Showing posts with label Guest Post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guest Post. Show all posts

Friday, August 21, 2020

Jist Ka Mohalla..




This poem in Urdu has been written by Miss Sumera. Guest contributor Sumera, now in Class XI, lives in Delhi with her family. She is a part of Delhi Children's Choir who has performed for the 'I for India' concert along with the Oscar-nominated Carnatic music maestro Bombay Jayashri. She loves singing, doodling, and poetry. She believes in learning great things in life through little experiences.

Sunday, May 13, 2018

The Valiance of the Mother of a Martyr


 A visible effect on urban media and flushed up posts on the Day, celebrating the altruistic love between the daughters, sons and their mothers. Indeed it is Mother’s Day! A man-in-uniform, too must have written a post on his timeline with a picture of his Mamma, in similar words. 

Though I am at a point of distance farther from you, though you think I am in a castle of  war and death, I want to tell you Mamma that I miss you. Your blessings are a bonus to my physical strength and span of life. You are the hope and belief of mine because you are the point of my creation for which I am on the land to fulfill my duties assigned by the Real Creator. I wish you carry on the same strength Mamma, which you bore when you brought me up into the beautiful world of your lap. I’ll be home soon. I just want to let you know that I love you Mamma and I wish you a Happy Mother’s Day”.  

No matter if she is a literate modern lady or a rural home-maker, what must have she thought inside her heart when she must have gone through the post or what must have gone through the heart of his sister when she must have read it to the mother on his behalf? All of a sudden, did she gather a state of calmness in her mind or a moment of pride wrapped with the smile on her face?

Otherwise a nostalgic thought must have crossed her that stance of the good old days, each time when he must have come home with a bleeding elbow from the cricket ground during his teens and how she must have gone mad on him of not being careful, just because it hurt her heart to see his blood but the anger acted a shield of strength on her face.

Again each time when he must have been slapped by his teacher in the school, what would she have done to the teacher, or how would she have reacted on seeing her little son upset. Indeed, a little more strength, she must have carried.

And wonder!! What that same selfless, fierce yet a pious woman must have thought when she had decided to send her boy for the service of Folks of her Nation.

It remains an un-descriptive thought for every clueless human, a tough thing to be thought and the hardest to believe about the state of mind, of the woman, called Mother. For the first time when she must have looked upon him with the uniform on his body and the day she sent off her son to serve.
What must she have said to the boy, when he warmly touched her feet and bid goodbye for the time being, because the borders gave him a call of duty.

Mother!!!  If someone would want to talk to you about your cognition when he spoke to you before he finally must have stepped up on the bogie, and when Mamma’s boy must have smiled and hugged you tight, with a word to return home soon.

With a vigour, could you have believed on the day when you, while dining with family instantly come across certain videos on TV where your uniform laden son was being abused and maltreated by a number of strangers on the street. It makes sense that a corner of your heart must have cried and screamed out with an unseen injury, to which you would have wrapped up with a pride filled girth of your chest. Each day within your morning and evening prayers you would have sought for your son’s victorious long life.

But then again another day during same dining the moment when a news telecasts a fellow boy of your son being buried underneath the snow over the altitudes, your heart again must have thumped loud, asking the Mother Earth for why she got rude being another mother? The incidence of a broken out gun battle at the nearest area of his posting where you must have heard that a few of his fellow mates being martyred. How have you held yourself until you heard about your son being safe? 

When the whole country must have mourned on their martyrdom, what was the thing you held inside, mother? For her when we talk about, a glimpse of her son smiling makes her day or a beautiful talk of her girl makes her feel complete. 

There is another side of her being firm like a rock when her eyes bleed out of ache, when the same son of hers returns back home with a wrapped Tricolor around his blood pooled body, to see the young boy of hers inside a coffin. Who could define the state of her heart at that juncture, the same fierce and a proud woman when calls for death, so as to make it possible to talk to her boy again, just once again. 

Undoubtedly the easiest job for anyone is to pay a heed after the later consequences of the war and the martyred boy of the same mother, had it been much proudly given a deserved esteem, admiration and reverence to the one, prior.

To the Woman, selfless, pious, a chosen up creature of His behalf, bringing up humanity, serving humanity, who donates her womb to the service for all of us. Regards, Honour and the warmest of the wishes on Mother’s Day.


  
                     

Guest contributor Dr. Radhika J. Sharma, a proud Dogra from the beautiful mountains of Kathua in Jammu & Kashmir is a veterinarian and poetess.
                                                                                                                      

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Wanderlust






Stop making amends for the mistakes you have made,
Just let the droplets on the window pane fade,

Look at the sky, birds flying in a V,
Just take out the 'I' and replace it with we,

We are all going round in circles,
But the circle only has one side,

So swallow a tinch of sea water,
And gulp down all your pride,

Stop thinking about life, you will never get it done,
So shake a few leaves or go in search of the sun,

It does not really matter which direction you choose,
As long as you have roads left in your shoes,

Standing in front of a silent mountain,
Take a lung full of cold winter air,

Sitting on top of an old bus,
Let the wind gush through your dusky hair,

GO FALL IN LOVE ONE MORE TIME,
WHAT HAS BEEN STOPPING YOU ALL THIS WHILE?

Drink down your sorrows with a slice of lime,
May be set coarse for an enchanted Isle,

Go jump around, dance in the monsoon rain,
Let the rain drops carry away every tinch of your pain,

Walk in through the morning mist, go find the morning dew,
Or just let the clouds draw a picture for you,

Bounce pebbles off water, hold the first flake of snow,
Share your secrets with the sea and only the moon will know,

Let your mind sway away like dust,
Embark on the journey called LIFE, 
GO FEED YOUR WANDERLUST.



                         


Guest contributor Ayan Roy from Guwahati is a techie, volunteer, and happy-go-lucky Bong buddy.
                         

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

No shame DAINLa !

From the pen of a gynaecologist, a doting mother of a wonderful girl TIA and a DAINLa, guest contributor Dr. Sagnika Dash strongly advocates humanistic ideologies.




It was my fourteenth day at my in-laws' place. As a newly wed, I chose to follow all that was requested, directed and dictated. Most of the things made sense except for the rituals relating to menstruation. As soon as a daughter-in-law (Let us call her DAINLa!) gets her menses for the first time at her in-laws' place, it is no less than a shame and guilt for her that is she meant to feel but also the fact that she is not PREGNANT. This goes circulated amongst the peers as she is asked to go through some specific untoward rituals which makes it all the more obvious that she is MENSTRUATING!


Thus there I was an obedient DAINLa who spotted a few blood stains on cloth then, naive enough to ask her mother-in-law who then guided her through the unprecedented treacherous process of rituals. Then there followed a bunch of orders, "Don't touch anything Bahu! Use the separate bathroom. Don't touch the tap. You will be given one bucket of water to wash yourself. After you are done with your bath, we shall give you a cloth." Meanwhile I could not stop analyzing about the ground, the soil which is a good conductor and thus the logic of impurity for me failed miserably then and there. Washing off oneself with that one bucket included a nine yards of elegance, the stained garment, the body smeared with a paste of herbs and sticky-stinking oil and the one and a half feet of long hair. It was only a sari that I was handed over at the end, I mean a single sari without the accessories. I wrapped up the long cloth, trying to hide my body which eventually made me look like a character from "The Mummy Returns".


Believe me! The walk from the celebrated bathroom to home was not a cake walk. I call it  the worst RAMP WALK as I was on full display considering that the neighbours on the first floor and some peeping could very well sense what had happened. Shame, puppy shame!! The bride was menstruating. I was instructed to clean my sanitary napkins in a separate polybag thoroughly even though they were complete disposables. The polybag belonged to the celebrated bathroom. Thus everytime I went to dispose those pads off, it made people around me aware of the length of my monthly cycle. That was the day I decided firmly that I would not declare my menstruation at my in-laws' place ever. I was lucky that I never had to stay there for long. The next month I went to visit my parents. Even though my dates were approaching when I got back, I mentioned all intentionally that  I got them at my parents' place back then. Isolation of menstruating women makes things worse, especially  when I was given a bucket of water to clean myself which I was unable to do so that day in a complete new place. Instead I was made to waste precious water on cleaning a disposable pad, to what avail and to ward off which black magic I am still not sure till date.



Odia Raja hallmark - Alata

Making women clad in improper clothes on full display to neighbours, outsiders and so what if even insiders is never a sensible idea to deal with the pain, bleeding and the shame associated with menstruation. When the world cannot stop going ga-ga about building toilets indoors for ladies, why can't the menstruating woman take bath indoors there? This particular saga makes me wonder if a woman with a voice and social relevance can be made to follow unbelievable customs which belittles a normal physiological bodily function, what about the million voiceless suffering? I can't imagine! I belong to a state which proudly celebrates the menstruation festival since ages known as Raw-Ja. But the persistence of ignorance and customs ingrained in households somewhere still humiliates my womanhood. 



                                              


When my daughter grows up, I would want her to feel empowered because of menstruation and there shall be no rules and no shame. 


For more understanding on menstrual hygiene education, please refer