Democracy of the Forest

Much before this article I write here, things have been written about Pollution and Deforestation. Journals, Periodicals, Research publications and even poetry has been written, recorded and preserved for the future to realize the era of our gravest mistakes. However, much less would be written in the future to come, for their would be very less poetry and research that would dedicated to the whistling of the woods. As I fear there will not be any woods left, or deep jungles with their whispering swaying leaves, passing on the secrets of the elders to the unfortunate species that we are. Somehow I feel, no matter how feeble my voice may be, I ought to whisper if not to others at least to myself so that I do not forget this day when I try to record my thoughts that has crossed the embankment of uncertainity. 

I wish the trees could form a democratic government of their own, may be elect a Big Banyan tree as their leader who could speak of the atrocities carried on upon them, day in day out by us humans, irrespective of our race, class or location. He must try to stop us from this exponential degree of madness. I do not need the IPCC or the government to assure me of the tyranny of smoke filled air. The air I breathe is filled with black smoke oozing out from industries. The landscape of this garden is changing. The trees are silent. The birds are trying to escape from this prison flying around the world to unknown destinations for food and solace. The bees have stopped pollinating. The tigers are on the verge of extinction. Elephants confront humans and witness their own destruction and the depletion of their territory. The vultures have started encircling the carcass of rotting bodies and filth, the river is parched and sparsely existent and the mighty hills of old have turned bald and grey. A town of peasants and small time traders is held hostage to the rising smoke from ever corner of growing chimneys and conveyor belts. The industries are sucking out the oxygen from the air we breathe. Eventually they will reach there in wiping out the last traces of life from us. And before they do that they would have killed us many times over. The industry never sleeps. The caps never come down. The shoulders seek no rest. For the ones who suffer, there is concern in the air. There is concern for the changing landscape. There is an alarming concern for the children of tomorrow. The scenic beauty, the river, the water canal with trees and acres of paddy fields are slowly disappearing with the changing times. The roofs have turned raven. The leaves, alas have withered not with the change of season but with sadness. A walk in the evening alongside the water canal in Burla is all it takes to see the treachery in the air.  

I wish the trees could alter their genes and speak before the beacon of hope extinguishes forever on this lonely planet. 

RN

Towards the Future: A small article.

What do you allow to grip your mind? Is it Ambition, Fear, Love, Lust, Peace, Pain, Paradise, Death, Family, Job, Freedom or is it something else? Do you live in a self created Limbo where objects are aligned accordingly or does it follow the Brownian Motion? How would it appear, your mind, if you were to stand out of it for a while and be able to stare into it? Would you want to make any changes to it? May be add a few more bytes of memory or may be erase some? Our memories are infinite unlike a computer's memory, but would you still want it to be infinite? How about deleting some junk, some hurtful moments and adding joy that we so cherished in our childhood? 

When you see a hungry child wandering through the rubble for a morsel of food, what does it evoke in you? Guilt? Disdain? Emptiness? How about a swanky car passing by the child evoke in you? Delight, Adrenalin? And what does a diamond necklace in the safety of a bank locker mean to you? Pride? Possession? Ancestry? Cherished relic? 

Let's delete all this. Its too abstract. It is too mundane. Now lets add something better. It is the same child but he is no more on a heap of rubble foraging through the filth for food. Instead he is now in foster care. He just had his dinner and now he is reading Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist under the bed light, yes, he has a bed now, a roof over his head and some clean clothes to wear which he washes himself. He looks healthy, happy and he has friends too, some like him, others a bit different. He relates himself to the suffering of Oliver Twist and prays to the almighty for the wonderful life ahead. He hopes his dark past is left behind him forever. It seems he has a future to look forward to and he dreams of an adventure of similar kind. How did it happen? How was he transformed from a slum child into someone who could dream of contributing to the future of this country?

He thanked God, but unknown to him, it was you who made all this possible. A simple choice to act. A trifle contribution made by you has kindled hope in a child's life. How does it make you feel to dream of being the pivot of the generations to come? Let this thought grip your mind for a while. Let it linger. Let it merge and be a part of you.

Lets contribute to a better future-

From Engineer to a Poet

"For a poet, its a colossal leap of faith from discrete signals to 
discreet signals while a swarm of hungry crocodiles await with hope, sharpening their teeth."


-Rubin Nanda

A thought

"In the larger scheme of the Universe, to come in contact with alien life seems much more plausible than to hear from a loved one, especially when one knows how ridiculous it might seem to even carry forth any expectations. Yet, how ridiculous and naive he might have appeared to the world who proclaimed we are not the descendent of Gods but of monkeys."


-Rubin Nanda

On Lolita

You have to be an artist and a madman, A Creature of Infinite Melancholy, with a 
bubble of poison in your loins & a super voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine, in order to perceive Lolita.

-Vladimir Nabakov

Lesson beside a Stream

The new generation's materialistic buying adventure is very compelling for market research analysts. It appals them. Consumer obsession with commodities, driven by aesthetically appealing advertisements, that aims to bolsters our ego is what will dominate the decision of us, buyers, in this decade. Its sad how we dream of travelling abroad,not to experience a new culture but for a few dollars more so that we can buy that Iphone which we don't need at all. 

iPhone and other similar products have become a style icon for this generation, it symbolizes our migration from the middle class into that social elite. It pleases our vanity. But truth cannot be farther than this. These products have the shortest longevity. There is always a new and better version in the market once we have purchased and thus we are once again kicked back into the rut, drawn into this never ending cycle of satisfying our insatiable vanity. What we miss here is an emotional attachment that we once had with our toys when we were a little kid. It feels sad.

I remember an incident from my childhood when I was 8 years old. I wanted a bicycle very badly. It seemed every child in the vicinity had one. It hurt my ego. I would throw tantrums around; go begging on my knees for one. It was utterly embarrassing for me to walk around when my friends would pass me by on their glittering vehicles.

I always wondered was it too much to ask my father for a bicycle. It was beyond my comprehension as to why I should not have one.

And then one Sunday, my father took me on a little journey to a nearby nursery maintained by forest department. We walked almost a kilometer on an uneven path through numerous bushes, thorns, stretch of mud to reach a small stream. The sound of water roaring down gave me Goosebumps. It was nature at its best. I had never heard something as beautiful as this before. I saw fish that were alive jumping out of the water and vanishing the next moment. I saw the branches of trees resting on the roaring water beneath.We sat down for a while and I played on the bank, enamoured by the beauty of the surrounding.

On our way back, my father said something that has remained with me forever, "You couldn't have come this far on a bicycle"

It still echoes inside me. I learnt the life's hardest lessons gazing at the roaring stream so filled with life. 

Profound Truth...

The profoundest instinct in man is to war against the truth; that is, against the Real. He shuns facts from his infancy. His life is a perpetual evasion. Miracle, chimera and to-morrow keep him alive. He lives on fiction and myth. It is the Lie that makes him free. Animals alone are given the privilege of lifting the veil of Isis; men dare not. The animal, awake, has no fictional escape from the Real because he has no imagination. Man, awake, is compelled to seek a perpetual escape into Hope, Belief, Fable, Art, God, Socialism, Immortality, Alcohol, Love. From Medusa-Truth he makes an appeal to Maya-Lie."




de Casseres