The 'August' Month (Part 1)

 Hey. 

It's been a fortnight since I posted a post. . . a total roller-coaster ride of a fortnight and the entire month has been no less exhausting. From the festivals to formal meetings to the exciting webinars. In fact, it has been a happening month and a half. Shravana maasa (the month of Shravana) is hectic as it is; but, what with laying the foundation to the Rama Temple to quietening of Ganapathy festive(Bhadrapada Maasa), the National Education Policy and the conversations of the medium of education, the never-ending series of webinars-some important and some not, and of course, the month ends with the breaking news of national interest and concern--Anuska Sharma's pregnancy🙍🙍  

Dear Reader, that's why I have a lot to share with you and so the two-part blog post this weekend. I hope you will take time to read it . . . 

   When the the building of the temple at Ayodhya began with so much political oomph, for many of us who emotionally connected with Lord Rama (although many of those people-including myself, are staunch feminists) this was a moment of painful disconnect. The earliest memory of Rama is of Rama Navami celebrations at home-going for rounds to the neighbours who would treat us with cool paanaka, buttermilk and cucumber kosambari all through the morning and the evening was for a musical treat from the greats of the 20th century classical musicians. They came from neighbouring states, eager to sing in the praise of most revered god in human form. M S Subbulakshmi, Dr BalaMurali Krishna, Madhurai Somasundarm, Maharajapuram Santanam, Bhimsen Joshi, Mallikarjuna Mansur, M L Vasantha Kumari, Kadri Gopalanath . . . the list is endless. The Rama Mandira in Ontikoppal, Mysore was famous for organising the evening musical celebration on the occasion of RamaNavami. It had no strict time format-sometimes, if the singer was swayed by the devotion to the Lord, would go well into the mid-night and no one would stir from their place. They would be singing Tyagaraja kirtans to Harikathe about the paeons of Hindu gods and goddesses-about their benevolence. And Rama is ever benevolent, all-loving and empathetic. But, all the musicians came and sang with such musical fervour that only this occasion could stir-up in devotees. A great deal of the cultural memory went into the making of Lord Rama as the cultural icon. And in today's politicising of Rama, a major part of Rama as the benevolent, creator of harmony is destroyed. HE is now a site of contestation-literally and metaphorically, and paradoxically, the one who is the cause of hatred!! Rama, who went willingly into the Vanavaasa to keep the promise of love, now sows seeds of hatred 😔. Wonder whatever happens to the sociological school of thought that understands epics as having written over a while--as sociological texts???  or like the Marxists-socialists who recognised and validated the 'people's history rather than the history of the kings, maybe Rama also exists in two different versions--one for the common man and one for the not so common man!!

   For those lovers of Rama who believed that HE would deliver from all obstacles and move them, and the age, towards peace and harmony, here is one such collection of classical songs by Balamurali Krishna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAGwUW2IE24

Do share your comments👇

  

             

An Apple . . . that inspired the most influential of poets-Pablo Neruda!

 Hey. 

One chore of being a teacher that I enjoy is making syllabi. I get to do what I love the most--exploring literature, and reading widely and wildly. When I was doing just that this week, I read some wonderful poems by Pablo Neruda (1904 to 1973) the Nobel Prize-winning poet-diplomat from Chile. His poems are mostly sensual and erotic but beautifully imbued with an earthy sensibility. He was born Ricardo Eliezer Neftali Reyes Y Basoalto. Pablo Neruda is his pseudonym. In fact, he was famous when he completed his schooling, many of his poems were published and won many prizes. He is also considered the National Poet of Chile. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, another Nobel Laureate from Colombia, said that Neruda is one of the most widely read and influential poets in any language of the 20th Century. 

Trivia about 'ode'

"An 'Ode' (originally from Greek) is an elaborately structured poem that celebrates, glorifies a person, an event or nature describing it emotionally and intellectually" In fact, they were performed with musical accompaniments during performances. With time, it continued to be written as a poem to be read.

 No wonder the poet thought it fit to celebrate 'apple' in his poem. 

 Here it is   

 An Ode to the Apple

You, apple,

are the object
of my praise.
I want to fill
my mouth
with your name.
I want to eat you whole.
You are always
fresh, like nothing
and nobody.
You have always
just fallen
from Paradise:
dawn’s
rosy cheek
full
and perfect!
Compared
to you
the fruits of the earth
are
so awkward:
bunchy grapes,
muted
mangos,
bony
plums, and submerged
figs.
You are a pure balm,
fragrant bread,
the cheese
of all those flowers.
When we bite into
your round innocence
we too regress
for a moment
to the state
of the newborn:
there’s still some apple in us all.
I want
total abundance,
your family
multiplied.
I want
a city,
a republic,
a Mississippi River
of apples,
and I want to see
gathered on its banks
the world’s
entire
population
united and reunited
in the simplest act, we know:
I want us to bite into an apple.

Dear Reader, hope you enjoyed reading the poem and do share your favourite poem👇

Please share your comments at rekhadatta02@gmail.com or message me @rekhadatta1 on Instagram. I shall send the links to you personally. Thanks for your patience.

All in a day's work . . .

Hey. 

I missed a blog post last week. Blame it on the 'official work' of preparing reports😏😕😕 and et al. It was as though all the sap of creativity was lost in the process of writing report after report. It was as if I had forgotten that writing is about expressing oneself... now, when I look back on the past week, I realise that it was one of the most enjoyable parts of my profession. 

    As a facilitator (that's my fav expression to describe myself as a professional😄), I do sincerely try not to 'teach' but to 'present' and 'discuss'; whether I am successful or not, time and 'learners' will tell. I have been experimenting with it for the past, say, one and a half decades. Yeah, sometimes I see that I have succeeded in 'facilitating', but I know sometimes I fail miserably. I cry, 'I fall on the thorn of teaching, I bleed, Lift me O Indigenous methods'(with due apologies to P.B. Shelley, Ode to the West Wind). The creativity part is in the choice of the methodology of involving young minds in the so-called world of 'serious literary discussion'. Personally, I paraphrase it to mean 'talk using the fanciest of dictionary vocabulary that nobody understands what it is all about!!' On a serious note, how to engage a young mind that is absorbing their contemporary, immediate world into a literary text that is rooted in a different age, ethos and seems far removed from the present-day concerns and realities? One does get used to these complicated situations, and so, creative solutions are imperative. 

     Thus situated, writing reports seemed a herculean task--(read)mundane, banal and concocted!! But the actual writing and submitting has been quite empowering to me personally. The word 'Official' itself is an 'unnerving' word for me. It could have a similar effect on many of us who are (mostly) either in the emotional world or in the literary textual world. The past two weeks have helped me bridge the gap in my own response to the two seemingly diametrically opposite demands of the profession. 'Mastering'(only now do I realise what a patriarchal binary it is, and that 'mistressing' rhymes perfectly with 'distressing'😅😅)Through this 'art of report submission' have learnt one another life skill, or should I say, another facet to the much-acclaimed notion of 'self-confidence'. Be it whatever, it was yet another opportunity to learn, to come face-to-face with my 'self'. Just as reassuring as it gets--thank god! I have not turned into a teacher!!' 

          

Do share your 'teacher' tantrums 😅😅 👇