Children's Day

Short hours of
Light, long nights of
Winter dark of
Nordic latitudes continent

Hordes from sunlit deserts
Swarm up, exploding the
Peace and bliss of
City of Joy,
Quiet efforts of
City of Lights, to
Lighten the dark cold winter

Hordes swarm up from sunlit deserts
Exploding the stoic peace, quiet endurance
Aims they include in their agenda of death, reducing
World to ashes, spreading desert

Their flag is green, colour of life,
Life, they hate!

They have tried, repeatedly, to extinguish the land of
Light, and failed, hating the failure, breaking it up,
Turning pieces into opposite,
Over and over, attempting to extinguish the
Light, piece by piece, photon by photon,
Photons grow, and forces of dark are
Desperate,
Biting the hands that fed them through their centuries of despair,
They hope to conquer
Light and hope and life, joy and
Peace!

One's Own Star

Life waits for
Dawn
To rise and go about
Life's needs
Through heat and cold, snow and grass and shade of tropics
Nesting, resting in midst of
Day,
Resumes the toil till
Birdsong of evening tells of
Dusk bringing nightfall.

Life steals a look up at
Starry firmament, pausing for a moment stolen from
Life's needs, to ponder the heavens above
And then settles down by fireside
Storytelling begins from old to young
So begins history, builds up through millennia.
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Myriad stars above, but only one Sun,
Most can see
Heat of desert makes those avoid the Sun,
Those that travel by Moon's light or
That of other stellar lights
Nordic lands look up, and find
One star that seems never moving
They can navigate oceans and
Conquer the world, all because of this
One fixed star
So Nordic lands swear by the fixed stars, after they have
Known variations in Sun's travels that
Make it imperative they find another one
To steer their ships by.

Deserts stand by the Moon, they need the light and cool
And the North Star is too far down,
Firmament too volatile to be guided by that one
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Tropics are comfortable, as long as forests last and shade and waters
Sun rises every day in East, and
Day is normally not that short, ever,
Multitude of stars passing from East to West,
All too normal,
And yes, there is a north star, but
Not that necessary to fixate on, even for time
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Funny, why and when do wars begin, Tropics have lost
All trace
Perhaps the only why was
Primitive need to promote one's own reproduction,
End that of others
But the Deserts invade in name of night,
Nordics in name of North Star,
Sun and Moon and all the stars of
Tropics Firmament are
Known to them
They accuse the Tropics of
Not favouring one,
Worshiping all three hundred and thirty million known
And accepting the two preferred by the invaders too!
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South is not known much until then, and
When it is known
Life has lost track of why the preference for
One Stellar Body
Began at
Dawn of Time

But if someone is looking up
From a Southern continent,
Having travelled or migrated from
Nordic Latitudes
They do know,
The Firmament is the same, and yet
Vastly different enough
Disorienting
Just as Nordic Latitudes are for Tropical traveller
And Deserts drive both crazy with
Heat unrelenting
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When would someone standing beneath a
Southern continent's Firmament
Know with a small revelation
It is the same Firmament,
And yes, there are trillions of stars, more than
Life can see or count or estimate
And they are all stars,
Just like the North star, or like
One on the various green flags!

When would Life know
It isn't real, flinging mud or death
At Life in other lands
In the name of one's own preferred
Star by any name!
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Stars meanwhile
Look down and smile at
Life that stakes claims by
This star or that
They don't even wonder if
Life will know
The stars, the Firmament
Belong to nothing below


Only the
Blue Heaven that
Envelops Earth
Belongs to Earth
For above that Blue
Space is all dark,
Stars clear through day and night
Clouds below, and
Life at mercy of
Mind's Tools
For air too is
Earth's own!
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Spectrum in Time

Dawn begins from
Deep Blue Gold Heaven
Held gently secure in it's cocoon
Until ready to burst forth
On the pre dawn
Starlit blue waiting in a silvery sheen
Dawn lights up
Eastern horizon in its hues
Red and Gold, Pink and Peach and Apricot

Dawn brings reds and pinks and golds and
Colours of life to
Life on earth, and
Earth responds
Blossoms of all hues on carpets of grass and trees and forests
Green of life glows.
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Spectrum of Light
Somewhere in the spectrum of all wavelengths of existence
Somewhere held in spectrum of Light
Colour spectrum as known to life, humanity, us,
While on Earth

Reds favoured by babies, toddlers -
And they are quite capable of fighting for their beloved
Scarletts and Reds, Apples and all
Crimson hues of dawn of
Life on Earth
So easily found by the babies' little eyes searching for colour
And so, favourite -

While their moms prefer gentle blossoms on sunlit grass
A happy garden for the child's life
Visible on the child's attire
Mother's wishes and blessings from deepest of her
Heart that is now the child's for ever.

And so the babe wins
As long as the mother pays attention
To the whims of child -
Reds it is as long as the baby insists.
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Somewhere later comes a liking for
Gardens of mothers
Blossoms on carpets of brilliant sunlit greens
Life wanted by her for her heart's brood

Somewhere then comes
Soft grey of clouds
While brilliant green grass is shaded
Under tall deep green trees
A grey of thought, of mind and more
While deep green of
Life
Struggles to grow,
Wanting sunshine and
Shade of grey
All at the same time -

Deep green of shade of tall trees
Soft grey of clouds heavy with
Life giving rains
So needed in the early burning heat of morning
And it continues if one is lucky
Until forenoon sees a descending sun
Heat now on its last brilliance
Western horizons about to be lit up
With sunset brilliant hues of
Reds and golds that
Autumn echoes on earth.


Now the skies are clear
Brilliant sapphire blue
Just as they were on eastern shores of an
Early morn

Only, now the heat is already a
Welcome warmth
No longer in need of the ocean breezes

But the ocean awaits
Off western shores - just as it gave one
A shore to climb out of waves
A lifetime ago
East in the morning.

Blues of heavens now echo the
Blues of the ocean
One reflects other and
Who knows which is reflecting, which the real primordial
Light refracted from all that
Earth receives every moment -
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Blues with white flowers large
A cherished gift once
Mother wrapped around one, now remodeled into a suit that
Already seems thoughtless
Oh, one ought to leave alone
Heaven's gifts of
Love.

May not be too late -
Maybe the  heaven would wrap one again in
Soft blue with large white flowers
Until then one waits, breathes in


Hoping one sees the loved ones in the
Blue that one is cloaked in -
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Civilisations, Marauders, Wolves, .... Choices We Make -

Recently there is an outcry about someone making a short film based on, and expounding a little on, a free verse poem titled My Choice. That this poem and this film was a response to the spate of rapes in recent years has been ignored completely by those criticising it for advocating western lifestyle, short clothes, et al; and most retorts consist of male choice for rape being equally valid.

Ever since the rapes began to proliferate one had to wonder if the rapes were not merely the inability of the males involved in finding any women to consort with except by assault and force, however pathetic that is - after all the country has been short of women in significant numbers since people realised economic benefits to small families in doing away with daughters, a policy in fact adopted by the government decades ago to curb population that backfired majorly on humanitarian arena on several levels - but something far more sinister and demonic.

Is it an ever looking to west and north copying action of the illiterate or nominally literate, to try to prove they are not short of taliban like control of the land in general and the women specifically, to try and push them back in homes for servitude in kitchen and bed and general slavery?

For that is a common reaction to any such events by the cowards and the weak amongst men and civilisations, telling women not to go out, give up jobs, not be ambitious, not think of themselves. Having dreams counts as negative if you are a woman, and a woman without dreams declares so proudly, or having had them but not realised any states so anyway, meant to be explicitly derogatory towards - and an example set to - a woman who might have suffered a great deal due to having dreams at all, and worked for them.

So the thinking is, better not dream, have no ambitions, better not go work except if your family is starving and your man incapable and if possible not even then, avoid achievements and personal identity, give up your self, sacrifice it to all men and their demands first and general women next, and be happy if you are not raped.
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But it could be worse.

What if this is not merely a publicity seeking populace's effort to have their acts if not names in papers via the cheapest act possible, rape? What if there is an organised systematic effort behind it all?

Could it be that throwing bombs and general terrorist efforts are no longer enough to satisfy those that would destroy a nation with ancient civilisation still alive and flourishing, neither converted nor finished and dead like others? 

What if it is a conspiracy from those that are not satisfied killing hundreds of innocent civilians and wish to do worse, by pushing women of India indoors due to terror created by repeated rapes of women that step out?

What if this is a move to destroy all progress and more of India by the simple method of attacking her daughters and mothers, via rape and murder, so education and work and careers of women are the first casualty, and civilisation of India the final? For, no civilisations, no marauders have prospered ever, if their mothers are kept illiterate in slavery and ignorance, barefoot and pregnant as the western phrase goes, or KKK as the forties German diktat by the infamous leader.

What if this is a fascist conspiracy, via taliban, using the publicity hungry ignoramus part of the general populace, of those that cannot achieve but want to see their names up there in print and their faces on television? It might no longer be enough for them to try and get on a camera, whether news or someone's wedding or a film shoot, by forcing their face into the camera?

What if this is the new weapon of terrorist attack, more insidious than pamphlets for false propaganda and more deadly than any nuclear weapons?

Ancient India had women who were not merely free to go about and choose their own consorts, but more - they were learned, experts in their work as equal partners in family, and too, able to use debates and win them in public. Then came a thousand years of colonisation by marauders who invaded and massacred, looted, raped and more. This pushed the women indoors, and effects thereof are still visible in the difference between north India and other parts, culturally in every little detail every day.

It is a horror to envision loss of all India regained in a relatively short time thereafter, by reverting to her own soul. 

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Someone has said, civilisations begin with swords and end in violins. This is not an exact quote, because trying to find it rather than going with memory and gist is not worth the effort, but it is true enough. There was a lot more he could have said, but he belonged to a civilisation that was still proud of past swords and not quite there yet with violins, so he did not.

What he did not say is that while achievements are superior to destruction of others achievements, lesser people take solace in doing the latter since they are plagued by jealousy and either unsure of matching them or sure of achieving nothing else whatsoever.

Rape is not very different from massacre of civilisations. Any male confident of finding plenty of attractive mates without lifting a finger will strut along like a peacock, rarely deigning to look at the crowd following him, while those jealous of him and full of hatred for women who would not look at them are the ones that will try to force those women in every way possible - telling them what to do and what not to do, telling other men to control the women, physically assaulting them, raping, and blaming everything on the victims of their crimes.

While all along the fact is the so called men are not qualified for the epithet - for their biggest qualification for the title of loser is their inability to control their own selves. Their lower selves, lower in every way, are controlling them, and their minds and hearts are taken over by the lower instincts of killing others who might be superior while their bodies are dominated by the nether parts.
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The short film gone viral is attacked from all sides - on television and internet alike - post the first stunned shock of "wow!", with most people finding a word here or a shot there to attack conveniently. They claim it is all about wearing less clothes and being sexually not quite what any society approves of, and freedom should be about education and choices should be about being an astronaut.

Those are better, superior options, yes. Why don't most men make those choices, since they have all the choices?

And therein lies the whole point. They have the choices, and make what choices they can. Women are told to make only those choices everyone else will be ok with, which rather makes it a lack of choices and freedom, lack of personhood.

If society, men, women, granted personhood to women, who will take up the slavery without compensations that women's lives largely consist of?

Hence the quaking of the society with fear - for if she today can wear what she likes and make other choices that she wants, and realises this, tomorrow no one is going to be around to pick up after him, to serve him, to take up the slack in providing for his family including him and his parents and siblings and friends and colleagues and other social connections for any amount of time of his and their choice, no one is going to be available to him and his to take out their frustrations on, whether by physical assault or starvation or forbidding her to meet her people and do anything she likes, or by murder when the frustration goes too far.

And there are no repercussions while she does not matter because she is less valuable than a pet that has been paid for, since she in fact paid for the privilege of this slavery, with her life and mind given over and if she is finished off society will not even shed a crocodile tear, but will offer more women with dowries who are more than willing (or those that are offering them are willing to offer them) in taking the place of one murdered.

A male in mid seventies who has beaten his wife to death with an interim of a time when she suffered the same injuries US footballers do with the same consequences, has all the society to help him celebrate his wedding to a willing partner as young as he can get, usually a couple of decades younger if not more, as long as he is willing to allow it. A woman in early twenties is told she would find no one unless she settles, and fast, into a life of lifelong servitude without escape, and far worse if she is not well behaved about it.

And if she persists, in going out and choosing education and work and self reliance, there is always rape and murder.
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The video is attacked on the same basis rape is excused - she was exciting males, wearing short clothes, culturally improper in behaviour, and basically, asking for it. But then a woman covered from neck down to ankles is not safe nor is one too old or too young - infants have been raped as have been old women. Old, not as in fifties, but as old as eighties. Patients in hospitals unable to move or speak have been raped, as have in fact dead bodies.

When does society awake and tell males, it is rape that is evil? When do males inculcate their sons in the real secrets of humanity, so far taught women but left as a choice to take up or not as far as males go?

When does society realise there is no excuse for rape and assault, physical or verbal or emotional, and it merely exposes inferiority of the assaulter, not their superior physical power?
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When wolves begin attacking farms, a farmer might try to find better guard dogs, electric fences, locks and so on. Lock up his fowl in secure airy housing and penning up his sheep in secure pens with guard dogs. What the farmer, or average householder, does not do is to lock up the babies and children - he gets a shotgun and hunts down the threat, and if not by himself then by collecting the village.

For locking up the children is not the answer - the wolf that can get them in your garden can very well enter through the window and get them in their beds, and humans do not lock up their own in secure cages.

When women are being assaulted, they are told explicit;y or implicitly to no longer go out without adequate male protection, no longer seek education or work or enjoyment, but stay at home and serve their lords and masters the males, and if they are kidnapped from home then serve the new lords and masters the kidnappers or buyers. In whatever way the lords and masters choose to demand.

When is it going to be clear that in this the women are being treated more like live property to serve alive or dead, and less like humans that they are? What else is slavery but tolerating this attitude?

What after all is adequate protection, if those that attack are precisely those that one is counting on as one's fellow humans, relatives, friends, partners, colleagues, protectors?

And seriously, which total moron is going to state on penalty of his own life that no woman was ever attacked, raped, murdered, in her own home while she presented herself as completely dressed as possible, from neck down to ankles, or even more, having one's face covered as well?

Anyone who is so foolish as to claim this, is free to swear it on bible and all other holy books, and on all possible gods, on pain of his own blood.
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The film is built on words of a poem and has 99 women who are shot to make up the video footage, and talks about choices. It is not about demanding approval or about telling everyone what to do. It IS about a woman who has a mind and a soul, and every right to make her own choices, right or wrong, and freedom to do so. And that is every woman.

Reducing it to convenient labels of short clothes and immoral behaviour is merely a convenient way to victimise those that assert the freedom, the rights, the right to make choices, the equality of souls and minds.

And that is no different from those that defend rapes with assertions of men being men or boys being boys, or comparing the situation to meat and dogs, or asserting that women who behave properly don't get raped. They do, but then they are conveniently forgotten.

It is only humans that do this to their own females. Every other species alive protects its females. Are humans on top rung of evolution, in attempting to finish of the females of the species one way or another? Is this about extinction being a need of humans?
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Everyone familiar with evolution is aware that apes are further along in evolution than the equines, but few bother to think it over and realise the implications, else they would not brag about nether equipment and difference vis a vis females of the species. For gorillas lack what donkeys routinely, publicly display - donkeys have not only excellent equipment, it borders on two forelegs and a hind tripod when in heat.

This should be a further argument for those that do not realise the relevance, the significance of one's head and heart being far up above the nether end of the torso, and not as connected to the heart as a woman's body in its internal structure - a woman carries a baby under her heart, connected to her whole being, and it is only a male that can conveniently disclaim his own nether parts as if they were not his own sole and exclusive responsibility, but that of every woman on the planet.

But a bank robber is not excused for robbing a bank even though the premises are meant for business of money, nor is a hungry man excused for robbing a place that sells food, much less a home or another person's wallet.

Being unable to control one's own nether parts, for whatever reasons, is no excuse for assaulting another person, however hot or provocative, either physically or verbally or in other twisted ways. Nor is it a justification for any crime.
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Civilisations that vanished due to onslaught of other civilisations were more advanced, not less, and the marauders more primitive, albeit unable to see it, and hence the assaults. Humanity as a whole needs to evolve to where wolves are not given free range while evolved humans are caged in homes or concentration camps and reservations and reduced land areas while wolves keep migrating out from designated forests and into human civilisations and cities.

It is time for farmers to take up shotguns and nets to trap wolves, and push them back, It is time humanity evolved to where it grows into light, rather than allowing humanity to sink back to primitive with fangs bared and babies caged for safety.

If the latter comes to pass, forget beauty and grace, forget music and all other achievements and blessings from above. The only defence for women who do not escape assault and rape even in home in complete accord with all norms prescribed would be to turn around, wear beards and moustaches and even horns, use horrible stinking sprays or even poisonous ones, and if that is not enough, carry weapons of assault - always available in black market or in kitchens of one's homes - and use them when felt threatened.

Or if none of it works and women are still assaulted, nature will let women perish and thereby let humanity go extinct, for humanity that does not defend its own women on par with other half and designates them to servitude does not deserve to survive.
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Elements

Four elements, known to us all 
Taken for granted, as much as parents
Fire, Earth, Air, Water
And perhaps another one or two or three
Space, Firmament, Stars, all that is above -
Taken for granted, just as much
As the four elements, known to us all.
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Earth one needs - when existence is physical,
Mother Earth supporting physical beings with
Patience, care, love, enveloping all
Even those that take flight, live in air high above, do need
Her sustenance, occasionally, when
Exhausted, in need of respite
We fall asleep in her arms, in her lap,
Even when in a palatial dwelling, in silks and on marble and gold
Earth the silent mother carries it all,
Whispers gentle songs of hers, bringing us the much needed
Rest.
Much like a
Mother that carries the unborn and born
Her own body carrying the weight, supporting, sustaining life.
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Much of the physical being though
As long as life is dwelling in body, is of
Water, and needs water
Unborn lives enveloped by the love and care that is
Ocean that sustains life,
Living need the love and care and be part of the chains of
Life that won't be without
Love, care, the very element of
Life that is
Water
Needed as long as
Life lasts.
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Most of Life, though, at any rate those of us that
Abide on land,
Unlike those that dwell in waters of
Oceans, rivers, lakes et al of
Life, Love
Need more than just
Love, care, life,
Water

All very well until a point,
Water, Life, Care, Love,
All very needed
But then appears the need of
Breath and Air, Mind Thought,
Somewhere the mouth, throat, living apparatus
Must distinguish the two
Else struggle to survive

Distinguish, and discriminatingly
Separate breath from water,
Keep one's breath pure
Not drown in
Life.

Life waits
Oceans, rivers, lakes, ponds, wells,
One may drown - or be devoured by one of those that
Dwell there, play, would swallow one whole, or
Shred one to bits
Those of us that live on land must
Know where to step,
Draw the boundary, so as
Not to drown and yet sustain
Life,

Breath Air, yet not forget
One needs
Water, Love, Care, for
Life.
................................................................................................................

One might be forgiven for concluding it is all there is
Breathing is above all, and
Indeed one couldn't live without
Breath, Air,
Thought, Mind,
For even the dwellers of
Oceans, rivers, lakes, ponds, wells,
Water, life, love, care,
Do breathe,

Air permeates water, and those that dwell not on land
Know how to breathe when living in water,
Breath air they do, they know how, they can

So one might conclude, this is all
Earth, Water, Air, and no more

Build castles in air, fly high above
Forget Earth far below, looked at with disdain
Use Water, not revere it,
Air is all one is living in, and
Who can see air?
So one's own being is all there is, and
Air one breathes,
Thoughts that seem one's own creation, rather than of
Mind and the world thereof
And even if one knows
Air is not merely of one's breath,
Thought is as Air, passing free
Around and into beings
Still,
All this is not,
And yet, many assert, this is all there is,
Anything else perceived is mere
Illusion, they assert, loss of
Mind of those that look
Above.

Yes, this is all there is, they assert,
Never looking above,
Else claiming it is all illusion,
Created to fool, dreamers and cowered ones
Look above and lose mind, so don't - they go,
One's highest is oneself, they assert

There is truth in that too, but not as limited as they think
They know not yet the truth of more than
Life and Mind and Physical, of
Existence.
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Fire, whether of one's own hearth, of
Unseen Unknown hiding in one
Or of seen
Firmament above, of stars and galaxies and universes -
As real as any other element,
Used, but often denied
Seen as creation or discovery of
Primitives
No longer a mystery, tamed now - and no such thing as
Soul, Divine, Above -
Denied and finished.

And yet,
Look above,
Let Mind free
Thought roam independent, not
Yoked to Life, or all the more to
Ego, the shell of one's being
And one could know
Fire, and more -

The Space that envelops it all, where
Life and Mind and Physical
Existence
Resides
Fire and
Explosions that make stars of
What would otherwise be planets
Dead Terra of
Belts of millions orbiting
Before Jupiter,
After Neptune,
And more -
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Comets arrive
Once in a while
Beings that seem full of
Light
Earth looks up in wonder, falls to knees in worship,

And watches as one strikes
A tremendous god of yore,
Both hurt in the collision, as
Watchers from Earth look
To see who survives a collision,
Who is the winner of a
Celestial battle.

"Faiths" collide pretty much this way, too
"your god is untrue, for it was hurt, .." asserts each side,
And those that asserted
Air around is all there is, rest is mere illusion
Tell both how wrong they are,
Celestial bodies are merely more bits of
Rocks on fire, that is all -

Space, meanwhile, holds it all


While
Light above,
Firmament filled with
Visions
Stars and galaxies and universes
Carry on as ever.
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Left, Right, Family, Market

I always wonder why leftist thinking is labeled anti US, when in fact every family and every woman is required to live a leftist life, and church diktates (or what is conveniently misnamed family values) are precisely about herding women into a commune life of a couple and progeny with a lifestyle of traditional nature - which is about "do what one can and receive what one needs".

Capitalism can only work in market, a woman cannot go about negotiating price of conception and childbirth to full compensation of all else she might have to forego which could include her very life, and one after all can never pay a mom for life given, except by love and respect and full equal partnership with the father of the family.

Children have to be fed and clothed and housed and educated and more by parents without any thought of how they will pay back, moreover. So it is all communism, those that can do do all they can, those that need have to receive what they can, without any payment involved.

Extending this to public life is leftism, and it is only viable with awareness beyond mind, which is not universal as of now. Hence problems.

Twilight and Magic Hour

While I can't say I am unfamiliar with the phrase magic hour someone of India mentioned, used in cinema world, I find no recollection of it being ever used in any western or Nordic country, either in talk or in literature or on television or in films. It is possible one forgets now what seems not quite so important, but searching memory produces no mention of the phrase anywhere in Europe or US. What might be possible is it is one of those phrases that seem to be of one language while not really from a country of that language.

This happens sometimes to for example French, at least one phrase I am very familiar with from English literature is completely unfamiliar as a phrase to the AF teachers of French. Another such usage which seems to be of English language but is totally made up in India is "co" instead of "in law" when a symmetric relationship through two marriages is involved. South Indians use it extensively, while in north Hindi words usually do. In English speaking lands the phrase would be sister in law or brother in law for both possibilities. In south India they would say co sister or co brother for a symmetric relationship, and if one used the other phrase, they would correct you, under the impression that they have it right.

It seems to make sense, moreover, that the magic hour is a phrase made up in India, and all the more so in cinema world of Hindi cinema of Mumbai. Sunset is very beautiful in Mumbai (east coast, not so much), and the welcome relief from heat comes only thereafter (east coast begins to cool already at noon with cool breezes from the ocean).

In Nordic lands twilight is preferred long because it delays dark, something to be not liked, rather feared - only natural when forest creatures and others are likely to have more power. Moreover where sun is not all that hot and light is dim most of the time anyway, daylight with clear sun is termed "nice day" while cloud, rain, dark and so forth are disliked. Snow is another story, welcome because it does bring more light, and not wet you, and strangely enough it is better than dry winters which are far colder and not so enjoyable.

And what is more, fairy tales that one is so familiar with originate in Nordic lands, and are not exactly the Disney happy versions most of the times - they are full of things to be feared, and those precisely are what abound in dark, whether of winter when it is dark so long or on everyday nights all through the year. So twilight is not a happy time, it is only good in being long and not so abrupt as it is in tropics where dark descends in a jiffy. Nor do people go about watching sunsets as they do in India and perhaps all through tropics or hot parts of earth. It is a time to be indoors and light up until one is ready for bed.

Most telling of course is the hour part of the phrase. It is possible that twilight is an hour in southern US, but again, culturally it is not a part of the day liked or at least established in literature and language as liked, because the European heritage continues culturally in most part, the only significant difference being of daily showers common in US (twice quite often likely), while Europe still continues the centuries traditions of preferring baths and that not so often. Heat might be enough in CA or too much in ex confederate south, but culture still prefers sunshine, and while the latter likes various options for cooling during hot days, food still is European in most part, and so on. Nights are seen as time for "night life" or for bed, and only those serious (whether amateur or otherwise) about either study or art or music or science or stargazing have other ideas of how to pass dark hours. It is unlikely that twilight is termed magic hour even in those parts, because it is a part of the evening and falling dark is not significantly liked as such but is a time for evening occupations - whether homing to dinner and more, or going out for the evening (which is a term lasting until one goes to bed).

So association of magic and hour with twilight is likely to be of origin in Mumbai and quite rightly so. In those parts it is. Magic seems to be so small, so very insufficient and inadequate a phrase for this phenomena one experiences in Mumbai, it could only come from relatively hurried minds seeking for a catch phrase. And what is more, magic is not always positive, as one would know very well, if one is familiar with lands of fairy tales.

More than magic, in Mumbai and in Delhi and other parts too in India (albeit not east coast so much, especially in south), it is a celebration of beauty everyday at twilight, a festival of colours that light up the western skies as dusk brings a welcome cool and fresh breeze, while stars begin to appear over the ocean and overhead, and one is forever grateful for being able to see it and experience it on so every day a basis. 

Penguins, Emperors, Polar Bears, .... Tomcats -

The little girl holidayed in the valley
Shadowed in sun by tall mountains with
Snow capped peaks, fabled in legends of the land
Gods are here, and so were their sons
A long time ago
Their footprints and their paths still legendary
One can walk in them
The little girl holidaying with her parents and a cute little sister
Frolicking in snow that fell gentle
It was early yet
Snow a novelty in the land of sun and forests,
Abode of snow and ice protecting it and standing ever awake
Sentry against winds and those that would ravage the land
Until the ravagers found a pass, and the land was ravaged for centuries

The little girl frolicked, blissfully unaware of history
Subconsciously protected by legends of sons of
Gods still present
If only one were aware and able to admit
Heavens have more than humans, living in
Blue of Divine Light

The little girl played, sang, told stories, until
One day she came, almost in tears, agitated
Asking, is it true, tomcats eat their own young?
.......................................................................................................

What could one tell her,
How protect someone on brink of growing into
Young adulthood,
Without forever making her see dark when she should see
Light and Bliss and peaks of life to come?
How does one not lie, and yet return the
Smile of a child
No joke, facing a horror at first steps of
Wonder years that were just about to begin!

One had to tread cautiously,
Tell her, held gently in arms encircling
Away from one's self, looking at one another
Directly in eyes that said,
Life is hard, but not all horror,
Return to the child the assurance of protection
Of goodness and all possibilities
Tell her about life
And yet bring her smile back.

Yes, tomcats do eat their own young, one told her
But humans are not tomcats
While some do behave like that
Everyone born is free to make one's own choice
And some go as far as to be almost
Penguins, even as good as
Emperors who protect their young
With their own substance of life
While the mommy penguins go off into ocean
They have given most of their life to bring about the little one
Still in the egg, now held in warmth of the papa penguins
Waiting for the moms to return to see the now newborn young,
Waiting in the deep Antarctic winter of  southern continent
Protected from others with deep cold, by
Mother Nature of Earth.

Humans are free to choose, and
While some do choose to go the tomcats way,
Others might ignore young like lions do
Or go south and be
Penguin fathers who care for their young
Every bit as much as their moms do.

......................................................................................................... 

The little girl's tears, one could see, were receding
She was brought back to safety of her life
And a future that was possible
Without horrors
Yet aware of horrors that abound
And one needs to avoid
So one could care for one's young and not fear
Tomcats and bears walking in human bodies.
.......................................................................................................


Wish someone had told the beautiful little girl
Who was never aware of
Various other beings in human disguise
And so she lost her life
Protecting her young as best as she could
The only admonition her own mother gave her
She had made it her own life's goal,
With no sustenance other than spirit of a mother
And this was the best she could give
The beautiful daughter who in her turn
Protected her young at the cost of
Her own being.

.......................................................................................................