Answer Lies Within

For howsoever you try

You’ll end up high and dry

What you seek is not to be found in the outer din

Look deep into your heart

That’s where it will start

The answer lies within.

-- by Jayanta Ray
February 2013.

Questions

From dawn till dusk

I gather mere husk

But lose sight of the kernel beneath;

Yet when in leisure I bask

Am ripped apart by a flux

Deep down, probing questions seethe.



“Why am I?”

I ask with a sigh

Not making sense of my meandering life;

As a mere speck in the sky

“Why born, live and die?”

“What’s the point of daily drudgery and strife?”



From pillar to post

From hills to the coast

I run breathless and despairing for answers to those;

Return void from most

Innards in permafrost

I lie down on the grass, sunken and morose.



Then a voice little

Fragile and Brittle

Speaks from the deepest alcoves of my heart;



“Why despair?

Help is near.

Look inside – that’s the place you always start.



Every one of us were born with a plan

Every amoeba, every woman and man

Ours is not a senseless existence with pointless strife;

Our soul knows it all

Listen and you’ll hear it call

Turn inward; you’ll know your vocation in life.”



 Jayanta Ray

February 11, 2013

Bangla losing out to Hindi in Kolkata

My two bit: Tend to agree with the notion that Bangla losing out to Hindi in Kolkata on all counts. But living in Delhi briefly has taught me the hard truth that Hindi is important once you cross Barakar (that is Bengal's last railway station, followed by Dhanbad is Bihar). I had to learn Hindi to survive in Delhi. Bengali, though second largest spoken language in India and ahead of Hindi in total number of speakers over the globe (Thank you populous Bangladesh!), is not recognized anywhere. So, our kids knowing Hindi is a boon, bot a bane. It'll help them survive. And about reviving Bangla as a language, the first thing one does is behave like a Tamilian in Tamil Nadu - won't reply to anyone speaking Hindi here in Bengal. But there are two things which will make this an impossible scenario: All the economy of Bengal/Bihar/Orissa/Assam is controlled by Marwaris, all the malls and hang out places, all top restaurants (barring Anjan Chatterjee's) are owned and controlled by a Hindi speaking population. the economic reality will make it impossible to survive in a businessplace speaking Bengali. Secondly, we, people of West Bengal, don't have pride in our language. Learn from our Bangladeshi friends. They are so haughty and protective about their language! In face, the non-Bengalies of Kolkata are far more proud of Kolkata than the resident Bengalies. In Delhi, our team in office had two Bengalies, one from Kolkata and one from Delhi. Both bad-mouthed Kolkata, spoke Hindi with others, and joined discussions eagerly on Bollywood movies. Then, a certain Vikash Sharma joined the team and the first thing he said to me when we frist met was, "DADA AMI KOLKATAR BANGALI CHELEY. SBIBPUR ER CHOKRA!" He sang Rabindrasangeet at the office function, Fought tooth and nail for Kolkata and was so proud of our beloved city. Incidentially, he was a Rajasthani Brahmin from Jaipur originally. Maybe, in Kolkata he will be called a MARWARI (wrongly). My take is, till Bengalies of West Bengal become economically independant and take pride in speaking their language, and love Kolkata in spite of her warts, we will always be fading away as a race.

The start

Started writing, again. Brendan MacCarthaigh, thanks for asking me to, and giving me a subject. Yes, as you said, it gave me a release from inner unrest, but there is a new pain - the pain of facing oneself, warts and all, and remembering times when it wasn't pleasant. Writing is like living through it all again. It hurts. And off-course, Samim Ahmed, thanks for the discussion at the book-fair at your book release. It helped in facing oneself again.

Inner Churn

Feb 2013

Every passing day of a fast eroding life the conviction deepens - I was born for a motive nobler than writing software user manuals. Researching my hero Netaji's life? Writing fiction for children? Teaching street children? Learning exotic languages and reading texts in their original? Assisting Brother Brendan MacArthaigh in his NGO Serve? Or being content with a comfortable paycheck and steady appraisals? Do I have the guts to chuck it all on a whim? Maybe work for street stray dogs? Do I volunteer to an orphanage or an NGO? How long before I become a detestable sleek corporate-type? If I don’t halt the downward spiral, I never will. How many seas must the white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?

I am not letting off steam, and this day was particularly rewarding at work. Becoming “normal” sounds logical, but the anguish is long standing and consistent. Working for my family is important - but i keep on getting flashes that time passing me by, so much to do, so little have been done. I need to write creatively, and soon, or I will lose myself in the quagmire of dead habit. I am doing fine at work, no issues there, and have more friends in office to last me a lifetime, but yet I feel underutilized. I don’t know why, though. I feel I have much more to offer than I am doing now.

I am revving the engine before I hit full throttle. For several years of my life I have been a volunteer in several NGO-s, inspired by the Irish monk who was my headmaster at school... Brother Brendan. Lots of changed since then. I subsequently hitched myself unto the bandwagon of mainstream, is a good son in middle class Bengali terms. But I could never be as happy as I was at social work. As I said, revving the engine before I hit full throttle.

I sincerely desire my dear daughter to remember me as a dad who stood for an ideal, not one who slithered through life like most sly-corporate types. She trusts me , I now have to do something to deserve that trust. I can start by being good. Living for others is a good point to start. I learnt all of this at school. God bless the good Christian Brothers of Ireland.

Brother Brendan thanks for having me over. I am coming in today. I looked for you in the school grounds on 19th Jan, at the St. Josephs’ Old Boys reunion. I couldn't find you. You had guided me through the tumultuous times of my +2. You have been my anchor during teenage and twenties. Only after losing touch with you have i been confused again. I am coming back to school, Brother.

Family/work and self-realization, one has to balance both. I had long chat with a friend, Soumen Purkayastha, this morning and we're both keeping our jobs but branching out on our free time to do some socially useful productive work (SUPW). We are very similar in some ways, Soumen being from an Irish brothers school St. Edmunds as well, so SUPW runs in our veins. My daughter is from Loreto House, Middleton Row. She will develop this feeling I am sure. The feeling of not doing enough for the lower strata is a pervasive feeling and quite overwhelms you. If we were from La Marts we wouldn't have this problem, but schools made us the way we are. If Brother Brendan hadn't happened, I would be blissfully unaware of the churn inside.

Now, I am back to school at 43 years of age. Sitting at the feet of an Irishman more Indian than all of us put together. Two hours, talking about school days I left behind 25 years ago. We are discussing mid life crisis, reasons for one's unique existence. Also, the inner voice, deliverance from tests life throws at us, and being patient, having faith. Tonight, I will sleep in peace. I have gone back to the headwaters from whence the river started. I have gone back to Rev. Brother Brendan, my mentor, guru, teacher.

Seeking out the true meaning of life is a "thirst quencher" indeed. A meaningful life is elusive, and means different things to different people. I am still searching for what is a meaningful life for me. It all leads to being productive for society at large, it seems. At the moment, a friend and I will be teaching adults & children from an underprivileged class - strictly on the weekends. Brother Brendan asked me to write short stories. He says my restlessness is an untold story seeking expression.

I will not go quietly into the night. As Vivekananda sounds hid clarion call: "thou wert born as a human; leave a mark". As Rev. Brother Brendan said, "Deliverance from Calvary is what we set out to do in life." Every one of us has a different Golgotha. It is how we cope differentiates boys from the men. Bring it on, then! Rabindranath said, "byatha hoye dekha dibey, agun hoye jwolbey" pain will burn thee and purify.

Lessons from Life

Written by Jayanta Ray, 43 years old, Kolkata , West Bengal, India. (on February 7th 2013)



1. It is better not to marry than marry the wrong person.

2. But if you have married the wrong person, stick with it and don’t give up.

3. Before blaming your spouse, judge yourself and change for the better.

4. Your children will never learn anything you say; they will learn everything you do.

5. If you are not happy in your own company, nobody else will be; learn to stay alone and be happy.

6. Don’t take life very seriously; you’ll miss the smaller opportunities to be happy then.

7. Whatever bad is happening to you has happened to someone in the past & will happen to someone in the future; so, it is not the end of the world.

8. The world will go on in spite of whatever bad is happening to you; so, don’t bother for the world too much when the chips are down or up; either way, the world doesn’t matter.

9. Don’t preach; set examples. Don’t teach; practice yourself and others will practice with you.

10. There are two kinds of people in this world. Those with whom you can get along and those with whom you can’t. For the latter, don’t even try to be friendly – you’ll recognize them at first glance.

11. All other classification of people based on language, race, religion and others don’t hold true for you. People will be either good or bad to you. No other classification exists when you judge people.

12. Religion is not about rituals; it is about the philosophy which lies within.

13. If a person is truly religious, he/she’ll be pleasant. If you find someone mean, selfish, greedy, unfair, resentful, angry, destructive, cunning, pompous – then whichever religion he/she follows, the person isn’t following it right. Problem is not in the religion – it is in our interpretation.

14th May 2012

A Quiet Word in for the Fathers

You will find that if you really try to be a father, your child will meet you halfway. ~Robert Brault

Prologue:

From Mother Nature to Mother Goddess, we celebrate motherhood, as it should be. There is none so universal an icon of love and care as is the mother. From rodents to reptiles, from primates to a plumage rich avian, it is the mother of every species which carries the burden of parenthood. We wonder, admire and wax eloquent at this highest form of self-effacing love. There are more works on motherhood in fields of literature and visual arts than one can enumerate. Celluloid worldwide has captured more moving images of the mother-offspring bonding than movie critics could count. Finally, we all know our own mothers and love her, so there is no argument there.

It gets a little uneasy when we consider the paternal side to parenting. We tread with trepidation here in this most grey zone. Most fathers in the animal kingdom shirk the duties of fatherhood, and the human world is replete with inhuman instances of wayward dads. All this is frightening, and a lame premise to even attempt a treatise on the weaker parent.

But attempt we must, or the unsung fathers, millions of them from the beginning of creation, would never sleep in their graves. Fathers do play a part in bringing up a child, at least most of them do. So why not talk about it a little? After all, as said in the movie Honey I Blew up the Kid, “Fathers are fun. But mothers mean business.” Why not talk about the fun thing?

"It is much easier to become a father than to be one." -- Kent Nerburn

Act 1, Scene 1: [A hospital room. A female patient sleeps. A hapless gent is holding a newborn as if it is a brittle toy]

A little girl was born to a mother who was under sedation after her C-section for two days. The newborn girl was handed over to a totally nervous father who had not held an infant ever. The hospital nurses were of very little help. The dad held the delicate newborn in the crook of his arm, as the pediatrician showed, and walked around the small patient chamber, looking pleadingly at his still sedated wife. But she couldn’t help in her dazed sleep, inundated in wires of medical origin. He was afraid to sit on the sofa lest the child starts crying. He noticed constant and rhythmic movement kept the child happy. After two hours, he started humming a song to himself to dent the deafening silence in the room. The child seemed happy at the song. Her head was nestled next to where the dad’s heart is, and she dozed off contentedly to the steady tick tack of her father’s heart. For two days at a stretch, this “mothering” activity by the father continued, from feeding milk from a bottle to changing of nappies to helping her to break wind. The father learnt quickly as he did things for the first time. This was an “on the job training” if there ever was one. The recurrent song, a particularly melodious Rabindrasangeet, by then was a leit-motif to her first two days at life.

Fathers, like mothers, are not born. Men grow into fathers and fathering is a very important stage in their development.

-- David Gottesman

Act 1, Scene 2: [Three years later. An apartment. The same gent, now a bit older, is running around after a child, pleading her to finish her meal. The child is the infant from Scene 1, now grown.]

The girl child started her pre-school. They were now away from their home city, without a backup of relatives. At the same time, her mother took up a job to share the added expenses. It was a marketing job all six days a week, without a work from home option. They tried a crèche after school. The child could not adjust. The crèche expressed helplessness as she threw tantrums. He had an IT job, so he took the work from home option four days a week to take care of her when she came back from school. One day in the week she went grudgingly to crèche after school. Saturday was fun day for the little girl, because dad and daughter played at the park all evening. They ate out and played word games at home. There were story sessions and they religiously picked her mother from work at 8 pm.

In those weeks of mothering a little girl, the dad learnt to admire all mothers better than all literature or movies could teach him. The immediacy of caring for a little one, of carrying out vital functions like cooking, feeding, ablutions were greater teachers than “Do It Yourself” books. The ivory tower of traditional fatherhood, of being the provider and the occasional teacher, was shattered. In a fortunate reversal of roles, a father was learning to be a mother, and how! Only fathers know how difficult and alien it is to play mom to your children. Moms are born to multi-task. Dads aren’t. When your boss pings you, your girl is pleading for a bedtime story before she settles in to siesta. Off course the dad messed up more ways than one. Surely there were SOS calls to the mom for advice, step by excruciating step of basic child care had to be narrated to him. Many a times the daughter wailed “I wish mother was here instead of you!” This crushed the dad, but he became more resolute to succeed. Fathers, by definition, don’t make good mothers. But the spectre of an alien crèche made the dad-daughter duo try harder at their bonding, and slowly it all fell in place. When her vacation came around, he would take her to work, and she would sit next to him in a workstation and sketch pictures from her dad’s bedtime stories. On the drive back home, she would sleep nestled on his chest, as was her wont.

SOS calls stopped. The mom was confident that her hubby doesn’t need help. The last pinnacle of stereotypes was being busted. The dad started googling recipes meant for children. On weekends, he would turn out dishes the daughter relished. Cooking was a new medium, but he learnt quickly. The daughter’s appreciation was the incentive that goaded him on.

"It is admirable for a man to take his son fishing, but there is a special place in heaven for the father who takes his daughter shopping." -- John Sinor

Act 1, Scene 3: [Eight years after scene 1. An apartment. The same gent, now considerably older, is playing with dolls, under scrutiny of a rather strict eight year old girl. The girl is the infant from Scene 1, now grown into a little lady.]

Eight years have elapsed since that day, and the little big girl can’t go to sleep unless her head is rested against her dad’s left chest, listening to the steady tick tack of her dad’s heartbeat. He has to sing the same Rabindrasangeet as a lullaby. She bathes with her dad, and her special breakfasts have to be cooked up by him.

As his daughter grew, he learnt to see the world as a small girl would. The rough and tumble games of his own childhood got replaced by playing mother to dolls. He became a “keeper of secrets” for the girl. Two of them went shopping for her wardrobe replenishment. He learnt to explore, discover and then express the feminine side of his personality. A product of strict catholic all boys’ hostel, the learning curve was playing truant for the father. But he tried manfully to express the woman in him.

There's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself. ~John Gregory Brown

Act 1, Scene 4: [Eight years after scene 1. An apartment. The same gent, now considerably older, is clapping appreciatively as the little lady hands over a greetings card and chocolates to a lady. The little girl is the infant from Scene 1, now grown into a little lady. The lady is the patient from Scene 1. The greetings card says, “Happy Mother’s Day”.]

And he is trying. Still. Brownie points for fathers who try, shall we? Shall we remember the unsung fathers, a day after Mother’s Day?

“thousands at his bidding speed,

And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait.” - John Milton

Epilogue:

Mothers are the champions who are among these speeding thousands and they rest not. Fathers also serve in their own quite way, shirking the limelight and facilitating the mothers. Let us remember their contribution in our lives. Please?