FEAR NOT, FIGHT ON, HAVE FAITH ... CORONA SERIES [4]

FEAR NOT, FIGHT ON, HAVE FAITH ... CORONA SERIES [4]

Inspiration comes to the courageous. At this time of unprecedented crisis, stay calm and courageous. Be inspired by the words of the Swami Vivekananda and fight on to save yourself and humanity from this dreaded virus that has been thus unleashed by Nature or God, call it what you will, or call it the dreaded hand of probabilistic happening that ever lurks in the shadowy terrain to destroy us, such being the scheme of things in inscrutable Maya.

So, remain calm and courageous, being rooted to the Self or the God you adore and have faith in, but make sure that you do not, in blind trust of the Almighty, flout the medical directives that are being so eloquently sounded. Upon your observance depends not only your own safety but that of the safety of millions, for the Coronavirus can be communicated in an exponential manner that could decimate millions in the long run, it having already claimed the lives of over 11,000 people the world over.

At this time of home-quarantining, make sure that you spend your time in a worthwhile manner to advance your knowledge, expand your heart and deepen your soul. Meditate, pray, read and reflect but do not brood, despair, fret and fume, and most importantly, do not fear. God is with us and He will save us from this pandemic by instilling hope in our hearts and inspiring us with the right solution to this pernicious problem.

Governments of nations must take cognition of the fact that it is fruitless to make for international competition in acquisition of arms and ammunition aimed at not really defence so much as mutual annihilation. If man is so hell-bent on such a mass harakiri, it serves him right to thus be sounded the warning that dangerous times are ahead. And never look down upon the low and the lowly, never use might as your birthright to crush the weaker ones, for the insignificant virus, what it can do, has been amply demonstrated. So, take a fresh guard and struggle on to build a common mass of humanity where the fight is not against each other but against primeval ignorance that has plagued us as a species thus far.

May God be with us, not a sectarian God that blesses His adherents and kills His detractors but the benign God that dwells in the human heart and leads us all unto the realm of bliss and blessedness through the uncharted terrain of turbulent Maya ! May He preserve humanity, all of sentient life and the environment that like a mother fosters life in her bosom !

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : courtesy, Getty Images, BBC.

WHEN NATURE SENDS HER THUNDERBOLT AND MAN IN AWE WONDERS ... CORONA SERIES [3]

WHEN NATURE SENDS HER THUNDERBOLT AND MAN IN AWE WONDERS ... CORONA SERIES [3]

The hope of man is his will to fight, for that is what has sustained him through the ages, and he will triumph over his present predicament as well. It is a common concern now for all of humanity and distinctions the virus has made vanish as it spares neither friend nor foe, prince nor pauper, nor does it recognise class, position or pelf. The virus attacks all and none can hold it culpable to partiality or favouritism. It has in its vicious spread equalised all and Nature has shown to man that religions preach lies where they create divisions among a common mass of humanity.

Let the God that protects only His followers and condemns the rest now save his adherents from destruction. Let atheists hold their counsel, too, and not preach anti-religious venom in their supercilious attitude of a superior wisdom.

Yes, indeed, we must alter our manner of thought, change our ways and means, amend our lifestyles and introspect, lest the corona catches us even more unsuspecting and teaches us worse the lessons of life we long ought to have learnt.

May sanitation be our priority and may sanity prevail as we do so ! May Mother preserve all, especially those of Her children who are battling for dear breath this moment ! My heart goes out to them as my love embraces all.

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : courtesy, Washington Post

TO DROP INTO THE BEING

TO DROP INTO THE BEING

The moment is all that you have. The past is memory, the future imagination, the present is all of it -- perception. And that, too, is in the past. The real present is the Real Presence where perception has dissolved into realisation of the Being. There space is not, nor time nor causality. Hence, the past, the present and the future like dreams dissolve into a non-spacial sphere of the Self brooding on the Self timelessly. Call it eternity if you will but you can hardly ascribe any of your epithets to define this indefinable existence which is self-contained and self-inclusive.

Only in the realm of samadhi does it reveal itself to itself when the dead man dies and the life within reveals itself to itself in its silent stillness, not inert but living without a pulse-beat distracting itself into distinctions galore. Unity is, singularity is, yet not of annihilation but of wholeness, solidarity supreme of the existence absolute.

Written by Sugata Bose

WHEN JOURNALIST TURNS LAWYER AND LAWYER FACES 'CROSS-EXAMINATION'

WHEN JOURNALIST TURNS LAWYER AND LAWYER FACES 'CROSS-EXAMINATION'

1. Keshab Bhattacherjee was caught on quite a sticky wicket as Kunal Bose bowled his top-spinners relentlessly at him. But Keshab Babu defended his wicket well right till the end gracefully.

2. Kunal's 'cross-examination' of Keshab Bhattacherjee was simply brilliant today. The lawyer defended his line, though, but not quite convincingly.

3. The lawyer passed through the same ordeal which he makes the accused in court pass through. But the silver lining was that despite inconclusive and widely deflected answers given to pertinent questions posed by the interviewer who was in the mode of deadly grilling of his interviewee, the latter came out triumphant through it all, not quite in terms of providing satisfactory answers but in the grace and good humour that he exhibited throughout the interview, even commending Kunal in the end for tough-questioning him which, he said, helped him to answer that much more, that is, bring out a plethora of facts to the fore.

4. But Keshab Babu's assertion about Netaji living right till date and his conviction that he will appear riding the crest of a Third World War seemed more founded in a fervent hope than on concrete evidence or reason. However, here at least one sees a gentleman who does not hide his face behind others projected ahead by him and has the courage to articulate in clear unstammering terms what he believes to be true despite the odds being stacked heavily against it.

5. This interview seemed more one-pointed than the dilute versions earlier where the interviewer seemingly was apprehensive of asking too many tough questions in too persistent a way. However, it does seem that Kunal is catering to an audience and is mindful of his viewership, for one saw in today's interview a different tenor and tone which was seemingly the attempt to quell the criticism he has recently faced about presenting absurd propositions about Netaji in his shows. That Keshab Babu with his good graces and legal experience fitted the bill well to rationalise the whole affair was amply evident in the manner Kunal went about grilling him throughout the show. It was as if he was hell-bent on redeeming his erstwhile 'fallen status' as a gentleman of rational sufficiency. No harm in that, too, as the highly sporting and supporting lawyer helped him on with his affable answering, even if off-track, over-elaborated and rationally untenable so often.

Written by Sugata Bose

OBJECTIVE REASONING AND SUBJECTIVE FAITH

OBJECTIVE REASONING AND SUBJECTIVE FAITH

The individual and the aggregate -- this is the point of contention. How far can an individual shape collective destiny? Where are the natural limits to such exercise?

How far ought fantasy to stretch in its wild spring unto the discovery of truth and how far must reason restrain the dispersing mind from committing logical errors and falling into the pitfalls that lie in the path of the unravelling of truth?

These are rational contentions and must be brooded on in one's intellectual build-up so that one may be armed in incisive reasoning that may lead one to truth.

There is no point in wasting a lifetime in circular superstition that leads nowhere save to bring one time and time again to the reference point of ignorance. Research needs reasonableness to begin with and to be armed with the rational equipment of the mind trained in the art and the science of investigation. Here emotion may be a driving force but no more than that where fact-finding and analysis are concerned. This is the scientific method and must be the one that has to be applied in every endeavour of objective fact-finding.

Let us read more, reason even more and realise the most what we have read and rationalised. Let vanity be dispelled in the realisation that we know so little and must know so much more for we have the organic capacity to do so. But shall we? This then is the question where I take my leave.

Written by Sugata Bose

TO THE YOUTH OF INDIA WHO WISH TO RESOLVE THE NETAJI DISAPPEARANCE MYSTERY BASED ON REASONABLE THRUSTS INTO IT RATHER THAN WILD FANCIFUL IMAGININGS

TO THE YOUTH OF INDIA WHO WISH TO RESOLVE THE NETAJI DISAPPEARANCE MYSTERY BASED ON REASONABLE THRUSTS INTO IT RATHER THAN WILD FANCIFUL IMAGININGS

Right. Right you are. So, pile up the pressure for rational statement of fact and not articulate imagination or wild, fanciful thinking devoid of reasonable foundation, if at all the assertions made are to hold their ground. You, as the youth of today, must not give in to superstition or surface reasoning if you wish to unearth the pertinent facts of this case or to resolve it ever to any reasonable satisfaction.

Spiritualism must include rationalism and ought not to exclude it in the establishment of either its principles or its experiential aspects. Therein the Sanatan dharma shastras expound rationally what the sages have intuitively realised in transcendent experience. Swami Vivekananda was of the opinion that reason ought never to be forsaken even in spiritual matters so that it does not degenerate into arrant superstition which is the product not of spiritual culture but of rank materialism.

Hence, the Netaji disappearance mystery discourse must find its way out of this labyrinth of fantasies and beliefs into the broad avenue of clear thinking, clean conceptions and rational rigour. Else, the degeneration of the discussion is bound to be and the corpse of history will fester despite the blossoms of belief heaped on it. The youth must take up this charge and delve deep into this mystery with the scientist's analytical mind and the surgeon's scalpel to conduct this operation of the separation of fact from fiction.

Written by Sugata Bose

THE LEADER AND HIS FORTHRIGHTNESS IN DECISION-MAKING -- A RESPONSE TO SUBHAS CHANDA'S APT COMMENT ON MY EARLIER POST ON SELF-DISAGREEMENT IN AGREEMENT WITH ALL

THE LEADER AND HIS FORTHRIGHTNESS IN DECISION-MAKING -- A RESPONSE TO SUBHAS CHANDA'S [Subhas Chanda] APT COMMENT ON MY EARLIER POST ON SELF-DISAGREEMENT IN AGREEMENT WITH ALL

You have hit the hammer on the head of the nail, indeed. Alas, it is this lack of leadership that often spells the doom of civilisation. No wonder the Lord has in His unbounded grace promised us leadership each time we significantly stray from the upward curve of evolution when He prophesied His appearance to redeem us each time, from the war-field of the Kurukshetra. And so has He fulfilled His word every time we sank almost into oblivion from where He has pulled us through and placed us again on the advancing avenue of high civilisation where the traffic moves onward even as the avenue itself evolves unto the destiny ahead.

Even Karl Marx has underscored the emphatic role of the leader in whom the aspirations of the age in revolutionary terms is embodied and expressed, whose cognition of the constraining conditions of the exploitation of the masses helps organise the popular discontent into the mighty movement of revolution to redeem the soul of sinking man. It is this leadership that arises from the ranks of the literate middle class and ignites the powder of revolution among the minds of the proletariat to uproot and overthrow the forces of age-old exploitation that has reduced human beings to beasts of burden.

Yes, the leader of men does listen to his discerning mind's call even as he measures the variables of the times in which his movement operates, and lends the motion of the masses the due direction that can achieve the revolutionary ends. In the absence of the leader revolution is rendered sterile even if conditions otherwise are ripe for the uprising. Hence, by some queer law of history where necessity gives birth to invention, the leader arises from the ranks of the middle class to lead the pulverised proletariat class into active confrontation with the privileged class, a titanic struggle which is termed revolution. Then the wheel revolves through half a cycle and the high are rendered low and the low raised high till class distinctions disappear and equality, that wonderful principle of the French Revolution, prevails.

And the leader cannot agree with all. He must agree with the call of revolution and all that it demands. His allegiance is not to the fortunes of the few who have sat in exploitative sovereignty over the teeming millions for ages but to those who have been thus reduced to beastly status.

Finally, it is the decisive call from within that must, though, be the rational resolution of all opinions and viewpoints weighed with an end in view to be achieved, that impels the leader on to his path of effective action which may differ in intensity as per the requirements of the times and the situational demands.

But forthright the leader must be. Else, he is one of the multitude that blindly moves on to it ruinous end. Such a one a real leader can never be and never is as history in repeated terms so articulately chronicles despite its unpardonable heresies in hiding facts and narrating the concocted tale of the victor in war.

Written by Sugata Bose

IN RESPONSE TO SAUMYA MISHRA'S APT COMMENT ON MY EARLIER POST ON SELF-DISAGREEMENT IN AGREEMENT WITH ALL

IN RESPONSE TO SAUMYA MISHRA'S [Saumy Mishra] APT COMMENT ON MY EARLIER POST ON SELF-DISAGREEMENT IN AGREEMENT WITH ALL

Well said. But that was implicit in the statement in the word 'all', you see, which would obviously exclude oneself and not be quite 'all' in the legal sense, that is to say. That is literature as distinct from lacklustre law and therein lies the beauty afforded by literary license and the free flow of the word following from it.

Ideas are understood in essence and not in terms of crust value alone. Beauty transcends temporal norms and embraces the bounds of the horizon that ever shifts, leaving in its trail the articulate objects of civilisation from its unexpressed and inexpressible realm of the pure idea. Literature affords the unique union of the idea and the form, and one is to savour its fruition in sense and sensibility, in intuition and inspiration, and in the grasped and the guessed where colours combine and disperse in an array of beauteous form and figure, and lovelier lines as yet unformed into patterns that may meet the eye and enthral with the delight of the divine.

Between expression then and its elusive flight lies poetry and literature and art and music and all of those inexact studies of the soul that hold humanity in its best attention and therein lies the call of the unknown sounded to the known to usher it onward unto the destiny divine. There lies the union of the trinity -- truth, beauty, goodness, the earliest universal abstraction of life's ends that eventually converge onto the inexpressible essence of things.

Written by Sugata Bose

Sugata Bose Subhas Chanda Read my essay above please to gain an insight into my mind about the point raised by Saumy Mishra. His point is pertinent, indeed, and and very well raised, too. I have merely elucidated some of the principles of literary expression and of civilisation in its expressed march unto the inexpressible.

THE SATAN BUG ... CORONA SERIES [2]

THE SATAN BUG ... CORONA SERIES [2]

It's a war against a virus.

Long ago when I was 19, I had read Alistair MacLean's 'The Satan Bug' and had been so taken in by the author's graphic representation of the bug and its power to annihilate the entire population of the world that I remember having prayed each night to God for a stretch of 18 long months to prevent its leakage into the world. How I could have in my innocence so related the novel to reality had always baffled me till the other day when it turned into a reality in the shape of the Novel Coronavirus that causes COVID-19, both names significant in terms of my earlier association with MacLean's work.

Now the bug has been released during my lifetime to prove that science fiction very often precedes scientific happening in real. Let us now read the novel in real terms and come to grips with its ending which for sure is not in the novelist's hands but in the hands of his readers who he had forewarned about its consequences 58 years ago when 'The Satan Bug' was fist published by him under the pseudonym Ian Stuart.

It is a satanic bug, indeed, and deserves a divine deliverance. Let humanity, the intermediary between the dark and the bright forces, duck this dreaded virus in the Jordan or the Ganga of recuperative redemption.

May God be with you all and save you from this Satan bug !

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : courtesy, Washington Post

WHEN COLLECTIVE PRAYER KILLS ... CORONA SERIES [1]

WHEN COLLECTIVE PRAYER KILLS ... CORONA SERIES [1]

Fools gather to pray at a time when contact itself is death's agent. Death stalks open in avenues and assemblies but can scarce penetrate the walls of your homes should you observe the health directives of the WHO. The Coronavirus can strike only where distance is diminished and not otherwise. Foster interpersonal bonds now by creating interpersonal physical distance. If you can tide over the crisis of the day, the morrow waits on you to afford proximity.

Observe fundamental hygiene and the pertinent health points raised by the WHO. Do not become quack doctors of the day and play with others' lives. Do not spread misinformation or create panic among the people. Stick to the basic guidelines coming from the medical authorities.

This virus has the capacity for exponential growth and can decimate populations if the correct measures are not adopted in time. Therefore, practise the minimum self-restraint of maximum quarantining of your persons at home. Should you experience any discomfort in terms of breathing or dry cough or fever, be sure to consult your doctor and seek his advice as to future steps required to be taken.

A final word. Do not panic. Do not hoard stocks and reserves by going on a buying spree of essentials. That will create market supply problems and many will suffer including, may be, you yourself at a later point in time. But do not take this deadly virus easy. That will be the most foolish thing you will have ever done. This is a killer virus but only if you go near it.

Prayers now will not work beyond making your heart stout enough to face death if you gather to send your submissions to God. Keep to your closet and pray in peace. Be rational, be scientific, and if you cannot muster such attributes suddenly, pray, listen to rational and scientific medical advice given to you by doctors and health authorities of global repute such as the WHO [World Health Organisation].

May you stay at home and work ! May you feel a sense of peace in such homeliness ! Help yourself and all in fighting this common enemy of humanity, the dreaded Novel Coronavirus that kills.

God bless you all !

Written by Sugata Bose

সান্ধ্য সম্ভাষণ ... শ্রীযুক্ত কেশব ভট্টাচার্য

সান্ধ্য সম্ভাষণ ... শ্রীযুক্ত কেশব ভট্টাচার্য

'চক্রব্যূহে নেতাজী' গ্রন্থের প্রণেতা শ্রীযুক্ত কেশব ভট্টাচার্য মহাশয়কে আজ আমার সান্ধ্য সম্ভাষণ, "আপনার নিরলস প্রচেষ্টায় আমরা একটি প্রামাণ্য গ্রন্থ পেয়েছি যা নেতাজী রহস্য সমাধানে অনেকটাই এগিয়ে দিল আমাদের । ভাল থাকবেন, সুস্থ থাকবেন, কেশব বাবু ।" ... সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)

YET AGAIN UNTO SHABARI GHOSH FOR HER DEPTH OF FEELING FOR THE NEGLECTED AND THE DYING

YET AGAIN UNTO SHABARI GHOSH [Shabari Ghosh] FOR HER DEPTH OF FEELING FOR THE NEGLECTED AND THE DYING

You have a discerning mind and a feeling heart, too. The arm in action being made ready through proper qualification and placement in the administrative world, you will do seminal work for the country in the future. Then shall you be equipped with the triple arsenal of the head, the heart and the hands as Swamiji had envisaged his future followers would be in the execution of his blueprint of plans for the national regeneration-- the heart to feel the misery of his fallen people, the head to conceive of grand and practicable ideas for the amelioration of his fallen countrymen's socioeconomic status and the hands to execute and give active fruition to what the heart felt and the head thought of.

Unto such a dawn, my child,
I send these lines tonight,
They'll waft through the starry skies
To welcome you with the light.

Written by Sugata Bose

Shabari Ghosh I'm honoured Sir, but not yet ready to grasp all such praise and admiration and I feel I'm not worthy of it. This makes me ashamed.

Sugata Bose Shabari Ghosh Morning shows the day, my father used to often quote this old adage, and, so, I also say unto thee that there are yet things brewing up in the womb of history unknown to thee for which ye must prepare lest the hour passes and the chance to fulfil the Mother's hopes goes with it, for She is ever active in Her dispensation of opportunity and occasion to Her children and in Her wide dispersal of the seeds of Her future fruition, never stopping as She relentlessly courses through the frontiers of time, space and causality, here bestowing on one Her gift, there showering Her graces on another, even as She empowers the one She chooses to be able to do Her bidding. Hence, unbounded is Her bounty, inviolable Her will and ceaseless Her passage through Time whose consort She is, creating, preserving, destroying things in Her play of unfathomable ends. That She so chooses you to do Her bidding you can but bow down and submit to it like an observant and obedient daughter in whom She Herself manifests her Being that otherwise eludes all in its transcendent habitat. God bless you, my child !

A WORD OR TWO TO THE RESEARCHERS ON NETAJI BY WAY OF HUMBLE SUBMISSION

A WORD OR TWO TO THE RESEARCHERS ON NETAJI BY WAY OF HUMBLE SUBMISSION

The ability to concisely answer a question to the point without undue digression or attempted deflection ought to be the hallmark of a Netaji researcher who wishes to substantiate his claim that Netaji had survived the purported 1945 air-crash. Inconsequential elaboration of points off the course of the discussion cannot lend weight to the argument posited to prove the point. Hence, it is an imperative for researchers to stick to the point and answer point-blank the questions posed by inquirers in case they are in the knowledge of such or to flat admit that they cannot answer them owing to lack of knowledge on the same.

The problem is not only one of articulation of facts but also one of insufficient training in the scientific method following what is called the rational rigour. Mere assortment of facts and claims do not make a theory. The narrative must be well-connected and the facts presented in an orderly manner so as to carry conviction with the audience, assuming that the facts are verified and verifiable as such. Loose logic with a pitfall hither and a pitfall thither will not do. Neither will emotional effusion on Netaji suffice to carry the day, nor Gandhi-Nehru-Mountbatten-bashing to excite undue emotion that throw under cover the lame logic applied, convince the audience for more than the moment of confused acquiescence.

It seems, as I have earlier many times mentioned, that researchers, for want of the attribute of articulation and the capacity for clear rational thinking as becomes a historian who has not been perverted from his professional integrity by considerations of the copper coin, need to undergo training both in the science of rational thinking and in the art of articulate presentation of their matter. In the absence of this training there will abound gaps galore in their statements which will not only arm adversaries to counter their points effectively but also nullify the conclusions they have erroneously drawn about their subject matter.

One more point and this is most significant. There is a human tendency to first draw a preferred conclusion about an episode as per personal predilection and then to somehow try and fit facts into the narrative to substantiate the claim. This, in the case of a historical analysis and inference-building exercise, is ruinous for it is patently a dishonest means of achieving an erroneous end. This ought not to be in the case of unravelling the Netaji mystery. Researchers must scrupulously adhere to intellectual honesty and base their conclusions or the lack of it strictly on evidence that is legally tenable and also can stand the test of rational rigour beyond the domain of legislated acts.

I have made my presentation and exhort researchers now to read it, reflect and come to reasonable adjustments in the marshalling of their argumentative arsenal so that they can pulverise perfidious opposition to the surfacing of truth.

Jai Hind !

Written by Sugata Bose

প্রাতঃপ্রণাম ! বাঘাযতীন ।

প্রাতঃপ্রণাম !

বিবেকানন্দ-অনুপ্রাণিত স্থিতধী, বীর্যবান, বালেশ্বরের রণাঙ্গনের রক্তক্ষয়ী বীরবিপ্লবী বাঘাযতীন ।

তখনো জীবন চলেছে ।

সশস্ত্র বিপ্লবের মূল হোতা, বার্লিন কমিটির প্রাণপুরুষ, অরবিন্দের দক্ষিণবাহু, রাসবিহারীর পথপ্রদর্শক, নরেন্দ্রনাথ ভট্টাচার্যের (এম.এন.রায়) একমাত্র নেতা, যতীন্দ্রনাথ মুখার্জির চরণকমলে প্রণাম ।

রচয়িতা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)

Sugata Bose Ashis Kumar Basu So, here you fundamentally differ with those who ascribe this epithet to Aurobindo Ghosh who, though, quite early on quit the revolutionary scene to become sage, thereby committing his comrades to deportation to the kalapani.

Sugata Bose Ashis Kumar Basu Very accurate description of Aurobindo Ghosh and Sri Aurobindo in consequential relation.

প্রাতঃপ্রণাম । ইলা বসু ।

প্রাতঃপ্রণাম ।

নেতাজীর ভ্রাতস্প্রুত্রী, সেজদাদার কন্যা, ইলা বসু, যিনি নেতাজীর মহানিস্ক্রমণের ঠিক পূর্বে তাঁরই দ্বারা প্রেরিত হয়ে দক্ষিণেশ্বর কালীমন্দির যান মায়ের প্রত্যাদেশ আনার জন্য । নেতাজীর এই আদরের ভাইঝির প্রতি জানাই সশ্রদ্ধ প্রণাম । তাঁর অত্যন্ত গুরুত্বপূর্ণ এই ভূমিকা পালন, দেবীর প্রত্যাদেশ আনার মাঝে লুকিয়ে আছে ভারতমুক্তির নায়কের সেদিনের স্বাধীনতার সংকল্পকে সফলকাম ও নিষ্কণ্টক করার আত্মিক অভিপ্রায় যা সকল ভারতীয়কে মাতৃৠণে আবদ্ধ করেছে । কারণ এই সাধিকা ভ্রাতস্প্রুত্রীটি, আধ্যাত্মিকতার দিক দিয়ে বিচার করলে, তাঁর রাঙাকাকাবাবুরই যথার্থ উত্তরসূরী ছিলেন । তাঁর অকালপ্রয়াণ নেতাজীঅনুরাগী সকলের কাছেই গভীর দুঃখের কারণ হয়েছিল ও তাঁর পিতা, শ্রীযুক্ত সুরেশচন্দ্র বসুকে নিদারুণ কষ্ট দিয়েছিল । নেতাজী কি সেদিন বেঁচে ছিলেন এই শোকসংবাদ শোনার জন্য ?

রচয়িতা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)

WHEN ONE FAILS TO CRACK A CRACKED JOKE !

WHEN ONE FAILS TO CRACK A CRACKED JOKE !

In humorous response to Swami Ekarthananda's post on his having received immunisation from the corona virus on account of his having lived in Jammu and Kashmir for five years in close proximity to Karuna Maharaj.

This post is in response to an innocent comment made by a lady on whom Maharaj's joke was entirely lost in the routine way of the dull devotee's as will soon be the fate of this one as well, beginning now. However, in its out of the context over-explanation, the spice of the post, by now top-heavy, has, I guess, already been lost. Hence, in pursuit of your appreciation of wit, refer to our rasaraj Maharaj's original post to savour its rightful humour, if, indeed, any righteousness is ever attached to humour by law.

My response to the devotee's comment on Maharaj's post follows now when, perhaps, you have yawned off to sleep. Hence, read on waking up.

Incidentally, the said devotee had invoked Thakur-Ma-Swamiji's protection for Maharaj against the corona. Hence ...
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The virus is very dangerous. Does not even spare divinities. Hence, all places of worship are shut. So, now Maharaj has to protect himself. But you must have missed the post altogether. Maharaj has in a nutshell explained his acquisition of the corona amulet from our Karuna Maharaj. What pre-planning by Thakur, you could rather say by a concessional gift to the Lord ! So, He posted Ekartha Maharaj in proximity with Karuna Maharaj in distant Jammu and Kashmir to ready him for His latter posting of the corona to earth.

Hope to have set in things right
In right humour, I dare say.
Please do not mind so much
My humorous barging into the fray.

Written by Sugata Bose

MARTYRS TO THE MOTHERLAND ... 1

MARTYRS TO THE MOTHERLAND ... 1

There is something called powder [barood] in the soul. And this is what characterised the revolutionaries for freedom. What they burst outside was but the reflection, the image of their inner selves. This is what the British feared the most and before things got out of hand, either executed them or deported them to die despicable deaths in deprivation and torture. Unto some such martyrs to the motherland, this night, I lay my heart's adoration.

Vande Mataram !

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo :The Chapekar brothers, Damodar Hari Chapekar, Balkrishna Hari Chapekar and Vasudeo Hari Chapekar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapekar_brothers

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, COLONEL GURBAKSH SINGH DHILLON SIR !

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GENERAL GURBAKSH SINGH DHILLON SIR !

Netaji fought an actual war and the only one that secured freedom in the end. The internal dynamics within the nation stood in the way of his greater success but could not force him into isolation as planned post-Tripuri. That the forces, conflicting to begin with but circumstantially harmonised in the end with the view to achieving freedom, all eventually combined to precipitate a partitioned dominion status and then a republican sovereignty owed much to the INA assault on the eastern frontiers of British India, a historical fact that must be assigned due status in our texts and treatises that by the cartloads appear and preach a passive turn to the entire narrative of the struggle for freedom.

Today, 18 March, is the birthday of the one of the great heroes of the Indian National Army, General Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, personally selected by Netaji to command the Nehru Brigade and hold the Irrawaddy River against the counter-offensive by the British Indian forces.

After the war was lost and the INA had surrendered, Dhillon, along with Shah Nawaz Khan and Prem Kumar Sahgal, were tried for treason against the King-Emperor at the Red Fort but, on better discretion by the British, released owing to the prevailing mass unrest that resulted from their conviction. The following popular slogan rent the skies of India those days :

Lal Qile se aaee awaaz,

Sahgal, Dhillon, Shah Nawaz,
Teenon ki ho umar daraz

[ From the Red Fort rings the cry,

Sahgal, Dhillon, Shah Nawaz,

Long live the trio, long long live,

Immortal heroes, never to die ! ]

Dhillon had met Netaji on 15 October, 1944 at his Rangoon residence and was appointed Commander of the Nehru Brigade on 26 October of the same month. Netaji could see the sterling element in this Sikh and trust him to carry out his charge which the latter did till the end of his life on 6 February, 2006, in Gwalior. Dhillon has left behind his memoirs in his 'From My Bones' which chronicles his epic saga in the INA and his interactions with its leader.

I bow down to the memory of this marvellous martial man who spent the flower of his life in pursuing his motherland's independence under the leadership of her brightest son, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, whose radiance will continue to brighten our lives for ages to come.

Written by Sugata Bose

P.S. Given below are the links to some of the YouTube videos featuring Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu5QWWxMS4w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzjUXomx-lk&t=413s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcgLbAbzzGY&t=2699s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOEijhpOFko&t=558s https://www.jatland.com/home/Gurbaksh_Singh_Dhillon?fbclid=IwAR3Kh1l8nuhoSZUEmtnFF1jHmoSNkI2jhHWstkt1ceocDXRQ3l1mdAFDSPA

Sugata Bose Shubham Sharma, are you related to Col. Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon?

• Shubham Sharma Sugata Bose yes..
  Though not a blood relation but more than that..
  My youngest great grandfather was a Lt Colonel in INA and Great grandfather was revolt leader at Core of Signals Jabalpur following INA trials in red fort..
  Tatuji (Col GS Dhillon) is survived by two children at the moment- Sarvjit Dhillon and Dr Amrita Mehrotra Retired Dean GR medical college Gwalior.
  Tauji(Sarvjit Dhillon) lives in village Hatod district shivpuri (110 Kms from Gwalior) and my home is also in Gwalior MP.
  I still remember the eyes of Col GS Dhillon when he was on his death bed at JA group of hospital Gwalior Madhya Pradesh.
  

  Son in law of Col GS Dhillon Major RN Mehrotra, daughter Dr Amrita Mehrotra, grandchildren myself and all family members can be seen
• Shubham Sharma Sugata Bose at Col Dhillon's shrine on his 14th death anniversary dated 6th February 2020 village Hatod district shivpuri Madhya Pradesh.
  Sugata Bose Shubham Sharma Thanks for all these photographs. Do take the pains to submit a write-up on your association with Col. Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon and his kith and kin, here on this group page.