Dear mother India,
Following a long and tiring journey, we reached New York on the 16th January. Winter is very severe here. After the initial bouts of cold, cough, and fever, we have all recovered and once again fallen into daily routine. During the week we reached, it was snowing all through. Mr. Snow has not relaxed totally, nor does he allow anybody else to relax. At times suddenly he spurts in the middle of night and warns his presence around. This has kept the people alert on this side of planet earth. During the past two-and-half centuries, they have been busy building roads, bridges and skyscrapers; erecting schools, hospitals and churches; taking care of the education, food and shelter and health needs of their fellow beings and today stand tall on this earth as an ultimate symbol of civilization that began spontaneously around five hundred years back on the west of Euphrates being matured and metamorphosed within the mother nature’s amnion of cold and snow. Descendents of this metamorphosis took hold of the continent in the west hitherto unknown on the earth and which has no greater a place than it’s poles, condemned to be nature’s store –house of winter snow, wild animals, unsurpassable rivers, impenetrable forests and a scattered dwelling place of a primitive tribe. These descendants by sheer determination and a gigantic energy never before encountered in the history of mankind, converted this unknown land on the earth, not just an acceptable land for habitation, but almost a promised land of scriptures. So much organized as though they are! Organized they come to birth, organized they bury themselves after death, organized they live, eat, exercise power, manifest love and even pray to God, for He is more chained in their organization. Oh! Now I know, now I know, it is engulfing snow, this cutting cold wind, this dreadful chill of the winter have made them lot more hungrier than the rest of the children of the earth to possess a power to devour which is incomprehensible to the observing intellect of an immigrant of the East except that it may be conceivable in the Puranas of ancient India hidden in the stories of the Bakasura , Kumbhakarana and so many others . These rare forces of the nature are continuously driving them to be alert, body conscious, far sighted, calamity oriented, well prepared and organized in all day- to- day matters of life. God bless that cold and that snow which have become the founding stones of this great civilization of the West.
At times these thoughts make me wonder why the great God can’t bless our great land with Mr. Snow who would suddenly storm in, shake up that part of the planet like the monsoon wind shakes up a mango tree in the backyard of my home and wake up masses of people who are drowned with ‘TAMAS’ (lethargy) and altered into stones and trees.
This regretful regression of the race during the millennium passed and degradation of its masses with self putrefaction into a state of slavery and beggary have been constantly torturing my body, mind and soul to find an answer to the question- Are we the descendants of the race which is in antiquity unknown had gained by sheer faith, will and power of concentration, a state of enlightenment which mankind of all ages aspire to attain. Are we the descendants of the same race which in that state of meditation, brought out the pearls of wisdoms and chanted in the form of the Vedas. Are we the descendants of those noble teachers and their devoted disciples who sat under the guidance of highest discipline and tried to find answers to the subtlest mysteries of nature and recorded in those Upanishads and preserved for the posterity to lead life of fearlessness on the earth. Are we the descendants of the same womb which nourished , slumbered, and raised the sparks of Siddhartha, Mahavira, Sankara, Nanak, Ramakrishna, Narendra, and Mohandas. Are we the descendants of that legacy which once defined the laws of creation, evolution and liberation in Kapila’s doctrines of Sankhya philosophy, which first gave clarity of speech to man in Panini’s doctrines on grammar (Vyakarana Shastra), which gave clarity of mind in Patanjali’s doctrines on knowledge (Yoga Shastra), which brought out the secrets of human body in Dhanwantary’s doctrines of medicine, which wrote the laws of astronomy, which first gave birth to nine numericals and practiced the science of mathematics; revealed the secret of cipher and coined the symbol of zero, defined the science of algebra and created the schools of law, polemics, art, drama, dance, literature, and philosophy. Each one is a specially lighted event in the dreary routine memory of history and each time opened a new door of wisdom in the man’s mind propelling him into greater dimensions of life.
Tell me oh! Mother, are we the descendants of those chosen philosophers of yours who raised the faith of man till then content with the worship of stones, trees, fellow rulers, or at the most energies of nature and released it from polytheism to monotheism and ultimately with a stroke of genius after centuries of contemplation matured it into the unparalleled concept ever man conceived of divine spirit in the form of no dualism (adavaita), qualified non-dualism (Vishistadvaita), dualism (dvaita) and so on. Are we the descendants of those spiritual giants who in a state of consciousness had crystallized to the highest extent and with humility had pronounced to the universe “Aham Brahmasmi, Tat Tvam Asi” ( I am Brahman – the supreme Reality, thou art That) .When the rest of the world west of Euphrates was sleeping. In those two small sentences ambition in human form sought its limits, the knowledge in its quest touched at last the incomparable Truth and saw it wherever turned its eyes, touched it wherever stretched its hand, smelt it wherever poked its nose. For a moment world stood still and trembled to find universe is one matter and HIS word reverberated from the depth of the Himalayan caves and echoed in the space touching the distant stars declaring “Ekam Evam Adivitiyam”; “Ekoham Bahusyam” (One, only one without a two; from one I appear as many).
Oh! Mother, tell me the sins of ours, which made you sleep for the last thousand years and left us as orphans in the hands of the aliens. Tell me the sins of ours that made you let your children run bizarre, matting their hair, growing their beard, rusting their nails, their skin losing the sense of the season, their senses losing the appetite of nature; eyes filled with confusion, mind bogged with slavery and gut content with beggary. Is this the fate of a man questing for knowledge?
Oh! Mother too many are your past glories, too long you slept under its shadows. Wake up and arise, take a walk from the snow laden hills of Himalayas to the shining rocks of Kanyakumari. Rejuvenate your children who are split into thousands of castes and creeds under thousands of faiths and fathers. See for yourself miles and miles of slums erupting like cobwebs. See those rulers’ reduced to retrogressive, club-house politicians, petulant. Who have forgotten their duties in deal making, self-trading and power-grabbing. So do their subjects, apparently in a state of inexplicable tranquility with irresistible lethargy sweeping all over, enjoying a mid- day nap when the rest of the world is working for the next meal; Now and then when woken up vehemently engaged in discussing and preaching the rest of the world the theories of ‘Karma Yoga’, linking their compassion to the Buddha and non-violence to Gandhi and doubting their self exiled brothers and sisters for having lost the Indian culture while inwardly enjoying their offspring’s trying to imitate the outwardly appearance of the western counterpart without caring to wake up to the fact that all progressive civilizations were built on two strong hands practicing continuously “ Karma Yoga”, the secret of which is revealed by a worm engaged in selfless uninterrupted work.
Shame on those elders who built the canopy for our young ones inculcating the thoughts that we are the selected few on the planet, blessed with divine qualities of human love, self dignity, humility and ahimsa (nonviolence) but where ever you step you feel nothing but a warm body decaying under the TAMAS (lethargy) and putrefying under the slavery of noble Indian women and the loyalty of innocent masses of down casted. Even in the depth of our sleep, we sin if we murmur the names of these great sons of our motherland. After discharging these thoughts to you there has come to me , spontaneously some calmness and peace of mind. Wake up, arise, Oh! Mother, please come back, please come back.
Wake up! Arise! Oh! Mother India!
Millennium of slumber, dozed in vain,
Millions of children moaned in pain;
Thousands summer passed by the rain,
Accounts the ruin of alien reign,
Wake up! Arise! Oh! Mother India!
Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and Parsees,
Buddhists, Hindus, Brahmins & Parrayas;
Several hundred millions, several thousand fathers;
Know for us all you are the only mother.
Wake up! Arise! Please come back.
Trace the footprints of your ancient hills,
Tear the snowy frocks and frills,
Step into the silence of pervading hidden caves,
Plunge into the mantel where the wisdom raves,
Wake up! Arise! Please come back.
Explode that knowledge transcends mind’s reason,
Love that rejuvenates people of all seasons,
Spirituality that spreads beyond all horizons,
Once again vibrate and march the earth in unison.
Wake up! Arise! Please come back.
Ever loving yours,
Dinker B. Rai.
NY