RESET Mode - Out of Service :(

Swallowing is a pain, seemingly impossible

Even breathing feels difficult, the passage of air untenable

Yet, somehow through the aches and fever

One continues mindlessly to persevere

But for what purpose, why, 

It takes resetting out of automode, to dedication belie

To ponder what will happen if one truly rests

Is one afraid that switching off will mean never recovering the work zest?

Isn't that a good thing though?

Reset, refocus, reevaluate, refine, remake yourself?

- Written on 26 July 2024. 
- Tonsilitis :( 

Thoughts on Change and Our Own (In)Action

We say the institute has lost its glory

We say it is in a plight so sorry

Yet we speak and do nothing much

We share ideas and look to others

To do the right thing

We have just too much on our plate going

There is worry and fear of persecution and more

Of opportunities in future lost, if for now we create a furore

And so we choose, to speak, but not do

To lament galore, but not dare choose

To unite, to fight, to last out this grim twilight

We are human, we can be selfish or simply cower in fright

We are educators, a beacon of hope,

But there are times when we too need support

If we want change, we might need way more courage

With our own and others lives, futures and hopes to play. 

If we have chosen to sit out, we need make our peace.

And if we have given it our best, we can rest easy. 

Can we stand now together, we have yet to see

Will we or this institute make it, dunno, whatever it be, it won't be easy.

- Written on 14 July 2024
- Look up news around this :| 

The Cocoon of Hypocrisy

I have thoughts

That go against the grain sometimes

I have feelings

That may seem crazy sometimes

I used to scream them out loud

When did I stop? When did I last myself out?

I cared not when people disagreed

But now I tread more carefully

My actions and words affect more than me

And isn't my muzzling myself a mockery

Of all my learning and preaching

When I speak so carefully

That my authentic self is lost in misery

Of silence, of hypocrisy

But cocoons we weave around ourselves

For in this world we know not who, when, why will target ours and us.

- Written on 11 July 2024
- Random Thoughts

Incomplete Thoughts Penned :)

With a passion to write

A pen worthy of being the scribe

The tool aiding thoughts

So fleeting that are often lost

Now penned fluently like a river in flow

Nary an obstacle that delivers a blow

Such is the power of writing

It aids one's thinking

Once one starts, it is difficult to stop

Thoughts, emotions all on paper burst out

Beautiful, not always complete

Yet one sighs, walks away feeling replete.

- Written on 6 June 2024.
- I think I got a new pen that day and wrote on the scrap I had next to me :) 

Voting - Ordinary?

Tomorrow is election

In my district we need make our selection

As I check our papers to vote

I can't help but note

How this privilege was bestowed on me

That I could have this duty.

I visited Alipore Jail Musuem this January 2024

I came away shook, I did blink away tears galore

There is a display of letters there

That showcase patriotism, love, youth, deep thoughts and care

A display of ordinary people capturing ordinary moments

Yet they were in jail for a cause, suffering beyond our imagination

The audio of a British soldier whipping a prison inmate

The casualness of a barber shaving just a bit away

But more those figurines in the prison

The letters gallery haunts me now even.

The letters in Bengali or Hindi, translated into English

Can't wholly convey the pride nor the anguish

Of the writer nor the reader

But they touch 😭, they torch, they inspire, they are a reminder

Ordinary people, ordinary moments, doing one's duty

A kind word, a kind deed

Will live on in someone's memory

Sparking more revolutions for freedom and peace.

- Written on 19 May 2024. 
- Self-Explanatory

See IG post related to this from me. :) 

Choices: Staying Safe or Voice Out Loud

I used to have a voice that I allowed to resonate

My thoughts, my feelings, as they appeared or were made

But slowly over the years past 

It is in caution that I bask

So much so that I even share and like

With so much more self-saving discernment than is right

If in a cocoon one stays, then what use education 

If one oppresses one's passion and opinions, then what use education? 

Am I afraid someone will pay the price for what I say

But if we never do, then isn't that a danger more grave? 

Staying safe, voicing in small circles will not a change create

Step out, speak up, speak loud, unafraid.

- Written on 5 May 2024
- I seem to feeling more and more stifled these days and mostly the one doing the stifling and censorship is me!! Need to be brave and shout out. :) 

Gone for 2 Years

Gone for 2 years now, 

Yet I speak of you, to you almost everyday somehow.

Your presence even in absence is immense

The legacy of values and attitudes you instilled is your essence.

K and I reminisce at times, 

Your razor sharp wit and the impact of illhealth and time.

Just last week we spoke of how you let us bunk school

To laze in on a morning, to eat pani puri of your making, to just chill, since you were so cool.

And yet, you ensured we learnt, the essence of lessons,

For you wanted most for us health and education

Not those that come as degrees, 

But that are rooted in sense and sensibilities

Perhaps we don't live up to it as much. 

- Written on 20 April 2024.
- Self-Explanatory 

Jane Austen's Mansfield Park - Some Initial Thoughts for a Book Chapter

In this day and age the morality bespoke

In the novel is neither some nor whole 😁😜

The ideas seem frivolous, 

The characters worthless, 

The adultery, the clergy, 

The exaggerated bucolic pastorality, 

All seem to echo 

Mansfield Park is not even worth as retro. 

Yet, something beckons, even if for just the lines

That belie age and space confines

'Selfishness must always be forgiven, you know, 

For there is no hope of a cure'

More such gems in the novel lie

Reading and counter reading into Mansfield Park one can still pry :) 

If you want the more staidly constructed argument then here goes

This article focuses on reading both the lines and the liminal spaces between the lines of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park using the lens of New Historicism primarily in a neoliberal world to examine the value ascribed to people and things in the novel and the values characters hold or develop in the course of the narrative.

"We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be” are lines from Mansfield Park, but is the inner guide devoid of external influences such as exposure even as Austen at times interchanges the aesthetic with the moral. To what extent and in what form do insights from Mansfield Park relate to norms, mores and aims of contemporary times will be dealt with in the article.