POPCORN CELEBRATING DIWALI WITH CHILDREN
THE CHILD IS PUMPED UP
Children are the greatest gifts from God. They bring smiles to our lives. They learn from us. They depend on us. We learn from them. We relive our childhood as we watch them grow.They light up our lives.We live for them.We are their role models.They are there when we are in need. They are special. They are priceless.
COGENT EXPRESSION
It was my MA
Like many youngsters, I had been questioning the existence of God.
I had been asking why we needed a God
When I read the SECOND COMING, two verses struck me.
"Things fall apart: the centre cannot hold:
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world"
It made me think of the earth spinning on its axis.
I visualised what would happen if the rotation is abruptly disrupted
I could see everything on the earth flying off like when the vehicle you travel breaks suddenly
Yes, that is the moment I saw God. That is the moment I understood what God does
Well, any institution or organisation will have disruptors.
Trojan horses would always lurk
If the centre cannot hold
If the Trojan horses hold sway
Utter chaos shatters the edifice
Built with sweat and toil
Through days and months and years and centuries
While Lucifer smiles and laughs
God with a single touch
Halts the chaos
And restores order
W B Yeats
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Recently, the member of a Church had passed away.
The authorities of the Church reported the sad demise and alerted its members on the funeral arrangements.
"Body will be brought to the Parish Hall for public viewing and funeral service later."
Since, I felt it awkward, a brief note was submitted to the authority.
"for public viewing"
I have a humble suggestion.
Paying homage or something like that may be better.
Death is cruel. Especially to the bereaved family and close relatives and friends.
One who has gone has gone.
We need to respect the departed.
Viewing is different. Public viewing is still different.
As I said, this is only a suggestion.
Please ignore if it doesn't make sense.
Reflections
Financial success is important.
Good health is equally important.
Apart from that,
You need peace of mind.
And the freedom to live life on your own terms.
True wealth accrues when you acquire a balance on all the fronts.
I came upon THE JEWISH INDIANS by Dr. Abraham Benhur.
Suddenly it dawned the name had been in the limelight at the time of operations or to be precise atrocities against Naxalites or their sympathisers in Kerala around 1975.
I probed whether he was a naxalite.
What surfaced is placed here.
"No, Abraham Benhur was not a Naxalite.
During the 1975 Emergency period in India, he was a young member of the Socialist Party and a research student at the University of Calicut.
Following a Naxalite attack on the Kayanna police station on February 28, 1976, the police arrested Benhur on the false allegation that he was involved in the attack. He was detained under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) and taken to the notorious Kakkayam police camp, where he was subjected to brutal third-degree torture alongside other political prisoners, including the engineering student Rajan who succumbed to the torture.
Benhur himself has explicitly stated in interviews that while political discussions were common in his university hostel, his ideals aligned strictly with socialist thought, and his style and philosophy were never affiliated with the Naxalite movement. Following these events, he went on to become a prominent writer, ethnographer, and environmental activist in Kerala."
THE JEWISH INDIANS
Prof.Sobhindran writes in the preamble, "Learning history appears to be the easier way to understanding oneself. History is memory as well as a reminder".