कुछ नहीं भी महफूज़ नहीं

घर खाली था

खालीपन चुरा ले गए लोग

घर में कुछ नहीं था

फिर  भी घुस आए चोर

कुछ नहीं भी महफूज़ नहीं

कैसे-कैसे ये चोर

- नीरज कुमार झा

खोखला शंख

सुनकर मेरा नाद

मत देखो मेरी तरफ

किसी उम्मीद से  

मैं तो हूँ  शंख

बिल्कुल  खोखला

और बदनुमा भी

जिससे नहीं सज सकता तुम्हारा घर

बजता भी नहीं मैं  फूँकने  से

ध्वनित होता मैं यूँही

आवारा हवाओं के बहने से

• नीरज कुमार झा

Please don't patronse

I exist to the limits. Limits you see in me are external to me. I am my maximal. Limits you point to and heights you direct me to are meant not to give me a boost but to belittle me. Hegemonies are crafted by making others feel deficient. I may need you, I may need you very badly too as I am not smart enough to face a wretched system, but who doesn’t? Care and share, if you can and without gloating, but please don’t patronise. (This is not my feeling per se but is the feeling a typical person may have or should have.)   

जमीन पर खड़ा आदमी ही आदमी है आज

बड़े बनने की धुन में बड़प्पन खो रहे हैं लोग
बड़ा बनने के चक्कर में आदमी नहीं रह गए लोग
गंदगी की ढेर को ऊंचाई मान रहे  हैं लोग
विकृतियों की तुष्टि को उपलब्धि मान रहे लोग
जालसाजों की  संगत  से प्रफुल्लित हैं  लोग
अपमान हर किसी का करना मान मान रहे हैं लोग
कुत्सितता की कामयाबी के अहंकार से उन्मत्त हैं लोग
छोटा आदमी ही ज़्यादा आदमी है आज
जमीन पर खड़ा आदमी ही आदमी है आज

- नीरज कुमार झा 

Media

Indian media (mainly the electronic) has been on the firing line for quite some time, particularly in social media. This is bizarre because to me the media is not the fourth estate or the fourth pillar of democracy, but it is the mainstay of freedom and democracy. Indian media has been fighting for these for quite a long time. They fought the Brits and later all attempts of scuffling democracy in India. The beauty of all these is that they have done this under private ownerships, which have their commercial interests to guard. The journalistic profession deserves unqualified eulogy for its valiant efforts all the way and in particular I would salute the field journalists who brave a lot of hardships and risks. At the same it is also true that a large number of them are black ships and many of them lack culture. But this is so commonplace in all walks of life, applies to almost all professions in the country. The question is why is the media being singled out? First, for the reason that they are doing something and secondly and more importantly, by being the agents of freedom on the basis of the very nature of the profession, the agency is always at the target of the powers that be and people who largely find their comfort zones in the spaces of unfreedom and love to side with positions of power, find media irritating and jump on the slightest slippages of the agency. This is ironical and unfortunate that the media is tarnished as a whole. To me what should be bemoaned is the very flawed processes of our acculturation, our system of education, which is throwing out half baked individuals in every walk of life.

History

History speaks through people. In their utterances,  in their articulations, and, even in their  silences, and in their actions and in their inactions history manifests itself. Particularly when an Indian opens his mouth, I can listen to the millennia gone by. History is there in our lives but not in our pedagogy. Most of our historians in place of unearthing the past have put massive load of earth on that. Incompetence (of a good number of them) combined with ideological disorientation has undone history in India. This problem combined with another pedagogical  lacunae, which makes one feel that text-books contain gospel truths and there is no scope for probing or questioning, makes education, whatever  we have, counter-productive. Result we can see - a menacing sway of ignorance. 

Empire of Evil

Inside each of us, there is the seed of both good and evil. It's a constant struggle as to which one will win. And one cannot exist without the other.

Eric Burdon

Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is good... Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.

Pope Francis

The first idea the child must acquire is that of the difference between good and evil.

Maria Montessori

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One of the gravest of crises we face is that people do not have the sense of good and evil. In our society mostly greed and  fear dominate human thought and action and in such a scenario, persons who are depraved, thuggish and swindlers are not only held in esteem but sometimes are even deified. At the root of this moral decadence are uprooted families, soulless education and debased social milieu. As a result such people abound who are very innocently devilish. To them, evil is normal. And they do not only view goodness with suspicion but also they shun it. More troublesome is that there develops an unholy alliance of those who are the worst and they gang up to suppress good at any cost, everywhere, at every layer of existence. 

Niraj Kumar Jha