AUTHORS GUILD OF INDIA

                                                 

On the concluding day of the World Book Fair (Feb 15 – 23,2014) in the Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, like in the past, the Authors Guild of India organized a three pronged programme. The inaugural team consisted of established Hindi literateurs like Dr Sherjung Garg, Dr Sarojini Preetam, Dr Kshama Sharma and Dr Shiv Shankar Awasthy. After the initial formalities , the first engagement was release of some newly published books of 5/6 writers. Some of them came from places out of Delhi which goes to tell the popularity of the Guild as a famed literary forum.

The second part of the programme was a seminar on the theme of “Bal Sahitya : Dasha Evam Disha” (Children’s Literature : Present Position and Future). The keynote address was delivered by Dr Kshama Sharma, editor, Nandan, a leading Hindi monthly for the children. From her experience she narrated how it was difficult to write for the tiny- tots. For that, the writer was required to go back to the memory lane of his own childhood. Dr Sharma recalled how while in the Hindustan daily, she came in contact with late Sh. Rajendra Awasthy, the founder editor of the Nandan, who persuaded her to write for children. With his blessings, she succeeded to be its editor in due course. Dr Sherjung referred to some legendary Hindi writers and recalled how they had given adequate focus to children as well. In this connection, he named Premchandra, Babu Harishchandra, Bachchan, Nirala etc. He recited some self composed lines for the said segment.  The other eminent Hindi scholars, who graced the occasion were S/Sh H.L. Bachhotia, Ram Prasad Gupta, Ram Pyare Tiwari, Dr Gangesh Gunjan, Bageshwar Jha, Dr Mani Bushan Mishra and Ashok Jyoti.

The third and last item was the ‘kavi gosthi’ with Dr Garg in the chair and Dr Preetam conducting. The programme ensued with the recitation of their Hindi poems by two Maithili poets namely Dr Gangesh Gunjan and Bageshwar Jha (Shridev of Maithili). The programme continued till evening in which about a dozen of other reputed poets recited their poems.The Authors guild of India deserves congratulations for maintaining this beautiful literary tradition. Well done SSA!

  

O.L.Q.

                                               

I am sure, the page viewers of  this abbreviated title of the  post on my blog will be surprised. Rightly so, because it does not carry any meaning. The full form of this abbreviation is Officer  Like Quality. In most of the disciplined forces in general and the army in particular, the training programmes for officers includes an input, which prepares them to behave like an officer. In some advanced Western countries this training is known as finishing course as the personality of the officers is polished and hence it comes at the end of the formal training.

In this elite programme, officers are taught to improve their personality. This word is toady misused as we think that only the physical appearance of an individual constitutes his personality, which is only partially true. Besides the physical appearance, personality also combines sense of dress, moral stature, culture and spirituality. The colour of skin, height, descent, caste, religion etc are immaterial before the above good traits.

So the trainee officers are taught  how to dress, how to shake hands with others, how to smile while meeting somebody, how to reply even when not obliging somebody, how to be cooperative with others and how to avoid being a bore in the company of others. The trainees are told how to behave with their seniors and juniors. Remember, do not we teach these behavioural goodness to our minor children? How much they imbibe, depends on the seriousness of the parents. If they mean business, their wards will thank their parents in such finishing courses for having them taught to be so since childhood. Contrarily, the children of non-serious parents go wayward and so the later training go in waste to shape them ideally.

It is therefore necessary that we, not only inculcate good qualities in our kids but should also understand the true meaning of ‘personality’ and frame up ourselves accordingly. Perhaps then only we shall make India a better country.   

LOOK INSIDE YOURSELF

                                               

Today I was seeing in a national newspaper that Nitish Kumar is blaming the press for ignoring him. He charged that he had been organizing districi level ‘sankalp’ rallies which were calculatedly being ignored by the media. Is he not trying to show himself bigger than the life size and asking for the moon? We know that he is being envious of Narendra Modi, whose massive rallies, all over the country and his persuasive oratory are mesmerizing the press and so the media is not giving any special preference to the local satraps who are wrongly overestimating themselves. We think, he is wise enough to see the difference between a national party and a state level party. Why he should compare himself with the prime ministerial prospect of a national party?

There is a saying in English that nobody can make you smaller without your consent. If the high flying Nitish of 2012 has suddenly become featherless, he has none else to blame except himself. He is blaming Narendra Modi for falsely seeing the dreams of becoming the prime minister. The fact is that he himself is suffering from this nightmare under the influence of which he parted company with a dependable alliance partner. Under his scheme of things, he started going closer to the Congress which is helping his minority government and propagating Modi as a communalist who believed in dividing the society. No court or enquiry including one constituted by Lalu while being the Railway Minister, has held NaMo guilty. Still Nitish and Lalu accuse him of killing several Muslims in 2002. Both can be dragged to the court for this irresponsible serious baseless charge.

After the victory in the last assembly election, under a well thought strategy, he started ignoring BJP and advancing his hate-Modi campaign.   In big rallies at Patna and Delhi, he had declared to support a govt at the Centre which gave special status to Bihar. When Mrs Sonia Gandhi left some hints of a lollypop, he abandoned his BJP partner. This political hara-kiri, reduced his public cestimate and contrarily, the popularity of Modi went sky high. The Congress read the pulse of the time and sidelining JD/U, lured the RJD and LJP to come forward for an electoral alliance. Nitish, due to his suicidal political miscalculation is left in lurch and licking his wounds in utter loneliness. Will the press like to give any byte to a politician of this track record?

 

POLITICAL HARAKIRI, STYLE NITISH

                                               

A wise politician is one who is endowed with foresight and makes his move in right time and at right places. Politics is such a crude field where the rival players are merciless and even a small miss proves irreparable. If this is so, the Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar of JD/U appears to have committed a similar mistake, amounting to his political harakiri when he broke alliance of six years old with the BJP.

The BJP-JD/U alliance had been running smoothly and Bihar had returned to the era of economic revival and peace. The state started registering its position of success in different fields of developments in the country. Nitish was being seen in line with other established chief ministers like Jayalalithaa, Mamata, Narendra Modi, Shivraj Singh and Raman Singh. Often his name was being floated as a PM material. He was further treated as a hero and giant killer for uprooting the 15-year long RJD rule. The most vociferous leader like Lalu had been cut to size.

All these favourable developments made him extra ambitious. He started dreaming to become the Prime Minister. In his scheme of things, he thought that if he left out BJP, the minorities will vote for him and his road to success would be easier. Moreover, he would be able to discard Modi, his bête noir. It was a pure and simple miscalculation. He should have realized that the people had voted for the alliance and not for Nitish alone. He is yet to prove his acceptability. Once the alliance was disrupted, the graph of BJP and Modi started going up and sidelined by the Congress, Nitish is today all alone and friendless. Moreover, some important party leaders including Shivanand Tiwari are charging him for dictatorial attitude and leaving the party. The recent electoral surveys say that out of 40 Lok Sbha seats, the BJP will grab 21, while JD/U’s tally will dwindle to 5 only. The lesson learnt is that a  wise politician will definitely try to avoid such suicidal miscalculations. The utter defeat is looming large on his outfit(JD/U).

ON SEX FRONT

                                               

Of late, there has been an upsurge in sex related crimes. It is not true to admit that it is a new development. Sex is as old as man himself and so crimes concerning it is also equally old.However we did not hear so much about it in the past. This is so because of the wider and quick communication, education and boldness of the fairsex to challenge illegality in the game. Particularly in India, it caught added momentum after the Nirbhaya case of Dec 16, 2012. Since then most of the cases have been challenged, reported to police and the culprits were/are sentenced to required punishments. There was a committee to suggest some stringer measures to deter the culprits. The people, all over the world are in favour of quick and more stringent punishment to cause fear in the sex related criminals.

In this connection, a recent law of Macedonia (Greece) has surprised the society. The local parliament passed a law stressing to castrate a rapist if the crime is repeated. That means that the individual, for the first such crime will be tried under existing law. But if he repeats the crime, he will be castrated. Even though it is a harsh punishment, most of the Macedonians demand a still sterner punishment. Perhaps they feel that either the capital punishment or the life imprisonment would be more justified. In their logic it might have the implication that even a castrated criminal, if free, may commit more such nuisances and harass the society.

In this connection, the Vatican city of the Pope of Roman Catholic church has come under a bitter scanner. The Human Rights Watch Committee, an agency of the UNO has taken an objectionable notice of the sex abuses there. It has reports that the celibate fathers indulge in molestation, rape and humiliation of the womenfolk in the city including rampant incidents of child abuses. The committee is exercised over the incidents being suppressed, and the culprits running scot free. The committee has put its pressure on the church authorities to take appropriate steps to prevent such crimes and arrange quick judicial trials of the criminals to face deterring punishments. The report has spread like a wild fire in the western world, as the general people never thought that such an august religious centre, enjoying worldwide network and appeal, is suffering from this despicable abuse.

PRADIP: POET OF INDEPENDENCE

                                               

Pandit Ramchandra Dwivedi, better known to the cine goers and literary people as Pradip (6.2.1915 – 11.12.1998 ), if alive, could have entered into his hundredth year in a couple of days hence. Let us admit that a singer of freedom like him, is never dead, rather will remain alive in our heart for good. He had the courage to compose and sing highly nationalist songs at a time in colonial India when very few had courage to raise any voice against the British rulers.

He chose Bombay (now Mumbai) as his centre and filmland as his platform to give a clarion call to the sleeping Indians to rise and throw out despicable colonial yoke from their shoulders. His first such inspiring song, ‘door hato ai duniyawalo Hindustan hamara hai’ in 1940 in the film Bandhan‘ hit the market like a lightning so much so that even today on the occasion of national celebrations, it is proudly played and heard. It suddenly made him popular all over the country and the English masters were so disturbed that they issued warrant of arrest against him. Panditji had to go underground to evade the imminent incarceration. He did not do so out of being cowardice but to continue his silent literary onslaught against the oppressive foreign rulers.

Then came series of sparkling and inspiring songs like ‘aao bachcho tumhe dikhayen jhanki Hindustan ki, is mitti se tilak kro ye mitti hai balidan ki’, ‘de di hamen aazadi bina khdg bina dhal, Sabarmati ke sant tune kar diya kamal’. For this, the obliged film world awarded him its highest  Dada Saheb Falke Award in 1997. The single song of  nationalism, which made him immortal is ‘ai mere vatan ke logon, jara aankh men bhar lo pani’, written in the wake of the Chinese aggression of 1962. When this song was sung in 1963 in Mumbai in a progrmme where Pt Nehru was also present, who was so overwhelmed that expressed, ‘One who is not moved hearing this song is not an Indian’. He himself wept profusely. Only a few days back in Mumbai, in presence of Narendra Modi, Lata was accompanied by one lakh people to sing this immortal composition to mark its 50^th celebration.

We all obliged Indians, from the core of our heart wish peace to this great soul.    

LONG TO LIVE HOW LONG

                               

No living being including man likes to die. Particularly no man longs to grow old and die though both are ultimate truth. We are definitely afraid of these two conditions, despite fully realizing that there is no escape. Modern technologies, medical or  otherwise have definitely helped the man to delay old age and death. All these things have suddenly stirred up my feelings when in the morning I read that Sardar Khushwant Singh ( born on Feb 2, 1915) has completed 99 years and entered into the century year. Despite suffering from old age disabilities and remaining wheel-chair bound, he maintains th jovial mental traits of his personality and hence even today, in  the circle of his friends and well wishers, he is known as ‘naughty sardar’ and ‘witty sardar’.

Despite a multi-faceted chequered literary track record, now he does not want to live any more. He explains that since nothing is left to be done, why should not he say goodby to this world. In 2010 he is on record to have expressed this wish. He not only wrote his obituary, but also penned a small poem to be used on his epitaph. He is a rare breed of intellectual and so cannot be challenged. His fans simply wish him to be a centurion at least.

This raises a question, how long one should live? The Hindu scriptures prescribe, ‘pashyedshardam shatam’(let us see 100 winters). The modern man knows that every living being’s life span is in its geans and with certain exceptions this side or that side, for a man it is 100 years. Biology goes still further telling that the geans also contain indications of ailments which will cause individual’s death.In the Chhandyogyopnishada I came across a word ‘tadbhooyah’ which means that every living entity generates similar beings. Had our seers of yore researched and procured the gean- based knowledge?

Coming back to the longevity, how long we intend to live? Both scientifically and mythologically, as discussed above, the last span is known like a writing on the wall. What to do? To live as a dependent on others is a curse. To keep liabilities unresolved brings stress. One is said to have lived wisely who wisely sorted out the above two commitments. Only then he will not be afraid of death.