Valentine's Day: 'Commercialised celebration of love'

Valentine’s day:  Commercialised   celebration of love

 Manhattan,NY

Feb 16, 2018

I was coming to home from doctor’s clinic, Columbus Circle. It was an enough cold evening. But lots of crowd was flowing on the road As soon as I saw a joyful young couple with red bouquet of flowers , I remembered “it  is Valentine’s Day!’ Among the crowd I saw only two or three  young couples with hand-in-hand and boquete of flowers .Most were found in groups. My eyes caught hold few male couples ,both young and middle-aged male couples clutching each others’ hands  warmly .I twitted them silently ‘are you happy and “gay’! ………

So in this megacity high-tech super digital land of face book and twitter ,the  warmth of romance in valentine’s Day  brews much flavor among  the group or clan in place of  clan-destine romance of  love between two hearts in the  traditional world:  a game of change !

 But who was this St. Valentine and how his name was associated with love and romance?  I came to learn, mostly from internet and books  that this very old tradition originated from a Roman festival called “Lupercalia’ in 3^{rd or 5th} century AD;. Its history is shrouded  in mystery. There are different legends spanned around it.

Some story says Roman emperor Claudius11banned all marriages and engagements in Rome. Because  he believed that love and bondage of family life discouraged the Roman men to serve in the Army. 
St valentine defied it. Emperor Claudius11 executed two men both named Valentine on Feb14th of different years in the 3^rd century AD. Their martyrdom was  duly honoured by the catholic Church with the celebration of St Valentine’s Day.

 Isn’t it an irony that modern ‘day of love’  is based on the unjustified martyrdom(!)(or murder,who knows)   of someone for courage and honesty?... 
It seems, less we know the history, more  we will be happy.

Other story is more brutal.  In the festival of Lupercalia  men  would sacrifice a goat  and a dog. Then  the young women who stood  naked in a line  would be whipped by those drunken men with the hides of the sacrificed   animals just slain. It was believed that this ‘ritual’ would make them fertile. It  also included a match-making lottery{s-o- ridiculous!} in which young men drew the names of  women from a jar.

And they will be coupled up accordingly to fertile the the field for future battle of brutality! The Roman introduced this festival with the purpose to expel  Pegan  rituals. Later on the Christians covered up  the cruelty by patching 'colour  of love' upon it.  The literary works of Chaucer, Shakespeare romanticized valentine Day in their work and it flourished reputation throughout Europe as significant cultural, religious  and ‘commercial celebration of love’.

Today valentine’s Day contains vestiges of both Christian  and  ancient  Roman traditions. 

Anyway, festival means business and Valentine’s Day is a big business :bumper sale of cards, balloons,  flowers, food, movies  and what not(sale of  marital loyality in'Tinder' love or in 'Just for lunch' for introductory love--- where the market has no sunset throughout the year instead of a single fixed day)! It has become almost global festival in uprising countries.
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Sipra's Diary 2018

Date:17^th Jan,2018

 New York

                                    Really time flies so quickly.  We celebrated the 31^st grand  night party in Kolkata,( India )just before leaving for New york next morning. And within blink of  an eye, 2018 is  grown up to17 days old!

We went to India like every other year.; spent almost 3 weeks splitting  our time between Mumbai, Puri, Bangalore and finally in Kolkata, my birthplace….But  I lost the charm of spending vacation here. I don’t feel the warmth of heart now  like before from the near and dear relatives who are quite significant   enough to acquire my mind a lot of time when I am in the far away land. Everybody is busy to their own plan to spend the vacation of the best season of India with their own micro-family.

We feel as outsiders. They grab the gifts we give  them without expressing excitement or ‘thanks, and then vanish in their own world. . 

I ‘try’ to “feel good’,  to shake off old sentiments and accept the change coolly.

But this change of attitude reminds me those nostalgic past days of our time when we prepared all plans centered around vacationing NRI relatives…

To make their stay cheerful we used to plan for them the short tours we would make, the new movies we would watch together in the theaters and the great menu which included their favorite dishes( not in restaurants but  prepared at home) throughout their stay. It was as exciting as enjoying any festival or a kind of wedding-ceremony…. . 

Does country means only a mass of land? Certainly not. It is the people, the community and  above all, the family members, the warmth of relationship that turns the mass of land to “my land, my  country.”   

 Anyway, we reached New York on the1st January with minus degree temperature, leaving behind far away the land of unwanted colder  feeling of ‘feelinglessness’. Through the window-glass of the warm cab which was passing between snow-white road, I noticed the thinly frozen Hudson dazzling like silver sheet in the morning sun.  When I reached my destination, in spite of the bite of chilled weather I felt warmth of a kind of attachment . The cool experiences of the vacation sprayed water to shroud my memory in the mist in such a short  period of time!

  I whispered to myself “I am now in love with this land, New York!”
Long Live New York!

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Sipra's Diary. .Poem: "Spirit in language " // ("Verve in language")

Whenever I turn  pages of    my old copies or even loose piece of papers  while cleaning  my bookshelf,  I find  out lots of my verses lay  scattered,  neglected  like orphans.  I  adopt some of them ,  which were  once rejected . Number of such poems have grown  huge . Some are really good but so esoteric that  I doubt  them as my own creation and ask  myself," is it  truly "I" from whose pen the verses came flowing?
  However, I  have decided to take a project for the coming 2018  to collect   best  20/ 30's  pieces of my choice together under the title  of "Posthumous"  hoping for future publication ...and.... hmm....... dedicated to Dead Poets' Society !             


                                Spirit- in-Silence :Sipra Roy

            In Language,

            What can be more eloquent  than  silence?

            However delicate or complicated, 

             still-----

            Language seems merely  

            designed apparel for feeling!

            More the feeling goes profound,

           More the speech looses its sound

           become  Super-sensitive but dumb!

            Like the primitive one of by-gone-days.

            Love,hate,jealousy or fear

           All suppressed, hidden, unspoken words

           Reflect  messages either in  eyes

           Or in body gesture

           As the innocent animals do!

          In  the vessel of language

          Nothing is more eloquent  

          Than  the spirit- in -Silence!

          

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Words=                      //lines >

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

                           

          

Sipra's Diary: Poem- ::-solitude

In my schooldays as teenager I became popular as  writing  parody. Theme of  parody centered mostly around teachers or school-related events. In tiffin hours Our small team of 4 students used to sit in lonely  corner of the compound  and read our poetry one by one. When it was my turn  each of us could not but rolled in laughing on the ground so much  that It was hard to finish the poem.Specially, those which were read imitating the rhythm and tune of the epic"RAMAYANA" From the first period we waited for this excited entertainment. Some curious  girls observed us suspiciously. Perhaps  someone among them   reported to the principal  because we did not allow any other to join in our team.We were called by the principal and were asked the cause of   avoiding others and laughing .WE stood speechless with heads down  to the ground. The principal looked  a little puzzled. Because we were the best in all respects throughout  our school record.She could not match the complain with us. With vigil look  she scanned us  for a while and  then from her  perplexed face  and nasal  voice a  sound came out  in frustation, "GO"!

We stepped out gently from the office but as we reach away from the office near to the classroom, we burst into laughter again with our palms shutting the mouth but checked before the shocked look of our classmates who huddled in front of the door of the classroom. Thus the 'Era" of parody in school life ended.
            In my young age, I had an impression that the theme of the poem should be always something noble, deep and serious. The frivolity of writing parody at teenage was brushed aside to focus on, somewhat, 'made-up' seriousness. I had a series of poems on 'silence".  At that time I wrote them in my native language.
In 2013, I translated   two out of them   into English:

                             Solitude
Oh Solitude!let me be your shadow, or
Shelter me in you,
So that I can cherish-
 My  silence, gazing on
My own piece of sky
Captive  through my window-glass 
Like a picture-in-frame;
And pausing to undefined melancholy
That has no reason! 
Or,
In my own fleeting moods
Nurturing my budding dreams,
Concealed carefully from others;
To smell and to harp on
All that I love to treasure.

If my dream is shattered
By sudden storm of noises
Amidst the calmness of the ocean,
Oh, solitude!
Please be my Light House
To anchor me in your safe island!
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Congratulations to media-maestro, David Remnick

WELCOME   DAVID  REMNICK!!

Welcome for turning back to the waning land of Atlantis!
 I am excited to know  your announcement that you will leave some space  for poetry  in your magazine   WSJ!
 I feel every magazine, whether ECONOMIST OR BLOOMBERG should save its last page for poetry [ like dessert in the menu card] and  not for '   OBITUARY 'of  celebrity. Literature throughout the  universe  evolved   first  in  verse penned by Homer,Sophocles Euridipus , Vyas  and others.

......It needed to be noticed earlier,when the  industrial age stepped in, and Blake hailed  the warning bell,
'Tiger,tiger burning bright/In the forests of night/'....'In what distant deeps or skies /Burnt the fire of thine eyes'/.....'What dread grasp/dare its deadly terrors clasps?......
Anyway ,better late than never!'..So literary people with deep mind like you have important role  to lead for restoration .
It is a paradox  that though the interest in poetry has waned compared to past decade,number of poets has exploded. Market-value of poetry- world is  too  little to  maintain or sustain  any family-life; poets are fueled by passion, emotion , not by profession for earning money. His primary aim is to have self -satisfaction . But money is required . Life doesn't sail smoothly  as amateur. Because poetry  fails to provide any promise of cozy life, it is considered redundant as hair or nails of body.

In the golden age for poets the royal kings  provided them support. and now?....Governments throughout the wealthy countries spend millions and millions for science , for conquering the space above and    deep underneath the ocean.
Can a minuscule -slice  be saved for the poetry-world/ Or a poetry-fund (poetry-bank) like security fund,  Defence fund,etc,etc,   ........

 In India a Bengali poet of 60's ( who died  at young age out of extreme poverty)wrote,
               'When fire of hunger hovers,
                   Emotion evaporates
              Leaving life  in  arid  desert;
                Even the beauty of full moon reminds
        The smell of  charcoal-baked-bread
                           to empty stomach!"..(Translated into Eng from Beng)......

In Bengali......KHUDHER RAJJYE SAKALI GADYAMAYA, PURNIMA CHAND JENO JHOLSANO- RUTI!
He and his   above  verse became famous after his  death.

Day before President's Inauguration

                          

                                                               2016

I am least interested about political affairs. Election ,Vote were to me  a kind of festival. As the school building was taken to use for election, we were happy to enjoy extra holidays. Starting from my school-life to adulthood , I spent on the same philosophy.

But this time I smell different atmosphere in the election affair; unlike previous festive color a hot steamy current is blowing from mass and media starting from Pre-election and continuing still now.

Trump has won in the election by the people’s support in legitimate democratic way. It is a common game to throw mud to one another in election campaign before  the vote. But why it continues to obsess  some sect of people even after post-election?

To protest an elected leader is to dishonor the constitutional democracy  of the Republic.

Donald Trump may be unconventional politician to manipulate Machiavellian policy like  other veteran politicians; may not be good orator. But he is successful business tycoon and media figure. He was  one among the top ten Americans .He has already acquired name , fame ,money .Only achieving political power is left.Let us hope positive about him in the new arena.

His comment on immigration policy or about terrorism is nothing   wrong.It  has caused to make the country anaemic. Instead of camouflaging , he opened his mind candidly and boldly. By heart he is true American and loves the sons of soil blindly. This is why he has won the support of the Americans. Let the “professional protesters” with their claim  have some patience and wait for Presidential  First  100 days to watch!
As a largest democratic country America sets example of glorious history in the world.In a democracy sovereign power is inherent in the people;No president has yet taken any decision arbitrarily.Abrupt change of policy is not possible;all decisions need to pass through lengthy legal system of democracy.
Therefore no need to fear the imaginary shadow-ghost-of apprehension. Let us celebrate the auspicious moments of the country!

FIT BIT : Modern Marvel.

                                         FIT   BIT:  :Modern Marvel!
                    'Fit  Bit' is the latest obsession of the present-day generation.It is an electronic fitness product;a wireless enabled wearable technology device.It presents fitness data of your total body.It can be worn as wrist-band or around  the ankle of feet.

My daughter with her group of  friends bought it with great enthusiasm .It is designed to help you more active,eat a more well rounded diet,sleep better and turn you into a healthier human being-,shows time and daily activity...including heartbeat,blood-presser,mileage, steps taken, distance travelled,food calories, calories burnt,stairs climbed-,all the active minutes and the  even 'quality of sleep'!i.e- The app represents the sound sleep with deep blue colour like calm ocean;the broken sleep with  exact number of stripes and span of time  as sleep is broken ,and disturbed sleep with nightmare dream is marked  as red and multi colored stripes.
                 It seemed to me amazing!
As soon as she wakes up in the morning she begins to take account the statistic of her body  from the app. Then she begins to ask   in her mobile about the statistics of others  in the community.The FIT  BIT community is  bulging very fast.
While most parents have declared 'innings defeat' about guiding their  adult children's health issue (because the children think their  ideas  are backdated ),  this tiny device came forward  to guide and control so efficiently on behalf of them.
This Fit-Bit community has very much  competitive  spirit.To quote their daily conversation---------------
        -"How many steps  have you  today?"
-        -"It has not been 10,000 steps yet"
        _"I accomplished 13,000 steps today"
        -"Wow!"
         -"My fit-bit has not been charged  and so I felt so reluctant to do any exercise ,walk or take healthy food."
           "Yea, same feelings happened to me; if the device doesn,t work, I spend the day wallowing on irregularities.
Now different companies are launching this popular app.Their demand is sky-rocketing.'Apple' always move fast with  added sophistication  and expensive price.

I think it us a nice useful gift ,specially for the young folk on their birthday or   after  graduation.