Sipra's Diary: PROFOUND PARADOX(. "DEATH" :Demise of a member of Memoir Goup)

Today one senior member of our memoir group passed away. She was sick for last week .She was German ;May be survivor of holocaust .Couple of months ago she went second time ,and for the last time, to visit Germany.

The group praised her "'how courageous lady are you" '!She was also a strong 
spiritual lady. I knew her vaguely on personal level. Only one day she asked me ,"are you Indian? I went Tibet and also I am influenced with the religion of Hindu." 

I was interested to know the story: how was she influenced; who and what made her interested.; My curiosity remained unanswered.  Her memoir was published just on last Thursday, a gift on her birthday by the publisher .( only four days ago).I think she fulfilled her two last wishes : visiting own birthplace after 50 years and publishing her memoir.

Most amazing thing is that we all know that we will die still we aspire to live ,a tremendous desire  for clinging to life .The journey from life to death is really a profound paradox for us.
"O Death where is your sting?"     

The 'sting' is inherent with life  itself  in the denial of death; in the fear of death and in the utopia to remain immortal through fame . When Woody Allen was asked by the journalist ," do you dream to be immortal in the silver screen ? He promptly replied," No, not at all; I want to exist in this apartment , in New York !"

In the Epic of Ramayana, It was advised that because death is inevitable but unpredictable nothing should be delayed for 'tomorrow' which is  also unpredictable: 'Now or Never! '

************************************************************************************* 

Sipra's Diary: ( Poem): " I AM NOBODY "

                                    I Am Nobody

     My first encounter with the poem of Emily Dickinson was in 2013/2014 at Morgan Museum

where  some special events was going on about her. I came to New York  from India  for visiting my

daughter. I didn't  even know her name before that.

-                      ------"Who are you ?"

                       'Are you -Nobody -too?"

                      Instantly I was hooked.

                      How nice to be self-banished    
                     
                    Under  the shadow of Nobody!        

                   To be somebody is dreary

                   As to bear the bug of identity

                   Paired with "crisis"running paralley

                   Chased by social insects: name, fame,

                   Maladies of modern time!

                                                        Sipra Roy
                     

Corona -Virus ... April14,2020. ( Memoir : PANDEMIC PARA DOX)

 April 14,2020. Corona-Virus.    ( The Memoir): Sipra Roy. 

                                                 (PANDEMIC_PARADOX )!

We are passing now through hard times.Normal way of living is ransacked by a deadly virus

named Covid-19. "Stay Home,Stay  Safe, Wash Your Hands" :This is the weird prescription  for

the global mass given by all doctors, politicians and well-wishers until the exact cause and

vaccination  against the disease is discovered.

Freedom of normal life  like taking a morning walk to a park near by , going to a movie or

restaurant with friends  has to be at the cost of life-risk.

This Covid19 has disrupted every sphere of life: our heart, soul, emotions, self understanding, our

whole  being. My daughter was full of concern and to calm down her I , though not serious, at the

 beginning, but listened to her and self-qurantined myself.There is no fire or smoke from gun, no

military truck ;but the frequent yelling siren of the  ambulance running through the deserted avenues

creates a painful but dumb hollowness in the mind; If 'social distance' is the most valuable commodity,  how can I

 take any  useful part  in the pandemic? My daughter replied   if you "Stay home" it will control the

 spread of disease ! Think that is helping the society  for  your part .Any way she made  some donation to "GO FUND ME".

No noisy war but a deadly atmosphere of  silence  is spread all around.

Inside  in the most of New York apartments  the scenario is different :As if playing a new drama ,on new stage!

Working from home keeps the young less tired So in the  Friday afternoon the chat-room of video and

   zoom become very busy to active  social  life.They call their parents or closed one and ask to follow

the  rules . I entertained myself by listening them as a non member  Eaves-dropper!

Their discussions spin mostly around food channel (The second instinct after fear ): Like how much

grocery they have stocked or, how  much they are in crisis for the scarcity of food, because home-

staying children are grabbing too  much to empty the  refrigator. It is hard to cope with their

 hunger;  some  are complaining about their husbands who have become intolerable for their growing idleness and demand for enjoying  bed . If Corantine

continues indefinitely, lots of divorce cases will be filed  shooting towards another potential social problem!

While some are sharing the  innovative ideas to utilize the excess fruits and vegetables they have

ordered ; an innovative boutique of culinary creativity!   It seems  that they are ready to start their own restaurant as soon as they will get over the  pandemic !
  All of them enquired whether they have stocked enough the 'most essentials' : enough tissue-paper,Toilet paper  sanitizers and etc, etc,


 Thanks to the benefit of technology;  it replenishes the gap of social distance by introducing Zoom and video-conference in large scale.

I have not to be bothered  with the above problems. As  my daughter is working from home, I get whole-time care from her.

Since lock down I listen the speech of Andrew Cuomo: It gives painful gloomy picture.  My social life

is limited to mostly DOROT.  When I came to know about Carol and Marsha , I really felt the impact

  of the Corona Virus.:

 In the TV  the repeated news relayed  only"increase of numbers ,and the numbers with 

  no names ,no faces "strikes  on

me like  waves,  and the description of  viewing the  pale moon hiding behind the high rising building

leaving its gleam"......is so metaphorical !

".......Let  us carry the 'gleam' that significantly represents  the hope that we will overcome the

pandemic, as we did in the past  to combat against  the lethal   viruses.



I think about the relentless service of the doctors, nurses health-carers, and the employees who

deliver medicines, food and essentials to run the city-life smooth at the cost of life-risk , are  really

 as adorable as angels .

Here in Manhattan right at 7:PM citizens  cheer in chorus with  bell to  greet them ! The positive

side  against the dark screen is " rising of  Human  Love.": Lots of donations and eager volunteers are

coming forward  for required help ; politics, religion  racial differences are swept by  human

love. Hope, Our medical science  to be  equipped more rough and taught to cope with and protect the

global health in  coming days.

I will mention a contrast picture of  the nature of human society with the animal world.

 New York is well-known for the rodent population. Yesterday I read that millions of  rats came out

from the subway in search of food . As the restaurants are closed  and trash-can are empty  the hungry

rodents have turned militant. They are fighting with one another for the land and food  and   grabbing

their own babies.!!

I mentioned this  incident  to notice that rodents are also carriers of disease ; let not it stand in

waiting list  to  invade us next! 

 

                                              [{. IN.  COVID __COMPLEX}]

**************************************************************************************

Sipra,s Diary: JAN 2, 2020,Back To New York

                                                   
                                                    Back to New York from Calcutta


It was Jan2nd Our flight touched the land of JFK, NewYork at dawn-,5:30 .After the security check

and  luggage-collection we took Uber at 6:A.M .....Outside was still dark .....

Each and every dawn and  evening  are always special  and auspicious to me; So,on the way to my

apartment the calm and quite morning  with the touch of the soft mild glow of the sun revealing the

sleeping city carefully  just like a doting mother to her beloved baby,  offered a visual buffet to me !

 This revealing of day from the dark appeals to me as the very  First  Dawn of the  Planet Earth with


 her magnificent beauty of Nature as well as man-made  sky scraper, high-rise half dark buildings

 with blinking windows, opening her  dreamy eyes to drink her own beauty and flushing red  in

romance like a new bride, as the rising sun, her first love openly embracing and kissing her ....
,
The cab was running parallel by the river Hudson; People of the city are still in slumber; Even the

 river Hudson was lying still under the quilt of fog .

I reached my apartment with the feeling of a wandering bird coming back with empty stomach in its

own nest. "

"Empty " stomach --- because I don't get any psychological nutrition of my expectation while

staying in India for last couple of years. I  made plan  to do something before going but most of them

remained unfulfilled. I wished to visit some  close aged relatives  staying scattered in the metro

city I was born and accomplished higher studies but I could not go alone..The city with new costume

is difficult for me to go here and there: Old roads with new names and new fly-overs hiding the

known roads banished me in confusion To my delight ,I saw some buses ,protecting their identity

still  run with  old numbers to old destination. Whether shabby-looking shops or buses with old 

 names, became animate to me: very much  vibrant ; they glanced at me ,  "hmm You !you look

somewhat familiar, are you-"?


  I remember-   T-2  International Airport in Mumbai is  really huge and a baroque piece of art and

grandiose. The executive lounge is more luxurious than the Persian Palace ..........Let  the caption

"India  is rising" float or swing and let me basking on that picture. It is true,the economic condition of

people as a whole has suddenly improved. We have to seek now poor people to donate our old

clothes or left over food.  Even up to 2007 this airport looked like a den :dirty, smelly and reigned by

mosquitoes.I could not sit in the lounge: I left as soon as my son with newly wedded wife entered the

for check -in- luggage  section..

..Our flight was at  12:45 AM from T-2 terminus. So after couple of

hours watching on the map root of our flight I fell asleep  almost twelve hours.


We reached  at 5;30  in JFK airport of New York ;I felt not only sad but shame for  the  unadorned           
basic  look of  the  New York airport which is  globally supposed to be the best.    JFK airport,

the most glorified  global place looked so ordinary compared to yesterday's T-2 airport of

Mumbai! As if, I landed from the  bright heaven to the  muddy earth . All around the crowd of

passengers were mostly Asians and miscellaneous . Had  this  dream -land of the  world  really

  turned into a  common place open for anyone to enter in?


I remembered the story of "Happy Prince " [[of Oscar Wilde]]  who was bereft of all royal grandeur

 with the help of a little swallow who took shelter under the feet of prince's' statue, gave away all his

jewels from his body, one by one, even the gem from his eyes, to remove  tear and poverty of all the  needy    people of his city.

What was the ultimate result?

 When  the city aldermen saw   the bare and ugly  iron statue of the Prince ,they ordered  the statue 

 to be   thrown  away from the lofty pedestal to replace by another new piece of art which would

glorify the city.

    Is it desirable  that the  fate of New York city -cum-United States of America to become   like

that of the fabled story of the HAPPY PRINCE ? I remembered couple of years ago President Trump

once lamented about the NY JFK airport that it seemed, as if, he landed in some third world country

compared to Beirut or Beijing airport. Trump as president might be novice ,and aberrant in speech

or  behavior; but as an  American, no doubt,   he loves the country deeply .  Otherwise , he

would not have felt that type of  pinch.  Only unflinching love can stir up  similar

feeling from the heart;though this type of love is considered as  narrow and selfish  from idealistic

point of view.

                             Did any president of US ever had such feeling or comment before? ....Might be

with Lincoln or Hamilton, or.......................
                                                                              Sipra  Roy                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              ********************************

Poem: "LET IT BE"( TO JOHN LENON )

         


                                                           LET IT BE : Sipra Roy



                  It is easy to say or  sing,

                 'Let it be ,  let it be,'

                 But hard to accept or abide by,

                 While mind is crazy,

                 To own the desired part of the universe;

                  When heart howls:

                 'Let me possess what I wish'

                  How can I sing along, 'let it be'?

                  When mind desires more and more

 

                  Keeping throat thirsty as before,

                  How to say 'let it be ,let it be '

                 I think, when life was in topsy-turvy

                 Only then it was composed by John Lenon 

                 To mitigate  self -consolation .

                                                                                                  sipra roy

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.Edit&Add:(Revised)         Sep25-2021

              N.B

Did you sing?//or Yell from the labyrinth//

Tearing heart's string?  

When last hope goes of /

/IN the blackhole of devastation

Let it be stands for 

Nothing but Surrender //
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>..

Shoes: ...............New-Age-Crown !I

New-Age-Crown  ???...........                                                               words=248 //. page 1

Sometimes Ad-world behaves so funnily They are crazy to exhibit their excellence, their novelty in creativity! The above image of the woman is an advertisement for the shoe and not of any gym.

Purpose of the shoe is to protect feet while walking on-road and also sometimes for the elegancy,  whereas crown on the head is a ''symbol of pride and majesty''.
                                                                        Though shoes of some branded company are as expensive as the crown, but shoes are shoes, simply footwear.  In the nineties, the "Reebok "was considered something as the owner's pride and neighbour's envy" in India.  My son and my husband both had that  But I was not aware of how prestigious they were. 
About 30/35 years back I read an article of some Harvard-researcher that in coming future the pattern of our social system will be like"" inverted pyramid" that is upside down as contrary to the then present time hierarchical society. With the stepping of new millennium everything, in every system is changing at a faster pace.I notice this advertisement of the shoe just opposite to the silvery globe of Columbus  Circle.  To me, it seems ridiculous. I hid my face to release a cryptic chuckle.
I remembered the"article I read long ago"  ïnverted pyramid ".
Is this Ad a  literally ' vivid sample'  or debut of 'metaphorical symbol'?Head is rested on the footpath with legs in ornated shoes stretched up to the sky (  on the huge showcase glass of the shop.)!

Sipra's Diary : MONOLOGUE: " Life know not ......

                                                      ..........MONOLOGUE...........

"Life know not what thou art!"
"Why are we always so apart from each other?
Head and heart never aligned; Always in a tug-of-war;
When you are ready to take me where once I desired,
My mind, by the time, shifted elsewhere!

Some morning I woke up joyfully, with a light heart. I plan to do this and that. It seems something will happen, But very often the day ends in the halfway with dampened mood. I ask myself what was my expectation? What did I fail to achieve? Apparently, the value of success or failure of my own has declined. But actually, it is not true. I feel it when I am affected by small success or failure.
                                              Life! know not what thou art!