My beautiful Kausani : a poem

I met her at Kausani in an evening dusky and rainy,

She attracted me, as if known for years many.

Welcome me raising her large eyes to my face,

Our four eyes met and made everything in mess.

She expressed her happiness on her bright face.

In the breezy evening my heart was in a brisk pace.

Her room was in a corner on the same floor of mine,

We shared the balcony to view the peaks and pine.

Our eyes were meeting while watching the peaks few,

I was gazing her beauty with the nature that she knew.

In windy weather, hairs were out of control of hers,

She put her shawl down, raised her arms to knot the hairs.

I found her slim body turned to a great posture,

Raising her “peaks”, beautiful and inviting,

she appeared to be, to me a beautiful painting,

She looked at me, I mutely thanked for her gesture.

After rain and wind, calmness prevailed in the mountains,

We were alone but unable to come closure, suffered the pains.

At last she looked at me and stepped to the terrace,

Wanted me to follow her to be with me face to face.

She smiled at me and hinted me to follow,

She took me to the clouds in the valley below.

While walking with her on the clouds under the sky,

I told her I had seen you somewhere, don’t be shy.

Tell me your name my dear lady, if I am right,

With smile, large and black eyes she was bright.

She said I am Kausani, don’t you know my dear?

She smiled and wanted my name to hear.

Suddenly my dream ended due to bang of sound,

I discovered myself in my bed but she was never found.

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About Kausani & the poem : During my visit to Kausani I was astonished by the beauty of the hill station. Not only the beauty, a heavenly calm prevails there which inspire to think about the vastness and beautiful creation of the God. The climate of the place changes frequently and clouds comes down to the valley at a lower level. The beautiful natural beauty, calmness, clouds and Himalyan peaks standing tall at the horizon inspired me to bring out the poet in me to compose the above poem.

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Back with memories & photographs

Copyright M. Anil 2008

Hi folks,

I am back from my holidays but bit tired. You may explore my new page “Incredible India” above wherein you will find some photographs and texts about the places visited. Best things deserve best places, thats what made me to introduce a new page to post the best pictures which will remain always accessible and will never be lost in the midst of posts. Above picture shows the Kumaon hills from Kausani. Kausani is a beautiful hill station which is known as the “Switzerland of India”. Kausani commands an unobstructed view of Himalayas. Its situated at a height of 1890 meters.

Copyright M. Anil 2008

If you look carefully to the picture above, the Himalayan peaks “Trishul”, “Panchachulli” or Panchachouli etc are visible behind the Kumayun hills. There is a story in favour of the name “Panchachulli”. As per epic Mahabharata, Droupadi, wife of pancha Pandavas cooked food for five brothers in five separate ovens (chulli). Those marks of five ovens are still visible on the Himalaya and have been named as “Panchachulli”.

Copyright M Anil 2008

The sun is trying to come out from the clouds above and at the same time the thickly dense clouds covered the entire valley which looks like a lake turned ice.

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Break from daily routines- off to a hill station

Hey friends, readers, everybody-

Summer is on. As the mercury is soaring upwards, we can feel the presence of summer. After few days we may feel the warmth of Global Warming. Kolkata weather in summer is very much uncomfortable due to heat and humidity. In the scorching heat of summer in May, even thinking of a hill station gives some relief in our mind. But being at a hill station, is nothing like that.

This summer, we will be off from 09^th May for an outing in the lap of hill stations like Nainital, Ranikhet, Almora, Kosauni to get some relief from scorching heat, tiring office activities and all monotonous routines. The place “Ranikhet” is beautifully named. Its meaning in English is “Queen’s meadow”. May be, in the past, a queen stayed there or visited that place during summer. It is a hill station and cantonment town in the Indian State of Uttarakhand.

It is learnt that Ranikhet is extremely cold in the winter season and is moderate in summer. Ranikhet even gets snowfall in the winter season, mainly in the months of December, January and February. For few days we be with nature forgetting the heat, dust & fumes of the city and be back with memories and lot of photographs.

On my return, I will share the photographs of the above places with you all. My compact Sony digicam hopefully won’t disappoint you.

Till then bye, Take care

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Pachise Baishakh – a tribute to Tagore

A Tribute to Rabindranath Tagore on his 148th birthday on Pachise Baishakh as per Bengali Calender, which falls on 08th May 2008.

Rabindranath Tagore is the first Asian person to be awarded with the Nobel prize in 1913 in literature for his book “Gitanjali” and probably the most prominent personality in the cultural world of Indian subcontinent. He is mainly known as a poet, but his multifaceted talent showered upon different branches of art, such as, Poetry, novels, short stories, articles dramas, essays, painting etc. He was a social reformer, patriot and above all, a great humanitarian and philosopher. To understand his multifaceted talent, his works, one has to do research work on him. It is amazing the way he has written so much in his life time. Here is a piece of his work from his “The  Gardener” :

IN THE DUSKY PATH OF A DREAM

by: Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

In the dusky path of a dream I went to seek the love who was mine in a former life.

Her house stood at the end of a desolate street.

In the evening breeze her pet peacock sat drowsing on its perch, and the pigeons were silent in their corner.

She set her lamp down by the portal and stood before me.

She raised her large eyes to my face and mutely asked, “Are you well, my friend?”

I tried to answer, but our language had been lost and forgotten.

I thought and thought; our names would not come to my mind.

Tears shone in her eyes. She held up her right hand to me. I took it and stood silent.

Our lamp had flickered in the evening breeze and died.

Bangla culture, especially music of Bengal (India) and Bangladesh too has been greatly influenced by Rabindranath Tagore – by his thousands of songs and poetries. The songs known as Rabindrasangeet is still popular. The songs of Tagore have an eternal appeal and is permanently placed in the heart of the Bengalis. In Bengal its like a rituals in their lives that in every house children learn and practice Rabindrasangeet.

Amartya Sen in his book “Tagore and His India” says : “Rabindranath is a towering figure in the millennium-old literature of Bengal. Anyone who becomes familiar with this large and flourishing tradition will be impressed by the power of Tagore’s presence in Bangladesh and in India. His poetry as well as his novels, short stories, and essays are very widely read, and the songs he composed reverberate around the eastern part of India and throughout Bangladesh.”

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Like a Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a princess. She was in love with a poor boy who was living on the other bank of the river. The royal family did not approve such unequal love affairs but they could not be separated. Ultimately she was under house arrest. But all the security men were very kind to her. One night, with all risks, they opened the door and made her free. She was having a obedient horse. She called her and sat on her back and ordered to run. The horse vanished from the palace within seconds. The horse was driven through the dense forests, rocks and finally a river. The obedient horse did not mind to jump into the river to cross it to take her mistress’s destination- the other bank of the river where princess’s dream man stay. Now look at the picture, the princess is in her halfway to cross the river.

The rest of the story will be written once the princess crosses the river and meet her dream “prince”.

Till then we have to wait and pray for a fairy tale ending ——– “married and lived happily ever after”.

Note : The story presented above is based on my imagination, inspired by the above photograph.

( In reality : A bride crosses a lake as she rides a horse during a set of photo shoot in Shidu, near Beijing, China. A company is running group tours to the area for the soon-to-be-married couples in a spectacular settings. Acknowledments : Times of India).

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Krishna mantra and Iskcon

The Hare Krishna mantra or Maha Mantra (“Great Mantra”) is a sixteen-word mantra. The Chanting of Krishna’s name publicly and the Krishna mantra was popularized by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486-1533), a prominent Vaishnava saint and founder of the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. Vaishnavism means worship of Lord Vishnu and Goudiya refers to the place where this tradition began (Bengal and Orissa province those days was known as “Goud”).

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was born in Mayapur, in Nadia District of West Bengal State, in India which is near Calcutta (now Kolkata) city, where the ISKCON HQ is situated today. He was also known as Gouranga and Nimai (as He was born under a ‘Neem’ tree). He began his mission to spread this mantra publicly to ‘every town and village’ in the world, traveling throughout India, but he could not spread it beyond Bengal and Orissa.

After 433 years, in 1966, Srila Prabhupada founded his movement in New York, known as “The International Society for Krishna Consciousness“ (ISKCON) to spread Chaitanya’s teachings throughout the world. This movement was also known as “Hare Krishna” movement those days. The incomplete dream of Mahaprabhu has been fulfilled by Srila Prabhupada through his ISKCON.

When the “mantra” is heard, meditated upon, or sung out loud in the public, it is believed by the preachers to bring about a higher state of consciousness.

(For details of ISKCON HQs at Mayapur read my post “One Day at Iskcon” )

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Some facts about life and death

Here are some interesting facts about our life and death :

Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed people do.

A person will die from total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation. Death will occur after about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a few weeks.

If the population of China walked past you in single line, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

Our eyes remain the same size from birth onward, but nose and ears never stop growing.

Each square inch of human skin consists of twenty feet of blood vessels.

(Acknowledgment : Yahoo Group circulation)

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