independence

Let us, for a moment, forget it is supposed to be a poem.  Let's not even call it 'free verse'.  Let us just assume it is prose.  This piece by Tagore:

Where the heart is unafraid, head unbowed, knowledge unbound
Where the Universe has not been smashed, grounded, enclosed within the walls of a house
Where words spring from the heart
Where effort flows in a million boundless streams towards success
Where reason is not dammed by the sands of dogma
Where virility lives
Where YOU lead all effort, thought, and happiness
To jolt Bharat awake into that heaven
Strike, Father. Ruthlessly.

This, to me, is what 'independence' is.

Tagore, the poet karmayogi

Every time the national anthem is played in India, a brave nation stands upright to glorify the abstract figurehead that rules over the waves and crests of this vast country. Every time the national anthem is played in Bangladesh, a riverine nation celebrates its love of a golden landscape. Two countries, two anthems - one martial, the other emotional - both composed by Rabindranath Tagore, a man whose life and work embodied the spirit of nationality in universality.

The only poet from India to have ever won the Nobel Prize, Tagore's influence on the culture of his land is pervasive and deep-rooted. Children are put to sleep by his lilting melodies, youngsters quote his verses during fierce political debates in their universities, random houses and apartment blocks are named after his poem collections, and his songs glorifying the abstract and infinite God are sung at funerals and memorials. The paintings, etchings, sculptures, and clay models created by him and his disciples at his Vishwabharati remain a benchmark for artistes. For generations of people, culture begins and ends with Tagore.

Who was Tagore? Born in 1861, a few years after the Mutiny, Tagore was the youngest child of a wealthy and landed family of 19th century Bengal. His education was irregular. He was home schooled in his childhood and his family's attempts to get him a conventional education - first at St. Xavier's College in Calcutta and later at the University College in London - failed. His experience with the extant educational system was what probably guided Tagore to found, in 1921, the Vishwabharati - a school and university that followed the ancient gurukula system (in that, students and teachers live together) with a syllabus and teaching method that was modern by the standards of the times - not only were there no 'examinations', students were encouraged to follow non-academic pursuits such as carpentry, weaving, painting, and clay-modelling.

Tagore's era was the time when the movement for independence of India from Britain was at its peak. When Bengal was partitioned in 1905, Tagore led a seething, teeming mass of protesting people to the banks of the Ganga where he oversaw a Rakhi-Bandhan ceremony - Hindus and Muslims tying a brotherhood band on each other's wrists to the accompaniment of Tagore's songs - incomparable in simplicity and inimitable in the melody of their tunes.

What God has bound together, you'll slash
You have such power?

Our splintering-shaping, you'll craft Such conceit!

বিধির বাঁধন কাটবে তুমি এমন শক্তিমান, তুমি কি  এমন শক্তিমান
আমাদের ভাঙাগড়া তোমার হাতে এমন অভিমান, তোমাদের এমনি অভিমান 

The government had to rescind the Partition. Several years later, when Jallianwala Bagh happened, Tagore protested by renouncing his knighthood. Tagore, though deeply committed to the cause of an independent homeland, rejected the theory that everything British was bad. His novel Gora is about an Irish child orphaned during the Mutiny and brought up as the son of a chaste Hindu couple. In Ghare Baire and Char Adhyay, he criticized the violent terrorist movement in Bengal and the Swadeshi movement that saw the burning of British cloth - he disliked this waste in a country where people went naked. Tagore's vision of freedom was different:

Freedom from fear is the freedom
I claim for you my motherland!

Tagore had a poet's heart.

As the night hides its plea for light,
So in the depths of my delusion do I want you

রাত্রি যেমন লুকিয়ে রাখে আলোর প্রার্থনাই; তেমনি গভীর মোহের মাঝে তোমায় আমি চাই

His Gitanjali, which won him the Nobel prize, has poems with dual meanings.

Unless I sight 'pon your face my heart isn't at rest
And I wander through my work 

As in a shoreless sea

না চাহিলে তোমার মুখপানে হৃদয় আমার বিরাম নাহি জানে,
কাজের মাঝে ঘুরে বেড়াই যত 
ফিরি কূলহারা সাগরে 

The day he passed on to his maker, Tagore composed the last of his poems:

You've entrapped your creation, O enchantress,
Deftly snared the simple life with a web of false beliefs
….
The path that your bright star shows,
Is the path to Infinity
Ever clear
…
He who weathers your deceptions with nary a sigh
Wins from you the right to unbroken peace

তোমার সৃষ্টির পথ রেখেছ আকীর্ণ করি বিচিত্র ছলনাজালে, হে ছলনাময়ী
মিথ্যা বিশ্বাসের ফাঁদ পেতেছ নিপুণ হাতে সরল জীবনে
...
তোমার জ্যোতিষ্ক তা'রে যে-পথ দেখায়
সে যে তার অন্তরের পথ,
সে যে চিরস্বচ্ছ,
...
অনায়াসে যে পেরেছে ছলনা সহিতে
সে পায় তোমার হাতে শান্তির অক্ষয় অধিকার

Tagore died on August 7, 1941. In his own words:

The day when death knocks at your door
What riches will you offer?
Oh, me? I will bring forth the full vessel of my life
I'll never let him go with empty hands.

মরণ যেদিন দিনের শেষে আসবে তোমার দুয়ারে
সেদিন তুমি কী ধন দিবে উহারে
ভরা আমার পরানখানি সম্মুখে তার দিব আনি,
শূন্য বিদায় করব না তো উহারে

label

A label is a classifying phrase or name applied to a person or thing, says my dictionary. The word is probably of Germanic origin, from the word lappen, which means rag, cloth, flap, lobe and which, later, came to be used to mean a small piece of paper, fabric, plastic, or similar material attached to an object and giving information about it.

So, for example, in the sentence "The Blues musician John Galt sold 7 million singles last year", the word "Blues" is a label.

Here is a list of labels, which we freely use in our daily conversation, together with their meanings. It is evident that we use these labels a tad indiscriminately.

• axis of evil: the terrorist supporting nations of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea


• bourgeois: belonging to or characteristic of the middle class, typically with reference to its perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes


• capitalism: an economic system structured upon the accumulation of capital in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit, usually in competitive markets


• centrist: a person who takes a middle-of-the-road political stand, neither left nor right


• communalism: allegiance to one's own ethnic group rather than to the wider society


• communism: a sociopolitical movement that aims for a classless and stateless society structured upon common ownership of the means of production, free access to articles of consumption, and the end of wage labour and private property in the means of production and real estate


• civil society : 1. all of the civil infrastructure of a Western Liberal state, democracy, trial by jury, rule of law, etc. 2. voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that state's political system) and the commercial institutions of the market


• democracy: a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state , typically through elected representatives


• direct action: the use of strikes, demonstrations, or other public forms of protest rather than negotiation to achieve one's demands


• fascist: a person who believes in an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organisation


• feudalism: a social and economic system defined by inherited social ranks, each of which possessed inherent social and economic privileges and obligations


• figurehead: a very public, but powerless leader. Originates from the ancient Greek tradition of putting fearsome gods and sea creatures on the front of their warships


• flag waving: the expression of patriotism in a populist and emotional way


• identity politics: 1. political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups 2. the ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance


• lal salaam: 1. a salute, greeting or code word used by Communists 2. the tribute arranged by comrades after the death of a Naxal soldier


• left wing - 1. a radical or liberal political position 2. a politician or citizen who is more liberal than the average person


• liberal: favouring individual liberty, free trade, and moderate political and social reform


• Machiavellianism 1. the principles of government set forth in The Prince by Machiavelli, in which political expediency is ranked above morality and where the use of craft and deceit to maintain authority or to effectuate policy is recommended 2. activity characterised by subtle cunning, duplicity, or bad faith


• Maoism: the communist doctrines of Mao Zedong as formerly practised in China, having as a central idea permanent revolution


• nationalist: 1. a person who advocates political independence for a country 2. a person with strong patriotic feelings, especially one who believes in the superiority of their country over others


• Naxal: a militant communist supportive of Maoist political sentiment and ideology
  reactionary: a person who opposes political or social progress or reform


• realpolitik: realism in politics, especially policies or actions based on considerations of power rather than ideals


• referendum: the State asking the voters if they agree to a specific proposed legislation


• republic: a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch


• right wing: a politician or citizen who is more conservative than the average person


• Sangh Parivar: organizations inspired by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideology


• secular: not connected with religious or spiritual matters


• socialism: a theory or system of social organization advocating placing the ownership and control of capital, land, and means of production in the community as a whole


• terrorist: a person who uses violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims

Comma

There was this girl called Commah,
Who was so prim and propah,
She'd never sit next,
To an uppercase text,
Unless it was a proper nounah.

Zed

So, once there was a Zed,
Who wanted to be dead,
Every time it'd see,
Someone pronounce a zee,
And insist that's how it was said.

mosquito

Mosquitoes are pesky creatures, I thought, as I regarded one, bumping along my mosquito net looking for a hole to sneak in through. Pesky, I repeated, and got back to the book I'd taken to bed last night. Till, five minutes later, a sharp prick told me mosquitoes are not only pesky but also pernicious.

Mosquito comes from the Latin word for 'fly', musca - originally a 'tiny sand-fly'. Musca became the Spanish mosca, whose diminutive form reached English as mosquito - etymologically 'a small fly'. - (from Bloomsbury dictionary of Word Origins, John Ayto)

There are two ways that I could deal with these mosquitoes:

• Be inside the mosquito net, a 4 X 6 X 5' space, and hope none sneak in. It's like putting up a boundary wall or fence around your house and going to sleep, in the hope you've kept invaders out - inavders that sneak in, anyway, and drain the blood out of you, one drop at a time.


• Plug the mosquito repellant into the wall socket and switch it on, so all mosquitoes within the room die. It's like hunting down all red-book thumping, armed bloodsuckers who've infiltrated your house and are now looking for domicile status and, bolstered by support from bleeding-heart liberals, education for their kids.

Me, I chose to kill.

Up next: pernicious

unfuddle

Un is a prefix that negates the meaning of the word it's prefixed to. Unable means not able, unabashed means not abashaed, unworthy means not worthy, understand means not, uh.... understand is an exception. :)

So, by the normal token, unfuddle means the opposite of fuddle, which means this:



Unfuddle is not in the dictionary. Yet. But, it's already in the market. Unfuddle is the name of a software application that reduces the fuddlement in software project teams.



Apt name for a project management software, don't you think?

gruntle

Gruntle does not exist in the dictionary - well, not Oxford's anyway. Words such as prepone and lungi have inserted themselves into the venerable English tome while gruntle, coined by a true-blue Brit, hasn't. What exists in the dictionary is the word in its adjectival form: gruntled.



The first known use of this word is this (but it's debated):

I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled. - The Code of the Woosters, P.G.Wodehouse

The following news items, while not making me actually disgruntled, makes me far from gruntled.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/rahul-gandhi-gets-out-of-car-helps-accident-victim-87253

The fourth estate displaying servility to the second creates an ill wind that bodes no good. A disgusting wind.

gay paradigm

No one knows the meaning of paradigm, I was told recently, which is when I realised I don't either. I mean, I think I know what paradigm means but am not sure. So, I reached out for my dictionary (Oxford, of course).



Yes, that's somewhat close to what I thought the meaning was - a paradigm is a framework or an example of something.

It also occurs to me that for the word to make some sense, it should not occur alone but be always teamed with another noun, like this: society's paradigm, Darwinian paradigm, gay paradigm.

Which brings us to gay.

Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Nodding their heads in sprightly dance;
The waves beside them danced, but they...outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay in such a jocund company.

What a gay, happy scene. Sprightly, dancing, nodding, jocund scene. Guaranteed to warm the cockles of a poet's heart. Turn it gay.

And then, there was a paradigm shift in what gaity stood for. Gay no longer means gay. Thanks to a paradigm shift, now gay means gay.

engage

(Source:Oxford dictionary)

In the sense of meaning #2, one can engage in two ways:

• Sit with a computer, get on to Twitter, and pontificate on any issue. All utterances during the course of this engagement are either sarcastic or preachy.


• Roll up one's sleeves and do something every time one sees something like this:

Those who can, do. Those who cannot, twitter.

exile

(source: Oxford dictionary)

Exiles can deal with their situations in two ways:

• Like the Tibetans in exile in India. They stay together, keep themselves away from the Indian mainstream, go about their business every day after reminding themselves of their homeless situation, nurture their anger, and build up a very effective international lobby in their favour.  They stand united for a single cause - Free Tibet.


• Like the Kashmiri Hindus in India. They stay dispersed in the metros, blend in with the Indian mainstream, doff their jeans and suits and go to work daily.  Every now and then, they remember the home they left behind, sigh, and then whine - mostly on social networks. They stand divided - both on who they are (Kashmiri Pandits or Kashmiri Hindus) and what they want (go back to existing Kashmir or create a separate Panun Kashmir).