From sixteen to Sixty plus:There is always a poet and child in me.I pray they do not abandon me

A  few lines for me

The beauty and poetry of life lay in the youthful days of innocence and mild mischief and locking someone into the mind knowing full well she/ he  can hardly find place in the heart .

Pursuit of education and search  for job inclusive of finding a soul mate becomes a long drawn out process .For a while  wise and benevolent fate fills all the emptiness and barrenness of life

Then comes the cruel and wicked fate stealing wife or husband or the most beloved one we get lost in thoughts and get buried in the ashes of memory choking to death and despair/

A few kind words, some traces of smile, occasional glimpses of concern, a chance meeting of childhood friend, a fond reflection of a boy or girl floating in the sea of thought calm you down.

You get refreshed, reinvented and understand that there is always bonus in life.

When you cross the sixties limbs become weak, tiredness is routine, you get lost in the memory loss.

Who becomes your best friend? Undoubtedly you are! But this hardly you remember to internalize

And seek solace and happiness from outward orientation and active engagement. No doubt that makes you to disconnect from your worries and do some good to others.

But remember when you are a loner all the creativity under the sun envelops you and make you happy and peaceful. The universe will conspire to whisper all the secrets of life .There is nothing to fear or lose.

Pretend that you are happy even while you are not .That is one way of being wise, goes  a saying.

Home, my sweet home-part 2

Despite lack of formal education on either side my parents lived peacefully ,joyfully and without much desires or ambition to accomplish  except to make their children to do well in life and their full time engagement was with the profession which was physically more taxing and demanding as there was no additional labor to assist.

I do not know to what extent they were compatible and accommodating with each other.there was some good  village chemistry to cement the relation.To be fair AND HONEST THEY WERE SO engrossed and involved in work from early dawn to night , not dusk there  was little time to quarrel, if at all they wanted to have one.

I was brought up in such as a sweet home. Their sweat and labour were transformed into nutrients for my body and mind, every year they would extract gingley oil also called Nalla Ennai(good oil) from sesame  seed from the revolving/or rotating  wooden structure driven by bullocks, some county sugar from palm tree added to it  during the process of churning and stored in a big earthern pot;,.many other food items like Door dal tamarind , chilies and others were purchased  during the season  and the ground nut oil too purchased in 15 kg tin from the town

There was a cow and occasionally a hen .I vivdly remember going along with my mother in ging out to collect fodder-green grass or sometimes collect firewood. My mother was a hard worker very slim till the end hale and healthy and had all the concern for the truncated joint family. My father was the first son in the family and had three younger brothers and also a sister. Like the US monetary policy until mid 60s the role of my mother was sensible and responsible though she used to grumble a little when other brothers were grown up  and had  families of their own. Caring parents good school, nice teachers, family get together and my father contributing in a modest way to keep the  flock together as he was economically better half. When I think about  the hard work and business ethics of my parents tears well up in my eyes and I want to be united with them in all the births.

Home, my sweet home-Part 1

The recent slogan rocking the nation is: Make it In india. All the best and bright youngsters are unable to survive in this shining   India and given the pressure of unemployment leave the country in pursuit of job elsewhere and contribute to the development of some other country and make it still more prosperous and peaceful country. They have to leave home, parents and close relation.Even those who remain within the country get settled down somewhere outside.Did not Jofn Ed  Pearce say some time ago,”Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave and grow old wanting to get back to “

My parents could build home for me to grow up in the village  only to end up eventually in the Pondicherry town eventually after my wandering in Mahe, Karaikal and pune for long.my parents must have longed to be with me.

They tightened their belt and gave me education to escape from their life of working near fireplace or escaping from the life of coalmines as a saying goes.

By attitude and character and by sheer temperament they were sacrificial in nature and did everything for  me and later for my only sister- a cute girl of fair complextion with whom I had a kind of estrangement by quirk of fate for a longer period . ruminating in tranquility I now feel how the cruel and wicked fate have paid a dominant role in every phase of my life.

Hard work combined with professional honesty and integrity propelled my parents to conduct their business by sending rice in the village and eventually rise in the moral universe which had already started shrinking in the cooperate world economy. Till their end they lived in a hut kind of small house with no power connection or tap water. There was a very  big and deep well in the backyard and that quenched the thirst of hundreds of people in the neighborhood. There was always water even during acute summer. Electricity connection and the tap water came at the end after my entry into the college.It was a  home, a very sweet home from which I did not want to go.As  a young shy boy I was more attached to my parents

Animals are placid and self contained,no one is demented and they are all respectable and happy.what about the human?when will he become a good animal not grabbing others' life and property/

Guess who said this?

I think I could turn and live with animals; they are so placid and self contained.

I stand and look at them long and long.

 They do not sweat and whine about their condition.

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins.

 They do not make me sick discussing their duty to god.

Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania

Of  owning  things.

Not one kneels to another, nor  to his

Kind that lived  thousands  of years ago.

Not one is respectable or unhappy

Over the whole earth.

These beautiful lines belong  to Walt Whitman. Powerful lines to portray the noble and beautiful life of animals free from care and fear, guilt and jealousy and how they are at ease with themselves. Contrast this with the rich and the affluent looking miserable always, with all pomp and power. Shamelessly but more scrupulously  these rotten elements  fall at the feet ,cry for a while when situation  demands, accumulate money in billions at home and buy islands overseas, molest  the river by excavating all the sands, make the mountain and rivers disappear, and do not fail to worship their goddess and invoke the name for every word they utter. Are they respectable? Will the real god make them happy?Because of kneeling down again and again  their immune capacity  will improve and live long and loot the nation in the name of democracy-buy the people ,off the people and remain  far away from the people. Give subsidy in thousands and tax them in  crores.Will this drama be enacted forever? Is there no God to tame the rascalised criminals and blood suckers who rape the mother earth and disturb the eco system? Animals are happy .Do not disturb them

No more empty speech or stupid slogans to bring water.harvest it when it falls from above;Let the judiciary declare river itwater is the national resource and does not belong to any state where it does originate

Summer heat is scorching. Water has  become scarcer and  a costlier good. Water can not be manufactured in any factory  and it has to fall from above and the people and politicians must harvest it from below without making it as a tradable commodity as we have done. While Tasmark drink and equally poisonous soft drinks are available quality water is still away from the reach of commoners. Come  elections all these shameless parties /spineless leaders, who only ruled for long (50 years) without doing anything  substantial  now crow on the stage  they will do miracle if only we elect them  the same clowns again and again.

Cauvery and Mullai Periyar which are vital life lines  for three states’ livelihood  are shrouded in perennial controversy ; they will  remain as contentious issues as long as the earth rotates and offer fodder for electoral benefits.So long as their fate depends upon the whims and fancies 0f unpatriotic ,anti-national , stupid and corrupt politicians polticising the issues  and molesting the economic contents and thus have a great Say and also that the good and honest politicians including the so called elite and the educated  do not want to say what they really want to say keeping  the interest of the nation in mind.

Meanwhile what we shall do and say. Write poems or do some good translation of good poem .I do the latter. With due courtesy to Thina Mani and Thanigai selvan let me translate a few lines from Tamil:

To sail through Cauvery  (River)

 We no longer need  boat  

Camel  is just enough .