AN ANGEL WAS BORN

 It's not been much time,
Since I felt you move.

when I sing songs to you,

You merrily dance and groove.

I am left in isolation,

Due to the pandemic scare.

I want to move out,

But, I wouldn't dare.

I feel lonely and afraid,

And I share these with you.

You used to understand,

Even if you had no clue.

There's one more month to go,

And I dream of holding you.

But, why aren't you responding now?

Isn't my excitement true?

It is my birthday and,

I'm going to the hospital.

I can't stop weeping,

As this day is pivotal.

They cut me through and took you out.

I could barely see blurred spots of red.

I could only hear the doctors say,

That the baby girl is dead.

My eyes were teary,

But I couldn't cry aloud.

You were my first baby,

And now you're an angel on some cloud.

I am bereaved,

And this grief may never leave me.

I always dreamt of looking after you,

But, now, from above, you look after me.

                                                                    -Somya Mishra

Letter to my Unborn Baby

 They called it magical,
But I felt it was natural.
They said, "your face will glow!",
But I could only see acne grow.

They started becoming nicer to me,

And fakeness was all I could see.

The scans made others happily teary,

To me, they were hazy and scary.

They asked, "It's already time, where is your bump?"

I smiled but I was equally worried about the tiny hump.

I kept growing larger in size,

And getting constant worrying sighs.

I could not see the bump.

I could not feel you move.

Was I becoming insensitive?

Did my pregnancy require further proof?

I panicked, I cried.

I sobbed to my heart's content.

They advised me to be happy,

And left me alone.

This gave me more reasons to resent.

I can feel you move now.

I talk to you at times.

You know when I'm sad,

And you respond to those rhymes.

                                                           -Somya Mishra

EXPRESSING THE SUPPRESSED VOICE

 For the past few weeks, I have been dying to write this note on the deceptions of our Government. While reading Shashi Tharoor's "The Paradoxical Prime Minister" and co-incidentally getting to listen to the emerging voice of Mahua Moitra, I literally had a clear vision of the "MODI-fication" of our nation. In my defense, I shall clarify the fact that my ideologies have always been the same and the above-mentioned sources have merely acted as a catalyst.

A latest article in "The Hindu" mentioned that there have been 13 crimes against women in Uttar Pradesh in the past one week. This reminded me of the herd mentality people carry because of the possible persuasive methods of the Government. After the Hathras incident, crimes against dalit women came up as a Domino effect. The problem with the Government may not be in encouraging these rapes (because that is something which is whispered and not supposed to be openly written about.) but it majorly lies in not making necessary efforts to stop it.

Discrimination has always haunted India, but it has started becoming very apparent now. There was a time when I was against reservations because of my personal loss of a merit-worthy seat, but now I feel guilty that I was worried about a seat for employment while they are concerned about a seat for survival. More than a realisation of guilt, it is a realisation of the deception the Government has had on us all.

Surprisingly, the word 'dalit' gets highlighted in the news headlines these days. Rape is a horrendous crime in its own, but the fact that we highlight the caste of the rape victim acts as a persuasive tactic. For people carrying the complete orthodox casteism mentality may feel relieved by the word 'dalit' as a prefix to the victims identity and not care about it at all. On the other hand, people like me, may get affected by the fact that it's a rape and its wrong regardless of the caste of the victim, but won't be able to say it out loud with the fear of attracting charges of sedition.

From being recognised as "by the people, for the people and of the people", our democracy is gradually being erased  to be recognised as "by the MODIfied people, for the MODIfied people and of the MODIfied people".

P.S.: The intent behind this article is only to allow for some introspection and to incite the love for secular India.

औरत और इज़्ज़त!

जब कपडे पहनो मनमर्ज़ी,
तुम लुटाती हो घर की इज़्ज़त।

जब आज़ादी से बाहर जाओ,
लूट जाती है परवरिश की इज़्ज़त।

जब मर्द का खुद पे काबू न रहे,
लूट जाती है तुम्हारी अपनी इज़्ज़त।

जब ससुराल वाले खुश न हो,
लूट जाती है माता पिता की इज़्ज़त।

जब समाज ने लिखा ये नियम की किताब,
तोह औरत को बना दिया इज़्ज़त की भंडार।

अगर बिना औरत के समाज रह जाती है बेइज़्ज़त,
तोह क्यों नहीं मिलती औरत को उसकी सही इज़्ज़त?
                                                                              -Somya Mishra

TANGLED NODES OF HUMAN BRAIN

Sitting back in this lazy mushy weather, I was having a little dive into my sea of imagination. Randomly my mind got stuck on a product most commonly known as "anti-ageing cream". Human nature is so weird; we celebrate our birthday every year to rejoice getting older and yet we look out for anti-ageing creams so that our skin doesn't reflect our age. It's so strange that a human mind wants everything; and all this is just because of imagination and the science. We delve into science so deep that we succeed in finding out ways to defeat nature.

Apart from science, there's even psychology that makes human beings complicated. People often taken another person for granted because of past experiences. If I have been helping X in the past and today I'm not being able to, X will find a flaw in me instead of a mere introspection into own in-capabilities in the past. In that case, its even my fault to make X believe that I'm always available. We often stay in one family and yet stay apart from members of the same family. That's only because of our priorities. We have no reason to have ill intentions within a family. That is the reason its called a 'family' bound by securities towards each other and yet we feel insecure about others which denies the whole concept of 'family'.

Individually, we are concerned about ageing and growing old; on the other hand we are fed up with relations and societal boundaries that we don't desire to live long with those. That's how complex a human brain can become!!

FICTIONAL WOMEN ARE QUEENS, NOT THE REAL ONES

During my basic statistical search, I came across the following:

29th August, 2017 - Criminalising Marital Rape May Destabilise Institution Of Marriage: Centre Tells Delhi HC.

8th November, 2017 - The Human Rights Watch report found that willingness to report rape and other sexual offences had significantly grown, but was often stymied by regressive community attitudes, particularly outside big cities.

In one case highlighted in the report, a “low-caste” woman from Haryana state was pressured by her village council to sabotage a trial against six men from a more powerful caste charged with raping her. “She didn’t have another way,” a relative of the woman told HRW. “If you want to live in the village, you have to listen to the councils.”

6th November, 2017 - Recently, research by Young Lives in coordination with National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) revealed that Rajasthan has reported the highest incidence of child marriages.

But, these are not issues of concern even if the same trend of crime has been running through the veins of "traditional" India since inception. The primary issue of concern is a movie based on a fictional queen. (sarcasm intended)

A queen created through the imagination of Malik Muhammad Jayasi in 1540 has now become a subject matter of violence in the nation. I have written many poems and I will never want any of my poems to be used as a prime subject of outrage by people who did not even exist while I was creating my art of work or by people who had no concern or connection with my work, reason for my work, my thoughts during my work, etc. Criticisms are always accepted but burning, shattering down malls, threatening to behead people or actually hanging dead bodies are not forms of criticisms.

When one person with a creative mind writes a poem and another such person decides to give a pictorial representation to that poem, there is no basis on which any outrage is supposed to happen. In fact, there are many other other pressing issues related to "real" and "living" women that require attention instead of "fictional" queens. Another surprising part is that people who are protesting are men, the heads of such groups are men, the ones who are seen creating violence as per circulated videos are also men. When such groups of  "Mr. We Worship Our Women All The Time" are out on the streets, why aren't they walking down with their female counterparts with them? Or will this ruin their image that a woman is out on the streets screaming to protect another? Or is there a possibility that women might as well get raped just because she was outside her house trying to protest when these are things that a man is entitled to do and not a woman?

Courtesy: The excerpts of articles are taken from the websites that are hyperlinked to the dates. I acknowledge these websites. Thanks!

WHAT LIES BENEATH?

We often fail to visualize the reality and move towards the mode of attaining our ultimate desires. Desires are not everything. However, due to gradual development in science and technology, these modes are made easy and accessible. But, the fact remains that the reality gets ignored in such a pace of evolution.

According to St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, there is a difference in the understanding of essence and existence. If we gaze into our virtual thoughts of essence, we start paving paths to arrive at this essence. What we ignore is the existence. We know that if we find a whole cave made of Dragonglass, then we can eliminate the Night King and his Army of the Dead, but what if such a cave never existed!; in that case we would have to find alternatives which would be something like Beric Dondarrion’s sword that fires up by the grace of Lord of the Light (a little inference from Game of Thrones).

The problem with human nature is that we look out for better things and once we catch hold of them, we ignore the existing material objects. In fact, that’s human nature and nobody’s fault. The fault lies in not realizing it. As long as we do it with things, its understood because they don’t have any feelings of despair, but when people start doing the same with other people, it lasts a mark in their minds. This imprint never leaves because it marks the inferiority in that person. Gradually, this fires up the flame of wrath and envy making every other person a Satan or a Leviathan (Characters from “Bisfield’s Classification of Demons”, 1589).

In very modest and sober terms, we call this feeling “competition” to make it look decked up professionally. Little do we realize that this shadow named ‘competition’ is actually from a source which is a blended figurine of Wrath and Envy. Not that competition is a bad thing in itself; but, the badness pours out of it when it is won by crushing others on the way. Hence, we should not just try to be like the modern toy umbrellas where the cloth has barely any strong connection with the handle; be the old classic umbrella where the cloth tightly held on to the handle because it knew that if its on the top, then the only reason is the support beneath it.

SALT-PEPPER THEORY

We get to hear so much about sacrifice done by our martyrs in the past and we still remember them because what they did was remarkable. Nobody knows their bank balance or position in jobs more than the fact that they gave up something for a bigger cause. I stated this just to bring out a small reflection on practical implications of sacrifice or compromise.

It is a universally known fact that nothing lasts forever so, we always want to grab all opportunities that come to us so that we have an experience of everything. In our constant search of accumulating everything, we tend to forget our priorities. Life gives us raw materials to cook our own food. We can buy salt even with a very less salary and cook our food. Gradually when we have the financial capacity, we buy other spices like pepper to add a better taste to our food. But, we can never get a good taste of food without salt (which is the cheapest of all).

Now, I'll put up the best of my efforts to interpret the above. We meet many people and get many opportunities in life. We know we cannot have all of them but, we should always keep in mind that there are certain people who bring out the actual meaning of our life. These qualify as 'salt' in our food of life. On the other hand, there are others who just add a taste to our life which is not a mandate for survival. These are the 'pepper'. We can have a happy and peaceful life just with the 'salt' even if we don't have the 'pepper'. But, the moment we tend to ignore 'salt' because of its easy affordability and because we think we have other substitutes to keep us happy, we realize that 'pepper' actually gives us a hard, intolerable spicy and pungent taste. Hence, we need to keep the 'salt' people close to us and grab only such opportunities in life which we can achieve along with the 'salt'. When we choose any opportunity which can take us away from 'salt', we tend to move towards the tough taste of 'pepper' which becomes intolerable in the absence of 'salt'.

P.S: You can actually try the following steps:

1. Take a pinch of only salt.

2. Drink water and wait for the taste to vanish.

3. Take a pinch of only pepper.

4. Compare the taste with that of salt.

5. Drink water and wait for the taste to vanish.

6. Take a pinch of salt and pepper together.

7. This will help you understand the "Salt-Pepper" theory better.

                                                                                                          -Somya Mishra

GIVE UP? GIVE IN!!

If you dive a little deep into English vocabulary, you'll be able to find out a whole treasure of ways to use certain words. I have come across instances where people use fancy word just so that the subject matter weighs heavier; and I have also read excerpts where simple words bring out a lot of meaning when put together. However, there are few simple words which create a lot of difference when brought together. While going through a random article, I came across "give in" and it suddenly struck my mind that I need to figure out the difference between "give in" and "give up".

Both the phrases are not much different from each other. The basic point of difference lies in the intention of the user of the phrase and the context in which it is being used. Let me explain it to you in the form of situations.

Situation A:
                     Clarie and Tyler were taking a stroll on the footpath of a busy road. Tyler was constantly thinking about something and wanted to share the same with Clarie. Completely ignorant of Tyler's state of mind and his problems, Clarie was busy talking about her new flat and all that she wanted to furnish it with. It was not that Tyler was not interested, but that was a time when he was restless and was not being able to focus. Suddenly, Clarie noticed a home decor shop and wanted to go there. She kept on constantly persuading Tyler to take her there. Tyler asked her to stop for a while and listen to him after which he was ready to take her to that shop. But, Clarie was not ready to listen to him at all. She wasn't even being able to understand what Tyler had to say. Looking at the way Clarie was excited about visiting the shop, he knew that there was no scope of her listening to him at that moment. Hence, he gave up and took her to the shop so that she could get done with her shopping.

Situation B:
                     Clarie and Tyler were taking a stroll on the footpath of a busy road. Tyler was constantly thinking about something and wanted to share the same with Clarie. Completely ignorant of Tyler's state of mind and his problems, Clarie was busy talking about her new flat and all that she wanted to furnish it with. Tyler looked at her face and the way her face was getting slightly covered by her shiny strands of hair. He tried talking to her about his problem but, Clarie noticed a home decor shop and wanted to visit it. She turned towards Tyler and constantly persuaded him to take her to the shop. Tyler asked her to stop for a while and listen to him. She paused and with a spark of hope in her eyes, explained to Tyler that if they don't visit the shop at that moment, it might get closed for the day. Finally, Tyler gave in to her demand and took her to the shop with a pact that she would listen to his problem after they come out of the shop.

After observing the above situations and comparing both of them, it is understood that the interpretation of both the phases depends upon the circumstance. Both the phrases ultimately mean 'to surrender', but "give in" is more tilted towards quitting because there is no hope of success and "give in" refers to letting go of something for a better reason. "Give in" has a broader meaning because one can give in to a situation because they agree to a certain thing, they prioritize something else over the present situation, they do not want to fight further and surrender to the situation by accepting the reality. on the other hand, "give up" has a narrowed down use which only refers to a situation where there is no expectation of success.

P.S: I don't know if I'm completely right but I have just put across my thoughts as per my understanding. Feel free to comment and correct me because that would make me even happier.

FLY TO FREEDOM

One fine day, I was whirling away my time recollecting some sweet memories while my feet brushed against the sand. I stretched my hands, bent down and touched the sand. I struggled with those particles to keep them inside my fist but, they escaped. This nature of sand indicates independence. The same is the case with a butterfly or a bird. It always depends upon our nature whether we want to be trapped or set free.

Very often, we feel trapped in our lives and get domesticated under the tyranny of 'Stress'. That is because we leave ourselves at places vulnerable enough to get us trapped. An animal is safe till the time it either stays in its cave or comes out strong enough to tear of the trap with it ferociously sharp claws. Once the animal tames fear in its mind, it tends to suffer.

However, there's always a difference of timing when a person learns something. At times we learn enough to save ourselves from the trap; and at other times we learn after gathering a lot of strength to tear off the trap and then escape. For every little thing in life, there is a perfect time, but for independence and freedom, we need the perfect inspiration.

If we wait for time to teach us how to be independent, we would probably be waiting forever. Time can only give us experience and patience, but strength is a small seed sowed deep within our heart. It is our sole responsibility to water this seed and help it grow.

This is how we can learn little things from nature and inspire ourselves to become free and smooth as sand, graceful and attractive like a butterfly and, brave and optimistic as a bird.

"Your hands may be tied,

Your eyes must have cried.

But with a brave heart within,

The stream of tears seems dried."

                                                                                                            -Somya Mishra

ONE DAY OF 'ROZA'

Some things in life can be understood only through experience. I had seen people do it for years and I used to see them come to office regularly and work normally for nine hours without even a drop of water. Roza was depicted as a ritual way beyond faith. It was as if that's the normal course of life.
The lack of thirst, lack of hunger, lack of temptation towards any food or water, not getting angry and the dedication towards the religion were all so motivating.

On 1st, June, 2017 I thought of trying to live that life for a day. At midnight, I thought of keeping "roza/fast" for a day so that I can experience how it feels. It was a bright sunny day and it was difficult for me to stay without water when I knew I'll have to travel through bus, walk and it had to take a long time. At first, I thought I'll engage myself in work and will gradually forget about the thirst. But, every time someone drank water beside me or ate food, it was difficult for me to resist. However, the simple thought of achieving a goal was sufficient enough.

And I did it!!! What motivated me to fast all day was the energy I could see in people around me. I was not speaking much because I was feeling a little low, but the way others were enthusiastic and energetic all day, was my source of endurance. It is really difficult to stay all day without even a drop of water. The throat dries down and the inner strength handles it all. During iftaar, when I finally sipped on to the glass of Rooh-afza, it felt like, I drank something after ages and I could feel the water flowing in me. It is such a peaceful thought when you try to imagine how maximum poverty in our country also starves equally. It is not that you feel really very hungry after the day's fast, but you feel drained out and yet realize that there is some kind of an energy within which takes care of our body. That is when you actually feel that our soul supports the body and praises it for being able to get through the fast. With my experience, I can say that it is wonderful way to portray our belief towards a certain ritual and one such fast really help your body accentuate the immunity.

DOODLING MY THOUGHTS

THE PARK

The green leafy tree,
With a stroke of breeze,
Sweeps so free,
As it's trying to unfreeze.

The crimson petals slowly fall,
Swinging slowly to the ground,
From the leafy tree so tall,
The petals were earlier red and round.

The wind around the trees,
Like a satin blue cloth,
Blows cool enough to release,
The farmers suffering from drought.

the little blue birds come,
To perch on the branches,
And keep staring at some,
Love birds on the benches.

The floor clothed with grass,
Gets bathed with dew drops.
Jolly faced kids in a mass,
Play without fearing the cops.

When tired after a game,
The kids take a nap,
As cuddled into a frame,
On the caring mother's lap.

Some smile, some frown,
Some lives are in dark.
Some are never let down in this glorious park.

                                                                             -Somya Mishra