Concealed Mind

Life, as the ancient philosophers often pondered, is a complex web of joys and sorrows, victories and defeats, peace and suffering. The conception of suffering has evolved through the ages, as society and culture have transformed, shifting from a simpler existence to the complex, multifaceted nature of modern life. This journey of human evolution carries with it a profound question: Has the essence of life's purity diminished with the advent of the modern era, and if so, has this had a significant impact on the nature of our sufferings?

In the past, life was painted with simpler strokes. The worries of our ancestors were principally tied to the cycles of nature – a good harvest, favorable weather, protection from predators. Life's joys were born from the same womb as its sufferings – the rhythms of the Earth, the community, and the broader cosmos. The dichotomy of pleasure and pain was clearly demarcated, its roots traceable to easily identifiable sources. In this way, there existed a certain purity, an unblemished rawness that defined life.

However, the canvas of the modern era is laden with numerous, often opaque hues. Today, our sorrows are more often born from an intricate maze of social, economic, psychological, and existential concerns. The threads of our suffering are woven from the pressures of economic achievement, societal expectations, the pursuit of an ill-defined concept of happiness, and the existential dread that accompanies our hyper-awareness of mortality and meaning. The sources of our pain, and consequently, the path to our joy, have become increasingly convoluted.

The modern era, with its rapid pace and advanced technology, has allowed us to transcend many of the physical and geographical limitations that defined our ancestors' existence. However, in this progress, we've also confronted new forms of suffering. Mental health issues, loneliness, a sense of disconnection despite being more 'connected' than ever – these are the specters that haunt the modern individual.

Yet, the philosophical question remains: is this a reflection of an inherent loss of purity in life, or merely a shift in the nature of our struggles?

While it's tempting to romanticize the past and yearn for the perceived simplicity and purity of earlier times, it's essential to remember that each era has its unique challenges. The nature of suffering, like life itself, evolves, and this evolution is not indicative of a loss of purity. It is a testament to our adaptability, resilience, and inherent desire to find meaning amidst chaos.

To address suffering in the modern era, we must recognize and understand the nature of our unique struggles. Only by acknowledging our pain can we navigate it, harnessing our collective experiences and knowledge to cultivate resilience and empathy.

A thousand voices whispering inside a tide.

Screen-lit faces, in the hollow glow,

Chase fleeting specters, in a ceaseless show.

Once we quested for the truth, the noble deed,

Now drowned in feeds, on trivia we feed.

The digital web, vast and wide,

A modern marvel, a gilded ride.

Behind the crystal screens, we hide,

In swift convenience, we confide.

Yet the starlit wonder, the morning sun,

Are drowned by bytes, by the millions run.

A world of knowledge, at fingertips lay,

Yet minds grow dull, as screens hold sway.

No need to ponder, no need to muse,

Just Google answers, no intellect to use.

In digital gardens, laziness breeds,

While wisdom's whispers remain unread.

The art of thinking, of questions deep,

Lost in the ether, in data's steep.

Oh, the modern era, with all its flair,

Humanity entranced in a tech millionaire's snare.

And so, we dance in the silicon rain,

Trading wisdom for convenience, intellect for gain.

Yet hope lingers, in hearts untamed,

In minds unshackled, in spirits unnamed.

May we wake from this enchanting dream,

He alone

Peeked from the paused stream

Dark Clouds came over

People walking by

The city like a whale

Buses like running streams

Passes through his slow life.

He alone

Feels the feelings

To get loner in a crowded stream,

Light lessons run over

Tests passes by

Grey-scaled canvas was him.

He shook

By the sudden splash

Colored him like rainbow,

A sudden wind to take him ahead

Of that lonely grid;

A knot he discovered,

Two parallel lives came to join by angry letters

He found his color pallet.

Each canvas got bright colors.

Some splashes of coloured pains,

Wrenching the minds

Nobody knew the future..

It meant to last.

Oneday he was new. His walls were green, windows brown. He was airy, he was bright.  But things changed with out a notice. That breezy air didn’t pass. His windows were closed. He was a dark, damp room. Dusty furnitures occupied his space. Those were old, dusty, but his own.  Oneday a bird had came inside. To make her nest. She thought it as a safe place. The damp coldness felt soothing in summer times. That bird was the only life in him. He did everything to keep her safe, protected. Her chirps echoed inside him. He felt himself, he felt he is alive again. He felt life inside. She went to each corner of the room, she loved each of his possessions. She started building her nest. That ventilator, by which she came in, became a light source. First time after 8 years he touched light. But he was disturbed, broken. He wasn’t ok to see so much dirt inside. But that bird didn’t bother. She was too happy with her nest. It was her own shelter.  Gradually his old lean windows fell one by one. Breezy air passed again. Bright sunbeam again lightened him up.  He was alive again. But as time passed, climate started changing itself. The room was too lonely for the happy bird. Those dirts made her suffocate every night. Those broken windows failed to feel her safe.  The room loved her so intensively. He wanted to feel the bird comfortable. But it was out of his abilities. He was dying everynight. He could not bear her suffocation.  But the bird was too much attached to her nest inside him. He could find no solution.

I was in 2nd standard. A guy impressed me a lot. He was the 4th standard topper of our kindergarten school. He became like an idol for us. We followed his walking style, his bag, his hairstyle and especially his spectacles.

That time I developed a concept about "Good Boys" in my mind.  For me, good boys were the guys who used to wear spectacles. Silently that conception established itself in my concealed mind. 

I tried to convince dad, that I had been having trouble whenever I try to see anything!

All of my family members were traumatized instantly. Grandpa and grandma started crying. But, hold! Mom was too intelligent competitor for me. She caught my whitish lie instantly. Got beaten badly. But still my dad promised  to take me to the eye specialist. Well, that was what I asked as my birthday gift. 

So finally my birthday came. Dad took me to the eye specialist. Oh No! There was a painful eyemist waiting for me at the very start. I consoled myself "Hold on brave boy, you have to bear this burn. Remember? No pain, no gain" when that eyemist created that deep burning sensation. 

Doctor took me into the optometry room. I tried to bribe him with two mid sized kitkat chocolates. But the doctor seemed virtuous. He smiled and took the computer generated slip. Now there was a "Good News" for me in the doctor's cabin. I had some problems with my eyes. Doctor prescribed me minus powered spectacles.

I was feeling like the king of this universe. I earned spectacles finally. I was extremely happy. Dad was confused due to my happiness.

He was struggling in the middle of National Highway 5. Blood spreaded over the area. Blood was cascading down from his leg. His eyes depicted huge pain. So clear was his feelings. Tears came out of his painful eyes. He was trying hard to breathe, so, so hard.

Little chilled water touched his head. A human touch tried to heal his pain, so eagerly.

His eyes thanked, thanked for the last time. His breath failed to come out of his lungs. He became still, still like a stone.

That human was standing, bottle in hand. Speechless, shocked, traumatized. He failed to save a life, yet again, in his life.

Few questions arose in his mind. How the brownish dog came on this highway? How and who hit him? Why there was nobody to take this dog to a medical center? Why the highway authority helpline guy rebuked after knowing about a seriously wounded dog? 

Some little things happen around us but we never see it. 

Often we see small kids begging at the signal. Most of us ignore them and concentrate on the traffic signal post as if it will turn green right that moment. Some of us eject them by using some bad languages. And a very few of us give them some currencies. 

There are some kids who sell flowers, some sell water bottles and other things as well.

Now so many questions rise. Why are these small kids on road? Why local authorities don't 

The answer is invisible being too much visible.

There are few types of kids on roads : 

Some kids are on road to help their families by earning some money.

Some orphans are on the road to help themselves.

Some kids, sold to some Seths, beg to earn for their Seths

Some rural kids who fled from house and now on road 

They are 6-13 years old in average. According to UNICEF there are 72% kids under 12 years of age and 13% under 6 years of age.

Now lets come to the causes. The main cause found is poverty. According to surveys 20.9% of the street kids say they are on road because of  weak economic standard of their families. Where 39.1%  say they left home because of fights and problems  with family members. These problems contain physical harassment, mental torture, pressure to work in unwanted places, fear to get sold and bad treatment from parents.

In some cases poor parents sell their child to an unknown Seth. That Seth uses those children to beg on streets. In most cases these kids are made physically disabled by some cruel methods like cutting their legs, spoiling their eyes and so on. There are some kidnapped children as well in these groups.

The individual street kids mainly work or beg to spend on foods. According to researchers Indian street kids earn around 200-800 Rupees a month. They spend 5-10 bucks on foods. Many children drink tea or water to control their expenditure on food. 

It is seen that they have tendency to spend more money on entertainment than food. Their entertainment include Cigarettes, Biri's, tobacco, cheap drugs and alcohol. They forget to spend on their clothings as the income is very limited in daily basis and of course torn clothes attract people to donate.  

The most pathetic and inhuman role is seen in this frame is of Police. They demand money from these kids. Kids pay them in weekly format so the police allow them at the signals.

There are around 100k street kids here and there in Kolkata itself.

Now the worst part of the scene. Street kids are often abused because they have no social status and none to protect them. The primary cause of this is the mentality people develop for them. 

Some NGOs try to help them by clothes, foods for a day and with such things. Some groups arrange a social day to distribute chocolates and clothes among them. We praise these groups and NGOs. But we never think about the very next day of their life. What will they do? What will they eat the very next day?

No answers. 

In an ashram perched high on a hill above the noisy city of Guwahati in north-east India is a small exhibit commemorating the life of India's most famous son. Alongside an uncomfortable-looking divan where Mahatma Gandhi once slept is a display reminding visitors of something the man himself said in 1921: "Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity; the female sex (not the weaker sex)."

One evening  just a few miles downhill, a young student left a bar and was set upon by a gang of at least 18 men. They dragged her into the road by her hair, tried to rip off her clothes and smiled at the cameras that filmed it all. It was around 9.30pm on one of Guwahati's busiest streets – a chaotic three-lane thoroughfare soundtracked by constantly beeping horns and chugging tuk-tuks. But for at least 20 minutes, no one called the police. They easily could have. Many of those present had phones: they were using them to film the scene as the men yanked up the girl's vest and tugged at her bra and groped her breasts as she begged for help from passing cars. We know this because a cameraman from the local TV channel was there too, capturing the attack for his viewers' enjoyment. The woman was abused for 45 minutes before the police arrived. Within half an hour, clips were broadcast on Assam's NewsLive channel. When the police eventually turned up, they took away the woman, who is 20 or 21 (oddly, Guwahati police claimed not to know exactly). While NewsLive re-played pixellated footage of her attack throughout the night, she was questioned and given a medical examination. No attempt was made to arrest the men whose faces could clearly be seen laughing and jeering on camera. Soon afterwards, the editor-in-chief of NewsLive (who has since resigned) remarked on Twitter that "prostitutes form a major chunk of girls who visit bars and night clubs".

Mahipalpur is not a place you will find on many tourist guides to India. Once a village, now a cluster of cheap hotels, roadside restaurants and bus stops around a major road junction on the outskirts of Delhi, it is a place many pass by but few seek out. The huge, new billion-dollar international airport terminal lies a mile or so away, across construction sites, wasteland and rubbish tips, obscured now by a thick winter fog, a mixture of smoke from wood fires and pollution. Concrete pillars of a recently constructed metro link, which worked for a few months but has been out of commission for many more, loom. Tens of thousands of people pass Mahipalpur every day. Few stop. It was here, in the dirt beside a ramp leading to the flyover carrying an eight-lane highway, at 10.20pm on 16 December, that a bus briefly stopped and a semi-conscious woman and her male companion were dumped, naked and badly injured, on the ground. This being India, a crowd quickly gathered. Passing cars slowed. After 40 minutes, someone called the police, who fetched sheets from one of the nearby hotels to cover the couple and took them to hospital.

Incidents of rape have gone up by 873% in India in the past 60 years. On average, each day, three Dalit women are raped in some part of our country. The conviction rate for rape cases in 2011 was 25% -- although some estimate only one in 10 rapes is reported. The conviction rate for men accused of raping Dalit women is almost nil.

The National Crime Records Bureau's annual report of crime statistics also reports disturbing findings: A woman is raped somewhere in India every 20 minutes, and the number of children raped has increased by 336% in the past 10 years.

This culture of impunity is certainly one of the reasons rape has too often become the weapon of choice for frustrated young men who blame women, increasingly visible in the workplace, for their unemployment, and who hope to regain jobs by frightening women back home through sexual violence.

The desire to blame women is fed by a cult of masculinity promoted by corporate and political leaders who serve as role models for the rest of society.

Continually, budget allocations to the Ministry of Women and Child Development are reduced. Debates to ensure equal power sharing between the sexes through the Women's Reservation Bill have gone nowhere.

But no amount of violence and intimidation is going to force women back into their homes. In fact, homes are often the places where females are in the most danger -- from the time they are conceived to old age. An average Indian female could likely be a victim of foeticide, infanticide, malnourishment, dowry, child marriage, maternal mortality, domestic servitude, prostitution, rape, honor killings and domestic violence -- simply because she is female.

When a female goes out of house the risk rises further. Touching private body parts is a common scenario in Indian Public Transport system.  Bad languages, dirty signs and eve teasing are a regular experience for an Indian woman. Surprisingly we know everything but we don’t slide even a pebble.

I am writing this article. But I am just writing. I will also be a part of silent viewers in the bus or train.

I will stop my sister or mother from going outside by public transport. But I will never want to stop the incident that is happening every day.