Language martyrs

Let us honour those who laid down their lives for the sake of their mother tongue in Bangladesh on February 21, 1952. It is unfortunate that hardly anybody outside Bengal seems to know about it though the UNESCO has declared the 21st of February as International Day of the Mother Language.

FOR ALL WHO LOVE FREEDOM

UNHEALTHY REMARK

The hijra community has existed in India since ancient times. How can the Health minister say that same-sex behavior is an import from the West ?

POEM # 333

How can I see the invisible line
Between animal passion and divine ?

A series of nightmares come in the wake
Of one cool day when the weather was fine.

Fantasies flooded space earlier on -
Barbarous gems from the primeval mine.

The outer circle pulls at my heartstrings
Dazzling with oligopolized sunshine.

I admit they are as good as those who I know here,
Yet heads and hearts as distant as the banks of the Rhine.

I walk kilometres in vain looking for a sign
That concentric circles may one day meet in one shrine.
Rajib Chakrabarti

Victory of good

SEXISM IN RELIGION

SEXISM IN RELIGION

Pictures and images of Hindu gods as children, like Bal Ganesh and Bal Krishna are loved and worshiped. But what about the goddesses ? Did they not have any childhood ? We do not see pictures of Balika Lakshmi or Saraswati. Female children do not seem to merit any love or adoration, even if they are goddesses. This can also be related to the high rate of female foeticide in the subcontinent.

Waiting for a text message

WAITING  FOR  A  TEXT  MESSAGE

I rush to my cellphone every time I

hear a delusive beep. What have I done ?

My dear, you can never see so high my

fantasies soar close to the growing sun

scorching my soul. It’s not that your eyes are

weaker than mine. But …if I take off my

mask you’ll recoil in horror. Yet why are

you hibernating in this heat,as my

feet sweat to think of the obscurantist

slum indoctrinating you ? We need a

new religion to throw literalist

garbage into their proper place in a

better informed age. And some little patience

to retrieve music from a maze of instruments.

RC