Colin the baby whale euthanized in sydney

COLIN is a baby humback whale too weak to survive, marine biologists are doing their best Down Under including initiating EUTHANIZING process defending that their action IS a more HUMANE approach to wane the suffering of the baby whale.

Sitting 5000 miles far from the scene of action, however, I have strong reservation on the tactic being employed. I would like to spill a few 'ifs & buts' questions.

If man cannot stand to see nature taking its course he should refrain from taking it as his duty to take immediate action on nature's behalf. I mean if it were to die, let baby whale die a natural death at its natural hour under natural circumstances.

Modern man has become very soft-hearted and over-conscious. I call it unbalanced and disoriented. His insatiable inquisitiveness gives rise to unnecessary pins & needles for him as well as his neighboring worldings. In his environment he wishes to be available everywhere. He wants to deliver beyond extra and demands that he should be allowed to handle 'it'. Who cares who's shoes (hoofs) he is stepping on to? Who cares who's privacy curtain he is tearing apart? Nobody from within or outside can stop him from getting close and know it, feel it, judge it and act on it.

If animals were witted and spoke our language and man went knocking for their permission, no animal would give a consent ever. But, man does not pauses to ask or knock. The man supreme who stands above all! He is born to outclass every beings on this planet. He is not the one who looks up at the moon in awe. He is the one who opposes the might of the earth's gravity to pluck the moon. The supreme man who stands above all! He does not gives two hoots, he can run amok regardless of what a zebra or a fox or a eagle or a humback whale likes to think. That's the way he would like to have it. Funnily, at times, it takes just a 'word or two' from a qualified man or team to decide the matter of life & death.

In the wilderness, it is natural for wildlife to lead a precarious and edgy life. To live hard and die hard is a quite a okay thing for wild animals. If man decides to intervene in the natural order of things, only limit actions to promoting and saving life, DEFINITELY NOT TAKING LIVES.

Quick facts about Colin in case you weren't there to hear his story around third-week of Aug, 08.

• Lost whale had been trying to suckle on yacht in harbor
• Officials hoping to coax whale to sea so it can be adopted
• Bringing whale into captivity not an option since it needs to be breast fed, said experts
• Humpback whales are in the middle of their annual migration (july thru sept) from the Antarctic to tropical waters to breed and then back again

Where you be, how you be, my brother

A week and a couple of more days slipped by unnoticed. There were the usual and regular tasks and very few odds to grapple with, so I was largely at peace with myself, within myself...

In the warm company of Deva, Hari and many others who used to pay frequent visits to our house, there was not a speck of hint that anything could have turned sour or gone wrong...

Then one day after the heaviest rainfall of the season, I were to show up at our local temple at Rajghat and received a piece of tiding that snapped the bouyant, good humor from my heart. A cousin brother enrolled with a Delhi University program ushered me into his cabin and broke a painful news: my younger brother in Arunachal Pradesh no longer lives in this world.

Much much tears, grievious heart and so many questions to God asking why, why, why...it takes a big time in this world to come to term with loss of a family member, relative, friends, well-wishers. I managed to come to term over time. As I started to regain composure, I tried to move outside the house out on to the streets, take a few bus rides, sometimes playing on the grounds under the sun...until fully recovery, sudden emotion and sobs would return sometimes in the middle of anything that I was doing that led me to pause in the kitchen, halt during jogging, walk out without a words as the favorite TV channel played, losing grip of the soap while soaping my body...
The time was 8 years ago. It was the monsoon season. The month was August.

Over time, all good or bad simply pales into history. Then, one needs to take a long mental walk down the memory lane to get to it again. You'd start to really recall it only if you consciously consider all the current family members and sense what is amiss. Once in year time, you'd get flowers and place it on the resting ground with a painful heart. This summer I was home and walked to the cremation ground of the brother we lost. With dhamma prayers in mind under a bright sunny sun, I thought of the beloved brother.

"I will live up to each day of my life with the special thought in my heart that I had a brother younger than me. I will welcome dawn of my life reminding myself that you lived. I wont't cry anylonger that you are not beside me. Instead, I will cherish the brother you were. On and on and on....inside the core of my heart you'll reside."

"Your deeds, actions and strengths have always pleased me. No matter if you were younger to me, you have long surpassed me with your honesty and sheer hard work. "

"In our past, years in and years out you'd look forward to meeting me every summer holidays, I promise as you leave me behind, my man will always remember your face, your voice, your virtues"

"Where you be, how you be, that's beyond a human brother thinking power. Sometimes I search for you hoping to see you again; among the cluster of twinkling stars high above, in the ring-well's water reflection, underwater of the spirited, gurgling streams; inside pages of novels I read, on petals of jasmine, in the streak of afternoon sunrays penetrating into my room..."

"A drop of tears or two, let them as a token of gratitude for your unconditional love, the company you gave me and I am sorry if I hurted you with the little mischiefs I played on you. Adieu, my brother"

English....arrgghh!!

Trying to get into the skin of the English language? You better catch it fast else it will change its skin before your eyes! If French is definite as solid, English is formless as liquid. We read it in the lower classes, liquid takes the shape of a container. Likewise, English takes the shape of time and place. English language could undergo distinguishable changes over a simple span of a year's time. So, if you are an English language enthusiast brace yourself well to master the language. It involves some extra efforts of learning and unlearning in the process.

I can already see Rupashi who is striving in this direction wholeheartedly. She is picking up the nitty-gritty of the language under the tutelage of some of the most skillful language-specialists. She improved vastly since she took up her current offer with IBM Daksh, Gurgaon. I am glad I met her over a morning cup of tea, she revealed the subtle differences between 3 specific alphabets and how to pronounce them accurately. Those 3 are J as in Juliet, Z as in Zebra and the 'S' in the word 'pleasure'. It was fun doing tongue-xercise! Here's a few gems of the English language. Quite important they are!

• Homophenes - words have different spelling and meanings but the same sound - heir, air, sun, son.
• Homonyns - words spelt and pronounced alike but mean different things - hand, cricket

There's more! Add to this is the irrational and idiosyncratic nature of English spellings. It bears no logical relation to speech. The problem arises because the number of graphenemes (written symbols) does not correlate with their number of phoemes (sounds) in the English language. The 26 letters of the alphabet cover 47 phonemes (according to COD).

Sometimes one phoneme can be represented by more than one graphene. Hence, Bernard Shaw's famous analogy that the word 'fish' can be written as 'ghoti' and still be pronounced 'fish'!
-'gh' in words like rough and laugh has the 'f' sound.
-'o' in women has the 'i' sound
- 'ti' in nation and ration has the 'sh' sound

Besides these inconsistencies, there are the silent letters which complicate English spellings - 'h' as in hour and honor, psychology and pneumonia, or debt and doubt or calm and palm.

Best of luck to all of you with your English :-)

I thanked my stars for the fortunate encounter!

About 2 years ago, a friend and I were standing at platform #2 at the New Delhi Railway station. The platform was cold as it was winter season. We reached the station with ample time at hand. As the departure time slowly closed in, I caught two familiar faces among the swelling crowd. I must have met one of them before at our Rajghat Temple and we greeted each other. Like me, he also came to see off his friend. I saw the stranger with his luggage.

We broke the ice by introducing ourselves. The stranger told me that he was a resident of Mizoram and rounding off his trip from New Delhi on that day. He was a polite man and returning with the same train that my friend had booked. Now, who would have thought! Out of my wildest dreams, this stranger took me back straightly to my kindergarten years. When he spoke, it was for me as if I was looking at an old picture held in his hand - a black & white scenery where the sun is shining less bright. He inquired on our family well-being and I gave warm answers to him. He made a special mention that he initiated as a sramanera at Ratnapur under a monk that was none other than my grandfather. Instantly, the distant feeling of talking to a stranger and all my reservation blew away. His revelation effected my heart in a pleasing way.

He also spoke about Mr. Bhattacharya, the primary school head-teacher then. The gentleman is profusely thankful that the head-teacher obliged to admit an overaged student that he was in the early Eighties. A single, bold signature by the teacher made all the difference to his life! As years unfolded, he passed the exams at the end of each school term, jumping from one class to another and thus carved a respectable career. Fast forward 25 years, I was meeting a prideful man in the heart of the country riding on a Rajdhani, Indian Railways' prized passenger trains. I thanked my stars for the fortunate encounter. After meeting him, I needn't worry much about my friend on the train.

Be a Diamond
Take just a quick minute and think about something: what makes gold so great? Or diamonds? What makes a diamond so much more special than a cubic zirconia? Both are shiny. Both are "pretty." So why is a diamond so much more expensive? Why is it so valuable?

BECAUSE IT'S RARE.

People want things that they see as rare. Diamonds are rare. If amethyst was more difficult to find than diamonds, I guarantee people would be getting on one knee with an amethyst engagement ring. Diamonds are rare and therefore, valuable. It's the law of supply and demand.

Be rare. Be a diamond. Be different than the others. Amongst all the other lumps of coal (other guys) you are the diamond. You stand out, above and beyond all the others. Learn to play an instrument, learn comedy, learn a foreign language. Do something that will make people say, "Here's something different."

Ever go to college? If so, you can pick out the ones whose parents are paying for their school versus the kids who are either paying for it themselves or are on scholarships that require good grades. The ones who have things given to them don't appreciate what they have as much as the ones who have to work for what they want.

Remember, to be valuable, you have to be rare. People take for granted the things that are always there. Don't always be there. Be rare. Be a diamond.

(*courtesy Giovanni Casanova - Be a diamond)

Desikottama Prof Kazuo Azuma from Japan

I did not know the meaning of Desikottama* then. I met Prof. Kazuo Azuma at The Claridges, New Delhi, in the year 2006. As I entered his hotel room, his soft voice greeted my in fine Bengali. I was held in awe. The period was the peak of summer season and the professor appeared fragile and drained. Do you know that this season is also referred as the mango season in the northern region?

The room was cool and comfortable with a clear view of the pool. Unfortunately, the professor who was traveling alone and not in his ablest self due to health concern had to suffice with strict bed rest while I perused thru the pages of my novel and at the same time watched television on a low volume.

There were no door bells to disturb the room except when the phone jumped to life. But nobody seemed to mind it because it used to be none other than the professor’s wife. She used to telephone from Tokyo. Her voice enlivened the professor and made him pleased and at home. Very shortly, I discovered that his wife spoke Bengali also. I was enormously surprised by this old, enchanting Japanese couple. I could not help but compare the finely dressed, articulate hotel receptionists from India who wouldn't speak a word of Bengali or Sanskrit! I felt deeply drawn to the professor.

In those two days spent under his noble company, I was very happy to be able to test my elementary Japanese that I learnt at Reiyukai Foundation many years ago. Thus, he became our endeared ‘dadu’. His face brimmed with fondness and affection as I started to address him as ‘dadu’. As he regained his composure and energy, he transformed into an animated personality more than I imagined. We took part in delightful conversation, laughed, ate together and watched more TV programmes. All of us felt great like a new one-dollar bill!

Next day, my heart was overwhelmed with happiness when he called to us and explained that all of us could sleep on the same bed like a grandfather and his grandchildren. I had to check my senses: I was going to sleep on the same bed with a Japanese who saw Netaji with his own eyes! As a little boy, dadu saw Netaji in uniform. Whew! Netaji is a fable for us, a character that exists in history texts. It is natural that I had to bat my eyelids twice before believing him. But, dadu was truthful as he could only be. He recounted in front of us that one day the street was filled with a big crowd for an event where Netaji took the podium. That event is very far from now. Dadu was referring to pre-WWII era. He narrated many interesting stories about Japan, Japanese as a society and his own life’s journey into becoming a Rabindra scholar.

I love the extra ordinary person he became by embracing Kolkata and its wholesome inhabitants. General people like you and I would like to complain on Kolkata’s prickly heat, devilish rainfall, unhealthy slums, rickety infrastructure, and dismal football and so on. In an maverick style, he decided to leave behind a promising career and set out to travel far from his beloved homeland. Ever since he landed on the shore of Calcutta, he stayed immersed in the fathomless waters of Rabindra. Professor Kazuo Azuma is an eminent Rabindra scholar, well-known among Japanese society for his translation work of Rabindra masterpieces.

I am fortunate having known and met and served his feet for as long as he was in New Delhi. The days at The Claridges will remain an ever lasting memory. I’ve got substantial facts and pictures already by bits and pieces from internet; I hope to connect and plot a fuller picture of adorable ‘dadu’ in near future. My recent finding was a photograph of a group of Vishvabharati scholars and ‘dadu' is wearing a white kurta-pyjama, chappal and ‘jhola’ hung casually on his shoulder - a Japanese completely transformed to Bengali. He hums Rabindra sangeets, eyes sparkle at once upon taking Rabindranath's name on his lips; dadu accepted that his heart will sing merrily all the way home if he could die in Paschim Banga - the land of Rabindra waters!

*Desikottamma is an unique honor bestowed on persons of distinction by Vishvabharathi. It is the highest honor Vishvabharathi at Shantiniketan confers to academicians. Till date, 34 foreign nationals have been conferred the award. The Desikottama award was instituted in the year 1952.

Fyi, the word’s translated in English means ‘ideal person of the country’.

Rabibar by Tagore
Please listen Tagore's Shruti natak " Rabibar". Tagore's magical use of words and emotion made this story as oneof his best (almost like his Shesher Kabita). This drama though written almost 100 years ago but it seems it is written today such an immortal piece was created by Tagore.
Please enjoy the drama in two parts in the following link: http://calcuttaglobalchat.net/calcuttablog/2007/11/08/robibar-story-by-rabindranath-thakur-presented-by-jagannath-basu-bengali-geeti-natya/

Dear polly jones and dr vijayan of bodytree

Dear Polly Jones,

My name is Rajendu B Chakma, ex-Bodhicariya student living in New Delhi. I was here since 1999!

I 've been following your 'BodyTree' with enormous interest and I really admire the work that your group is doing. I visit your web site very often. The site is cool with neat and specific information & updates. However, I am more so glad that I met Samar Chakma in New Delhi recently who studied at BodyTree for nearly 3 years.

This will be an update for you! The Chakma community in Delhi is quite a large one at the present time. Each year the number increases significantly due to the constant influx of youngsters from Arunachal Pradesh. These are basically high school pass-out, poor in English and good in Hindi, however, blessed with healthy bodies. They get started with some kind of jobs within a week upon their arrival. For example, work in factory assembly lines, dress-making units, waiters in bakeries, etc. A few that are good in math, language and personal grooming manage to get jobs in modern shopping malls and amusements parks as sales agents/stall boys or stall girls. Some are able to penetrate into the popular fast-food chains like MacDonald's, PizzaHut, Subway, KFC etc. The noteworthy point is that girl's percentage almost outranks the boy's. These groups of youths live collectively in suburban areas like Noida and Gurgaon located 30kms away from Connaught Place, heart of New Delhi.

Here, I carry on with a job under a privately-held American Inc. Therefore, I can emphatize with their back-breaking schedules. I am sure that each of these boys and girls got a bigger plate of work in comparsion to me. But, I like that their spirits and readiness to face the challenge. I am constantly impressed with their show of grit & determination, they have taken it in their strides, they don't want to give in, they don't falter; above all, they are prospering. These youths are able to utilize their youth-potential here under the skies of Delhi. If they didn't make it up to here, their years would have been spent in insignificance in Arunachal. Typically, the girls would be fetch waters from the riverbank at the crack of dawn, harvest crops, weed vegetable farms, sell stuffs in local bazaar and collect firewood from nearby jungles. In a similar monotonous fashion, the boys would be graze cattle, plough paddy fields, clear jungles, go fishing etc. Today, optimistism is evident in their ways and mien. Many of these boys & girls tend to save sufficient money to send back to their parents in Arunachal in the same way Keralites send fat remittances from Gulf countries! On the ground there is noticeable change - the family of the boy or the girl is less poor than yesterday.

Every person is striving against odds in every corner of the world. It is the order of nature. But an individual actually marches on during crisis and wouldn't collapse because of faith, perseverance, positive mentality and constructive efforts. It is pleasure to note that every individual and society no longer seeks isolation. It is equal pleasure to note that every individual and society is inching forward with a common dream of 'One World, One Dream'. It is great to find so much helping and volunteering going on these days in a way never witnessed before! I am pleased to find that you've already started to make efforts in your own unique way with the rest of the worldlings.

The reason that I like to share the stories of this bunch of boys and girls today is: they have an indegenious root. I thought their case would naturally interest you. You have already studied our society from close quarters, well aware about our past history, tradition, society's status and progress and as such.

Down at 27 Kallar, I know that it is one special place where transfer of skills takes place. The art & subjects taught at BodyTree institution are very strong and practical. They have enormous utility value.

Your experiment in life revolves around youths. I will be very glad if you have near-future expansion plan to increase student enrollment. If that would be the case, I am very much interested to submit a few profiles of aspirant-students who could attend long term courses at BodyTree. Thanks very much for reading my email.


NB: heard of GlobalGiving? I am sure your organization will be fit to apply for & receive donation from all around the globe! Visit http://www.globalgiving.com/

** Find more about BodyTree by visiting their web site: http://www.bodytree.org/ **