Written by Sugata Bose
Photo : My mother when she was 16. The year was 1948.
Thursday 31 January 2019
MA ... 7
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo : My mother when she was 16. The year was 1948.
TEACH YOUR CHILDREN THE RAMAYANA AND THE MAHABHARATA, O YOUNG MOTHERS !
Our children must be taught the Ramayana and the Mahabharata in schools to absorb the essentials of the national spiritual culture, its age old heritage whose rightful legatees they are, so that they may grow up into illumined citizens and seminal beings as their ancestors, and, why only so, into individuals as broad as the heavens and as luminous as the stars that light up the darkened night sky. I merely echo the words of Swami Vivekananda in this regard.
It is in childhood when the mind is soft and pliable that these noble epics ought to be impressed upon their absorbing selves so that their best elements be assimilated into their beings and they evolve into spiritual titans with patriotic feeling and universal outlook blended fine into their synthetic selves.
This is the bold step ahead for the government to take in the near future. This will be the correct measure adopted in the realm of child resource development. No amount of political opposition should detract the government from the course.
This nation's heritage is essentially Hindu and till it is recognised and accordingly implemented, it will not fulfil its promise, actualise its potential. But before official initiative in this regard is seen, let us not idly await developments but let us put our selves to the rolling of this Wheel of Dharma (Dharma Chakra Pravartana) through individual and organisational collective effort. May our ancestors bless us in this noble endeavour !
Written by Sugata Bose
SADHANA, THE KEY TO SUCCESS
SADHANA, THE KEY TO SUCCESS
It is sadhana (sustained rigorous perfected practice with reverential fervour) that is at the root of all success. Music, art, literature, science -- all call for this labour of love of a lifetime. Do not attempt to steal the show at once. The result will be a miserable failure or, at best, a fleeting success that will come with the summer breeze and wither with winter, lasting no more than a season or two of its transient trip to people's chambers. If you wish to live on in human memory through your art, dedicate your life to it. Music demands no less. It is the soul of the being and can only breathe the air of ever-freshness.
So, my young friends who are aspirants to this art, dive deep in sadhana and seek no immediate return. If you have the steam in you to sustain your labour and have the talent to back it up, you shall see the light of day one fine morn when the world will be dazed by your morning glitter and the vesper hour will seek its delight in your pulsating rhythms spelled out in magical moods even as the wavelets dance and the ripples spread on the surface of the river of life. The depth unseen will behold it all and send forth currents of love gushing out in melodic terms through your now mellifluous voice. So, hold on your patience, tarry awhile and offer your sadhana to the art you adore, and you shall emerge triumphant.
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo : Ustad Abdul Karim Khan
Wednesday 30 January 2019
NETAJI -- WILL HE REMAIN SHROUDED IN MYSTERY FOREVER?
NETAJI -- WILL HE REMAIN SHROUDED IN MYSTERY FOREVER?
Will the Netaji mystery never be resolved? How long more must we wait? I, personally, have been waiting since 1967 when it was announced to us that Netaji would turn up on 23 Jan, 1968, for sure. As a child I had waited for the great day but to my utter disappointment. Since then I waited many years throughout my childhood and early adolescence but in vain. Then I gave up. Till a few years ago, facebook posts on Netaji's reclusive whereabouts apprised me of many hitherto unknown material and kindled hopes that the disappearance mystery would finally be resolved. The unearthing of classified Netaji files raised hopes but now again I am seized with despondency as nothing conclusive has come out till date. All that we get to hear are unverifiable versions of the hero's whereabouts as a monk living incognito in Uttar Pradesh for there are claims galore but there are neither photographs nor any other piece of evidence that may be deemed clinching and can set the matter to rest for good. In such a scenario speculation becomes rife and adds chaos to confusion as fanciful stories abound making the leader more remote from his historically known self evermore.
How we are to proceed hereon remains the moot question. What is the way ahead in this research on the disappearance of the patriot premier? I am too ignorant to hazard any opinion and leave it to the house to opine.
Written by Sugata Bose
Will the Netaji mystery never be resolved? How long more must we wait? I, personally, have been waiting since 1967 when it was announced to us that Netaji would turn up on 23 Jan, 1968, for sure. As a child I had waited for the great day but to my utter disappointment. Since then I waited many years throughout my childhood and early adolescence but in vain. Then I gave up. Till a few years ago, facebook posts on Netaji's reclusive whereabouts apprised me of many hitherto unknown material and kindled hopes that the disappearance mystery would finally be resolved. The unearthing of classified Netaji files raised hopes but now again I am seized with despondency as nothing conclusive has come out till date. All that we get to hear are unverifiable versions of the hero's whereabouts as a monk living incognito in Uttar Pradesh for there are claims galore but there are neither photographs nor any other piece of evidence that may be deemed clinching and can set the matter to rest for good. In such a scenario speculation becomes rife and adds chaos to confusion as fanciful stories abound making the leader more remote from his historically known self evermore.
How we are to proceed hereon remains the moot question. What is the way ahead in this research on the disappearance of the patriot premier? I am too ignorant to hazard any opinion and leave it to the house to opine.
Written by Sugata Bose
PROSELYTISING AND CLAIMING TO BE A RELIGION OF PEACE?
How can proselytising religions claim to be peaceful, especially when they are also exclusive in their monotheistic creed? Is it not a contradiction in terms? Only a broad-based democracy of faith that allows the personal pursuit of any Chosen Ideal (Ishta Dev/Devi) within its liberal fold of philosophical catholicity can lay claim to peacefulness for it rejects none of the pathways to God and accepts all, even the agnostic and the atheist as diverse perspectives on the same eternal truth of life and the being. In this regard the Indian dharma traditions are truly spiritually inclusive and peaceful, not the religions of the Abrahamic tradition which are all, to a greater or lesser degree, violent in their attitude towards religious denominations that differ with them on perspective.
The Vedanta, thus, remains the hope of future humanity for peace and spiritual wisdom, and the Vedanta is the climactic evolution of the long ancient tradition of the Sanatan Dharma which is commonly referred to as Hinduism, a historical aberration that seems now beyond linguistic rectification.
Written by Sugata Bose
LARGER LIVING ... 2
LARGER LIVING ... 2
There is a desperation in the human mind, born out of a sense of helplessness in the face of the uncontrollable elements that threaten life itself, that brings forth a reckless courage in combating life's evils. And there is hope and a sense of fatalistic security in the belief that a merciful and just God will, after all, protect them that quickens this courage in threatened souls. Eventually, it is the innocence of ordinary people and their sheer helplessness in the face of religious persecution and terrorism thereof that calls out the nobility of their beings in living their lives in divine dependence and in goodness.
Such stressful circumstances of sustained persecution brings out the best of community feeling among these oppressed people and ennobles them in their increasing sense of the impermanence of life and the futility of a mere material living. Their close encounter with death and destruction makes them value life more, increases their empathy and draws out in their growing detachment their most courageous elements to combat the dangers that ever stalk their lives.
Ultimately, it is the triumph of their souls amidst adversity that makes their larger living for the common good a celebration in a collapsing world of desperate dreams.
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo : Coptic Christians of Egypt who are under enormous Islamic fanatical persecution.
There is a desperation in the human mind, born out of a sense of helplessness in the face of the uncontrollable elements that threaten life itself, that brings forth a reckless courage in combating life's evils. And there is hope and a sense of fatalistic security in the belief that a merciful and just God will, after all, protect them that quickens this courage in threatened souls. Eventually, it is the innocence of ordinary people and their sheer helplessness in the face of religious persecution and terrorism thereof that calls out the nobility of their beings in living their lives in divine dependence and in goodness.
Such stressful circumstances of sustained persecution brings out the best of community feeling among these oppressed people and ennobles them in their increasing sense of the impermanence of life and the futility of a mere material living. Their close encounter with death and destruction makes them value life more, increases their empathy and draws out in their growing detachment their most courageous elements to combat the dangers that ever stalk their lives.
Ultimately, it is the triumph of their souls amidst adversity that makes their larger living for the common good a celebration in a collapsing world of desperate dreams.
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo : Coptic Christians of Egypt who are under enormous Islamic fanatical persecution.
LARGER LIVING ... 1
It is necessary to feel for our people and do what we can to alleviate their earthly misery. Let us begin with our own family first. For as they say, charity, indeed, begins at home. But let us also expand our idea of home and include wider humanity within it. After all, we are a single human species, a vast variegated people but of a common biological ancestry and a common terrestrial habitat. Why must we confine ourselves within artificially laid small limits when the vast world calls us unto a larger living?
Written by Sugata Bose
SHAME ! SHAME ! SHAME !
Our country is doomed so long we remain cowards and, so, ungrateful in our forgetfulness of our revolutionary heroes who sacrificed their lives for our freedom. A nation devoid of gratitude, manhood enough in rising to virile remembrance of the ones who gave their all for its freedom does not deserve the best in the world and must suffer, so, at the hands of all those countries who treat their heroes better.
It is a shame that a nation that prides itself on spirituality must be so sunk in inhumanity and ignorance that its brightest stars remain hidden from its vision by the cloud cover of its own despicable living, its downright degradation of culture, its abysmal effeminacy of the intelligentsia, the educated and the so-called highly literate. Even the average run of humanity in this country, among the middle classes, are callous about these seminal personalities and are content to go about their humdrum existence, chasing the means of daily survival merely.
Such opacity can scarce make a nation in any manner spiritual and it is a shame that it is so. Vivekananda today hides his head in shame and so does Netaji Subhas that their motherland should be begetting only cowards ever since they castigated their followers and struck up the fire of revolution in their sinews, in their bloodstream, in their every pulse-beat that eventually liberated the nation.
Shame ! Shame ! Shame !
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo : Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi
FORGOTTEN REVOLUTIONARIES ... 1
Bijoy Kumar Sinha and Raj Kumar Kumar Sinha played seminal roles in the extreme revolutionary movement for freedom in India.
Bijoy Kumar Sinha was born on 17 Jan, 1909 at Kanpur. While in Christ Church College he joined the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association along with two friends of his, Ajoy Ghosh and Batukeswar Dutt. He was convicted in the Lahore ConspiracyCase but could not be immediately apprehended by the police. He went underground for full two years before being arrested and sent to the notorious Lahore Jail. Bijoy Kumar Sinha was also involved in the in the Delhi Conspiracy Case. His brother, Raj Kumar Sinha, had participated in the Kakori Train Robbery.
Inside Lahore Jail conditions for the political prisoners was so abominable, nay, subhuman, that the convicts all lodged their protest by means of indefinite hunger strike till the conditions were improved by the authorities. Jatin Das died after his 63 day fast. Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru and a host of others also participated and rocked up the British authorities. Bijoy Kumar Sinha was also a participant in this famous hunger strike.
When the judgement of the Lahore Conspiracy Case was out, Bijoy Kumar Sinha was sentenced to lifetime deportation to the dreaded Cellular Jail in the Andamans. Here he again participated in a hunger strike. In 1937 the Government repatriated the Cellular political prisoners and Bijoy Kumar Sinha was incarcerated in a mainland Indian jail. In 1945 he was eventually released.
This is the brief profile of one who had engaged in revolutionary activity of an extreme kind to free us from colonial shackles and suffered in consequence a lifetime of imprisonment and torture in the dreaded Cellular Jail. Today, he remains a forgotten hero as we, who breathe the air of freedom on account of the sacrifices of revolutionaries like him, have conveniently chosen to cast his memory into oblivion. I ask one question just. Are we men? Do we deserve to be free?
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo : Bijoy Kumar Sinha
Source : https://
RAJENDRANATH LAHIRI, MASTERMIND OF THE DAKSHINESHWAR BOMBING AND THE KAKORI TRAIN ROBBERY, A FORGOTTEN HERO
Rajendranath Lahiri was the mastermind behind the Kakori Robbery and the Dakshineshwar Bombing. He was an active member of the Hindustan Republican Association whose objective was to evict the British from India by armed revolution.
Rajendranath Lahiri was born in 1892 in Mohanpur village in the Pabna District of East Bengal in a wealthy Brahmin family. His elder brother, Kshitish Mohan Lahiri was a landlord there.
Rajendra Lahiri was a leading participant in the Dakshineshwar Bombing episode whereupon he absconded to Benaras and took to his studies there. Revolutionary activity was quelled in Bengal for the while and spread to Uttar Pradesh. By then Rajendra was doing his postgraduate course. He became a member of the Hindustan Republican Association along with many others.
Revolution needed money to become operational and, accordingly, it was felt that the Government treasures coming by train would provide the necessary resources if looted. The Kakori Train Robbery was, thus, masterminded by Rajendra Lahiri. and executed with close associates, Ramaprasad Bismil, Ashfaqullah Khan, Chandrasekhar Azad, Sachindra Bakshi, Keshav Chakravarty, Manmathnath Gupta, Murarilal Gupta (in real, Murarilal Khanna), Mukundilal Gupta and Banwarilal.
Rajendra Lahiri was apprehended by the British police in Bengal in connection with the Dakshineshwar Bombing Case and sent to ten years' rigorous imprisonment.
Then the Kakori Conspiracy Case was opened and Rajendranath Lahiri being its mastermind was tried for it. A stray unintentional discharge had resulted in the death of a passenger of the Kakori train by the name Ahmed Ali and this led to the case being fought on the basis of both robbery of Rs 8,000 from the Government Treasury as well as manslaughter in the attempt. Eventually, the verdict was out and Rajendranath Lahiri along with Ramprasad Bismil, Ashfaqualla Khan and Thakur Roshan Singh were sentenced to death by hanging.
The final act was done in Gonda District Jail on 17 December, 1927, two days before the scheduled date. Lahiri, Bismil, Khan and Singh were hanged to death for sedition against the Raj.
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo : left -- Rajendranath Lahiri ; right -- top, Ramprasad Bismil ; middle, Thakur Roshan Singh ; bottom, Ashfaqulla Khan.
JUDGE THYSELF FIRST BEFORE THOU JUDGE THY PRECEPTOR
JUDGE THYSELF FIRST BEFORE THOU JUDGE THY PRECEPTOR
Before judging the Guru man must judge himself whether he is fit for receiving initiation. Only when he has himself fulfilled the spiritual conditions enjoined upon him as obligatory by way of prospective discipleship that he is in any position to start judging the spiritual sufficiency of the prospective preceptor. When these conditions have been fulfilled, he may proceed to pray for spiritual initiation and thereon embark on the long voyage of spiritual practice.
Written by Sugata Bose
Tuesday 29 January 2019
WHEN THE MANY MERGE IN THE ONE AND THE ONE SINKS IN THE MANY
WHEN THE MANY MERGE IN THE ONE AND THE ONE SINKS IN THE MANY
Everything is ephemeral when viewed in isolation. It assumes continuity only when seen in totality, in integrated vision, in deeper insight, perception transcending limiting bonds, finite boundaries. There persistence of vision finds meaning beyond the fractured understanding of things and the inner intent of phenomenal appearance and disappearance is apprehended in a comprehension cohesive, a correlation that fits in all in a cosmic harmony. And if incongruity still dissatisfies the mind of man, he seeks solution in his fundamental findings within the recesses of his soul wherein is seated his divine Self. There he witnesses his own Self as the eternal seer of all this panoramic dream. There he himself dissolves and his Self remains, beating time and space, the eternal brooder in a luminous singular existential consciousness.
The many have now merged in the One and future fracturing is known to be only apparent and never real. Delusion is gone and with it sorrow. An integrated vision lasts forever of a solidarity of existence, unbreakable, undying, eternal and singular. The universe floats as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon on a rootless root that lies deep below where the eye reaches not, for all that is, sprout from this Self that is the ground of all this cosmic manifestation.
The soul dies to live in the Self as the tendencies are reduced to ashes and freedom affirmed once and for all. The bonds have dropped, bondage has been cast aside and the Self reigns supreme as the One that now on endures, if it so wills, its prismatic dispersion into embodied encapsulation for the liberation of those that struggle in ignorance.
The net has been sundered for one but the net holds the shoal of humanity swimming in this inner sea with exits everywhere, yet, with blind adherence to bondage these entrapped beings suffer their verbal voyage and only the one that has deciphered the the sound can career them unto freedom. The compassionate one sinks in this netted turbulence and extracts the willing ones unto safety even as others continue to play the dream. Thus it goes on as the Mother flies Her kites in the azure sky and lets loose a few when She wishes.
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo : courtesy, Moni Lahiri
Everything is ephemeral when viewed in isolation. It assumes continuity only when seen in totality, in integrated vision, in deeper insight, perception transcending limiting bonds, finite boundaries. There persistence of vision finds meaning beyond the fractured understanding of things and the inner intent of phenomenal appearance and disappearance is apprehended in a comprehension cohesive, a correlation that fits in all in a cosmic harmony. And if incongruity still dissatisfies the mind of man, he seeks solution in his fundamental findings within the recesses of his soul wherein is seated his divine Self. There he witnesses his own Self as the eternal seer of all this panoramic dream. There he himself dissolves and his Self remains, beating time and space, the eternal brooder in a luminous singular existential consciousness.
The many have now merged in the One and future fracturing is known to be only apparent and never real. Delusion is gone and with it sorrow. An integrated vision lasts forever of a solidarity of existence, unbreakable, undying, eternal and singular. The universe floats as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon on a rootless root that lies deep below where the eye reaches not, for all that is, sprout from this Self that is the ground of all this cosmic manifestation.
The soul dies to live in the Self as the tendencies are reduced to ashes and freedom affirmed once and for all. The bonds have dropped, bondage has been cast aside and the Self reigns supreme as the One that now on endures, if it so wills, its prismatic dispersion into embodied encapsulation for the liberation of those that struggle in ignorance.
The net has been sundered for one but the net holds the shoal of humanity swimming in this inner sea with exits everywhere, yet, with blind adherence to bondage these entrapped beings suffer their verbal voyage and only the one that has deciphered the the sound can career them unto freedom. The compassionate one sinks in this netted turbulence and extracts the willing ones unto safety even as others continue to play the dream. Thus it goes on as the Mother flies Her kites in the azure sky and lets loose a few when She wishes.
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo : courtesy, Moni Lahiri
Monday 28 January 2019
IN CONVERSATION WITH A COMFORTING COLLEAGUE
IN CONVERSATION WITH A COMFORTING COLLEAGUE
Sugata Bose : They who brought me into this world --- father and mother are both gone, father in 1996 and mother just the other day. Orphaned am I ? No, they are a perennial presence now.
Sameer Banik : Don't repent Sir. It's the law of nature. No one can escape from this. We often pray to the Almighty that we may not have to witness the death of our parents in our lifetime. But this wish has dangerous consequences. In such scenario our parents will have to witness our deaths. Nothing can be more painful than this. We must be thankful to God that otherwise didn't happen in our lives.
Sugata Bose : I agree with you. The other scenario would have been catastrophic, and my parents had to endure such pain when my elder brother died at the age of 5 years and 7 months from leukaemia on the very lap of my 26 year old mother. She lived past 86 to carry that pain with her. Hope they are all united now and there is cessation of that pain in separation from us.
And what separation am I referring to? It is but a temporary withdrawal before the spiritual eye opening unites us all in a common kinship in the deep-seated Self that is the unifying link of us all, the ground of all existence.
Sometimes, Sameer, it seems I am a bit heartless as I keep making scriptural references and seem to have lost my emotional bearings, but, then, late in the night when the lights have been dimmed and the world sleeps, the gnawing pain of separation unites in the flow of spontaneous feeling and mother and father make fresh visitations in the deep dark and fulfil me with their spiritual presence. Then their altered image in the mind's eye assumes divine proportions and makes their selves indistinguishable from the Holy Trinity I worship as my life's ideals. I then get to see how ancestor worship arose in the earliest times of human civilisation and how elevated truly the givers of our terrestrial forms are. It is a sad separation but a worthwhile one that eternally unites us to our parents in true identification of their divine selves. Separation then assumes a wider significance as tears ennoble the being unto a realisation that ordinarily remains covered in the lifetime of one's parents.
Such is the predicament of life and human ignorance and such is its replenishing return in demise that destroys form only to rebuild the eternal edifice of it in our expanding consciousness.
May all bereaved ones be comforted ! May all else rush to the help of those in need ! May humanity be quickened in life and in death !
Written by Sugata Bose
Sugata Bose : They who brought me into this world --- father and mother are both gone, father in 1996 and mother just the other day. Orphaned am I ? No, they are a perennial presence now.
Sameer Banik : Don't repent Sir. It's the law of nature. No one can escape from this. We often pray to the Almighty that we may not have to witness the death of our parents in our lifetime. But this wish has dangerous consequences. In such scenario our parents will have to witness our deaths. Nothing can be more painful than this. We must be thankful to God that otherwise didn't happen in our lives.
Sugata Bose : I agree with you. The other scenario would have been catastrophic, and my parents had to endure such pain when my elder brother died at the age of 5 years and 7 months from leukaemia on the very lap of my 26 year old mother. She lived past 86 to carry that pain with her. Hope they are all united now and there is cessation of that pain in separation from us.
And what separation am I referring to? It is but a temporary withdrawal before the spiritual eye opening unites us all in a common kinship in the deep-seated Self that is the unifying link of us all, the ground of all existence.
Sometimes, Sameer, it seems I am a bit heartless as I keep making scriptural references and seem to have lost my emotional bearings, but, then, late in the night when the lights have been dimmed and the world sleeps, the gnawing pain of separation unites in the flow of spontaneous feeling and mother and father make fresh visitations in the deep dark and fulfil me with their spiritual presence. Then their altered image in the mind's eye assumes divine proportions and makes their selves indistinguishable from the Holy Trinity I worship as my life's ideals. I then get to see how ancestor worship arose in the earliest times of human civilisation and how elevated truly the givers of our terrestrial forms are. It is a sad separation but a worthwhile one that eternally unites us to our parents in true identification of their divine selves. Separation then assumes a wider significance as tears ennoble the being unto a realisation that ordinarily remains covered in the lifetime of one's parents.
Such is the predicament of life and human ignorance and such is its replenishing return in demise that destroys form only to rebuild the eternal edifice of it in our expanding consciousness.
May all bereaved ones be comforted ! May all else rush to the help of those in need ! May humanity be quickened in life and in death !
Written by Sugata Bose
THE PHOTO AND THE PEOPLE
People are profoundly bound to the ideal of beauty, the 'sundaram' principle, for it is the photograph that draws the maximum public attention. It is a singular feature of human psychology that must have been noticed by the rishis when they proceeded in ancient times to introduce image worship as the means of popularising spirituality and so making it the life-blood of the nation. It still holds true in this age of advanced knowledge in the sciences. Data still plays second fiddle to the photographs of known faces like those of Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Sarada Devi, Swami Vivekananda, Netaji, Nivedita and the like, and cursory glances and casual observations are all that detailed discussions by this writer elicit from the readers who are content to comment in stereotypical fashion and have neither the time nor the leisure nor apparently energy enough to expend in comprehension of passages and considered comments thereof. This is regrettable to an extent for it does not augur well for the intellectual climate thus developing in a nation that prides itself in emerging from its induced backwardness consequent on colonial subjugation for centuries. It ought to change, thus, and in this regard everyone must come forward to contributing their share to the nation's thought-pool instead of idling away making inconsequential comments that only add on to the piling plethora of puerile observations.
Let us take a step in the right direction and add on creatively to the intellectual discourse. Not all are intellectually proficient may be but each one has something of his own to say, however commonplace it may seem to him, for it bears the distinctive mark of his personality, his individual standpoint, his specific perspective that is unique in this world of infinite diversity. So, let us be more open to communication in our own way instead of being limited by standard stereotypes in expression. I hope this piece will be read and amendments made in approach.
Written by Sugata Bose
MA ... 6 ... BABA AND MA
They who brought me into this world --- father and mother are both gone, father in 1996 and mother just the other day. Orphaned am I ? No, they are a perennial presence now.
Written by Sugata Bose
MA ... 5 ... BABA
MA ... 5 ... BABA
My father, Sri Santosh Bose -- born, 26 June, 1923 ; died 18 July, 1996.
Sunday 27 January 2019
Saturday 26 January 2019
IDEAS ... 2
1. The cloud of delusion comes in the form of sorrow, however, sublime it may seem to be. Transparent must be the vision, uncluttered, free. Swamiji, pranam!
2. 12 Jan, 1863 comes back as 27 Jan, 2019. Thus the date swings from year to year and we are kept guessing as to when? Jai Swamiji !
3. 156 years have passed. Yet, the fire blazes away. Vivekananda volcanic pours out power for the brave to receive. Arise, awake, be courageous that ye may receive the cyclonic monk.
4. Do not misspend your life chasing wild geese. Do something worthwhile for the world.
5. The mantra must thunderous run through the system and evolve out of the animal self a divine being capable of shaking the world.
6. It is human life that is most precious, that shines effulgent in its passage to the other world.
7. Whither we come from, whither depart, for what purpose we stay here for this brief flicker of a moment ?
8. Between life and death is a hairline or less, a ceaseless transformation with a broader relief at its end. But liberation lies beyond.
9. কারুর সময় নেই | সব নিজ আবর্তে ব্যস্ত | এ পৃথিবীতে বৈরাগ্যই একমাত্র সম্বল | বাকি সব প্রহেলিকামাত্র |
5. The mantra must thunderous run through the system and evolve out of the animal self a divine being capable of shaking the world.
6. It is human life that is most precious, that shines effulgent in its passage to the other world.
7. Whither we come from, whither depart, for what purpose we stay here for this brief flicker of a moment ?
8. Between life and death is a hairline or less, a ceaseless transformation with a broader relief at its end. But liberation lies beyond.
9. কারুর সময় নেই | সব নিজ আবর্তে ব্যস্ত | এ পৃথিবীতে বৈরাগ্যই একমাত্র সম্বল | বাকি সব প্রহেলিকামাত্র |
10. Man is greater than the religion he follows for he is God incarnate and it is the realisation of this truth that is at the kernel of all thought, however obscure it may seem to the surface vision.
11. Human fraternal feelings can never be promoted through religion. It ever divides human society along lines of belief. The only way ahead is to discard absolutist stances descending down the ages from archaic scriptures and to reinvent human thinking along democratic rational lines based on science and the Vedanta which transcend faith-based religion.
12. In silence the breath dissolves into serenity supreme.
13. Why must I submit to a God who rules by instilling fear into the hearts of devotees? Better by far is self-rule based on sound rational judgement.
14. Life is so precious. When death strikes its fell blow, we get to appreciate it more than ever before.
15. Throughout the world there are so many good people standing by people in their need that one feels overwhelmed to behold it.
16. Innocence persecuted by dastardly terrorism. Why? What a waste of human life !
17. Devotees must show up more in active service of community than in passive piety. It is mutual help that integrates a people.
16. Innocence persecuted by dastardly terrorism. Why? What a waste of human life !
17. Devotees must show up more in active service of community than in passive piety. It is mutual help that integrates a people.
18. Love must become dynamic. Only then humanity will prevail widely.
19. The essential man is better than his attributes. Respect man for his being rather than for his doing.
19. The essential man is better than his attributes. Respect man for his being rather than for his doing.
20. Talent + Tenacity = Success
21. We must form a family of devotees who will stand by each other in distress and in need.
22. See success and failure with an even eye even as you strive your best for success. Failure is but the stepping stone to its brighter sibling, success.
23. Work for purification of the mind-stuff and not for success in the material world. Only then will failures fail to disappoint, dishearten, depress.
24. Let not the current of daily work erase for once the memory of my mother who remains the source of it all ever.
25. Desires, they produce sadness in their wake. Dispassionate work pays better.
26. Rise in altitude by diving deep.
27. When millions suffer far worse, what glory be there in clinging to one's sorrow? Shake off this gloom and conquer the despair of death.
28. You need not seek truth in others. Find it within yourself. This is the whole of religion.
26. Rise in altitude by diving deep.
27. When millions suffer far worse, what glory be there in clinging to one's sorrow? Shake off this gloom and conquer the despair of death.
28. You need not seek truth in others. Find it within yourself. This is the whole of religion.
29. We are all alive. Let us celebrate life. Let us save life.
30. Hindu influence must spread throughout the world. This should be zealously pursued to promote world peace.
30. Hindu influence must spread throughout the world. This should be zealously pursued to promote world peace.
31. How Hinduism is spreading beautifully through Krishna consciousness in the world !
32. It is time to stop being vain about our knowledge of Hinduism n start getting to studying it in real earnest. Humility is the key.
33. Let us have some romance in our spiritual practice and not dry it up entirely. Love divine demands that we be happy as we pray.
34. Free the fountain of divine love within you but take care not to get deluded by sensory attachment overly in the name of the divine life led.
35. Continence is power. This is why you bow down to monks and they do not do so to you unless your purity perchance exceeds theirs.
35. Continence is power. This is why you bow down to monks and they do not do so to you unless your purity perchance exceeds theirs.
36. Jinnah created a hell on earth for both Hindus and Muslims in the form of Pakistan.
37. Spirituality is supposedly spreading in the world but the same passions hound it everywhere. The purest movement will survive, all else will perish.
38. Hinduism must be spread as much on a popular basis as it must be on its elevated philosophical and spiritual basis.
39. Vivekananda's message must like lightning be brought home to the youth to inspire them unto nation-building.
40. The propagation of Hinduism ought to be integral to India's foreign policy. In it lies India's cultural heritage. In it lies India's prestige as a civilisation.
41. Pakistan + India + Bangladesh = the undivided India of the martyrs to freedom for which they had sacrificed their all.
42. Nationalism will soon be a thing of the past as a unified world emerges in the wake of global challenges faced by all.
43. Humanity seems to be emerging larger than the sectarian claims laid on it. The youth provide the hope for this resurgence.
43. Humanity seems to be emerging larger than the sectarian claims laid on it. The youth provide the hope for this resurgence.
44. There is so much religious intolerance in the world as politics meddles with religion and peddles corrosive commodity through it.
45. Germany is today the most fertile soil for the propagation of the Vedanta. It has lost direction and needs a reorientation. Awake!
46. Do not dupe others in the name of religion. Practise it yourself through purity to attain the divine within yourself instead.
47. FREEDOM FOR OUR DAUGHTERS
Women's liberation is the sine qua non for human liberation from the dictates of medieval times. Freedom is the only condition of spirituality and it cannot be compromised under any compulsion arising out of divine dictate or scriptural mandate.
Written by Sugata Bose
48. Dive deep to discover who you are. We are one. We have split into two to love each other.
49. Study the Bhagavad Geeta religiously and arrive at some sort of an understanding about Hinduism to begin with.
50. BE CONSCIOUS
For a Hindu to remain in ignorance of his own religion is as despicable as it is for an Indian to remain in ignorance of his national history. Come on and see things clear in the light of Vivekananda, the history and philosophy of your motherland.
Written by Sugata Bose
51. Too much restriction on one's life arising out of scriptural injunctions is productive of sterility in thinking. Freedom's the call.
80. STUDY THE SCRIPTURES
Hindus must stop making wild speculations on their religion and instead take to its serious study to know its core principles. In knowledge lies power and in power the capacity to defend one's faith and heritage against foreign religious infiltration and subversion thereof.
Written by Sugata Bose
81. India must never forget 1962 and must never trust China. China and Pakistan are both enemy nations we should be ever wary of.
92. We have to revisit our scriptures and read into them for fresh solutions to our current problems.
93. Clinging to the personality has been the undoing of all spiritual movements in the past. It is the principle enunciated by the personality, lived and represented by it that ought to be the guiding light in our lives, assuming, of course, that we feel the need to take recourse to such guidance in the absence of sufficient creativity and self-confidence in dealing with current situations in the light of our own understanding.
94. How many of you have heard of Ghazwa-e-Hind? Those of you who have, do you realise its implications on the fate of India?
98. When Pakistan talks law, it is Charlie at his best !
100. Pakistan bounced and bled India but is now ducking under India's bouncers. Running to the referee (read : UN) to outlaw bouncers from India. Must the ICC (read : UN) intervene? The next destination for Pakistan is, for sure, Washington D.C. What will be India's response?
Women's liberation is the sine qua non for human liberation from the dictates of medieval times. Freedom is the only condition of spirituality and it cannot be compromised under any compulsion arising out of divine dictate or scriptural mandate.
Written by Sugata Bose
48. Dive deep to discover who you are. We are one. We have split into two to love each other.
49. Study the Bhagavad Geeta religiously and arrive at some sort of an understanding about Hinduism to begin with.
50. BE CONSCIOUS
For a Hindu to remain in ignorance of his own religion is as despicable as it is for an Indian to remain in ignorance of his national history. Come on and see things clear in the light of Vivekananda, the history and philosophy of your motherland.
Written by Sugata Bose
52. The ideology that you subscribe to leaves its mark on your personality. So, fanatical religions produce fanatics galore.
53. We hear a lot about 9/11. How about 8/6 and 8/9?
54. How people attempt to rationalise the irrational ! How they bring in tortuous logic to substantiate insubstantial ideas touted as truth !
55. What a shame that so few worthwhile videos are there on YouTube on the revolutionaries of the Indian freedom movement !
56. FORGET ME NOT
Service to our parents must not end with their passage to the other world but must be renewed with added vigour, this time for them manifest in the larger consciousness of the motherland.
Written by Sugata Bose
57. "Dogs and Indians Not Allowed" (Pahartali European Club) ... Masterda deputed Pritilata Waddedar to pay them in equal coin.
58. Why did Shyam Benegal subscribe to the unproven theory that Netaji had married and so showed him in his film on the leader?
59. Would Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi have listened to Bapu and spun yarn to free India?
Service to our parents must not end with their passage to the other world but must be renewed with added vigour, this time for them manifest in the larger consciousness of the motherland.
Written by Sugata Bose
57. "Dogs and Indians Not Allowed" (Pahartali European Club) ... Masterda deputed Pritilata Waddedar to pay them in equal coin.
58. Why did Shyam Benegal subscribe to the unproven theory that Netaji had married and so showed him in his film on the leader?
59. Would Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi have listened to Bapu and spun yarn to free India?
60. Revolution seems a distant call for most men with weak blood. The virile alone are fit for this valorous vocation.
61. Had Modi made a statue of Netaji, instead, as high as he made for Patel, he would have done the nation a world of good. Shame!
62. Indeed he is the Father of the Nation. So many faithful sons of his still supporting all his acts, distasteful and deliberate, though.
63. Election over at Tripuri. Massive defeat suffered by Mahatma's nominee. Pattabhi pulverised by patriot. Mahatma rises to the occasion by stooping low to restore order. And it is order, indeed, cold commandment to Congressmen to boycott Bose in the Working Committee meeting at Tripuri. Split in Congress imminent. British and the Muslim League to benefit. Bose resigns, Gandhi pretends sympathy. Partition looms large as Bose escapes and Congress non-cooperate with Bose still. Gandhi loses control. Nehru, Patel, Jinnah, Mountbatten seal the deal and the motherland is mutilated. Gandhi pretends yet again by fasting to stop riots and to secure Pakistan the promised funds but does not do so to prevent Partition. Father of the Nation, indeed, but which nation?
64. April 13, 1919 to April 13, 2019 is hundred years. What is the significance of this centenary that is in the offing?
63. Election over at Tripuri. Massive defeat suffered by Mahatma's nominee. Pattabhi pulverised by patriot. Mahatma rises to the occasion by stooping low to restore order. And it is order, indeed, cold commandment to Congressmen to boycott Bose in the Working Committee meeting at Tripuri. Split in Congress imminent. British and the Muslim League to benefit. Bose resigns, Gandhi pretends sympathy. Partition looms large as Bose escapes and Congress non-cooperate with Bose still. Gandhi loses control. Nehru, Patel, Jinnah, Mountbatten seal the deal and the motherland is mutilated. Gandhi pretends yet again by fasting to stop riots and to secure Pakistan the promised funds but does not do so to prevent Partition. Father of the Nation, indeed, but which nation?
64. April 13, 1919 to April 13, 2019 is hundred years. What is the significance of this centenary that is in the offing?
65. What is the revolutionary connection between Bhagat Singh and Durgawati Devi (Durga Bhabi), wife of Bhagwati Charan Vohra?
66. What a stupendous sacrifice Sardar Bhagat Singh made ! Here was a man in contrast to the effeminate Congress leaders of the day.
67. The number of betrayals we had to face in our revolutionary struggle for freedom proves what a spineless people we were.
68. The number of betrayals we had to face in our revolutionary struggle for freedom proves what a spineless people we were.
68. The number of betrayals we had to face in our revolutionary struggle for freedom proves what a spineless people we were.
69. P.N. Tagore, that is, Rash Behari Bose in disguise on the eve of departure by ship to Japan. The year, 1915. This was the last disguise of the redoubtable revolutionary in India which hoodwinked the wily British intelligence for yet another time.
70. Impurity is the hammer-blow to self-confidence. Purity alone sustains the morale.
71. We lend our life's energy to the pursuit of insignificance and spend our resources before anything worthwhile be achieved.
72. The mind must be restrained within smaller and smaller zones for it to be eventually dissolved in Self-realisation.
73. Slavery of the Hindus began over a thousand years ago with the Islamic invasion of India. It has disrupted Hindu civilisation ever since.
74. Islamic and Christian proselytising continues unabated. It must stop as it is intended to weaken the Hindus. India stands to suffer for it.
75. Hindus, awake to your heritage and culture ! Study Sanskrit. Read Vivekananda.
75. Hindus, awake to your heritage and culture ! Study Sanskrit. Read Vivekananda.
76. A religion that has conversion as its one of its prime principles can never be not violent, for conversion itself is violence.
77. Hindus, do not subscribe to conversion to Islam and Christianity under any pretext. You must be loyal to your dharma.
78. Sri Ramakrishna was so irked to see that Michael Madhusudan Dutt had converted to Christianity. He, henceforth, could not talk to him any further.
79. STOP CONVERSION
Stop converting the children of Hindu father and Muslim mother to Islam, or, of Muslim father and Hindu mother to Islam. Let them grow up embracing the best of both cultures into synthetic enlightened beings.
Written by Sugata Bose
79. STOP CONVERSION
Stop converting the children of Hindu father and Muslim mother to Islam, or, of Muslim father and Hindu mother to Islam. Let them grow up embracing the best of both cultures into synthetic enlightened beings.
Written by Sugata Bose
80. STUDY THE SCRIPTURES
Hindus must stop making wild speculations on their religion and instead take to its serious study to know its core principles. In knowledge lies power and in power the capacity to defend one's faith and heritage against foreign religious infiltration and subversion thereof.
Written by Sugata Bose
81. India must never forget 1962 and must never trust China. China and Pakistan are both enemy nations we should be ever wary of.
82. So long as Sri Ramakrishna is blessing India, she is safe. Now let history take its course. India shall emerge triumphant.
83. What will be India's next step? Is war really an option, considering that both India and Pakistan are nuclear-powered nations? Your views are solicited.
84. Oh, the tears, they keep flowing as India suffers !
83. What will be India's next step? Is war really an option, considering that both India and Pakistan are nuclear-powered nations? Your views are solicited.
84. Oh, the tears, they keep flowing as India suffers !
85. A nation of lies and treachery, Pakistan needs to be dealt with severely, but how?
86. By killing Indians will these suicide attackers manage to really go to heaven where great pleasures are awaiting them?
87. Goodness cannot win over evil, strength can.
88. A radical ideology will necessarily lead to radicalisation and this has been the history of it thus far.
89. To rescue the youth from being radicalised, they have to be imparted scientific education. But the terror outfits will not allow.
90. The martial spirit of the nation must be awakened for it to be able to tackle terrorism.
91. National unity can only be fostered by inculcating in the people the martial spirit of self-sacrifice.
88. A radical ideology will necessarily lead to radicalisation and this has been the history of it thus far.
89. To rescue the youth from being radicalised, they have to be imparted scientific education. But the terror outfits will not allow.
90. The martial spirit of the nation must be awakened for it to be able to tackle terrorism.
91. National unity can only be fostered by inculcating in the people the martial spirit of self-sacrifice.
92. We have to revisit our scriptures and read into them for fresh solutions to our current problems.
93. Clinging to the personality has been the undoing of all spiritual movements in the past. It is the principle enunciated by the personality, lived and represented by it that ought to be the guiding light in our lives, assuming, of course, that we feel the need to take recourse to such guidance in the absence of sufficient creativity and self-confidence in dealing with current situations in the light of our own understanding.
94. How many of you have heard of Ghazwa-e-Hind? Those of you who have, do you realise its implications on the fate of India?
95. Imran Khan has now resorted to ball-tampering and reverse-swinging. Indian players, beware !
96. Immy, the dimmy, asks us to provide intelligence about Pak involvement in the Pulwama Attack? The question is, will he understand?
97. Politician, pretender, puppet ! This is bowler, batsman, captain Imran's new role as all-rounder.
96. Immy, the dimmy, asks us to provide intelligence about Pak involvement in the Pulwama Attack? The question is, will he understand?
97. Politician, pretender, puppet ! This is bowler, batsman, captain Imran's new role as all-rounder.
99. Pakistan bounced and bled India but is now ducking under India's bouncers. Running to the referee (read : UN) to outlaw bouncers from India. Must the ICC (read : UN) intervene?
100. Pakistan bounced and bled India but is now ducking under India's bouncers. Running to the referee (read : UN) to outlaw bouncers from India. Must the ICC (read : UN) intervene? The next destination for Pakistan is, for sure, Washington D.C. What will be India's response?
27 JAN, 2019
27 JAN, 2019
Never has sorrow been so sublime, never a departure so blissfully serene. Tears, they flow from some secret reserve where locked up lie umbilical bonds never to be sundered. Ma, I shall join you someday, just tarry awhile.
Written by Sugata Bose
MA ... 4 ... TUNUKAKI ... SAMMILAN SAMAJ READING ... 27 JAN, 2019
MA ... 4 ... TUNUKAKI ... SAMMILAN SAMAJ READING ... 27 JAN, 2019
Shreecharaneshu Kaki,
Behind the shadowy veil, through the misty looking glass I will always spy You within my lifetime of memories - twinkling glitters I want to reach and touch as they sparkle just a bit beyond, serenely, eternally.
I spy on those young days in Jamshedpur, of Kaka and You holding on steady and strong and Bapi who decided to deceive, slipping out of our fragile grasps. I see the enormous determination and resolve that both of You spread, touching all around you, showing repeatedly that even when You are down, You are never out.
And I spy on my college years in Kolkata, when both of You were the rocks keeping me afloat in turbulent waters. Somehow from then on, Kolkata became You and Your house was Kolkata.
Somewhere also, merged in the unraveling of time, and as marriages and farewells, celebrations and mournings swirled by, You evolved from a figure of authority to a mentor and then to a confidant who understood me more than most others.
As we swam against the currents and struggled in the clutches of our respective worlds, I believe our frequent and not so frequent meetings brought us comfort and closeness, more like adda partners.
All this seeped through to Lakshmi who chose to elevate you to the top of her favourite list. She admits unabashedly that Your authentic forthrightness, Your calm intelligence, Your candid insight, and above all, Your magical vivaciousness made You her Icon to emulate. And the few months when Bonny stayed with You and Your visits to Delhi are indelibly imprinted on him and I know that Bonny quietly accepts his Thamma as his own.
In later years You confided in me the trials and tribulations in Your life, though never as complaints or apologies but always as predicaments to overcome. The fighter in You faced both the joys and hurt in your four score years on this earth with passion and equinamity, with balance and acceptance and without any regrets.
This is how I will always spy You as I peep through the misty looking glass behind the shadowy veil.
You may have lost a battle, but surely You have won the war, everforever.
May Kaka and You Bless Abir and Titli, Laltu and Bulbul, Pinku and Montu, and all of us Always.
Pronam,
Babu
Written by Abhijit Bose
MA ... 3 ... THAMMA ... SAMMILAN SAMAJ READING ... 27 JAN, 2019
MA ... 3 ... THAMMA ... SAMMILAN SAMAJ READING ... 27 JAN, 2019
If Thamma were a Game of Thrones character, she'd be addressed with the following honorifics: The Director of Plays, the Knitter of Sweaters, the Ageless Enthusiast, the First of Her Name, Geeta of House Bose.
Outside the GoT universe too, Thamma was, is and will always be, as we millennials say, a kween.
There are a flood of memories left behind in her wake. Visiting her stall of woollens at the annual Nari Seva exhibition. Chilling in her room in the evenings as a schoolkid. Rehearsing my lines with her for the Pujo'r naatok. The computer she gifted me as a kid. Even the way she burped after meals!
I will miss all of it, and more.
The good folks in Saptaparni have been reminiscing her hand-knitted sweaters too. My friend Duke messaged, “I still wear the sweater she made me.”
I wore one on the Saturday she left us.
They are the physical manifestations of her love for us. As are the happy, smiling photographs of her that we have all been sharing with each other.
Yet, beyond these physical markers, she is in our memories. Not just mine, and my family's, but in yours too, if you are seated here today. We will remember her for all the good she did in the world, for she did a lot of it. Let us cry when we miss her too much, because there is no shame in crying. But let us also remember her happily, with smiles as wide as hers at her happiest. It is the way she'd wish we remember her.
In Bengali, to bid farewell, we say “Aashchi” instead of “Jacchi”. It's because we're leaving, but only to meet again later.
Till then, stay happy wherever you are, Thamma. And take care. I miss you. I love you.
Aashchi.
Written by Meghnad Bose
MA ... 2 ... SAMMILAN SAMAJ READING ... 27 JAN, 2019
MA ... 2 ... SAMMILAN SAMAJ READING ... 27 JAN, 2019
Our mother, Smt. Geeta Bose is no more. She cast aside her mortal coil on 19 Jan, 2019 early in the morning in a peaceful lapse into the other world whence there is no return. After a protracted period of illness and absolute confinement in her Fowler Bed this was a release that had been much sought by her and now her aspiration for freedom has been fulfilled.
Born on 3 July, 1932 to Late Sunil Bose and Nirupama Bose at Rajshahi in erstwhile East Bengal, our mother, one of four siblings, grew up in the five cities of Rajshahi, Baharampur, Jalpaiguri, Dhaka and Kolkata as she had to frequently undergo change of location on account of the transferable job of her father.
At four years and several months in 1937 she had seen Netaji in Baharampur, at eleven years in 1943 while in Dhaka she was witness to the Great Bengal Famine that consumed five million lives, and saw at first hand communal carnage in Dhaka just before Partition.
In Dhaka our mother studied in the Ananda Ashram School. She was an exquisite singer and was, thus, selected to sing before what seems to have been the then President of the Ramakrishna Order, Swami Virajananda, and was blessed by him. The year was 1945 or 46 and our mother was then thirteen. Sixty years later at the advanced age of 73 in 2005 she was graced with spiritual initiation from Virajanandaji's disciple, Swami Gahanananda.
She was married to our father, Late Santosh Bose, and mothered three children, my eldest brother, Bhaskar, who died of leukaemia at the tender age of five years and seven months, my elder sister, Kasturi, and myself, Sugata.
Her marital life was spent at Jamsedhpur and then Kolkata.
Our mother was a versatile being. Music, dance, poetry, prose, theatre, art -- all these came naturally to her. But the brightest of all her talents was in the domain of designing woollens for which she became delightfully distinguished in the metropolis and way beyond. When the West Bengal Government offered her a plot to expand her enterprise from the cottage industry level to the medium scale industrial level, she had to decline the offer on grounds of health. She had to likewise decline Mother Teresa's offer asking her to train women in knitting. But her woollens still cover the selves of so many that she remains bound in a broader kinship with her countless clients.
A dutiful wife and a most affectionate mother, she glided through her advancing years with grace and assumed gradually the role of mother-in-law and grandmother. Titli and Abir, her two grandchildren, fulfilled her in old age.
Our father passed away in 1996 and these twenty-three years since then saw her mature into a mother for all.
The last five years and two months of her life she was incapacitated by the effect of a massive left brain haemorrhage that left her right side paralysed, her speech impaired and her body confined to bed completely. Through the untiring nursing of the ayahs and the physios, the medical treatment provided by doctors and the service rendered by family members, she rallied fine and remained keenly attuned to the proceedings all around. Mother's blessings are on all of them.
Thus dawned the final day of the little one that had seen the light of day in Rajshahi 86 years 6 months and 16 days ago. It was past 4.45 a.m. on 19 Jan, 2019. The flame flickered a last time, brightened, then blew off in the scented early morning breeze. All was quiet by the time I was wakened and rushed to see her gone to her distant abode from where none return.
Written by Sugata Bose
Friday 25 January 2019
NO MORE THIS FEEBLE IMITATION
Our whole attitude must change. This feeble imitation of the West, this worship of wealth, this debilitated devotion to God out of self-interest, all this must go and in its place must come the vigour of nationalism in the tradition of the great revolutionaries who suffered incarceration in the dreaded Cellular Jail and death at the gallows. Patriotism must be the expression of the nation's spirituality in action and glorification of the extreme sacrifices made, the sufferings endured by the martyrs to the nation's freedom, this must be the cornerstone of our national regeneration in a renewed emphasis in its narrative of the freedom struggle retold to the younger generations. May the spirit of the extreme revolutionaries who were men enough not to compromise like the cowardly Congressmen with the perfidious British inspire us even today unto unravelling the true history of our freedom struggle and thence gain the strength to rebuild our nation along lines of light and wisdom, love and sacrifice along preset lines of the race's evolution !
Written by Sugata Bose
HOW MUCH LONGER?
HOW MUCH LONGER?
This country has no future unless its extreme revolutionaries are given their due prominence in the nation's narrative of the freedom struggle. So long as the betrayers to the nation's cause are given honours, nationalism will remain an exercise in appeasement of the electorate for forthcoming elections and will never truly be reflective of the real glory of the nation which it ought to project. Our heroes must not be allowed to sink into oblivion even as each year undeservers steal the show.
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo : Ram Prasad Bismil
THEY BLED TO DEATH THAT WE MAY BREATHE FREE
How many martyrs have shed their life's blood to make this day possible ! The Chapekar brothers -- Damodar, Balkrishna and Vasudev --, Prafulla Chaki, Khudiram Bose, Kanailal Dutta, Satyendranath Bose, Madan Lal Dhingra, Bagha Jatin, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Basanta Kumar Biswas, Anil Ray, Ashfaqullah Khan, Ramprasad Bismil, Chandrasekhar Azad, Bhagwati Charan Vohra, Jatin Das, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar, Shivaram Rajguru, Benoy Krishna Basu, Badal Gupta, Dinesh Chandra Gupta, Pritilata Waddedar, Masterda Surjya Sen, Sachindranath Sanyal, Udham Singh and countless others who sacrificed their lives to free India, not to forget those 26,000 soldiers of the INA that died on their way to Delhi, I salute you all. And salute I the greatest of them, Rash Behari Bose and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose who led the charge unto freedom. Prostrate I this day at the hallowed feet of the greatest of them all whose spirit animated the movement for freedom, Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, the twin souls that altered the course of our national history by lifting us unto a higher realm whence began the struggle for freedom.
Written by Sugata Bose
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