Tag: Manchester Business School UK
Chimes of La Gruyeres by Sandeep Silas
Enchanted Life of Castles by Sandeep Silas
Vallrobe Caves- The underground magic by Sandeep Silas
The Light Within by Sandeep Silas
THE LIGHT WITHIN
SANDEEP SILAS
I am where the hydrangeas grow
And the rain showers the hills
The whistling thrush sings on my window
A song of love and peace
No matter the lightening, no worry the thunder
There is a time for everyone which shall come on its own
I’ve stopped searching the sky for whispers
I’ve forgotten the feeling of lying on grass
I don’t walk on dew anymore
I am content with the rain that the heavens pour
No more I look for oceans in her eyes
Nor do I wonder what Nostradamus says
The trifling nature of humans is nothing before the might of Time
It was all written in your stars when you were sent to earth
The pleasure and pain
The walks, the falls and the rise again
How people shall pinch your feathers away
When they are envious of your flights
How Brutus will stab his Caesar again
How Shylock will demand his pound of flesh
You are no more in your mother’s womb, my child
You better brave the new world order
The tempests, the stones and the mocks
They come again and again
To spite you and to harm you
They are not imaginary fears
They are the plots of the imperfect
Who have not felt the presence of God
And are afraid not of His mighty sword
Many like Alexander have come and gone
Their ambitions carried away in drops of poison, of their own making
Only the Kookaburra, and the Whistling Thrush remain
To narrate the story of yesteryears
Still they carry on with puffed chests
The airbags, those a mere pin can deflate
I’ve given up chasing butterflies, those hover on blossoms briefly
They will go on living on flowers, sipping sweet nectar
Carrying the pollen unwittingly
To other pastures and foreign lands
I have become the undying witness to the passing time
I know every Achilles has a soft heel
No one lives beyond his time
All pebbles of the river bed, disintegrate slowly
Till they become just sands of Time
I look to the light that lives within
Call it by any name, it is the same
It is the candle of the good deed
It is the fire of the funeral pyre
Choose your light with wisdom and care
You are the Light that lives within
(Written: Shimla: June 9, 2018; 6.05 am to 8.22 am)
A Bed and a Plough by Sandeep Silas
6th Ibadat-e-Aman (Video Recording), February 9, 2018
Rann of Kutch… ocean of salt or salt of the earth? by Sandeep Silas
The Bible in the Gospel of Mathew 5:13 reveals a meaningful phrase:
- “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its
- flavor, with what will it be salted? It is then good for nothing,
- but to be cast out and trodden under the feet of men.”
When I cast my eyes the first time on the Rann of Kutch I felt this come to me very powerfully. We had come to the White Rann by evening, my brother and I. We had first travelled from the Tent City by bus, then by camel cart to enter this territory that was for many years a salt wasteland without a human visitor.
Modern day travails and stressed out lives in the cities have led men to discover and reach such places to feel the grandeur of Nature and be engulfed with an awesome feeling. There is something beautiful and wondersome in Nature; it kind of overpowers the senses and tells you that all the efforts and boasts of Man are just empty whispers of the impermanent!
The Tent City is set up every year for six months when the weather is good and the salt is walkable, the slush having dried and the whiteness the best. The tents are comfortable and more than that give a feeling of adventure, a difference, which we all look for from daily routine.
The Sun was about to set and that gave us a spring in gait to walk as far ahead as possible from where there is no interference between the Sun’s glory and its colours as it dies another day, and the bewitched eyes.
The voices of onlookers created a noise that was incomprehensible to the ears. I was reminded of a play, in which we actors were to stand on stage and act as if engaging in avid conversation, while all we were to say was “gabble, gabble, gabble…” The Party in theatrics is nothing but gabble, gabble or bla, bla…
The majesty of the Sun was unparalleled. The more it went towards its imminent demise for the day, the more it glowed! Bright orange, blood red, mango yellow, and then a blob of red disappearing slowly but surely.
Its path for the day had been traversed, its duty done, it seemd to have set in our portion of the hemisphere but in fact it was rising in another. What a beautiful lesson in duty it is, to keep on shining with glory be it this part of the world or another. It also reveals that no Sun can forever shine in one part of the earth, it has to travel to another!
The White Rann, a huge expanse of raw salt, a pure offering of the retreated Arabian Sea conveys a strange indescribable feeling of awe and surrender, lying quiet in its immensity, clothed in silence, and soaked in Nature.
William Wordsworth’s “It Is A Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free…” came to my mind:
“It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquility;
The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the Sea;
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder—everlastingly.”
The Sunset gave way to twilight; the much celebrated time of the parting day when birds return to their nests, cattle hordes run back, the priests rise to retreat within their temples and offer prayers, kitchen fires light up homes and smoke billows out of chimneys.
The sunstruck visitors too retreated and a hush fell upon conversations and hearts. Some kind of a fulfilment that one experiences after a tete-e-tete with Nature.
The Tent City revealed under the lights what it had hid as ordinary during the day. Here were some puppets, there was a rickshaw, a boat, a lighthouse, and a guard tower. Huge spaces served as welcome lounge, dining halls, recreation centres, playgrounds, VIP Meeting Place, and medical assistance. In the midst of many circular fields around which the living tents were erected, there were sitting areas so designed as to give a complete view of the 36 or so tented enclosure. I was reminded of the medieval ages when armies used to march on foot, camp in tents as they advanced and conquered more territory.
Food was local Gujarati style and you could have as much as you want.
A cultural programme followed after the tent city dwellers returned from watching the Sunset. A local band played songs, people danced Garba (Gujarati traditional dance) and some went to the eye of a telescope for stargazing.
The Tent City also dishes out small adventures like para-motoring and rope gliding. The record has been safe so far.
Sleep under a tent was fast though initially the ears kept on hearing conversations in adjoining tents as there were no concrete walls but cloth curtain wall those separated one tent from the other.
Morning tea came in a flask at 6 a.m. and in 10 minutes everyone was expected to be on the bus for the sunrise. This time the bus took us to a different area. Here the State Government has built a huge steel Viewing Tower, which can accomodate more than a hundred people at one time. We decided to walk far ahead so that none stood between us the rising Sun.
The rising of the Sun was as charming as its setting. The two events in metaphor and in real life were absolutely different, but the player was the same. The soft glow, called in Hindi, ‘Laali’, gave way to more defining moments those could be captured in the eye of the camera. Kabir’s couplet came to mind:
कबीर का दोहा
“लाली मेरे लाल की, जित देखूँ तित लाल |
लाली देखन मैं गई, मैं भी हो गई लाल ||”
The softly rising Sun, changing colour from orange, to yellow to red to white, coloured the sky amazingly in its ascent.
The plain white ocean of salt before it absorbed its colour and stride kept on changing from orange hue to a golden one!
The salt of the Earth, though trampled under our feet, had not yet lost its flavour nor its purpose!
There is still hope in humanity!
(Text and Photographs by Sandeep Silas)
DD National telecast of Ibadat-e-Aman 2018, on February 23rd 2018
Photographs of 6th Ibadat-e-Aman 2018
Ibadat-e-Aman, peace bridge of music; February 9th 2018; Stein Auditorium; India Habitat Centre, New Delhi
Poetry in English: Sandeep Silas
Dance & Drums: Chandana Dancers Guild, Sri Lanka
Inaugurated by: H.E. The High Commissioner of Sri Lanka in India, Mrs. Chitranganee Wagiswara
