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The Most Painful Sentence

By Rajasir

The introduction to literary language was a severe blow to my pride which had found its firm abode in my existence. Having passed M.Sc. with flying colors, I completed M.Tech in the following two years. However, I found that something was missing in that world of mine which was totally dependent on the radio which I had and the books which I used to read. I belonged to a well to do family, so looking for job was not essential. Though majority of the boys, loaded with their degrees searched greener pastures in Europe or USA, I decided to stay back and continue my studies.



The Himalayan hills had a kind of magic in them, and I could never free myself from that attachment since my birth. Some of my friends had already taken up teaching as their profession but I decided to go for MA in English Literature.



Taking the admission as a private student was not as difficult as it was to decide from where to start, for there were so many books: history of English Literature, Linguistics, Critical theories, Poetry, dramas, novels, short stories and what not. I was not as bad at English as one might think, but the task ahead seemed to be not without extreme hard work.



Reading was my hobby but I mostly read cheap magazines, love stories and down to earth books. The course books having been purchased, dictionaries and glossary of literary terms arranged, one morning I decided, or rather resolved to inaugurate my new venture. Thinking that I was the Master of Science and technology, I should start from the masters of English literature, leaving short stories and novels for the following days. But, to my dismay, I could not comprehend, I am not trying to hide anything, what Bacon, Pope, Lawrence, Johnson Swift and the rest of the essayists wanted to say. First of all, it was very difficult to keep track of the sentences which seemed to be a jumble of strange words in a very large number between the head and the tail.



Quite confused, depressed, and not less ashamed, I switched over to the English novelists. To my amazement, the very first sentence as if knocked me down. It took me about two hours to draw my conclusion that by "My seat of consciousness, thought, volition, and feeling was deprived of vigor and vitality. “The narrator meant to say, “My mind was tired”. I gave up any further advances.



I pondered over my predicament for about two days. On third morning, my mind lit up like a thousand watt bulb. I remembered our neighbor Mr.Champaklal, who used to teach English literature but had retired recently from the college job. I had helped his son, Rohit, when he was preparing for his I.Sc.papers. The father had to be obliged to me. It was the right time and situation to ask for his favor.



Next morning, I visited his house and found that he was in bed suffering from cold. I tried to turn but he motioned me to a chair beside his bed. I related my problem, without hiding anything. He was amused, but he agreed to guide me in every possible way. He had taught the subject to college students for more than thirty years, and was an authority in that area. One strange characteristic of his was that he was very frank with his students but very reserved with his family members.



While teaching me, he often insisted on using correct and formal language. He was against the modern American words which appear as if the legs of a frog have been cut off and it has been left to croak. Champaklal’s humorous side could not remain unnoticed. The sentence like "I want to get my eyes checked" would easily be changed into "My conscience inspires me to have my visual amenities diagnosed", or in daily conversation, saying "It would delight me to extend my assistance to you" instead of simply saying “I would be happy to help you" was not at all unusual in Champaklal's language.



He was a very straight-forward man, and he hated lies and liars. No amount of sorrow could make his eyes moist; he could be seen smiling all the time. One of his unique habits was to quote the lines from the great masters of English Literature. I can not forget the day when my parents hinted me about getting married, though I had no such plans. I told Mr.Champaklal about this. His instant reply was, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”. I had the idea already in my mind that he would quote this famous sentence from Jane Austen's novel 'Pride and Prejudice'.



In one year, I had come to be able to guess what Mr.Champaklal's line would be after I had said something. Frankly speaking; the period spent with Mr.Lal was the most delightful for me. Leaving the world of Galileo, Newton, Einstein, etc. behind I had entered the world of William Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, D.H.Lawrence, Ben Johnson, Alexander Pope, etc. It was altogether a new life for me.



That day I felt quite thrilled when Mr.Lal beautified a love letter for me. I had written the letter, a small chit, to my beloved Gita but it had been left in between the pages of the book which I forgot to take when I left Mr.Lal's house.


The letter was:


Dearest Gita,

Today I will wait for you at the bus stop at 5pm, and I am sure that you will come to meet me.

I love you.

Ever yours

Bikram.

The modified and beautified version given to me by Mr.Lal read:
...........How much my heart yearns to have a fortunate meeting with you at 5pm at the bus stop today! The power of our love assures me that my request will not draw blank.
...............



My exam was nearing and I was deeply lost in my studies, however, in the evenings I would regularly visit Mr.Champaklal. He was a ready help with ready solutions to my all linguistic and literary impediments.
One evening when I reached his house, I found that he was sick. He had a severe stomach pain. I sat near his bed for about one hour. Finally, I persuaded him to see a doctor. I went to my house and returned with my father's car. I brought Mr.Champaklal to a doctor. The doctor examined him thoroughly and an x-ray was also taken.



Next morning I visited the doctor to collect the report. I was dumbfounded to hear what that doctor said. Mr.Champaklal had a terminal liver cancer, in last stage. It had passed the stage of the surgical cure. Mr.Champaklal had only two months to live. I could never dare to tell Mr.Champaklal about that, but I knew that he hated lies.



I struggled with my conscience for many hours, and finally wrote The Most Painful Sentence:

"The doctor's report reveals that the patient has a malady in which there has been a malignant growth in the large lobed glandular organ in the abdomen, which has crossed all the boundaries and has become incurable, but the diagnosis reveals that the time period between the present and the moment when the patient is going to breathe his last, and to leave for his heavenly abode, is about two months."I noticed that the sheet of paper was almost wet with my tears.


In the evening, when I handed the paper with my shaking hand, I could not rally courage to look in his smiling eyes. He went through the contents quickly and began to laugh loudly. He, finally, said, “That’s like my student of the English Literature!"I could not wait to hear what he had to say, and, hiding my tears, ran out of the room.



- Rajasir.
23rd July 2008

Land on Nepal

Dig the land upto when it will be fortile. The vast expanse of forever-green American lawn is not only the most resource intensive agricultural crop in the world, but also an obscene icon to our arrogant privilege and total alienation from a life in harmony with nature.

For those of us living in the cities, surrounded by cars and concrete where we can't even see the stars, it is not difficult to see the ways we are disconnected from nature, and the cycles out of which we receive the elements essential to life. This has enormous implications in how we interact both biologically and socially. Agri-culture, taken at the root to mean "culture of the soil," out of which all life springs, is related to all aspects of our cultural life. For example, today most of our foods come to us via established cultural institutions governed by a handfull of agro-chemical/ pharmaceutical/"life-sciences" corporations. Our entire industrial civilization is needed to provide for our basic needs. Besides global inequity and agricultural chemical dependence, some elements of this culture include the erosion and lose of our top soil. at the rate of 38 tonnes per acre per year and the pollution and salinification of whole watersheds by fertilizers and industrial waste, leading to the desertification of once fertile land and mass species extinction. This is also facilitated by the 2,500,000 tonnes of pesticides used every year. We are losing diversity both in nature and in our agricultural systems, as represented by a 75% decrease in crop diversity in the last hundred years. Besides the "costs" of production, there are a myriad of social implications related to how our sustenance reaches our tables, these include: colonialism, war, and the use of food as a weapon through artificially created famines, embargoes, etc. One could go on.

In an age when genetically-engineered entrees are served to diplomats and heads-of-state at the White House, can we expect this dominant culture, with it's apparent goal of destroying the biosphere, to provide us with the nourishment that we need to over-come and transcend that very same system? A system wherein the same interests that profit from selling us the chemicals and transgenic seeds which lead to death and disease, are the very same interests that profit by selling us the drugs that compound the physical and spiritual degeneration caused by our food. All this under the facade of feeding the world and bringing us health.

Something I once heard Ramona Africa say rings true. "A system so diabolical that it poisons the very food that we need to eat, the very water that we need to drink and the very air that we need to breathe, needs to be resisted!"

A permanent agriculture, a culture based on the care of and respect for the biosphere, is the only counter-balance to the industrial prison in which our world is trapped. We need to regain control of our food and our lives to free ourselves from the death culture. To relearn and develop a supply of food, fiber and medicine that is sustainable and inherently non-violent is the only way we will develop autonomous communities that can serve as a base for our resistance.

All of what I have touched on is of particular relevance to those of us living in cities. As areas that produce very little or none of what they consume and that do not take responsibility for their waste (unused, potential resources i.e.. compost, greywater etc.), cities are significantly vulnerable to the whims of economic (and military) interests. Almost by default, we are also fully dependent on the exploitation of land somewhere else, by not returning our "waste" to this land we also create huge amounts of trash which becomes pollution somewhere else. Our garbage often travels hundreds of fossil fuel-driven miles to the landfill.

This doesn't have to be the case. Cities grew up around the places that were prime farmland with fertile soil and good access to fresh water. Today, 2,000 acres of farm land is being paved over daily, as our disposable suburban culture devours the countryside. But the point is that under all the asphalt and under all the trash is what were some of the most productive and biologically rich soils in the world. With cautions observed and actions taken to deal with potential toxins in the soil, there is no reason that we cannot or should not return the life, fertility, beauty and productivity to these urban areas.

I present here a vision of people breaking free of the dying system and using the land close at hand to generate potentially all of their food, medicine, fiber and fuel needs and to introduce beauty in the place of urban decay and suburban sprawl. Gradually we could see the emergence of self-reliant, cooperative communities providing the nourishment, both physical and spiritual, that we need to take up and manifest our visions of a better world. As this happens in more and more places, the land formerly exploited and pilaged by chemicals and mono-cultures, over-grazing and resource extraction can be freed and re-enlivened as native plant and wildlife refuges.

Either we take responsibility for living in an ecologically sustainable way or we and the earth will certainly perish. The choice is ours. The techniques are not difficult and can be learned from books, experimentation and the people around you. Seeds will grow. We just need to plant them. We need FOOD NOT LAWNS! Dig It!