The Onion's Greatest Hits

I really REALLY like reading the Onion. It just has some of the funniest articles around. So I thought I'd keep a list of my favorite thus far (I'm going to periodically add to this list):

1. http://www.theonion.com/articles/company-president-started-out-as-fertilized-embryo,35484/?ref=auto

2. http://www.theonion.com/articles/gallup-poll-rural-whites-prefer-ahmadinejad-to-oba,29677/

3. http://www.clickhole.com/quiz/which-iraq-war-are-you-985

4. http://www.theonion.com/article/gay-teen-worried-he-might-be-christian-2888

5. This one is very dark. But the underlying issue of uncurbed gun violence is a very important one, and I think the onion hit this nail on the head:  http://www.theonion.com/article/everyone-at-office-planning-shooting-spree-for-sam-30793

Mandela's Passing: my reaction

Yesterday, I heard the news of Nelson Mandela's passing away. I was shocked at first, and as soon as I got the chance, I read some news articles about his passing. Although I have grown up knowing about him, it was not until I began to read more on the man that I realized what we had truly lost. I felt a deep, terrible kind of grief as I continued to read about him. I stayed up until 2 a.m. yesterday with the pretext of working, but in reality, my sadness was what was keeping me awake. And as I read more and more about him, I began to gain an understanding of what his friends, followers, and indeed the rest of the world had lost.

Even in elementary school I knew of his colorful life, from his being labeled a terrorist, to his prison years, to his becoming the president and father of his country. But throughout the years, I thought of him as a distant, larger-than-life figure with whom ordinary people such as me had nothing in common. But whatever I was able to read yesterday brought the man and his immense struggle across those distances  to the hard ground of reality before me.

His prison years spoke volumes about who he was as a person. Over the 27 years he spent in prison, tragedies continued to ensue within his family. His mother and firstborn son both died while he was under imprisonment; he was forbidden from attending their funerals. His wife was also imprisoned and had to tolerate perhaps even harsher conditions than he - and he would have to tolerate long, agonizing waits to get news of her.

I wanted to mention these things because what inspired me was that in spite of these ordeals, plus the harsh conditions he was subjected to, the solitary confinement he was placed in, and the racist treatment of the guards, he did not break. He was fundamentally changed by his experiences in prison to learn the value of many core qualities that he had not necessarily applied before in his political involvement before prison, but that would become invaluable later when he got out of prison and helped lead South Africa out of apartheid. Sufferings that would break most men stripped him of many of his former beliefs and left him an unshakable belief in humanism and moral goodness.

I think that one of the things that I find so wonderful about Mandela is this humanism. He understood the effect of apartheid not only upon the subjected race, but also its effect upon the dominating race. In his own words, "As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison." He readily made peace with those who played a role in his imprisonment and in the imprisonment of South Africa, traveling hundreds of miles to meet the widow of the last president of apartheid-era South Africa and inviting his former jailer over to the VIP box to watch his presidential inauguration. Simply for playing such an instrumental role in keeping the nation united and protecting it from the threat of a divide between the whites and the blacks, I feel like he should be celebrated.

But I feel like he should be celebrated for even more, because men like these belong not only to South Africa, but to all of us. I feel that his actions exemplified how, with a deep moral authority and with unshakable faith in yourself, immense good can be done in the world. Realizing the extent of what he did and all he stood for made me come close to tears last night, but I do not think that the coming days should be days of mourning. I think they should be days of celebration, because we are blessed that men like him live among us.

An Inspirational Video: Zac Smith - a guy with cancer who lived life to the fullest

I have spent many days thinking about this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4Qb1qdXn4o 

This video speaks for itself, but I'd like to add my own 2 cents as well, as a guy who hasn't faced anything like what Zac Smith faced but I've been thinking about living life to the fullest. So many of us seem to be trapped in our own problems and everything, but sometimes we need perspective. We need to take in the larger picture - what exactly are we here for?? Take a step backward, and think about it. Were you meant to be obsessing about your clothes or car, or meant to spend that time you spent obsessing over that in trying to make the people around you happy? When you die, are your last words "I should have gotten that pay raise"?? 

Sometimes we truly need to understand that there are bigger things out there. Big things that appear to be small, such as a family having a good time, or the smiles of your friends. We need to understand what we ought to value. On that note, hats off to Zac Smith for having this kind of an attitude at having cancer. May he Rest In Peace.

Companions

My dog passed away two weeks ago. he was like a little brother to me. I have written this poem about him. In it, I've thrown everything I have ever learned about poetry, from contemporary talk to Tagore's poetry to Sufi Muslim devotional poetry to French Impressionist poetry to my own style and thoughts. All of these influences were necessary to give justice to this complex, passionate, and profound poem about love and loss. I hope reading it moves you as much as writing it moved me.

Companions
I.
On a long ago evening, we came home with you, a child whose unfathomable gaze none understood.
We asked you to rest at the end of the arduous journey, at the end of your search for a home, but you did not understand.
How could you understand, you who ran by lonely streets in the dark of the night,
You who hid away from the world’s eyes at daybreak?
Rest, remain with us, and love us, we had then told you in vain, for you turned away, wanting and yet fearing the endless road you had left behind.

I outstretched my arms, waiting for you to approach the awaiting embrace.
Yet you gazed with uncertain eyes that tore my heart
For you were too timid to advance forth to the arms of love, and yet, too afraid to step back.
We gazed at each other with longing, for I did not have a brother and you did not have a home.

Painful apprehension in each heart, we all left for the outdoors on a day long gone by.
In relief, you played once again like a child, for you had at last left a house of strangers and walked again among roads you had long traveled.
Then you forgot the fear of a strange house, for you were among the blue of the infinite sky, among the greens of the trees we took a walk by.
You feared the world, yet it took you in its everlasting embrace.

We had long waited so long with outstretched hands, despairing that you would ever come.
At last you approached us, and we only gazed at you, rejoiced at the awakening of love.
For you had left a house of strangers but returned to the home of your loved ones.
You had feared before the world outside, made up of lonely roads and endless skies, but returned to it with the frenzied delight of a child.

Ever since, my heart wondered at its own happiness.
Every morning I saw a mournful gaze of your eyes as I left
Every night I saw rapture overflowing your heart as I returned
And I wondered even then, what a grace it is that I had one such as you to love.

II.
But even boundless joy must find its end.
Death arrives, and we weep and plead, but all is in vain.
The world does not know the meaning of awakening love in the beloved one’s eyes
The heavens do not know the sufferings and joys that overwhelm men under their immovable presence.

Now, in our longest journey, we walk with you in a silence fleeting but powerful.
Tears arise but we look away from you as they do, fearing they may do you harm.
You gaze aimlessly at the road, at trees passing by, at endless skies
For none of these have meaning for one who has abandoned all hope in them and given it all unto us.

Desperately we look into your eyes, wondering if the parting has indeed come.
“Stay with us!” we beg you, as though the choice was yours!
Yet slowly but surely we see the banks of the river where you will be borne away.
In our hearts is inconsolable sorrow; in yours in boundless peace.

Slowly but surely we approach the river;
slowly but surely we approach the End.
Yet you do not speak as we approach as you rest in the laps of love, in the last embraces,
You feel them and love them, you are made more peaceful by them, yet you no longer respond as you did before.

At last we have come to the shore.
We can say nothing for our voices are broken by sobs of sorrow,
Yet our hearts are full of silent pleading, “Must you leave us? Must you go?”
“But all things must leave! All things must go!” cries back the cruel mind to the despairing heart.

By the river’s bend, you are borne away by tides into the mists beyond.
In your face is submission and peace.
“Oh God!” I wonder. “Do the living despair for themselves or for the dying?
For why would we weep so when you remain silent?”

But no, even you suffer! I see the last look upon your face,
A gaze I have never seen upon any living face,
A look of longing too painful for any living heart.
Such is the gaze on your face as you begin to disappear in the mist.

I wish to console you, no longer knowing if you hear, and off into the mists I cry:
“Do not despair! You do not feel the caress of my hands, but feel the caress of my eyes!”
I see you resting your head upon the boat, the same pleading in your eyes.
Again I shout, but you disappear in the mist, and I know not if you heard.

My companions weep and tell me timidly, “Why despair alone? Come home with us and let us comfort each other.”
My speechless silence offers no answer, and they leave, telling me that they will be home when I return.
All of them cry, but I cannot weep, for my heart is benumbed by grief to see your last glance.
In the solemn silence of the dawn, I sit alone by the banks of the river, remembering the longing of your gaze as you left.

The same cry that I had uttered rings in the river, in the trees, in the endless skies.
The earth clings in vain to the cloud that gives it shade, but Eternity wrests the cloud out of the earth’s embrace.
The cloud gazes sorrowfully at the earth, and the earth cries the same plea to the faraway cloud that I shouted then.
The timeless cry plea is uttered again and again, but none know whether the beloved one has heard.

I walk down the road, hearing the same notes of the timeless plea reverberate in the skies.
A child untamed by the world cries for its mother, not knowing where she has gone.
Yet the world drags off the beloved and laughs at the child!
Throughout humanity and throughout its sorrow resonates the timeless cry, but the beloved one has already left!


III.
Under the cool shade of a tree, I at last stop to rest.
The sun rises, its brilliance shedding light upon all who are in darkness.
I gaze at it, and call to it, “Come to me! I do not know who you are! But come nevertheless!”
Slowly and softly it rises, and I weep, knowing not whether in grief or in ecstasy.

Before me, the music of daybreak stretches its arms and embraces the earth,
Everywhere the Infinite awakens from its slumber.
Across time and silence, the Infinite music of the Eternity breaks forth with the awakening of the skies.
Man finds his beloved no longer within his uncertain arms, but within the steady embrace of the Infinite.

I have wept for you, but where have you gone?
Like a fool, I wept thinking that you had vanished, and not knowing you had simply left one room to go to another.
For the heart weeps in remembering the look of pain in the beloved’s eyes as he left the bank of the river,
but knows not the awakening bliss with which the beloved alighted upon the other shore!
-Aritro Biswas

Strangers in the Night: Audition for Arcadia High Chanteurs

Revelry of the Night

In the quiet night,
love touches the heart of a musician.

And he sings without abandon, for all his joys and all his sorrows
are based on a single inspiration, the revelry of the night around.

Where do these melodies go?
Whereof do these songs rise?

Yet they touch the hearts of all in the night,
and surges of life accompany this outburst of love.

Entranced by his music, fountains of white stone weep for their lovers lost,
And the poet laughs, for he finds that the music expresses his deepest longings.

The hidden creatures of the night too begin life in the forest with triumphant ecstasy,
and the night is deluged in an ocean of love so divine.

Dreamers on the river

Men walk upon the treaded path, forged by the uncertain hands of men,
And at last, finding it too human, seek to travel upon the river, forged by eternity itself.

The throb of everlasting life is heard in the silent rush of the currents,
And the dreams of silent, sleeping  people are carried forth by currents with purposeful destination.

Dreamers cast their dreams into the currents in their slumber,
And with the assurance of water and life, dreams grow.

With steady assurance, currents carry their dreams to other dreamers upon faraway banks,
And there they flower in the minds of others with the promise of life.

Man, seeing no respite in the endless path, at last finds assurance in the currents,
So infused with self-purpose, and at last casts his hopes upon the river forged so long ago.

O Freedom, my Father

O Freedom, my Father
Why do you row the Boat alone?
Let us paddle together
through the Terrible Storms
Do not whiff the scent of Death in the Air
Close your ears to the voices of Demons carried by the Wind.

Smell the flowers of our Mother’s Land
Hear the song of the common people.

O Freedom, my Father
Why do you steer the Boat alone?
Let us paddle together
through the Flashes of Lightning
Shut your eyes to the sight of the Welcoming Bed
Cover your ears to the songs of songbirds.

Behold the sight of the Mother in Chains
Hear Her sobs and Her chains clanking.

O Freedom, my Father
Why do you row the Boat alone?
Let us paddle together
through the Tombs of the Asleep
Walk quietly so the Enemy does not hear
Clasp your Hands in mine so that we may warm each other

For are not thou the Seed, and I the Bearer?
Are not I the Candle, and thou the Flame?

O Freedom, my Father
Why do you row the Boat alone?
Let us paddle together
Silhouetted in the Dark of the Night
Draw the sword so the Enemy hears
Shout so the Nation hears
Hoist the Flag so that the Sun may rise again.

The Lone Soldier and The Battlefield

In the desolate battlefield
the split boughs of trees bow in obeisance to the ground
while men too lay buried in their flagging strength
The only face that is unbowed,
the lone soldier looks at the sky for solace.

All hatred now unwound, friends and foes sleep together in the dust.
The lone soldier leaves them to slumber in the cradle of death.

All distinction now shed away by the Soldier and His battlefield,
Within the field all are embraced equally in the maw of death,
as foes in life become comrades in sleep,
while the soldier walks silently by their graves, impersonal in his grief.

Rising above the wreck of battle,
the soldier shovels away the tainted dirt
and buries the sleeping soldiers of the battlefield.

After the battle has left misery in its wake, a greater battle – that of sacrifice - has engulfed the field
As in denial of death's very portent,
the soldier seeks to undo the desolation of the field,
his shovel becomes his only hope of sacrifice,
as while the soldiers he buries slumber tumultuously in abandonment of the soul,
the soldier labors with only an ardor for life.
As comrade and foe destroy each other, the soldier emerges the sole victor of the battlefield
and quietly proclaims his victory over death.

Poem: The Last Idol

Here's a poem I wrote, The Last Idol, a story in epic poetry:

I tried to make an epic poem (or a story-poem, whatever you prefer) centered around this story in a fictitious land. It hopefully provides a message for tolerance and of faith. I don't want to spoil anything so to find out you should read it. It's a 5-part poem.

The Last Idol:

I: The Ascent of new gods
When new deities strode carelessly across the land
And worshipers followed devotedly at their merciless feet
A storm of faith broke and reformed
And the olden god lay abandoned
And devotees of the olden god made
A last sacrifice to him in their faith.

And the last vestige of hope lay in the temple of the forest,
Where the last followers of the faith had saved the last idol of the god from destruction,
Where faithful priests of old died under the swords of the new sect,
While those weaker in heart had renounced both the temple and god,
And only a novice priest remained, pure in faith.
With ecstatic longing for life for the god and himself,
He vowed to protect his lord from the cruelty of neglect
And the god, uncaring for any worshiper but he,
Was amused by the turn of events,
Who are you? Laughed He, to protect me, a god?
Why has the ascent of man seemingly reduced a god to naught?

The god sat in silence now, for he who had strode mightily across the land
now lay decrepit without tribute or the decorum he had once commanded,
and wreaths of flowers and wine so often offered before never appeared in the lonely forest temple
Yet, both the devotee and his lord sat together immovable in prayer as idols of stone
as simple love transcended all meaningless artifice
and both devotee and god quietly gained immortality as the worshipers of the new deities meaninglessly rejoiced.
While halls of stone and stone hearts poor in prayer worshiped the new deities,
only in the lonely temple was divine love realized
For the devotee and his lord met in the more sacred halls of the heart.
And thus passed months, as both lord and devotee became empowered in faith.












 II: The arrival of the peddler
A peddler came to the village in the forest, and cried his wares
And curious villagers, who had not seen a new face for so long,
sat enthralled by his tales of the cities beyond the forest

"New gods have come to the city, and the olden god has fled", Declared he,
“For men have overthrown the god of old and made new divinities to worship,
And become deities themselves in completing a task so divine!"

Yet the villagers whispered of a strange temple, the last vestige of the olden faith
Even deeper in the forest than they,
And the curious peddler treaded even deeper into the forest in search of the fabled temple.

And the priest heard a clamor of calls echoing through the forest,
as names of strange wares from faithless cities resounded
he found a peddler shouting in the forest, and hid the idol of his lord with a veil.

Believing he had fooled the peddler, the priest bought a lamp from the yet-suspecting peddler,
seeking to worship his lord with its light
for he and the lord had been lonely so long in the darkness of the temple at night.

But suspicions aroused, the peddler brought word to the cities outside
An army assembled in the break of dawn,
to punish the last stronghold of the outlawed faith

And the priest spent the last night with his god,
In silence abounding in love, for by the glow of the lamp
Light was brought at last to the temple, which had suffered so long in darkness.
















III: Abandonment of the Idol
As the army advanced with the din of war, it seemed that the new gods themselves had come with numberless armies
To defeat their enemy the olden god
While the villagers in the forest wept behind doors closed in fear
For the olden god had been a much gentler ruler than the new who had come with the might of armies.

And the priest realized that an army had come to wreak havoc at the temple
Though the idol was too large for him alone to bear away
And resigning haplessly to fate, prepared to die defending the idol,
Finding solace in that he was to prove faithful to his lord in approaching death.

Yet too many priests had died defending the faith
For as though with embracing arms they had welcomed the enemies’ swords
Yet all sacrifice had proven meaningless to the god,
For merely dying for faith was perhaps an easier thing
than suffering for faith throughout life
And with heavy heart, the novice priest abandoned the last idol of the Lord he loved so dearly.


























IV: Farewell at the Sea
And the soldiers advanced at last to the outskirts of the temple
In mirth for the former splendor of the old temple had vanished to ruin,
While their new gods enjoyed such prosperity
And coming to the idol of the olden god at last,
Bore it away with them to the distant sea, for they cursed the god who had defied their new deities so long,
And thought him unworthy to be left in peace in the land.

There they burned the last idol of the Compassionate Lord upon that distant shore,
And scattered its remains into the sea
While the priest, who had quietly followed the throng throughout,
Wept for the destruction of the last idol, which he had cared for so fondly.

And the last idol of the god, once the ruler of the land,
Burnt away without follower or friend,
For the god had sacrificed his last follower
And let the last idol to perish, becoming great in his own way.

And ashes scattered across the ocean,
For gods are born of and die in the sea, where there is no trace of worldly humanity
Yet this god became great in his own, in removing his last vestige upon the Earth
And sacrificing his last follower in a strange land,
With none left to mourn he who had once been so mighty.

And the follower found silent resolution in the destruction of the Last Idol
For just as his Lord had accomplished so heroic a deed,
So did the devotee consign himself to the flames of sacrifice
In leading men and suffering for faith throughout life.














V: A Resolve Untainted
With heart heavy with burden, he vowed to keep the faith alive,
and yet with head unbowed, tread again across the land,
the revelries of new deities and soldiers filled the air.
The priest came back at last to the forsaken temple of the forest.

Wherefore are you my Lord? Cried he.
For no mother had ever felt keener the loss of her child
As the priest did then for his god
For all trace of his lord had vanished from the land,
And the last idol had been consigned to the flames and the sea.

Yet the piercing call of Faith stilled the ocean of mourning
And the priest ceased being a victim of hapless tides,
With the lord enthroned once more in his heart, he rang temple bells
The chatter of villagers stopped as they remembered gentler times,
As the land itself stilled in recognition of ancient music silenced so long.
From the ocean of faith the Lord again emerged empowered
While temple bells tolled again throughout the land.

World War 2: Losing Faith in Everything

A lot of people think that world war 2 was some big event (randomly choosing world war 2 here, take any destructive event in history), but that they can just ignore it. They'll say "oh that was terrible" but they'll immediately forget about it later. I felt very affected by it.

Going to the crux of the matter, today we watched a video about various Japanese civilians, some of whom vaporized during the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then when we made a deeper study of the holocaust: that further diminishes your faith in humanity. Historians will forever take opposing sides on this matter, speaking of it as either "there was an ABSOLUTE necessity to use the a-bombs because otherwise american lives would have been lost" or etc. But we won't speak from a historian's standpoint. From their perspective, we will only consider the various goods done to one country rather than a cohesive whole. In that sense, history makes you lose sight of the shore. So instead, consider eternity itself, and question the motives, which throughout history, appear again and again in the actions of tyrants, common people, kings, and democracies. And the whole crux of the matter is not whether it will benefit a particular group of people or etc. It is why such an action, be it the holocaust or the a-bombs, is even necessary.

You can keep debating how necessary some of these actions in history were. We take a step out of these very narrow-minded concepts of "you", "i", "this country", or "that country". Whether or not the USA  wins or Japan does hardly matters from this broad perspective, as whichever nation suffers, and whichever nation cries out in victory in seeing its hated enemy fall at last only hurts you profoundly, as it means the loss of humanity as a whole. Think of the human body, an analogy for the universe. If various antibodies/cells in the human body began killing each other, what would it mean?

The destruction of the human body. Because the anti-bodies have lost a sense of the whole. And humans so often do that that it feels, at times, quite, quite sick that we can reduce the collapse of this universal, whole purpose to a few marginal and short-sighted thoughts of whether it strategically affects this country, or that country.
I've been thinking about this the whole day, because to me it's incredibly depressing. When you find that humanity is so shortsighted and people are so unmindful of others (which they so often are, even here, away from the countless horrific events that happened in the past) you begin losing faith in humanity. And like a desperate man who has been starved of something fulfilling in life, you find that ideals beyond humanity hold the greater attraction than the world of normal people, who it seems can hardly look past this idea of "you" and "i".

The god's transformation to a man

The man thought himself a god, relentless and proud

Yet his blood proved as red as that of those around.

And blissful realization came with dying breath.

Realization imparted only in the hour of death.

For a god's struggles and worries ceased

And it was instead a man's soul that departed, finally freed.

Poem: Within a Wall

Within a Wall

Within a wall, all colors are imprisoned
An artists’ imagination, seeking a freer abode than his mind
Finds refuge in the painting, but is trapped away within a wall.

A riot of colors dear to the heavens,
The worldly observers of paintings can only watch
Through a closed space within a wall,
While wondering from what world these colors came

The trees’ soft shadows melt away
into the river and flow out of the frame
An artists’ imagination finally set free
As heaven finds refuge at last within a wall

The dancing colors, both imprisoned and liberated,
Regard with wonder the azure depths of the artist’s impassioned eye
As he finds solace in the hues
Within a wall.

-Aritro Biswas

Nightly reverie

But, ah! The dreams of the night!
And the melody by the moonlight!
With soft step, they cast everything to quiet reverie,
birds sing quiet and inspired odes to the night,
The mirrors of nightly wanderers take on unearthly shine when struck by moonlight,
For only in the night does the seemingly mundane and quiet reverie
suddenly transform into beautiful life.

-Aritro Biswas

Poem: Welcoming Home the Beloved Traveler

Welcoming Home the Beloved Traveler

I pray for verses long gone by
That I may sing again with my vain lips
What paltry wreaths are my songs to crown your trials as you have come home?

My gaze wanders down the forest path,
The steady pulse of ages long past reverberates in your steps homeward bound.

Your heart, eager to behold home at last,
 forgets all bounds self-imposed as you left.
A desperate longing for life in your eyes,
You come to me silently with arms outstretched.

I sing to you what songs I may
wondering if they can rouse you to strength once more.
-Aritro Biswas