The Adivasi
The adventurers from Europe, with greed
For gold flashing in their eyes, swooped with guns
And swords like human hawks on unknown lands.
Columbus, ignorant of the earth’s size
Named them Indians, the Caribbeans, so they
Became, North and South Americans.
Columbus with Bahama Arawaks
And other tribes of Caribbean islands,
Cortes in Peru with the Incus,
The English settlers in America
With many tribes including the Pequots
And with many others in Australia
Following James Cook’s visit in the year
1770, so savagely
Behaved with all the unarmed innocent
Adivasis of the foreign lands who welcomed them,
That made them ride the rough roller coasters
To embrace sudden death and devastation.
Original Americans were pushed
From eastern Atlantic to the western
Pacific for burial in the ocean.
A ‘Creek’ man of more than 100 years old
With deep sigh about colonizers told
In about 1829-
“When he first came over the wide waters
he was but a little man . . . . His legs were cramped
by sitting long in his big boat and he
begged for a little land to light his fire on . . . .
But when the white man had (so) warmed himself
before the Indian’s fire and filled himself
with their hominy, (he) became very large.”
A chief of ‘Black Hawk’ tribe delivered speech
In 1832 while surrendering-
“They poisoned us by their touch . . . . we lived in
danger. We were becoming like them, liars
and hypocrites, adulterous, lazy
drones, all takers and no workers.”
Not only all wealth of the land besides gold
They besieged, African humans they sold
Who survived after the immense torture
As slave, to be branded with on breast bare
Red-hot iron, imprinting the owner’s sign.
Before colonizers sucked Indian wealth
Barbarous invaders massacred it.
All such indigenous human beings
Who were so devastated, sold and killed
Were cultured and civilized, lived fulfilled.
It was time for aggression and settlement,
For crude and scientific development.
All such broils overlooked, turmoil forgotten,
In air-conditioned room with push-button
Comfort, secured by atomic weapons
Surrounded by all high walled constructions
A soft-spoken sophisticated man sits;
He is the epitome of high culture.
In an age of tense globalization
All are concerned about prosperity
Forgetting all past political feud
How over the corpses of tribes wealth made
In socialist, capitalist countries-
But still some misguided terrorists shine
To be handled properly and quelled in time.
Nothing has stopped, nothing goes unhindered
Old world of exploitation marches on-
Extracting wealth from the bowl of earth, sea
And sky for prosperity, industry;
The old incorrigible, superstitious
Adivasis are still reluctant to
Be evicted. They remain misguided.
They do not yield even after threatening,
Conversion and brainwashing: The Rotters.
But they had their civilization, they
Have culture and tradition, they defy
Globalization: their war rages throughout
The globe; Oil-Timber-War around Peru,
Amazonian Rainforest, Niger-Delta;
Mine-War spreads in Papua-Indonesia,
Phillipines, Niyamagiri hills, India-
In Chhatisgarh, Jungle Mahal, Anantapur
There, in Yanomami land, Brazil and
Manywhere. It seems a desperate strike
By organized forces is imminent
The sons of the soils to eliminate-
From the face of the earth, water and sky.
They are really helpless, misguided, they
Hold on to any discredited lot
Take to arms to survive in their plight.
A recent photograph in a newspaper-
Body of a young girl, died in combat
Carried in a bamboo pole by killers-
Inspired a similar scene to get flashed
In memory- it was the corpse of a
Wild boar hunted for community feast.
It is ugly to ogle at jarawas,
Oldest Andamanese , like beast in cage.
To declare ‘International Day of
World’s Indigenous people’ by the highest
World-body is nothing but puffed up farce.
It is a clash between civilisations:
Industrial-technological, man-made
Against agricultural, forest-bred.
Globalization cannot destroy all;
Environment, ecology, human.
None can evict them, throw them into sea
What has happened is a stain on human glory.
People regret now as the last speaker of
‘Bo’ language dies or rejoice when a
New-born is added to Onge tribe.
Advasis were the first born on earth
They have the first claim on it before us,
Modern civilized. They live in Nature-
Forest and hills, rivers and animals.
Everything cannot be exploited, used.
If they must be removed for any project
They must agree, must be compensated.
Be aware man, awake; Honour Nature
To be honoured by it, to live better.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Insect's Nest and Other Poems -Reviewed by Patricia Prime
Insect’s Nests and Other Poems is Aju Mukhopadhyay’s sixth collection of poems in English. The book contains 44 poems divided into three sections: “With Nature Again,” “Already with you, humans” and “looking the other way.”
The title poem, “Insect’s Nest,” has Mukhopadhyay observing a wasp’s nest on the wall at the back of his computer. But, philosophically, he ventures that in time everything, be it humanity, nature or insects, will all be confined to dust:
Ain’t all the great constructions
like insect’s nest
brittle and fragile
sure to go
today or tomorrow
measured by time?
Why bother about any mark made by lime?
The lengthy poem, “The Profiles of Birds,” is both literal and figurative, as the poet observes the golden orioles in his garden. He readies his camera to capture the beauty of the birds, but only succeeds in catching their shadows and feels perhaps it was wrong to try and imprison their images. This first section then sees nature through the eyes, heart and mind of the poet. In “Sky and Rain,” after months of drought, there is a storm, which “continued to rain / without refrain,” but during its intermission, the poet “looks with wide eyes / what the men and their wives / are doing below.” “The Tree” details the growth and production of a variety of trees: saguaro, deodar, redwood and bamboo, among others. Mukhopadhyay tells us about the nature of trees which provide us with an abundance of gifts:
Beside flowers, roots, fruits, leaves, woods, seeds and shade
They give juice, oil and bread, their bodies to insects when dead.
Epitome of silence, patience and perseverance
Trees are essential to others for their existence
So receptive to human love and touch
Trees are love and beauty incarnate without any grudge.
The second section, “Already with you, humans,” reveals the rewards of the structuring device used in these sections, most clearly. “Passing by the hillock of garbage / he lifts the handkerchief mechanically / to his nose” (“Kolkata: A Still-Image”), which
features a man strolling through the city, “Walking until he halts before the “fragrance of flowers.” “Hunger and Thirst” brings together “the basic urge of life.” As the poet says,
It is futile to talk about peace
until the fire of hunger we extinguish
in every human being
if not in every living thing.
“The Advasi” (a six-page poem) is concerned with “The adventurers from Europe”: Columbus, Cortes, Cook and others. It details over its length the ways in which the colonizers converted, brainwashed and exploited native peoples. He surmises that nothing has changed over the centuries:
Nothing has stopped, nothing goes unhindered
Old world of exploitation marches on –
Extracting wealth from the bowl of earth, sea
And sky for prosperity, industry;
The old incorrigible, superstitious
In “What Peace is Like,” peace is compared with natural phenomenon: “the early rays of the Sun,” “the rising full moon,” “the deep silence of the wood,” and the “concurrent rain.” Most of all:
Peace is love, Peace is smile
Let the true Peace spread
Let this not be fragile.
The third section, “Looking the other way,” contains lyrical meditations. Mukhopadhyay has the ability to grapple the great subjects with a melancholy that belongs to us all, with a deceptive simplicity that sounds as if it is coming from his wisest self. In this section, his subjects are our subjects: retirement, the passage of time, the formless Being, the revolution and transformation of humanity, the changes in circumstances that concern us all, and our temporary sojourn on earth. Many of his constructs are colloquial, yet philosophical narratives. In “The Channels of Life,” he ponders what it means when “this flow of life” slackens. It is only by peace and harmony, the utilizing of our powers and resources that we can find satisfaction in our lives:
There is regret, there is remorse
pull and push
but if you agree
in sweet harmony
to initiate the drive
towards the height, the infinity
life becomes secured
utilizing its resource.
“The Being” considers the overwhelming Being who is “beyond all cognition.” It is a whimsical wondering. The thought of such a Being, overwhelms us as we cannot recognize its power. But the poem concludes with the poet staring into the everyday, where he may be about to reach the Being and find solace:
Such a Being
overwhelming
beyond all cognition
will fulfil me beyond all definition
if by chance I reach it
completing a full circuit.
Mukhopadhyay seldom makes moral judgments. In his plain statements, he keeps his mind focused on the issues and makes his language accessible to everyone. He knows the trick of pulling the mysterious out of the everyday. He does it just by looking at things long enough with the attention available to us all. His musings ponder everything. Here is the poet talking about himself and saying that no-one is self-sufficient – we are all part of the same universe and rely on each other, nature and resources for our wellbeing:
The body I was born with, the cover
The one I am living in, the shelter
Not the same it seems yet it is the same
Excitement, happiness and bereavements
All the relationship in between us,
Earthly creatures, are inevitable links
(“Grateful”)
It is Mukhopadhyay’s lack of moral judgment on his subjects, his taking a stand one way or the other on the important issues of life that adds to the refreshing quality of his work. A great example for how this presides in his poems is the book’s closing verse, “Tenant,” in which the poet imagines the dilemma of not being aware of our neighbours and what happens to them.
Only sparrows, crows and mynas
knew
the housewife and her daughter
who used to spread
on the balustrade
curried rice and crumbs of bread
left over anything
each morning.
The conclusion of the poem is perhaps the perfect summing up of exactly what it is that works in Insect’s Nest, and has worked in Mukhopadhyay’s best poetic meditations in previous volumes,
Ain’t all of us tenant
living in whatever tenement
changing it like our raiment
unnoticed?
Ain’t everything on earth
based on temporary arrangement?
Thus, the poet returns us to the title poem, dedicated to the wasp’s industry and its determination to hold onto life no matter what stands in its way.
It is as though Mukhopadhyay’s persona, the poet revealed behind the curtain is you or I. Or maybe an apparition that forces us to observe, to learn and to capture the spirituality of the natural world in which we live.
The title poem, “Insect’s Nest,” has Mukhopadhyay observing a wasp’s nest on the wall at the back of his computer. But, philosophically, he ventures that in time everything, be it humanity, nature or insects, will all be confined to dust:
Ain’t all the great constructions
like insect’s nest
brittle and fragile
sure to go
today or tomorrow
measured by time?
Why bother about any mark made by lime?
The lengthy poem, “The Profiles of Birds,” is both literal and figurative, as the poet observes the golden orioles in his garden. He readies his camera to capture the beauty of the birds, but only succeeds in catching their shadows and feels perhaps it was wrong to try and imprison their images. This first section then sees nature through the eyes, heart and mind of the poet. In “Sky and Rain,” after months of drought, there is a storm, which “continued to rain / without refrain,” but during its intermission, the poet “looks with wide eyes / what the men and their wives / are doing below.” “The Tree” details the growth and production of a variety of trees: saguaro, deodar, redwood and bamboo, among others. Mukhopadhyay tells us about the nature of trees which provide us with an abundance of gifts:
Beside flowers, roots, fruits, leaves, woods, seeds and shade
They give juice, oil and bread, their bodies to insects when dead.
Epitome of silence, patience and perseverance
Trees are essential to others for their existence
So receptive to human love and touch
Trees are love and beauty incarnate without any grudge.
The second section, “Already with you, humans,” reveals the rewards of the structuring device used in these sections, most clearly. “Passing by the hillock of garbage / he lifts the handkerchief mechanically / to his nose” (“Kolkata: A Still-Image”), which
features a man strolling through the city, “Walking until he halts before the “fragrance of flowers.” “Hunger and Thirst” brings together “the basic urge of life.” As the poet says,
It is futile to talk about peace
until the fire of hunger we extinguish
in every human being
if not in every living thing.
“The Advasi” (a six-page poem) is concerned with “The adventurers from Europe”: Columbus, Cortes, Cook and others. It details over its length the ways in which the colonizers converted, brainwashed and exploited native peoples. He surmises that nothing has changed over the centuries:
Nothing has stopped, nothing goes unhindered
Old world of exploitation marches on –
Extracting wealth from the bowl of earth, sea
And sky for prosperity, industry;
The old incorrigible, superstitious
In “What Peace is Like,” peace is compared with natural phenomenon: “the early rays of the Sun,” “the rising full moon,” “the deep silence of the wood,” and the “concurrent rain.” Most of all:
Peace is love, Peace is smile
Let the true Peace spread
Let this not be fragile.
The third section, “Looking the other way,” contains lyrical meditations. Mukhopadhyay has the ability to grapple the great subjects with a melancholy that belongs to us all, with a deceptive simplicity that sounds as if it is coming from his wisest self. In this section, his subjects are our subjects: retirement, the passage of time, the formless Being, the revolution and transformation of humanity, the changes in circumstances that concern us all, and our temporary sojourn on earth. Many of his constructs are colloquial, yet philosophical narratives. In “The Channels of Life,” he ponders what it means when “this flow of life” slackens. It is only by peace and harmony, the utilizing of our powers and resources that we can find satisfaction in our lives:
There is regret, there is remorse
pull and push
but if you agree
in sweet harmony
to initiate the drive
towards the height, the infinity
life becomes secured
utilizing its resource.
“The Being” considers the overwhelming Being who is “beyond all cognition.” It is a whimsical wondering. The thought of such a Being, overwhelms us as we cannot recognize its power. But the poem concludes with the poet staring into the everyday, where he may be about to reach the Being and find solace:
Such a Being
overwhelming
beyond all cognition
will fulfil me beyond all definition
if by chance I reach it
completing a full circuit.
Mukhopadhyay seldom makes moral judgments. In his plain statements, he keeps his mind focused on the issues and makes his language accessible to everyone. He knows the trick of pulling the mysterious out of the everyday. He does it just by looking at things long enough with the attention available to us all. His musings ponder everything. Here is the poet talking about himself and saying that no-one is self-sufficient – we are all part of the same universe and rely on each other, nature and resources for our wellbeing:
The body I was born with, the cover
The one I am living in, the shelter
Not the same it seems yet it is the same
Excitement, happiness and bereavements
All the relationship in between us,
Earthly creatures, are inevitable links
(“Grateful”)
It is Mukhopadhyay’s lack of moral judgment on his subjects, his taking a stand one way or the other on the important issues of life that adds to the refreshing quality of his work. A great example for how this presides in his poems is the book’s closing verse, “Tenant,” in which the poet imagines the dilemma of not being aware of our neighbours and what happens to them.
Only sparrows, crows and mynas
knew
the housewife and her daughter
who used to spread
on the balustrade
curried rice and crumbs of bread
left over anything
each morning.
The conclusion of the poem is perhaps the perfect summing up of exactly what it is that works in Insect’s Nest, and has worked in Mukhopadhyay’s best poetic meditations in previous volumes,
Ain’t all of us tenant
living in whatever tenement
changing it like our raiment
unnoticed?
Ain’t everything on earth
based on temporary arrangement?
Thus, the poet returns us to the title poem, dedicated to the wasp’s industry and its determination to hold onto life no matter what stands in its way.
It is as though Mukhopadhyay’s persona, the poet revealed behind the curtain is you or I. Or maybe an apparition that forces us to observe, to learn and to capture the spirituality of the natural world in which we live.
Insect’s Nest and Other Poems-Review by Bernard M Jackson
Mukhopadhyay, Aju. Insect’s Nest and Other Poems. Gurgaon (Haryana): Prasoon Publication, 2010. Pp. 72. Rs. 95, $ 4/-
Bernard M. Jackson – International Review Writer
It is futile to talk about peace
until the fire of hunger we extinguish
in every human being
if not in every living thing. (‘Hunger and Thirst’)
Romantic in spirit, formidable in his defence of true ecological ethics, and a profound lover of Nature, the remarkable outpourings of the widely acclaimed Aju Mukhopadhyay are simply pregnant with yearnings for a better world, a world where peace, fellowship and justice can be universally established, and where Man shall realize his designated stewardship within the natural order of Creation. During my many years of interaction and closeness of association with a rapidly expanding Indian-English small press poetry network across the major extent of such a vast sub-continent, it is hardly surprising that the works of this enigmatic, forceful writer had not previously been known to me, but of a certainty, here is an Indian thinker of high-mindedness and integrity, a poet whose philosophical utterances not only have international appeal and relevance, but exude also and enlightened resolve to be heard and duly responded to. Besides this prestigious writer’s twelve books in Bangla, he has authored the amazing number of 14 books in English, and has had poems featured in many of India’s higher profile poetry magazines.
In A. M.’s avowal that we should ‘live and let live’, even the smallest beings of known creation, within the natural order, are given due prominence. Meanwhile, he equates the brief establishment of an insect’s nest with the unsettled future of even the most impressive of man-made buildings or constructions:
Aint all the great constructions
like insect’s nest
brittle and fragile
sure to go
today or tomorrow
measured by time ?
why bother about any mark made of lime ? (‘Insect’s Nest’)
Thoughts of life’s gradual passing have led this poet to a deeper contemplation of bird life, and of Golden Orioles in particular. His poem, ‘The Profiles of Birds’, superb in descriptive choice of phrase, is of excellent alliterative quality, and has great charm of resonance heightened by variegated cadenced development. Conservations, too, is a key element in Mukhopadhyay’s thinking, as his poem, ‘Silence in the Forest’, clearly demonstrates: “We always destroy / while planning to conserve and develop,” claims Mukhopadhyay, and “we are the only intruders.”
And in a subsequent poem, ‘The Tree’, he reveals his substantial knowledge tree-life, extolling the very beneficence of trees in their God-given role of supplying the needs of the natural world:
Besides flowers, roots, fruits, woods, seeds and shade
They give juice, oil and bread, their bodies to insects when dead.
Epitome of silence, patience and perseverance
Trees are essential to others for their existence
So receptive to human love and touch
Trees are love and beauty incarnate without any grudge. (‘Trees’)
There is music, too, within Mukhopadhyay’s poetry, for besides the lyrical quality of his work in general, I was drawn to his delightful poem, ‘Of Melody, Rhythm and Meaning’, as he delves into what may be discovered at the very heart of musicality:
There is even the music unheard
like an emotion stilled in our heart,
or a poem unwritten on a page
like a dream formed on ethereal stage
but incommunicable such things remain,
inaccessible other than n subtle plane. (‘Of Melody, Rhythm and Meaning’)
Mukhopadhyay deplores the way that indigenous natives throughout the world have been driven from their natural habitats, or otherwise cruelly extinguished. This form of savage violation has been visited (by Man) upon wildlife in forests and jungles to such an extent, that: “Wherever minerals, oil or woodland treasures are found / men run to acquire the wealth profound / extinguishing the pristine flora and fauna / and the indigenous people, Nature-bound” (‘The Uncivilised’). And here the poet makes the salient observation: “that men become pollutants, we are not surprised / that civilised people are the most uncivilised.” Indeed, the included poem that immediately follows (‘The Adivasi’), develops the theme still further, for here Mukhopadhyay dwells upon Man’s inhumanity to Man, as nature dwellers in different parts of the world, who had become subjects to all manner of inhumane, often brutally savage treatment, were frequently driven from their ancestral homelands, to be herded away for a harsh existence of abject slavery. – A superb poem (‘The Uncivilised’), delivered with mounting passion and authoritarian zeal, in the writer’s crusading appeal for tolerance and justice in a world largely consumed by greed and aggrandizement of the individual, or whoever is powerful enough to actively encourage such monstrous circumstances.
But without a doubt, one of the most impressive poems to be found in this multifarious selection is is his purely lyrical, mantra-like soliloquy in praise of Peace, as this poet, in so many ways, tells, with constant use of simile and metaphor, of the wonderful nature of Peace. However, and very much by contrast, in yet another of his poems, ‘We are at Nuclear War’, he warns with fearsome clarity of the impending horrific effects of a widespread Nuclear attack and its consequential major scale of destruction, should this terrifying awesome threat not be sidelined and hopefully dismantled.
Aju Mukhopadhyay is an excellent poet of profound didactic capabilities. His philosophy of life is distinctly morally sound and, from a literary point of view, really quite admirable. It is greatly to be hoped that this fine opus will soon be acquired and absorbed by many like-minded readers, litterateurs and fellow poets.*
Bernard M. Jackson – International Review Writer
It is futile to talk about peace
until the fire of hunger we extinguish
in every human being
if not in every living thing. (‘Hunger and Thirst’)
Romantic in spirit, formidable in his defence of true ecological ethics, and a profound lover of Nature, the remarkable outpourings of the widely acclaimed Aju Mukhopadhyay are simply pregnant with yearnings for a better world, a world where peace, fellowship and justice can be universally established, and where Man shall realize his designated stewardship within the natural order of Creation. During my many years of interaction and closeness of association with a rapidly expanding Indian-English small press poetry network across the major extent of such a vast sub-continent, it is hardly surprising that the works of this enigmatic, forceful writer had not previously been known to me, but of a certainty, here is an Indian thinker of high-mindedness and integrity, a poet whose philosophical utterances not only have international appeal and relevance, but exude also and enlightened resolve to be heard and duly responded to. Besides this prestigious writer’s twelve books in Bangla, he has authored the amazing number of 14 books in English, and has had poems featured in many of India’s higher profile poetry magazines.
In A. M.’s avowal that we should ‘live and let live’, even the smallest beings of known creation, within the natural order, are given due prominence. Meanwhile, he equates the brief establishment of an insect’s nest with the unsettled future of even the most impressive of man-made buildings or constructions:
Aint all the great constructions
like insect’s nest
brittle and fragile
sure to go
today or tomorrow
measured by time ?
why bother about any mark made of lime ? (‘Insect’s Nest’)
Thoughts of life’s gradual passing have led this poet to a deeper contemplation of bird life, and of Golden Orioles in particular. His poem, ‘The Profiles of Birds’, superb in descriptive choice of phrase, is of excellent alliterative quality, and has great charm of resonance heightened by variegated cadenced development. Conservations, too, is a key element in Mukhopadhyay’s thinking, as his poem, ‘Silence in the Forest’, clearly demonstrates: “We always destroy / while planning to conserve and develop,” claims Mukhopadhyay, and “we are the only intruders.”
And in a subsequent poem, ‘The Tree’, he reveals his substantial knowledge tree-life, extolling the very beneficence of trees in their God-given role of supplying the needs of the natural world:
Besides flowers, roots, fruits, woods, seeds and shade
They give juice, oil and bread, their bodies to insects when dead.
Epitome of silence, patience and perseverance
Trees are essential to others for their existence
So receptive to human love and touch
Trees are love and beauty incarnate without any grudge. (‘Trees’)
There is music, too, within Mukhopadhyay’s poetry, for besides the lyrical quality of his work in general, I was drawn to his delightful poem, ‘Of Melody, Rhythm and Meaning’, as he delves into what may be discovered at the very heart of musicality:
There is even the music unheard
like an emotion stilled in our heart,
or a poem unwritten on a page
like a dream formed on ethereal stage
but incommunicable such things remain,
inaccessible other than n subtle plane. (‘Of Melody, Rhythm and Meaning’)
Mukhopadhyay deplores the way that indigenous natives throughout the world have been driven from their natural habitats, or otherwise cruelly extinguished. This form of savage violation has been visited (by Man) upon wildlife in forests and jungles to such an extent, that: “Wherever minerals, oil or woodland treasures are found / men run to acquire the wealth profound / extinguishing the pristine flora and fauna / and the indigenous people, Nature-bound” (‘The Uncivilised’). And here the poet makes the salient observation: “that men become pollutants, we are not surprised / that civilised people are the most uncivilised.” Indeed, the included poem that immediately follows (‘The Adivasi’), develops the theme still further, for here Mukhopadhyay dwells upon Man’s inhumanity to Man, as nature dwellers in different parts of the world, who had become subjects to all manner of inhumane, often brutally savage treatment, were frequently driven from their ancestral homelands, to be herded away for a harsh existence of abject slavery. – A superb poem (‘The Uncivilised’), delivered with mounting passion and authoritarian zeal, in the writer’s crusading appeal for tolerance and justice in a world largely consumed by greed and aggrandizement of the individual, or whoever is powerful enough to actively encourage such monstrous circumstances.
But without a doubt, one of the most impressive poems to be found in this multifarious selection is is his purely lyrical, mantra-like soliloquy in praise of Peace, as this poet, in so many ways, tells, with constant use of simile and metaphor, of the wonderful nature of Peace. However, and very much by contrast, in yet another of his poems, ‘We are at Nuclear War’, he warns with fearsome clarity of the impending horrific effects of a widespread Nuclear attack and its consequential major scale of destruction, should this terrifying awesome threat not be sidelined and hopefully dismantled.
Aju Mukhopadhyay is an excellent poet of profound didactic capabilities. His philosophy of life is distinctly morally sound and, from a literary point of view, really quite admirable. It is greatly to be hoped that this fine opus will soon be acquired and absorbed by many like-minded readers, litterateurs and fellow poets.*
Monday, December 27, 2010
The Fate of Liu Xiaobo the Writer and Freedom Fighter
Born in 1955, the young professor, writer and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, joined the protesters against the totalitarian brutal regime during the Tiananmen Square Protest in 1889 and became very vocal in favour of establishment of democracy in lieu of the dictatorial monopolistic communist rules like many other like minded youngsters and intellectuals. Though China has changed to some extent under the pressure of time, with the fall of communism almost everywhere, the dictators are very reluctant to give way. Liu Xiaobo’s career was crippled since then. He has been under surveillance, subject to different types of tortures throughout the period and now undergoing eleven year prison term though he has grown more liberal wishing a gradual change of the system of the Government.
This year and this day, the Human-rights day, he has been chosen to receive the Nobel Peace Prize “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China” but he has been behind the bar and none of his relatives and friends (his wife is under house-arrest and friends have either been arrested or prevented from proceeding to the site of the prize giving ceremony) were present in the Oslo City Hall to witness the conferring of the award to him as per arrangements made by the Chinese Government.
Though there may sometimes remain disagreement about the decision to bestow Nobel Prize to certain individuals for the world is, as it is, always partial, that does not preclude the recipients to receive the prize for it is the decision of a body which may or may not be to one’s or the other’s liking. But the Chinese Government has made virulent publicity against the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, pressurising the Governments to refuse the invitation to attend the function, even under coercion and threat of retaliation, directly or indirectly.
This is certainly a suppression of Human Rights.
We understand that this type of opposition to such award was once enacted by Hitler. In an article titled, “Servant of the State” by Jianying Zha in The New Yorker in its November 8, 2010 issue we read, “A leading contemporary Chinese novelist, widely admired for his laconic style, once told me, ‘Mao is China’s Hitler.’” It is no wonder that Hitlerism still continues there, will continue till it bends to democratic pressure of the public giving birth to a new China. We certainly regret and oppose the move to prevent Liu Xiaobo and his people to be present there to receive the prize.
© Aju Mukhopadhyay, 2010
This year and this day, the Human-rights day, he has been chosen to receive the Nobel Peace Prize “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China” but he has been behind the bar and none of his relatives and friends (his wife is under house-arrest and friends have either been arrested or prevented from proceeding to the site of the prize giving ceremony) were present in the Oslo City Hall to witness the conferring of the award to him as per arrangements made by the Chinese Government.
Though there may sometimes remain disagreement about the decision to bestow Nobel Prize to certain individuals for the world is, as it is, always partial, that does not preclude the recipients to receive the prize for it is the decision of a body which may or may not be to one’s or the other’s liking. But the Chinese Government has made virulent publicity against the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, pressurising the Governments to refuse the invitation to attend the function, even under coercion and threat of retaliation, directly or indirectly.
This is certainly a suppression of Human Rights.
We understand that this type of opposition to such award was once enacted by Hitler. In an article titled, “Servant of the State” by Jianying Zha in The New Yorker in its November 8, 2010 issue we read, “A leading contemporary Chinese novelist, widely admired for his laconic style, once told me, ‘Mao is China’s Hitler.’” It is no wonder that Hitlerism still continues there, will continue till it bends to democratic pressure of the public giving birth to a new China. We certainly regret and oppose the move to prevent Liu Xiaobo and his people to be present there to receive the prize.
© Aju Mukhopadhyay, 2010
Introducing Sri Aurobindo’s Creative Literature
In the face of huge publicity and propaganda in favour of some freedom fighters whose names are the main thrust of some political party, making them cult figures, Sri Aurobindo’s name as a freedom fighter has faded into oblivion. The young generation hardly knows the true history of the freedom movement of India.
Sri Aurobindo lives in the mind of the people as a philosopher and a great thinker. Beginning with his journalistic days to the last of his poetic era, he wrote large number of essays; political, socialistic, analytical and interpretative of scriptures besides translations of classics from different languages.
But he remained a poet from his student days to the last and wrote good number of dramas besides some short stories. He could be a remarkable dramatist and fiction writer too apart from poet but he was either engaged as a secret revolutionary leader or a political leader in the open field, either a professor, journalist, social thinker or a philosopher, doing yoga, meditating while walking for ten or more hours, in between his constant efforts to create literature, translate or edit them, at different periods of his life. Busy with many other things, his original works of imagination, largely remained incomplete, inconclusive. In a stormy life, shifting from place to place, Sri Aurobindo often lost track of his own works. Some of them were in police or Government custody, recovered by chance after he passed away. In search of perfection he often amended his own works; revised, corrected or added volumes, may be once or many times, sometimes leaving little tracks for the compilers and editors. It proved difficult sometimes to reconstruct his works which at the same time gave chance to some infidels to distort his works.
It may even be that he wrote more, completed more than it seems left incomplete but he could not keep them in a regular way, could not find a trace of them. And it may equally apply to Sri Aurobindo what the Mother once said to remind her disciple that they belonged to eternity, hinting that they did not care to keep all records of their works to the temporal world. His yoga diary consisted of jotted down notes in simple note books or chits of paper, not meant for preserving. Sometimes a disciple found some papers containing his works among pieces to be destroyed or burnt down and he kept them with care.
We may refer to a portion of the well meaning opinion expressed by K. R. Srinivas Iyengar, his learned biographer in his work, ‘Sri Aurobindo-a biography and a history’ -“In one sense, of course, it is unfair to Sri Aurobindo’s literary genius to discuss plays and fragments which he did not finalise or complete, and which were not published at all.” (Pondicherry; SAICE. 1985 edition. P.144)
On the whole, compared to his non-fiction and other works his original creative literature was quite less. It is little known that he was a fiction writer and a dramatist. Even as a poet he has not been accorded that altitude as he deserves in the minds of the critics and common people. The other reason for this is perhaps that he wrote not in his Mother Tongue.
All his short stories were posthumously published. Only one drama was published during his life time. Not all his poems were published during his time.
© Aju Mukhopadhyay, 2010
Sri Aurobindo lives in the mind of the people as a philosopher and a great thinker. Beginning with his journalistic days to the last of his poetic era, he wrote large number of essays; political, socialistic, analytical and interpretative of scriptures besides translations of classics from different languages.
But he remained a poet from his student days to the last and wrote good number of dramas besides some short stories. He could be a remarkable dramatist and fiction writer too apart from poet but he was either engaged as a secret revolutionary leader or a political leader in the open field, either a professor, journalist, social thinker or a philosopher, doing yoga, meditating while walking for ten or more hours, in between his constant efforts to create literature, translate or edit them, at different periods of his life. Busy with many other things, his original works of imagination, largely remained incomplete, inconclusive. In a stormy life, shifting from place to place, Sri Aurobindo often lost track of his own works. Some of them were in police or Government custody, recovered by chance after he passed away. In search of perfection he often amended his own works; revised, corrected or added volumes, may be once or many times, sometimes leaving little tracks for the compilers and editors. It proved difficult sometimes to reconstruct his works which at the same time gave chance to some infidels to distort his works.
It may even be that he wrote more, completed more than it seems left incomplete but he could not keep them in a regular way, could not find a trace of them. And it may equally apply to Sri Aurobindo what the Mother once said to remind her disciple that they belonged to eternity, hinting that they did not care to keep all records of their works to the temporal world. His yoga diary consisted of jotted down notes in simple note books or chits of paper, not meant for preserving. Sometimes a disciple found some papers containing his works among pieces to be destroyed or burnt down and he kept them with care.
We may refer to a portion of the well meaning opinion expressed by K. R. Srinivas Iyengar, his learned biographer in his work, ‘Sri Aurobindo-a biography and a history’ -“In one sense, of course, it is unfair to Sri Aurobindo’s literary genius to discuss plays and fragments which he did not finalise or complete, and which were not published at all.” (Pondicherry; SAICE. 1985 edition. P.144)
On the whole, compared to his non-fiction and other works his original creative literature was quite less. It is little known that he was a fiction writer and a dramatist. Even as a poet he has not been accorded that altitude as he deserves in the minds of the critics and common people. The other reason for this is perhaps that he wrote not in his Mother Tongue.
All his short stories were posthumously published. Only one drama was published during his life time. Not all his poems were published during his time.
© Aju Mukhopadhyay, 2010
Short Verse Delight
Aju Mukhopadhyay, a bilingual poet and writer, a member of the Coordination
Committee of The Haiku Society of India, member of the
World Haiku Club and other bodies, has been contributing poems of
Japanese genre to various magazines and ezines, national and
international, for many years. Some of his poems are categorized as
'Editor's Choice', some are arranged as 'Honourble Mention' some are
shown as 'Haiku of Merit', etc. One of his poems with translations in
Bangla and Romanian has been published in the anthology of haiku
poems, 'One Thousand Cranes', published from Romania, as the only
contribution from India. His poems have been translated and included in
quite some anthologies.
This is his seventh book of poems in English and second of this variety
with 100 selected haiku and 30 tanka poems besides four relevant essays
published in different Indian magazines. They speak of the poet's creations
and creative ideas; the position of short verse in the world of poetry, the
introduction of haiku in India by Tagore who himself created no haiku,
Tagore's short verse and its comparative position and lastly, what is haiku
and the recent trend in haiku movement.
Some excerpts from the critiques of his first book of such poems, 'Short
Verse Vast Universe', may give some idea about the quality of his verses.
Every word has a special effect; every stanza reveals a lot and every poem
goes deep into the essence of the mind. Expressing Haiku is a talent that
not many can possess and Mr. Aju Mukhopadhyay is so well-versed in the
art that every line of the poem infuses meditation and devotion. (Dr.
Shubha Mukherjee in 'Poetcrit' and 'Contemporary Vibes')
Short Verse Delight
Aju Mukhopadhyay
“Concise expression, clarity, sensory immediacy, and an allusive quality of
hinting at rather than stating explicitly are the hall marks of good short poems of
Japanese origin, and these attributes are central to Mukhopadhyay's poems.
(Patricia Prime in 'Poets International') ”
A Chapbook of thirty pages reveals the enlightened genius of Aju
Mukhopadhyay who has amazingly mastered the art of writing haiku, tanka and
short verse. His latest book under review is a flowing cascade but zigzagging its way,
not flowing within the confines of concretized elbowing pavements.
(Contemporary Vibes)
“
”
PRASOON PUBLICATION
www.computerplanetindia.com
Ph. : +91-124-2250680 9 7 8 8 1 9 0 2 4 3 3 7 7
Cost of the books is Rs.95 or $4-available from ajum24@gmail.com
Committee of The Haiku Society of India, member of the
World Haiku Club and other bodies, has been contributing poems of
Japanese genre to various magazines and ezines, national and
international, for many years. Some of his poems are categorized as
'Editor's Choice', some are arranged as 'Honourble Mention' some are
shown as 'Haiku of Merit', etc. One of his poems with translations in
Bangla and Romanian has been published in the anthology of haiku
poems, 'One Thousand Cranes', published from Romania, as the only
contribution from India. His poems have been translated and included in
quite some anthologies.
This is his seventh book of poems in English and second of this variety
with 100 selected haiku and 30 tanka poems besides four relevant essays
published in different Indian magazines. They speak of the poet's creations
and creative ideas; the position of short verse in the world of poetry, the
introduction of haiku in India by Tagore who himself created no haiku,
Tagore's short verse and its comparative position and lastly, what is haiku
and the recent trend in haiku movement.
Some excerpts from the critiques of his first book of such poems, 'Short
Verse Vast Universe', may give some idea about the quality of his verses.
Every word has a special effect; every stanza reveals a lot and every poem
goes deep into the essence of the mind. Expressing Haiku is a talent that
not many can possess and Mr. Aju Mukhopadhyay is so well-versed in the
art that every line of the poem infuses meditation and devotion. (Dr.
Shubha Mukherjee in 'Poetcrit' and 'Contemporary Vibes')
Short Verse Delight
Aju Mukhopadhyay
“Concise expression, clarity, sensory immediacy, and an allusive quality of
hinting at rather than stating explicitly are the hall marks of good short poems of
Japanese origin, and these attributes are central to Mukhopadhyay's poems.
(Patricia Prime in 'Poets International') ”
A Chapbook of thirty pages reveals the enlightened genius of Aju
Mukhopadhyay who has amazingly mastered the art of writing haiku, tanka and
short verse. His latest book under review is a flowing cascade but zigzagging its way,
not flowing within the confines of concretized elbowing pavements.
(Contemporary Vibes)
“
”
PRASOON PUBLICATION
www.computerplanetindia.com
Ph. : +91-124-2250680 9 7 8 8 1 9 0 2 4 3 3 7 7
Cost of the books is Rs.95 or $4-available from ajum24@gmail.com
Insect's Nest and Other Poems and Short Verse Delight
Aju Mukhopadhyay, a bilingual poet and writer, has authored 12
books in Bangla and 16 in English. This is his sixth and seventh books of poems in
English besides two in Bangla. He has been awarded prizes and honours
for his poetry by national and international institutes. His poems
sometimes topped the list or kept as one of the top poems in such web
journals as Poetsindia.com and Asianamericanpoetry.com. His poems
have been translated in some international languages and widely
anthologized. Articles on his poetry and anthologies/books published
with his works are on the increase. Some of the modern critics have
assessed his poetry thus-
Insect’s Nest
and Other Poems
“Mukhopadhyay writes in full bloom in utter celebration of the beauty of nature.
He is essentially romantic in spirit. Like Shelley andWordsworth, he sees themysterious
divine force in the beauty of nature which is rarely sung by the modern poets who are
mostlyweaned away by the ugliness of themetropolitan life and social issues.
(Dr. K.V.Raghupathi in- 'Brave New Wave- 21 Indian English Poets') ”
Aju Mukhopadhyay
These wonderful poems are composed like an onomatopoeic song dedicated to
Nature's beauty. They reflex the sounds, rhythms, movements and energy that flow
freely on Natural world around humanity. The author brings us to magic
surroundings where we are forced to observe, as he teaches us to do, the incredible
harmony and fantastic buildings of knowledge that hide in the Natural outside. He
makes us to understand the deep spirituality that lives in Nature.
(Maria Cristina Azcona in-'A Guide to Find Peace')
“
”
PRASOON PUBLICATION
www.computerplanetindia.com
Ph. : +91-124-2250680 9 7 8 8 1 9 0 2 4 3 3 7 7
“Aju is at his best to spread the aura of spirituality in the life full of hustle
bustle and conspiracies.”
(Dr.Ram Sharma in-'Poetcrit')”
Cost of the Book Rs.95 or $4 avaialable from ajum24@gmail.com
books in Bangla and 16 in English. This is his sixth and seventh books of poems in
English besides two in Bangla. He has been awarded prizes and honours
for his poetry by national and international institutes. His poems
sometimes topped the list or kept as one of the top poems in such web
journals as Poetsindia.com and Asianamericanpoetry.com. His poems
have been translated in some international languages and widely
anthologized. Articles on his poetry and anthologies/books published
with his works are on the increase. Some of the modern critics have
assessed his poetry thus-
Insect’s Nest
and Other Poems
“Mukhopadhyay writes in full bloom in utter celebration of the beauty of nature.
He is essentially romantic in spirit. Like Shelley andWordsworth, he sees themysterious
divine force in the beauty of nature which is rarely sung by the modern poets who are
mostlyweaned away by the ugliness of themetropolitan life and social issues.
(Dr. K.V.Raghupathi in- 'Brave New Wave- 21 Indian English Poets') ”
Aju Mukhopadhyay
These wonderful poems are composed like an onomatopoeic song dedicated to
Nature's beauty. They reflex the sounds, rhythms, movements and energy that flow
freely on Natural world around humanity. The author brings us to magic
surroundings where we are forced to observe, as he teaches us to do, the incredible
harmony and fantastic buildings of knowledge that hide in the Natural outside. He
makes us to understand the deep spirituality that lives in Nature.
(Maria Cristina Azcona in-'A Guide to Find Peace')
“
”
PRASOON PUBLICATION
www.computerplanetindia.com
Ph. : +91-124-2250680 9 7 8 8 1 9 0 2 4 3 3 7 7
“Aju is at his best to spread the aura of spirituality in the life full of hustle
bustle and conspiracies.”
(Dr.Ram Sharma in-'Poetcrit')”
Cost of the Book Rs.95 or $4 avaialable from ajum24@gmail.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
