So this image is from today’s morning walk. It’s just the March end and scorching heat has already arrived. Catchment area of various water bodies in the region is already drying up. Water is receding with fast pace, leaving behind the parched lands with big mudcracks. Whenever I take refuge to nature, it always inspires me and awards me creativity. So following is the outcome of today’s inspiration..
धरती, सूखती जल से….
जैसे जैसे तुमसे मेरी दूरी बढ़ती जाती है ह्रदय पर मेरे वैसे वैसे अगणित दरार उभर कर आती है यूँ तो जग में हर क्षण रवि अपनी आभा ही फैलता है फिर क्यों मेरे जीवन में वह चिर तिमिर ही लाता है? मेरा शत्रु क्यों बन जाता है!!!
कौन है जल, धरती कौन है और सूरज कौन? आप ही तय कीजिये…
Do let me know your views both on short poetry as well as on click 🙂 Have a happy weekend!!!
Rise of Social Media(SM) and the simultaneous rise of Narendra Modi (Right Wing) at National level may be co-incidental but not unconnected. Mr. Modi is the pioneer of using SM for political gain. I remember 2014. Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) was ubiquitous on Twitter and Facebook. Congress was nowhere in scene. All the HashTags belonged to Sangh Parivar. The result declared and it was disaster for Congress. The Grand Old Party reduced to its lowest tally at 44 and Saffron Party bagged its maximum seats i.e. 282 in the Lok Sabha. I am nowhere near in saying that only social media was responsible for this kind of performance of BJP or Congress per se, but it’s equally true that it has played a massive role in shaping the narrative.
Here comes the 2019 General Election. This time all the opposition parties, especially Congress, are conscious about this fact and have invested huge capital in building narratives on SM. Hence, their presence are much more evident than compare to 2014. But they are still outnumbered by BJP supporters. Congress generally accuses BJP IT Cell for its own failure to match them up with them, even when they had hired Cambridge Analytica Ltd (CA) an English political consulting firm which combined data mining, data brokerage, and data analysis with strategic communication during the electoral processes. (Source: Wikipedia)
So I would like to find out the reasons why BJP or Sangh Parivars presence are so pronounced on Social Media. BJP, an offshoot of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is a right wing party. It appeals to Nationalism, resurrection of India’s glorious past and wants to reinstate it as “Vishwa Guru”. They are often considered as Hindu Party, as much of its rise is attributed to Ram Janm Bhumi Andolan. Many label them as sectarian but if you ask any RSS person, they will define Hinduism in larger context. According to them, anyone who resides in India is a Hindu same as someone wh0 resides in Germany is German, in Russia is Russian etc.
Huge Membership:
Sangh was established in 1925 on Vijayadashmi and its rise has been slow in initial years yet steady. It has established organization in nearly every sphere of life. From student union (ABVP) to trade union (Bhartiya Majdoor Sangh), from Swadeshi Jagran Manch to Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra, all are different branches of it. BJP is a political organization in similar fashion. All these organizations function separately under the auspice of RSS. These organizations have huge membership. Say ABVP is world’s largest student union. Vidya Bharti, an organization of schools and academics has the highest number of schools in India. BJP itself has the highest membership in the world among political parties. All these members share the same ideology and hence form a formidable team when it comes to representing Right Wing ideology on Social Media.
Breaking the Monopoly of Congress /Left Leaning Media:
The conception that media works as bulwark for democracy has hit several low during Congress regime. Many journalists propagated the agenda of Congress, sometime in disguise and sometime openly. Many of them got preferential treatment as well as national awards for being favorable to them. This led to the simmering discontent in general mass. They needed some platform where they can vent out their feeling. Social Media came to their rescue and they utilized it to fullest.
Exposing Double Understands:
Media Houses, at times, considered themselves as the only repository of Knowledge and considered general mass sheep, which needs to be guided by some shepherd.
Let me show what I meant by double standards of Media Persons, by giving a contemporary example. Recently people from two different communities, who were accused of mass murder, were acquitted by the Courts of India. See the tweet of two famous journalist of India and try to find the difference.
Any literate and rational person can easily understand the double game played by them.
Hence we can see that the domination of traditional Media has met with a serious challenge from SM. Now the journalists, which are often seen as some who wants accountability from other domains of governance such as Executive, Judiciary or legislative, but when it comes to their accountability they often take refuge in “Freedom of Press” or “Freedom of Speech and Expression.” Social Media, despite its several shortcomings, has a huge potential to make them accountable. Gone are the days when only microscopic minority, the left intellectuals, who had captured the influential positions in bureaucracy or in Media Housed and tried to impose their ideologies on majority of the people. Now with the rise of education and greater awareness of biased, motivated ideologies, people chose their on course and this is probably, the essence of democracy.
It’s been a month since world has celebrated Valentine Day. This day is to celebrate Love. But the same day proved to be a day of anguish and pain in India this time around. We lost 40+ soldiers in a dastardly act of terrorism in Pulawama, Kashmir. Whole nation was in deep sorrow as they should be. The government was under severe pressure to act against the perpetrators of the crime. Initially, they displayed remarkable patience and latter came up with an unprecedented airborne attack on terrorist’s hideouts even crossed the LOCs and went into main territory of Pakistan.
However, number of fatalities remained unknown in that Surgical Strike. Claims and counter claims from both sides of the borders resulted in a lot of confusion among general masses. Jingoism seemed to be the driver of the emotions on either side. Pakistan also tried to infringe the Indian Airspace by sending at least four F-16 fighter jets. According to Indian foreign ministry, we responded swiftly and prevented them from targeting the military installments in our side by sending our fighter jets. In this process, one of our MiG-21 Bison went down and its pilot named Abhinandan Varthman was intercepted by Pakistanis military. Indian side claimed that in the air skirmishes, Wing Commander also shot down one F-16 fighter jet of Pakistan, which is even hinted, if not substantiated, by the earlier claims of Pakistani Army’s spokesperson that they have shot down two Indian Fighter Jets but they shared the evidence of just one. So it’s believed that the second one was F-16 and no country would be in comfortable position when world would know that their 4th Generation Fighter plane was shot down by a second generation Soviet Era fighter Jet in a dog fight.
The situation was deteriorating very fast and when war seemed imminent, a sane decision by Pakistani establishment to return the captured Wing Commander to India resulted in thawing in the war like situation.
A month after the fateful Pulwama attack, I sat down to reflect the whole series of events. Who gained and who lost! I tried to recall the name of Martyrs,unfortunately, I recalled none. Only thing that I remembered is the numbers. More than 40 soldiers had lost their lives. These days, Emotions are reduced to numbers, no name, no identity, and no face. Do you remember the name of any martyr? Will this remembering even helps anyone? How many Count will you remember? For how many years you will remember? This is happening since 1990s. We remember Abhinandan, we all are proud of him, his valour and his composure in the enemy’s territory and in the mouth of death. But were the lives of other 40+ soldiers are not equal, not worth knowing! But who cares! World will go on as it’s going on.
Next year again the Valentine Day will be celebrated with great fervor except in few homes where they have lost their loved ones for forever! If I will clamor for a befitting response and a tactical short term war to teach lesson to the enemies of Humanity, I will be termed as War Monger, if I will condemn war and would request for peace, I will be termed as Libtards or Coward.
I am in a fix. Then I think I should go to the schools, to the offices, to the Temples, to the Malls and if possible then to the Funeral Pyres (whose flames must have been died down by now) of the Martyrs to ask them what prompted them to risk their life for me, to say them Thank You, that you sacrificed your today for my tomorrow! To say them I am Sorry! To say them, I couldn’t do any thing when cowards attacked you, to say them that I can’t do anything as I am just a bloody common man!!!
वैदिक शास्त्रों में आसक्ति (attachment) को दुःख का प्रमुख कारण बताया गया है. भगवान् श्री कृष्णा ने भी भगवद गीता में इसका वर्णन विशेष रूप से किया है. बुद्ध के चार आर्यसत्य (Four Noble Truth) में से एक है “आसक्ति ही सभी दुखों का कारण है.” पर ये आसक्ति है क्या? मैं एक वैदिक साहित्य पढ़ रहा था तो उसमें आसक्ति को समझाने के लिए एक उदाहरण का वर्णन मिला. उस समय तो उसकी महत्ता समझ नहीं आयी और उसको मैं वास्तविक जीवन से जोड़ भी नहीं पा रहा था. पर मैं आज जब कमल के फूलों को निहार रहा था तो उस उदहारण का तात्पर्य बहुत अच्छे से समझ आया.
पहले आप इन कमल के फूलों को देखिये.
कैसी लगी तस्वीरें ? मुझे तो बहुत अच्छी लगी, पर यदि आप गौर से देखेंगे तो इनमे से एक तस्वीर में दो मधुमखियों के शरीर को भी देख पाएंगे. ये मृत अवस्था में हैं.
देख कर मुझे वह श्लोक और उसकी व्याख्या याद आयी. उस श्लोका में मनुष्य की आसक्ति की तुलना भैंरों या मधुमखियों से की गयी है. मधुमखी पराग की तलाश में एक फूलों से दूर फूलों पर भटकती हैं. कमल का फूल उन्हें अपनी सुंदरता और रस के कारण बहुत आकर्षित करता है. वह सुबह से शाम उसके रसपान में लिप्त हो मदहोश हो जाती है. उसे फिर और किसी भी चीज की सुध नहीं रहती. जब शाम होती है तो कमल का फूल अपनी प्रकृति के हिसाब से अपने पंखुड़ियों को समेट कर खुद को बंद करने लगता है. इस बात से अनभिज्ञ, रसपान में मदमस्त मधुमखी को इसका ज्ञान नहीं रहता और वे उसी में बंद हो अपना अस्तित्व त्याग देती है. आजीवन, क्या हम भी कहीं उन मधुमखियों सा आचरण तो नहीं करते?
the ETERNAL tryst 
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