THREE SENSIBLE DON’TS

          THREE SENSIBLE DON’TS

1.     Never make anybody feel ignorant.  Reason: Such a feeling hurts the listener’s psyche.  It even humiliates him or her.  The person whom you call ignorant is not completely so.  He/she may be lacking specific information about something, but may be he/she is having more overall knowledge about it.   The fact is that nobody in this world is completely ignorant.  Even those people who are uneducated are not ignorant.  Some of them are rather more knowledgeable than the educated ones because they have learnt their lessons in the practical school of life.  Unschooled men and women have studied life directly.  They are not book worms, yet they do not lack the wisdom which they need to run their affairs efficiently.   Quite possible that those whom we call ignorant are wiser than those whom we call intellectuals. If the word` ignorant’ is used in the sense of rude or ill-mannered, it will be discourteous use of the word and will betray lack of etiquette on the part of the speaker.

2.      Never make anybody feel inferior. Remember that in the eyes of God and the laws of many countries all human beings are equal.  None is inferior or superior. It is egotistic to feel yourself f superior to the person before you.  Moreover, inferior as well as superior is a relative term. One who is inferior in one area may not be so in another.  So where is the question of calling anybody inferior? In a dialogue between the mountain and the squirrel, it was the mountain who had to feel ashamed because it was very big, regarded itself superior but could not break even a small nut which the squirrel could do so naturally.    

3.     Be respectful even to those who do not agree with you. We live in a diverse world.  Every human being is unique.  There can be no uniform thinking among the millions of people who inhabit this world.  Each person has his/her own way of thinking, acting, judging and liking or disliking.  Agreement on every point is unimaginable.  Disagreement is more natural and should be acceptable.  To show disrespect to those who do not agree with you is to show that you do not believe in the individuality of other men and women. Moreover, remember that if respect breeds respect, disrespect breeds disrespect.  

31^st January 2020                                                  G. R. KANWAL

      

GANDHIJI’S CONCEPT OF CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

    

 GANDHIJI’S CONCEPT OF CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

In common parlance, crime in an unlawful, illegal act.  It is wrong-doing, misdeed or trespass or immoral action which is punishable according to the law of the land where it is committed.

It is rare that a society tries to find out the compulsive causes which turn a normal citizen into a criminal. To detect criminals mechanically and inflict punishment upon them on the basis the prevailing laws is not the best approach.  

According to Gandhiji all crime is a kind of disease and should be treated as such. Like any other malady, it is a product of the prevalent social system. No one commits crime for the fun of it. It is a sign of diseased mind and as such the cause of a particular disease should be investigated and removed.  He suggests: “All criminals should be treated as patients, and the jails should be hospitals admitting these kinds of patients for treatment and cure.”

Gandhiji believed that criminals, sinners, evildoers, offenders, and mischievous persons are actually ignoramuses. They commit their acts unconsciously. What they need for cure is not penal reaction but enlightenment. Punishment, said he, does not purify; if anything, it hardens.

It is not strange if Gandhiji often decided to forgive criminals and sinners. His ideology stood for hating the crime, not the criminal; the sin, not the sinner. He exemplified his stand by referring to God who looks at our acts, and any breach of His Law carries with it, not its vindictive, but its purifying, compelling punishment

As regards capital punishment, he could not, in all conscience, agree to anyone being sent to the gallows because once a man is killed the punishment is beyond recall or reparation. God alone can take life, because He alone gives it.

               30^th January 2020                                                      G.R.KANWAL

PESSIMISM

                PESSIMISM

            Pessimism is literally defined as gloominess, lack of hope, cynicism, despair, depression, distrust and even fatalism. A pessimist is therefore a cynic, a prophet of doom, a gloom merchant or fatalist.

            Long back I read an article by Thomas Scott Lowden who described pessimism as mental, moral, or physical health or all.  According to him pessimism inevitably leads to some form of ill health, and ill health is an open way to pessimism.

            For the pessimists, says Lowden, there is no life-expansive process. The life movement is ever contracting.  They lack the spirit of elasticity and accommodation, experience no spontaneous outbursts of joy, exhilaration, exuberance of the life current issuing from surplus strength, overflowing vivacity, and euphoric buoyancy. They are never conscious of a background feeling of naïve, animal life. They consume themselves in snaps, snarls and bites.

            For them t here are no sunny days, green fields, meadows, clear skies, cool streams, shady forests, and songs of birds. They think the past was is dark, the present is miserable, and the future will be gloomy.

             Not only this, so long as pessimists allow themselves to feel discouraged and depressed, life continues to go wrong with them. Their pessimism drives away their from them their friends, kith and kin, because they find themselves unable to endure their sour faces and crabbed words.  Their behavior can even become a handicap in their business, professional or social life because everybody prefers to traffic with people who are of cheerful nature , rather than with those who continue to pull long faces.

                It is possible that pessimists themselves are puzzled and do not  understand          why they are not cheerful.  In such a case, let us recall the description of pessimism given by Lowden.  According to him ill-health is an open way to pessimism. Somewhere in the body of a  pessimist, there may be a faulty condition that has caused a faulty mental attitude. The trouble may be in the stomach or in any other part of the body. So it is advisable to go to a medical  expert and give him/her a chance t to discover what is wrong.

       

28^th January 2020                                      G. R. KANWAL

KIPLING’S POEM TO HIS SON

KIPLING’S POEM TO HIS SON

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was born in India but educated in England. He started his career as a journalist but with the passage of time became a great poet, short story writer and novelist. He was A to Z supporter of British imperialism in India.  However, his writings were based on the first-hand experience of the life of the innumerable people both around him and inside the officialdom.    

             The poem that follows is one of his best compositions.  It is titled “IF’ and is addressed to his son.  As the readers will note, the poem is a sort of complete  mantra for a young man’s all-round development and the resultant happiness. success and prosperity in this world.

“If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream --- not make dreams your ma ser;

If you can thing ---and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

           

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings ---nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor losing friends can hurt;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run ---

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And ---which is more ----you’ll be a Man, my son! “

            Though addressed to his own young son, Kipling has unconsciously succeeded in making it an everlasting inspiring poem for all sorts of people anywhere in the world.  

26^th January 2020                                          G. R. KANWAL   

ABIDE WITH ME

ABIDE WITH ME

‘Abide With Me’ is one of the most popular hymns which believers in the constant support of God recite in their places of worship or even in their homes when the day comes to an end and the night with all its gloom and horrors is about to set in and the much-needed balmy sleep seems to be dodging the eyes of many a human being.

            The complete text of the hymn which is copied below is both a praise and a prayer. 

Literally, a hymn has a handful of synonyms like psalm, anthem, carol, religious song, song of praise and spiritual chant.

            The title of the hymn is a part of its last line which runs as: In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

            Henry Francis Lyte who wrote this hymn was born at the village Ednam, in United Kingdom on 1^st June 1793.  He breathed his last at Nice in France on 20^th November 1847. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin.  He was a Scottish-born Anglican minister who wrote poetry and a number of hymns that have been included in a number of anthologies.

            It is worth mentioning here that ‘Abide With Me’ was one of the favourite hymns of Mahatma Gandhi. The word ‘abide’ in the context of this hymn means stay, dwell.

            “ABIDE with me: fast falls the eventide;

            The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide:

When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs our life’s little day;

Earth’s joys  grow dim, its glories pass away,

Change and decay in all around I see;

O thou who changest not, abide with me.

I need thy presence every passing hour;

What but by thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?

Who, like thyself, my guide and stay can be?

             Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

           

              I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless:

              Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.

  Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?

   I triumph still, if thou abide with me.

    Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes:

    Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies:

    Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee:

     In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.”

23^rd January 2020.                                                            G. R. KANWAL

HOLD FAST YOUR DREAMS

HOLD FAST YOUR DREAMS

Nightmares are ugly, horrible and frightful but dreams can be as pleasant, lovely and hopeful as you want.  It depends upon the dreamer to choose the quality of his/her dreams.

It is wrong to say that all dreams are illusions, hallucinations or fantasies. The true nature of dreams is determined by the personal nature of the dreamers. Whereas some dreams can have the elements of nightmares, there can be many which can be identified with hopes, desires, aspirations, ambitions, aims, yearnings, wishes and new plans.

It is dreams which sooner or later become realities.  Today’s dream is tomorrow’s reality. What turns a dream into a reality is however its active, passionate, well-designed and un-relaxed pursuit. To dream without making efforts to achieve its perfect realization and fulfillment is a fool’s wasteful act.  The dreamer must be a practical, dynamic person, to earn the name  and fame of a true, genuine, and realistic dreamer.

Reproduced below is a poem written by an American poet Louise Driscoll (1875-1957) from New York. She was of Irish descent. The poem quoted here is inspirational both in tone and intent and bears the title:  Hold Fast Your Dreams.

HOLD FAST your dreams!

Within your heart

Keep one still, secret spot

Where dreams may go,

And, sheltered so,

May thrive and grow

Where doubt and fear are not.

O keep a place apart,

Within your heart,

For little dreams to go!

Think still of lovely things that are not true.

Let wish and magic work at will in you.

Be sometimes blind to sorrow. Make believe!

Forget the calm that lies

In disillusioned eyes.

Though we all know that we must die,

Yet you and I

May walk like gods and be

Even now at home in immortality.

We see so many ugly things-------

Deceits and wrongs and quarrelings;

We know, alas! We know

How quickly fade

The color in the west,

The bloom upon the flower,

The bloom upon the breast

And youth’s blind hour.

Yet keep within your heart

A place apart

Where little dreams may go,

May thrive and grow,

Hold  fast----hold fast your dreams!

21^st January                                                 G. R. KANWAL

A LOVE LETTER BY JOHN KEATS

A LOVE LETTER BY JOHN KEATS

English romantic poet John Keats was born at Moorgate, City of London, on 31^st October 1795 and passed away in Italy  on 23^rd February 1821at the young age of 26.  He was a patient of tuberculosis which curbed his physical stamina but  not his poetic creativity.  In spite of living a short life, he has left behind a good deal of great poetry, especially his famous odes which find place in university curriculum almost everywhere in the world.  Some of his quotations are ever green.  They are easily memorable and vastly quotable.  For example:

            A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. Its loveliness increases, it will never pass into nothingness.  Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter. The poetry of the earth is never dead. If poetry comes not as naturally as leaves to a tree it had better not come at all. Scenery is fine – but human nature is finder. Love is my religion, I could die for it. I have loved the principle of beauty in all things. I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart’s affections and the truth of the imagine. The world is a vale of tears.

            The letter that follows was written to his lady love Fanny Brawne. She is said to have met Keats, who was her neighbor in Hamstead in 1818 when Keats was at the height of creative activity.

             The Letter: “You have absorb’d me. I have a sensation as the present moment as though I was dissolving ---I should be exquisitely  miserable without the hope of seeing you .  I should be afraid to separate myself far from ou.  My sweet Fanny, will your heart never change?  My love, will it? I have no limit now to my love….Your note came in just here.  I cannot be happier away from you. ‘Tis richer than an Argosy of Pearls. Do not threat me even in jest. I have been astonished that Men could die martyrs for religion --- I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more----I could be martyred for my religion --- Love is my religion ---I could die for that.  I could die for you.  My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet. You have ravished me away by a Power I cannot resist; and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavoured often ‘ to reason against the reasons of my Love.’ I can do that no more --- the pain would be too great. My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you “

                         In my opinion, this is one of the best letters ever written by a poet-lover  to his mistress. But Matthew Arnold  for whom for poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of division,  and for whom the strongest part of religion is its unconscious poetry, the letter written by Keats is the complete enervation of the writer. “We have the tone, or rather the entire want of tone, the abandonment of all reticence and all dignity, of the merely sensuous man, of the man who is passion’s slave.:

                        Arnold goes on to say Keats’s love-letter is the love-letter of a surgeon’s apprentice. (It refers to the initial career of Keats) . It has in its relaxed self-abandonment something underbred and ignoble, as of a youth ill brought up, without the training which teaches us that we must put some constraint upon our feelings and upon the expression of them.

                            Matthew Arnol was a moral educationist.  He did not have that poetic liberalism which was the hallmark of romantic poets.  Look at Shelley’s lines: “O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud, I fall upon the thorn of life, I bleed.” For Keats, sensations rather than thoughts were important. The love-letter quoted here is an unbounded expression of a lover whose days in this world were numbered. He was at that time a most critical victim of a fatal disease. His only life-support was his lady love. In his despair, he even longed to believe in immortality and wrote to Fanny: “I shall never be able to bid you an entire farewell.  If I am destined to be happy with you here ----how short is the longest life.  I wish to believe in immortality---I wish to live with you for           ever.”

18^th January 2020                                                       G. R. KANWAL    

Halqa-e-tashngan-e-adab delhi 23 dec 2019

HAPPINESS

                                           HAPPINESS

Happiness is a relative term.  It has no absolute definition.  Some of its synonyms are: cheerfulness, lightheartedness, joyfulness, blitheness, carefreeness, gladness, exuberance and blissfulness.

Even the secrets and sources of an individual’s happiness are too many and too different.  In fact, in this respect one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

            English divine and Archbishop of Canterbury John Tillotson (1630-1694) rightly said man courts happiness in a thousand ways; and the faster he follows it the swifter it flies from him. Almost everything promiseth happiness to us at a distance, but when we come nearer, either we fall short of it, or it falls short of our expectation; and it is hard to say which of these is the greatest disappointment.  

            Again, there are religious people whose secret of happiness lies in renunciation.

Here is one very simple secret of happiness of an English writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894): “ Wealth I ask not, hope nor love, nor a friend to know me; all I ask, the heavens above, and the road below.”

 The viewpoint of an English essayist, Joseph Addison (1672-1719) is also worth knowing. According to him true happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; It rises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self; and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions; it loves shades and solitude, and naturally haunts groves and fountains, fields and meadows, In short, it feels everything it wants within itself, and receives no addition from multitudes of witnesses and spectators. On the contrary, false happiness loves to be in a crowd, and to draw the eyes of the world upon her. She does not receive satisfaction from the applauses which she gives herself, but from the admiration which she raises in others. She flourishes in courts and palaces, theatres and assemblies, and has no existence but when she is looked upon.

I believe that everybody should find his/her own secret and source of true happiness, true according to the voice of his/her own heart, mind and conscience and not of another individual’s  however great or learned he/she may be.

Finally, just for your immediate delight and instruction, here is  a beautiful poem written by an American social worker and activist, Priscilla Leonard (1861-1948):

“HAPPINESS is like a crystal, /Fair and exquisite and dear, /Broken in a millions pieces, /Shattered, scattered far and near. Now and then along life’s pathway, /Lo! Some shining fragments fall; / But there are so many pieces/No one ever finds them all.

You may find a bit of beauty. /Or an honest share of wealth, / While another just beside you/Gathers honor, love or health, /Vain to choose or grasp unduly, /Broken is the perfect ball; /And there are so many pieces/No one ever finds them all.

Yet the wise as on they journey/Treasure every fragment clear,/Fit them as they may together,/Imaging the shattered sphere,/Learning ever to be thankful,/Though their share of it is small;/For it has so many pieces/No one ever finds them all. “

9^th January 2020                                        G. R. KANWAL  

THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY

THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY

The views expressed in this write-up are largely based on the address, delivered at Moscow University on 18^th June 1956, by the former President of India, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975).

One of the most prominent scholars of the world, Dr.Radhakrishnan had great interest in education, literature, religion and philosophy.   He was an excellent writer and an equally excellent orator.  He often quoted from Sanskrit scriptures to illustrate a point both in his writings and speeches. His style was aphoristic.  It appears from the references cited in his books that he was gifted with a marvelously reliable memory.

According to his address mentioned above, buildings do not make a university.  It is the teachers and the pupils and their pursuit of knowledge which make the soul of a university.       A university is the sanctuary of the intellectual life of a society.  The healthy roots of national life are to be found in the people.  They are the well-springs of national awakening. They are the spirit behind the   revolutionary movements of society.

When we give education, we start a ferment of debate and discussion of first principles. The educate youth voice their thoughts and find fault with things as they are.

A university trains not only professionals but also men and women who think for themselves.  They do not judge everything by the party line.  If a country destroys the initiative, the freedom of its people, it does so at its peril. The loss of its intellectual vigour makes its future bleak. The true development of a country is the development of the spirit of its people.      

6^th January 2020                                        G. R. KANWAL

A Short Dialogue From Shakespeare’s King Lear

       A Short Dialogue From Shakespeare’s King Lear

“Cordelia. We are not the first Who, with best meaning, have incurr’d the worst. For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down; myself could else out-frown falSe Fortune’s frown. Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?

Lear. No, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison; we two alone will sing like birds I’ the cage” when thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down, and ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live and pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh at gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too, who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out; and  take upon’s the mystery of things, as if we were God’s spies: and we’ll wear out, in a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones that ebb and flow like the moon.”

               England’s greatest dramatist William Shakespeare (1564-1616) wrote the tragic play ‘King Lear” in 1605.      

                  Here is a short outline of the play for the purpose of this dialogue. “Lear, 80-year old, King of Britain wishes to retire after many years as ruler, and divides his kingdom among his three daughters. When the moment for the actual distribution of the territory is at hand, he somewhat childishly proposes to make his gifts dependent upon each daughter’s declaration of love for him. The two eldest, Goneril, and Regan, are over-fulsome in their protestations, and the old king is highly pleased. As he turns expectantly to Cordelia, the youngest, to hear what she shall say “to draw a third more opulent than her sisters, he is hurt by her simple and sincere expression of duty and affection. Enraged at her apparent coolness, he casts her off completely, arranges to live with each of her elder sisters in turn, and presents Cordelia dowerless to her sisters.

                        As the plot progresses, the two eldest daughters turn out to be most ungrateful, and cruel to their father. However, the youngest one Cordelia stands by him like a guardian angel.

                          The dialogue quoted above is a little earlier than Cordelia is hanged to death and the broken-hearted father dies trying to revive her. These were his last words:

“Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, the gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee? He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven, and fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes; the good years shall devour them, flesh and fell, ere they shall make us weep; we’ll see ‘em starve first.”              

                                    According to a critic Goneril is a kite: her ingratitude has a serpent’s tooth: she has struck her father most serpent like upon the very heart: her visage is wolfish: she has tied sharp-toothed unkindness like a vulture on her father’s breast; for her husband she is a gilded serpent….She and Regan are dog-hearted: they are tiger, not daughters; each is an adder to the other: the flesh of each is covered with the fell (skin) of a beast.”

2^nd January 2020                            G.R.KANWAL

  

                                                                                   

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New Year, Tagore and Tennyson

                  New Year, Tagore and Tennyson

            What follows is one poem about New Year published in 1850 by English poet Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) and another poem included in Gitanjali (1913) by Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941).

              Both Tennyson and Tagore tell their readers about the obsolete and irrational social, political and moral evils which should vanish from their motherland in the time to come.

                The title of Tennyson’s poem is ‘RING OUR, WILD BELLS’: It reads as follows:

                         Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

                         The flying cloud, the frosty light:

                         The year is dying in the night;

                        Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

                        Ring out the old, ring in the new,

                        Ring happy bells, across the snow

                        The year is going, let him go;

                        Ring out the false, ring in the true.

                        Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more; 

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out false pride and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Tagore’s poem has no title.  It is published at serial number 35 in the anthology of poems/songs entitled Gitanjali for which he was honoured with Nobel Prize for literature in 1913.  All the poems in Gitanjali are addressed to God by one who is closely related to Him as a beloved.      

                        Given below is the full text of the poem:

“WHERE the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches it arms towards perfection:

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into

the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought

and action----------

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. “

1^st January 2020                                     G.R.KANWAL