Teachers' Day

I simply cannot conjure myself as writing, or bring myself to write, on Teacher’s Day…as it has to be, and would always be, Teachers’ Day. Not that my Teachers would pull me up for not doing so. No teacher would…for that matter. But it is my own self that wouldn’t allow me not to acknowledge the intense and constant presence of all.

True I shall not be naming them. Why? Because a name would be confining, in the context of their indispensable impact on me…and my life. Not only that, there being so many of them…and many more to follow…failing to mention even one of them, however unintentional, would be a betrayal of their influence.

Though repeatedly we commit this mistake…by not recognizing our teachers as our teachers. Because, the problem with us is our affinity for preconceived notions…in fact it is not affinity, but dependence on them. Even when we are looking for answers and the answers stare at our face, we are not able to recognize them, as we expect the answer to have a specific form. Isn’t it paradoxical? We don’t know something, yet we harbor an image of what it should be! Well, we and our mental constructs…

Thus it is no wonder we fail to recognize the various teachers, life gifts us with…

Who is a teacher?

The one who provides answers to our academic questions…helps us to improve our grades in the examination in school and college?

That’s all?

No. A teacher does more than that…is much more …and the ‘much’ and ‘more’ cannot be quantified.

The first teacher that we are blessed with is our parents…yet we consider them only as our parents…and not teacher. And for it we are not to be blamed. What is to be blamed is our ignorance as regards whom to call our teacher…instead of concentrating on how a teacher should ‘look’! The fixation with ‘forms’ has to give way to the openness to accept as teacher, whosoever and whatsoever enlightens us. Teachers transcend the academia…to become an entity who aids in our ‘growth’ instead of merely reinforcing our bank-of-information…contained in the books of our text.

A teacher in providing answers, helps us to know what we don’t know…makes us aware of our unawareness. The teacher urges us to seek more questions…and ultimately sets us on the path-of-searching for our own answers…and in doing so helps us recognize and appreciate many more teachers…in many forms, in any form—in the animate—and in the formless… the inanimate. And this goes beyond the curriculum, because for a teacher the only curriculum is the ‘overall growth’ of the students so as to educate them, and not merely help them in becoming qualified in specific discipline(s)…for jobs. Make no mistake life is the Ultimate Job…

My life has been blessed with such teachers…none lesser than the other in significance…and each appearing at the right time…as is the forte of life. It is always on time, which again we fail to realize. They have all followed a chronological order in their appearance in my life…the preceding one preparing me for the lessons of the teacher to follow next. And once they have appeared, their presence has become a constant presence, even after the absence of their appearance.

We know not which teacher life would send our way. Apart from the teacher in a physical form…it could be a movie…a specific dialogue or scene, all of a sudden solving a mystery of life for us with a mental click…or it could be an article that contains a specific line that does the trick…or a song…and in my case, books and articles. Each one of them has been unique, and indispensable, and simply indescribable in entirety of their effect. Well words would be too confining even for a writer…

Hence the term inanimate, for books doesn’t go down well with me. And for that matter how could anything that infuses us with a feeling of revitalization…energizes us…inspire us and make us capable of receiving the inspirations…in one word, helps us be-come truly alive…with heightened awareness…makes us more animate, be themselves inanimate? Well, again it is my teachers…physical and non-physical…who convince me that perceptions would naturally vary…and couldn’t be absolute. And experience is one of the biggest teachers…let us not forget that too.

And if in one sentence I had to state who a teacher is…my answer would be... “A teacher is the one who gives you back to you…leads you to you…sets you on the path to search for your own self…” There could be no knowledge more profound than this…because unless we know who we are, we cannot know the truth of anything else…and when we claim to do so, we simply affirm our illusion.

An external teacher leads us to the internal teacher…our true self…and helps us thus to ‘feel’ the connection with the Teacher Ultimate…to ultimately render us our own teacher.

Each moment is lived through, and with the aid of, the teachings of my teachers…external and internal…and though time and again I find myself to falter…I find my teachers by my side. They make each moment a teaching and learning moment. Life would not have been the same without them. I hereby acknowledge, not only on this day, but each moment, their guiding presence in and my life and thank all my teachers for gracing my life…and thank in advance many more teachers who would surely follow…

It shall always be for me Teachers’ Day…

HAPPY IN-NO-DEPENDENCE DAY

Each year we celebrate this day, with pomp and gaiety…and now with mobile phone service providers joining in, the hues of celebrations have added another dimension. As to what, we are at the mercy of our own discretion and interpretations…if we have that still with us, that is. We have already surrendered our expressions to the ‘forwarded messages’. What we express thus is not our expression…yet what we feel cannot be felt by others. Feelings have this unique, customized, designer-like quality. Then how can somebody else’s expressions express our feelings?

We celebrate Independence Day, when we are heavily dependent on others for expressing something which is our very own. This is the most elementary example of our life spent in dependence. Just a tip of the iceberg…

I would not get into the details of the various areas of life (there is none that is free from it) where we are spending our lives in dependence…they have already been enumerated in one of the first blogs that found its way out as an expression of my consciousness.

But this being another Independence Day, it is high time that we took note of the fact that “To depend is okay, but when it becomes dependence, it is not. In dependence we survive, but fail to live”. And if we are aware of this fact, which I feel we are, then we need to speak out. After all one thing that Independence has given us is, The Freedom of Speech. But to do so we need to free ourselves first from the fetters of the inhibition and prohibition imposed by our own conditioned thinking.

Utilizing that very Freedom of Speech I take this opportunity to wish all my fellow country mates, HAPPY ‘IN-NO-DEPENDENCE’ DAY…for ever…and ever…

Sushmita Mukherjee,

August 15, 2011.

The Change has to start at some point

Well change is not a change if it is not all-pervading and all encompassing...but it has to start with the realization that change is the need of the hour...has always been...and would continue to, to eternity. Because, consciously or unconsciously we change continuously, as per Nature's Law... though we call it by another name...EVOLUTION. And it is always better to opt for the conscious version...then we know why we are doing what we are doing, and not doing what we are not...

Sushmita Mukherjee,

August 8, 2011

Put the West in West Bengal in the Waste-bin of Non-existence

‎'Bengal' is 'Being All' that 'Bengal' stands for. While 'West' has been a real 'Waste'...when we integrate the time, effort, space covered on pages, ink consumed...and ignorance propagated...through these many years...and we would find the 'Wastage' to be immeasurable...and realize that we have projected our conscious and unconscious affiliations to anything that comes from the 'West'...even if it leads us to 'Waste'. The West from  West Bengal should be dumped in the Waste-bin of non-existence. That would not be a waste but a gain...a gain not material but deeper. The kind that is felt when you are being true and expressing the truth. 

Sushmita Mukherjee,

August 6, 2011

Philosophy of 'Rights'

The definition of right and wrong depends upon the perceptions of the perceiver. Why otherwise we would be faced with undesirable incidents that have a massive negative impact on the mass? This forces us to ponder if there is a mass defect in the thinking of the executors of these acts, as well as in that of the incubators of these executors. After all nobody commits oneself to an act without thinking it to be the right one, under the circumstance…the only difference being the fact that they look through the window of their circumstance. Hence they do what they think is right, irrespective of the wrongs it causes. If only they took the time to feel and not think what is right and hence should be their course of action, we would have a scenario which would be hailed as good by all…and not only by them.

The time is ripe when we started doing things because it felt right…and not simply because it is our right, the ‘rights’ that we have been accorded with, courtesy The Constitution of the country. Merely going by them have constituted what, is for everyone to see. 

Using our ‘right to vote’ we vote, and elect our representatives to the Parliament (and Legislative Assembly). But

(i) Do we vote for the ‘right’ person?

(ii) Do we have the option of ‘choosing’ the ‘right’ person?

(iii) Do we vote, simply because it is our ‘right’?

(iv) Do we vote because doing otherwise would label us irresponsible?

Well, I had written a blog on these lines: “Right of Right”,  and I had received flak from a few of the readers...and support too, from some. That is quite natural as each one of us has again, “freedom of speech, the right to expression”. So as I use mine freely, free are others too.

Criticisms are immaterial but not the importance of these questions, which lies in the very fact that it is these people—whom we elect—who act as the incubators of executors; either by ignoring their acts or by justifying their own inefficiency with excuses galore. And this sends out very wrong signals as far as their intentions and sincerity are concerned.

But then we too cannot sit back and keep leveling criticisms at those incubators. Are we not responsible as well, by choosing to use our ‘right to vote’, just because it falls in the purview of our ‘rights’ and thus ‘we need to vote’? Hence it was perplexing to note that few have gone ahead and claimed that failing to vote be labeled as an act of crime. What label they have for those acts of voting that elect criminals?

Well as far as needing to vote is concerned, we do not need to do anything other than be true to our own selves and act in accordance. When we are, we are so to all as well.

It is good to find that now the consciousness is dawning collectively on the mass to utilize this ‘right’, in the right manner. The suggestion forwarded through my blog gets corroboration in an article in The Sunday, Times of India, dated July 17, 2011, in their “Times Life” segment.

The suggestion was and is simple. And it would enable all to make use of the Rule 49-O of the Indian Constitution, whereby one votes, but registers a ‘no-vote’, a protest vote, when one is either deluded with the system or one does not have the option of choosing the ‘right’ person; in absence of such a candidate. A simple incorporation of a “NONE OF THE ABOVE” option in the EVM would serve the purpose. When so many names can be accommodated in the EVM, why cannot another one be?

This single incorporation would herald a fresh introduction to the ‘right to vote’. Simply executing the ‘Philosophy of Rights’ will not allow us to be in the ‘right’. ‘Rights’ turn out to be ‘right’ only when they create the right outcome. ‘Rights’ underused, misused and abused lead to the ‘Wrongs’.

Sushmita Mukherjee,

July 18, 2011

  

U 2 G!

“Face devoid of voice is a void”, this is what I strongly feel. But let us face the fact that with the advent of Facebook, face has truly acquired multi-dimension.

In the days past, face was referred to as “Face is the index of mind”, and rightly so, because more often than not, the face registers the emotions arising within. So in the context of the current rage and terminologies in vogue, we can safely redefine face as “Face is a book that indexes the emotions and feelings”.

The kids who normally avoid the face of a book, lap up the prospect of interacting through facebook: be it on their PC or lappy (as laptop is fondly referred to); their most trusted friend. Not only the kids, we adults too prefer to ‘book’ what we wish to state, inform or want to know. Thus almost everything that could be virtually shared is done really through it.  We connect and stay connected through sharing the happenings of our life—from plain mundane to grave. Thus it has become a SPECTRUM of CONNECTIONS, knowing no bounds.

As our nation has become a SPECTRUM connecting the PARTNERS engaged in innumerable frauds and scams, through a sharing of their common agenda—filling their coffers. Well serving one’s pocket is not wrong as our first duty is towards the self. But when that service becomes a disservice to the nation, pockets being filled with the money not meant for those pockets it becomes a selfish act. Not only that these people also fail to understand that by doing what they are, they are selling their own selves…and pocketing the proceeds, as a deed of this sale.

No wonder yet another scam, in an endless list, shows the face of this wide spectrum of dishonesty. Names being scalped, appear mockingly, with a U 2 G (“aap bhi” when translated in Hindi) reaction elicited from public and friends alike! The 2 G spectrum issue has become 2 Grave. The “grav-ity” of the situation, when looked at from the angle of the politicians, has the potential to turn into a grave for the political careers of the named persons involved in the scam. Though yes, we are quite accustomed to see U turns 2, when faced with such sensitive issues (read: the high-profile public figures). “Hush-hush” is the acceptance perforce, for “We, the People”, who select our representatives…and who have no other option indeed but to accept the (mis)deeds of their chosen ones.

And here I don’t wish to name names, as “What’s in a name?”, when we know that such acts are prevalent, with each day a new name, with a new face, replacing the other or joining the other, as a partner in crime. Furthermore, the face-behind-the-face remains hidden, there being no book to book their faces.

  

And it is not only these public-servants who are enchanted with such acts. We in general think that it is very easy to take others for a ride, and enjoy the receipts when effectively there hasn’t been any such ride. We love to manipulate others…and fictitious acts attract us.

But let us face it…whom are we manipulating, who are we ruining and most important, from whom are we running? Whose face are we saving? Ultimately the face has to face the face of its own self, in the hush of its inner calm. And then it realizes of having de-faced its own self.

I don’t know in entirety the Constitution of the Country, but I know this much for sure that it has been converted into a Constitution of Hypocrisy, from that of Democracy…and the country is progressing in spite of that. But when it comes to Constitution of the Self, hypocrisy persisted with leads to regression of the Self… forcing one to draw solace when one finds company, with a U 2 G!

While we the citizens of the country, exclaim with shame—as we have become shock-resistant—U 2 G!

Sushmita Mukherjee,

8^th July, 2011.

Elements of Nature

Elements of Nature make us realize our nature. And there is nothing unnatural with that…we being beings intimately entwined with it. Yet we fail to acknowledge this fact. Only when faced with some extreme expressions of Nature, we remember that we are not apart from it, but very much a part of it.  In such moments, however fleeting they might be, we are forced to recognize our own misdeeds towards Nature. How we have been ravaging it in the name of progress becomes very apparent –most importantly to us.

We have misgivings about the nature’s mood swings and Natural calamities, but hardly do we spare a thought for what we have been doing against Nature. It is also a fact that nature reacts only after having tolerated our protracted atrocities. And these reactions cause us to take note of what we should have noticed earlier.   

Hence with self-enforced responsibility, nature reminds us from time to time of the most common human folly: our failure to appreciate what we have, taking it for granted. We wait till they cease to be, or are endangered or we ourselves have a narrow escape. 

Why do we prefer for extreme conditions to realize the simplest things?

Maybe because we are super-intelligent species capable of tackling hard tasks, which makes for us easier to learn the hard way…and comes in the way of our ego if we learn through easier ways or it could be the process of evolution at work. Well, reasons aplenty can be forwarded, but not here.

Coming back to where I had started, the elements of Nature, it is one such expression of nature that has catalyzed this specific bout of writing. Though I had intended to devote attention to some very urgent and at the same time pending work, the force of nature and its nature, left me with no option but this. I could not be doing anything other than this.

With the city in the grip of torrential rains accompanied by gusty winds, even though I would have loved to stay indoors and enjoy a wonderful time with my pen and diary and a cup of tea sitting beside me, I like many others had to respond to the call of duty. And if the onward journey was an experience that would have been photographer’s paradise and poet’s incubator of creation, the journey back was, in one word, humbling. The major portion of the journey was covered by car, with the car splashing through the knee deep water like a surgeon’s scalpel…yet unfortunately drenching a passer-by…adding to the deluge from above.

But when I got down for the rest of the journey to my abode, I realized the significance of feeling the ground beneath the feet…the ground that has always been there for us as a solid foundation…the Mother Earth. Yet it has to either Quake or Crack or Hide itself under water to make us re-cognize that even standing atop our achievements we should not forget the ground…and remain earthy.

Though I was on a familiar terrain, yet submerged as it was it didn’t appear so. Wading through the water I was really grateful to feel the feel of the ground beneath. The ground which I hardly acknowledged earlier acknowledged me…and delivered me safely to my destination. Well then, it is we the humans who are vindictive and revengeful, courtesy our ego…which is absent outside of us.

The element of nature, with its overt expressions made me accept my ignorance. Ignorance begets the propensity to take the blessings for granted. Yet ignorance is something that cannot be ignored. The elements of Nature frees one from (the residual traces of) this very ailment…of ignorance.

This was reiterated to me by voice of Nature. Thus as I found the ground beneath my feet today, I felt how it feels to be grounded. Being grounded has an additional significance now. It is the element of Nature which communicated to me that wherever we go, the ROUTE shall remain the one that leads us to OUR ROOT.

Sushmita Mukherjee,

17^th June, 2011.