world weary ,i decided to put some cool quoted up on display for now.blogs coming up pretty soon.till then reflect on the quotes.------------------------
Einstein was right. Time is relative to the observer. When you're looking down the barrel of a gun, time slows down. Your whole life flashes by, heartbreak and scars. Stay with it, and you could live a lifetime in that split second
There are no choices. Nothing but a straight line. The illusion comes afterwards, when you ask 'Why me?' and 'What if?'. When you look back and see the branches, like a pruned bonsai tree, or forked lightning. If you had done something differently, it wouldn't be you. It would be someone else looking back, asking a different set of questions.
the past is a gaping hole. You try to run from it, but the more you run, the deeper it grows behind you, its edges yawning at your heels. Your only chance is to turn around and face it. But it's like looking down into the grave of your love, or kissing the mouth of a gun, a bullet trembling in its dark nest, ready to blow your head off.
The past is a puzzle, like a broken mirror. As you peice it together, your image keeps shifting. And you change with it. It could destroy you, drive you mad. It could set you free.
Throw the rules out the window, odds are you'll go that way too
The rain was comin' down like all the angels in heaven decided to take a piss at the same time.
When you're in a situation like mine, you can only think in metaphors.
When entertainment turns into a surreal reflection of your life, you're a lucky man if you can laugh at the joke. Luck and I weren't on speaking terms.
Your past has a way of sneaking up on you. You'll hear broken echoes of it everywhere, like a bad replay. You'll get mad at everyone for reminding you about it, even if it's all in your head.
Death is inevitable. Our fear of it makes us play safe, blocks out emotion. It's a losing game. Without passion you are already dead.
The trouble with wanting something is the fear of losing it, or never getting it. The thought makes you weak.
The genius of the hole: no matter how much time you spend climbing out, you can still fall back down in an instant.
Closing your eyes forces you to look at the darkness inside.
All this time we got the fable of Sleeping Beauty wrong. The prince didn't kiss her to wake her up. No one who slept for a hundred years is likely to wake up. It was the other way round. He kisses her to wake himself up from the nightmare that has brought him there.
I'm hard to remember, but I'm impossible to forget.
There's genius everywhere, but until they turn pro, it's like popcorn in the pan. Some pop... some don't.
------------------------------------neonstein--------------------------------------------
good night and good luck...
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
AN APPEAL TO READERS
please suggest to me some topics to write about.if they appeal to me i will surely write bout them and we can even have discusssions about it.
headbandin' frenzy
this one is for all the metal fans out there...keep headbanging!!!!
Metal is not a genre of music which you bang your head to.. It's not what others (outsiders) think: just distorted and high music with (sometimes) weird or odd vocals.. It's not even close! Metal is one of the most genre's of music that is thought through, in both music and rhythm.. It's another world which takes you away from all the agony and pain you go through.. It also expresses the inner feeling of one's self.. People get metal wrong!! And judge it from the outside perspective.. They think it's all about Satan, hell and other related topics. I do not deny that most of the amazing songs consume those as lyrical themes.. But we must also remember bands which consider beauty, love nature, politics, war, life experiences and other related subjects as lyrical themes.. Metal is metal, death or thrash! Black or power! Speed or doom! Gothic or industrial.. (Etc)! Metal is passion. Metal isn’t just music. Not just looks and actually not looks at all! Metal is a life style, just like a religion! It's something you stick to and get attached to! It is actually really hard to understand! Just to point something out, Satanism is not a part of metal, neither "created" by metal heads.. Metal heads are normal people, except deeper, compassionate and smart.. They are poetic and have a great sense of music.. Metal is a world of feeing and emotions.. From depression to bliss! From love to loneliness.. From nothing to everything.. It's what speaks your mind. Metal is also known as overwhelming, as when someone becomes metal or interested in the beauty and glory of it, it over whelms him.. But by time, he'll snap out of it.. No matter how harsh and violent some of the lyrics might be, most of them have a deeper meaning. Example, when someone is hurt and insecure, that person hides all those feelings with words of hate and strength.. What really pisses me off is poser and wannabe's(1 gbs) which see things and do them without knowing what they mean.. They don't know what they're even listening to, memorize a few genre's and bands.. Wear black all the time and call themselves metal heads!! They're metal from without, not within! You don't even have to dress black to be metal or Goth! You can wear white for all I care! But if you're metal from within, that's all you need! It's all from inside of you.. You can never be it if it's not from inside of you.. And if it's just from without, then you're a poser or wannabe! Yes, the truth at last!! What I despise about people (posers, wannabe's and outsiders) is that if they don’t get metal, they make up their own explanation, assumes things, believe whatever they made-up, don't bother to seek and learn the truth and if the truth was said they would say it was a lie; depending on posers which they think are real metal heads to prove their point! No one really gets metal! Which off course are shallow people. Metal is an [not necessarily] an underground society.. Where all REAL metal heads are equal to one another.. Off course judged by not only the knowledge of metal itself, but also politics and other important issues that others do not consider necessary! Unfortunately metal is the most unappreciated, the most misunderstood, deep and interesting yet! Though ignorance is what makes it seem so evil, dark, Satanist, melancholic, depressing ever. Metal is like love, where people abuse it! Thus, we who are a part of it, suffer the consequences of other's arrogance.. A world far from reality, metal is known to us as heaven.. Where all the physical and verbal abuse just disappears.. Where all the hate and despite that's triggered up on us doesn't matter.. Where communication and medication of the soul is encountered and conquered.. And to some, an escape from reality.. it is a commitment that'll dwell till eternity, not the looks which posers focus on, but the soul, the spirit, the life that's in it.. We listen to metal because we feel it.. Others don't listen to metal because they do not even get what a word means! And defiantly don't feel it!
Posers and wannabe's point at others ,which most likely are real metal heads, and call them the poser or wannabe's to keep the attention from them.. They listen to metal to seem different.. To have the attention they don't have, and frankly all that is just pathetic!! All I can say to all posers, wannabe's and outsiders is: "If you don’t get metal, don’t judge or talk about it, for you are to stupid to commit such an act.. And if you are not metal to begin with, then don’t try! Stop posing and trying for it is all worthless, and you will not win in the end! If you don’t feel it or if its from without you, just cut it out! Because if you are not something to start with, then you never will be! And if you don’t have the heart for it, then its just a dream that'll never come true!!" If you are a real metal head, my heart is filled with gratitude and I am absolutely am proud to see people like that... And all those/you posers and wannabe's sop posing and trying, it's just pointless. And all you who aren’t metal, don’t judge before you know, for you are ignorant and pathetic to us..
GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK
---------------------------NEONSTEIN--------------------------------
Metal is not a genre of music which you bang your head to.. It's not what others (outsiders) think: just distorted and high music with (sometimes) weird or odd vocals.. It's not even close! Metal is one of the most genre's of music that is thought through, in both music and rhythm.. It's another world which takes you away from all the agony and pain you go through.. It also expresses the inner feeling of one's self.. People get metal wrong!! And judge it from the outside perspective.. They think it's all about Satan, hell and other related topics. I do not deny that most of the amazing songs consume those as lyrical themes.. But we must also remember bands which consider beauty, love nature, politics, war, life experiences and other related subjects as lyrical themes.. Metal is metal, death or thrash! Black or power! Speed or doom! Gothic or industrial.. (Etc)! Metal is passion. Metal isn’t just music. Not just looks and actually not looks at all! Metal is a life style, just like a religion! It's something you stick to and get attached to! It is actually really hard to understand! Just to point something out, Satanism is not a part of metal, neither "created" by metal heads.. Metal heads are normal people, except deeper, compassionate and smart.. They are poetic and have a great sense of music.. Metal is a world of feeing and emotions.. From depression to bliss! From love to loneliness.. From nothing to everything.. It's what speaks your mind. Metal is also known as overwhelming, as when someone becomes metal or interested in the beauty and glory of it, it over whelms him.. But by time, he'll snap out of it.. No matter how harsh and violent some of the lyrics might be, most of them have a deeper meaning. Example, when someone is hurt and insecure, that person hides all those feelings with words of hate and strength.. What really pisses me off is poser and wannabe's(1 gbs) which see things and do them without knowing what they mean.. They don't know what they're even listening to, memorize a few genre's and bands.. Wear black all the time and call themselves metal heads!! They're metal from without, not within! You don't even have to dress black to be metal or Goth! You can wear white for all I care! But if you're metal from within, that's all you need! It's all from inside of you.. You can never be it if it's not from inside of you.. And if it's just from without, then you're a poser or wannabe! Yes, the truth at last!! What I despise about people (posers, wannabe's and outsiders) is that if they don’t get metal, they make up their own explanation, assumes things, believe whatever they made-up, don't bother to seek and learn the truth and if the truth was said they would say it was a lie; depending on posers which they think are real metal heads to prove their point! No one really gets metal! Which off course are shallow people. Metal is an [not necessarily] an underground society.. Where all REAL metal heads are equal to one another.. Off course judged by not only the knowledge of metal itself, but also politics and other important issues that others do not consider necessary! Unfortunately metal is the most unappreciated, the most misunderstood, deep and interesting yet! Though ignorance is what makes it seem so evil, dark, Satanist, melancholic, depressing ever. Metal is like love, where people abuse it! Thus, we who are a part of it, suffer the consequences of other's arrogance.. A world far from reality, metal is known to us as heaven.. Where all the physical and verbal abuse just disappears.. Where all the hate and despite that's triggered up on us doesn't matter.. Where communication and medication of the soul is encountered and conquered.. And to some, an escape from reality.. it is a commitment that'll dwell till eternity, not the looks which posers focus on, but the soul, the spirit, the life that's in it.. We listen to metal because we feel it.. Others don't listen to metal because they do not even get what a word means! And defiantly don't feel it!
Posers and wannabe's point at others ,which most likely are real metal heads, and call them the poser or wannabe's to keep the attention from them.. They listen to metal to seem different.. To have the attention they don't have, and frankly all that is just pathetic!! All I can say to all posers, wannabe's and outsiders is: "If you don’t get metal, don’t judge or talk about it, for you are to stupid to commit such an act.. And if you are not metal to begin with, then don’t try! Stop posing and trying for it is all worthless, and you will not win in the end! If you don’t feel it or if its from without you, just cut it out! Because if you are not something to start with, then you never will be! And if you don’t have the heart for it, then its just a dream that'll never come true!!" If you are a real metal head, my heart is filled with gratitude and I am absolutely am proud to see people like that... And all those/you posers and wannabe's sop posing and trying, it's just pointless. And all you who aren’t metal, don’t judge before you know, for you are ignorant and pathetic to us..
GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK
---------------------------NEONSTEIN--------------------------------
the inconvenient truth
i may get a lot of hate mails for this...but have to write it..its a sensitive topic and people shouldnt get me wrong.i am not anti islam nor do i blame muslims for anything.infact one of best friends are muslims.but this is the truth and my intepretation about it...
It is almost one year that the Sachar Committee report has been published and created so much noise in and out of media. The seven member high level committee constituted by UPA government and headed by Mr. Rajinder Sachar gave a comprehensive and widely accepted report on the socio-economic and educational condition of India’s largest minority community i.e., Muslims. As was expected this report generated public debate but was unfortunately masked by that of Indo-US nuclear deal. It is an achievement of UPA government, which must be appreciated. But, what has it done since the report has been published?
Unfortunately, so far the government has failed materialize any of its recommendations as has been the case of many such reports. The report has been hailed by most of the parties except for Right wing BJP and its patron RSS, which labeled it as a yet another appeasement policy by the Congress Party.
The truth is Sachar Committee report is the first systematic study of Muslims in independent India. The committee mainly dealt with core issues related to security, equity and identity of Muslim community. It sought detailed presentations from 13 states across India about the perceptions about Muslims; the size and distribution of the population; indices of the community’s income, health, education, poverty, standards of living etc. The report concludes that the condition of Muslims is no better than that of OBC’s and not worse than SC’s and ST’s. To sum up; their overall socio-economic condition is abysmal when compare to majority population.
How severe is the contrast? In India Muslims constitute 13.4% of the total population, almost equal to total population of Pakistan. But read the following figures as reported by the committee. Only 4.9% are represented in government jobs, 3.2% in elite Civil Services, 3.4% of its population has completed graduation whereas it’s 15.9% for Hindus; its average literacy rate is 59% whereas national average is 64.5%. Other figures also speak of the same situation.
But the fundamental question is; why they are in so a pathetic condition?
Let us be prompt. We are fortunate to have a largely peaceful Muslims in India. Yes, there are unfortunate incidents in our national history, but there is always an unseen hand behind such perpetrations. Yes, they are always caught in many crimes, but the problem is socio-economic rather than religious. But see the other side of the story. Who is your favorite bollwood hero? Who’s your favorite musician? Who is your favorite cricketer? And favorite tennis star? Majority answer would point to a person for this community. How did these people achieve these things? Why then its large proportion suffers from social and economic illness.
Are Hindus responsible for Muslims’ sorry state of affairs? The answer is a big NO. Is there any instance of Hindu rulers ever humiliating or discriminating against Muslims prior to 1946? The fact is we were ruled by Muslim kingdoms from the time of Mahmud of Ghazni to Aurangazeb.
Even this assessment will not satisfy the question, as these rulers were mainly despots and cared little about their subjects.
The answer lies with the community itself; their culture, their practices, their social orientations, their inclination to segregate from the mainstream and to a large extent to their narrow outlook and over affinity to religion . This may seem little harsh but my personal experience may quell some skepticism.
The problem lies mainly with the rural Muslims. Who when not able to make living , migrate to cities and form large proportion of people dwelling in urban slums and pose newer problems there. The popular perception about Muslims is that they prefer madrassas to schools. But the fact is only 3 – 5 % of Muslims prefer that. Why then is their children are uneducated and illiterate?
I studied in a government aided school . I can hardly recall 6 or 7 Muslim students out of 400 plus in my school days. In fact we din’t have a single Muslim friend in my whole class. But how does it explain the core problem?
Yes, the answer lies here itself. My school, popularly called st.pius is one among hundred such schools in India. They are funded by maharastra state Govt and provide free and best education in India to students. I was one lucky among them. But why did my Muslim friends did not make it then? There was absolutely no discrimination against them anywhere. The school from which I passed was a modest school which took Rs-500 per year. I remember that some Muslim families spent double the money on Mutton and chicken per week but didn’t send their children to schools. If family was or is not inclined to educate their children, where it is easily accessible even to the poorest families, how come social and economic empowerment is possible?
Only good education can save them. It also applies to other sections of the society. Today their children are caught picking pockets, quarreling on the streets, committing petty crimes. Who is responsible for this?
It is almost one year that the Sachar Committee report has been published and created so much noise in and out of media. The seven member high level committee constituted by UPA government and headed by Mr. Rajinder Sachar gave a comprehensive and widely accepted report on the socio-economic and educational condition of India’s largest minority community i.e., Muslims. As was expected this report generated public debate but was unfortunately masked by that of Indo-US nuclear deal. It is an achievement of UPA government, which must be appreciated. But, what has it done since the report has been published?
Unfortunately, so far the government has failed materialize any of its recommendations as has been the case of many such reports. The report has been hailed by most of the parties except for Right wing BJP and its patron RSS, which labeled it as a yet another appeasement policy by the Congress Party.
The truth is Sachar Committee report is the first systematic study of Muslims in independent India. The committee mainly dealt with core issues related to security, equity and identity of Muslim community. It sought detailed presentations from 13 states across India about the perceptions about Muslims; the size and distribution of the population; indices of the community’s income, health, education, poverty, standards of living etc. The report concludes that the condition of Muslims is no better than that of OBC’s and not worse than SC’s and ST’s. To sum up; their overall socio-economic condition is abysmal when compare to majority population.
How severe is the contrast? In India Muslims constitute 13.4% of the total population, almost equal to total population of Pakistan. But read the following figures as reported by the committee. Only 4.9% are represented in government jobs, 3.2% in elite Civil Services, 3.4% of its population has completed graduation whereas it’s 15.9% for Hindus; its average literacy rate is 59% whereas national average is 64.5%. Other figures also speak of the same situation.
But the fundamental question is; why they are in so a pathetic condition?
Let us be prompt. We are fortunate to have a largely peaceful Muslims in India. Yes, there are unfortunate incidents in our national history, but there is always an unseen hand behind such perpetrations. Yes, they are always caught in many crimes, but the problem is socio-economic rather than religious. But see the other side of the story. Who is your favorite bollwood hero? Who’s your favorite musician? Who is your favorite cricketer? And favorite tennis star? Majority answer would point to a person for this community. How did these people achieve these things? Why then its large proportion suffers from social and economic illness.
Are Hindus responsible for Muslims’ sorry state of affairs? The answer is a big NO. Is there any instance of Hindu rulers ever humiliating or discriminating against Muslims prior to 1946? The fact is we were ruled by Muslim kingdoms from the time of Mahmud of Ghazni to Aurangazeb.
Even this assessment will not satisfy the question, as these rulers were mainly despots and cared little about their subjects.
The answer lies with the community itself; their culture, their practices, their social orientations, their inclination to segregate from the mainstream and to a large extent to their narrow outlook and over affinity to religion . This may seem little harsh but my personal experience may quell some skepticism.
The problem lies mainly with the rural Muslims. Who when not able to make living , migrate to cities and form large proportion of people dwelling in urban slums and pose newer problems there. The popular perception about Muslims is that they prefer madrassas to schools. But the fact is only 3 – 5 % of Muslims prefer that. Why then is their children are uneducated and illiterate?
I studied in a government aided school . I can hardly recall 6 or 7 Muslim students out of 400 plus in my school days. In fact we din’t have a single Muslim friend in my whole class. But how does it explain the core problem?
Yes, the answer lies here itself. My school, popularly called st.pius is one among hundred such schools in India. They are funded by maharastra state Govt and provide free and best education in India to students. I was one lucky among them. But why did my Muslim friends did not make it then? There was absolutely no discrimination against them anywhere. The school from which I passed was a modest school which took Rs-500 per year. I remember that some Muslim families spent double the money on Mutton and chicken per week but didn’t send their children to schools. If family was or is not inclined to educate their children, where it is easily accessible even to the poorest families, how come social and economic empowerment is possible?
Only good education can save them. It also applies to other sections of the society. Today their children are caught picking pockets, quarreling on the streets, committing petty crimes. Who is responsible for this?
anecdotes and scraps
recently i saw a head of a dead deer hanging on the wall of one of my friends house.i asked him why he hanged it.he was like"its such a beautiful creature u see;"....yeah sure,i find my mother really beautiful but i have no intentions to hang her dead head.i just fail to get your brilliant logic of things
recently everyone in first year engineering experienced what is called as 'submissions'.and boy what a bloody nightmare was that.i must have used more ink in those few days then i did while writing notes in all lectures.i was pondering what the hell is the use of all these submissions.everyone knows that everyone copies the assignments and journals,so the purpose of revision and knowledge is not served.instead the time wasted in writing these stuff could have been used to study....maybe submissions are the revenge mechanism used by teachers.."you bunk my lectures,i will see you during submissions"the teachers get a pleasure seeing students sitting in class and library ,scraching nibs on the paper.thats the only time library i sfull of students and alive.a sudden surge of respect grow among students for teachers....i congratulate the teachers for thinking and implementing this revenge mechanism...revenge is sweet...
also these submissions provide income for colleges in terms of junk and raddi.the moral of the story is...we screw the lecturers case for 6 months and he gets back at us in 1 week...a fair trade;
recently everyone in first year engineering experienced what is called as 'submissions'.and boy what a bloody nightmare was that.i must have used more ink in those few days then i did while writing notes in all lectures.i was pondering what the hell is the use of all these submissions.everyone knows that everyone copies the assignments and journals,so the purpose of revision and knowledge is not served.instead the time wasted in writing these stuff could have been used to study....maybe submissions are the revenge mechanism used by teachers.."you bunk my lectures,i will see you during submissions"the teachers get a pleasure seeing students sitting in class and library ,scraching nibs on the paper.thats the only time library i sfull of students and alive.a sudden surge of respect grow among students for teachers....i congratulate the teachers for thinking and implementing this revenge mechanism...revenge is sweet...
also these submissions provide income for colleges in terms of junk and raddi.the moral of the story is...we screw the lecturers case for 6 months and he gets back at us in 1 week...a fair trade;
Saturday, November 24, 2007
it just another bomb blast
Yet another bomb blast – it’s a seventh major blast since year 2004, the year when UPA came to power. There has not been a single bomb blast in USA since 2001, the year when the World Trade Centre was attacked.The harsh reality is that next only to Iraq, it is in India that more number of civilians have become victims to such ghastly attacks. Even today no terrorist has been convicted or punished in a single case relating to terrorism.Undoubtedly every credit must go to our government and to those people who are in power. And to ourselves too.Tomorrow our Prime Minister will condemn terrorism and will promise few lakhs to nearest relatives of those who are dead; ruling party president will share her sympathies with the dead and will promise fewer such acts in the near future; our home minister will sense the hand of external elements, probably from across the border; our defence minister will defend that all borders are sealed and are safe; and opposition party leader vociferously calls for stern action against the perpetrators of such inhuman crime.
The Nation listens in silence.
And there are billion ears glued to 24X7 news channels, savoring every bit of cacophony of drama enacted by innumerable reporters.
A dumb Nation listens in silence.
And our patriotic newspapers across the country will shout through their headlines that:
‘COMMUNAL HARMONY INTACT – TERRORISTS FAIL AGAIN’
‘STOCK MARKET RESPONDS WELL TO THE BLASTS – BULLS ON RAGE’
‘XYZ MUSLIM ORGANISTION CALLS FOR DENOUNCEMENT OF TERRORISM AND SHOWS SOLIDARITY WITH THE VICTIMS’
‘THE NATION IS AT PEACE’
The fact is The Nation is in pieces. In India there is diversity in unity. This country is immune to all acts of terrorism not because it is united but because of ‘We Do Not Care’ attitude. People from south India will never feel the pain of victims of yesterday’s blast or any other blast. Neither Maharashtrians will feel for Nandigram victims nor will West Bengal respond to Vidharbha farmers.
We have lost our voices.
Why are we not raising our voices against injustice done to our fellow citizens? Why have we become insensitive to every afflictions that are tearing apart our nation – in spite of their glaring presence? Every day we hear and read about rampant corruption, rape, murder, bomb blasts, naxalism, communal tensions, pogroms, farmers’ suicide, ugly politics, and separatist wars but how many of us speak for those victims?
Our insensitive governments, indifferent politicians, unethical bureaucrats, have all looted our country of its wealth, health and harmony in the last six decades, but each one of them goes unpunished. We have cultivated a habit of enjoying these political dramas, but never questioning any of them.
Why our education has not taught us to question the system? Why is this deafening silence from billion oppressed people? Where did we bury our intellectual heritage of Shankara, Basavanna, Vivekananda and Tagore? Why our 600 million youth remain uninspired in spite of Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose’ illuminating examples? Did our freedom meant death of our fighting spirit?
Once Gandhi said, “I want freedom for full expression of my personality”.
Are we really expressing ourselves in spite of Freedom?
Our Incredible India is neither shining nor it is everywhere. For the farmers of Vidharbha, who will soon be listed among endangered species because of their dwindling population due to mass scale suicides, India will never be incredible. For those Dalit and Tribal women who are routinely raped and murdered, India will never shine. For those people who are forcefully evacuated after seizing their land and property, India is nowhere. For those innocent people whose bodies are torn apart in routinely occurring bomb blasts, India is neither a holy land of gods nor a land of miracles. They are dead anyway.
Such incidents in a civilized nation are hard to imagine but surprisingly we have come to live with them and breathe with them.
I do not know if any divine intervention is needed to rekindle the spirit of billion souls to fight for their rightful place in this country,but I do know that as long as we ‘ Do Not Care’, the path to degradation is not far.
Friday, November 23, 2007
the root cause of all evil
we hear it from childhood....MONEY IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF ALL EVIL...and we convinently believe it without any questions...but today i beg to differ a bit ...i want to give a different angle to this proverb and i desperately need your reviews
people say that money is the root cause of all evil...but what is the root cause of money?
Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce.
When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper,are a token of honor— your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money.
Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions—and you’ll learn that man’s mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.
But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is MADE—before it can be looted or mooched—made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produced.
To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except by the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss—the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery—that you must offer them values, not wounds—that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of GOODS. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men’s stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best your money can find. And when men live by trade—with reason, not force, as their final arbiter—it is the best product that wins, the best performance, then man of best judgment and highest ability—and the degree of a man’s productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money.
But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality—the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.
Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants; money will not give him a code of values, if he’s evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he’s evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money.
Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth—the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve that mind that cannot match it.
Money is your means of survival. The verdict which you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men’s vices or men’s stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment’s or a penny’s worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you’ll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity?
Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit.
Or did you say it’s the LOVE of money that’s the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It’s the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is the loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money—and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.
Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.
Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another—their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.
But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride, or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich—will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt—and of his life, as he deserves.
Then you will see the rise of the double standard—the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money—the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law—men who use force to seize the wealth of DISARMED victims—then money becomes its creators’ avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter. Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion—when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing—when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors—when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you—when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice—you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.
when you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, ‘Who is destroying the world?’ You are
.
You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it’s crumbling around you, while your damning its life-blood—money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men’s history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves—slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody’s mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer. Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers—as industrialists.
To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a COUNTRY OF MONEY—and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man’s mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being—the self-made man—the American industrialist.
if you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose—because it contains all the others—the fact that they were the people who created the phrase ‘to MAKE money.’ No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity—to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted, or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality.
Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters’ continents. Now the looters’ credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-as, I think, he will.
Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns—or dollars. Take your choice—there is no other—and your time is running out.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
the curse of time
Yesterday, while walking into a store I noticed a beautiful women with bright eyes and a smile filled with sunshine! She wore a lovely pink pant suit with a soft floral blouse, her lipstick matching her outfit. She was glorious!
She was also about one hundred years old!
This darling woman may have been 4'10" if she could stand up straight... but she was holding onto her walker, slowing and carefully manoeuvring it in the parking lot, taking her time as she approached the store.
I found myself wanting to hold, in my mind and heart this most lovely woman.
She spoke to me of gentleness, acceptance, joy, care, wisdom, and all the beauty of those who have lived a full life.
In this moment I suddenly had a brief flashback to a time a few years ago, while attending a very luxurious event, seeing a woman whose face and neck revealed an quite elderly woman yet her face was taught, tight, and strained without a wrinkle or flaw. It was obvious she had had many face lifts to recreate the face, or possibly recapture the life, of a young woman, but the result was something so odd and uncomfortable it stuck in my memory.
In that brief moment of reflection, I pondered the very human process of aging.
Much of the modern world abhors the process of growing older, it ignores the elderly, while celebrating youth. Our culture seems to revere the young while dismissing those whose very lives have brought us here. Our elderly become invisible as we repress and work to avoid the inevitable journey of life and death.
In times past, the elderly were those who were deeply honored and revered. The wisdom and understanding brought forth by the elders was considered sacred and valuable, even life sustaining in some cultures.
Have we lost this treasure of our elders?
Have we forgotten that those who have managed life for decades have a wisdom that is unavailable to the young? That the experience of those who have tread the path before us have knowledge that the emerging soul is unable to grasp?
Have we looked at the elderly as an old shoe to be thrown away, rather than a fine wine that becomes more valuable in time?
As I look at our world I have a sense that we have released the steady, comforting, gentle, and wise strength that is provided by those who have already traveled our path and experienced the journey. The stability and grounding that we might receive from those who have lived longer is sadly unappreciated, even unknown.
And, I think of the lovely woman in pink... I hold in my heart gratitude for her decades of experience, for her example of gracefully maturing, and for the wisdom of life held within her sparkling beauty.
Like the setting sun, I want to hold onto her light.
She was also about one hundred years old!
This darling woman may have been 4'10" if she could stand up straight... but she was holding onto her walker, slowing and carefully manoeuvring it in the parking lot, taking her time as she approached the store.
I found myself wanting to hold, in my mind and heart this most lovely woman.
She spoke to me of gentleness, acceptance, joy, care, wisdom, and all the beauty of those who have lived a full life.
In this moment I suddenly had a brief flashback to a time a few years ago, while attending a very luxurious event, seeing a woman whose face and neck revealed an quite elderly woman yet her face was taught, tight, and strained without a wrinkle or flaw. It was obvious she had had many face lifts to recreate the face, or possibly recapture the life, of a young woman, but the result was something so odd and uncomfortable it stuck in my memory.
In that brief moment of reflection, I pondered the very human process of aging.
Much of the modern world abhors the process of growing older, it ignores the elderly, while celebrating youth. Our culture seems to revere the young while dismissing those whose very lives have brought us here. Our elderly become invisible as we repress and work to avoid the inevitable journey of life and death.
In times past, the elderly were those who were deeply honored and revered. The wisdom and understanding brought forth by the elders was considered sacred and valuable, even life sustaining in some cultures.
Have we lost this treasure of our elders?
Have we forgotten that those who have managed life for decades have a wisdom that is unavailable to the young? That the experience of those who have tread the path before us have knowledge that the emerging soul is unable to grasp?
Have we looked at the elderly as an old shoe to be thrown away, rather than a fine wine that becomes more valuable in time?
As I look at our world I have a sense that we have released the steady, comforting, gentle, and wise strength that is provided by those who have already traveled our path and experienced the journey. The stability and grounding that we might receive from those who have lived longer is sadly unappreciated, even unknown.
And, I think of the lovely woman in pink... I hold in my heart gratitude for her decades of experience, for her example of gracefully maturing, and for the wisdom of life held within her sparkling beauty.
Like the setting sun, I want to hold onto her light.
nandigram reds part-2
The Bengali intellectuals are livid not at the CPIM party in particular (the CPIM of Jyoti Basu) or the philosophy of Communism in general, despite the fact that it is an idea that has been confined to the dustbins of history elsewhere in the world.
They are just hopping mad at Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and his politics.
Because he is *not* Left enough.
You see these same intellectuals, with a few exceptions like Suman Chatterjee (whose anti-Left stance has been as constant as his tendency to get married to multiple people), had been perfectly silent during the dark days of the 80s and the 90s when Ananda Margis were being shot down by CPIM goons while the law looked the other way, when a factory manager had a tire put on him by the workers and set on fire in broad daylight as the Left workers cheered, when three women were pulled out of a car to be raped and Jyoti Babu brushed it away with a ” such things keep happening”, when CPIM goondas rode on bikes brandishing pipe-guns preventing entire localities from voting.
As long as the city was brought to standstill by massive rallies against the imperial Americans and their instruments of evil like the General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs (GATT), as long as bandhs protesting the anti-people policies of the Center gave the babus a day off, as long the militant trade unions of CITU sent another multinational packing from the city, as long as the powers-that-be blew out hot red air from body orifices, as long as Jyoti Basu handed out plots in Salt Lake at throw-away prices from the Chief Minister’s quota to the city’s “cultural elite” (read Leftist intellectuals), everything was just ah-ok
[Jyoti babu once famously asked why people ever complain about CPIM rule after all the plots of land he has given to the press, the artists and even the opposition.]
Usha Uthup, who has of late discovered a hidden stream of anti-CPIM-ness, verbalized the mindset of the left-leaning Bengali intellegentsia once upon a time with her ” Jyoti Babu Jyoti Babu don’t worry Jyoti Babu” song set to “Mustafa Mustafa don’t worry Mustafa” .
Nothing that happened in those happy days of Jyotism was worth protesting about or writing citizen’s reports on— not the reign of terror of the CPIM, not the total subversion of contrarian opinion in all the institutions and not the marginalization of those intellectuals whose views did not tally with the Left.
Things however started changing once Jyoti Basu, the darling of the “humanist” intellectuals, stepped down and Buddha took over. Noone knew how different Buddha actually was from Jyoti Czar before he became the CM—–as a minister he was as dogmatic as the rest of the Alimuddin crowd preferring to spend his time translating revolutionary works into Bengali and analyzing obscure movies of peasant uprisings.
But then something changed.
He first put the cat among the pigeons by saying that unregulated madrasas were being used to spread messages of Jihad. Immediately there was an outcry from many Left intellectuals as even hinting that there exists a concerted movement of radical Islam is blasphemy for “radical humanists”. Then started Buddha’s active courting of foreign investment, even the notorious Selim Group of Indonesia, once the bete noire of the Bengal Communists for having buttressed Communist-hating Soharto. Buddha’s aggressive industrialization drive was in sharp contrast to Jyoti Babu’s summer-time sojourns in European capitals, the official reason for which was attracting “foreign investments”. Because these rather faint endeavors produced nothing but better physical and emotional health for the leader of the destitute, they were acceptable to the real Leftists, albeit after a smirk or two.
However unlike Jyoti-dadu, Buddha was actually getting evil capitalists into the state. He was undermining the authority of the mighty trade unions, trying to get rid of the prevalent bandh culture (or as the intellectuals would say putting curbs on democratic expression of dissent) and dreaming of rapidly industrializing Bengal’s countryside, an endeavor that would provide opportunities for so many Bengalis, who had to leave the state due to the closure of industries in the 70s and 80s because of militant trade unionism and lack of electric power, to come back again.
So what’s wrong in all this?
Bloody hell it’s not Leftist !
For a state whose intellectuals have a tendency to glorify poverty (” We are too cultured to be rich”) and consider screwing capitalists and “imperialists” preferable to the flight of capital and loss of jobs, Buddha represents all that is not Bangali Communism.
For the JNU crowd of “historians” it has become increasingly difficult to explain over sips of capitalist beverages at the India habitat center why the CPIM central leadership opposed the same policies at the center that Buddha followed in Bengal,why Karat foams and froths about not undermining China while Buddhadeb argues for greater US-India cooperation.
Surely such a person had to go !
I saw a supposed Bangali comic taunting Buddhadeb by reading out passages from his uncle Sukanta, a noted revolutionist Bangla Communist poet, to point out how much he had deviated from the golden path of Communism. During the townhall discussion on NDTV, an audience member called for the need for an alternative “Leftist” movement without Buddha.
Why do I mention this? Simply to re-iterate that the present disturbance has not made a large section of Leftists disillusioned with the philosophy of Communism. On that contrary, it has merely provided them a rallying point to articulate their desire of bringing back the old Jyoti Basu days of “pure Marxism” and comfortable stasis.
Some of you might interpret this last few paragraphs as a defense of Buddhadeb. It is not. Buddha, for all his great administrative skills (and this reminds me of yet another Chief Minister) and his radical reforms,has failed , either willingly or because he is powerless in this respect, to change the fundamentally oppressive nature of Left rule that bases itself, among other things, on fear and subjugation of dissent. In failing, he has himself handed to his critics, on both sides of the political spectrum, a multi-pronged trident to draw blood. And they arent being shy in poking it everywhere.
For those of you who think I am shooting the messengers (the brave Left intellectuals), I say in my defense that I am not equating Buddha’s responsibility for atrocities with the political opportunism of the “Bam-ponthi” intellectuals—they of course do not balance each other out. However, it is not unfair to point out the not-so-hidden agenda of some of the prominent Left voices (often masquerading as “independent”) who have spearheaded the protest, especially when you consider how they have remained silent spectators when other atrocities perpetrated by the Jyoti Basu-led Left front have happened.
The divided loyalties of the Bengali intellectuals, torn between their Marxist ideals and loyalty to the hand that gives, has been perhaps best captured by Mrinal Sen (a mostly silent voice against Left Front barbarities in the past) walking in two marches on successive days, one taken out by “citizens against Buddhadeb” and one taken out by the CPIM in support of the Chief Minister. A sidelight: Prabhuji Mithun walked in support of Buddha which was slightly ironic considering that in movies like “Tulkalam” and “MLA Fatakeshto” he is shown as fighting for farmers against evil corporations out to acquire their land. Of course Mithunda has his reasons and I will not try to analyze them here as it is futile trying to peek into the mind of God.
Lastly, Nandigram has been a gift from above for an increasingly irrelevant Mamta Banerjee and for the religious right, who after years of being pilloried by the Left for atrocities on innocents in their states, are enjoying kicking the Reds in the nuts ( I have never seen terror like Nandigram says Mr. Advani [yeah right]) and even accusing the Left of communal violence against minorities, forgetting of course to mention that many of the victims and many of the accused are Muslims.
Once the smokescreen has cleared, political punches landed and the sense of outrage has dissipated, what’s left in Nandigram is a human tragedy of epic proportions whose the victims have cut across all political lines.
What’s even more horrifying however is what lies in the future.
With the continued perpetuation of the traditional Marxist power idiom of violent cadre-ism and the accompanying reactionary “itching-for-violence” Maoist-Trinamool presence in rural Bengal, incidents like Nandigram will remain just one rumor, just one notice, just one bullet away from happening.
They are just hopping mad at Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and his politics.
Because he is *not* Left enough.
You see these same intellectuals, with a few exceptions like Suman Chatterjee (whose anti-Left stance has been as constant as his tendency to get married to multiple people), had been perfectly silent during the dark days of the 80s and the 90s when Ananda Margis were being shot down by CPIM goons while the law looked the other way, when a factory manager had a tire put on him by the workers and set on fire in broad daylight as the Left workers cheered, when three women were pulled out of a car to be raped and Jyoti Babu brushed it away with a ” such things keep happening”, when CPIM goondas rode on bikes brandishing pipe-guns preventing entire localities from voting.
As long as the city was brought to standstill by massive rallies against the imperial Americans and their instruments of evil like the General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs (GATT), as long as bandhs protesting the anti-people policies of the Center gave the babus a day off, as long the militant trade unions of CITU sent another multinational packing from the city, as long as the powers-that-be blew out hot red air from body orifices, as long as Jyoti Basu handed out plots in Salt Lake at throw-away prices from the Chief Minister’s quota to the city’s “cultural elite” (read Leftist intellectuals), everything was just ah-ok
[Jyoti babu once famously asked why people ever complain about CPIM rule after all the plots of land he has given to the press, the artists and even the opposition.]
Usha Uthup, who has of late discovered a hidden stream of anti-CPIM-ness, verbalized the mindset of the left-leaning Bengali intellegentsia once upon a time with her ” Jyoti Babu Jyoti Babu don’t worry Jyoti Babu” song set to “Mustafa Mustafa don’t worry Mustafa” .
Nothing that happened in those happy days of Jyotism was worth protesting about or writing citizen’s reports on— not the reign of terror of the CPIM, not the total subversion of contrarian opinion in all the institutions and not the marginalization of those intellectuals whose views did not tally with the Left.
Things however started changing once Jyoti Basu, the darling of the “humanist” intellectuals, stepped down and Buddha took over. Noone knew how different Buddha actually was from Jyoti Czar before he became the CM—–as a minister he was as dogmatic as the rest of the Alimuddin crowd preferring to spend his time translating revolutionary works into Bengali and analyzing obscure movies of peasant uprisings.
But then something changed.
He first put the cat among the pigeons by saying that unregulated madrasas were being used to spread messages of Jihad. Immediately there was an outcry from many Left intellectuals as even hinting that there exists a concerted movement of radical Islam is blasphemy for “radical humanists”. Then started Buddha’s active courting of foreign investment, even the notorious Selim Group of Indonesia, once the bete noire of the Bengal Communists for having buttressed Communist-hating Soharto. Buddha’s aggressive industrialization drive was in sharp contrast to Jyoti Babu’s summer-time sojourns in European capitals, the official reason for which was attracting “foreign investments”. Because these rather faint endeavors produced nothing but better physical and emotional health for the leader of the destitute, they were acceptable to the real Leftists, albeit after a smirk or two.
However unlike Jyoti-dadu, Buddha was actually getting evil capitalists into the state. He was undermining the authority of the mighty trade unions, trying to get rid of the prevalent bandh culture (or as the intellectuals would say putting curbs on democratic expression of dissent) and dreaming of rapidly industrializing Bengal’s countryside, an endeavor that would provide opportunities for so many Bengalis, who had to leave the state due to the closure of industries in the 70s and 80s because of militant trade unionism and lack of electric power, to come back again.
So what’s wrong in all this?
Bloody hell it’s not Leftist !
For a state whose intellectuals have a tendency to glorify poverty (” We are too cultured to be rich”) and consider screwing capitalists and “imperialists” preferable to the flight of capital and loss of jobs, Buddha represents all that is not Bangali Communism.
For the JNU crowd of “historians” it has become increasingly difficult to explain over sips of capitalist beverages at the India habitat center why the CPIM central leadership opposed the same policies at the center that Buddha followed in Bengal,why Karat foams and froths about not undermining China while Buddhadeb argues for greater US-India cooperation.
Surely such a person had to go !
I saw a supposed Bangali comic taunting Buddhadeb by reading out passages from his uncle Sukanta, a noted revolutionist Bangla Communist poet, to point out how much he had deviated from the golden path of Communism. During the townhall discussion on NDTV, an audience member called for the need for an alternative “Leftist” movement without Buddha.
Why do I mention this? Simply to re-iterate that the present disturbance has not made a large section of Leftists disillusioned with the philosophy of Communism. On that contrary, it has merely provided them a rallying point to articulate their desire of bringing back the old Jyoti Basu days of “pure Marxism” and comfortable stasis.
Some of you might interpret this last few paragraphs as a defense of Buddhadeb. It is not. Buddha, for all his great administrative skills (and this reminds me of yet another Chief Minister) and his radical reforms,has failed , either willingly or because he is powerless in this respect, to change the fundamentally oppressive nature of Left rule that bases itself, among other things, on fear and subjugation of dissent. In failing, he has himself handed to his critics, on both sides of the political spectrum, a multi-pronged trident to draw blood. And they arent being shy in poking it everywhere.
For those of you who think I am shooting the messengers (the brave Left intellectuals), I say in my defense that I am not equating Buddha’s responsibility for atrocities with the political opportunism of the “Bam-ponthi” intellectuals—they of course do not balance each other out. However, it is not unfair to point out the not-so-hidden agenda of some of the prominent Left voices (often masquerading as “independent”) who have spearheaded the protest, especially when you consider how they have remained silent spectators when other atrocities perpetrated by the Jyoti Basu-led Left front have happened.
The divided loyalties of the Bengali intellectuals, torn between their Marxist ideals and loyalty to the hand that gives, has been perhaps best captured by Mrinal Sen (a mostly silent voice against Left Front barbarities in the past) walking in two marches on successive days, one taken out by “citizens against Buddhadeb” and one taken out by the CPIM in support of the Chief Minister. A sidelight: Prabhuji Mithun walked in support of Buddha which was slightly ironic considering that in movies like “Tulkalam” and “MLA Fatakeshto” he is shown as fighting for farmers against evil corporations out to acquire their land. Of course Mithunda has his reasons and I will not try to analyze them here as it is futile trying to peek into the mind of God.
Lastly, Nandigram has been a gift from above for an increasingly irrelevant Mamta Banerjee and for the religious right, who after years of being pilloried by the Left for atrocities on innocents in their states, are enjoying kicking the Reds in the nuts ( I have never seen terror like Nandigram says Mr. Advani [yeah right]) and even accusing the Left of communal violence against minorities, forgetting of course to mention that many of the victims and many of the accused are Muslims.
Once the smokescreen has cleared, political punches landed and the sense of outrage has dissipated, what’s left in Nandigram is a human tragedy of epic proportions whose the victims have cut across all political lines.
What’s even more horrifying however is what lies in the future.
With the continued perpetuation of the traditional Marxist power idiom of violent cadre-ism and the accompanying reactionary “itching-for-violence” Maoist-Trinamool presence in rural Bengal, incidents like Nandigram will remain just one rumor, just one notice, just one bullet away from happening.
nandigram reds part-1
my conscience will be pricking me till death if i kept mum on this current issue of nandigram.its so unfortunate that we live in this country that boasts tolerance and has such......ugliness to say the least.guys there are people dying,curfews imposed and peace murdured...still politics is all that matters.methinks the politicians have a conscience made of a substance tougher than silicon carbide.this will be a big blog but it is a big issue...and also i need your valuable comments and responses to thrive.
nandigram reds part-1
Amar naam, tomar naam—-Vietnam
“My name, your name, Vietnam”. Resonating across the streets of Calcutta and the villages of Bengal, this slogan of the late 60s and early 70s was as much a cry of solidarity for the Vietcong fighting the Americans as it was emblematic of the growing popularity of the philosophy of Communism among an entire generation, a political ideology that defined itself primarily by its support for the “little guy”, the downtrodden and the oppressed, as they fought the depredations of the West, evil corporations, landlords and the oppressive rule of the Congress. Tapping into this groundswell of Bengali idealistic passion, came to power a man who had positioned himself perfectly to ride the wave, branding himself as the “Sarboharar Neta” (the leader of those who have nothing).
A man by the name of Jyoti Basu, the leader of the CPIM.
Bengal was never the same again.
After nearly thirty years of Communist dominion in West Bengal, in what can only be called poetic irony, a word that rhymes with Vietnam has come to symbolize the political ideology of a new generation, that defines itself primarily by its support for the “little guy” as they fight the same set of enemies as before but with the oppressive rule of the Congress being now replaced by the oppressive rule of the CPIM.
That word is Nandigram —a human tragedy, an indictment of the extra-Constitutional authority of the democracy-crushing CPIM, and a political dagger in the hands of both the religious right and the “actual” Left to draw blood from their common enemy, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya
Will Bengal ever be the same again?
Nandigram—Nothing Neutral About It
Before we try to understand the significance of Nandigram, let us first try to get out of the way a common misconception. Nandigram is hardly about about resistance to the acquisition of land for SEZs—–the original notice by Haldia Development Authority was quickly withdrawn and as some video shows, (a person on being asked why they are continuing the struggle even after plans for the chemical hub have been officially abandoned says ” Why won’t they take the land. They still might. So we will continue with our agitation.”) it’s all about the struggle, the original cause be damned.
So then what is Nandigram?
A violent dog-fight for power being waged by the old guard (CPM’s Laxman Seth) on one side and the new Trinamool goombahs backed by the Maoists on the other, a conflict that had been simmering for quite a long time and only needed a spark to set alight.
For those of you who would like to believe that the Bhoomi Ucched Protirodh Committee is an organization of unarmed, peaceful Robin Hoodish peasants who have been resisting the “evil government” from encroaching on their land . You will see people repeating rumors of hundreds of deaths (a number even the Bhoomi Ucched people cannot back up with names and addresses), telling fantastic stories of village ponds red with blood being emptied of all water and “purified” overnight. You will also see images of policemen with their heads bashed in being taken away, unarmed protestors hurling stones at the police from a neat pile of bricks that seem to have spontaneously materialized out of nowhere, Panchayat offices vandalized, a rotting body of a policeman Sadhucharan Chaterjee being recovered from the river and the most harrowing of them all—the wife of CPM leader Shankar Samanta detailing how her husband was dragged out of his house, hacked into pieces and set afire (which might remind some of Ehsaan Jafri).
But while many tears may be shed for Ehsaan Jafri (and rightfully too), there is little sympathy for Shankar Samanta. Why? As this report by a group of Left intellectuals (a few from JNU) say, Shankar Samanta had killed innocent villagers and hence “had it coming.”(or more precisely his supposed crimes put the murder in perspective) Of course, some questions may be raised as to why the word of the villagers (people who murdered Shankar Samanta) are considered to be fact while the CPM’s description of Shankar Samanta as “very harmless man” is put in inverted commas. I personally am not saying that Shankar Samanta was innocent or was harmless by any definition (not that it justifies his being brutalized by a mob) but this kind of rather uneven treatment of two versions of the story indicate that these self-professed Left winging intellectuals were pre-disposed to be critical of the CPM. [The Leftist fact-finders do not seem too interested in the fate of Sunita Mondol, a class ten girl, mutiliated and raped and hung on a tree at a time when Bhoomi Ucched people had barricaded the village and driven out all CPM men] While this bias against the Left by Leftist intellectuals may on the face of it seem paradoxical, I shall subsequently try to explain why the CPM under Buddha is the “true Left’s” biggest nightmare.
Look at both sides of the story, use common sense and come to a conclusion.
Which for me is that while the CPIMs were no Cinderellas, the Bhoomi Ucched people are not exactly Snow Whites either—as a matter of fact they have quiet a bit of blood on their angelic halos. They had created unrest by spreading rumors of sinister plans to grab land, even after the government had publicly dropped all plans for land acquisition. They had driven out, through violence, villagers who held political beliefs different from theirs. They had looted, killed and raped. They had set up an alternate authority in the barricaded villages where people could not enter until vetted by the local Trinamool toughs.
Against this backdrop, it is incumbent upon any government to take action to restore the rule of law. There were however many options open to the West Bengal government to do that within the framework of legality—including calling in the Army. However the government took none of these options—–simply because they were not interested in merely affirming the rule of law.
Instead, they were more concerned about meting out raw retribution for the atrocities that had been perpetrated on the CPIM cadre and to re-assert the hold of the Marxists on rural Bengal. This is why, a crack army of the worst of CPIM goons from every corner of the state, using human shields drawn from the local population, marched upon Nandigram in a commando-style operation before going on a rampage of pillage, murder and rape while the police, also keen to seek revenge, backed them up.
The icing on the cake was provided by Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya who justified this dastardly extra-constitutional act of wanton violence as the “tit” for the “tat”, “our boys” paying “their boys” back in the same coin, completely forgetting his responsibilities as the CM to be protecting everyone in the state.
Shameful. Utterly shameful.
Vir Sanghvi explains this as the traditional Communist mindset that makes no distinction between state and party. I would put it slightly differently— it was more about asserting one of the most basic premises of Left rule in Bengal: what the Party giveth the Party taketh away (many of the Bhoomi Ucched people being ex-CPIM)
To understand this a bit more, we need to look at why the CPIM has been politically impregnable in rural Bengal for more than thirty years.
CPIM’s stranglehold on rural power in Bengal stands upon several pillars. One of them is infiltration—-every government institution is staffed by Reds and anyone who is not Red is made irrelevant powerwise. The second is redistribution—-forcible acquisition of land/wealth from larger landlords and redistribution among cadres: a sure way of creating a large support base. The third is percolation—-letting the fruits of power percolate down the Red power structure (making a large number of people complicit in minor forms of corruption) whereas other parties tend to concentrate the benefits in the hands of the top brass, leaving the rank and file disgruntled. And the fourth is intimidation—in the cities it was through what Jatin Chakraborty, one-time best pal of Jyoti Basu and then sworn-enemy called “scientific rigging” and in the villages it was through acts of barbaric violence against anyone who tried to challenge the party; dead bodies turning up in ponds or in the paddy fields from time to time leaving villagers in no doubt as to who called the shots.
However as the years have gone by, a new generation of farmers have emerged, no longer having the same sense of obligation towards the CPIM that their fathers had. This has led to an erosion in the support base of the CPIM with many of the old strong hands graduating to the Trinamul Congress. With Buddha spelling out grand strategies of industrializing Bengal’s rural landscape, a palpable sense of fear of being displaced has taken root among the rural population, a fear that has been adroitly fanned by Trinamul and Naxalite elements to get farmers to take up arms.
A violent break out had become inevitable. And when mayhem, initially targeted at CPIM took place in Nandigram, it became imperative for the Party to assert its power over life and death if only to set an example, if only to show that their iron control over the red dominion is as unforgiving as it always has been, if only to prevent a domino effect all over the state.
What the CPIM did not bargain for was the massive public upheaval in Bengal and the tidal wave of opinion directed at Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, that found expression through SMS-s, online petitions, mass emailing-s, discussions on social networking sites and a silent walk through the heart of Calcutta attended by thousands of people. While the only silver lining from this whole episode may have been this show of conscience from the people of West Bengal, what has been amusing to observe is the outpouring of vitriol against Buddhadeb and the CPIM from the Left-leaning cultural leaders of the state—–one of the Left Front’s most trenchant support base.
This has wrongly been interpreted by many as an expression of disillusionment by the Bengali intelligentsia with Communists after the heinous events of Nandigram .
Nothing I feel could be further from the truth.
nandigram reds part-1
Amar naam, tomar naam—-Vietnam
“My name, your name, Vietnam”. Resonating across the streets of Calcutta and the villages of Bengal, this slogan of the late 60s and early 70s was as much a cry of solidarity for the Vietcong fighting the Americans as it was emblematic of the growing popularity of the philosophy of Communism among an entire generation, a political ideology that defined itself primarily by its support for the “little guy”, the downtrodden and the oppressed, as they fought the depredations of the West, evil corporations, landlords and the oppressive rule of the Congress. Tapping into this groundswell of Bengali idealistic passion, came to power a man who had positioned himself perfectly to ride the wave, branding himself as the “Sarboharar Neta” (the leader of those who have nothing).
A man by the name of Jyoti Basu, the leader of the CPIM.
Bengal was never the same again.
After nearly thirty years of Communist dominion in West Bengal, in what can only be called poetic irony, a word that rhymes with Vietnam has come to symbolize the political ideology of a new generation, that defines itself primarily by its support for the “little guy” as they fight the same set of enemies as before but with the oppressive rule of the Congress being now replaced by the oppressive rule of the CPIM.
That word is Nandigram —a human tragedy, an indictment of the extra-Constitutional authority of the democracy-crushing CPIM, and a political dagger in the hands of both the religious right and the “actual” Left to draw blood from their common enemy, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya
Will Bengal ever be the same again?
Nandigram—Nothing Neutral About It
Before we try to understand the significance of Nandigram, let us first try to get out of the way a common misconception. Nandigram is hardly about about resistance to the acquisition of land for SEZs—–the original notice by Haldia Development Authority was quickly withdrawn and as some video shows, (a person on being asked why they are continuing the struggle even after plans for the chemical hub have been officially abandoned says ” Why won’t they take the land. They still might. So we will continue with our agitation.”) it’s all about the struggle, the original cause be damned.
So then what is Nandigram?
A violent dog-fight for power being waged by the old guard (CPM’s Laxman Seth) on one side and the new Trinamool goombahs backed by the Maoists on the other, a conflict that had been simmering for quite a long time and only needed a spark to set alight.
For those of you who would like to believe that the Bhoomi Ucched Protirodh Committee is an organization of unarmed, peaceful Robin Hoodish peasants who have been resisting the “evil government” from encroaching on their land . You will see people repeating rumors of hundreds of deaths (a number even the Bhoomi Ucched people cannot back up with names and addresses), telling fantastic stories of village ponds red with blood being emptied of all water and “purified” overnight. You will also see images of policemen with their heads bashed in being taken away, unarmed protestors hurling stones at the police from a neat pile of bricks that seem to have spontaneously materialized out of nowhere, Panchayat offices vandalized, a rotting body of a policeman Sadhucharan Chaterjee being recovered from the river and the most harrowing of them all—the wife of CPM leader Shankar Samanta detailing how her husband was dragged out of his house, hacked into pieces and set afire (which might remind some of Ehsaan Jafri).
But while many tears may be shed for Ehsaan Jafri (and rightfully too), there is little sympathy for Shankar Samanta. Why? As this report by a group of Left intellectuals (a few from JNU) say, Shankar Samanta had killed innocent villagers and hence “had it coming.”(or more precisely his supposed crimes put the murder in perspective) Of course, some questions may be raised as to why the word of the villagers (people who murdered Shankar Samanta) are considered to be fact while the CPM’s description of Shankar Samanta as “very harmless man” is put in inverted commas. I personally am not saying that Shankar Samanta was innocent or was harmless by any definition (not that it justifies his being brutalized by a mob) but this kind of rather uneven treatment of two versions of the story indicate that these self-professed Left winging intellectuals were pre-disposed to be critical of the CPM. [The Leftist fact-finders do not seem too interested in the fate of Sunita Mondol, a class ten girl, mutiliated and raped and hung on a tree at a time when Bhoomi Ucched people had barricaded the village and driven out all CPM men] While this bias against the Left by Leftist intellectuals may on the face of it seem paradoxical, I shall subsequently try to explain why the CPM under Buddha is the “true Left’s” biggest nightmare.
Look at both sides of the story, use common sense and come to a conclusion.
Which for me is that while the CPIMs were no Cinderellas, the Bhoomi Ucched people are not exactly Snow Whites either—as a matter of fact they have quiet a bit of blood on their angelic halos. They had created unrest by spreading rumors of sinister plans to grab land, even after the government had publicly dropped all plans for land acquisition. They had driven out, through violence, villagers who held political beliefs different from theirs. They had looted, killed and raped. They had set up an alternate authority in the barricaded villages where people could not enter until vetted by the local Trinamool toughs.
Against this backdrop, it is incumbent upon any government to take action to restore the rule of law. There were however many options open to the West Bengal government to do that within the framework of legality—including calling in the Army. However the government took none of these options—–simply because they were not interested in merely affirming the rule of law.
Instead, they were more concerned about meting out raw retribution for the atrocities that had been perpetrated on the CPIM cadre and to re-assert the hold of the Marxists on rural Bengal. This is why, a crack army of the worst of CPIM goons from every corner of the state, using human shields drawn from the local population, marched upon Nandigram in a commando-style operation before going on a rampage of pillage, murder and rape while the police, also keen to seek revenge, backed them up.
The icing on the cake was provided by Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya who justified this dastardly extra-constitutional act of wanton violence as the “tit” for the “tat”, “our boys” paying “their boys” back in the same coin, completely forgetting his responsibilities as the CM to be protecting everyone in the state.
Shameful. Utterly shameful.
Vir Sanghvi explains this as the traditional Communist mindset that makes no distinction between state and party. I would put it slightly differently— it was more about asserting one of the most basic premises of Left rule in Bengal: what the Party giveth the Party taketh away (many of the Bhoomi Ucched people being ex-CPIM)
To understand this a bit more, we need to look at why the CPIM has been politically impregnable in rural Bengal for more than thirty years.
CPIM’s stranglehold on rural power in Bengal stands upon several pillars. One of them is infiltration—-every government institution is staffed by Reds and anyone who is not Red is made irrelevant powerwise. The second is redistribution—-forcible acquisition of land/wealth from larger landlords and redistribution among cadres: a sure way of creating a large support base. The third is percolation—-letting the fruits of power percolate down the Red power structure (making a large number of people complicit in minor forms of corruption) whereas other parties tend to concentrate the benefits in the hands of the top brass, leaving the rank and file disgruntled. And the fourth is intimidation—in the cities it was through what Jatin Chakraborty, one-time best pal of Jyoti Basu and then sworn-enemy called “scientific rigging” and in the villages it was through acts of barbaric violence against anyone who tried to challenge the party; dead bodies turning up in ponds or in the paddy fields from time to time leaving villagers in no doubt as to who called the shots.
However as the years have gone by, a new generation of farmers have emerged, no longer having the same sense of obligation towards the CPIM that their fathers had. This has led to an erosion in the support base of the CPIM with many of the old strong hands graduating to the Trinamul Congress. With Buddha spelling out grand strategies of industrializing Bengal’s rural landscape, a palpable sense of fear of being displaced has taken root among the rural population, a fear that has been adroitly fanned by Trinamul and Naxalite elements to get farmers to take up arms.
A violent break out had become inevitable. And when mayhem, initially targeted at CPIM took place in Nandigram, it became imperative for the Party to assert its power over life and death if only to set an example, if only to show that their iron control over the red dominion is as unforgiving as it always has been, if only to prevent a domino effect all over the state.
What the CPIM did not bargain for was the massive public upheaval in Bengal and the tidal wave of opinion directed at Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, that found expression through SMS-s, online petitions, mass emailing-s, discussions on social networking sites and a silent walk through the heart of Calcutta attended by thousands of people. While the only silver lining from this whole episode may have been this show of conscience from the people of West Bengal, what has been amusing to observe is the outpouring of vitriol against Buddhadeb and the CPIM from the Left-leaning cultural leaders of the state—–one of the Left Front’s most trenchant support base.
This has wrongly been interpreted by many as an expression of disillusionment by the Bengali intelligentsia with Communists after the heinous events of Nandigram .
Nothing I feel could be further from the truth.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Reclining on a rainy evening recently and watching news on the idiot box, my eyes went to an important issue of today. The news channel was telecasting some useless crap but on the bottom tabs came one of the most unacceptable fact about our India-counterfeit drugs. Counterfeit drugs, by definition, are drugs or medication which is produced and sold with the intent to deceptively represent its origin, authenticity or effectiveness. But its effects are far reaching throughout the world. Firstly, let me tell you how big this problem has actually spread. According to recent estimates by f.d.a (food and drug administration), around 10 % of the total drugs found all over the world are fake. In developing countries like India, this figure goes up to 25%. In the African continent about 50 % of the drugs are counterfeit. If you go to a chemist nearby and ask for an aspirin, the chances of it being of a substandard or fake is 1 in every 4. People have to take these medicines, irrespective of being rich or poor, because these are hard to trace and almost 11 states in India do not even have the necessary labs to test them. These medicines are very cheap to produce and some may even contain carcinogenic substances.
India is known as the hub of counterfeit drugs. The reason- India not only produces them but also exports them!!! In India many small and big companies have sprung up in the field of pharmacy. Chemists are available now in every nook and corner. People have access to drugs. In short, this economy is booming. The pharmaceutical trade is a lucrative business in India. Many wholesalers, distributors and retailers, who have insufficient professional knowledge, are running these businesses. The problem is further aggravated by the weaker enforcement regulations and the lack of competent and committed regulatory personnel. There could be gaps in the medicine trade cycle- from the manufacturer to wholesalers, distributors and retailers and then to end users, which give the way to slip in, or to proliferate, counterfeit medicines. Prices of drugs are reaching the skies. Counterfeiting drugs provide a huge profit margin. Companies, who have to discard expired drugs, repack them and bring it again in the market, making enormous profit. So the next time you take pills and being satisfied that the stuff is not expired, don’t be so sure. Even some really big and fast moving companies are in this business. India exports drugs to Africa and other third world countries on a large scale but sadly most of the exporting companies are accused of selling counterfeit drugs. The companies selling these have a strong political lobby, being the reason for being Scot –free. But here we are dealing with millions of people and I personally don’t think any amount of power can replace these lives.
Approximately one-third to one-half of packets of artesunate tablets, the pivotal, life-saving anti-malarial drug, recently bought in Southeast Asia were fakes, containing no active ingredient at all. A nongovernmental organization in a Southeast Asian country bought 100,000 inexpensive “artesunate” tablets only to find that they were counterfeit. Let me tell you a major incident. A total of 192,000 Chinese patients are reported to have died in 2001 from fake drugs, and in the same year Chinese authorities “closed 1,300 factories while investigating 480,000 cases of counterfeit drugs worth 57 million USD”. In 2004, Chinese authorities arrested 22 manufacturers of grossly substandard infant milk powder and closed three factories after the death of over 50 infants. In Haiti, Nigeria, Bangladesh, India, and Argentina, more than 500 patients, predominantly children, are known to have died from the use of the toxin diethylene glycol in the manufacture of fake paracetamol syrup. In 2003, India started death penalties for people peddling fake drugs, but we all know how few are actually convicted. Plus the punishment for exporting fake drugs in mild. This means you can export fake drugs and kill people in Africa but don’t kill our own people!!! Investigations sponsored by pharmaceutical companies in the past have revealed counterfeit drugs containing chalk powder. The industry suspects drug regulatory officials are often in collusion with manufacturers of fake medicines. "The makers and distributors of fake drugs get tipped off just before raids, and all evidence vanishes," said Ranjit Shahani, president of the Organisation of Pharmaceuticals Producers of India and chairman of Novartis, India.
The health ministry needs to empower its enforcement agencies for proper vigilance. All the government activities relating to counterfeit medicines should be published on a website or newspapers. Another important tool to counter this hazard is to establish more Drug Testing Laboratories .The lab structure should be renewed with increased emphasis on training personnel. These labs should also be equipped with state of the art facilities. The responsibility to tackle this problem does not only lie with the government. All companies must be involved and should join forces against this menace. The pharmaceutical industry should come up with innovative plans related to consumer health; it will help to build up their reputation as a responsible industry. Close monitoring of the drug distribution channels are needed and various law enforcing agencies can play a pivotal role. Stricter penalties and laws must be imposed on those who are convicted. All the data about sale or purchase of the drugs must be properly monitored and the drug supply chain must be transparent. Chemist and druggist associations in India claim to play an important role in the medicine trade, their roles must be redefined and the activities must be streamlined and regulated. Regulatory authorities could also enforce anticounterfeit techniques. Some of these techniques are holograms, color shifting inks, and watermarks. A hologram is a security label with having a unique serial number, which verifies that the product has been registered with the country’s drug control authority. Radio frequency identification tags (RFID) can also be used as a measure to stop counterfeiting. This technology uses tiny microchip capable of storing and transmitting information.
I cannot claim all this statistics are true but they are taken from reliable sources. But I can surely claim this problem gripping India is true and needs to be fought. This can affect everyone- Haves and have-nots, rich and poor, urban or rural population, intellectuals or idiots. After all, everyone has to fall sick someday……
the beginning of an era
this is my first post and in this blog i shall be posting my thoughts ,confusions ,articles and peoms which i write as a hobby and press journalism.i am posting my created peom which i feel is not that bad for a amatuer..please bear with me and post your reviews.
when tomorrow starts without me
and i'm not there to see;
if the sun should rise and find your eyes
all filled with tears for me.
i wish so much you wouldn't cry
the way you did today;
while thinking of many things
we didn't get to say.
i know how much you loved me
as much as i love you;
and each time that you think of me
i know you'll miss me too.
but when tomorrow starts without me
please try and understand;
that an angel came and called my name
and took me by the hand.
and said my place was ready
in heaven far above;
and that i'd have to leave behind
all those i dearlt loved.
but when i walked through heaven's gates
i felt so much at home;
when god looked down and smiled at me
from his great golden throne.
he said"this is eternity
and all i promise you";
today for life on earth is past
but here it starts anew.
i promise no tomorrow
for today will always last;
and since each day's the same way
there's no longing for the past.
so when tomorrow starts without me
don't think we are far apart;
for every time you think of me
i'm right there in your heart.
more stuff may soon come;;;
GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK,
NEONSTEIN.
when tomorrow starts without me
and i'm not there to see;
if the sun should rise and find your eyes
all filled with tears for me.
i wish so much you wouldn't cry
the way you did today;
while thinking of many things
we didn't get to say.
i know how much you loved me
as much as i love you;
and each time that you think of me
i know you'll miss me too.
but when tomorrow starts without me
please try and understand;
that an angel came and called my name
and took me by the hand.
and said my place was ready
in heaven far above;
and that i'd have to leave behind
all those i dearlt loved.
but when i walked through heaven's gates
i felt so much at home;
when god looked down and smiled at me
from his great golden throne.
he said"this is eternity
and all i promise you";
today for life on earth is past
but here it starts anew.
i promise no tomorrow
for today will always last;
and since each day's the same way
there's no longing for the past.
so when tomorrow starts without me
don't think we are far apart;
for every time you think of me
i'm right there in your heart.
more stuff may soon come;;;
GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK,
NEONSTEIN.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)