A FIERY POET - SUBRAMANIA BHARATI

If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.

                                                                                      - Isaac Newton

Some books come to us by divine intervention. Some years ago, I came across a translated version of Bharati's works authored by Prema Nanda kumar. In fact, that book was published by Sahitya Akademi and I tried to buy the same, but could not procure as it was out of print. I searched for other scholarly translation and immediately I was landed up in Usha Rajagopalan's - Everyman's Selected Poems of Subramania Bharati.

The book offers the treasure of information about the life of Subramania Bharati. He is one of the 20th century's greatest Tamil Poets. He was a child prodigy. Bharati was his title conferred on him at the age of eleven which means ' one blessed by the goddess of learning'.

His works are philosophical. When you read, you get a feel of reading Indian Ancient Texts : Vedas /Upanishads. His poems are devotional and catching his imagination on Nature is difficult to fathom.

Some of my favourite lines of Subramania Bharati are :

The hand opens a lock,

Wisdom opens the mind.

The mind controls the breath,

Right action shields the body.

I came across a baby fire,

I kept it in a tree hollow,

The forest charred and cooled.

Fire Power - is it young or old ?

Whoosh, crackle, snap, sizzle.

May we reap quickly the fruits of our effort.

May we earn wealth and joy, fame on earth.

( credit: Usha Rajagopalan's book: Selected Poems of Subramania Bharati )

His poem 'The Goddess of Beauty' is very touching. His other poem on the greatness of 'worker' is equally inspiring. His poem on 'Awake, Mother India!' helped in strengthening Independence Movement from British.

History reveals that great people have not lived fully on this planet and they came only for a short sojourn but during that short period, they made ripples. Bharati who moved India with his fiery poems also died at the young age of 39 much like Vivekananda who also left his mortal frame at the same age. 

Hope these stalwarts continue to inspire succeeding generations !

A PARABLE ON 'HAPPINESS'

I opened some years ago a journal to jot down the great sayings of wisdom masters on happiness.

A wise man says that happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.

This Zen parable on 'Happiness' is my all time favourite :

Once upon a time, there was a king who had everything he could ask for in life, wealth, health, a loving family and many caring friends. But he could never feel happy. A saint offered him an easy solution. Happiness would come his way if he wore the shirt of the happiest person in his kingdom. So his men searched far and wide and finally found a truly blissful soul in a grimy shanty on the fringes of the town. But they asked him for his shirt, he could not offer one. He had none.

PHILOSOPHICAL CONNOTATIONS OF DEATH

The other day I along with  my   colleague went for tea  at our office cafeteria.  I couldn't forecast that I had to return with a sad note.

When we were sipping tea in the warmth of sun on that winter morning, suddenly a car ran over a puppy in front of our eyes. The puppy with its black and white shades was very cute. It was playing leisurely with its mother on the road when the incident happened. When the dogs were on jolly mood, we were keenly observing and discussing how cute the four puppies and we could not even have the slightest hint that death was looming on one of them.

See how death touches any creature on Earth. Some die naturally and some others forcefully and you can't say why one is living above ninety and the other is perished to death in mother's womb itself. The animal kingdom being limited in their faculties may not express the way we humans do. But the basic emotions are same. My eyes welled up with emotion when I saw the mother dog making circles around its dead puppy.

Who don't fear death? The famous writer Khushwant Singh in his book "Khushwantnama says that "All that I hope for is that when death comes to me it comes quickly, without much pain, like slipping away in sound sleep."

Like he cherished, he died at 99 in sleep on 20th March 2014. Quoting a passage in the Mahabharata, Khushwant says that the greatest miracle of life is that while we know that death is inevitable, but no one really believes that he/she too will die one day.

The Buddhist monk Dalai Lama when asked how one should face the death, he advises 'meditation'. It is easy to say not to fear death, but very difficult to distil into wisdom. The famous American Indian doctor and the New Age spiritual guru Deepak Chopra says that the Prince of Death is just behind you. He experimented on 'death meditation' during his sojourn in Thailand in 2011. By doing Buddhist way of doing meditation on death, Dr. Chopra says that you would constantly know the impermanence of life and certainty of death.

Life is like a passing stream. At every point, there are endless lessons to learn, and lessons on death should not be isolated. We need to maintain serenity even in the midst of turbulence. When the mind is prepared for the worst, whatever less damage happens in front of you, should not grab your peace.