Vaishnav Jan to tene kahiye
Jay peerh paraaye janneyray
Par dukkhey upkar karey teeyey, man abhiman na anney ray
Sakal lokma Sahuney bandhey,
Ninda Na karye kainee ray
Baach kaachh, Man nischal Raakhey, dhan-dhan jananee tainee ray
Samdrishi nay trishna tyagee, par-stree jaynay mat ray
Vivihva thaki asatya na bolay, par-dhan nav jhaley haath ray
Moh maaya vyaayey nahin Jeynay, dridth vairagya jana manma ray
Ram-nam-shoom taalee laagee,
Sakal teerth seyna tanma ray
Vanloohee nay kapat rahit chhay,
Kaam, Krodh nivarya ray
Bhane Narsinhyo tainoo darshan karta kul ekotair taarya re.
English Translation:
Speak only as godlike of the man who feels another’s pain
Who shares another’s sorrow and pride does disdain
Who regards himself lowliest of the low
Speaks not a word of evil against anyone
Blessed is the mother who gave birth to such a son
Who looks upon everyone as his equal,
Lust he has renounced
Who honours women like he honours his mother
Whose tongue knows not the taste of falsehood
Nor covets another’s worldly goods
Who longs not for worldly wealth (or fame)
For he treads the path of renunciation
Ever on his lips is Ram’s holy name
All places of pilgrimage are within him
He has conquered greed, is free of deceit, lust and anger
Through him Narsinh has godly vision
And his generation to come will attain salvation.
Yeh, this one’s for the workers who toil night and day
By hand and by brain to earn your pay
Who for centuries long past for no more than your bread
Have bled for your countries and counted your dead
In the factories and mills, in the shipyards and mines
We’ve often been told to keep up with the times
For our skills are not needed, they’ve streamlined the job
And with sliderule and stopwatch our pride they have robbed
CHORUS:
We’re the first ones to starve the first ones to die
The first ones in line for that pie-in-the-sky
And always the last when the cream is shared out
For the worker is working when the fat cat’s about
And when the sky darkens and the prospect is war
Who’s given a gun and then pushed to the fore
And expected to die for the land of our birth
Though we’ve never owned one lousy handful of earth?
CHORUS
All of these things the worker has done
From tilling the fields to carrying the gun
We’ve been yoked to the plough since time first began
And always expected to carry the can
It was several years or perhaps over a decade ago when I had cut out this cartoon from the daily newspaper and stuck on my fridge with a magnet.
Having lived in an Arab land where hugging is a usual form of greeting, I had learned how good it felt after having hugged a dear one.
Like all Moms, I too frequently made it a point to bear hugg my growing kids. Whenever the little ones felt any trouble or insecurity they would run to be hugged tightly. If at times I was busy and did it lightly, they would demand-
” Ammi do it nicely.”
Then came an Indian movie with the much popular caption
” Jadoo ki jhappi”
–-~the magic hug, which claimed to do wonders. Inspired by it, we actually put this Jaddo ki jhappi to practice, at our home.
Whether it was the daughter getting nervous for her exam or the son feeling hurt after a fall or a sib finding hard to cope with a financial loss or Mom missing my deceased Dad or a friend nervous for her husband’s illhealth or even the kids’ nanny, sobbing after she recieved some bad news from the kin back home–a tight bear hug would comfort not just them, but me too.
A wholesome hug cannot really change the circumstances, but it gives strength to bear the loss with a feeling that they are not alone in their suffering. Medically speaking, the act releases endorphins, the feel good hormones, into the body.
Later, I saw on net a report on the raised rates of suicide among South Korean students owing to stress of competition in educational institutions. And then came the news that a simple campaign of giving free hugs to the passersby while standing at a street crossing decreased the suicide rate significantly in South Korea youngsters.
Further digging into the details led me to the wonderful international campaign called Free Hugs Campaign, as a random act of kindness. My thrill for having practiced it myself without being aware of its existence, had no bounds.
Giving a tight bear hug says aloud that we care.
Culturally many of us may not be in a position to accept being hugged at a street crossing, but we can certainly do this to our kids, our parents, our sibs and those friends who are informal enough to be hugged.
We need not be told to hug one’s kids. We do that amply and with full enthusiasm. Perhaps hugging our ageing parents needs to be reminded. However, it is one of the most fulfilling expereinces one can experience.
I remember, for years, having hugged my mom only occasionally and just ritually if at all. But with Dad being a very expressive person and I being his favourite child, he never either received or parted without a wholesome hug. After he was no more, what I missed the most was his hugs.
Then one day, I decided to repeat the same, with my Mom too. The first time I gave a real tight bear hug to my Mom, I could see her eyes twinkled with tears and she actually blushed. But the vigor she gained after the hug was strikingly noticable.
Each time she is around I make sure to hug her for a reason or for no reason. It embarrasses her at times and tells me to “grow up”. But I know she loves it. And the tight embrace, not just helps her feel good, but also lets me feel how thin and frail she is getting with the passing time. We may not realise that visually, or our parents may not be complaining of getting older and weaker, but the tactile sensation certainly does all the talking.
The survival of preterm babies are known to be having a better survival if the mother or the father or even a grandmother hugs the baby, on their chest as much as possible during the first month of life–called as Kangaroo care.
Similiarly I saw in Delhi, Sanjivini, a well-known center that offers help to troubled minds, have a day clinic for schizophrenics where “caring” (involving touch and holding) is routinely used as a therapy. “But it is done in a parent-child matrix,” clarified the in-charge of Sanjivini, adding that only women volunteers handle female patients and men handle male patients.” In Sanjivni they have statistically seen that, the practice has reduced the relapse in schizophrenics.
Scientific studies have shown that hugs have been seen to reduce heart rates, improve overall moods, lower blood pressure, increase nerve activity, and a host of other beneficial effects.
We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth, claims Virginia Satir, a family therapist
“Hugging is a way of connecting with others, of showing your genuine affection and appreciation, of valuing others, and of giving. All of these are positive, healthy, life-enhancing purposes”, remarks Kevin Eikenberry, author of Vantagepoints on Learning and Life.
I suggest give it a try to your loved ones. Sometimes, a hug is all what they need.
IlmanaFasih
FREE HUGS is a real life story of Juan Mann, a man whose mission was to reach out and hug strangers to brighten up their lives. In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs Campaign became phenomenal and spread world wide.
Labor Day (aka International Worker’s Day) is celebrated on May 1 in countries around the world, and it is often a day for protests and rallies by Labour Unions.
This originates with the United States labor movement in the late 19th Century. Working conditions were severe and it was quite common to work 10 to 16 hour days in unsafe conditions. Death and injury were commonplace at many work places.
Demands for an eight-hour working day was becaming increasingly widespread among American laborers.
Thousands of men, women and children were dying needlessly every year in the workplace, with life expectancy as low as their early twenties in some industries, and little hope but death of rising out of their destitution. Socialism, calling for the rights of the workers, offered an attractive option.
ORIGINS:
A demonstration, largely staged by a small group of workers, caused a crowd of some 1,500 people to gather at Haymarket Square. When policemen attempted to disperse the meeting, a bomb exploded and the police opened fire on the crowd. Seven policemen and four other persons were killed, and more than 100 persons were wounded.
Eight protestors were tried, but no evidence was produced that they had made or thrown the bomb. They were, however, convicted of inciting violence, although no evidence was presented that they knew the bomber, who was never discovered. Known as the HAYMARKET TRAGEDY, it became the marker of the origin of protests on Labour Day.
The following video narrates the events of Haymarket Tragedy.
A Poem
World Workers, whatever may bind ye,
This day let your work be undone:
Cast the clouds of the winter behind ye,
And come forth and be glad in the sun.
Now again while the green earth rejoices
In the bud and the blossom of May
Lift your hearts up again, and your voices,
And keep merry the World’s Labour Day.
Let the winds lift your banners from far lands
With a message of strife and of hope:
Raise the Maypole aloft with its garlands
That gathers your cause in its scope.
It is writ on each ribbon that flies
That flutters from fair Freedom’s heart:
If still far be the crown and the prize
In its winning may each take a part.
Your cause is the hope of the world,
In your strife is the life of the race,
The workers’ flag Freedom unfurled
Is the veil of the bright future’s face.
Be ye many or few drawn together,
Let your message be clear on this day;
Be ye birds of the spring, of one feather
In this–that ye sing on May-Day.
Of the new life that still lieth hidden,
Though its shadow is cast before;
The new birth of hope that unbidden
Surely comes, as the sea to the shore.
Stand fast, then, Oh Workers, your ground,
Together pull, strong and united:
Link your hands like a chain the world round,
If you will that your hopes be requited.
When the World’s Workers, sisters and brothers,
Shall build, in the new coming years,
A lair house of life–not for others,
For the earth and its fulness is theirs.
~ Walter Crane
Written April 13, 1894 for The Workers Maypole
One fine and free evening
Lying in a hammock swinging
Away from the madding crowds
Floating with the snowy clouds
Softly sailing at the cloud’s pace
Dreaming to be in a peaceful place.
I couldn’t help but in wonder sigh
While gazing high into the sky
Digging deep with my bare eyes
Into the depth of boundless skies
Trying to dissect every detail
Of infinite mysteries that prevail
Into the universe’s vast galore
That lies beyond the veil azure.
Crowded with the twinkling stars
Screaming aloud–Universe is ours.
Saturn, Jupiter, Venus or Mars
Glowing with pride as superstars
Making me feel indeed so small
For having abused the Earth- after all.
The stars strolled across the sky
As hours and hours just flew by
And then as if the curtain was drawn
With streaks of lights, signalling the dawn.
The sky’s face changed its shade
As the King Sun began to invade
Again into its Kingdom old
Marking its territory with rays of gold.
With it was gone the universe’s beauty too
Which had mesmerized me all night through.
And then I was back into this insane life
That just has in store struggle and strife
God’s the choreographer
The world’s a dance floor
Our lives are the rhythm
Emotions are the music
We are the dancers,
We dance in laughter,
We dance in tears,
We dance in madness,
We dance in fears,
Dancing in our lives awake
With ambitions we tap
And with hope we shake
To replicate our dreams.
The dance is one of the many human experiences which cannot be suppressed. Dancing has existed at all times, and among all peoples and races. The dance is a form of expression given to man just as speech, philosophy, painting or music.
Apart from war, dancing is the chief factor making for social solidarity in primitive life. The value of dance as a method of individual and national education was recognized as civilization became increasingly self-conscious. In the Laws Plato remarked that a good education includes knowing how to dance and sing well.
Quotes:
”Let us read and let us dance –
two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.”
~ Voltaire
Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is not mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself.
~Havelock Ellis
Talk about dance? Dance is not something to talk about. Dance is to dance.
~Peter Saint James
As if the fourth Dalai Lama’s great Spiritual and Political leadership wasn’t enough, that now Tibet is being bestowed with another bright brain as its new Prime Minister–the political head, though the Spiritual head’s place stays with Dalai Lama.
The new man was elected through a process of voting from Tibetans all around the world. Dr Lobsang Sangay won with 55% of the votes cast by Tibetans around the world in his favour.Almost 83,400 Tibetan exiles were eligible to vote and more than 49,000 ballots were cast.
The new man is not only a handsome young man of 42 , but a brilliant Harvard University Law academic –that too a Fulbright scholar and Senior Fellow at Harvard Law School .
Born a refugee in a Tibetan settlement in Darjeeling in 1968 and having grown up and educated mostly in Delhi, he has never seen Tibet.
And then like the Dalai Lama he too pledges and holds strong faith in continuing the struggle .’peacefully’ to gain independence for his Homeland Tibet. He remarks: “If you look at successful non-violent freedom movements led by Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, dialogue with their adversaries has been one of the key factors in making their movements successful. So, yes, we should keep talking to the Chinese government as we can only resolve the issue of Tibet through dialogue and mutual understanding. So far Beijing has maintained their hard line policy and has failed to recognize the moderate and reasonable gestures by His Holiness on his desire to seek ‘genuine autonomy’ for Tibet.”
Just a few weeks ago when Dalai Lama had decided to step down, people all over the world, including me, had been skeptical if they would be able to find an equally forceful and yet peaceful man to pursue the struggle. Apparently their doubts have been laid to rest. Now the time will unfold his abilities as the new ‘Kalon Tripa’ or Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile.
There are three reasons I wrote this blog
First, I am an ardent fan of Dalai Lama and his peaceful policies and his understanding of Religion, God, Love and Compassion. And as a true and sincere leader he decided it was time to step down, despite cries not to. Not only this, he ensured that the new leader was chosen through the democratic process giving up the age old traditions of being chosen by the Priests. Kudos Your Highness !
Secondly, it will be a big cause of concern for the Chinese–now they have another brilliant young mind to deal with–not just an old fashioned religious leader. What political wrestling and bargaining will go on, it will merit a close watch–especially us,( Pakistanis) being best friends of China.
And Lastly but certainly not the least–my heart pains that when a small nation of 145,150 with all it’s citizens scattered in exile–can have the best brains as their Political and Spiritual leaders WHY THE HELL cant we find some brilliant brains within Pakistan ( we are not even under occupation, nor in exile) from among the 180 million to lead our Politics as well as our Religion?
Don’t we have young, competent, sane minded, honest, peace loving, open and secular minded people amongst ourselves to be our Political or Religious Leaders ?
Why does it still remain a far fetched dream in Pakistan after 65 years of independence when Tibetan have made this a reality through their democratic process even in Exile? Why ?
It makes me cry high and loud with deep sorrow, misfortune and anger.
If this Junk Food was Pornography Then this Healthy Food is Picasso.
Some crackers for the 12 year old within us:
#Most vegetables are something God invented to let women get even with their children. A fruit is a vegetable with looks and money. Plus, if you let fruit rot, it turns into wine, something brussels sprouts never do.
#Apple and pear, aren’t just fruits. They are body types too. Hey, I’ve got some advice. If you look like an apple or a pear, eat an apple or a pear! Dr Phil
#My Hubby says: I’m not saying my wife’s a bad cook, but she uses a smoke alarm as a timer.
I say: Heyy, am such a great cook that even the smoke alarm cheers for it !
Some real food for thought:
The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.
~ Mark Twain
Blog Inspiration Quote: We think fast food is equivalent to pornography, nutritionally speaking.
~Steve Elbert
Blind to Bounds 
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