Memories of Moonlight by Aparajita

Memories of Moonlight by Aparajita

Through coconut leaves
Flows the silvery light
While the leaves move gently
The moonlight plays hide and seek
The cow under the peepal with its calf
The serene water in the nearby pond
The swaying lilies in the mild breeze
The scent of jasmines in the summer night
In the night’s hug sleeps the silent world
While I drench in the silver light
Grandpa adjusts his silvery beard
Our silver pug stretches at my bedside
Talat’s song carried by the wind
Soothes my chilled mind.

Author's Bio: Aparajita is the pen name of Kameshwari Ayyagari. An avid reader of poetry and fiction, Aparajita is a lecturer in the department of Humanities and Sciences at Malla Reddy Institute of Technology & Science (M.R.I.T.S), Maisammaguda, Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh. Her poetry paints vivid imagery and takes you on a tour in the world of pure imagination where you will forget anything about the world for a moment.

Blessing Ceaselessly published with The Quatrain City

One of Khurshid's ekphrastic poems titled Blessing Ceaselessly is declared Runner-Up in The Quatrain City Poetry Contest # 7, dated June 20, 2010.

To read the poem, please visit:

The Quatrain City run by the writer Jack Huber.

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Contemporary Poetry Post

A Society with No Forward Caste by Khurshid Alam

A Society with No Forward Caste
-- Caste-based Census may Leave India with No Good Caste, No Good People

Many organizations, institutions, and media groups launched campaigns against the idea of caste based census in India. All the polls depict that the people at large are not happy with the caste based census, which our leaders must take note of.

Some political parties are demanding that caste be included in the census which was abolished after 1931. Notably these parties are those which have the records to have divided the people on the basis of caste from time to time. Mandal commission (1990) is a good example in this case.

Bad side of caste-based census

Economic factor: The vice behind caste being a factor in the census is nothing but economic and greed. Once a caste is recorded and recognized, the people belonging to this caste group would demand for economic gain through reservation. In 1931, when census was carried out based on caste system, some communities declared themselves as upper caste. Then there was no reservation in British India. Now it is possible that the reverse of this can happen to gain benefits from reservation, and those who really deserve but do not record themselves as lower caste may suffer.

Social factor: Social differences based on caste have no logic as they are based on birth, while our bahaviour and culture is largely a learned behaviour and is not based on birth. It is a matter of concern that the political leaders, who are claiming to do good to the people, are so ignorant that they do not know how to develop a society. They merely believe that once a person is born in a certain social class, he cannot change forever and that he must cherish the benefits because of his birth. These political leaders want to teach the people to be lazy instead.

Political factor: Since reservation is based on caste, many political parties and leaders demand their caste to be recognised as backward, even though certain castes have never been traditionally regarded as backward. The agitation of the Gujjar community in Rajasthan to be given the Scheduled Tribe (ST) status in 2008 is such an example. It is to be noted that they already enjoy the benefits of belonging to the Other Backward Class in the state. The Meenas, another caste community in Rajasthan, followed the same path of agitation and won the ST status. Both the castes earlier belonged to the upper caste system in the society. This is only because they want to gain the benefits of reservation.

Similar agitations for recognition of new castes as backward are going on in many states in India, especially those which are widely divided on caste basis. This race has the danger to initiate more conflicts for other castes to be declared as backward and claim the benefits of reservation.

If caste is included in the 2011 census, we will have a society with no forward caste left at all. We will be on the risk of creating an India with no good caste and no good people.

References:
1. Rediff.com

Scratched Thoughts!!! by Arya

Scratched Thoughts!!! (A Poem)

Carefully optimizing life, I moved on,
Contemplating the fact that I am stirred
Then, with tranquility around, a sound I heard
“Don’t you want to look back once?” echoes to me referred

Scratched duplicated thoughts,
Why was I getting them in the first place?
I had chosen what was meant to be
It was karma, for me to displace

Peace is a strange word
It rages many wars
I had lived upon this notion of peace
Fighting endless unwanted wars

It was a resonance of emotions or
Was it a deep abyss of thoughts?
I was at a pavement of the road
That I had already crossed.

There were flowers on the way,
& there were pebbles piled upon
Plucking the stones, I gathered them all
& left the flowers for companions, I moved on…

Author's Bio: Arya is the pen name of Abhay Chokshi. Arya a technical writer in a software company based in Ahmedabad (India). He is an emerging writer but has the fire of a great writer. He would like to define himself as: I am a writer with a panache. Just a bore on few days but on other ones, I am as inquisitive as radiant moving water. I love to write (I know everyone says that but..) and that separates me from the rest. Someday, I will prove my point. I am slightly insane but then world needs a bit of it.

Views & Comments on 'Everybody draws Mohammed'

Views & Comments
on
'Everybody draws Mohammed' an article that appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 28 June 2010, on page 1.

‘Everybody draws Mohammed’ is the article that does not only bring a truth what length the fanatics can go in the name of religion out but also shows that the vandalism is the business of some people who gain on it. However I think two aspects are important to make clear here. One that liberty is often wrongly understood by us, particularly by those who think themselves super-intellectuals or super-liberals. Liberty is the freedom to speech and we have to fight, as people have always fought throughout historical records, to speak freely against all the odds that hold humanity back. We must speak against all those things that are atrocious, that go in the name of the religion.

But cartooning a religious person is not liberty; rather it is against the liberty of the person who is subject in the competition between the super-liberals and the fanatics. (However, please note cartooning a non-religious person is different). Likewise tearing or burning holy books or destroying religious places cannot be the example-act of liberty. The destruction of the Buddha images at Bamayan (Afghanistan) by Taliban in 2001 cannot be said the act of liberty. Liberty holds a positive perspective and should not encroach on the sentiments and liberty of the people at large. For example we do not have the freedom of abusing any person, it is derogative. At the same time we must not be silent against raising questions that religious trite forces us to do without acquiesce.

Second, any person committing blasphemy is subject to public condemnation and can even be trialed, but to the civic laws and not to the religious or personal laws. Such a person cannot be killed just because what he said or did is blasphemous. We must be tolerant of that level so as we can understand what those who oppose a thing have in their mind. Tolerance of the highest level also promotes liberty in the long run.

Moreover the liberty of derogatory representation of a belief is the destruction of virtual entity, while fanatic treatment of killing a blasphemous is the destruction of physical entity. Both ideologies are destructive and not good for the society, whereas the very purpose of liberty is the betterment of the society. Importantly, I would ask, why anyone insists in representing a religious person in a derogatory way.