enough emotions pushing me towards it. There are some weeks like this one which had multiple thoughts nudging against each other. There were some truly political thoughts, political events which were quite disturbing and distressing. Communal riots in a part of country and a reaction by the government of the state, lacking any conviction. This is the same government which had sacked an IAS officer merely for following Supreme Court guidelines (the latest input on the same is that the lady in question has been re-instated, ostensibly on rendering apology to the CM) on account of creating communal tension thereby. The space left vacant by the legit government of the day was duly occupied by forces which made the environment conducive for communal disharmony. Debates spread over the media and cacophonous monologues, totally immune of the human loss spread across social media.
The government of the day which does not take nation beyond arithmetic equation saw in awe as the major opposition launched its PM candidate and erstwhile Army Chief who attends a rally with him finds himself at the receiving end of not only political name-calling, but it did not stop at that that. A serious allegation of trying to run a coup against a state government with One Crore Rupees, which not only insults the intelligence of citizen, it also insults the greed of politicians. He was further, through a leaked report blamed for setting up an special intelligence unit, and while the news anchors shouted vociferously calling it General VK Singh's unit, no one bothered to explain either the fact that what was the object of alleged coup and who authorized the setting up of the unit. Apart from the timing of the leakage of the report, further intriguing was the fact that the report was leaked in the same Newspaper which earlier cited routine troop movement as an alleged attempted coup. They had later retracted/ not pursued the story, however the government which is custodian of the army which was thus vilified stood bystander.
The General has not been vilified only by the Government which had obvious discomfort with his joining force with the opposition but also by the young, media-savvy new entrant to the national polity, the anti-corruption crusaders who once shared platform with the general. This is sad and indicative of things to come. I wrote something leaning on the side of the General, and defense forces at large and was immediately pushed back. This was a total surprise that the same dispensation which argued against lack of space for public debate, immediate speaking the language of Ex-President of United States- you are either with us or against us. It is beyond disappointing, it takes away the dream of the citizens. People who stood by AAP, mostly were logical people and they were prone to question everyone, including AAP. To expect people to surrender the right to any debate or question any AAP member, simply on the premise of a promise of removing corruption is disappointing.
India, it seems is going through turmoil and nothing could be treated as sacred. AAP supporters on Social media argued regarding Army (later, it was told that the gentleman in question wasn't official spokesperson of AAP, thus terming him Digvijay Singh of AAP of sorts) that there was no holy cows, ignoring that by the same logic, even AAP isn't a holy cow, irrespective of however lofty an ideal they pursue. There are inherent issues in the political designs of AAP
1. It largely appears to be single agenda party. Nation faces multitude of problems, corruption is one of them. It is basic problem, so the party claims, but then the vicious circle is too circular to offer a straight lined explanation. For instance, one may argue, Education could be even more basic a problem since it would be difficult for the corrupt to fleece the educated. The party either doesn't have a view on the other issues or isn't talking much of them.
2. The secular premise of the party is too idealistic. It requires any person supporting AAP or opposing corruption to surrender his religious belief more so, if you are the follower of a majority faith. I still remember AAP, strongly refuting any support of RSS to its anti-corruption movement, going to the extent of telling RSS to stay off. Just as Shantibhushan with his Kashmir view has a right to crusade against corruption, so does any RSS supporter. Why should a party which is primarily aimed at removing corruption oppose a particular faith? Isn't it a cause common to all citizens of the country? Does it impact their political differentiation vis-a-vis the principle opposition?
Anyway, the debate isn't about AAP and its political prospects. It is more about the way this government has treated the Ex-Army chief. Maybe, it is the way we treat our soldiers. We do not differentiate between the bureaucrats of Min. of Defense and the soldiers on the ground and make noises which seem wise and intellectual, but is bereft of both wisdom and sensitivity.
I wrote this blog on Saturday but held back on account of anticipated backlash. It is hard for people to believe that one might have position about the army and faith in spite of being a mugwump.
The government of the day which does not take nation beyond arithmetic equation saw in awe as the major opposition launched its PM candidate and erstwhile Army Chief who attends a rally with him finds himself at the receiving end of not only political name-calling, but it did not stop at that that. A serious allegation of trying to run a coup against a state government with One Crore Rupees, which not only insults the intelligence of citizen, it also insults the greed of politicians. He was further, through a leaked report blamed for setting up an special intelligence unit, and while the news anchors shouted vociferously calling it General VK Singh's unit, no one bothered to explain either the fact that what was the object of alleged coup and who authorized the setting up of the unit. Apart from the timing of the leakage of the report, further intriguing was the fact that the report was leaked in the same Newspaper which earlier cited routine troop movement as an alleged attempted coup. They had later retracted/ not pursued the story, however the government which is custodian of the army which was thus vilified stood bystander.
The General has not been vilified only by the Government which had obvious discomfort with his joining force with the opposition but also by the young, media-savvy new entrant to the national polity, the anti-corruption crusaders who once shared platform with the general. This is sad and indicative of things to come. I wrote something leaning on the side of the General, and defense forces at large and was immediately pushed back. This was a total surprise that the same dispensation which argued against lack of space for public debate, immediate speaking the language of Ex-President of United States- you are either with us or against us. It is beyond disappointing, it takes away the dream of the citizens. People who stood by AAP, mostly were logical people and they were prone to question everyone, including AAP. To expect people to surrender the right to any debate or question any AAP member, simply on the premise of a promise of removing corruption is disappointing.
India, it seems is going through turmoil and nothing could be treated as sacred. AAP supporters on Social media argued regarding Army (later, it was told that the gentleman in question wasn't official spokesperson of AAP, thus terming him Digvijay Singh of AAP of sorts) that there was no holy cows, ignoring that by the same logic, even AAP isn't a holy cow, irrespective of however lofty an ideal they pursue. There are inherent issues in the political designs of AAP
1. It largely appears to be single agenda party. Nation faces multitude of problems, corruption is one of them. It is basic problem, so the party claims, but then the vicious circle is too circular to offer a straight lined explanation. For instance, one may argue, Education could be even more basic a problem since it would be difficult for the corrupt to fleece the educated. The party either doesn't have a view on the other issues or isn't talking much of them.
2. The secular premise of the party is too idealistic. It requires any person supporting AAP or opposing corruption to surrender his religious belief more so, if you are the follower of a majority faith. I still remember AAP, strongly refuting any support of RSS to its anti-corruption movement, going to the extent of telling RSS to stay off. Just as Shantibhushan with his Kashmir view has a right to crusade against corruption, so does any RSS supporter. Why should a party which is primarily aimed at removing corruption oppose a particular faith? Isn't it a cause common to all citizens of the country? Does it impact their political differentiation vis-a-vis the principle opposition?
Anyway, the debate isn't about AAP and its political prospects. It is more about the way this government has treated the Ex-Army chief. Maybe, it is the way we treat our soldiers. We do not differentiate between the bureaucrats of Min. of Defense and the soldiers on the ground and make noises which seem wise and intellectual, but is bereft of both wisdom and sensitivity.
I wrote this blog on Saturday but held back on account of anticipated backlash. It is hard for people to believe that one might have position about the army and faith in spite of being a mugwump.
September 14, 2013
Blog Interview- Julie Larson of StoryStar.com
While it
is common to find blog interview of writers and bloggers, this one is of
someone who doesn't write but provides a sanctuary for those who write. This is
my second blog interview, after I did one for dear friend and a great writer,
Marta Moran Bishop ( Marta's Interview ). Julie Larson, born in 1960, put together a website called
StoryStar.com which she has been running for last three years. The site has
propagated over the years through word of mouth and gets close to 60000
returning visitor each month. It isn't an impersonal techie venture, but the
site finds true involvement from the lady who has been running it all by her
own. Julie’s venture set up to provide a venue to writers to showcase their
short-stories on the internet for many people to read for free. Julie runs the
website on her own, a one-woman army with the zeal and dedication of a
missionary. She picks the stories, reads and approves them, interacts with the
writer and encourages them to write more and write better. The biggest
satisfaction for a man is to discover a cause to which one can surrender his
(or her, in this case) being. Storystar.com is one such thing with Julie, so much
so that Julie, in refuses to share her photograph. She insists that Storystar
is all about stories and those who write them. I urged but then, having failed
could only bow in reverence to her selfless submission to the cause she has taken
up. The sense of mission, the selflessness, gives one an almost religious sense
when one meets her and this was a strange thing for me, whose religious
position borders on atheism. Julie lives in Florence and works from home at a
desk placed next to a large window overlooking the forest outside. It is a
magical place where intellect meets humility and we begin our interview here.
Me: Hi
Julie, thanks for taking time for this interview. It isn’t only me and writers
like me who place our stories on your site, there is a multitude of readers who
would like to meet the force that works tirelessly to bring these stories for
them. Can we start with trying to understand what makes Julie, the person?
Julie,
looking alarmed, with hesitation responds in feeble word: Well, yes, since you
so desire.
Me,
ignoring her hesitation to talk about anything apart from their work, continue:
Hi Julie, I understand, you had a remarkable childhood of a closely-knit
family. Do you think that has helped you understand, tolerate and even love the
idiosyncrasies and whims of writers who being rank narcissists and a pain in
the wrong place at times demand a lot of pampering? In that sense do you think your
small family makes you a better citizen of a wide expanding literary universe
that you have created with StoryStar?
Julie,
staring outside the window, responds:
I don’t
know if being raised in a small close-knit family gave me any extra insights
into writers whims and idiosyncrasies, but it perhaps made the loss of my
brother when he was age 19 and I was age 20, and the loss of my father more
recently after a long battle with early onset of Alzheimers, more difficult to bear, and
perhaps therefore gave me a greater understanding of loss and a glimpse into
the depths of human suffering. I think that to be able to better understand and
appreciate a wide variety of writing and perspectives it is necessary to also
know both the heights and depths of joy and sorrow. My family also traveled
quite a bit and I myself have traveled a lot on my own, and lived in a variety
of cultures. I think experiencing other cultures and ways of living gives one a
broader perspective and a greater acceptance of different styles of writing and
points of view.
Me: A
trauma of your own early childhood brought you closer to God, and another
trauma of losing your brother pushed you away from him? Where do you stand in
terms of faith as on date? Do you believe faith is an important aspect of
writing, and when I say faith, I do not believe in faith in God, it could also at
the same time mean, non-existence of God?
Julie: It is
interesting that you use the word faith to describe both belief in God and
belief in no God, because I have come to believe it takes the same amount of
faith to believe either way. It is equally beyond the capacity of our human
brains to comprehend the idea that a supreme eternal being created the universe,
and us, as to believe that we and the universe magically came into being from
nothing. When one contemplates the origins of everything, these are the only
two possible conclusions. Both scenarios
can neither be proven nor disproven, so both are a matter of faith in things
beyond our knowledge and understanding. Therefore it is each individual’s
choice as to which scenario to believe. Either way, life, and this world and
the universe beyond, are miraculous and amazing to me. I have come to realize
that there are forces at work in the world which defy science and explanation
and can only be described as spiritual. There very clearly seems to me to be a
battle in each mind and heart, and throughout the world, between love and hate,
good and evil, right and wrong. I choose to believe that there is a supreme
being, who I call God, who wishes for us to choose love over hate, and to do
what is good and right. When we seek Him, His will and His guidance, He helps
us on our path to become the best that we can be as human beings.
Me: Is
your choice of stories affected by your own faith? For instance, if you were an
atheist (which I have just discovered you are not, in the strictest sense),
would you allow a deeply religious story to be put on Storystar.com and vice-versa?
Julie: I allow
ALL types of stories to be posted on Storystar, whether atheist or Christian or
Islamic, etc… My personal faith causes
me to accept everyone, even if I do not particularly like nor agree with their
point of view. However, pornographic,
overtly racist, and gratuitously violent stories I generally remove in order to
keep Storystar ‘family friendly’.
Thankfully there have been very few such stories posted. I suppose it is
impossible not to allow some form of bias to affect my choices for which
stories to highlight on Facebook and Twitter, and which stories to feature on
the front page of Storystar. But if a
story is well-written, thought provoking, and of obvious interest to readers, I
am happy to feature it even if I do not personally agree with the perspective
of the writer or like the story.
Me: You
grew up in many places. Did it result in a sense of loss of roots which one
compensates by creating one’s own ecosystem of existence- something a writer
does in inventing a world in his writing, you did by creating a world in
Storystar?
Julie: My
family did move around a lot when I was growing up, and since leaving ‘home’ I
have also moved around a lot and lived in many places. I guess that there was
not a place which ever became ‘home’ for me, but rather wherever my family was.
Since my family has always been my ‘home’, now that my mother is my only
remaining family, my home is wherever she is. I suppose that I have felt a bit
‘rootless’ during my life, and perhaps finally settling here in Florence and
building Storystar I have now put down roots and created a place to call home.
Me: And a
corollary to that question, does it compensate?
Julie: Not
really. I don’t think anything can compensate for the loss of family or those
you love.
The
weather goes heavy and the sky over the forest looks slightly gray at the
moment. We together stare out at the forest which spreads to soak the sudden emptiness
and as I resist temptation to point out to Julie a larger family that she has
single-handedly created, we proceed further with the interview.
Me: When
did you launch Storystar.com? Julie: Late
June of 2010.
Me: What
prompted the idea of Storystar.com?
Julie Larson: It stands differentiated from various sites
which act as aggregator of blogs in the sense that it is focused on the niche
of Short Stories? Only other such site I came across on the web was Storylane,
which has since closed down and all the stories were shifted to Facebook as FB
notes. Speaking of Storylane, were you aware of Storylane or other such exclusively
story sites and inspired by one such? Basically, the question is how did you
come out with this idea about a site exclusively for Short stories?
Julie: I
first had the idea for a free online site, where everyone everywhere could tell
their stories, sometime in 2004. I don’t remember the exact month or day, I
just remember that the idea suddenly came to me. I had not ever read stories
online, and didn’t know if other similar sites existed, so I searched for other
storytelling sites and could not find anything like what I had in mind anywhere
on the web. (I never saw Storylane) So I decided to make my idea a reality and hired
a coder to help me create it. I like to believe the idea was divinely inspired,
because I had not previously been ‘into’ reading or writing stories. I know I
enjoyed reading the occasional short story since I
generally did not have the time or patience for a whole novel. I had probably
read fewer than a dozen whole books/novels solely for my own interest and
enjoyment since grad school. But I’ve always believed that stories of personal
growth, of triumph over adversity, and of life experience, have the power to
transform minds and hearts. At some point it occurred to me that everyone has
moving and powerful personal stories to tell, and there should be a free place
where they can share those stories. I suppose the idea was germinating
somewhere inside me for a while before it suddenly occurred to me that I should
be the one to create such a place.
Me: Was
it a conscious decision of yours to keep the site limited to one form of
writing, as a differentiator and positioning statement?
(I
sheepishly look at her as I know it is my MBA and my day job in sales talking; she, ever so kind,
ignores my attempt to look wise and answers)
Julie: No.
I decided to limit the length of stories because I did not have the time and
patience to read long stories, and believed that other readers might feel the
same way.
Me: Is it
a free-for-all platform or is there some filtering, some process of selection
in place to decide on the stories which make it to Storystar.com?
Julie: It
is indeed a free-for-all platform, although, as mentioned earlier, a few
stories have been removed due to explicit adult and/or offensive content. There
is a ‘foul language’ filter which catches most porn and prevents it from being
posted. But there is no ‘selection process’.
Anyone anywhere can post a story at any time.
Me: Is
there a group of a few wise men (and women) who sit around the table at night,
as lights are dim with print outs of stories received during the day, reading
and shaking their wise heads with disapprovals at junk coming in and
occasionally, nodding in approval and looking at each other with a sense of
satisfaction, throwing satisfactory smile in the air, heavy with smell of
coffee?
Me: Nope.
Just me. I only occasionally remove problematic stories, and I select stories
to feature based on the ratings they receive from readers, and my own opinion
as to the quality of the story and appropriateness to the category. I also try
hard to feature stories from all different countries. I would be open to
someone helping me choose which stories to feature, and even choosing the Story
of the Day and writing about it, but thus far I haven’t had anyone volunteer
their time, and cannot afford to hire anyone at this point.
Me: What
are the kinds of stories you like most?
Julie: I
remember loving books and stories as a child, and still fondly remember many of
those I read, but as an adult I have mostly always been too busy with other
things to find the time to read for leisure. When I do have time to relax, I
generally prefer watching a good movie to reading a good book, I suppose
because it is more immediate gratification. The whole story is told much more
quickly in a movie than in a book. I guess it is also this desire for more
immediate gratification that has led me to a preference for short stories, since
they can be read and fully enjoyed without a big investment of time. I did do a
lot of reading and writing in college and university, but it was always
assigned and required reading and writing, done for a grade rather than for
leisure or pleasure. So I am sorry to say that I have not developed any
‘favorite’ authors among ‘the greats’. Of course, since launching Storystar, I
have become a very big reader and fan of short stories, since I have read
nearly every single story that has been posted on Storystar, sometimes more
than once, and have developed a number of favorite writers and stories on
Storystar.I tend to most love stories that inspire me or move me, but I have
enjoyed tragedies and dark mysteries and horror stories too, as well as stories
in many other genres. I think it is the skill of the writer and the quality of
the story that makes it a favorite for me, rather than the particular type of
story.
Me: I
have personally felt social media not being much of use unless you are
connecting to people you knew beforehand. There have, of course, been rare
exceptions to this, for instance yourself and Marta Moran Bishop. Marta has
been very encouraging to my writing efforts, and your views have always touched
upon my writing in its own benign way. But in general, I believe, you have
leaned strongly on Facebook for building promotional framework for Storystar.
How useful has it been? How did you come to using it?
Julie: I was
initially uninterested in Facebook or other social media sites, but one of my
coders convinced me that it was necessary to join Facebook and Twitter to
promote Storystar. In order to set up a page for Storystar I was forced to set
up a personal page as well. At first I didn’t do much with the personal page, other
than build ‘friends’ from lists of writers and readers who were strangers to
me. But as I began to make connections with those who found their way from
Facebook to Storystar.com and then posted or read stories there, it became more
‘personal’ for me, and over the past few years I have built several lasting
friendships with people I’ve met on Facebook. Based on an analysis of the
statistics regarding traffic to Storystar.com, approximately 15-20% of monthly
users are coming from Facebook links. I think that’s significant. However, I
have recently become discouraged because Facebook has changed the ‘reach’ of
their users pages (all those other than ‘personal’) so that if you want any
posts actually seen you have to pay for it. I have over 10,300 ‘likes’ on my
page at www.facebook.com/storystar, but when I make a post only about 100
people actually see it, unless I pay to ‘boost’ it, and the minimum cost of
boosting a post is $5. for 24 hours of ‘extra’ promotion. Even then, the post
is only seen by half the number of those who have ‘liked’ Storystar. To me it seems like a scam. I cannot afford
to spend $5 per day just to have my posts shown to those who have already liked
my page, meaning the cost does not help me reach new people who have not yet
‘liked’ my page or discovered Storystar. But if I don’t pay, then only a
handful of people see it at all, so it seems quite pointless to me now.
However, I feel I owe it to those who are both facebook and storystar users to
continue posting stories daily, even though I can only afford to promote one or
two a week.
Me: Are
you using other Social media platforms like Twitter and Google+ to promote
Storystar.com?
Julie: I
post the equivalent of a story per day on Twitter. I used to advertise on
Google but stopped doing so when I started advertising on Facebook instead. I
have a very small adveristing budget so don’t have enough to spread around. I
will pay for Google advertising again when the new and improved Storystar site
is launched. Even without Google advertising, the majority of monthly visitors
to Storystar are coming from Google searches for short stories and related.
Me: What
is the business model for Storystar.com? How does it sustain, in terms of
finances? Do you intend to grow it on Wikipedia model of volunteer funding or
hedge it with business framework for selling books, advertising etc.?
Julie: From
the start I never had a business model for Storystar. Since I never envisioned
selling anything I never thought of it as a business. I guess I was naive enough to believe that it
would pay for itself through the pay-per-click advertising that is currently in
place. When I first had the idea there was no other free site anywhere online
where people everywhere could go to tell their stories, and a lot of people
were making good money from pay-per-click ads on their websites. So I believed
that Storystar would become immediately popular and grow rapidly through
word-of-mouth advertising, and that the ads I placed on the site would bring in
the revenue needed to cover my expenses. That did not turn out to be the case.
In the nearly 7 years it took me to get the site built and ready for public use
a lot changed. Facebook was born, and blogs were born, where writers could have
their own web pages and post their stories and promote themselves. And numerous
other short story sites cropped up, so I ended up having a lot more competition
than I imagined, and therefore growth has been slower than I had anticipated,
although Storystar is adding hundreds of new users per month. Also, by the time
I finished and launched Storystar people were no longer clicking on ads and buying
things from advertisers. I have hope for the future. The new improved
Storystar, which I have been working on with a coder in India for a couple of
years now, will allow for more active participation from visitors, the ability
for readers to comment on and review stories, a classified ads section for buying
and selling new and used books, the ability for readers and writers to earn
points they can spend like cash, etc….
And I am also hoping to compile anthologies of the Best of Storystar
that readers can purchase with points or cash. All these changes will hopefully
make Storystar better for everyone, and will hopefully begin to bring in a
regular income that will allow me to continue to sustain and grow it long term.
Me: Is it
a single-woman venture, or you have more people working with you as your
immediate and extended teams as Storystar now reaches close to 60000 monthly
visitors? Do you have plans of integrating it with other sites like Flipboard
for instance, bringing in even more audience?
Me: It’s
just me, plus whoever I hire to work on the code. I’ve been through about 7
coders over the 10 years since I first had the idea. Either they get bored with
the work and move on, or they stop doing the work I need done and I move on. I
am unfamiliar with Flipboard, can you tell me more about it? At this point I
have no plans to integrate Storystar with any other site, but if I become aware
of something that will benefit Storystar writers and readers then I am open to
considering it.
Me: Helping
and mentoring a lot of closet-writers (Like me for instance, please ignore the
blush on my face - it is always like that), do you sometimes check your
shoulders when you wake up in the morning for some wings that might have grown
there? Do you smile to yourself on the sly sometimes, happy in the awareness of
how you are supporting the conspiratorial writing of moonlighting writers?
Julie: For
me, Storystar is about the writers. Without great writers and their stories,
Storystar would cease to exist. That is why I try to do what I can to encourage
writers and promote their stories. I wish I had more time and energy to do much
more for them, and I wish I had lots of money so that I could pay them for their
work, and afford to promote their great stories more. I do what I can, but I
feel that I fall very short of what I’d like to be able to do, so often find
myself feeling very inadequate.
We end
the interview here. I rise from the chair with a silent prayer for sending
across this lovely lady to this earth, so disarmingly honest and committed to
the cause she has chosen for herself. I know, I know, some would have started
falling in love with this princess of short stories. For them, I have been
asked to limit the information to the fact that this lovely lady landed on this
earth, in Minnesota in 1960 and as she tells, with a hole in heart to fill all
the love that she was going to get from the people around with. She was born to
an Assembly of God Minister and had a two year younger baby brother who she
adored and lost quite early. When eight she moved to Alberta Canada. She lives
in Florence, Oregon right now, working on the new version of StoryStar to come
by. The interview goes out without Julie's picture, though I did insist, since she maintains that the venture is bigger than the individual. Even citing Ayn Rand wouldn't persuade her. I could only bow to this near-religious humility. We readers and writers wait in anticipation together with her for the new Storystar to
arrive. As I leave the room, I feel inspired and humbled by her honest and
dedication and mutter between my breath, “Long live Julie Larson, Long live the
storystar.”
Visit the world of Short Stories- Storystar.com
is common to find blog interview of writers and bloggers, this one is of
someone who doesn't write but provides a sanctuary for those who write. This is
my second blog interview, after I did one for dear friend and a great writer,
Marta Moran Bishop ( Marta's Interview ). Julie Larson, born in 1960, put together a website called
StoryStar.com which she has been running for last three years. The site has
propagated over the years through word of mouth and gets close to 60000
returning visitor each month. It isn't an impersonal techie venture, but the
site finds true involvement from the lady who has been running it all by her
own. Julie’s venture set up to provide a venue to writers to showcase their
short-stories on the internet for many people to read for free. Julie runs the
website on her own, a one-woman army with the zeal and dedication of a
missionary. She picks the stories, reads and approves them, interacts with the
writer and encourages them to write more and write better. The biggest
satisfaction for a man is to discover a cause to which one can surrender his
(or her, in this case) being. Storystar.com is one such thing with Julie, so much
so that Julie, in refuses to share her photograph. She insists that Storystar
is all about stories and those who write them. I urged but then, having failed
could only bow in reverence to her selfless submission to the cause she has taken
up. The sense of mission, the selflessness, gives one an almost religious sense
when one meets her and this was a strange thing for me, whose religious
position borders on atheism. Julie lives in Florence and works from home at a
desk placed next to a large window overlooking the forest outside. It is a
magical place where intellect meets humility and we begin our interview here.
Me: Hi
Julie, thanks for taking time for this interview. It isn’t only me and writers
like me who place our stories on your site, there is a multitude of readers who
would like to meet the force that works tirelessly to bring these stories for
them. Can we start with trying to understand what makes Julie, the person?
Julie,
looking alarmed, with hesitation responds in feeble word: Well, yes, since you
so desire.
Me,
ignoring her hesitation to talk about anything apart from their work, continue:
Hi Julie, I understand, you had a remarkable childhood of a closely-knit
family. Do you think that has helped you understand, tolerate and even love the
idiosyncrasies and whims of writers who being rank narcissists and a pain in
the wrong place at times demand a lot of pampering? In that sense do you think your
small family makes you a better citizen of a wide expanding literary universe
that you have created with StoryStar?
Julie,
staring outside the window, responds:
I don’t
know if being raised in a small close-knit family gave me any extra insights
into writers whims and idiosyncrasies, but it perhaps made the loss of my
brother when he was age 19 and I was age 20, and the loss of my father more
recently after a long battle with early onset of Alzheimers, more difficult to bear, and
perhaps therefore gave me a greater understanding of loss and a glimpse into
the depths of human suffering. I think that to be able to better understand and
appreciate a wide variety of writing and perspectives it is necessary to also
know both the heights and depths of joy and sorrow. My family also traveled
quite a bit and I myself have traveled a lot on my own, and lived in a variety
of cultures. I think experiencing other cultures and ways of living gives one a
broader perspective and a greater acceptance of different styles of writing and
points of view.
Me: A
trauma of your own early childhood brought you closer to God, and another
trauma of losing your brother pushed you away from him? Where do you stand in
terms of faith as on date? Do you believe faith is an important aspect of
writing, and when I say faith, I do not believe in faith in God, it could also at
the same time mean, non-existence of God?
Julie: It is
interesting that you use the word faith to describe both belief in God and
belief in no God, because I have come to believe it takes the same amount of
faith to believe either way. It is equally beyond the capacity of our human
brains to comprehend the idea that a supreme eternal being created the universe,
and us, as to believe that we and the universe magically came into being from
nothing. When one contemplates the origins of everything, these are the only
two possible conclusions. Both scenarios
can neither be proven nor disproven, so both are a matter of faith in things
beyond our knowledge and understanding. Therefore it is each individual’s
choice as to which scenario to believe. Either way, life, and this world and
the universe beyond, are miraculous and amazing to me. I have come to realize
that there are forces at work in the world which defy science and explanation
and can only be described as spiritual. There very clearly seems to me to be a
battle in each mind and heart, and throughout the world, between love and hate,
good and evil, right and wrong. I choose to believe that there is a supreme
being, who I call God, who wishes for us to choose love over hate, and to do
what is good and right. When we seek Him, His will and His guidance, He helps
us on our path to become the best that we can be as human beings.
Me: Is
your choice of stories affected by your own faith? For instance, if you were an
atheist (which I have just discovered you are not, in the strictest sense),
would you allow a deeply religious story to be put on Storystar.com and vice-versa?
Julie: I allow
ALL types of stories to be posted on Storystar, whether atheist or Christian or
Islamic, etc… My personal faith causes
me to accept everyone, even if I do not particularly like nor agree with their
point of view. However, pornographic,
overtly racist, and gratuitously violent stories I generally remove in order to
keep Storystar ‘family friendly’.
Thankfully there have been very few such stories posted. I suppose it is
impossible not to allow some form of bias to affect my choices for which
stories to highlight on Facebook and Twitter, and which stories to feature on
the front page of Storystar. But if a
story is well-written, thought provoking, and of obvious interest to readers, I
am happy to feature it even if I do not personally agree with the perspective
of the writer or like the story.
Me: You
grew up in many places. Did it result in a sense of loss of roots which one
compensates by creating one’s own ecosystem of existence- something a writer
does in inventing a world in his writing, you did by creating a world in
Storystar?
Julie: My
family did move around a lot when I was growing up, and since leaving ‘home’ I
have also moved around a lot and lived in many places. I guess that there was
not a place which ever became ‘home’ for me, but rather wherever my family was.
Since my family has always been my ‘home’, now that my mother is my only
remaining family, my home is wherever she is. I suppose that I have felt a bit
‘rootless’ during my life, and perhaps finally settling here in Florence and
building Storystar I have now put down roots and created a place to call home.
Me: And a
corollary to that question, does it compensate?
Julie: Not
really. I don’t think anything can compensate for the loss of family or those
you love.
The
weather goes heavy and the sky over the forest looks slightly gray at the
moment. We together stare out at the forest which spreads to soak the sudden emptiness
and as I resist temptation to point out to Julie a larger family that she has
single-handedly created, we proceed further with the interview.
Me: When
did you launch Storystar.com? Julie: Late
June of 2010.
Me: What
prompted the idea of Storystar.com?
Julie Larson: It stands differentiated from various sites
which act as aggregator of blogs in the sense that it is focused on the niche
of Short Stories? Only other such site I came across on the web was Storylane,
which has since closed down and all the stories were shifted to Facebook as FB
notes. Speaking of Storylane, were you aware of Storylane or other such exclusively
story sites and inspired by one such? Basically, the question is how did you
come out with this idea about a site exclusively for Short stories?
Julie: I
first had the idea for a free online site, where everyone everywhere could tell
their stories, sometime in 2004. I don’t remember the exact month or day, I
just remember that the idea suddenly came to me. I had not ever read stories
online, and didn’t know if other similar sites existed, so I searched for other
storytelling sites and could not find anything like what I had in mind anywhere
on the web. (I never saw Storylane) So I decided to make my idea a reality and hired
a coder to help me create it. I like to believe the idea was divinely inspired,
because I had not previously been ‘into’ reading or writing stories. I know I
enjoyed reading the occasional short story since I
generally did not have the time or patience for a whole novel. I had probably
read fewer than a dozen whole books/novels solely for my own interest and
enjoyment since grad school. But I’ve always believed that stories of personal
growth, of triumph over adversity, and of life experience, have the power to
transform minds and hearts. At some point it occurred to me that everyone has
moving and powerful personal stories to tell, and there should be a free place
where they can share those stories. I suppose the idea was germinating
somewhere inside me for a while before it suddenly occurred to me that I should
be the one to create such a place.
Me: Was
it a conscious decision of yours to keep the site limited to one form of
writing, as a differentiator and positioning statement?
(I
sheepishly look at her as I know it is my MBA and my day job in sales talking; she, ever so kind,
ignores my attempt to look wise and answers)
Julie: No.
I decided to limit the length of stories because I did not have the time and
patience to read long stories, and believed that other readers might feel the
same way.
Me: Is it
a free-for-all platform or is there some filtering, some process of selection
in place to decide on the stories which make it to Storystar.com?
Julie: It
is indeed a free-for-all platform, although, as mentioned earlier, a few
stories have been removed due to explicit adult and/or offensive content. There
is a ‘foul language’ filter which catches most porn and prevents it from being
posted. But there is no ‘selection process’.
Anyone anywhere can post a story at any time.
Me: Is
there a group of a few wise men (and women) who sit around the table at night,
as lights are dim with print outs of stories received during the day, reading
and shaking their wise heads with disapprovals at junk coming in and
occasionally, nodding in approval and looking at each other with a sense of
satisfaction, throwing satisfactory smile in the air, heavy with smell of
coffee?
Me: Nope.
Just me. I only occasionally remove problematic stories, and I select stories
to feature based on the ratings they receive from readers, and my own opinion
as to the quality of the story and appropriateness to the category. I also try
hard to feature stories from all different countries. I would be open to
someone helping me choose which stories to feature, and even choosing the Story
of the Day and writing about it, but thus far I haven’t had anyone volunteer
their time, and cannot afford to hire anyone at this point.
Me: What
are the kinds of stories you like most?
Julie: I
remember loving books and stories as a child, and still fondly remember many of
those I read, but as an adult I have mostly always been too busy with other
things to find the time to read for leisure. When I do have time to relax, I
generally prefer watching a good movie to reading a good book, I suppose
because it is more immediate gratification. The whole story is told much more
quickly in a movie than in a book. I guess it is also this desire for more
immediate gratification that has led me to a preference for short stories, since
they can be read and fully enjoyed without a big investment of time. I did do a
lot of reading and writing in college and university, but it was always
assigned and required reading and writing, done for a grade rather than for
leisure or pleasure. So I am sorry to say that I have not developed any
‘favorite’ authors among ‘the greats’. Of course, since launching Storystar, I
have become a very big reader and fan of short stories, since I have read
nearly every single story that has been posted on Storystar, sometimes more
than once, and have developed a number of favorite writers and stories on
Storystar.I tend to most love stories that inspire me or move me, but I have
enjoyed tragedies and dark mysteries and horror stories too, as well as stories
in many other genres. I think it is the skill of the writer and the quality of
the story that makes it a favorite for me, rather than the particular type of
story.
Me: I
have personally felt social media not being much of use unless you are
connecting to people you knew beforehand. There have, of course, been rare
exceptions to this, for instance yourself and Marta Moran Bishop. Marta has
been very encouraging to my writing efforts, and your views have always touched
upon my writing in its own benign way. But in general, I believe, you have
leaned strongly on Facebook for building promotional framework for Storystar.
How useful has it been? How did you come to using it?
Julie: I was
initially uninterested in Facebook or other social media sites, but one of my
coders convinced me that it was necessary to join Facebook and Twitter to
promote Storystar. In order to set up a page for Storystar I was forced to set
up a personal page as well. At first I didn’t do much with the personal page, other
than build ‘friends’ from lists of writers and readers who were strangers to
me. But as I began to make connections with those who found their way from
Facebook to Storystar.com and then posted or read stories there, it became more
‘personal’ for me, and over the past few years I have built several lasting
friendships with people I’ve met on Facebook. Based on an analysis of the
statistics regarding traffic to Storystar.com, approximately 15-20% of monthly
users are coming from Facebook links. I think that’s significant. However, I
have recently become discouraged because Facebook has changed the ‘reach’ of
their users pages (all those other than ‘personal’) so that if you want any
posts actually seen you have to pay for it. I have over 10,300 ‘likes’ on my
page at www.facebook.com/storystar, but when I make a post only about 100
people actually see it, unless I pay to ‘boost’ it, and the minimum cost of
boosting a post is $5. for 24 hours of ‘extra’ promotion. Even then, the post
is only seen by half the number of those who have ‘liked’ Storystar. To me it seems like a scam. I cannot afford
to spend $5 per day just to have my posts shown to those who have already liked
my page, meaning the cost does not help me reach new people who have not yet
‘liked’ my page or discovered Storystar. But if I don’t pay, then only a
handful of people see it at all, so it seems quite pointless to me now.
However, I feel I owe it to those who are both facebook and storystar users to
continue posting stories daily, even though I can only afford to promote one or
two a week.
Me: Are
you using other Social media platforms like Twitter and Google+ to promote
Storystar.com?
Julie: I
post the equivalent of a story per day on Twitter. I used to advertise on
Google but stopped doing so when I started advertising on Facebook instead. I
have a very small adveristing budget so don’t have enough to spread around. I
will pay for Google advertising again when the new and improved Storystar site
is launched. Even without Google advertising, the majority of monthly visitors
to Storystar are coming from Google searches for short stories and related.
Me: What
is the business model for Storystar.com? How does it sustain, in terms of
finances? Do you intend to grow it on Wikipedia model of volunteer funding or
hedge it with business framework for selling books, advertising etc.?
Julie: From
the start I never had a business model for Storystar. Since I never envisioned
selling anything I never thought of it as a business. I guess I was naive enough to believe that it
would pay for itself through the pay-per-click advertising that is currently in
place. When I first had the idea there was no other free site anywhere online
where people everywhere could go to tell their stories, and a lot of people
were making good money from pay-per-click ads on their websites. So I believed
that Storystar would become immediately popular and grow rapidly through
word-of-mouth advertising, and that the ads I placed on the site would bring in
the revenue needed to cover my expenses. That did not turn out to be the case.
In the nearly 7 years it took me to get the site built and ready for public use
a lot changed. Facebook was born, and blogs were born, where writers could have
their own web pages and post their stories and promote themselves. And numerous
other short story sites cropped up, so I ended up having a lot more competition
than I imagined, and therefore growth has been slower than I had anticipated,
although Storystar is adding hundreds of new users per month. Also, by the time
I finished and launched Storystar people were no longer clicking on ads and buying
things from advertisers. I have hope for the future. The new improved
Storystar, which I have been working on with a coder in India for a couple of
years now, will allow for more active participation from visitors, the ability
for readers to comment on and review stories, a classified ads section for buying
and selling new and used books, the ability for readers and writers to earn
points they can spend like cash, etc….
And I am also hoping to compile anthologies of the Best of Storystar
that readers can purchase with points or cash. All these changes will hopefully
make Storystar better for everyone, and will hopefully begin to bring in a
regular income that will allow me to continue to sustain and grow it long term.
Me: Is it
a single-woman venture, or you have more people working with you as your
immediate and extended teams as Storystar now reaches close to 60000 monthly
visitors? Do you have plans of integrating it with other sites like Flipboard
for instance, bringing in even more audience?
Me: It’s
just me, plus whoever I hire to work on the code. I’ve been through about 7
coders over the 10 years since I first had the idea. Either they get bored with
the work and move on, or they stop doing the work I need done and I move on. I
am unfamiliar with Flipboard, can you tell me more about it? At this point I
have no plans to integrate Storystar with any other site, but if I become aware
of something that will benefit Storystar writers and readers then I am open to
considering it.
Me: Helping
and mentoring a lot of closet-writers (Like me for instance, please ignore the
blush on my face - it is always like that), do you sometimes check your
shoulders when you wake up in the morning for some wings that might have grown
there? Do you smile to yourself on the sly sometimes, happy in the awareness of
how you are supporting the conspiratorial writing of moonlighting writers?
Julie: For
me, Storystar is about the writers. Without great writers and their stories,
Storystar would cease to exist. That is why I try to do what I can to encourage
writers and promote their stories. I wish I had more time and energy to do much
more for them, and I wish I had lots of money so that I could pay them for their
work, and afford to promote their great stories more. I do what I can, but I
feel that I fall very short of what I’d like to be able to do, so often find
myself feeling very inadequate.
We end
the interview here. I rise from the chair with a silent prayer for sending
across this lovely lady to this earth, so disarmingly honest and committed to
the cause she has chosen for herself. I know, I know, some would have started
falling in love with this princess of short stories. For them, I have been
asked to limit the information to the fact that this lovely lady landed on this
earth, in Minnesota in 1960 and as she tells, with a hole in heart to fill all
the love that she was going to get from the people around with. She was born to
an Assembly of God Minister and had a two year younger baby brother who she
adored and lost quite early. When eight she moved to Alberta Canada. She lives
in Florence, Oregon right now, working on the new version of StoryStar to come
by. The interview goes out without Julie's picture, though I did insist, since she maintains that the venture is bigger than the individual. Even citing Ayn Rand wouldn't persuade her. I could only bow to this near-religious humility. We readers and writers wait in anticipation together with her for the new Storystar to
arrive. As I leave the room, I feel inspired and humbled by her honest and
dedication and mutter between my breath, “Long live Julie Larson, Long live the
storystar.”
Visit the world of Short Stories- Storystar.com
September 11, 2013
Morality- A Difficult but Necessary Proposition
Who among us has not come across a difficult situation where morality is not a question of choice. We all take pride in being moral beings, even the most amoral of us. We have been raised to be a moral being and human race has survived through centuries in spite of inherent weaknesses as an animal, on account of Morality. It is morality which has preserved and nourished our species.
This social conditioning makes us imagine an ideal image of ours in which we are the most moral being. I am very sure the case is no different for the men who are unarguably and demonstrably known to be immoral. There are various definition of morality which makes it even more confusing, ranging from unyielding religious sense of morality- which to my mind is a orthodoxy disguising as morality, to the Aristotle's and Buddha's middle path. Aristotle defines moral virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess.
Religious morality has done much harm to the true sense of morality in the way that it demanded that reason be surrendered in the face of it. Therein was the fault. We live in a world which questions everything, and the person standing next to you might even question your existence. The denial of right to logic moved men away from religious morality, so much so that ethical morality suffered in company. Einstein put forth the distinction very clearly when he wrote," Morality is of highest importance- but for us, not for God."
We started looking at morality as something totally outdated crap as most people would call it and total Bakwaas as people in India would call it. We failed to realize and recognize the great disservice we did to the humanity, the society and mostly to ourselves in rejecting the concept of morality. We try to substitute it with law. We want to scare people into behaving. No law, no policeman can watch you forever, through all your living hours. Also we do not want that. This was pretty evident in the outrage which greeted President Obama's shift from "Yes, We Can" to "Yes, We Scan".
The only way to avoid the daily destruction of social fabric is to re-introduce morality to our generation and those after us. Also we need to teach them one important aspect about morality. It is the flower that blooms best in the unkind forests. You are not a moral person if your sense of morality is unable to sustain morality. Just as the test of bravery is danger, the test of morality is adversity. To be truthful when you have nothing at stake and nothing is on offer isn't morality. To qualify as a truthful person, you need to be truthful where being truthful is going to cost you something, your love, your friendship, your safety, your reputation and your life in worst case. We need to get back to morality, otherwise courts giving severest punishments considering all cases as rarest of rare case will do little to improve the headlines of the newspapers. The only person who can keep watch over us is ourselves and the ability of being watchful of our behavior when no one is watching- is morality. Morality is how you behave when you are presented with all the possibility of being immoral. Teaching your kid to be truthful every evening is no good, unless you tell your kid to go to the school and tell her teacher that her homework isn't complete because dad forgot and was reading Crime and Punishment, not because he wasn't well..now you know, from where I am coming..must close it before full-disclosure happens on the blog. The moral of the story is that saving morality is our only hope and it is never going to be easy, that is a given.
This social conditioning makes us imagine an ideal image of ours in which we are the most moral being. I am very sure the case is no different for the men who are unarguably and demonstrably known to be immoral. There are various definition of morality which makes it even more confusing, ranging from unyielding religious sense of morality- which to my mind is a orthodoxy disguising as morality, to the Aristotle's and Buddha's middle path. Aristotle defines moral virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess.
Religious morality has done much harm to the true sense of morality in the way that it demanded that reason be surrendered in the face of it. Therein was the fault. We live in a world which questions everything, and the person standing next to you might even question your existence. The denial of right to logic moved men away from religious morality, so much so that ethical morality suffered in company. Einstein put forth the distinction very clearly when he wrote," Morality is of highest importance- but for us, not for God."
We started looking at morality as something totally outdated crap as most people would call it and total Bakwaas as people in India would call it. We failed to realize and recognize the great disservice we did to the humanity, the society and mostly to ourselves in rejecting the concept of morality. We try to substitute it with law. We want to scare people into behaving. No law, no policeman can watch you forever, through all your living hours. Also we do not want that. This was pretty evident in the outrage which greeted President Obama's shift from "Yes, We Can" to "Yes, We Scan".
The only way to avoid the daily destruction of social fabric is to re-introduce morality to our generation and those after us. Also we need to teach them one important aspect about morality. It is the flower that blooms best in the unkind forests. You are not a moral person if your sense of morality is unable to sustain morality. Just as the test of bravery is danger, the test of morality is adversity. To be truthful when you have nothing at stake and nothing is on offer isn't morality. To qualify as a truthful person, you need to be truthful where being truthful is going to cost you something, your love, your friendship, your safety, your reputation and your life in worst case. We need to get back to morality, otherwise courts giving severest punishments considering all cases as rarest of rare case will do little to improve the headlines of the newspapers. The only person who can keep watch over us is ourselves and the ability of being watchful of our behavior when no one is watching- is morality. Morality is how you behave when you are presented with all the possibility of being immoral. Teaching your kid to be truthful every evening is no good, unless you tell your kid to go to the school and tell her teacher that her homework isn't complete because dad forgot and was reading Crime and Punishment, not because he wasn't well..now you know, from where I am coming..must close it before full-disclosure happens on the blog. The moral of the story is that saving morality is our only hope and it is never going to be easy, that is a given.
August 15, 2013
A Mugwump's Independence Day
It is 15th August, 67th Independence Day of India. It was a keenly awaited event mostly by marketers promising amazing Thailand on the long weekend day, which extends into Raksha Bandhan next week.
There is nothing much happy about this independence day as we are sorely made aware of how fickle this independence is. Last fortnight has been particularly bad for the country, with the soldiers losing their heads, in real term in border skirmishes and the political leadership running around, somersaulting like headless chicken. The country which perpetrated these skirmishes went ahead and passed a resolution condemning India, while Indian leadership keen to earn a legacy, dithered and then shame-faced shouted- Same to same from our side, like two kids thumbing the noses. The loss of human life in the middle of these two juvenile leadership, celebrating independence day one after another has become another statistics. The two nations having lost any sense of self-respect are contending for the place of best slave to the interest of large nations which have no concern for the human like in either of these to two countries. Jean -Paul Sartre defined Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you, in our case, we seemingly at loss about this. We move in circles till the time we absolutely lose the sense of direction and are caught in the web of circles.
Roosevelt said, "The Only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interest of the people and the people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government." The hollow of the words rises like a murderous crime which seems to be running through the entire conscience of the country as on date. We fail on this test of liberty on both counts. The government is not strong and committed enough to protect the interest of the people. This is not only when we look outward, but stand true when we look inward. The way the government deals with the world is as worse as the way it deals with its citizen. The public outrage of December and the one before it was crushed mercilessly. Only thing that the leadership can count on for a repeat stint at power is fractured citizen voice and petty selfish interests which guides our votes. The state government in Bihar stays in denial about kids who died on account of eating poisonous food in Mid-day meal in schools provided by the government while its ministers speak shamelessly on the martyrdom of the soldiers. In the neighboring state of UP, a state administrator is sacked for implementing Supreme Court guidelines and the politicians who effect that roam around blatant and confident with conspiratorial smug smiles, knowing well that they will win votes from the population which believes that faith can substitute for governance.
The government has failed the citizens who have in turn failed the nation.
The News report of the bad shape of memorials of martyrs like Ramprasad Bismil in MP and Ashfaqulla Khan in UP ( the same state in which people supposedly rose up in arms on account of demolition of an illegally constructed mosque wall causing the suspension of the effecting government officer, IAS Durga Shakti Nagpal) and public and government apathy, complete the indefinite gloom of the day. It is only solace that the men of the men are dead, and we can only mutter voicelessly Faiz's couplet..
ये दाग़-दाग़ उज़ाला, ये शब गज़ीदा सहर
वो इन्तज़ार था जिसका, ये वो सहर तो नहीं
This spotted white light, this night -infected dawn,
What we waited for such long, this isn't that dawn
Will we ever rise above petty interests of individuals, castes, region and religion? But than the whole world this year is overturned, as India is almost apologetic against aggressive neighbors and the United states, long positioned itself as protector of individual freedom chases down Snowden who exposed the privacy intrusion and the man gets refuge in the land of the oppressed Russia..We can have a hearty laugh of the situation of day, if only it were not so disgusting. Aren't we the same nation which Chinese politician Hu Shih claimed ruled and dominated China without sending a single soldier and today we are facing humiliating incursions of China? The best we can do is hang our head in shame and hope, only hope silently for a better future. It isn't a hope which looks upwards towards leadership, it lives in the lone soldier on the border and the simplicity and aspirations of the last man in the line. Something whispers into my ears on this day and tells me that I will not be disappointed by that lonely soldier and the last man. From their being rose the martyrs whose memorials are today lying dilapidated and like a phoenix they will rise again, lion-hearted men of high principles singing patriotic songs who would break the chains of narrow individual interests and help us float above the horizons, like eagles, close to the Sun. Let us hope, with so much of intent that it expands in our hearts to the limits of breathlessness with all its purity.
There is nothing much happy about this independence day as we are sorely made aware of how fickle this independence is. Last fortnight has been particularly bad for the country, with the soldiers losing their heads, in real term in border skirmishes and the political leadership running around, somersaulting like headless chicken. The country which perpetrated these skirmishes went ahead and passed a resolution condemning India, while Indian leadership keen to earn a legacy, dithered and then shame-faced shouted- Same to same from our side, like two kids thumbing the noses. The loss of human life in the middle of these two juvenile leadership, celebrating independence day one after another has become another statistics. The two nations having lost any sense of self-respect are contending for the place of best slave to the interest of large nations which have no concern for the human like in either of these to two countries. Jean -Paul Sartre defined Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you, in our case, we seemingly at loss about this. We move in circles till the time we absolutely lose the sense of direction and are caught in the web of circles.
Roosevelt said, "The Only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interest of the people and the people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government." The hollow of the words rises like a murderous crime which seems to be running through the entire conscience of the country as on date. We fail on this test of liberty on both counts. The government is not strong and committed enough to protect the interest of the people. This is not only when we look outward, but stand true when we look inward. The way the government deals with the world is as worse as the way it deals with its citizen. The public outrage of December and the one before it was crushed mercilessly. Only thing that the leadership can count on for a repeat stint at power is fractured citizen voice and petty selfish interests which guides our votes. The state government in Bihar stays in denial about kids who died on account of eating poisonous food in Mid-day meal in schools provided by the government while its ministers speak shamelessly on the martyrdom of the soldiers. In the neighboring state of UP, a state administrator is sacked for implementing Supreme Court guidelines and the politicians who effect that roam around blatant and confident with conspiratorial smug smiles, knowing well that they will win votes from the population which believes that faith can substitute for governance.
The government has failed the citizens who have in turn failed the nation.
The News report of the bad shape of memorials of martyrs like Ramprasad Bismil in MP and Ashfaqulla Khan in UP ( the same state in which people supposedly rose up in arms on account of demolition of an illegally constructed mosque wall causing the suspension of the effecting government officer, IAS Durga Shakti Nagpal) and public and government apathy, complete the indefinite gloom of the day. It is only solace that the men of the men are dead, and we can only mutter voicelessly Faiz's couplet..
ये दाग़-दाग़ उज़ाला, ये शब गज़ीदा सहर
वो इन्तज़ार था जिसका, ये वो सहर तो नहीं
This spotted white light, this night -infected dawn,
What we waited for such long, this isn't that dawn
Will we ever rise above petty interests of individuals, castes, region and religion? But than the whole world this year is overturned, as India is almost apologetic against aggressive neighbors and the United states, long positioned itself as protector of individual freedom chases down Snowden who exposed the privacy intrusion and the man gets refuge in the land of the oppressed Russia..We can have a hearty laugh of the situation of day, if only it were not so disgusting. Aren't we the same nation which Chinese politician Hu Shih claimed ruled and dominated China without sending a single soldier and today we are facing humiliating incursions of China? The best we can do is hang our head in shame and hope, only hope silently for a better future. It isn't a hope which looks upwards towards leadership, it lives in the lone soldier on the border and the simplicity and aspirations of the last man in the line. Something whispers into my ears on this day and tells me that I will not be disappointed by that lonely soldier and the last man. From their being rose the martyrs whose memorials are today lying dilapidated and like a phoenix they will rise again, lion-hearted men of high principles singing patriotic songs who would break the chains of narrow individual interests and help us float above the horizons, like eagles, close to the Sun. Let us hope, with so much of intent that it expands in our hearts to the limits of breathlessness with all its purity.
August 10, 2013
About Death
It is said thatWhenever we exhaleWe are dead for a moment,We keep pulling backLife,Inhaling and believing Life to be a continuumWhile forgettingThat life is nothing But a series of constant struggleOf a breath to inhaleUntilWe can continue to do it no moreAnd surrender Before the yawning Death, which looks At our pre-ordained defeatAnd prevailsWith a laughWhich thunders throughThe bosom of the skies.Human mind,Prevaricates, belies and befoolsOurselves Until the truth shattersOur little, make-believe existence. I know it will happen to meSomeday, as to anyone else,And tired of struggle I do not struggle to winI wait to embrace the Eternal defeat,But I have sneaked in A slight victory, slylyUnknownst to death The Ethernal,The little girlWho will wink at deathWhen in that moment of defeat.
