Undisputedly Purandara Dasa is one of the greatest poet born in this
land. It is said that he has authored over 5000 Bhajans (devotional
poems) in his life time – if true this is truly unparalleled to this
day. However, because his compositions were in Kannada not many have
been touched by him. Recently I was pursued by one of my students to
translate his Bhajans by essence. Below is the translation of one of
his Bhajan called ‘Kandu Kandu nee yenna‘.

Is this by ignoring me you seek pleasure,
O Krishna – the greatest of mankind’s treasure.

I’ve got no dependable relatives not peace in life,
I’ve been hurt by tortureous words – I am in strife.

You truly are my father and mother divine,
I shall ever seek blessings – thine.

From seconds to millenium, I have waited quiet long,
Feeling worthy less than a blade of grass – seeming forlon.

Slayer of demons and protector of sages,
I have been waiting for you since ages.

O protector of Orphans and mentor of devotee’s art,
Is there no place for me in thy immeasurable heart?

Purandara’s Vitthala, the guardian of path to salvation,
You are the only worthy of my worship, for you are source of perpetual
inspiration.

Originally by Purandara Dasa
Translation by U. Mahesh Prabhu

We have lived to strive with passion,
We have urged to do our duties than to win,
We have  to live a life to its fullest session,
We must seek a challenge to pursue without sin.

We have loved to our heart than to the senses,
We have lived through a dream than expectations.
We have given up the urge to see fences,
and have sought to take only that which we shall win.

We may have worked and reached disaster,
We may have loved just to be betrayed.
We may have been bruised by a pitiless master,
That weak men call fate.

We will never give up our dream,
Never shall we seize to it follow
If not our love isn’t need by one person
There’s ain’t any time for us to sit an wallow

We all have short comings in times of life,
we all have to endure pain and pleasures.
We all have to live through a tumults strife,
And let not our spirits buckle under pressure.

We have a life to live all long,
If not with a companion alone.
We have to burry all our forlorn,
If not not for one – for all.

Life’s never a mournful time,
It’s certainly but a harvest season.
Life always has a wonderful rhyme,
for any heart’s mourning reason.

If not for one let’s live for all,
In all let us see our reflection,
Let us live for every ailing soul
and seek pleasure in it with utmost perfection.

U. Mahesh Prabhu

I just thought it over time and again from my heart,
There is not a reason why shouldn’t I fall in love with you my sweetheart.

My lonely soul wandered in rough seas of life
Over a boat which could anyways capsize,
An island was you, my angel, where I could unburden my blues with a cry,
To get my spirits high and then rise

You were a beckon of hope for my better tomorrow,
Being where I could dream nothing shallow.
You were a thought that would never make me wallow,

Yours was a hearty voice with a melodious grace,
That which mesmerized me with an ever steady and even pace
In that trance of which song my mind forgot all disgrace.

You were, shy, and so was I.
There was not a word of the heart I could convey thy,
Yet I found the compassion from your black gradient eyes.

If you just trust in me and lend me thy hand,
Or a promise to retain me at least as a friend,
I would love you so much like a person you will never find.

Just a thought engrosses, what if you were already mine – forever?
Deep senses promises me that I would render unto you no pain – never!
Yes, indeed, I would be the luckiest ever.

I just thought it over time and again said my heart,
There is not a reason why shouldn’t I fall in love with you… my sweetheart.

U. Mahesh Prabhu

Dream is a precious thing. Even when men have zilch a dream is what they can certainly afford to have. No man can be so poor not to have a dream. Men bereft of them are little more than living corpse. They come in all hues and colours. To not dream is also to die each day. So we ought to dream. And not just dream but pursue it with all energy from within.

I have seen many people who dream and when fail to achieve it get disheartened and dive deep into depression. Considering this as a testimony to say “to dream isn’t wise” is lunacy. If you cannot dream what could you possibly care achieve? So dream and pursue it – candidly.

While pursing your dream there are bound to be several troubles coming your way. There are, also, sacrifices to be made and pains to endure. When your journey unto your dream has begun you could hardly foretell the date when you achieve it. Even fortune tellers fail most, if not all, the times.

Those tough times are when you realize the people upon whom you can vest your trust. Chasing dreams can be no less fascinating. With all those pain, you learn lesson which no university in the world could ever teach you.

Not many realize their dreams. This isn’t because they are “unlucky” but because they fail to ingrain that “die hard” attitude within. Men who have lived long to grow wise would say “Fortune favours the brave.” And it’s true.

Fighting luck is like fighting an audacious and all powerful foe. No matter how powerful an adversary he has got to have some short comings. All adventurous men, including the ones battling the giant anacondas in the wild, would tell you that giant creatures lack stamina. The Cheetah is the fastest animal on land, but many may not know the fact that its can maintain its speed only for few minutes. Even destiny, aka fate, has similar problems. It will give severe blows but if you can show that exemplary stamina it is bound to give up. If you want to take a bet, I am all for it.

Beauty of your dream cannot be understood by many until you have turned it into a reality. That is so because people doubt capacities of men little more than often. Their scepticism cannot just initiate but also demotivate you. This is, stay advised, a blow which you have to stand. When this situation pops up all that you have to do is to stay on your normal course and stay undeterred. If their scepticism makes you to doubt your capacities that would mean: Game over!

So, you see, this is what you need to achieve your dream – persistence. If you pursue anything with that level of persistence nothing is beyond your reach. And without persistence men have achieve nothing.

To conclude, always remember: “It’s easy to give up. It’s so easy to say ‘I can’t’. Losers are many and Winners – few. That’s why awards are given to achievers and winners – nothing is there for losers.”

This was the last thing I wanted to see this morning as I embarked on my five kilometer long routine morning walk.

It was somewhere 5:30 in the morning and as I progressed on my regular walking route I began smelling something foul. It was a terrible smell as if something was dead and rotting. From far I could see a bitch (as female dog is known in English) moving hither-tether along with a pup of it’s, which was just following the footsteps of its mother.

Little did I know, then, that it was lamenting over its dead pup which it seemed to me was hit by some pitiless-reckless driver. It’s body was crushed and the blood was spilled all over the road. That pup was little old than few days. I used to see it everyday. It was one of those countless street canines which greeted me every morning by wagging its tail. No – it never begged.

It was pitch black in colour and had those sparklingly innocent eyes which would make even a devil human – at least for a while. Who was that reckless driver? What on earth would he be? I ask this question, unto myself, because the corpse of the dead pup was on the extreme left of the road.

It can’t be that in the morning on the highways someone could have just lost balance. If at all he had lost he would have rammed himself, along with his vehicle, to the wall. But that he didn’t was evident.

There is a soul in that lamenting mother – what if she’s a dog. If not how could it be that she could lament on that foul smelling corpse and expecting it to return hale and healthy, besides shooing away those crows trying to eat its baby?

Rest in peace my dear pup. I beg an apology from you… for this isn’t a world worthy of you.

By U. Mahesh Prabhu

Radical Islam and Naxals are the two most potent threats to our nation, today. Neither of them cares for the values we believe in and stand for. True, our society has several problems, including corruption, unequal distribution of wealth, illiteracy and so forth. But to believe in the words of these Islamist radicals and Naxalite sympathisers and to support them is a sure path to doom. Here’s why:

Of late several self styled “secular” journalists have been embarking on columns and articles in direct, or indirect, support of these two lunatics. “The rise of Naxals and Radical Islam is owing to poverty and corruption” they would suggest. “They deserve to fight the administration for their barbarism”. How true is this? Let me quickly recall the facts for you.

Hitler, the most hated person of our generation, killed two million Jews. Joseph Stalin the communist leader of the former USSR killed just a little over seven million Russians.  But there is one more barbarian who killed 17 million of his own countrymen – Chinese – in the name of ‘Cultural Revolution’. Our “Naxals” are followers of this man – Mao Zedong. The people, who worship the bloodiest murder in history, are to “liberate” us from the clutches of corrupt administration. How interesting?

The radical Islam is another factor which the governments the world over is having troubles with. In exchange for “Jannat” (heaven) these radicals give up life in the name of Allah – the most merciful. Why? Because they get houries (virgin women) to enjoy and feasts to endure! Are you too interested in?

By now several people are clear that there exists no merit in either of those ideologies and that they are nothing but political theories of insanity one that is to be forsaken – for good. Yet, there are several “distinguished” intellectuals and journalists supporting it. One of them is Arudhati Roy. Here are some of the very important facts our fellow country deserve to know about this lady in her late forties.

Born in Shillong, Meghalaya,to a Keralite Syrian Christian mother, the women’s rights activist Mary Roy, and a Bengali father, a tea planter by profession, Arundhati Roy has consistently taken positions against the interests of the Indian state – all in the name of ‘human rights’. These include her support for the Kashmiri separatists and more recently the Naxalites. She raised questions even over the culprits who attacked the Parliament leading to the death of security personnel – all, yet again, in the name of human rights!

She is one of those self-styled activists who seem to think that receiving an award, any award from a Western, white country makes them morally superior to others. She was virtually unknown to the public until she received the Booker Prize for virtually unreadable book: God of Small Things.

Her record before the Booker was undistinguished, being that of a struggling writer trying to make ends meet, but turned her into a moral authority because of the accident of the Booker Prize. In reality, there is no greater hypocrisy than a Booker Prize recipient posing as a champion of human rights. Here is a little history about that award that the public needs to know.

The prize was originally known as the Booker-McConnell Prize after the company Booker-McConnell began sponsoring the event in 1968, and became commonly known as the “Booker Prize” or simply “the Booker”. Among other interests, it operated the sugar industry in Guyana (British Guiana before independence in 1966).

Booker-McConnell had a long history of exploitation of sugar workers through the indentured labour system during the 19th and 20th centuries. At its peak it controlled 75% of the sugar industry in British Guiana and was so powerful that a common joke was to refer to the country as ‘Booker’s Guiana’. In 1952 Jock Campbell took over the Chairmanship of the company. After centuries of exploitation, Jock Campbell began to treat his workers as human beings providing basic benefits for sugar workers.

Shockingly, his company was involved in slave trade. It was John Campbell (Senior), Jock’s great-great-grandfather, ship owner and merchant of Glasgow, who, towards the end of the 18th Century, first established the fortunes of the Campbell family in the West Indies, through the slave trade. By the 1780s they were supplying the two most important British exports to the West Indies, herring and coarse linen goods. Among the principal beneficiaries of this booming trade were John Campbell (Senior) and Company, which supplied merchandise to the slave plantations along the coast of Guiana, then in Dutch hands. It was in this role of supplier that the company first began to acquire plantations along the Essequibo Coast of Guiana, from planters facing bankruptcy.

Jock Campbell (Junior) had the decency to admit that his ancestors had been de facto slave-owners. (They acquired slave plantations from bankrupt owners.) Campbell himself abhorred slavery, and it was in fact the urge to make good the misdeeds of his family that was the catalyst for his own reformist ideals.

Where Campbell suffered from a deep sense of guilt, Arundhati Roy seems to have no sense that as the recipient of an award instituted by a slave-trading company, she should have the decency not to talk about human rights. Hypocrisy is too weak a word for such a charlatan.

Arundhati Roy is hardly an isolated case. Girish Karnad, another Karnataka based ‘humanist’ mouthing Leftist causes was a Rhodes Scholar. Why should one be flattered by being given a scholarship instituted by Cecil Rhodes, a racist who made a fortune in diamond mining in South Africa exploiting slave labour? (Until fairly recently non-whites were forbidden from applying for the Rhodes scholarship.)

Author is Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, London (UK).

It is so silly and, sometimes, infuriating to know how gullible our populace can be. How easy is it for them to believe and then, also, a bit later, undo that whole belief? Look at the recent ‘austerity’ controversy engrossing Minister of State for external affairs, Shashi Tharoor and then also about his ‘tweets’.

Some people may claim masses aren’t fool, but the way in which Mr. Tharoor, once an United Nations Under-secretary General was elected from a constituency in Kerala and then declared, without a second thought, Minister of State for External Affairs, according to me, should say otherwise.

I am still baffled as to how could it be that the man who is handling the Gulf and Africa portfolio was for two years lobbying with the Government in India for these countries just a year ago. Isnt that some kind of a joke?

Having witnessed the world of Indian Polity as a Political Editor from a fairly close proximity I have realised that until good works are being done, and not at the cost of national interest, a politicians corruptness isnt a point to bother. For me austerity means zilch when there is no productivity at the end of the day.

You cannot get a jackass to the post of any minister just because he is for free. Or can you? If they can deliver then they should be paid. Of course, accountability has to be high on cards, because without it nation’s progress would be difficult. Won’t you agree?

Feelings and emotions are explicit testimonies to the fact that we are men. But when we fail to tame them and flow with them, our life is on a sure path to disaster.

There is a word in Sanskrit, which is largely unparalleled in any other language, called Stitaprajna. Simply translated the word can mean “Standing (Stita) Consciousness (Prajna)” in English. But its meaning is way too convoluted.

Imagine, for a moment, that you have slapped a kid. What will it do? Cry. Right? Definitely! What is its response when you cuddle it? It smiles – naturally. And when you stare with terrible look? It tries to ignore in panic. The same is true in case of adults too! The only difference is that grownups’ reciprocation pattern is largely varied and this is owing to their complex mental structure.

There are people who get carried away by their feelings and ones who know how to control them. But that they reciprocate, appropriately or inappropriately, is for sure. But once they react their mental equilibrium is imbalanced. Given this we can effectively conclude that feelings are paths unto miseries.

Yes, there can also be one more argument – not certainly for the heck of it. “What about the positive feelings?” one may ask. True, feelings like love compassion can be called “positive.” But what we should realize is that even such feelings lead to some sort of crisis. To demonstrate it: You love a dog and when the dog dies you are [sad]. So it is imperative to concluded, that every feeling leads to loss of mental peace.

So what is the way out?

The only way out is embracing the aforesaid concept of “Stitaprajna”.
“Stitaprajna” is a state of mind where your feelings have been effectively controlled by your own intellect. The person attains a state of equilibrium which isn’t easy to be disturbed. He doesn’t get wooed by praises nor is he saddened, or infuriated, with insults hurled at him. He’s always steady. True, it isn’t easy to be “Stitaprajna”. And because it isn’t great men are in scarce numbers.

There is one poem authored by an Imperialist poet Rudyard Kipling which attempts to simplify the concept of Stitaprajna – but not completely. Entitled as “IF” the poem reads as below:

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 – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters 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 all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath 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 loving friends can hurt you;
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!

Author, U. Mahesh Prabhu, is Editor-in-chief of Folks Magazine (http://www.folks.co.in) and Fellow of Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, London (UK).

Who can forget that kind, passionate and yet too innocent face from the first series of Indian Idol? Meiyang Chang may not have won that contest but he did win many hearts and even today he continues on his spree as an actor. Apart from his wonderful voice and acumen in acting he also has a flair for writing. He may have not given it a fair amount of attention but the fact that he writes amazingly isn’t in anyways untrue. His words have a strange mix of wisdom, passion and maturity. But one thing is for sure his blogs exemplifies wisdom.

He was kind to answer a couple of questions posed to him by our Editor-in-chief, U. Mahesh Prabhu. Here are few excerpts…

Can you let us have a brief about your family background?

I come from a family of Dentists and Beauticians originally hailing from Hu-bei province in China. My forefathers came to India in the early 1800’s, seeking refuge from the oppressive communist policies of China at the time. In the bargain, they found a new home and a country that viewed them with some skepticism early on but eventually embraced them. Ever since, my grandparents, parents and I have lived in India and are proud Indian citizens

How did you feel when you heard of the word ‘Blog’?

Initially, I didn’t see the sense of putting my thoughts out there in cyberspace. I mean, blogging is like keeping a personal diary. Only, it isn’t personal at all and is out there for all to see. Over time, my perception about blogging changed and I tried getting the balance right – personal without divulging secrets or dropping names and informative without getting preachy. It’s a learning curve.

Who introduced you to blogging?

A dear friend and a fellow Dentist, who herself is a fine blogger, Dr. Madhulika Naidu, who, incidentally also introduced me to social networking sites in 2006.

You write very fluently, have you been trained in literature?

Trained in literature? Ha ha. Heavens, no! I attribute my writing to a good base in English grammar in my childhood and a love for reading developed since my teenage years

You are also an actor. Can you let me know something about your movie with Pritish Nandy production?

“The Seventeens” by Guerilla Flicks, PNC is an interesting and dark take on the psyche of the city teens of today, who’ve been brought up in a world of privileges and take virtually everything for granted. In this scenario, friendship & relationships take on meanings very different from that prescribed by purists. How status, money & impatience wreak havoc in the lives of these teenagers is what “The Seventeens” is all about.  I play Ashu, a disconnected, uninterested teen who speaks little and has more virtual friends than real as he’s heavily into gaming. Consequently he believes that life is like a video game, where everything is “fixable”, “reparable “or “redeemable”. Only when something tragic and drastic happens in his life is when he gets jolted back to the real world

I am currently shooting for a yet untitled Yash Raj Film with Shahid Kapoor, Anushka Sharma and Vir Das. This movie tells the light hearted and sometimes painful tale of the rise, fall and redemption of four friends. I play Tenzing, a boy from Sikkim who has a lot bottled up inside him, yet he always has a smile on his face. He experiences the typical identity-crisis faced by people from the North-East who’ve moved to other parts of India for education or work and who, in spite of being truly Indian may never be considered as one. Tenzing’s character has shades of grey, which is what attracted me as it is the absolute anti-thesis of what I am.  It gives me the opportunity to acid-test my acting skills as well as break away from my “jolly cute-boy” image

You have a great readership base. How did you promote your blog?

I’m glad people like what I write, but I have never promoted my blog. Two years ago, I did quite well for myself as a contestant on Indian Idol. The overnight fanfare & popularity meant that a blog that was intended to be read by friends, family and like-minded bloggers was being googled for and advertised by word-of-mouth by well-wishers & admirers. The kind of positive feedback that I get on what I write and the manner in which I pen it down is more gratifying than any adulation I have received so far.

How frequently do you blog?

I like to take my own sweet time to form the proper skeleton and the aimed-for perfection in the sprinkling of most effective words & phrases in the right places. This means that one post could take me anywhere from half an hour to a few days to a few months. I’m quite like an author & an editor when it comes to blogging. Given my current work schedule, I admit with some sadness that my frequency of blogging has dropped alarmingly. There was a time when I was blogging every single day!

What does blogging mean for you today?

Blogging surely has come a long way. Not anymore is it only about penning the ongoing in your mind about issues, thoughts, knowledge and information, it has re-cultivated the love for reading. Before the invention of the audiovisual media, reading was one of the major hobbies: a good habit which lost some steam to other modes of entertainment. Today, a blog is no lesser than any other media if reading is one of your passions, be it on a variety of topics. If not, then more often than not it’s a good read and a mirror to the unimaginable pool of creativity out there.

Your take on life

To borrow an oft-quoted phrase, “”Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” Unpredictable, fun, amusing and amazing. That’s life. And none of us would like it any other way.

By U. Mahesh Prabhu

‘Not all are idiots’ they say, ’some are bachelors.’ But that’s only to say. With time we can only realize how much people dislike bachelors.

‘Oh… You are 28 now, aren’t you getting married? It’s high time now.’ ‘Do you have someone in mind?’ ‘Are your parents searching for you?’ ‘What?! You said you are not interested?!’ ‘Excuse me… but what do you mean when you say “not interested”’.’ ‘Err… Are you gay or something?’

Phew… the world just drives you mad and crazy as soon as they realize how happy as a bachelor you really are.

What is wrong in trying to be happy by being alone? What is wrong being a loner… at least a while? But, you see, it’s the people’s belief that you have no right to be happy for you are bound to perish. And if you don’t they will ensure that by getting you married.

Ok, assume you are interested in tying the knots… Will you ever have your say? Nope. There are several parameters you need to adhere to. You need to act and pretend what you are not while out for ’seeing’ the girl you are supposed to marry.

You may be the idiot of your generation and yet you will have to pretend as if you are the genius – at par with Einstein. And behold, the most hypocrite lady will be out there in the most amusing dress with unusual actions, pretending of course, as if an angle incarnated – just for you.

Pairs are made in heaven and here, I’m convinced, they are just re-paired. You just don’t get even the faintest of chance to meet your ’soul mate.’ all that you get is ’sought dame’.

To die your death there may be million and odd options but to loose your bachelorhood you have only two, namely: love or arranged. Either you ‘fall’ in Love to get married, or you are made to
fall in it by a mechanism called “arranged marriage.”

‘Love is divine’ they say, and finally its richness which is weighed.

Don’t fear marriage they assure and after the marriage you have no idea where they have gone – for sure.

‘I love you’ if your prospective partner says you don’t even care to ask ‘why?’ Why so?

‘She’s so sweet…’ said a boy describing his fiancée and just a couple of years after marriage he died of diabetics.

‘You drive me crazy’ said a lady to her ‘would-be’ and then he was sent to a mental asylum.

It’s a great feeling getting engaged and then married. Surrounded by people whom you love, sitting around and celebrating ‘your day.’ You are not even having the faintest idea that they have come to ensure that you have walked, and well, into your doom.

No one likes to see others happy. Today people are sad looking at others happiness.

There are two times when your relatives and friends come to join you:  for your wedding and at the time of your funeral.

At wedding they smile, laugh and party hard at your doom and cry at your funeral thinking ‘how can it be that you cannot feel pain anymore.’