Tryst

Santanu Sahu

I take opportunity to use this platform to share my tryst with S. Devi Madam. I recollect the incident of Class-VIII when we appeared the half-yearly in RCE premises but result sheets were shown in the School premises. Some of you might recollect we were allotted a room in the middle portion probably over Biology Lab.

Madam distributed the Exam sheets. Everybody was busy going through the results with mutual discussion in a loud voice. My score was 61. But in one question relating to samasa conflict arise on the right answer. The question was what is the samasa for Bhimakanta. Many wrote Bhima O Kanta i.e., Dwanda Samasa. But Madam finally announced it is Je Bhima se Kanta i.e., Karmadharaya Samasa.

The interesting part I remember was that, I got marks for my wrong answer. But Nanu saw that. He did not get marks for writing the same answer. He promptly complained to madam. Madam immediately shouted, where is that answer. Of course Nanu kept quiet without further uttering my name or pointing at me. But Madam again searched that paper. I gave up after some more shouts. She promptly reduced one mark. That was the end of one part. What was still interesting is, with a gloomy face I went through my sheets. After adding up, it came 60.5. Immediately, I rushed to Madam for correction of my total. She looked at me and uttered, “are ebe mark katithili na” and gave a smile. I do not exactly remember if the mark was revised, but I still remember that moment of reconciliation between Madam and me.

Let her soul rest in peace.

A PERSPECTIVE ON FANATICISM

Mick(Mrigank) Das 

The battle between Absolutism and Relativism in the modern world has put us in a conflicted state where Fanaticism has prevailed instead. Fanaticism is typically (and perhaps rightfully) associated by the mainstream populace as having a nexus with major religions and an extreme and deranged form of Absolutism. Dogmatic faith and the zealous assumption that only the faith that one is embroiled in should be unquestionably accepted by others or they ought to be the object of punitive measures has left the world in a sad and vulnerable state to the acts of terror, that seem to be coming at a much more frenetic pace chronologically. The counter to Fanaticism is Relativism - where we just pander to a middle of the road position of accommodation and aversion to any top-down axiomatic principles of moral philosophy and faith.
 Relativism encourages the discarding of mainstream religion deeming it as a ultra-conservative right wing position that strips away an individual's prerogative to be the moral arbiter of their own lives and the lives of those around them and also their intellectual ability to philosophize the overall approach to the passage of life. However Relativism does allow for moral depravity - whether it is in music, culture, the predominance of stimulants, the relaxation of the rules of marriage and promiscuous behavior. This angers the opposite side that favors Absolutism which looks at trends in sexual orientation, drug use and permissive social norms (among others) as signs of the decadence of society arising from the liberalism that follows hand in glove with Relativism. The result is an incessant and increasingly turbulent edge of friction from which is borne fanaticism, radical behavior and the sinister and chilling birth of terror which is perceived by Absolutionists as the only way to redress the balance that they deem to be intolerable and a bane to their ability to subjugate or coerce compliance of their particular form of religion on their family and community.
 However Absolutism doesn't have an universally harmonizing principle so far - as evidenced by the tension between the world's major religions. Do we have a good answer yet? No. However it seems like if there is a non-atheistic universal harmonizing principle that favors the cause of Absolutism it cannot be something that professes acts of terror as the means of redressal. Neither is it a fire-and-brimstone or excoriating approach that uses barbaric means to cultivate adherents - that seems to be the antithesis of a harmonizing principle that ought to be aligned around the discovery of transcendence in a non-permanent passage of life, that frequently asks us to deal with affliction.  It has to be a non-peurile, stabilizing, substantive harmonizing principle based on logic and scientific reasoning. It has to teach us that there is something in us that death cannot touch, that has an eternal quality and has a journey that aligns it with some universal power that loves and cares for us. The chicken-and-egg problem is if there exists such an harmonizing principle, driving someone from a position of adversary to adherent requires sometimes an approach that may not be very pleasant, palatable and warm and comfy at first. The key for a discerning individual is to recognize the true north of a harmonizing principle as different from fanaticism even as the bonafide preachers for both may compete for your attention in a rather similar manner.

Limericks

Siddharth Padhi

I see u

The Optometrist asked me,

How do you do?

To save time I said,

"SDLPVROU"

He said it's fine,

You are 6/9,

Just pay me before I bill you.

Tense pay(sh)ense 

I have a cantankerous patient named Hense,

Who is at times a bit dense,

He gets on my nerves,

More than I deserve,

By muddling my senses with nonsense.

Flight season 

The Admissions Season.

When your children are looking to fly the nest, 

When you are intent on giving them your best,

Let them flee,

With freedom and glee,

And give our poor souls a rest.