The Latest (January 2011)

For long I have been using one of blogger's preset themes as my background. I felt it was high time I changed that and began using a photograph taken by me. So here I present to you the new theme of the blog. Besides the background change I have incorporated a few minor changes into to blog. There is an added option of sharing blog posts and rating them. Please feel free to tell me what you think.

Regards,

Mukund Palat Rao

New Poem: Carpe Diem

Carpe Diem

Here I am,

And I am running for I am late,

The sun has almost set, and I must reach my haunt in time,

I reach a bend by the stream and take my place,

The sky is a majestic eclectic mix of auburn, golden, red and blue hues,

And large ominous clouds have begun to appear in the sky,

Red on the eastern sunset end and dark on the other,

The sun is now barely visible through the trees,

It will be dark soon.

A herdswoman gathers her cattle behind me,

She clicks her tongue beckoning them to hasten,

But I continue to sit there impeding their path,

Some of them go quietly around me,

A calf looks at me curiously,

To my left on the branches of a dry semal tree the crows have gathered to roost,

Their chatter is cacophonic,

The calf comes closer and smells my jeans,

I do not wish that I scare her by moving,

She contemplates over whether it is edible or not,

And decides to have a try,

Denim isn’t quite her cup of tea,

It is bland and tasteless she decides,

She then loses her interest in me,

The herd has moved on and she hurries to join them.

There are a pair of red breasted king fisher hovering above the stream,

How about one more fish before a good night’s sleep?

The brahmini kites and eagles soar high in the sky,

The light is fast fading,

They have sharp vision,

But it might have become too dark for them to hunt prey today.

A laggard lone male calf still chews his grass behind me,

The herdswoman appears exasperated,

She races back with her stick,

Calling him,

Soon he’ll be a full grown bull,

Stately and regal,

Too strong for her to control,

She won’t be taking him on walks then,

And she’ll have to leave him behind in the barn.

An Imam commences his Salat-ul-maghrib namaz,

Calling the faithful to prayer,

His voice is lucid,

It doesn’t disturb me,

It is faint yet discernable,

In tune with the surroundings.

Twilight is fleeting,

Night is almost upon us,

A man comes cycling along the opposite bank,

Behind him paddy fields,

And the last of the Western Ghat mountains in the horizon,

Tall, imposing and commanding respect,

I watch his reflection,

As it cycles on and into the horizon,

Oblivious of me watching.

I get up now,

In five minutes it will be dark,

And I must return,

There is an aura of suspense in the air,

Powers beyond my control conspire causing night and darkness to befall.

I start walking,

Someone invites me into a temple,

I enter,

It is dedicated to snakes,

I pray to the idol,

‘May you help protect those to whom you have been dedicated to,

For they need you more than us’,

In the same vicinity some time back on the road I spotted a dead cobra,

It had been beaten and killed,

There was blood everywhere,

Its head had been smashed in,

May its soul rest in peace.

I break into a trot yet once again,

Through a road that was once a paddy field,

And now new houses have sprung up,

I too have contributed to it.

I overtake the herd of cows which had passed me,

They have left a trail of dung behind them,

In a village cow dung has a fresh earthy smell,

It is not as vile and disgusting as it is in a city,

Where it is full of plastic and half-digested waste,

I smile at the herdswoman,

And pat a cow as I move on.

Carpe diem,

Seize the day,

Or seize the moment,

A friend has oft told me,

But time, it flows past like a river,

How do I stop it?

Capture it or seize it?

The more I’ve tried the faster it has flown past,

Life is like a journey on a boat,

And I am rowing the boat down the stream of time.

Experienced boatmen will tell you,

You can never fight the river,

Just row along and enjoy it,

And that is your safest bet.

Mukund Palat Rao (January 14, 2010)

(Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera along with me today, so I've attached a few photographs I have at taken at the same place in the recent past)

 

A bit about me

A bit about me

I must start by wishing you a very happy new year.

Till now I have made a deliberate effort of not using the blog as a medium or format to air my personal views. I have always just posted my articles or poems and kept other everything else at a bare minimum. I do understand that most people wouldn't really care to read about the daily happenings of my rather mundane life.

If that is so please don't read further and skip this post and move on to the next one. The next post is my latest poem.

On the other hand if could bear to read a bit about my ramblings please continue. (Don't say I didn't warn you) I now present to you a list of my New Year resolutions. The reason I am doing this is because I feel that writing them down and presenting them to the world would be a good source of motivation for me to actually abide by them. It would always be there at the back of my mind that someone might turn around and ask me, 'Hey, Mukund. You had made these New Year resolutions right? Now half the year's is over. What have you done about them?'

Here I am presenting my resolutions in the order of importance.

1. Academics: I must confess that I really must start working harder. I'm not doing anywhere near what I'm capable of. While the first half of last year went really well, the summer semester wasn't quite as good. Besides that I really must start doing research on the colleges I need to apply to for my post-grad and start studying for the examinations.

2. The Blog: I have tried to keep the levels of updating of the blog in such a manner so that it doesn’t start getting classified as irritating spam mail that pops up ever-so often. I really cannot do too much to increase the frequency of posting because it is impossible to post something when you do not have anything to post.

I could however try and improve the quality of my posts. For that I would need your help. Please point out any errors that might have inadvertently crept into the post. Someone told me that they often noticed errors but felt it would be rude to point it out and leave it as a comment. To make things quite clear, I am fine with posts pointing out errors. Also I always have the liberty to delete the comment once the correction is made. So please feel free to comment. Apart from this I also request you to help spread the word. Please do so only if you like the blog and have friends who might like it too. (A simple way to help the cause would be to 'like' my facebook group and invite others to join it.)

3. Move beyond the past and forget regrets: The biggest regret of my life is the fact that I am not pursuing veterinary sciences as my undergrad degree. I might have a passion for saving the environment, besides worrying about climate change, pollution yada yada but my real love has always been animals, plants and insects. (Cats, dogs, snakes, butterflies, crocs, trees, flowers, grasshoppers in short everything.) Adolescence has always been a tough period of everyone's life and I guess it was the same case with me too. I made some stupid decisions then, but I must move beyond them and look ahead. Even if I might have lost the chance to be a vet, I could still study about animals and understand how they behave, their inter-relationships with the environment etc. I am still in the field of science (thankfully), and still have an opportunity to make the switch. I must do so.

4. Books: I have four books in the pipeline but just haven't found enough time in the recent past to give any of these projects justice. This year I must not let that happen. Even if no one reads them, at least I can be satisfied that I tried my best.

5. Improve my memory: I must tell you I am awful at remembering names of people. I can remember numbers, directions, facts but names, not at all. It is quite embarrassing to have to tell people, 'No I do not remember you.' Unfortunately whenever someone meets you after a long time the first question they ask is, 'Do you remember me?' Now I hate to lie, and the situation might just become worse if they ask the follow up question, 'What is my name and when did we meet before?' All you can do is give a silly lop-sided grin and hope they don't probe you too much.

6. Managing Finances: Recently someone asked me a question. 'How much do you spend in a month? 'Now all I could answer was an approximate amount. I really did not know exactly how much do I spent in a month. I am by no means a spend thrift, but it's always good to know how much you are spending.

(Approximate expenditure per month has withheld for privacy reasons)

7. Never trouble you (my reader) with information like this again: I cannot promise that won’t do this again in the future, but I can assure you that unless I feel there is some great necessity to publish posts such as these I shall refrain from doing so.

The last eleven months of blogging have been a truly wonderful experience. I look forward to many more in the future.

Thank you so much for bearing with me.

A very happy new year to you again!

--

All views expressed in every blog post are personal and not plagiarised. Due credits have been given at in all such instances where references have been made to works by others.

Poem: A tale from ‘man’s’ better half

A tale from ‘man’s’ better half

I walked in on one fine morn,

To a quiet café to gather my thoughts,

And there was a lady all forlorn,

Seated in a corner and alone,

I went there and sat beside her,

Offered her a coffee and a listening ear,

And a tissue to help her wipe her tears.

She seemed glad to have some company,

And looked straight into my eye,

And told me a story that made me cry.

‘It is very hard being a woman,

And harder still when you are also destitute,

I was brought up as an orphan,

And by my uncle was sold,

And forced to dance at a discotheque,

And each night appear as though I was quite in the mood,

Gyrate around a pole and satisfy male lust as though I was food .

I was loved,

But this was only with regards to my appearance,

My breasts, my face, my legs and hair.

About me as a person no one cared.

The looked at me as though I was play thing,

They were rude and nasty as though I was a lesser being,

And yet they said that the loved me dear.

This wasn’t what I was looking for,

I remember a long time ago when I was barely sixteen,

There was this boy and we were in love,

To him it was as though like me there were no other,

And he cared for me tenderly like a doting mother,

But we drifted apart and for long haven’t seen each other.

Fed up with life I ran away,

And was then spotted by an airlines company when I was on my way,

They said you are beautiful and we’d be honoured to have you,

Join our flights and be a hostess,

It’s a position of respect and honour,

And would well suit your calm demeanour.

I thought for once my life had changed,

But just when think so it remains the same,

Now here I am at this wonderful job,

Not much better than before I could add with a sob.

As a hostess at an aeroplane,

I apply so much make up that I look so very fair,

And when I look at a mirror I scarcely remember it’s me reflected there.

And the men, they are just the same as everywhere,

As I walk down the aisle they drop spoons to make me bend,

Stare at my arse and rate me out of ten.

Everyday I repeat please fasten your seatbelts,

Please turn off your phones,

And straighten you seats,

But these men so thick headed,

Whip out their phones,

Click photographs of me the moment I’m gone.

This is however not what makes me livid,

It is that they question my ‘Indian-ness’ that makes me sore,

Just because my eyes are slanted I’m called a cheap whore,

And these perverted men think these ideals make them Indian to the core.

This beauty is my curse,

And has brought me only suffering,

And however much you might want to escape,

This brings me my money,

My bread, butter and honey,

I have been condemned to this fate,

And I see no escape.

I know that you might try to understand,

And empathise,

But it is so hard to be a woman,

That I wonder if it’s worth it or should I end it all.’

Mukund Palat Rao (December 31, 2010)

(Note from the poet: The truth I feel cannot be sugar coated, and however much I might have not wanted to do this, the poem had to be written in a way which portrayed reality. )