My First English Recitation Videos Took Thirty Years To Produce. P S Remesh Chandran

058. My First English Recitation Videos Took Thirty Years To Produce. P S Remesh Chandran

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

By PSRemeshChandra, 30th Apr 2014 Short URL http://nut.bz/2t3az9i6/
Posted in Wikinut>Writing>Essays

Why do human beings sing? It is an act of sublimity, melting him beyond medium, transforming him to deliquescence and ardence, preparing him for the nearness of god. God stands just behind those who sing, such close that we will wonder who actually sings. The delightful souls dead and gone who designed this world want to speak to the world again through their poems. Recitation is where they reincarnate. No living poets shall ever have a place here. Their time will come once they are tested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1lywUBFRSY

Saying poetry instead of singing has led to deterioration in the standard of poetry and recitation both.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgKeTfCO6PU

Without music no poetry is born. If it is without music, it is not a poem. Others say it, we sing it; that is our motto. There are others in the world who sing poems and ours is an attempt to search them out, compliment them and supplement them and help them recognize that what they had been doing was right. Children of the world, we see in most poetry recitation videos, just say poems with more acting than music- an indication of what resource-less teachers had been doing in classes for decades, setting the wrong model. Large institutions and famous poetry recitation competition organizers across the continents like to blissfully forget that there is music in poetry. Of course, saying poetry is the first easy thing that comes into one’s mind when he finds himself unable to sing a poem, instead of trying earnestly to sing it. This wrong step, adopted by inadequately-trained teachers and academics through decades, has deteriorated the standard of recitation in specific and the standard of poetry in general. There has been no standardization done in the singing of poetry in the world, and no one can set rules too, for who are to do this? There are no role models. Only when better methods are introduced and accepted would the standard of recitation and poetry improve and be restored to what it had been in ages of creativity. Ours is an attempt to set a plain and simple model as a starting. Our resources are scanty, our attempt is pagan, and our acceptability may be only among the unorthodox, presently. But we do will set a trend. Others can discard it or build upon it.

Saying poems instead of singing it is licentious dealing with language. When you find the lines of a good poet hard to sing, know that that poem is locked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyEJslvFrQI

When Kalidasa, the epic poet who wrote Shaakuntalam, was asked by his patron King Bhoja what his greatest wish in the world was, he replied that never once shall he have the misfortune of singing poems before the uninterested and the uncreative. It is a fear of all good poets. Therefore they lock their lines, using their own locking methods. Tagore, Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Milton, Shelley, and Keats- all have done this. Some place the last word of a line in front of the next one, some stretch it into prose and some cause singers to stumble upon and fall over unnecessarily placed vowels and syllables. If you want to enjoy such poems, you must persevere. At one of your repeated attempts, it will click and the tune revealed. Once we unlock the tune we will laugh, will hear the poet also laugh, which is the real communion with the dead, the magnificence of dealing with those standing in eternity.

I only wish to outline what are the ingredients to becoming a musical recitation fanatic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt5ZTy90ag8

I have my own views on why music should be incorporated into poetry and why recitation should be musical and used as substitute for instruction and the presence of a teacher. I have my own anticipations on the future of musical recitations and awareness of my own shortcomings and limitations in advancing a project of this magnitude and potential. I will speak about them in another article which I soon wish to compliment this present one with. In this article, I simply wish to record the story of how I became interested in poetry recitations and how my first English Recitation Videos came into being. What I intend to outline are the ingredients to becoming a musical recitation fanatic.

It was rumoured that there were televisions in three or four houses in Delhi, including one in the President’s House.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un-pWZcPmv4

‘My first English recitation videos’ means, not the song videos which I viewed in my childhood but which I attempted to create in my youth. In my childhood years, there were neither videos nor cassettes, not even radios, in Indian villages. It was only rumoured that there were televisions in three or four houses in Delhi, the capital of the country, including one in the President’s House. It was when a few radios came up here and there- Murphy, Phillips, Toshiba and Soundistor- that people began to hear recorded music frequently. Before that, there were indeed gramophone players but they were rare, and were not accessible to us children.

The best thing a father can do to his children is to respect their mother.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhL8txK6RGI

Even before I walked, I was told, I had learned to sing. I owe this to my mother and father. My mother was university-educated who remained without going for a job for fear of angering my grandfather who did not believe in women working and bringing home money. Like a typical Indian village landlord who he actually was, widowed and conservative, he was devoted and faithful to his children- all girls- and ruled home like a true patriarch. The benefit was we got the undivided attention of our mother. She was there to send us to school and she was there to see us back. What she learned- university science it was- she taught us her four children. My father was a European-travelled and liberal-minded high school English teacher who taught us that ‘the best thing a father can do to his children is to respect their mother’. After graduating in Bachelor of Arts from University College and Bachelor of Teaching from Mar Theophilus Training College, Trivandrum, he went to Malaysia and Singapore to work in a British cultural firm. After a few years he returned, got additionally trained for Certificate in Teaching English under the British Council of India and joined our native high school as an English teacher, to my luck. Had he remained abroad and made money and we children remained in our village, we would all have been rich and spoiled.

In school and village celebrations, my name would be called through loudspeakers, enrolled by my father without my knowing. How could I run away for public fright?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwQWwZsiDI4

I loved to hear film music and we had no radio. There was a public radio kiosk in our village and one fine valve radio in the nearby tea shop. It was before the advent of transistors. There was a cinema theatre nearby and I used to go for second shows for listening to film songs. Knowing my craze, my father would give me money. Some Malayalam films were famous just for their number of songs. I could sing all of them which I did in home, in both male and female voices. I was not a singer but whenever I took part in competitions, I gave only the second prize to others. In school competitions and village celebrations, my name would be called through loudspeakers, enrolled by my father without my knowing. How could I run away for public fright? Fearing the shame of appearing public in a stage, I would go and do the thing. I was lucky there were no district level competitions then.

Even now I am a second man, the man behind the curtains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKkurqG5zp8

It seemed my father took it up to make me a singer. He took me while I was in school to the All India Radio twice to see his friends, the now late Kamukara Purushothaman and Madavoor Bhasi. Kamukara was a very famous gentleman playback singer and music director and also a school headmaster who I think did his B.T. with my father. He was not there in the A.I.R. Madavoor Bhasi was a famous drama writer and producer who was my father’s school mate. He also was not there on the day we went to see him. You know there were no telephones then. My father could not take me again to the city for this purpose. Since his demise, I lost the only promoter I had. And I myself did not pursue the task of becoming a singer. Even now I am a second man, the man behind the curtains.

Singing English poems was a novelty in my village, was in the state, but what if it is in the world?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O63AFcX1RYI

Living among Europeans and Far Eastern Asians refined my father in culture as well as in literary and linguistic skills. He was an ardent singer of English poems of great poets which he taught us also at very early ages. In high school, he was our English teacher and my class teacher and I had the opportunity for listening to his famous beautiful English recitations and orations in class. ‘Row Row Row The Boat’ and ‘Ten Green Bottles Hanging On The Wall’ were our daily bread. I heard ‘The Slave’s Dream’ he singing in another class. Before we were in the tenth standard, he had implanted in us all the zest and lust for singing English poems, which was a novelty in such a remote village as ours. In future years, I was to learn that it was a novelty in the state also. Today, when I come across English poem recitations in the internet and learn that it is a novelty and rarity in the world too, I do not wonder but only am sad. So, when I matriculated, I was fairly ripe for poetry. In college I did not gain much in poetry. There was only the usual saying of poetry and explaining and no music. I had learned in my school how to learn and soon found that college was no use to me. If I can learn new things in my way in leisure, why waste time? I was enrolled in the same college as my father studied, under the principalship of the same reverend father who taught him in his B.T. classes. Even then I did not gain much except seeing a cross section of the world, for there were brilliant students from almost all continents, a rarity then in Trivandrum but common in this particular institution. I was the only one coming from a remote hamlet but also the one among the three coming with a national merit scholarship. My class comprised of first class holders only, doing science. When I learned that I was the first in English class, I wondered how it can be with every other one speaking fluent English unlike me. I soon learned that it was not because I was the most brilliant but others had multi-diversions in life, brought from rich continental backgrounds. But I gained indeed in one thing- I got a mission, by way of the principal.

You will never see such a teacher in the corridors of a college; you try to become such an one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_exxBg5urk0

This learnèd father, clad in snow-white gown and black waist band, was a fine English teacher who taught only in post graduate classes. His poetry classes were sweet and famous and his orations liquid diction; I very much longed to sit in his classes and listen to that finery of speech. He will never go near an undergraduate class which saddened me. I cut classes, went secretly standing behind his class wall and enjoy. One day he caught me, looked straight through his thick glasses perched atop that long snow-white expanse and said nothing nor did anything. He was tall, strong and I have seen rebellious senior students coming flying out his office crashing his half-door and landing on the outside corridor, gasping! But one day when he caught me sitting under a canopied tree in a secluded spot in the campus in class time, I for the first time learned that undergraduate students with national merit scholarships were under observation. Without preamble, he asked me: ‘What is deficient in this college?’ I knew he was not an earthly academic professor and dean but a saint who wished to resign some day soon, start a seminary on some jungly river bank and lead a peaceful and secluded life nearer to god. I became bold and answered: ‘There is a deficiency of fine teachers who can be stooped before.’ There indeed were professors there who had written famous novels which became film hits and others whose works were approved text books in so many universities. I thought I would summarily be dismissed. He gave me a straight answer instead and left: ‘You will never see such a teacher in the corridors of a college; you try to become such an one!’

So, I became an English teacher at a place where no one knew me, in my spare time, as an amateur.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naF8H-4SIjQ

After college, mine were the years of purchasing poetry books of all famous poets and singing them. I mostly purchased Dent & Dutton, Rinehart and Macmillan editions. Those which could not be sung, I began to consider unfinished and inferior and throw away. I never went to a library for I was in the habit of making notations in books for later recitations which we cannot do in library books. Before it was three years, I already had the necessary collection and knew which songs I was going to sing in the future years. Even while employed full time in Kerala government service in the health services department, I was regularly invited to teach in institutions in my spare time. One senior friend of mine, who was to go abroad, could not keep his promise of attending one such institution. He begged me to go instead and I could not refuse, he being a talented actor and scholar and something like charismatic to me. So, I became an English teacher at a place where no one knew me, in my spare time, as an amateur. Though I was an amateur, do not think I was amateurish in my ways. Though I never wished to become a teacher and never had the orthodox characteristics of a teacher but the unorthodox ones of a writer, I was made a teacher. It was not a question of money but the beginning of my actual social service and execution of my mission.

For me it was the thrill of enjoying a song for the first time, and for the students the thrill of passing through the thrill of someone else’s first and fresh enjoyment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MuZDwnc_a0

In my first poetry class, the principal asked me to teach Byron’s The Prisoner of Chillon. I agreed. He himself was a fine poetry teacher but lazy, and whenever possible, he engaged others to do it. It was a fine class, according to students which included one of my unknown cousins, and also according to the principal. Actually it was the first time I was coming across this poem; I just sang it and explained it. It was a thrill to us all- for me the thrill of enjoying an exhilarating song for the first time in my life, and for the graduate students the thrill of passing through the thrill of someone else’s fresh and first enjoyment. My advice to me was, just never do this again! . I must admit I became somewhat famous in later years for my proficiency in singing poems and for singing them full from memory helped by music, for I never held a poetry book in my hand, in class. It was a challenge to mature students, the real challenge, and they took it up in equal stride. Music, according to me and in my experience, is the best means of instruction, especially in poetry. Even regular and famous class-cutters began to present themselves in poetry classes. Principals liked it.

I recorded with the inescapable background noise of carpenters carving, automobiles racing, dogs barking and crows cawing from all around the house.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGCceMlyqdA

Hundreds of beautiful songs have I taught and many hundreds more have I read, sang and enjoyed. My wish was to record them all. One related young brother of mine gave me a small battery-powered tape recorder and I began. I recorded many songs at my home, with the inescapable background noise of carpenters carving, automobiles racing, dogs barking and crows cawing from all around the house. I very much wished for a sound-proofed room and recording equipment which I never had, even till now. I took this small tape recorder- a very good one though without a shell- to our lonely farm house on a secluded spot three miles away. I even took it to my river and waterfall regularly. I did come up with many songs recorded in 60 minute and 90 minute cassettes. There were hundreds of them beautiful songs still remaining to be recorded. But before it was six months, my relative took away the recorder. So, that was the end of it for then, I thought! Or was that the end of it for ever?

It is time the world recognize musical recitation as an effective replacement for English instruction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy6nlrKRH10

Fortunately my little sister, with her savings, purchased a brand new Sharp Double Cassette High Speed Tape Recorder With APSS Facility for me. I could now make copies of my crude recordings and could even bring out the ‘First Musical English Poetry Cassette For Pre-Degree Classes In India.’ I had made only a prototype in my view, hoping fully orchestrated versions could be released in future, but many teachers told me it immensely helped them to learn those tunes and inspire their students with them, as if they themselves had discovered those tunes. Anyway, it dramatically improved not only the recitational skills of their students but improved their memorization skills as well. That was when I first noticed it was better to teach tunes to teachers than to students; teachers could more effectively transmit them to multiple numbers of students. What actually needed to be done was incorporating music into teachers’ curriculum which was what the British Council of India had been doing in India in the post-colonial years and which might have been what actually convinced my father of the effectiveness of using music as a means of instruction. When I arrive at this inference, I know that the British Council of today is not the British Council of post-colonial years and those who head it now needn’t be as enthusiastic and zestful as their old counterparts in recognizing musical recitation as an effective replacement for English instruction.

I still do not know whether they recognized this project and are still looting money on my behalf, without my knowing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3E2WXp7yo0

The impact of all these reading, singing, teaching, travels and meeting people had within this time evolved into a project in my mind- Project For The Popularization Of English Songs In India- in short PROPÈS INDIA. There were many agencies at that time which I could approach to sponsor, undertake, underwrite, finance or technically collaborate, namely, the Departments of Education, Culture and Human Resources Development of the Government of India, The British Council of India- India being a common wealth country- and a few others. I was young and green and wrote to them all, knowing not about how bureaucracy could get involved and turn things to their end without me ever knowing it. I still do not know whether they recognized this project and are still looting money on my behalf, without me knowing, considering the curious political and administrative set up in India. I even remember writing to the Queen of England, addressing her through her private secretary. Gradually I knew I was lonely- very lonely- with my father long gone and my principal, the saintly scholar, who had started a seminary on the banks of the Alwaye River after resignation, also long gone.

Chairman of the Kerala Film Development Corporation offered to rent recording floor with Nagra Recorder for 2000 rupees per hour. I could not afford.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFVoiRm-yEI

I now began looking for where and how I can re-record these songs in a professional studio. Kerala had a well-equipped film studio at Thiruvallam near Kovalam, owned by the Kerala Film Development Corporation Limited. It is a government-owned institution anyway. A famous writer, critic and littérateur became its chairman and I telephoned him to tell my need. I never expected positive response but he was ready to rent their recording floor with Nagra Recorder to me for 2000 rupees per hour, much lower than their usual rates out of goodwill, considering the genuineness of my request. It meant, to record one full hour, I will have to spend three or four hours in the studio. I could not afford that much money, in spite of being decently employed and having none other than my mother to look after, who anyway had her own sustenance.

Engaging fine singers, visualizers and orchestras, recitation videos could become prime-time programmes attracting whole student communities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2QIzDVo9Dc

Years went by, with my audio cassettes occasionally running and tempting me to visualize them. Now it was the time of television and then it was the time of cross-continental networks of television channels. I wrote to a few of them, requesting them to consider the viability of good musical recitation videos and their importance in the teaching of English. Designed well by talented producers and engaging fine singers, good orchestra and imaginative visualizers, they could become prime-time programmes within a few weeks, attracting whole student communities. None cared. Their no-response did not trouble me because I do not look at televisions. They may still be showing those long dreary videos of people speaking poems!

Me who do not still know where most of the key board letters are located can now produce video songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR80hgFVUpc

Now came the time of internet and I thought the time was come, not mine but these songs’. My youngest brother taught me the basics of computer in his instrument and arranged for purchasing one for me. Within three years, I learned to do things which were only wild dreams when viewed from my background of a remote hamlet. Me who do not still know where most of the key board letters are located, who do not still know what the top-most row of keys represent and who never have used the two right-most compact rectangular sets of keys, can now produce video songs with no one else’s assistance. Last year, in 2013, I took up my cassettes and learned that except three, none of them would run for long disuse. I took them to a videographer interested enough to take spools out, clean, rewind and digitize, for a small fee. I knew he was doing this out of professional curiosity to see what was contained in them. He gave me wave sound rushes and I edited trimmed and converted formats in my computer. And here are my songs, the first batch. In two cassettes, spools spilled out of shells and it is time-consuming to recover music. Two others have to be spools taken out and soaked in solutions to clean. They are there lying in its place, waiting for their time, if it comes.

I am waiting for technology to come when songs could be lifted out of brain waves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faFK9_Gneug

I could recover only just a few of the recordings I made but the majority of my songs are considered to be lost, in its present state. I regret loosing Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Prisoner of Chillon, Allegro, In Memoriam, Elegy Written In A Country Church Yard, Deserted Village, Lotos-Eaters, Lady of Shallot, To A Skylark, The Cloud, Ode On A Grecian Urn, Parts of Paradise Lost and H. W. Longfellow’s The Slave’s Dream. I even had envisioned the full sequence of The Slaves Dream with following with a camera the undulating flight of bright flamingos over desert lands and kaffir huts and hidden streams, with a bright blue ocean brimming in the distance. Even if I am given technology and sponsorship it is very late now, for I have lost a few of my teeth and the former capacity of my lungs. I also regret to remember that what I recorded represent only two percent of what I could have recorded. I am waiting for technology to come when songs could be lifted out of brain waves, from tracks left behind when they were sung. Sometimes, I will come again in another generation, to finish up my work, and you will distinguish me from my very sound and style.

My next book is: Where Did Music Go From Poetry?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K2ZWWvb0KU

Man has a brain for music. Music emotionally evocates him and makes him dance. Heart carries a beat similar to the one music has. When we were unborn infants, the lub-dub sound of our mother’s heart beat was the most conspicuous and continuous sound we heard in the uterus. Even while in embryonic stage it just got synchronized with our own heartbeat. This inner-aligned rhythm does not leave us even when we are grown up as it is incorporated into our brains. That is why this heart-beat content has enabled us to have a brain fitted to process any music which has a beat. Some researchers term this as the ‘Lub-Dub Theory of Music’ or the ‘Heart-Beat Theory of Music’. Beat of music brings back to our memory the comfort, coziness, warmth and safety we enjoyed in our embryonic days. Don’t forget that even after we have become adults, our coziest sleeping positions correspond with that of our fetus in our mother’s womb. Of course there have been other beats which we regularly have heard in the womb but they do not wash away the mother’s heart beat. Mother’s heart beat has been the natural setting for the audio receptability of a new born child and its susceptibility to music. Music also demanding dancing is unusual for other sounds we hear. It is most probably because music has the feature of moving, just as human beings also have the feature of moving. Movability or mobility is characteristic of both music and man. Heart-beat theory of music still has not been able to explain yet the fascination of human mind for music. I assure you, one of my next books would be ‘Where Did Music Go From Poetry?’

These songs are available for streaming, listening and free download in You Tube, Sound Cloud and Last FM.

Links to You Tube Videos of these songs are provided here. All the previous videos of these poems and songs have been replaced since then with newer ones with better audios. Altogether, about 90 videos in Bloom Books Channel were withdrawn from circulation and replaced with better ones.

E 001 If All The Seas Were One Sea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVDhdskuzeY

E 002 Ferry Me Across The Water

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1lywUBFRSY

E 003 Up Hill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DycIRBgw1ps

E 004 Wander Thirst

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgKeTfCO6PU

E 005 Who Has Seen The Wind?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyEJslvFrQI

E 006 The Night Express

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt5ZTy90ag8

E 007 Indian Weavers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un-pWZcPmv4

E 008 Coromandel Fishers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhL8txK6RGI

E 009 Where The Mind Is Without Fear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwQWwZsiDI4

E 010 Forsaken Merman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKkurqG5zp8

E 011 Fidelity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O63AFcX1RYI

E 012 Ozymandias

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_exxBg5urk0

E 013 Solitude Of Quiet Life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L66GcSKH6j8

E 014 The Sun With His Great Eye

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1riuYg9HlE

E 015 I Looked And Saw Your Eyes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2odQt1s6c8

E 016 When All The World Is Young

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIFwrlUNJ_g

E 017 Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naF8H-4SIjQ

E 018 Govinda’s Disciple

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgGvw5SIqk

E 019 Leave This Chanting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHnjSnH1qa8

E 020 What Is This Life, If Full Of Care?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MuZDwnc_a0

E 021 Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGCceMlyqdA

E 022 Song To The Men Of England

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy6nlrKRH10

E 023 Send Off

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3E2WXp7yo0

E 024 To A Skylark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFVoiRm-yEI

E 025 Arrow And The Song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXW0OxOiWjY

E 026 Dora

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2QIzDVo9Dc

E 027 The Force That Drives The Water Through The Rocks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvVFyIgayR0

E 028 Patriot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR80hgFVUpc

E 029 Lake Isle Of Innisfree

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faFK9_Gneug

E 030 Vagabond

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K2ZWWvb0KU

[Updated as on 19 September 2015]

Thank you dear reader, for following this article to the end. We admire your patience. This is the First Part of My First English Recitation Videos Took 30 Years To Produce. There is a Second Part which we will publish here soon.

SPECIAL NOTE:

Did you notice that you have just gone through a World Record In The Greatest Number Of English Recitation Videos Sung, Recorded and Produced By A Single Person?

____________________________________

Pictures are from the Archives of

Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum,

created by P S Remesh Chandran

____________________________________

A little about how you can reach us.

We are available for free streaming, listening and download in You Tube, Sound Cloud and Last FM.

Bloom Books Channel In You Tube
http://www.youtube.com/user/bloombooks/videos

P S Remesh Chandran In Last FM
http://www.last.fm/music/P+S+Remesh+Chandran

Bloom Books Channel In Sound Cloud
https://soundcloud.com/bloom-books-trivandrum

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Bloom Books Channel, Bloom Books Trivandrum, Bloom Books Videos, English Recitation, English Recitation Videos, Music And Art, Music And Poetry, Music In Poems, Music In Poetry, Musical Challenges, Musical Poems, Musical Videos, New Song Videos, P S Remesh Chandran, Poetry Recitation, Poetry Recitation Videos,Sahyadri Books Trivandrum, Singing Poems, Song Recordings

Meet the author

P S Remesh Chandran

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of ‘Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book’. Unmarried and single. Born and brought up in Nanniyode, a little village in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Kerala. Unmarried and single. Also edits Bloom Books Channel.

Swan- The Intelligent Picture Book. Part I. Single Line Drawings of P.S.Remesh Chandran

Swan- The Intelligent Picture Book. Part I. Single Line Drawings of P.S.Remesh Chandran

By PSRemeshChandra, 8th Mar 2014.

Short URL http://nut.bz/1-oebelf/

Posted in Wikinut>Humour>Puzzles & Brain Teasers

Single line drawings are rare. Even those who attempted them in the past have not cared to publish them. In our estimate, after going through publishing companies’ catalogues and what internet search offers, no book of intelligent single line drawings has ever appeared in print or digital media. We have a few such drawings in the Archives of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, all done by Mr. P.S.Remesh Chandran in the Millennium Year 2000. We hereby publish them in their original form.

Are you still working on the Swan?

Are you still working on Swan?

 

Formatting this article presented us with a problem. As the forty-plus images made the article lengthy, we had to distribute the text evenly, in sections from beginning to end to contain pictures. They were a continuous self-contained introduction and still are.

Welcome By Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

Welcome. Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books Trivandrum

 

We request readers therefore to read them as such, as a continuous introduction of a few paragraphs, even though they are apparently separated from each other and distributed distantly with images. We request readers also not to connect them with the images.

Pictures reflect loveliness, flair and feelings of the intellect, i.e., one’s genius.

Pictures Reflect Loveliness, Flair And Feelings

 

The text in this article in no way is meant to explain images displayed above them. They are an independent entity. It is better to read the text first and then view the images. We hope our dignified and orthodox readers would forgive us for the inconvenience and somewhat inappropriateness this may cause.

Brain is the first thing that’s born and the last thing that dies.

Brain Is The First Thing That Is Born

 

Single line drawings are very easy to create. They are also called one line drawings. They are constituted with a single stroke of the hand. Because of this simple structure of theirs and also due to their limitations in their scope for expression, they are usually created with pencils, pens, quills, crayons and wax, not with painting brushes.

Swan- The Intelligent Picture Book.

Swan- The Intelligent Picture Book. Cover

 

Painting brushes need more strokes of the human hand to finish a picture. They are usually meant to create depth in a picture through colours. Paintings enjoy much freedom of the movements of human hand. Single line drawings cannot take that much freedom or privilege.

Which is the question and which is the answer? Please turn the pages.

Swan. Turn The Pages Please

 

In a single line drawing, the movement of human hand is limited to one single stroke and therefore the movement of the mind also is limited. It is this limitation and barrier that we break or bridge by incorporating script in a single line drawing. We know, paintings do not have script in them generally.

The wave goes on through Life, Samadhi, Nirvana and Moksha.

Life Samadhi Nirvana Moksha

 

Leopold Stokowski, Pablo Picasso, all have done single line drawings in their time. Some made an external profile and filled in with continuous movements of a line to make their picture. Some envisioned the end product in their mind and realized it on the medium with a single stroke. Some just followed their crazy imagination and spontaneity with their hand.

Which is the horn and where is the elephant?

Which Is The Horn And Where Is The Elephant?

 

We have gone through hundreds of pictures classified under line drawings, out line drawings, one line drawings and single line drawings. The majority of them, of what we had the opportunity to see, were mostly interesting but not intelligent and stimulating generally. We now have the opinion that Sahyadri’s pictures are unique and that is why we dare release these pictures.

Which is the bugle and which is the pin?

Which Is The Bugle And Which Is The Pin?

 

We release these pictures as such, without editing, colouring or any kind of beautification and polishing. We know, once such things are done- the background print removed, lettering projected well-cut in colours and lines traced in other neon colours- it would add charm to these pages and make them magnificent to look at.

Which is the boat and which is the lamp with the flame?

Which Is The Boat And Which Is The Lamp?

 

But we leave this remaining task to gifted children all over the world, in the present and in future, who surely will come across these pictures in their time. It is their pleasure to do it. In their hands, with their craft, we hope, these pictures will fill up themselves and stand up and please their young minds.

How many factions and how many lines?

How Many Factions And How Many Lines?

 

Script in these pages may be in differing and unreadable styles but making them out with the help of pictures or making pictures out with the help of scripts is in itself a rewarding exercise, to be practiced by readers so that their multi skills- aesthetic as well as linguistic- may develop.

A cock brooding on an egg.

A Cock Brooding On An Egg

 

Sometimes, deciphering the script would be the exercise. There are also pictures with no script, the meaning of which are left to the common sense of readers. In such cases, the artist and designer had either forgotten to include suggestive writings or had nothing to write. Perhaps, he himself had not understood them. Anyway the readers also, especially the young and brilliant ones, may want to add their own meaningful script.

How many faces?

How Many Faces?

 

A few writings are in the author’s native land Kerala’s Malayalam language and a very few other ones are in the North India’s language Hindi. But the script is, generally, in English. There are a few others in the remaining two parts of this book which have incorporated words from French and Tamil.

Which is the spiral galaxy and which is the sea wave?

Which Is The Spiral Galaxy And Sea Wave?

 

Lines cannot have a language except one of emotions, appealing to intelligence. Sometimes there will not be pictures but writings alone. They too are meant to convey something intelligent, perhaps a coinage of phrases which, the author thinks, is meaningful.

Which is the sun-flare and which is the crescent moon?

Which Is Sun Flare And Which Is Crescent Moon?

 

There are several pictures from the author’s original diary excluded in this collection as they would be totally irrelevant to an international audience. Some of them are fully in regional languages and they depend more on script than lines to convey a message. Many of them are tricky advertisement posters and displays for films and books.

God sees the truth and sends waves.

God Sees The Truth And Sends Waves

 

Even though these pictures have their position on their pages, they needn’t always be viewed as such, in vertical positions. Often, rotating them on a computer will reveal their fuller meaning or other meanings, if writings on the sides, above or below suggest so.

Sitting at ease the eastern way.

Sitting At Ease

 

Skilled, patient viewers can read them anyway, moving their heads to the desired position, even without rotating pictures. It is safer to download and save pictures to your computer and make a copy before rotating, as rotating them may alter some of their properties.

Which is the alphabet hanging on the other?

Which Is The Alphabet Hanging On The Other

 

Copying pictures to a computer or a similar devise has also the advantage of being able to enlarge them and read undecipherable script easily, which is one of the challenges we want to pose before the readers through these pictures. Once they are in your computer, you can start Photoshop and Picassa and do what you wish. Whatever you do, you will be improving the picture.

The girl with the mirror. Back Cover Picture Of The Swan.

The Girl With The Mirror. Back Cover Picture

 

Reading different and illegible scripts is also a skill which we wish to impart to readers through these pictures. Where the scripts are obscure, they can certainly be guessed with the help of the lines and a little common sense. The lines and writings are meant to supplement each other.

Artist, Script, Design Credits for the book The Swan.

Artist Script Design Credits For The Book The Swan

 

We selected pictures according to the date of their drawing rather than selecting them based on theme or finery in perception. They stand as such- bare, unpolished and crude. It’s the world’s interested future generations who are going to build on them.

How many claws in this serpent?

How Many Claws In This Serpent?

 

There may be good ones among them and there may surely also be inferior ones. It is the reader who is to judge on them, not us. Even though these pictures were made in the 2000s, the idea of their publishing was thought about seriously only after a few years later.

How many plantain petals?

How Many Plantain Petals? Vaazha Pola.

 

This novel idea of a book was first put before Lulu Publishers who encouraged us to finish this book early and publish with them. Here is one mail from this worthy publisher. There were others also who presented us with options.

A splash on the head or a flowery design?

A Splash On The Head Or Flowery Design?

 

We will discuss the many publishing chances and scope for this kind of a book else where. This introduction which is spread in the three parts of this book only aims to show how these kinds of pictures can happen. Dear reader, from here onward, it would be the author of this book who would be speaking to you:

Where is the bird and where is the swan?

Where Is The Bird And Where Is The Swan?

 

You may ask why this collection of pictures is termed an ‘intelligent picture book’. It is simply because you can use it to gauge your own or another person’s intelligence without the aid of anyone or anything else. Gauging another person’s intelligence is a necessity human race has always faced. The tools which we can use to gauge one’s intelligence and quickness of mind are but few. Even those tools which are there are either not accessible to the ordinary citizens or unaffordable for them.

Where is the sea and where is the lotus?

Where Is The Sea And Where Is The Lotus?

 

Each man responds to this kind of pictures in correspondence with the level of his intelligence and clarity and alertness of conscience. Dormant genius and intelligence can be sparked up by quick glimpses of vision which the pictures may provide. Some may never read the script, some may never connect the script with the pictures but some skilled others will in no time read the script as well as connect them with the pictures, in whichever positions the scripts are displayed.

An absurd question with a picture or an absurd picture with a question?

Whose Egg, The Swan’s Or The Crow’s?

 

As a general rule, the lesser the time one takes to fully comprehend a picture, the better and clearer his intelligence can be gauged to be. If you know what is there in a picture, you can assess the intelligence of another person by gauging the time he or she takes to comprehend the picture fully, without you needing being anywhere near the higher level of his intelligence. If you are going to interview someone top for your company, be ready with these pictures. And never take these suggestive chapter headings with you. They will take away the suspense and deprive the test of its spirit.

How many submarines are there, doing what?

Submarine Entering A Lagoon.

 

Even though these pictures were done in the 2000s, their publishing was not taken seriously until 2009, the year of my beginning work in internet. When they were drawn, they were done on pages of diaries and costlier books. I could have drawn them on plain paper for I normally used criss-cross-type bond paper for all my writing.

Artful collection from Sahyadri Art Syndicate.

Artful Collection From Sahyadri Art Syndicate.

 

I knew someday these pictures will have to be cleaned, their background of printed words painstakingly removed and lines and pen-written letters traced in neon colours before sending them to a decent press- needing the expertise of a professional talent. I am not such a person and I do not have time to become one. What I wanted was that without a professional touch, these drawings shall not go to a printing press.

Advertisement for the book Jalaja Padma Raaji or The Lotos Band.

Advertisement For Jalaja Padma Raaji.

 

For a time, my dreams were full of the book becoming a hit and millions and millions of copies being sold all over the world. One certainly has the right to dream. But soon I came to know that publishing a picture book, especially this kind of a book, was not easy. For one thing, a book of single line drawings is not an accepted and popular idea in the book publishing industry.

Can you follow this picture through the eyes?

Can You Follow This Picture Through The Eyes?

 

For another, the pages of the book were not done in exquisite colours, resembling beautiful neon displays in a thoroughfare at night. Another factor against the marketability of the book is, picture books are usually published for little children. Publishing picture books for infants is a very large and lucrative industry indeed. ‘Swan’ does not belong to this category. After one or two years, Lulu stopped reminding me of the book. Even before that, I had stopped remembering it myself.

A cactus, spiral coil or which side of the fruit, the pine apple?

Cactus, Spiral Coil Or Which Side Of Pine Apple?

 

So that’s how this book came to be. It was started accidentally by a whim of ethereal elements and completed within a short period of time. Procrastination was in the publishing of the book, not in completing it. As to the modus operandi of this book- how these pictures were envisioned and how the script were conceived- I will discuss in the second part of this book.

The sunrise and sunset as usual played outside.

The Sunrise And Sunset As Usual Played Outside.

 

I will discuss the hard experiences and surprising retaliation from government I had to undergo after completing this book in the third part, which experiences made me more determined to release this book to the world though nothing anti-governmental is contained in this book.

A mummy’s head or a purda-clad woman with apron?

A Mummy’s Head Or A Purda-Clad Woman With Apron?

 

I must admit, some one dead and gone- actually two- took hold my hands and drew these pictures for me, though I was perfectly well aware of what they were doing through me. In those times, though it was a hard experience to withstand emotionally and physically, I did come up with this book.

Your Swan looks humpy. It is rejected.

Your Swan Looks Humpy. It Is Rejected.

 

There were not only pictures, but songs, excellent stories, threads for films, full length films, exhilarating discourses, all I spectatored in that times in the brain. How our forefathers can forcefully enter our brain and present us with a multitude of very interesting things to entertain us is a mystery indeed to many but not to me now. It is a legacy of life for our forefathers to come and enter into our brains, hide in our genes and express themselves to entertain us in times of our isolation, sadness and penury. They know how to console their young ones in times of need.

One maize choir equivalent, sunlit cloud could you have…..

One Maize Choir Equivalent Sunlit Cloud.

 

Brain is a very brilliant thing indeed. In our dreams we can see full length colour feature films which remain such vivid in memory for many years that we can draw them out in paper or in celluloid later. The speeches we hear in daylight or in the darkness of night from our brains are finer than the finest of orations we have ever heard from the most brilliant speakers on stage.

Fill up the flames and find out who?

Fill Up The Flames And Find Out Who?

 

The songs we hear in our brain can be captured on paper if we also get the respite and breathe-space to capture them in the midst of that fine mental orchestra and they can be recorded and made into gramophone records if we are equipped enough. It is a wonder what strange and versatile things our bygone parents can do on us by entering into our brains.

How many eels?

How Many Eels?

 

The only thing we have to take care is, while listening to these fine orchestras in our brains, do not stand there in the midst of the road but cross it safely also. Do not act with your hands and legs and face expressions in the drama that’s going on as prompted by our forefathers in the brain in the midst of people looking at us, but keep control of your self and learn the trick of keeping dual levels of brain activities.

Not a frog but a smudging donkey reversed.

Not A Frog But A Smudging Donkey Reversed.

 

Unless you do this, this simultaneous performance in the physical world as well as in the psychic world, your sanity will be questioned and you may even land in sanitariums. Thus you will fail in doing justice to whoever is possessing you by failing in your mission of expressing for them.

‘The moving finger writes and having writ, moves on’.

The Moving Finger Writes And Having Writ Moves On.

 

They who enter our brains as part of their right- we may me their sons and daughters and beloved neighbours- have no physical barriers. They have no physique except ours which they seek, to fulfill our combined mission for the betterment of human race. That is the plan and schematics of life. In no moment in our life are we ever free of manifestations of the continuing workings of generations of our departed parents. The only thing that confuses us and which remains to be proved yet is, if our future generations in the ether also are manifesting their actions in us.

Which is the way out for the escapist?

Which Is The Way Out For The Escapist?

 

The forbearance I felt in those times is now past and today it’s a sweet memory. My mother stood by me in those hard times and without her presence, kindness, ardence, and affection and caring, I could not have withstood the confusion in those times which I could reveal to no one due to its special nature. She is now no more and I dedicate this book, ‘Swan- The Intelligent Picture Book’ to her sweet memory.

The bell who tolls for none.

The Bell Who Tolls For None.

 

 

Thank you dear reader, for following this article to the end. We admire your patience. This is the First Part of Swan- The Intelligent Picture Book’. There is a Second and a Third Part which we will publish here soon.

_______________________________________
Pictures are from the archives of Sahyadri Books
& Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Copyright rests with
P.S.Remesh Chandran.
_______________________________________

If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here:
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For more articles of this kind, visit SAHYADRI BOOKS ONLINE here or BLOOM BOOKS, TRIVANDRUM.

Or for a variety, you can visit Kerala Health Research Online or Poetry Editorial Services.

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Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of ‘Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book’.

Unmarried and single. Born and brought up in Nanniyode, a little village in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Trivandrum, Kerala. Mother University educated and father British Council-trained Teacher. Matriculation with Distinction and Pre Degree Studies with National Merit Scholarship. Discontinued Diploma Studies in Electronics and entered Politics.

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The Last Bird From The Golden Age Of Ghazelles. P.S.Remesh Chandran.

The Last Bird From The Golden Age Of Ghazelles.

P.S.Remesh Chandran. Editor, Sahyadri Books, Trivandrum.

By PSRemeshChandra, 17th Aug 2013  Short URL http://nut.bz/3dwnobim/
Posted in Wikinut>Writing>Essays

Music crosses borders of nations and oceans and reaches hearts of human beings in strange lands. God stands just behind those who sing, so close, that we will wonder who actually sings. Ghazals are Nature’s wonderful creations in which the purest of passions, emotions and feelings are stored up so that grief-stricken human soul in loneliness can seek solace in it at any time as if in the presence of God. It is His ardence, affection and benediction once in a lifetime that flows through ghazals

Ghazals originated in pre-Islamic Arabia, existed in this world for 1500 years and is dying in Europe.

The last bird from a golden age. Salman Alvi.

Ghazals originated in pre-Islamic Arabia, developed in Medieval Africa, Spain, Persia, Turkistan, Afghanistan, Hindustan and Russia and ended in Europe. They existed in this world for more than 1500 years. Since the diluting of their form, meter and rhyme by modern day poets, they are no longer going to remain, making already created ones endearing. Great singers like present day Salman Alvi and Habib Wali Muhammad but continue to sing old ghazals and keep the interest in them alive.

Translating Persian poems into English was the earliest hobby of the British East India Company officers to escape from boredom.

We know about the poetic form quatrain as used in The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in which a quartet of four independent lines when joined together one after another like flowers in a garland obtain a unique form and develop into exotic themes. It has an Arabic origin wherefrom it moved to Persian. In the courts of Persian Emperors, it gained importance and momentum and, as Persian rule expanded through the continent, it reached Afghanistan, Pakistan and India- then a common land under Persian rule. Every British officer posted to the English East India Company to serve in this region was required to learn Persian to converse well with the courtiers and the Emperors of this Empire. Not all of these officers were boorish illiterates. Many of them were real scholars who learned Persian well. To escape from the isolation, loneliness and boredom they felt in India, they took it as their hobby to translate famous Persian poems into English. First it was a hobby, then exhilaration and finally a career. Many British scholars who never reached India but remained inside native universities also continued undertaking this translation, once initiated into this flair by earlier translations. Thus these exotic quatrains, from Arabic through Persian, reached English literature. When translated into English, they reached the main stream of world literature and became singularly famous. ‘They began to fill the pages of English poetry books with the sweet sound of bulbuls and the scent of roses.’ Translations by some of these early British officers like such luminaries as Edward Fitzgerald and A. J. Arberry remain classics.

Whichever emotions could not be shared with a woman who is forbidden to be longed for was expressed in ghazals in more intimate terms.

Ghazal. Spanish Guitar. Qamar Allahditta.

Ghazals evolved the same way the quatrains were. Their origin was in Arabia and the word literally means ‘addressing a woman or speaking to a woman’. We know, seldom will a poet write poems addressing his wife, for their intimacy would have waned considerably through years. It was always ‘addressing a woman who is normally unreachable and forbidden to long for’ that necessitated and inspired the creation of ghazals. Whichever emotions could not be shared directly with that woman, were expressed in these quartets or couplets, in more intimate terms. From Arabia, this form was taken up from Turkey by the 10th century Persian literati and widely used in Persian courts where it became popular. In 12th century Hindustan, ghazals spread to Urdu language, following the installation of Islamic Sultanates and the advent of Sufi saints in India. In later years they were taken up for translation by English East India Company officers who learned both Urdu and Persian well. Sufi philosophy and mysticism also influenced and diverted the themes of ghazals. So, following the same path taken by quatrains, ghazals also reached world literature. Even before the origin of Islam, similar poetic forms had existed in Arabia, which the Persians had assimilated and developed as the Persian poetic form qasida, the real mother of all present day geets and ghazals.

Ghazals were named after that sweet loving-bird gazelle of Africa known for its love songs, crying for its beloved.

Accordian Keyboard. Irshad Ali.

Urdu poetry or shayari has two forms which are geets and ghazals. In geet, the entire poem is independent, developing a central theme. Geet is also called as nazm, or rhymed verse. In ghazals, only the quartets or couplets are independent, complete in itself but unrelated to each other, which when combined together, develops a central theme. This poetry form is more spelt as ‘ghazal’ than as ghazelle’ which would have been more apt. We know the sweet loving-bird gazelle in Africa known for its love songs, crying for its beloved. The word ghazal is derived to symbolize this love-stricken ghazelle. Ghazals also have the characteristic of the poet’s name hidden, alluded to or referred to at the end.

Ghazals evolved from the emotional opening part of Qasîdah, the pre-Islamic poetic form of Ode.

In the pre-Islamic world in Arabia, there was a golden time for odes called qasîdahs. They included mainly four poetic genres such as madîh, hikam, hijâ and fakhr. Madîh represened praising poetry, Hikam represented moralizing poetry, Hijâ represented satirizing poetry and Fakhr accommodated boasting poetry. The love-genre which later came to be called Ghazals was not a recognized form in those golden times of Arabian poetry before the emergence of Islam. Whichever genre it belonged to, a qasîdah had three parts- the opening part called nasîb, the middle and main part called rahîl and a last part called madîh. We will normally think this first introductory part nasîb would be of comparatively lesser importance in such an elaborate structure of Arabian poetry, but strangely it was from this introductory part that ghazals evolved later. Since emotional attachment to women was an important part of human constitution and winning listeners’ hearts even from the opening lines an objective of all poets, there was no wonder the beginning part nasîb of the qasîdahs of Arabia became the foundation for ghazals to base themselves on later.

The risky, dangerous and brittle Arabian Bedouin life created ghazals for solace and escape.

Bass Guitar. Kishwer Allahditta.

Ancient Arabians were mostly Bedouins and their life was dangerous, risky and brittle. Love and emotional attachment was the only momentary respite, relief and diversion in their lives. As life became harsher, laborious and more painful, affinity for indulging not in moralizing and boasting poems but in love songs made embracing ghazals more natural and their development inevitable. Old world scholars like Ibn Qutaybah have analyzed the origin of qasîdahs, nasîbs and ghazals up to the rising of Arabian written literature. The unrecorded periods were guessed and synthesized by modern day scholars like Theodor Gaster Hayât Jâsim, Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych and Jaroslav Stetkevych who have tried to trace Bedouin life and their literature back to ancient Middle Eastern times.

Arabian urbanization made people demand for music, dance and entertainment and made ghazals shorter and lighter.

Bass Guitar. Kishwer Allahditta.

During the Ummayyad Era from 661 to 750, Arabian urbanization grew and townsfolk wanted more music, dance, songs and entertainment. Ghazals were an apt poetic form to be adapted, converted and used for these entertainment purposes. Deserts preferred classic traditional form but cities liked ghazals modified and separated into nasîb, rahîl and madîh in the qasîdah. The qasîdah form of ghazals consisted of couplets. Each line ended in the same rhyme. Each line in a couplet was called bayt in Arabic language and sher in Persian. Using the same rhyme scheme by a poet was termed qâfiyah.

Popularity and development of ghazals also led to different schools of ghazals coming into being. Courtly love, free of eroticism and physical desire, developed as udharî, the proponents of this school being puritans like `Abd al-Rahmân, `Urwah b.Hizâm, Jamîl b. Ma`mar, and Tawbah b. al-Humayr. Erotic hissî was nothing but graphic and vivid descriptions, mostly written by `Umar b.Abî Rabî`ah. Poets like Abû al-Nuwâs practiced mudhakkar which was homo erotic. The only school of ghazals which based not on theme but on form was tamhîdî which was a transitional form with only two parts in it, the introductory part nasîb entering straight into the last part madîh without the middle part rahîl.

Arabian urbanization made ghazals becoming generally shorter and lighter also. Stiff meters like kâmil, basît, and rajaz which were used in the classical ghazals changed to lighter ones like khafîf, ramal, and muqtarab, to suit mass entertainment. Themes diverted more from memories of clan, home and heroism to romanticism and erotic, to suit people’s tastes.

Like great rivers, ghazals received everything from the lands they flowed through.

Ghazal. Senior Violin. Saeed Ahmed.

The chronological and geographical development of ghazals can be traced by following the names of the most important persons associated with ghazals. Persian mystic poets like Jalal al-Din Muhammad and Rumi in the 13th century, Hafiz in the 14th century, Turkish poet Fuzuli in the 16th century, Indian poets Mirza Ghalib in the 18th century and Muhammad Iqbal in the 19th century and finally the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in the 19th century, will give a rough outline of the countries through which ghazals travelled and the time segments in which it progressed. Or, will we have to doubt, was it a progress really? It certainly became more popular and accepted and certainly recordings of them could be made as science and technology advanced, but its traditional form deteriorated through centuries. When it reached England, Thomas Hardy was the first to pick it up but even his was a poor attempt. Even though using this form by German poets Friedrich Rückert and August von Platen in the 19th century was considered somewhat of a success, its use by the American Indian poet Agha Shahid Ali and poetess Adrianne Rich in the 20th century was thorough flop, for failure in keeping metrical perfection. It is because ghazals from Arabia spread to Persia and Turkey that we have now a vast production of literature before us. But we have not yet considered the result of its spreading to two other vast regions, namely Africa and Spain.

Ghazals travelled through Africa, Spain, Persia, Turkey and India and reached Germany and England.

Ghazal. Sitar. Imdad Hussain.

Arab culture and education permeated into Africa, Spain and Persia, resulting also in the spread of ghazals. Western African poets who wrote ghazals in their languages wrote in Arabic also. Hausa and Fulfulde are the African languages wherein we see so many ghazals. Spanish poets like Moses ibn Ezra of the 10th century wrote ghazals both in Spanish Hebrew and Arabic. Either in Africa or in Spain, the prominent Arabic characteristics of ghazals did not wane but they controlled the movement. Neither did these Arabic characteristics wane in Persia. In fact, the earliest Persian ghazals were more Arabic than Persian. Even though experiments and changes in their musical adaptability were undertaken by Persians, they preferred to follow the same lighter meters perfected by Arabians. The Persians did not only content themselves with the love ghazals of the Arabs; they assimilated and experimented with other Arabian poetic forms like satires, moralizers and boasting and praising poetry forms also. The first great poet of Iran, Abdullah Jafar Rudaki of the 9th century, surpassed all Arabic and Persian poets till then in excellence in composing ghazals, culminating in the fruition of all good Arabic and Persian characteristics in one single poet.

Multi language proficiency was characteristic of ghazal writers in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries.

During the years from when Persians borrowed ghazals from Arabians to the years when they were invaded by Ottoman Turks, the Persian Empire had spread and Persian had become the prominent and official language in Central Asia. Luckily, it was the refined ghazals of the 14th century that seeped into Afghanistan, Hindustan, Turkistan and Russia. Like those who were directly influenced by Arabic wrote both in Arabic as well as in African, Spanish and Persian languages, those who were now influenced by Persian ghazals wrote both in Persian as well as in Hindi, Urdu, Afghan, Azerbaijan, Uzbek and Turkish. Besides in Persian, Amir Khusru in 14th century wrote in Hindi also, Ali-Shir Nava’I in 15th century in Afghan Turkish also and Fuzuli in 16th century in Azerbaijani Turkish also. Ali-Shir Nava’I is called ‘the Chaucer of the Turks’ and the founder of Uzbek literature. Mirza Ghalib in 19th century wrote in Urdu. Since then, every regional language in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia and Turkey has had ghazals, entirely die to bilingual proficiency becoming prevalent.

Mongol attacks of 13th century made Persians shed Arabic conservatism in ghazals and begin their thinning.

Listeners to Salman Alvi’s Ghazal Concert.

Arabians were somewhat reluctant to spell the author’s name in the ghazals directly; they made only hidden allusions and references in the end. Even in Rudaki’s time in the 9th century, this had not changed in Persia. But before or at the time the Mongols attacked Persia in the beginning of the 13th century, this seems to have changed. Perhaps ghazal poets of this time might have decided to shed anonymity and obscurity, or they might have decided to preserve some fame for posterity before barbarian Mongols burned everything including them. Poets became more open and less shy in mentioning their names in ghazals. They devised the method called takhallus to record their name in the final couplet. It was a major change in subtlety of expression in ghazals under the care of Persians. Couplets also began to declare independence and began to look distantly-placed components in the garland more. Muslih-ul-Din Saadi of the 13th century who had to flee from Mongols to save his life was the finest example for stubbornness against this thinning in the integrity of ghazals. Topics also varied liberally with the Persians by the end of the 14th century.

Persians attached refrains to ghazals and Sufis diverted theme from erotic to mystic and divine.

Arabs also did not use refrains after the end rhyming word but Persians insisted on them as a rule. Persian poets from the 10th to 13th centuries commonly used end-refrains in ghazals. Like takhallus which was their new devise for inserting the author’s name shamelessly, use of this refrains called radif also was the Persians’ unnecessary contribution to ghazals. Poets like Abu Shukur, Daqiqi, Shahid-i Balkhi, Ma`rufi, Farid al-Din`Attar and Mahmud-i Varraq, and even the noted Jalal al-Din Rumi, liberally used it. Poetical critics and philosophers of that time like Rashid al-Din Vatvat supported it. The only exemption was again Muslih-ul-Din Saadi who used it only in a few of his poems. Eventually radifs became the characteristic of Persian ghazals to distinguish the Pre-Islamic from the Post-Mongol Invasion productions. These poems with the refrain came to be called muraddaf. When it was the time of Hafiz in the 14th century, Persian poets wrote rarely without refrains. It became a certification of mastery in poetical craft. It was after the 14th century that this practice waned and finally vanished. There was a cause for this also, which was advent of Sufism. Sufis not only tempted poets to do away with this unnecessary ornament but keep manifestation of longing and desire remain, but they also diverted ghazals’ themes to divinity and the mystic from eroticism. At the end of the 14th century, we have thus the Arabian ghazals more or less intact with us, with only a slight independence and autonomy for couplets as declared by Persians, but cleansed of fleshly desires by Sufis, aspiring for divinity.

When direct contact with Arabic, Persian and Urdu languages ceased, the fountain of inspiration for ghazals also dried up.

Listeners to Salman Alvi’s Ghazal Concert.

It was in their Persian and Urdu form in the 18th and 19th centuries that ghazals arrived in Europe, directly introduced in Germany by Goethe and indirectly introduced in Britain by the bored British East India Company officers, as we have already seen. We can say, in conclusion, that the Golden Age of Ghazals ended with the 14th century, and the tree continued to rain till the 18th century, long after the rain had actually ceased. Perhaps Goethe, Edward Fitzgerald, Atkins, and A. J.Arberry were the last ones to see Arabic and Persian ghazals in their originality and magnificence and take them to Europe. When direct contact with Arabic, Persian and Urdu languages ended, contact with original ghazals also ended, and the fountain of inspiration got ghazals also dried up with it. People but still continued to write ghazals for the simple reason that they wanted to be known as ghazal writers, for writing ghazals had been made so easy after abandoning metrical form, rules and themes and declaring full independence and autonomy for couplets. This applies to all ghazals created in Europe and America in the 19th and 20th centuries, without any direct contact with Arabic, Persian or Urdu languages. Today, the trend in writing ghazals is, whatever is strenuous, difficult and demanding is abandoned and whatever is cool, easy and effortless retained, as is in the case of all other forms of poetry. Limitations of length are now strictly adhered to because today no one can write too much. Poets proclaim that emotions flow from their heart as free verse and they are entitled to present it as poems and ghazals without editing or transfiguration which would be unnatural and taboo. Ghazals are going that way in Arabia, Persia, Afghan, India, Russia and Europe, deteriorating every day. Every compromise and relaxation brought about by these lazy, uninspired and untrained ‘poets’ is innovation in their terms and degeneration in our terms. Like when oral epics like Beowulf were translated from semi-German into modern English, Song Of Roland was translated from French and Rubaiyat was translated from Persian, rhyme and meter systems used by the original poets in their original languages are no more researched on, experimented with and modified for adaptation with translation by modern poets. They are now thought of as hindrances, not as intellectual challenges. The Persians, Africans, Spaniards, Turks, Afghans, Indians and the Russians took great care in incorporating alien rhyme schemes and unfamiliar meters into their complicated language systems and retaining the beauty of the original works or they devised new meters or rhymes to accommodate the guest. Modern day poets with lesser intelligence and lesser still patience challenge the poetical excellence and exotic versifications of pious centuries with their licenscious and poor creations. Arabian ghazals are so now dying away, vanishing with those grief-stricken and crying ghazelle birds of Africa.

English ghazal writing has reached the bizarre stage where radif is invariably present and rhyme is totally absent.

Salman Alvi In Concert

In conventional poetry, in general, there has to be a continuity flowing though all lines maintained but in ghazals, today, there needn’t be any such necessity and obligation for keeping continuity, provided lines are arranged in couplets to show likeliness of ghazals, remotely. This self-declared simplicity of form attracts everyone to writing ghazals. English ghazals writing has reached the bizarre stage where radif is invariably present and rhyme is totally absent. The author of this article went through a few of the most famous volumes of ghazals published recently in English, including those by John Thompson in Canada and Adrienne Rich in America, and is of the opinion that they all belong to the vain category of pseudo ghazals. They failed to obey true-to-form principles and became bastard ghazals. They only have the word Ghazal printed on their covers, mere copyrighted creations with no Arabic, Persian or Indian glory, magnificence and generosity, in conviction or in execution.

Once, ghazals meant a well-cut and defined poetic form and a genre. Now, they mean only a genre. Form has been sacrificed for easiness in writing. Free verse penetrated Arabian, Persian, African, Spanish, Afghan, Indian and Russian ghazals in the 20th century. There is no possibility of ghazals ever regaining their traditional form. Today, ghazals are being written about anything and everything, even without keeping ever even a trace of a longing and desire for a beloved human being. So, imperceptibly, ghazals are unbecoming a genre also. With the passing of each day, ghazals are distancing themselves more from a defined form and genre as ‘a love song of longing’.

The heritage of ghazals does not continue through modern poets anymore.

Ghazals have traditional restrictions of form. They have strict rhyme and rhythm patterns. Traditional ghazals are composed of five to fifteen couplets, with the poet’s signature skillfully embedded in the last one. Iranian, Indian and Pakistani singers, who take up old ghazals, orchestrate record and distribute them and hold live concerts are who keep the interest in ghazals alive. Turkish, Pashto, Urdu, Hindi, Spanish and German languages have fine ghazals. Americans are not introduced enough to ghazals, for none of the poets except the 18th and 19th century British translators who introduced ghazals to that continent did justice to traditional form, rhyme and meter. Translations from other languages into English are still in the infancy stage, or we can say that it stopped at the infancy stage with the passing away of such talented poets like Prof. A.J.Arberry. Nearly all of them have only been able to copy the theme of ghazals, not its form. Lack of patience, reverence and training, and over-orientation for publishing were what made their ghazals flop. There indeed are several modern names associated with translation of ghazals into English or creating them of their own, such as Aijaz Ahmad, Agha Shahid Ali, Adriane Rich, David Ray, Edward Lowbury, Elise Paschen, Elizabeth Gray, James Clarence Mangan, James Elroy Flecker, John Hollander, John Thompson, Phyllis Webb, Spencer Reece, William Hunt, William Stafford, W. S. Merwin, etc. which needn’t imply that the heritage of ghazals continues through them anymore. Deviating from traditional form has become such unquestioned and common that there are now scores of writers in every language who seek shelter and fame in the folds of ghazals.

What keep alive the interest in ghazals are the presence of exquisite singers and the availability of their recorded creations.

Indian and Pakistani singers touring abroad and conducting concerts made ghazals very popular in the modern day Europe. Famous Urdu ghazal writers include Mirza Ghalib, Muhammad Iqbal, Nasir Kazmi, Sahir Ludhiyanvi, Makhdoom Mohiuddin, Morza Rafi Sauda, Majrooh Sultanpuri. Singers who made ghazals in Asia popular include Kundan Lal Saigal, Ustad Barkat Ali, Begum Akhtar, Mehdi Hassan, Noor Jehan, Iqbal Bano, Amanat Ali Khan, Jagjit Singh, Farida Khanum, Ghulam Ali, Begum Akhtar. Mohammad Rafi popularized them through films. Bengali and Gujarathi have quite a number of ghazals. Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam languages in South India also have many ghazal singers.

When someone wants to build a collection of ghazals which are first class ones worthy of being listened to again and again and which also are recorded and available for purchase, the main problem he faces is, every CD has good and bad ghazals. Not all singers are good. There is the other option of searching for selected songs and downloading them from You Tube as videos or from pay or free sites as audios. Here is a selection, the really first class ones without which no collection will be complete.

01. Amanat Ali….1. Ghar Wapas Kab Aaoge. 2. Honton Pe Kabhi. 3. Insha Ji Utho.
02. Anup Jalota….1. Dil Hi Nahin To Dil Ke. 2. Do Din To Junoon Ke Hain 3. Ruk Jao Subah Tak. 4. Tumne Kitne Sapne Dekhe.
03. Fareeda Khanum….1. Kuch Ishq Tha Kuch Majboori. 2. Woh Ishq Jo Hum Se.
04. Ghulam Ali….1. Ae Dard E Hijre Yaar. 2. Chamakte Chand Ko. 3. Chhup Chhup Ke Piyo. 4. Gugunati Hai Hawa. 5. Hum Tere Shahar Me Aaye Hai.
05. Gul Bahar Bano….1. Dard Kay Saz. 2. Dhal Gaee Raat. 3. Hamain Jahan Mai. 4. Kabhi Kabhi To. 5. Kya Kya Ye Rang. 6. Tu Pass Bhi Ho To.
06. Habib Wali Muhammad….1. Aa Hum Thode Zindagii. 2. Chaahat Ki Har Geeth Niraalii. 3. Deir Lagii Aane Mein Unko. 4. Kab Mera Nache Man. 5. Lagta Nahin He Dil Mera. 6. Pehla Sahaal Pehle Hii. 7. Thume Meri Na Mujh Ko Na. 8. Yeh Na Dhi Hamari Hota.
07. Iqbal Bano….Daag-e-Dil Hum Ko.
08. Jagjit Singh….1. Aap Aaye Janaab Barson Mein. 2. Aap Se Gila Aap Ki Kasam. 3. Jhuki Jhuki Ki Nazar. 4. Nazar Nazar Se Mila Ker Sharab.
09. Mehdi Hassan….1. Aye Kuchh Ab Kuchh. 2. Gali Gali Teri Yaad. 3. Yun Zindagi Ki Raah.
10. Munni Begum….1. Chaman Roye. 2. Koi Humnafas Nahin. 3. Koi Mujh e Gul Se. 4. Kuch Din Kate Hain. 5. Is Jagah Pyar Karna Ma’na Hai. 6. Tumharaa Shaharka Musam Bara.
11. Musrat Nazeer….Raat Dhammi Dhammi.
12. Nayyara Noor….1. Ae Jazba-e-Dil. 2. Mor Macha Way Sor.
13. Noor Jehan….Dil Ke Afsaane.
14. Talat Mehmood….1. Aaja Tujhe Mohabbat. 2. Aansoo Samajh Ke Kyu.
3. Bechain Nazar. 4. Hum Se Aaya Na Gaya. 5. Jalte Hai Jiske Liye.
6. Zindagi Denewale Sun.

And of course, 15. Salman Alvi.

Salman Alvi, the last bird from the golden age of ghazals and the music ambassador of Asia.

Salman Alvi Orchestra In Ghazal Concert.

The latest and one of the finest ghazal singers is Mr. Salman Alvi in Pakistan whose services in keeping the interest in ghazals are invaluable. The other equally enchanting gentleman singer from Pakistan is Habeeb Wali Muhammad. In the modern age, the biography of almost all singers is available in the internet. Wikipedia is the first and foremost and then comes the famous and popular music downloadable sites. And there is Face Book too. But Salman Alvi is the most elusive bird in the world of ghazal singers. Not a line regarding his life is available anywhere in the whole digital world, except three or four lines in his Face Book page. You Tube Channels including tahayyur, hilalconfectionery, Sain Shaada, kukdila, tauseefqau and RAORASHID1982 have selected and uploaded his songs. They are available as audio compact discs and video compact discs in music stores around the world. His is perhaps the finest ghazal orchestra in the world now, a few pictures of which are included here, as graciously allowed by him, as a concession to an admirer. Also links to his most famous ghazal videos are attached here. Today, if someone wants to know what ghazals are, his is the best introduction. If someone follows these links and becomes an addict of ghazals, do not blame the author.

_________
Dedication
_________

We dedicate this article to Ghazals Guitarist Qamar Allahditta who thrilled us through his many vibrant performances and who is no more.

Salman Alvi’s immortal ghazals can be viewed here.

1. Yeh Kiya Keh Sab Se Bayan Dil Ki Halatain Karni 7:09 RAORASHID1982
http://youtu.be/_QhUIi2eGa8

2. Sakht Hai Isaq Ki Rah Guzar 7:29 tauseefqau
http://youtu.be/PDITr4XdRfA

3. Us Ki Gali Mein Phir. Salman Alvi 7:37 kukdila
http://youtu.be/WoMZT-l0aS0

4. Nazm, Jan-e-Pidar 6:42 tahayyur
http://youtu.be/tKvMvsAgitA

5. Dil Dhoondta Hai – Live Tribute 6:58 tahayyur
http://youtu.be/sdjD1l_Xe5k

6. Is Jagah Pyaar Karnaa Mana Hai 4:17 tahayyur
http://youtu.be/6IZnAIF2RJ4

7. Meri Kahani Bhoolney Waley 4:10 tahayyur
http://youtu.be/LUgO-lm8blQ

8. Jinhe Bhoolne Mein 3:48 Sain Shaada
http://youtu.be/2LVXWlLa1hY

9. Ae Mere Noor-e-Nazar by Salman Alvi 5:14 tahayyur
http://youtu.be/Z5BujlbLI_o

10. Zindagi Mein Ek Pal Bhi 3:21 tahayyur
http://youtu.be/xwNE2GyhQk8

11. Tumhe Pukarlo Tumhara Intezar 4:48 hilalconfectionery
http://youtu.be/-ZR2NsKEqk8

12. Apni Soi Hui Dunya 6:21 tahayyur
http://youtu.be/uNnGta07xWI

13. Muhabbaton Mein Agar 6:30 tahayyur
http://youtu.be/A1LqOVoGH2k

Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, with his permission, has set up a venue where Salman Alvi’s ghazals can be reached and downloaded from You Tube. It is ‘Bloom Books Channel Kerala’ in Google Plus, constituted via Weebly.

Bloom Books Channel Kerala
bloombookstrivandrum.weebly.com

__________________________________________
Pictures Courtesy: Dear Salman Alvi.
Via his Face Book Page. With his permission
__________________________________________

Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here:
https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles

To read about the life and people of Kerala, the author’s native land, visit KERALA COMMENTARY here.

For more articles of this kind, visit SAHYADRI BOOKS here or BLOOM BOOKS, TRIVANDRUM.

 

Comments

Madan G Singh
25th Aug 2013 (#)

Must congratulate you for a wonderful and interesting post

Will Online Writing Bring Enough To Live? P.S.Remesh Chandran. Editor Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books Trivandrum.

055.

Will Online Writing Bring Enough To Live? P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Editor Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books Trivandrum.

By PSRemeshChandra, 17th Jul 2013.  Short URL http://nut.bz/2b8ztc_w/
Posted in Wikinut>Writing>Essays

Well-written, informative and thoughtful articles are the ones that decide the future of a writer’s career. Writers, who are loved by readers for their style of writing and also for the interesting things they generally write about, are eagerly sought after by publishers and their commission agents. A publishing platform which pays and helps writers to distribute content directly to readers all over the world without advertisements is the dream of all writers.

An ideal publishing website will want to pay writers more and pay more writers.

Tears And Laughter. Prototype Cover.

1. WHERE MONEY FOR PAYING WRITERS COMES FROM.

What a writer expects from a web site is, offering him payment and paying him more. The ideal web site would want to do both and also want to not only pay writers more but also to pay more writers, the right indication of health for a publishing website. Exposure for writers is not substitute for payment and exposure will not feed the hungry family of writers. The time and effort a writer puts into his craft should be compensated and paid well for.

Famous magazines are vanishing for their refusing to pay writers.

In general, web sites which do not pay writers, especially freelancers who have not yet established themselves, are found to be dwindling in circulation. Their readers pay them one way or another, by way of money or by way of time. But the readers do not get back good content from these publishers because, in the long run, it would be underpaid writers or dissatisfied writers who would be writing for them. We have heard of the famous English magazine noted for its satirical cartoons which was one of the largely read publications in the world, keeping that envied position for decades. By adopting this non-paying policy, they made regular readers and writers dissatisfied and caused their own decline. So many famous and once-reputed magazines, news papers and weeklies which went online for existence are now struggling for last breathe due to insistence on this non-paying policy. We can name many such publications in one breathe but it is not right to mention their good names here, for they have served the world well in their time. Pay writers well, make them satisfied and happy, get rich content from them, publish it and make readers also satisfied and happy; that is the only known way to success for publishers.

If there are no web pages, where will they show these advertisements?

Tears And Laughter. Cover Design for I Proclaim..

It is generally writers who do not care for money who usually write for websites which pay them a part of the advertisement revenue they generate. Even if a writer publishes for years and years in them, he will not get enough to live upon and enough to support his family. For amateurs and for those who aim only at wide circulation of their articles, it is a good idea to follow. Because advertisers are actively involved in this enterprise and they are committed to spend their budgetary provision in full for fear of reprimands from their board of directors for non-achievement of targets, these sites are rich and sure to get wide circulation for writers’ articles and for their advertisements, provided they have good pages also. If there are no web pages, where will they show these advertisements? Can they create these advertisements and the web pages too for displaying them? If they do, it would be like entering the publishing field as well, something outside their portfolio and purview of activities. Therefore, in paying- websites which depend solely on advertisement revenue for existence, the writer is the king. He will be provided with every resource the web site can imagine and is able to provide to create rich good web pages. Even then online writing cannot entirely be depended upon to support a family. If one is in need of making money by publishing articles to support his family and has the necessity to do it so by remaining online, he certainly has to refine his writing skills, make a very good reputation as a content writer, take up assignments from content-ordering sites and execute them neatly and punctually and deliver in time.

Publishing field can be conquered single-handedly, knowing editing and formatting.

A writer cannot create a market and then write for it, catering to it. He can only write well and the writing shall have to do the marketing and advertising for him. A producer of high quality content will seldom have to face competition in the field. The higher the quality of his content, the lesser the competition he would have to face in the field be, for there would be fewer writers of that caliber to compete with him who can write well and deliver in time too. The more the quality of articles falls, the fiercer would be the competition in the field of content marketing, because the general trend is to get articles for cheaper prices. Those clients who go for top quality will go out, find writers of that caliber and pay whatever they ask. It is not inconceivable if, at one stage, you will be getting 50 pounds for 500 words. But to reach that level of a selling rate, before reaching the level of creating fast-selling articles, a writer has to learn a lot in editing and formatting content. Or else, he simply will have to have the assistance of an experienced team of staff and a secretary. To remain single-handed and conquer the publishing field, one has to have a tremendous knowledge of editing and formatting, which qualities, coupled with writing talents, is a rare specialty, much in demand in the writing and publishing field. The demand and supply for such intelligentsia is not balanced in Internet, resulting in high price for those who are there. Training one’s self in that line is not at all impossible, but tricky. In the voluptuous maneuver of becoming such a writer, there is every possibility of overcrowding one’s brain with too much information and loosing brain’s ability to assimilate that information at the same time, resulting in tilting the chemical equilibrium of brain and the author finally becoming a total vegetable. It is doubly so, since writers are imaginative. Sought-afterness is a very rare faculty to tread and step upon, demanding extreme caution. Learning how to become a much sought-after writer is not at all difficult, it is easy. A few websites pay nothing but are noted for teaching writers how to work well with editors, the knowledge and experience of which later becomes the intellectual asset to launch themselves from, when they turn to serious writing. Some web sites which pay less will however provide extensive feed back on the writer’s published works which serves as encouragement for writing well and writing more.

Internet is like providing a limitless sky for writing advertisements.

Tears And Laughter. Cover Design. Unused.

2. DEPTH AND BREADTH OF ONLINE ADVERTISING.

Industries and businesses need advertisements to make people know about their products and services. Name boards, display boards, bills and notices, wall posters, film theatre slides and pamphlets were the old methods for advertising. When radio and television came into existence, their wide possibilities and scope for advertising came to be exploited. Advent of Internet was like providing a limitless sky for displaying advertisements. Cinemas provided intervals of time when advertisement slides could be shown. What would have happened had cinemas been produced only with advertisements? No one would have gone to cinema theatres to see them. That is the case with Internet advertising also. If a website has only advertisements to show, who will visit it? The advertisers want web pages for them to show and good web pages too. They themselves cannot create web pages by hiring writers to create them for it would involve larger spending to create content, and be moving out of corporate portfolios. For this, they either create websites for authors to write pages for them or they contract with websites who have attractive pages to show their advertisements.

Web sites reveal their advertisement income to no one but auditors.

Advertising is a huge industry, second only to weapons manufacturing. How much amount each industry and business set aside for advertising in their budgets is an interesting thing to know, if they make it known. A large percentage of this budget now goes to Internet, to be shared by websites and their writers. Writers of articles are paid a portion of the advertisement revenue their pages generate. In most cases they are paid only that and nothing more. Most websites do not reveal how much advertisement revenue they make and how much of it is paid to writers. How much page impressions they deliver to advertisers and how many unique browsers they have each day accessing these advertisements would never be revealed to anyone, except to their auditors.

How much amount does a company set aside for advertisement?

Tears And Laughter. Cover Design for Create Space.

The amount companies set aside for advertisements is, generally, in the range of 7 to 15% of their gross sales, we believe. But wiser companies base their budgetary provisions for advertisements on a percentage of cost, -gross profit above cost called markup-, not on a percentage of profit,-gross profit above selling price called margin. An item selling at 9 dollars costing 3 dollars will have a markup of 200 percent and a margin of 66.6 percent. That company can set aside safely even 50 percent of this markup for advertising. Companies marketing expensive items will have low markups averaging around 15%, but setting aside 15% of this 15% for advertising will mean huge advertisement budgets due to their mammoth sales.

Positioning of advertisements determines its price.

When some one wants information, he searches internet and links to where that information is available will appear on the screen, along with advertisements. Some advertisements come positioned above search results. Positioning of advertisements is predetermined according to how much one is prepared to spend. Display networks will decide in advance where ads are to be positioned and what rates to be levied for each positioning. Getting your ads above search results will involve spending more money but it will also guarantee more traffic to target site. Placing ads on Microsoft, Google and Yahoo searches involves more money than placing them on websites and blogs. Showing them on mobile phones and tablet devises also is costlier still and search providers will revise rates frequently too. Showing ads along side email is another choice.

Advertisers can target or exclude sensitive languages, locations and religions.

Advertisers can set target options in display networks. They can target a particular geographic location or language or exclude ads from a sensitive location or language. They can pinpoint ads to a selected village. Display networks have options for matching ads to types of audience, types of religious and ethnic tradition, types of country or a specific geographic location. Ads may or may not correspond to the context of the page. No geographic location, type of devise, type of visited site or time range is devoid of advertisements, if there is scope. Even if it is an obituary page, a coffin maker and mortuary dresser are sure to advertise there.

What goes on behind screen even before you finish typing.

When someone types a word or phrase and searches internet, advertisements with matching keywords appear along with results. Before they appear, many things go on behind stage before they appear on the screen. First, an electronic auction goes on to determine who can show which ad where and selection made according to bid amount, key words and quality of website, or in simpler words, according to ad rank. Bidding may vary from Cost Per Thousand Impressions or CPM if you aim for maximum views and creating awareness, Cost Per Thousand Clicks or CPC for actual clicks to attract traffic to the website instead of just viewing, to Cost Per Acquisition or CPA for more customer actions like signing up or purchasing. Advertisers decide the maximum amount they are willing to pay for the bid they select out of these three bidding options, which determines their Ad Rank. Based on this rank, their ads will appear in the order of their ranks, even before that someone sitting in front of the screen has finished typing. Frequency of ads also has its price. Also, Ad Ranks of each bidder rise up and fall according to competition. This is the usual method adopted by all major service providers.

Other assessment methods also are there for evaluating writers’ performance.

Doctors Politicians. Cover Design. Front.

Regardless of how many clicks a web page of a writer registers, there are other methods also for assessing an online writer’s performance and paying him. Yahoo uses a 10 point scale called Clout Score to assess the performance of a writer and pay him, in Yahoo Voices and Yahoo Shine Blogs of their Yahoo Contributor Network, the revamped old Associated Content. Their scale combines the number of articles a writer publishes with the volume of page views his articles receive. A Clout 1 to Clout 6 writer will get a payment of $1.50 for every One thousand page views and from Clout 7 to 10, it will incrementally rise to $2.00. There will be a 1% bonus for each article besides. A writer with 7 articles and a total 3000 page views will have a clout score of 3000 + 7% = 3210. After 200 articles, bonus remains constant at 200% which is the maximum allowed. PPM is a standard phrase used in performance assessment which means Payment Per Thousand Page Views, M representing Latin Mille, the Roman numerical for 1000, standing for ‘Thousand Page Views’.

How much can a site owner charge for his Advertising Space?

When a writer decides to make a few dollars out of his blog or site by opening up for advertisements, he will not know how much he can charge. Nor is there any place for him to get good advice from or check whether his rates are standard, high or low for the market. If it is too high, he will not get advertisers and if it is too low, he will become too cheap a target for dignified advertisers to contact him. This happens because there is no one there to tell him the price at which he can sell his site space. Digital ads can be positioned on the header, footer or sidebar of a page or blended with content. They can be of any format from 125 x 125 and 120 x 600 to 468 x 60. Prices will vary for each, corresponding to the CPM of the site which in its turn is based on the number of page views, visitors, unique visitors and a host of other things of metrics, traffic being the prominent. In physical marketing, cunning companies price their wares just below the market leaders’ or considerably lower than their’s. In digital marketing also the method is the same, adopted by most site owners. Or one can do research. Taking a particular format and position and doing some research will bring one to the standard CPM of 1.5 dollars for 125 x 125 buttons on top of sidebar for one month. For starters, it is wise to sell space at flat rates if they are lucky to get advertisers, without resorting to counting page impressions, till they master strategies of marketing.

The blog is there, and you have nothing to loose by advertizing.

Experimentally signing up with ad sense and placing a banner spot on CPC terms will reveal the site’s CPM easily without much trouble, though the only trouble would be backing away from the contract. To eliminate commissions and deal directly with advertisers would be bringing in more money at the risk of jumping into an un-trusted pool, for a beginner. Going to sites who advertise about selling space would also help in forming a general picture of how digital space is sold. Cost of ad divided by page views gives Cost Per Mille impressions; page views multiplied by CPM should give the cost which one shall notify in the site. Unluckily, whatever multiplications we do will not bring page views unless content is good. Simply ask for half a dollar on the safe side for a month in the beginning, which will bring revenue of 5 dollars when page view becomes ten thousand per month. One 125 x 125 button on top of side bar will thus bring this much for the beginning, if you are persuasive enough to tempt your neighbourhood merchant to go online. The blog is there, and you have nothing to loose. Ads on header or blended with content should bring more revenue, those on the sidebar less and those on footer the least, generally.

Writers are like composers; good listeners become them.

Doctors Politicians. Cover Design. Back.

3. HOW WRITERS PROMOTE THEIR WORKS.

It is a good listener to music who finally becomes a great composer; and it’s a good reader who eventually becomes an accomplished writer. Before writing a book, one will have read thousands of books. Before writing a good web article, you ought to have seen and read hundreds of captivating web articles. A blog of one’s own is the best laboratory to experiment with writing. It is a show case for the skill of the writer, doing publicity for him, creating ever-increasing audience, attracting literary agents and publishers. And blog articles can even be assembled together and turned into books. Already there are publishers who do this. Providing just the link to the blog would serve the purpose of submitting a manuscript to the book publisher, in future. It is like one writing each chapter of a book and publishing it piecemeal.

Leave your footprints in good places, to show you walked there.

Good articles in a blog attract not only readers and advertisers but those who hunt for good content writers also. For writers who provide quality content, they pay at the rate of dollars or pounds per 100 words or 500 words. 1 pound per 100 words is not too high a rate nowadays for a good writer. Top-rated writers can expect not less than 7 pounds per 500 words. For such writers, their blogs are not places for them to make money but places for exhibiting samples of their writing. Participating in online discussions is also a good way to advertise skills. Discussion Forums annexed to major publishing web sites are regularly scanned by people who wish to recruit promising and proven writers. Some writers write not for their own blogs but for other’s blogs, for a payment.

Writing good pages everyday will make you one day the authority in the field.

Creating an excellent and regularly updated web site which is linked to advertisers, is a good way to prove to advertisers and hirers that you are a good and rare writer and to publicize and earn. If you persevere continuously and add informative and attractive web pages each week, some day you are going to become the authority in your field, considering the fact that the experts in that field will not have the time for writing and publishing and writers who do have time for writing and publishing and are good too will not have necessary expertise to write as authoritatively as you do. Webmasters are in constant search of good writers on chosen subjects who deliver in time. Someday they will be coming after you.

Do not go after all social sites to advertise skills. Select yours.

The Swan. Cover Design. Unpublished.

Creating profile pages in social sites which have heavy traffic is good for writers. Face Book, My Space, Linked In and Twitter are there to allow this service free. A profile page acts as a mini web site where writers can post links to their books, articles and web sites, good platforms for writers to launch themselves from. Before joining, it is better to learn about what types and social levels of people usually join these sites. Face Book is the most prominent among them, nearly sixty percent of members being above the ripe age of forty, of which forty percent are with rich average annual income. This also means, these members can afford to engage good writers to write for them. Do not get bewildered at the richness of content these members have in their pages and do not gauge them as geniuses, because these contents are not written by them or they may not even have thought about any such things in their lives. My Space is currently vogue and is primarily meant for youngsters below thirty years. If you are above age, do not go crowding there, unless you write books which thrill that age group. Twitter which tests the skill of conveying what one thinks in just 140 characters was once the tide has now ebbed, due to this very challenge of keeping brevity in conveying thoughts in a world over-thronged by people of lesser intelligence. Linked In is the ideal stage for professionals to present themselves in, for befriending and connecting with other professionals in the world. There are dozens of others, some confined within geographic regions and some limited to certain professions.

Fall not thoughtlessly into bogs and marshes, after reading large print. Read the small print.

Writing articles to be published as print books is an option for writers which, if printed, published and sold, would surely bring good revenue. But this field is also not devoid of pits and bogs and treachery. Modern day publishers ask for an investment on the book from the writer. Do-it-yourself publishers would not release all facilities except to premium customers. E-Book publishers will have difficult formats for writers to follow. Publishing books as tablets and apps is costly. Writing articles for print magazines is also an option for writers but the waiting is interminable there. Editors won’t reply to you for months and most magazines have autumn, fall and summer issues only. Their busily engaged editors dissuade writers from post-submission queries. If these magazines are on-line publications, logging-in, submission, logging-out and then cancellation of account after a week or so is a standard procedure they see each day.

_____________________________________
Pictures Courtesy: Sahyadri Books Archives.
Prototypes or used book covers. Books made
from online articles.
_____________________________________

Also please read:
How Advertisements Help Pay Online Writers? P.S.Remesh Chandran.
Think Twice Before Publishing With Free Article Directories. P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here:
https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles

To read about the life and people of Kerala, the author’s native land, visit KERALA COMMENTARY here.

For more articles of this kind, visit SAHYADRI BOOKS here or BLOOM BOOKS, TRIVANDRUM

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Advert Revenue For Authors, Advertisement Revenue, Articles,Authors Resources, Before Publishing, Bloom Books Trivandrum, Columns, Content Writing, Essays, Essays On Publishing, How Ads Help Websites, How Ads Help Writers, How Pay Sites Work, Internet Essays, Online Money Making, Online Publishing, Online Writing, P S Remesh Chandran, Pay Per Click, Protection Of Writers Rights, Publishing, Publishing Articles, Publishing In Websites, Sahyadri Books And Bloom Books Trivandrum, Sahyadri Books Trivandrum, Treacheries In The Publishing Field, Writers Guide, Writing For Payment Will Online Writing Pay, Writing For Revenue

Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra
Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of ‘Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book’. Unmarried and single. Born and brought up in Nanniyode, a little village in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Kerala…

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Comments

Md Rezaul Karim
17th Jul 2013 (#)

Very motivating but no easy answer of what the issue is about!

PSRemeshChandra
20th Jul 2013 (#)

It is not a light issue that writers face in securing enough to live by publishing online. There is also not an easy answer to their questions. This here is a simple attempt to focus more light on their problems with various kinds of publishers, digital and print. The real issues are more complicated than what appears here to explain them more experience and practical knowledge than what I possess are needed. Thank you dear Md. Rezaul Karim for noting.

Madan G Singh
18th Jul 2013 (#)

This is an excellent post. Very topical and deserving a star

PSRemeshChandra
20th Jul 2013 (#)

There have been so many articles and many voluminous books also written on this subject. But a writer who simply has to know about a few basic things of importance cannot read them all and be a master on this subject of publishing online and earning a living. This is a brief attempt to bring all relevant things at one place, for a writer like me to learn that what problems I face are common which in itself shall be an encouragement. Better and more comprehensive single piece articles are needed in this subject and they will surely come, if writers like you, Mr. Madan G Singh, Md Rezaul Karim, Sivaramakrishnan A, Rathnashikamani Bijja and other put their minds to and find time.

Mike Robbers
20th Jul 2013 (#)

Great article, indeed! Thanks for sharing!

PSRemeshChandra
20th Jul 2013 (#)

I am satisfied that this article is being appreciated. I certainly know that many facts which ought to have been included have been omitted, ignored or forgotten, which I expect to appear here as comments by learned and experienced readers. Thank you Mr. Mike Robbers for the words of encouragement.

Phyl Campbell
22nd Jul 2013 (#)

Lots of info. Good job.

PSRemeshChandra
22nd Jul 2013 (#)

Information is weapon. Making more information available to a writer regarding his profession or vocation is arming him to the teeth. Writers shall have to live as well as publishers. But one shall not exploit the other too much. Great publishers have organizations and tacit agreements among them but online writers do not have neither such organizations nor such agreements among them except a few weaklings here and there. If publishing is going to remain a profitable business and writers are going to write for their living, strong organizations are sure going to be established in the online writing field. Whether we know it or not, dissatisfaction of writers over publishers are more and more appearing as articles in the internet, a pre-condition for organizations. Thank you Mr. Phyl Campbell.

How Advertisements Help Pay Online Writers? P.S.Remesh Chandran.

054.

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

 

By PSRemeshChandra, 17th Jun 2013. Short URL http://nut.bz/22dgj266/

Posted in Wikinut Essays

One of the most widely read and visited online websites in the world, Wikinut, hosts advertisements in its pages. As a publishing platform which pays its writers out of advertisement revenue, ads are inevitable for maintaining the platform and paying writers. How much of advertisements and what kind of links and advertisements is a subject of debate, as with other publishing sites. The general consensus is, they do not go back in quality of adverts or lean on inappropriate ads.

Wikinut’s lay outs, graphics, pictures and easy upload is remarkable for writers in publishing.

One thing we all have to agree is that when compared to other online publishing platforms, Wikinut is the best, regarding lay outs, graphics, inclusion of pictures and the general easiness for writers in publishing their articles. I still do not know if it is the best site in paying writers also. Since advertising is its lifeblood, it is better to leave alone what advertisements they display along with each writer’s published page. Perhaps these advertisements may not go concurrently with the content of the article, but since they are the things which help the platform sustain and stand on its own, it is justifiable and vital. Otherwise, how can I write this page here? More often, it is also to be noted that a few advertisements do make some dreary pages visually pleasing too.

Unlike many others, Wikinut permits links to author’s other works.

Whether Wikinut writers can plant links in their articles which lead to commercial establishments is another thing, a matter of policy. Certainly writers can give links to their own articles, which most writers gentleman-likely add in the end. If some writer includes a link inside the article, leading to something about which something is he writing that article, it again shall be right, for we do often see in this platform, writers including links to other publishing platforms and book-publishing sites. It is not a crime. What infuriates one, it would seem, would be a writer writing especially about some commercial establishment and receiving his normally due revenue, and at the same time receiving a commission from that commercial establishment for writing that piece there and for including that link, which unfortunately cannot be proved. What cannot be proved is, if he does receive commission.

Wikinut’s writers are incidentally the world’s best writers in English also.

Even if he does receive commission, but that article is a very good one, how much violation of terms and good conduct does the artier do or if it is a violation at all is a situation which needs more clarification. Such writers would not only be receiving more income than other legitimate writers, but would also be killing the spirit and enthusiasm in other writers for writing for Wikinut. Or is it not? In the long run, if it goes on and nearly everybody does it, two things will happen: Wikinut will be lowered to the ranks of inferior platforms which exist there for publishing articles about things for which the writer is paid for by the beneficiary companies; the intelligent users of Wikinut, who are incidentally the world’s best writers in English also, will begin to totally neglect such writers, such articles and such advertisements.

Articles published in Wikinut are more secure from misuse for their fame.

The writers of course have the freedom to publish their articles simultaneously in other publishing platforms also. Wikinut does not make it an issue or object to their republishing elsewhere. Besides, they welcome articles published elsewhere to be republished in Wikinut, provided copyright rules and other rights are not violated. But when we publish articles in other paying sites which do advertise and also sell articles or permit them to be simply copied, the articles would be copied by anyone and made use of for advertisements which are entirely contradictory to the contents of the article published. It is better to publish in Wikinut because it is found to be not as regularly copied and reused as in the case of many free article directories, considering the contents in the platform are more famous and therefore more secure.

I stand against everything that stand against everything that my country stands for.

This writer published an article which describes various arguments and scientific points to illustrate ‘why dogs should not be there’. No sooner this article was made available in platforms such as mentioned, than they were copied and made into web pages by some to show advertisements showing how dogs can be fed well, how they can be trained well and how they can be kept healthy. These copied and republished articles began to show advertisements of Kennel Clubs, Dog Trainers and Dog Food Manufacturers along with it. That article, why dogs should not be there, was skillfully manipulated and made use of to inculcate why dogs should be there. We have heard about a presidential candidate in the USA whose school composition page was collected by adversaries, a line which in his handwriting read ‘I stand against everything that stand against everything that my country stands for’ was words-omitted and manipulated to read ‘I stand against … … … … everything … my country stands for’, and made use of in the election to beat him.

Also please read Think Twice Before Publishing With Free Article Directories. By P.S.Remesh Chandran, Sahyadri Books, Trivandrum.

Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here: https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles

To read about the life and people of Kerala, the author’s native land, visit KERALA COMMENTARY here.

For more articles of this kind, visit SAHYADRI BOOKS here or BLOOM BOOKS, TRIVANDRUM.

Tags

Advert Revenue For Authors, Advertisement Revenue, Authors Resources, Bloom Books Trivandrum, Content Writing, Essays On Publishing, How Ads Help Websites, How Ads Help Writers,How Pay Sites Work, Internet Essays, Online Money Making,Online Publishing, Online Writers, P S Remesh Chandran, Payment Per Click, Publishing, Publishing Articles, Publishing For Revenue, Publishing In Websites, Sahyadri Books Trivandrum, Writers Guide, Writing For Payment

Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of ‘Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book’. Unmarried and single.

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Sivaramakrishnan A
20th Jun 2013 (#)

Thought provoking post, looking at advertising and publishing on Wikinut from all angles. Not fair to take advantage for personal profit; obey the rules.Thank you, RameshChandra – siva

PSRemeshChandra
20th Jun 2013 (#)

When criticize others, we occasionally have to look back at our homes. Thank you Sivaramakrishnan A.

Terry Trainor
20th Jun 2013 (#)

Interesting post my friend, it has opened my eyes wider.

PSRemeshChandra
20th Jun 2013 (#)

So long as we like Wikinut, and like to continue to publish more articles here, it is better to understand well the pros and cons of the platform where we perform. This here is a light attempt. Someone may do a deep study and publish, some one with more grasp and knowledge of the subject, I hope. Thank you dear Terry Trainor.

Doctors, Politicians, Bureaucrats, People and Private Practice. Documentary Essay. P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Doctors’ private practice is a public necessity.

053. Doctors, Politicians, Bureaucrats, People and Private Practice. Documentary Essay. P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

 

By PSRemeshChandra, 9th Feb 2013.  Short URL http://nut.bz/o8knr57t/
Posted in Wikinut>Essays

Governments’ banning the private practice of doctors has a history of 50 years, exactly as old as the abandonment of health and welfare of people by them. Wherever there are uneducated politicians and jealous bureaucrats, they share this common animosity and jealousy towards doctors. Bureaucrats retire at an age and politicians stop when party men stop following them. This hatred and jealousy stems from the right of doctors to practice medicine till the end of their days.

1. Doctors who do not look patients can be punished but why punish for looking patients?

Please leave this alone.

PART 1. DESTRUCTION OF A FREE HOSPITAL SYSTEM

We can understand a doctor punished for not looking patients but how can we not understand the madness in punishing him for looking patients? That is what is going on in the world. Doctors who look patients in homes in their spare time are raided, suspended and dismissed by politicians and bureaucrats, on the hope that there won’t be anyone left to look patients in government hospitals and all will go to costly private hospitals run by their sons and daughters and sons-in-law. When this madness continues in the largest democracy in the world and millions of people who have no other place than free government hospitals to go are left uncared for and dying, world’s nations’ conscience is not turned to responding to this injustice. India spends millions on educating and training doctors, so that so many of them doctors would be available there day and night to treat people. People here means, not people’s representatives and state ministers who get round-the-clock free medical treatment but people who cast their votes, elect them and make the revenue for paying them salaries. When people go to a nearby doctor’s residence, they are told that they cannot be treated at doctors’ homes but have to go overcrowd the hospitals and contented with what unsatisfactory treatment they get there because politicians have dictated so. Government wants doctors to stop looking patients in their homes and they know that their hospitals cannot treat all patients, meaning politicians in government want to drive patients from government hospitals to private hospitals owned by them, their relatives, friends, favorites or followers, a large portion of the earnings from where would ultimately reach them in times of elections and in times of need. State health ministers regularly declare that they are banning private practice and that strict action would be taken against those who violate. Every time they open their mouths to declare these things, there is an invariable question asked them by press: why are so many doctors’ posts lying vacant in your state? The answer will always be ‘they will soon be filled up’, not ‘they already have been filled up’. The fact is, they will never get doctors to fill up these vacancies, due to their arrogant and unilateral decisions to raid doctors’ homes for detecting private practice. For years they are being asked this same question and for years they are continuing to give this same answer; and the posts are continuing to lie vacant for decades. That much is the care and attention they give to health care in their states. These vacancies have never been filled up nor would they ever will be, unless private practice is allowed for government doctors. Government hospitals will gradually become never-to-visit-places for patients, which exactly is what the politicians and bureaucrats want.

When health ministers and chief ministers of a state become sick, we have read about the senior doctors in the government medical college going to the minister’s house for treating them. Is it not that private practice and illegal? We have heard them never going to hospital for examination before admission. They break laws for their convenience if it suits them but threaten doctors if they look people in their homes. Why they campaign against doctors treating patients in their homes is to show their unwavering allegiance and loyalty to large private hospitals and multi national health companies that are coming to India, who want to absorb all doctors’ home practices into their domain as they did in Europe and would pay politicians and bureaucrats handsomely for aiding them through issuance of the necessary government orders. Politicians are eagerly awaiting the international health care companies for coming to India and becoming an everlasting treasure trove for them to loot through generations. Rich hospitals and mammoth companies lobby governments to ban doctors’ private practice. Politicians and bureaucrats are their recruited tools, sold out soul and corpuscle wholesale. By banning private practice, these servile beings create a void which their masters soon come take up and fill. Of the hundred thousand politicians in India, there is not one among them who wish these health care giants never to come to India. The health ministers of Jammu Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra and Punjab, in looks and speech ferocious enemies of private practice, are only obedient servants cutting path for giant health care companies step by step through their successive orders. However hard they try to conceal, two things reveal where their true allegiance and loyalties lie: whom they create these government orders for and what destruction their orders have already done in their states.

2. Kashmir government invited complaints against doctors but received none; even after months, they are still waiting for people’s complaints.

Shall we tolerate interference?

Kashmir government put a blanket ban on private practice of doctors and constituted a team of crime branch, intelligence and vigilance police to raid doctors’ homes and clinics and to act upon people’s complaints against doctors, monitored directly from the chief minister’s office. For months they sat waiting for people’s complaints against doctors to come which they expected would come in thousands but which never came. People of Kashmir simply were not willing to betray their doctors to these corrupt politicians and treacherous bureaucrats of their state. Kashmir politics and bureaucracy were never pure and theirs was a tactic to draw people’s attention away from the horrible economic crimes and corruption exposed recently there. And the people knew this. Specialists in General Medicine, Surgery, Endocrinology, Urology, Gastroenterology, Neurology, Neuro Surgery, Nephrology and Pediatric Surgery-words Greek to politicians and police men-were hunted by politicians, bureaucrats, police men and journalists throughout Kashmir but the people were not willing to betray their specialists to cheap government personnel. It is heard that this special cell is still awaiting complaints from people against doctors without spending their time more gainfully on looking into the shady deals of politicians and bureaucrats in the state. Increasing patient deaths in hospitals were what prompted this ban and the consequent raids. A legislative assembly committee constituted to examine these deaths suggested the ban and the government acted accordingly. There are certain meaningless words said-how much meaningless we will know soon- wherever such committees are constituted. For example read this standard phrase: ‘The committee discussed in detail various issues related to streamlining the functioning of government hospitals and the members stressed for making available adequate manpower in the hospitals and expediting the recruitment of doctors and paramedic staff to meet the shortage’! When deaths occur in hospitals, hunting doctors is the easier thing to do and what politicians do first; truth will always be lying somewhere else, far out of reach of insincere people. We shall look into some real incidents in the medical history of India. It is good and necessary that serial deaths in hospitals are looked into by legislative committees, but what if the sequel of serial deaths in a hospital starts from the act of a politically motivated legislator?

3. Ignorant politicians decide how even psychiatric hospitals are to be run.

Patients’ deaths increased in the forensic ward of a psychiatric hospital in India, where new admissions were killed by other violent inmates. Forensic wards in mental hospitals are high security wards constructed like jails wherein convicted and under-trial prisoners needing psychiatric treatment are put as ordered by judicial courts. Representatives of executive, legislature and judiciary inspected, committees were constituted, reasons found out and doctors and nursing staff suspended, transferred, arrested, imprisoned and prosecuted. News media celebrated this for weeks, differed in their opinions and united in condemning doctors. What results they wanted to have, they gained through this show, but what actually happened inside that closed ward remained unknown to the world, except to a few unbiased people. It was a story which no politician or bureaucrat in India likes to hear. In the long history of this institution, it was headed by psychiatrists only as it should be. A non-psychiatrist becoming the head of such an institution was unheard of in the country. In 2011, a politician from the northern parts of that state, a black sheep in his party, was elected to the state assembly from a southern constituency which unfortunately housed this institution. The superintendent of this institution forgot to invite this MLA to some public function there and this representative considered it as a show of disrespect and a breach of protocol. He moved the ministry, the superintendent was transferred out immediately and the search for a new one began. Psychiatrists were rare and none came handy, so a non-psychiatrist was posted as superintendent in his place. We should know that the superintendents psychiatric hospitals would usually be the senior-most psychiatrists in those institutions and so, would know about every kind of problem that may arise in such specialty hospitals, even long before they actually happen. He would attend to patients in his wards in addition to looking files as superintendent. Besides, this hospital was the nodal controlling centre for all other psychiatric hospitals in that state. Heads of such institutions would even know about whether it would be after three hours or four hours that a particular patient brought before them would turn violent, just by looking at the face. Thoughtless changes ordered by an ignorant health minister earlier had offered a specialty cadre for doctors by which they could opt out clinical duties and go for administration. They only needed looking files and did not need looking patients anymore. This situation would tease our common sense: a doctor for whose training the state spent millions no more needing to treat patients but looking files instead, a great loss to the nation and the patient community in particular. The history was, skilled and talented doctors looked both well and became famous as both physicians and administrators, extra ordinary two-in-one assemblies. People teased, the most incapable and bad ones only would opt administration so that they would not have to kill patients in their ignorance and ineptitude. This new system paved way for the administration to be filled with incompetent doctors. Anyway, the new superintendent was but a general practitioner, the first incident of a non-psychiatrist becoming the head of a psychiatric hospital in the state, perhaps in the history of the whole country. Neither our MLA nor the hierarchy from health minister and secretary to the director of the department found anything out of way in this posting. They who were thought to be brilliant in anticipating the after effects of their decisions proved they were nowhere near calibration to justify their pay. Since this was a new discovery of that politician with the most bizarre of ideas, nobody questioned this posting and the local politicians and position-seekers of his party began to go daily to that hospital and took hold of the day-to-day administration of that hospital from their crony.

4. Things are like in political commissariat in China, minus the good things of socialism and individual responsibility.

People think hospitals are run by doctors but now that is not so as a result of another foolish dictate issued by the politician-bureaucrat nexus. A hospital development committee constituted with local politicians as members and the district collectors as chairmen would conduct the daily business of hospitals. Do not anyone think that any of them including that IAS person there knows anything about medicine or hospital administration, but they assume the role and pretend to know everything. Medicine is a specialty where no blunders shall ever be permitted to happen but where every kind of blunders happen every day, made to happen by politicians and bureaucrats in the name of people’s rule and democracy. These committees which are just developmental committees assume the role of and function as administrative committees. Once nominated into them, their members poses as administrators and begin to think that they can easily substitute doctors, a pleasant experience for illiterate politicians and bureaucrats who wallow in dream castles. They wallow deep in administrative pleasures till that committee is reconstituted without them or till some catastrophe as mentioned here happens out of their thoughtlessness, causing as much destruction and confusion as they are capable of imagining before they go out of these committees. This happens in health administration alone. If such committees are constituted in revenue administration to run the day-to-day business of district collectorates, the collectors would resign immediately. No such low-intelligence committees are tolerated in agriculture, public works, law and order or any other kind of administration except health. No department head would tolerate ignorant people’s committees superimposed over their heads in their departments except doctors who are but a gentle lot who very soon learns not to object. Now no one knows who the authority of what in health services is. District collectors in several states even think they are the district health authorities also. The district medical officers have no role now who only initiates disciplinary action against their staff and send files to the district collectors to decide upon what punishment is to be given to their staff! Boundaries defined by statutes and laws have vanished and pastures prompted by pompous self interest and greed are newly annexed to each one’s monarchy. There is supposed to be a big brother watching in the national capital but it does not seem he sees anything at all. Doctors have now no role in running hospitals. Things are like in the political commissariat system in China in health services, minus the good things of socialism and the accountability of individual responsibility. So, this hospital development committees, or HDC in short form, meet regularly in hospitals, drink tea, munch cashew nuts and discuss things and take decisions which none other than a medical professional shall never discuss and take. They dictated this new superintendent to introduce a turn duty system in the hospital-a great word that they had heard somewhere-by which they intended to achieve great reforms in the hospital. In their learned judgment, nursing attendants continuously working for months and years in the same wards is the cause of all problems in hospitals they shall be shifted each day without given opportunities for developing relations with patients. They did not know what they were causing to happen in their ignorance and the new superintendent in his also did not know what he was not professionally objecting to. Had he been a long-serving psychiatrist, he would have envisioned the horrible things that were to come out of this wrong decision, very wrong in a mental institution. Now each nursing attendant would be told in the morning where was to work that day. The next day he would be at another ward. This kind of rotation duty also was a first in the history of asylums, one of the finest illustrations of the ages-old adage: fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

5. Introduce turn duty in psychiatric hospitals, crash patient-staff rapport and let patients kill each other.

Helping young patient in healing.

When a staff works for long periods in a psychiatric ward, patients develop rapport with him and open up and disclose things which are buried deep in sub conscious and unconscious layers of the mind. They will begin to obey whatever this staff says so long as it is this particular staff there. The staff also develops an insight into whatever is going on in the inner bowels of the mind of each of those patients-a knowledge indiscernible even to psychiatrists and nurses, derived through close observations and long contact-crucial in assessing ways to help the patient to the road of his recovery and healing. It is not the psychiatric, psychotic and psychedelic drugs administered to patients but this opening up, sympathetic human interference and rapport that makes things possible in mental hospitals. When that particular staff is not there one day for revealing their hearts to, they become dumb and mute, become unresponsive and even turn destructive, like little children. Mental patients cannot simply accept another in his place as they are not normal like us (?) and their mind, which is only flickering up to normalcy or shuttering down to tightness, grieves. It is the real shock to them, loosing a trusted care taker of long acquaintance who knows everything about them and would see to their every need, a shock an outsider to a mental care facility like a passing politician and bureaucrat cannot understand. Does everyone know, telling one’s needs is a heavy, strenuous and laborious task for a mental patient due to drug-induced lethargy, thickness of tongue and general reluctance and sadness? Staff of long acquaintance and familiarity is the only bridge between them and the conscious world, the only solution for their cure. Psychiatrists with long experience know this and that is why they permit and encourage staff to work for long periods, sometimes till retirement, in the same ward, on the hope that if it would help speedy recovery of those hapless minds, let it be so. Who knows about the grief filled in those minds whom we see standing staring and forlorn behind grilled doors and closed cell rooms? After the Great Change following the learned development committee’s decisions, the staff working in the forensic ward for one or two days disrupted everything and could not know which of those prisoners had suicidal tendencies and which of them had killer instincts. So they put those who do not have them with those who did have them. A brilliant North Indian young boy, the pride of his friends and colleagues, brought to this hospital for treatment as ordered by the judicial court and admitted to this forensic ward was found dead the next day, supposedly strangled by his cell mate. Had it been a staff working there for long, he would have anticipated this and would not have put in the new admission in the same cell with a prisoner undergoing murder trial. He would have known that it would not be safe to accommodate a novice with no criminal history with one with killer instincts. Every media, politician, department authority and investigative agency investigated and is still investigating why this happened, instead of plainly pointing fingers at that politician whose act started the sequel of events and whose fault, misunderstanding and ignorance led to this human death. After one month, another outside-state patient was murdered in the same ward more or less the same way due to the same reasons. The real culprits, who took the unwise decision to rotate staff each day, still meet, drink tea, munch cashew nuts and give advice. So, this is only one of a thousand examples of what unwanted political presences and thoughtless government orders do in bringing about the fall of great health institutions. One question we are leaving unexamined here, that of jail prisoners in mental hospitals’ forensic wards being left with untrained hospital attendants instead of qualified and trained jail security staff, which we leave to experts in legal jurisprudence and forensic law to explore.

6. Kerala government banned private practice and lost all qualified and experienced doctors.

The Kerala government also banned private practice of doctors employed in medical colleges, dental colleges and nursing colleges. All of these medical colleges were already suffering from acute shortage of experienced doctors and medical teachers after most of them having gone to foreign countries to take up better employment there. Government’s attempt to call them back from leave did not yield results; most of them just resigned from their positions or merely did not respond to these calls. Even if government had succeeded in recruiting new doctors to fill up vacant posts, they would not have got qualified and experienced doctors as hundreds of private hospitals also were vying for them. Senior medical students now carry on the running of medical colleges and the future of medical education in that state is dull. Government brought about this situation by forcing doctors to quit for joining private hospitals where they could continue home practice simultaneously. Allowing the home practice of doctors would have helped in maintaining the overall health care in the state and solved the problem of the dearth of experienced doctors in government hospitals, but things now have gone out of hands and control of the government. However much the government increased the pay of doctors, it had no effect on their remaining in service because no doctor did or would abandon home practice for sitting inert and idle in their homes. Either Kerala looses all qualified and experienced hands or they liberally allow private practice to retain experienced doctors in service, which is the predicament there. But as we have seen, maintaining the quality and uninterruptedness of patient care in the state is now no concern of the politicians and bureaucrats there. Each person comes as health minister, issues a few orders here and there, loosens a few foundation stones at critical points and vanishes into anonymity never to be heard again. Soon we will hear about something like the health establishment in the state has collapsed. Then we will hear about a government order banning patients in hospitals until they are fully insurance covered. It will not be too long before we hear that the whole set up has been given on lease to foreign consultancies for running. The last government order from these traitors would be the announcement of the sale of all government hospitals as a lot to foreign investors ‘for ensuring quality medical assistance to all, considering the interests of the state’. There would be no protestation riots from the youth organizations of even the revolutionary parties for it would be their leaders issuing these orders and excellently explaining everything in the light of Karl Marx’s theories of dialectical materialism and poor Lenin’s principles of class war.

Politicians and bureaucrats have the basic misconception that doctors, like them, care only for money and would forget the impact and influence of real good education. In Kerala, this banning of private practice was first enforced by a minister belonging to the central committee of the Communist Party of India Marxist-a party which is in intellectual darkness as regard to this issue-who thought that banning private practice of doctors was something simple and technical like banning illicit liquor, tobacco and plastic cover. Inspired by Kerala, politicians in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Orissa, and Maharashtra states also carried out similar raids on doctors’ homes and clinics arranged by medical council of India, which only alienated good doctors dedicated to patients. We know, Karnataka has the largest number of paper medical colleges where anyone can seek admission and pay and obtain medical degrees, protected or owned by the politicians and bureaucrats there, investigated never by any medical council. Where money and political power are involved, no investigations would be. The first thing the medial council of India ought to have investigated was involvement of large private hospitals in bringing about these bans and legislations and how much they paid politicians and bureaucrats to bring about this favourable kind of situation to keep their establishments afloat. Even 65 years after the British left India, they still have not been interested to open at least one dispensary in each village, forgetting which they are shutting down home practices.

7. In lawless Uttar Pradesh, state assembly member crashes into doctor’s practice and manhandles him.

In Uttar Pradesh in December 2012, a Samaj Wadi Party MLA crashed into the private practice of a doctor and manhandled him. This incident was an aftermath of an earlier incident of the health minister of UP visiting the district hospital, finding injection bottles purchased by patients from the market when the item was available in the hospital, inquiring why and this young doctor remarking something which was taken as an interference and retort by the minister. His party man was attacking the doctor two days later with his retinue instead of setting in motion the legal machinery. This is not an isolated incident. Politicians now go to the extreme of manhandling doctors to gain popularity among their party men and to show people that they are heroes. In Kanpur, a minister in a surprise inspection suspended a doctor on similar puny charges. Punjab health minister instructed that a monthly list of doctors doing private practice shall be sent to his office. His government doing sting operations in hospitals, carried out by his chief parliamentary secretary of health was what roused the anger of doctors to turn against him and defy him which in its turn roused his personal anger to take vengeance on the state’s expenses. He later admitted that the infant mortality rate in Punjab had come down to 30 from 34 per 1000 deaths, compared to the high national average of 47. Who made this possible in Punjab, doctors or politicians? All these chief ministers and health ministers while ordering raids on doctors’ clinics and homes were continuously speaking about ethics. How many hundred ethics did they trample down and trod upon to reach those positions of chief ministers and health ministers? From the selection of assembly candidates by the party based on communal and religious factors in each constituency, hiding real assets in election commission declarations, flowing black money in millions to buy votes, slanting the opponents’ reputation through false allegations, unleashing anti-social elements to quash the opponents’ election campaigns, spending a thousand times more money than permitted on election campaigns cheating the election commission, and using state employees for canvassing votes in crucial pockets, to utilizing communal, religious and industrial houses for lobbying to win chief-ministerships-actually what they did not do to win those positions? And what did a doctor do to win his position except learning and accumulating knowledge through the years? Before speaking about ethics, chief ministers of Indian states have to be very careful: election petitions filed before the election commission after each election speak eloquently about their crimes, whether proved and punished or not.

8. Supreme Court of India judges doctors’ private practice and accepting consultation money neither crime nor corruption.

They still find time to play with patients.

Politicians and bureaucrats who want to arrest and prosecute doctors for looking patients in their homes speak loudly without stop also about the Indian Penal Code, section 168 and Anti Corruption Law. They cite their own orders banning home practice, framed by them in violation of Indian laws to appease their political ego and to beat doctors. Anti Corruption Law and Section 168 of Indian Penal Code defines a government servant’s engaging in a trade as an offence. The Punjab Government in 2011 booked two doctors for looking patients in their homes and accepting money. They were charge-sheeted for criminal activity and corruption. The Supreme Court of India on 28th April 2011 ruled that government doctors on private practice charging consultation fees from patients in a clinic during spare time could neither be accused as indulging in trade nor be booked under anti-corruption law. Section 168 of the Indian Penal Code stipulates that a government servant engaging in trade is an offence. Prevention of Corruption Act states that a government servant accepting money for service is corruption. The Supreme Court bench comprising of Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra quashed Punjab governments’ plea that the accused doctors’ private practice deserved criminal prosecution for both. The bench held that their act deserved only a minor departmental action for breaching a government order banning private practice. Corruption means demanding and accepting illegal gratification for doing an official act. Looking patients in their private clinic or home is not an official act and therefore that act is not corruption. Receiving fees for a non-official act is not illegal gratification but only professional remuneration. In the Judges’ learned opinion, holding this acceptance of professional remuneration for non-official consultation as corruption and offence is preposterous, and is against common sense. Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra made it clear in her verdict that these doctors’ violation of a government order banning private practice ‘fall within the ambit of misconduct to be dealt with under the service rules but would not constitute a criminal offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act’. Treatment of patients by a doctor cannot be treated as a trade because the doctor’s duty to treat patients is in the discharge of his professional duty. The Supreme Court severely criticized the police for charge-sheeting the doctors under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act. The sudden reaction of politicians, bureaucrats and media men to this Supreme Court verdict was their response that it was time for amending the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act to book doctors by any means, not expression of a willingness to bring legislation upholding the spirit of the views expressed by the learned judges in their verdict. Private practice by government doctors is not a crime in the eyes of the learned judges in the Supreme Court but in politicians’ eyes, it is a far greater threat to the nation than stealing billions each year from government and stashing them abroad in secret Swiss bank accounts!

9. Half-baked brains taken out of ovens before fully cooked, with which to rule over intellects and gentiles.

So, we are left with only the question of violation of a government order so far as doctors’ private practice is concerned. Looking patients in homes and accepting fees for that professional service done outside duty hours is neither corruption nor criminal activity according to Indian law, till perhaps the majority of angry politicians in parliament happily unite and amend law to make it so. Doctors doing private practice can only be subjected to departmental actions for violating standing government orders, the end result would probably be barring annual increments or dismissing at the most, not disbarring from profession and imprisonment. Government orders, dictated by politicians and issued by bureaucrats, can at times be right but almost always be wrong, considering the quantity of intellect that goes into the making of them. Our intelligent doctor who has studied medicine for years and knows every problem associated with patient care is now forced to obey blindly orders formulated and issued by some who does not know anything about the problems in the field, without given an opportunity to large upon their merits and demerits or voice dissent. Before we examine whether doctors are not represented in government while these decisions are taken, it is better to examine how wanton orders with detrimental, devastating effects in health are sired by self-interested politicians and enforced with state’s authority. Government issuing an order banning the private practice of doctors is not something to be taken blindly or seriously. We all know now about the wisdom, thought and foresight that do not go as ingredients into them. There may be a few born out of sophisticated learning and diligent care but they were all born in bygone generations. Now the motive behind each government orders is to show favouritism to the close and near, compliments to favours received, repayment of monetary gratification, to beat enemy before he gets a chance and to give ruling politicians’ tactics a legal footage. We can cite hundreds of such orders issued each year by government secretaries, ordered by state ministers, who obey only their party men. If there was a speck of sincerity behind this order of private practice ban, it ought to have been the last in a series of orders, not the first, on the introduction of reforms in hospitals or cancellation of earlier unwise introductions. For example, the government did not issue orders cancelling the introduction of fees for hospital treatment. If parliament members, assembly members and ministers can get free treatment in government hospitals, so can people. If there are enough funds and resources to treat them, there should be enough to treat people also. Government also did not issue orders withdrawing substitution of protein-rich porridge diet in hospitals with stale dry machine-made bread. Government did not issue orders cancelling the stopping of issuing boiled milk to patients and beginning to issue three plastic covers of raw milk to each two patients instead. How are they supposed to split and boil this milk in hospitals? When people rushed to roadside tea shops to get them boiled, politicians and bureaucrats got these road-side tea shops raided, closed and removed through food safety authorities and city corporations. Now all hospital have neat, clean, shop-less road-fronts and politicians and district collectors passing through these spots pride in their work-what can we say except abominable, base creatures flitting in people’s cars, getting paid by people? Those who want to bring goodness and solace to government hospitals would always be thinking about how these miserable situations could be addressed, in their day and in their dreams. But people who keep eternal hell in their minds in the form of jealousy and hatred towards others and are perpetually tormented as in Dante’s hell by the burning shells of these Satanic emotions would always be thinking about how others’ lives could be made into hell. These authorities’ brains remind us of half-baked things hastily taken out of ovens before they are fully cooked, half-baked brains with which they rule over intellects and gentiles.

10. Increase the number of nursing trainee seats, cause overcrowding around mental patients, destroy the tranquillity around them to cure.

Brought back to health again by angels.

Since we are concerned here about for whom government orders are made and how they help or destroy government hospitals, we shall examine the example of one made in the field of a medical specialty of special attention where utmost care and foresight is expected to be there behind each government order. Let us take this example also from the psychiatry field. Psychiatric patients are not capable of voicing their opinions, therefore government orders made in this field have to be the most careful, thought about, and wise. Psychiatric patients always being surrounded by doctors, nurses, assistants and students is not an advisable situation as it would reduce the minimum tranquillity these patients need to recover. As the number of attending doctors, nurses and attendants cannot be lowered below the minimum of what is stipulated, the only number that could be limited is that of students. World’s legislations in this matter considered the different aspects of this situation and set it so that the number of nursing students admitted each year to mental institutions for training shall not exceed one third of the total bed strength there, even which would be more than overcrowding for patients. In Kerala, considered perhaps to be the most health-conscious state in India with remarkable achievements in health- all of which gained four decades back and even commended once by the World Health Organization for these achievements- an unprecedented number of new nursing schools came to be established recently, prompted by government to check money drain to neighbouring states of Tamilnadu, Andhra and Karnataka. None of these schools were attached to medical colleges and as such could not ensure psychiatric training facilities for all their General Nursing, B.Sc. Nursing and M.Sc. Nursing students as part of internship, due to scantiness of mental hospitals and restriction in trainee seats in government mental hospitals. Once they could be sure of securing training facilities for all in mental hospitals, they could admit any number of nursing students and reap billions, a part of which would finally reach politicians and bureaucrats. They moved their patronizing politicians who moved government secretaries who moved government and obtained a series of government orders liberalizing norms for admitting student trainees in mental hospitals, raising the ratio each time proportional to the amounts released by each nursing school. Now, after just five years of beginning this process, this percentage has risen to 75, meaning every 100 patients in mental hospitals in Kerala will have 75 nursing trainees around them instead of the stipulated 33. States cannot do this unless National Mental Health Act and Rules are modified and the Nursing Council of India and the Medical Council of India thinned their regulations which they never did. It was this act of violation which actually needed criminal prosecution and booking under Anti Corruption Law and Criminal Procedure Code for they were attempts on the lives of mental patients. Not one among these illegal orders had a single line expressing anxiety over how the resultant over crowding was going to affect the recovery of patients. In fact, the designers and signatories of these orders live in constant fear of when the question of this overcrowding around mental patients would be raised by the civilian society and vigilant citizens of India and investigations begin. They were all signed by Indian Administrative Service personnel, ordered by state ministers or issued even without their knowledge. None among these politicians and bureaucrats in the executive reported and brought this to the attention of parliament or judiciary. It was a sweet pie and everyone wanted a cut. There are two weak arguments they raise as justification for this violation- relaxation in their terms- training more number of nursing students is a state’s need and revenue from nursing schools is essential for running these hospitals. Statistics, if revealed, will show that the rising number of nursing students and the number of returning patients are directly proportional. If recovery of patients cannot be helped, why hospitals function? Starting nursing schools without linkage to medical colleges was the nursing school managements’ fault carefully overlooked by politicians and bureaucrats. Not one single rupee is needed from this source of revenue for running psychiatric hospitals; one need only to look at the unbelievably huge amounts of liberal funds the government of India floods the states with under the National Mental Health Programme, a priority sector of government. Money which is important is those which the nursing schools pay to politicians and bureaucrats as gratification.

11. How they make this happen each year, making billions for pharmaceutical companies and private hospitals?

As we have seen, there is no sacredness or infallibility in government orders in the field of health. They are more or less meant to destruct the free hospital system in India and to drive away patients from government hospitals to private institutions. We are yet to see and feel the full impact of the greed of these mammoth private hospitals because the destruction of government hospitals is not yet complete. Once it is finished, we will see and feel it and wish to burn these privates down even if we won’t get any treatment when we die. By that time, politicians and bureaucrats would have made small private clinics and doctors’ home consultancies totally extinct. There would only be these giants gaping their mouths for money, meanwhile doing everything they can for spreading diseases by releasing toxins in wayward researches and installing intricate mechanisms for nosocomial infections- treacherous manipulations we read about in medical thrillers such as those written by our beloved doctor Robin Cook. He was not raising plots from fiction but basing fiction on facts- on real incidents and mathematical probabilities assisted by meticulous research- like Jules Verne and H.G.Wells. When the things we fear happen, health care would have become not a responsibility of state long ago except for parliamentarians and state ministers and top level bureaucrats. Just like those people who reminisce about the time before the Great Change in H.G.Wells’ novel In The Days Of The Comet, people will remember those nostalgic days when state provided free hospital treatment for them all when they became sick and treated them to fitness to work again. Lethargy of diseases would make us vaguely reminisce about the sequence of events that led to our fall. We will remember the days when they first bifurcated health services into so many tiny departments such as employees’ insurance, medical education, prevention of food adulteration, etc, etc, so that there were so many directors’ seats for all their sons-in-law to sit in. The end result was, no one knew where to go or who to see for each service which was all obtained under one roof once. Then they detached sanitation from experts’ health department and attached it to local bodies called village councils where the responsibility for sanitation and killing mosquitoes fell into the hands of corrupt local politicians. When materials and money vanished into their pockets and chlorine and DDT reached nowhere near canals, ponds and drains, mosquitoes doubled, tripled and quadrupled and we got dengue and chikungunya. When we went to local government hospitals, we were told that there were not facilities for treating these diseases and that all doctors had been dismissed for private practice and advised us to go to medical colleges. When we went there, there were not enough places for all of us to bed and so we went to private hospitals where they squeezed 45000 rupees out of each of us for treating dengue and chikungunya. Of this, we knew 15000 reached those very politicians when elections came. One lakh people affected by dengue each year made them richer by 4500 millions out of which 1500 millions reached politicians and bureaucrats each year. Joining dots in the puzzle, we learned why each government order was devised by them and how they dismantled free hospitals brick by brick. In the haze of the delusion of fever and through the veil of dizziness of diseases we could vaguely see our last hope of saving those small clinics and public doctors’ home practices drifting away to the misty horizon, the last push seaward thrust by the politicians we elected and the bureaucrats we paid, like the last thrust of Longinus’ spear on the dying body of our saviour.

12. Four hours rest and sleep for prime ministers and scientists is dedication, but with doctors it is called greed.

Will they return to music of home bells?

PART 2. DOCTORS SHALL NEVER CLOSE THEIR DOORS

Updating knowledge is necessary in every profession and doctors also do this to remain in profession, irrespective of whether they are paid Non-Practicing Allowance or not to compensate for longer duration of studies and the resultant late joining of service, to make up revenue loss from abandoning private practice and spending more time on updating knowledge. Non practicing allowance is treacherous bait by government to lure people’s attention away from doctors’ and patients’ real problems. They do not pay this to nurses, technicians, pharmacists, or any other category of trained hospital staff, equally much sought-after professionals, for not doing private practice even after strong long demands from their organizations. NPA is not a benevolent concession but treacherous bait, meant to capture doctors alone. The doctors do have and should have the option to receive or not Non Practicing Allowance and remain outside or inside home practice. If they opt for NPA and do home practice, that is wrong but if they opt out NPA and look patients in their homes, that is just and right. Here what we see is government blanket-banning private practice to suit politicians’ hidden agenda, ordering compulsory acceptance of Non Practicing Allowance and denying doctors their rightful practice and patients their rightful treatment. What the world does not seem to consider is, how much time is left for a doctor after doing his hospital duties, to treat patients in his home. What the world also forgets to see is the money and time state ministers spend on travelling official to inaugurate puny little things of no importance, like massage centres, bar hotels and beach resorts. Is it state duty? When a doctor treats patients in his home in addition to his official duties, that much number of patients are attended and cured, without the state having have to incur any expenses. He will get three or four hours rest and sleep, which when happens in the case of great scientists and prime ministers, we will call it dedication to work and selflessness, but when it happens with doctors, politicians like to call it greed and people call it devotion and care. Let them have the option to receive or not Non Practicing Allowance, but do not enforce it on this noble profession which needs many years’ learning and training for perfecting and round-the-clock patience and presence of mind to remain noble, a profession much respected in the world than politics.

13. There is some kind of fishiness in government’s decisions in ordering specialists not to work privately.

Clinical laboratories need hematologists, pathologists and microbiologists to run tests but these medical specialists are not easily available to private laboratories. So they engage government specialists to work in spare time and on off-duty days. There again it is patients who get services of the best, which saves their lives. It is because government hospitals do not have facilities to test all patients or conduct all tests that patients go to these private laboratories. They are proof of authorities’ negligence and dereliction in setting up well-equipped laboratories attached to hospitals from the village level up to the metros. If government labs were equipped and staffed well, government specialists would have done these tests in government hospitals. Without equipping government labs, dictating specialists not to attend spare time duties in private clinics, is denying best services to patients; it is politician’s jealousy for professionalism. Let professionals work wherever they are needed, which would alleviate pains and solve health problems more effectively. We expect specialists to be allowed to practice privately and freely as there are not enough numbers of them compared to general practitioners, but here what we see is, in general medicine a doctor can practice but in specialties like much needed pathology, microbiology and hematology one is not allowed to. There is some kind of fishiness in government decisions in this matter. They decide which specialties are to be included in the ban or excluded from calculating on from which the great private hospitals expect and need a great influx of patients. Is it time politicians in government are seized and subjected to forced psychiatric treatment, before more delusional and hallucinatory decisions are taken and health services ruined beyond repairs? Sometimes, a skilled anesthetist will have to be called by a private hospital to attend to an operation on a patient there. Anesthetists are an essential part of an operating team who can make it a success or failure. A skilled anesthetist is a much sought-after thing. If an anesthetist is free and an operating team in a private hospital is in need of one for saving the life of a patient, what wrong is there in spending his spare time to save the life of another human being? But this jealous politician of ours is against such loftiness and has decided to include anesthesia in the list of banned specialties; we know he was a lesser-learned craft teacher in a primary school in his former life before coming into politics and becoming a health minister. If he is questioned, his young followers will rush into the hospital and seize doctors by their collars as they did in Uttar Pradesh. We the people are in a way lonely and those skilled physicians who can save our lives are bound hand and foot by undereducated politicians so that they won’t be able to save us- these politicians we elect each time casting our votes, to save our country from not falling into autocracy or despotism but for remaining in democracy.

14. There are medical teachers who do not practice and medical practitioners who do not teach, but a practicing teacher is the ideal one.

An immense store of medical knowledge and experience rests with private sector and home practice but medical colleges want only full time faculty members in their staff; so this vast knowledge repository remains untapped and medical students can not make use of this untapped potential. Treating patients who remain outside the main stream of medical care, these doctors have unique experiences which, if engaged as part-time faculties in medical colleges, they would only have been glad to share with our future doctors. Some diseases which are unique to a place could only be learned this way. What awaits a medical student when he goes to meet the outside world of patients after graduation could only be learned this way- the untold experiences of a novice to into the field, the crude pagan practice unaided and not back-supported by establishments, the dire circumstances of meeting emergencies with one’s own bare hands and brain, the lessons from direct confrontation with patients in the patients’ locale, unique to a beginner. Moreover, by getting part-time-employed as teacher, the private doctor also gets an opportunity to learn more and research. What use is there of an academic teacher in a medical college who has not had any direct contact with patients for a long time? He could easily be substituted by a good text book or several of them. Teaching allows the private doctor to update himself and the medical student to get balanced convictions on the applications of medical knowledge. Teaching medicine needs a balanced and experienced mind, born out of knowledge gained from facing challenges in treating community without the supporting facilities of institutions- the first letters of medical education. A doctor who has never remained outside the environment of a large hospital can never acquire this unique knowledge which when transferred to medical students is one of the most invaluable gifts they can get from their teachers. It is a rare knowledge without which their education would not be complete. The historic conviction of medical education and training is to empower a person gain medical knowledge and become able to treat other persons without the help of clinical implements including the stethoscope and the thermo meter, and without the assistance of others including an orderly or a nurse. Doctoring is not supposed to be one working under the umbrella of the assistance of many; it is always one person equipping himself for a one man mission and going alone in the rain. Doctors, who train themselves to work only inside the protective environments of establishments, fail miserably when they step out into the outside community. If medical college teachers won’t be able to practice privately, then recruiting experienced doctors from the private field as part-time teachers would be the only solution left to make medical education balanced and complete. There are medical teachers who do not practice and medical practitioners who do not teach, but a practicing teacher is the ideal one in the field of medicine.

15. Doctors caught hostages in people’s war against corruption; if people let politicians and bureaucrats go, they will release doctors to people.

Patience, diligence and care, their face marks.

It is the most brilliant brains of a country who turn to studying medicine. Their brilliance and kindness make them succeed in developing good relations with patients and the society and build up confidence through dedicated work of generations. Then politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, lawmen and policemen, other professionals who suddenly find themselves surrounded by crowds accusing corruption, bribery, scams and crimes, find out that private practice of government doctors is the source of all evils in the world. This movement against doctors in India was, not surprisingly, simultaneous with the exposure each of these great money scams involving politicians and bureaucrats. Only politicians and bureaucrats were involved in these horrendous scams and thefts. Not one doctor was ever but associated with them, except perhaps any of those who were engaged as ministers in the central cabinet. Within a span of twenty years, the exact age of the exposure of great governmental money scams in India, doctors’ looking patients in their homes began to be criminalized, they hunted, prosecuted and persecuted, and their links to patients severed. It is like doctors being caught as hostages in the peoples’ war against corruption; if people stop their war and let politicians and bureaucrats go free, they will release doctors and return them to their homes for practice. Future history of the world will probably mark this as the most brilliant intellectual sabotage of this century. We shall not consider this improbable because such massive scams as happened in India have not happened anywhere else in the world and the way of escape they devise also would be unique and unprecedented in the world.

When the number of students seeking admission to history courses in Indian universities began to decrease and there were only third-rated students available for studying history, the Indian History Congress out of desperation made a call for all brilliant students to turn to study of history from study of science so that history would remain in the hands of the brilliant. It will not be too long before the Indian Medical Congress also makes a similar appeal. More bright students turn to study of Information Technology and Computer Science now or even Avionics and Naval Architecture considering the freedom, recognition and salary in those fields; lesser number of brilliant students now turns to medicine considering the strenuous job requirements, legal liability and obligations, low salaries and maniacal government regulations. A young man who studies 12 years before graduation and spends 5 more years for MBBS, 2 more years for MD or MS and again 2 more years for some kind of post graduate specialization joins government much later than an IT professional does and draws only a fraction of the IT person’s salaries, with all possible risks and allegations, even arrest and prosecution for home practice. Still, all seats in medical colleges in India are filled up but by the average and no-brilliant rich. Think about a misguided and rotten administrative set up which drives away brilliant brains from the field of medicine and filling that field with poor intelligence. This is the effect of giving a ruling representative class the privileges of being taken abroad for treatment at people’s expense. Had these people’s representatives not been privileged enough to be taken abroad for treatment when they need it, would they have filled the medical field of the country with poor intelligence?

16. Magnanimity and glory happen every day, every hour, in hospitals and doctors’ homes but they do not advertise these like politicians do.

Doctors squeezing patients in their home is a myth. There might be a few who stain that profession as there are in any profession but many doctors, when we go see them in their home, would accept only a token consultation fee after which, even if it takes dozens of visits before the patients is cured, will not accept any more money. Once, a government servant went to a doctor’s home and gave her 200 rupees for looking his wife who was carrying for the second time. She had not taken a particular injection after the first delivery and so had complications during the second. Since when she was 4 months pregnant, this doctor attended to her till child birth. At times, she drove her car herself to the hospital at midnight when her presence was needed in hospital for this patient. During the entire period of pregnancy, she declined to accept any more money. 200 rupees was enough for her till the patient went out of hospital happy with a child. She actually had spent many times more money for purchasing petrol for these night trips than what she had accepted as token fee. The only other thing she did was presenting this patient as a study model for her students in the hospital which was but professionalism. Such incidents of magnanimity and glory happen every day, every hour in hospitals and doctors’ homes and they do not advertise these like politicians do; they simply remain untold things of pleasant remembrances to patients and relatives, rousing respect for doctors and elevating doctors to the level of gods. Had there been no such frequent incidents in hospitals, there would have been continuous uproar, protests and even burning in hospitals by public against governments’ injustices and these public institutions would already have become outdated and gone. Many doctors spend their money for purchasing medicines for patients or give it as bus fare to them. Thousands of doctors give away what they get to patients and live in debt or with what their wives get. They are regular customers of banks for loans, not deposits. The majority of them regularly obtain loans from banks for educating their children and constructing homes. Home is just another place for them to continue charity as they cannot sit in hospitals after duty time. We will not believe many among them do private practice so as to be available in their homes for natives to visit and consult them at all odd hours, with not a single coin in their hands. If they close their doors, where will these poor people go? Many doctors in Kerala, especially very senior women doctors, come to work in public buses, and if unavoidable, in auto rickshaws. Many do not have cars even after long service. These doctors, who are the beloveds of their people, earn nothing in home practice except perhaps fish, tapioca, plantain and fresh vegetables as presentations from these ‘friends’. One such doctor in a rural headquarters in Trivandrum died money-less after 32 years of service as civil surgeon. Natives of his town took a collection to support his family, actually their beloved family. This article is dedicated to this beloved doctor of the masses whose name is known but shall not be mentioned here, out of propriety and respect for his family.

17. Doctors who took leave and went abroad escaped punishment; those who remained to treat natives persecuted and hunted.

Tools of a doctors trade to save lives.

Some doctors do send bagfuls of money to banks each day collected from private consultation but we shall not be jealous. Think about the time, effort and energy they spend during the long years of study, the longest when compared to those bureaucrats in IAS, IFS, IES and IPS. Brain drain of doctors to England, America, Australia and the Middle East has been going on for so many years because there were not brighter brains in government to prevent it. There were early warnings about this from learned and foresighted quarters but authorities heeded not these warnings. Billions of rupees spent by the country for educating these brains became useless for the country and all of those who could secure a pass port, travel ticket and grant of leave left the land. Only those with domestic encumbrances such as little children, ailing wives and aged parents remained to treat natives. It is those who remained to treat natives who are hunted for private practice now. Today, when government tries to fill up vacancies of doctors in hospitals, there are none to take up employment with government. We cannot punish those bureaucrats and state ministers who brought about this situation through their irresponsibility and unwisdom because they have constitutional immunity. But which doctor would have gone abroad leaving native practice and a family behind if equally attractive pay was paid and equally reliable equipments were provided in native hospitals? So, our jealous bureaucrat nipped in bud all such positive thoughts and prompted government to believe that if private practice ban is enforced fiercely and more and more doctors punished for private practice, they will get the heat and come government’s way. What actually happened was the other way; attraction for government service ceased and private hospitals came up everywhere to bridge the gap. In future, to get doctors for working in government hospitals, they will have to pay more than what the private hospitals and foreign governments pay, thanks to the advice of wicked bureaucrats and crooked politicians. If you are beginning to point out that there are handsome retirement benefits and pension schemes in government, know that they are all already done with after new parliamentary legislations, to a level much lower than that of private hospitals. Do not think politicians and bureaucrats in the country are totally ignorant and short-sighted; they are not and they want total destruction of the famous free hospital system of India which has been a model to the world, and to prepare way for their sons and daughters in giant private hospitals and mammoth medical companies.

18. Government sells patients’ rights and privacy for money, permit mobile phone cameras inside and open asylums for film shooting.

If doctors’ books and income tax returns do not show their income from private practice, it is government’s duty to see that it is done. If doctors are not seen present in their duty stations in hospitals, it is again government’s duty to see that they are present there. Government’s failure in both responsibilities and attributing responsibility for their failure to doctors’ practicing in homes is the actual criminality, the politicians’ and bureaucrats’ usual way of escaping from allegations of failure in their duties. If doctors in government hospitals demand money for looking patients or neglects to care them for not paying them money or ask them to come to their homes, it is entirely different, again another burden of government in moving preventive and investigating machinery inside the hospital. Government fails in these things of hospital administration and escapes from shouldering the responsibility for its failure by sensationalizing doctors’ private practice as criminal activity. If the sting operations they conduct in doctors’ houses are done in the hospitals, reputation of those hospitals would be in peril and health minister, health secretary and director of health services will have to resign. Raiding doctors’ homes with full television coverage instead is easier and popular. When some new news channel is inaugurated or an existing one suffers from popularity-fall and credit-rating due to appearance of a new one, they will place telescopic cameras on nearby house roofs and live-televise patients coming to the doctor’s house or clinic. The next day, politicians and bureaucrats would rise up as if they were not cued, suspend the doctor and make it the news of the year. These media people nor the politicians and bureaucrats who celebrate this news are not intelligent and humane enough to know about the pangs in the heart of that dedicated doctor who cannot deny treatment to those human beings come to his home, and are neither noble enough to be aware of the feelings of destitution and abandonment passing through the minds of those patients beings photographed through tele-lenses from a distance- cold, shivering and disease-stricken. Mental Health Acts of the world forbids filming and showing in pictures the patients in mental hospitals revealing their identity. One new news television channel in Kerala repeatedly showed this way, patients in a mental hospital being washed in bath houses. No bureaucrat or politician or government did rise up, protest and prosecute the channel for violating the sacredness and privacy of mentally disturbed citizens. Brethren media never took up this violation of patients’ rights as news or issue. Political parties never condemned this exposure of mindless patients. Not only doctors but politicians and media men as well have to keep professional ethics and protocols. But government even sells mental patients’ rights and privacy for money by permitting freely using mobile phone cameras by trainees inside asylums and opening asylums for film shooting.

19. Equipments in government hospitals are equally accessible to public and private patients.

Why doctors join government service nowadays is not for the pay, which is handsomer at private hospitals, but for the equipments in government hospitals. Considering the unlimited resources of government, public hospitals are well equipped to treat almost all diseases, if these equipments work. Private hospitals cannot compete with government in investing as much in purchasing equipments as the government can. At a time when government hospitals were the only option for doctors to join, things went smoothly. Even doctors’ private patients needed these equipments but we needn’t bother because patients are not to be classified as public and private since they are all citizens; it only needs that all patients are cured. Private patients coming to public hospitals for inpatient services and using these equipments needn’t be viewed from a commercial angle because government hospitals, at least in India, are not meant to function as commercial enterprises. Health services in India are not earning departments but free service organizations until politicians and bureaucrats succeed in making it the other way. The nation only wants all citizens to be cured. Their having paid the doctor is not disqualification for depriving them of their rights to access government hospitals; there is a paid departmental vigilance organ to detect discrimination if any that doctors may show to unpaid patients. There is no question of ethics involved. Except in cities, India does not have enough doctors. In villages, there is not a single one practicing. Doctors in government hospitals living and practicing in villages- those who come forward willingly to work in villages- is the only solace the Indians have. It is one thing to sit in ivory towers called government secretariates and order capture of home practicing doctors and another to provide treatment facilities for all villages, especially during night.

20. Who will go to a doctor’s home practice if he has made a monstrous reputation in hospital?

When there were no health industries.

A few surgeons do delay operations of patients who do not see them in private and assign earlier dates to those who do go see them. Compelled this way to undergo unendurable agony and anxiety for longer periods, they too will yield and pay up as that doctor would be the only available one in that faculty to treat them and most probably the best. Government vigilance and hospital vigilance miserably fail in checking this untoward practice in the hospital; instead they raid doctors’ homes to terrorize them, which cannot be said to be not having some justification. But that shall not be an excuse for blanket-banning private practice. Some doctors doing home practice as well do not look patients well in hospitals unless they belong to their clientele which is what makes people angry and moves government to ban private practice. If a government doctor continuously ignores his non-paying patients, treats them badly or not at all treats them and makes a bad reputation on this account in the hospital, it is more likely no one will ever go to his home practice unless he is the only doctor in a village. If everyone is treated well irrespective of whether they pay him or not and if he gains a reputation for this kind of behaviour, it is then that people crowds into his home or clinic. A government doctor doing no private practice can certainly do this kind of injustice to patients in the hospital because he has nothing to loose by creating a monstrous reputation but a doctor doing private practice cannot afford it. It is clear, the private practicing doctor is the better one. The private practitioner will try everyway, everyday, to correct his mistakes in practice and policy and improve the quality of his care both at the hospital and at his home. Good behaviour and diligent care are rewarding investments and is the most effective advertisement for a private consultancy. Which other shop establishment is there which collects as much as this one does without investing a single rupee in advertisement? Some are lazy indeed in attending hospital but only a few. Not that doctors are always available to patients in hospital. Being attendants to quite a number of medico-legal cases and issuance of wound certificates and post-mortem examination certificates, they will be summoned regularly to law courts as witnesses, during which days they will not be present in hospitals, leading to the general misconception that they are always absent. Their absence will have many other reasons also which would not be known to public but would add to the general misconception. Most doctors in government hospitals would not have to attend O.P.Department on all days; it would often be two days in a week. A patient come to see him is directed to take several tests the results of which won’t be available till the evening or the next day when this particular doctor would not be available in the O.P. or would have gone home. If the doctor is available in his home, the patient can see him there. But if he is not allowed to see him there, he has to wait for two or three more days till the doctor’s next O.P. day arrives when his physical conditions may have changed meantime and tests will have to be done again and results obtained. This cycle will go on endlessly without him ever having getting a chance to see the doctor and his condition worsening all the while. You may ask why this patient wants to see this particular doctor alone; he is the best and it is this patient’s right to see the best. Denying him the best is violation of his right.

The government only needs ensure that doctors are attending patients in hospitals during duty hours. Check the hospital, not the doctors’ houses. What strange and bizarre things will people find out if they check what state ministers are doing absenting themselves from ministries during duty time? What a doctor does in his free time is his affair, not government’s or anyone else’s. Instead of going to cinema, dance, booze parties or other wanton time passes, if he decides to spend that time also in treating patients, it is something to be commended, not condemned. The more number of patients get healed, the better it is for human society. Instead of thinking this rational way, if government attempts to treat his devoting spare time also for treating patients as a crime and spread unwise train of thoughts among people through government propaganda, it is time people interferes. The higher the expenses society incurs to educate a person, the more he is expected to give back in time and efficacy to society. Government can say that he is paid to spend his spare time also for further studies, but treating more patients is a doctor’s study. Even if he does not read about current innovations in the field of medicine, it is his affair, as people would recognize his lack of updating and choose other doctors in their wisdom.

21. Who represent doctors in government when crucial decisions are made?

It is a good thing now to enquire who represents doctors in government when crucial decisions affecting the future of patients and doctors are taken. There is the health minister, the health secretary and commissioner and the directors of health services in the state. The director of health services in the state would be the only person in these committees who is qualified as a doctor. But to become a director of health services now, one should have abandoned clinical practice and hospital duties so many years back and taken up administration to become the senior most file pusher in the state with no actual contact with patients for years and with no hope of ever going back to practice. Limited to salaries alone, he would be jealous of all serving doctors who earn an additional income from private practice. And hence, the customary animosity towards private practice! We know that a very good doctor who is considered as a success by people would never even think about leaving practice even for a few years and abandon stethoscope and the surgeon’s knife to take up pen. Thus, we always have an intolerant and incompetent doctor-turned-bureaucrat to represent doctors in government to decide upon health issues and home practice of doctors. No wonder they decide against. Their favouritism and secret allegiance do not but prevent them from excluding certain categories from the purview of their dictates. Those categories and specialties which necessitate costly treatments and are more profitable to private hospitals are included in the ban- such faculties as hematology which becomes pivotal after conditions of blood count-fall following widespread afflictions of dengue and chikungunya- so that doctors won’t be available in their homes for treatment of afflicted patients and they will all go to large private hospitals. It was state’s failure that led to the widespread sweep of these diseases, and when the number of patients with fallen blood counts increased, government banned hematology in private practice. Politicians and bureaucrats in government applied the double tactics of keeping government hospitals under-staffed and under-equipped to treat these diseases and when conditions worsen, banning hematologists from private practice, causing unprecedented flow of patients to private hospitals during infection seasons which are now all months. When state ministers and bureaucrats flew in costly by people’s cars funded by people’s money, we thought they were running to hold meetings to discuss ways of tackling these diseases and saving people; they were running to see whether the flow of patients to private hospitals were smooth. What shall we do, skin them alive or hang, for doing this work of Judas Iscariot? Even this nominal representation of doctors through the directors of health services in government is going to end; their presence in decision-making bodies is felt a nuisance by other members. Health sector has the biggest budgetary provisions in the country and siphoning out even a small percentage from it would be unending manna for politicians, enough to sustain them through generations. So, these politicians are now thinking about replacing doctors in the posts of directors of health services with IAS personnel so that when large scale and massive corruptions begin, there would not be any third parties like doctors in the field but only politicians and bureaucrats. People’s first reaction would be to protest against non-doctors becoming directors of health services in the states but governments have a ready answer- there are MBBS degree holders among IAS officers. But what kinds of creatures are these IAS officers with just medical degree certificates kept in cupboards to replace doctors with long experiences in medical practice and patient care? If he was good at medicine, would he have gone to IAS?

22. Working men, housewives and students prefer seeing doctor in his home in the evening.

When health monopolies rule.

PART 3. TREATMENT IS PEOPLE’S BIRTH RIGHT

Those who go to see a doctor in his home are not the same ones who go to see him in hospital. Some may be, but the time these two categories choose to see a doctor is different. Those who can spare their day time go to hospital while those who cannot, go see him in his home in the evening. Housewives engaged in domestic chores who finish them only by the evening and workers who cannot take a day off from their work see the doctor in his home in the evening. When hospitalization becomes inevitable, schedules change and they both sacrifice time and work to get fit again. Children attending schools also are taken to doctors in the evening. Rude behavior of hospital staff, long queue, confusion as to where each department is located and delay in getting lab results are also deterrent factors driving patients away from government hospitals to doctors’ homes. In home consultancy, the doctor will give them sample medicines which most often would be more effective than those they buy from medical shops. When hospitalization needs, whether the doctor sends them to government or a private hospital is no one’s concern, as overcrowding in either one of these places would be reduced. If we are bold enough to subtract the number of working men, housewives and students from the patient population, there would only be old people, unemployed young men and girls and a few regular salaried employees whom government hospitals cater to. Even to them, the present hospital facilities are inadequate. Then what will happen if the former category also joins the queue? A working man will be able to go see a doctor only in the evening when there won’t be hospitals available. So, he goes see a doctor in his house. When this stops, do not think he will go to hospital by day which he cannot for fear of loosing job. He postpones treatment and learns to live with the problem for a time. The disease becomes chronic and when it is identified, it is too late. The man looses his job, his family looses the man and society looses that family. Thousands of such families vanish from before our eyes each day. Private practice of doctors is chiefly in the evening when hospitals won’t be available to patients. States which are more realistic to recognize this are situated in the north eastern borders of India. In Arunachal Pradesh, the state government started evening clinics from 5 pm to 7 pm for the convenience of workers, charging 150 rupees per person of which Rs.90 goes to the doctor, 30 to the hospital,15 to the supporting staff and15 to the government. Even though the rate is far higher than what a doctor normally charges, it is a modest admission of the services doctors had been doing in the evening in their spare time. Government in Assam was the most realistic to make Non Practicing Allowance optional.

23. When malnutrition, hunger and diseases are reported, tomorrow it will be picture of the Indian child shown replacing Somali Land children.

 Dr. Samuel D. Gross lecturing in amphitheatre. Thomas Eakins 1875.

Poor people need medical attendance and it is the duty of government to ensure it. Government is obliged to reduce its administrative expenses, curtail lavishness, conserve money and divert it to providing poor people with food, shelter, clothing and medical attendance. Hospitals are the first place where everything has to be free, for diseases attack us when we have no money in our pockets. Healing the citizen and making him fit to work again is what any decent man, relative or government shall do. Once he is healthy again and can look after his things he is discharged but in the hospital another sick would have taken his place by this time. That is the continuous service of healing hospitals undertake, making citizens fit to work again. It is when citizens are not fit to work that economy of a country collapses and that is why governments build hospitals; it is not out of charity and sympathy. When citizens cannot recover their fitness to work due to poorness, it is the economy of the country that becomes wrecked. Since poor people are the majority in countries like India, making hospitals costly and inaccessible to them will have its direct negative impact on the economy of the country. At one time, when world spoke about hunger, malnutrition and diseases, we saw in newspapers the picture of some SomaliLand children, not to disparage that nation, and we know that that country never recovered from its economic wreckdom. If hospital treatment costs higher and higher this way, tomorrow it will be the picture of the Indian child shown, with signs of a collapsed economy in the background.

24. Sanctioning long leave for doctors for going abroad was the lucrative business of politicians and bureaucrats for years.

Conditions existing in government hospitals are sad and dismal. Medicines are a rare commodity. Hospitals cannot purchase medicines directly from suppliers. There is a central purchasing committee headed by an I.A.S. officer and a director of health services. It is the duty of these bureaucrats to ensure that all indented medicines are ordered in advance and received into stock in all hospitals. It is not a duty of the doctor to stock the hospital, but that of the bureaucrat. These bureaucrats seldom care about stocking hospital pharmacies in time, and in every state they are held in corruption charges in connection with purchases of medicines and equipments. In states like Kerala, government constituted Medical Service Corporations for purchasing medicines and supplying them to hospitals. If medicines are not available in a hospital and doctors are signing prescriptions for purchasing them from outside, remember that there is always a corrupt, negligent and haughty bureaucrat behind this situation in that state. That is the case with non-working instruments and equipments also. In most hospitals, there are no doctors available to treat patients. Thousands of posts of doctors are lying vacant for years, the actual number of which will never be revealed. While there was acute shortage of doctors in hospitals, the IAS personnel in government were sanctioning long leave for thousands of doctors for taking up better employment abroad, for five years, ten years and then for fifteen years, if they had fat purses. We never heard of a health secretary or commissioner suspended, dismissed or prosecuted for doing this, based on virtual statistics made up by the interested and the involved. How much amounts changed hands for granting each of these leaves were never investigated. A few doctors remained in the states without going abroad for making money like others, contended with what they get as salaries in their native land. Those who loved their family to get burdened with looking after aged parents and educating children also did not go abroad. They turned instead to private practice to make up. It is they who are being persecuted, suspended or dismissed by politicians and bureaucrats now in the name of private practice. Their actual crime was, not going abroad and paying up these cut throats. So these authorities are angry as hell, gauged by the ferocity they show in raiding those doctors’ homes and clinics who stayed in the country and maintained health care in the state. Those working abroad escaped all punishment. Government even called many of them back but they did not even mind government’s summons to come back. Why should they mind, after paying up? They do have money made from foreign employment and they all are now immensely rich, envied by government secretaries. When they exerted the influence of their green currency on government secretaries and state ministers, there was no more calling them back from foreign employment. Those doctors who were loyal enough to their society and people to remain in their states have no mentionable bank balances and also have not money to be given to government secretaries and ministers. That is why they are ferociously being hunted for private practice, their only additional income for survival. The ugly thirst for money and insatiable greed of top level bureaucrats and politicians are what manifests in banning the private practice of loyal and committed doctors who did not go abroad for making money abandoning their patients.

25. India will become the only affordable place in the world for countries to send their citizens to for treatment, if this heinous lot does not interfere.

Why politicians cause overcrowding in hospitals?

The quality of health care in India is not altogether bad. People from many countries visit India for medical treatment because treatment expenses in India are much lower than those in most countries. Medical tourism is developing as a major source of income for India. Some people will mistake this situation to be warranting the raising of treatment expenses in India, especially those politicians and bureaucrats of the country who are eagerly waiting like hungry jackals for a piece of new meat. If this heinous lot does not interfere, India will become what it really, historically, shall be to more and more nations in the world: the only affordable place in the world for them to send their citizens to for treatment. Compare this achievement in the health sector of India, made possible through the dedication and selflessness of thousands and thousands of doctors, nurses and para medical staff, to the political and bureaucratic scenes from India which send the smell of more rot and degeneration each day to the world. Now you tell who are the worms in the apple, politicians and bureaucrats or doctors? Is it politicians and bureaucrats who are involved in crime, corruption and money scams in India or doctors? We can say that if a doctor gained extra money from private practice and made a fortune, he has put in an enormous amount of hard work. But what work did politicians and bureaucrats in India put in, to make this much money to put in Swiss bank accounts, domestic bank accounts, jewellery, land, buildings, mines and malls? If politicians and bureaucrats had not looted the country’s riches, there would have been left more than enough for providing absolutely free treatment to all citizens, for development of hospitals and for starting new ones where needed. Latest technologies could have been adopted, the most sophisticated machines and equipment purchased and the most effective medicines imported. There would have been no need for levying fees, including for major operations and transplants, and treatment would have remained totally free and state-of-the-art in the country. Those who need emergency treatment could have been air lifted or even flown abroad. Suppose an amount of One Lakh Crore Rupees were needed each year for doing all these, it is only a small fraction of what is stolen each year by these politicians and bureaucrats. Even stopping free treatment for these leeches alone would have liberated enough for purchasing modern medicines for all. Doctors and people on one side and politicians and bureaucrats who are totally alienated from people and turned into another type of beings on the other side- this war has been going on longer than logical and normal. This is a modern day Greco-Roman War, lonely brain power versus brutal brawn power, human intelligence versus bulls. We know, almost all our ideas and knowledge we make use of still today are the ancient Greeks’; the Romans are long gone.

Dedicated to one doctor of poor masses who gave whatever he gained to his patients and died in poverty.

We are dedicating this article to one good doctor of the poor masses who gave whatever he gained to his patients and passed away in poverty after many years’ service as a civil surgeon. Let his benevolence and kindness inspire those poor little children who got it from him to grow up as doctors like him. It is like a small ripple, made in a body of water with no boundaries, expanding eternally and travelling till the end of time, breathing solace to mankind.

Thank you dear reader for your patience and discipline in reading this article to the last and tolerating the opinions expressed here which are the author’s alone. You are free and invited to add your kind observations on this social issue which the author thinks is important.

Also please read Are Our Women And Children Safe In Our Hospitals? P.S.Remesh Chandran.

_____________________________
Pictures Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
_____________________________

Picture Credits and Expression of Our Gratitude

We are greatly indebted to the following gracious organizations and individuals for kindly making these pictures available to public, and for their magnanimity in sharing:

01. Please leave this alone. Shark96z.
02. Shall we tolerate interference? US Govt. Federal Archives.
03. Helping young patient in healing. US Navy Chief Journalist Al Bloom.
04. They still find time to play with patients. US Navy Staff Elizabeth Allen.
05. Brought back to health again by angels. US Navy staff Steven King.
06. Will they return to music of home bells? Michael Rivera.
07. Patience, diligence and care, their face marks. Pascal Dagnan Bouveret 1879.
08. Tools of a doctors trade to save lives. Joe Mabel.
09. When there were no health industries. Joe Mabel. Pestles, ceramic mortars.
10. When health monopolies rule. Joe Mabel. Apothecary in display.
11.  Dr Samuel D Gross lecturing in amphitheatre. Thomas Eakins 1875.
12. Why politicians cause overcrowding in hospitals? US Navy Staff Marcus
Suorez.

Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here:
https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles

To read about the life and people of Kerala, the author’s native land, visit KERALA COMMENTARY here.
For more articles of this kind, visit SAHYADRI BOOKS here or BLOOM BOOKS, TRIVANDRUM.

Tags

Anarchy In Medical Field, Bloom Books Trivandrum, Doctors Patients And Private Practice, Doctors Politicians And Bureaucrats, Doctors Private Practice, Essays On Health Issues, For W H Os Attention, Free Indian Hospital System, Future Of Health, Government Doctors Home Practice, Governments Against Doctors, Health Care In India, P S Remesh Chandran, Persecution And Hunting Of Doctors, Reforms In Health Policies, Sahyadri Books Trivandrum

Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra
Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of ‘Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book’.

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Comments

Ptrikha
14th Feb 2013 (#)

Nice analysis- but I think you could have written a bit shorte- or may be published this as PartI, II, III etc.

PSRemeshChandra
16th Feb 2013 (#)

When I was compiling my observations and feelings on this subject, I knew they were lengthening each day, all the while thinking who would publish this long article except my own sites and blogs. When it reached nearly 60 pages I decided I was not going to write a book but a long essay. So I stopped and edited it to 27 pages. I am more committed to this cause than to the convenience of dividing it into 3 parts and publishing separately. I hope readers won’t be distracted by the length. I had doubts whether Wikinut would object to the length but they didn’t for which I am grateful to them. And I am grateful to you dear Ptrikha for the first comment.

Madan G Singh
16th Feb 2013 (#)

Very exhaustive post.Well presented

PSRemeshChandra
16th Feb 2013 (#)

For decades we have been seeing our fellow human beings going to hospitals, spending up to the last of their earnings and borrowings and still dying away. A mankind with no diseases is everyone’s dream, which was my thought. But before long, I learned that everyone in the world does not share the same feeling. Not a few want diseases to be there and to spread, a pitiful kind of human imagination. Even though they make money, millions of others loose their lives for it. The persons who would very much wish to speak about these injustices in health are the doctors and poor patients. The first unfortunately do not have time or a history of protesting. The second do not know how to respond or the time of rest to do it. I am one among them and their advocate, you can guess which. I am but the medium through which the dead and the living dead speak. I stole every sentence, word and phrase from their very lips. Today or tomorrow the world will have to listen. Dear Madan G Singh, I am grateful you were one among those listeners.

The Send-Off. Wilfred Owen Poem. Reintroduced By P.S.Remesh Chandran.

052. The Send-Off. Wilfred Owen Poem. Reintroduced By P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

By PSRemeshChandra, 17th Jan 2013.  Short URL http://nut.bz/2m900dvw/

Posted in Wikinut>Essays

Jean Jacques Bebel, the Swiss historian has calculated that in the 5000 years of the recent history of the world, only 282 years were devoid of any kind of wars. Peace is the brief interval between two wars. A shot sent at a visiting Prussian Prince and his wife by a young student at Austria, and the life of millions was shattered and the way of life of the world changed for ever. Horrors of the First World War were sung by thousands but Wilfred Owens’ poems were brought hot from the war front.

The voice of the First World War passed away, knowing not about the fame that was to come to his name.

War imminent. U S Poster by Michael P. Whelan 1914

If World War First had a voice, we can say that it was Wilfred Owen, employed in active service, singing about the horrors of war and killed in action. In his brief life time, only four of his poems were published, but after his death, dozens of them were published and brought out as books. It is believed, many of them have not still come to light. Awarded the Military Cross for bravery posthumously, he passed away in poetic anonymity, knowing not about the fame that was to come to his name in future. Speaking for men in the trenches under his leadership was what he did through his poems, which, it seems, were all written during the last two years of his life, 1917 and 1918.

Soldiers sitting in trains, in funeral decorations, going to war front.

Pre war breakfast. Ferdinand Max Bredt.

Wilfred Owen was a British poet who was killed during action in the First World War. Insensibility, Strange Meeting and The Send-Off are his most famous anti-war poems in which he brings out the pity, realism and irony of war, reflecting his and his soldiers’ negative attitude towards war. He sees no romanticism or chivalry in war, but only death, destruction and decay. True, what else is there in war except the glory of victory for a few and the shame of defeat or death for many? But when defense of one’s motherland is concerned, opinions may vary and war may have to be justified. In the poem The Send-Off, soldiers in a mountain military camp are ordered to move out to war front, who sing their way to the railway siding-sheds and line the train with faces grimly gray, meaning faces darker than black. Decorations all white, like wreath and spray, are pinned to their breasts making them already looking like dead men clad in white, sitting in a row, all looking out the train windows. We are forced to think about the tremendous thoughts streaming through those troubled souls, someone’s father, brother, uncle, one among them certainly the poet himself. The strong sentiments these and the coming scenes create in our minds move us and carry us such away that we are forced to weep, cringe and shudder, which is this poet’s victory which he enjoys standing among the stars. How many of these soldiers will ever return?

A few more minutes’ sunshine and mountain air before going to the frontier, never to return. 

Going to war. Johann Peter Krafft 1813.

A military camp normally will be a nuisance to the local people there. So exactly there were none there to give them a proper send-off. Those people might only be glad to see them all go and never return. A few dull porters and a lone tramp were the only ones there to see them go and sorry to see them going too, for they were the ones who benefited from the camp, now losing their daily bread and jam. At least the mechanically punctual railway signals, unlike the local human beings, could have shown them a little of mercy by sparing them a few more minutes’ sunshine and mountain air. But they, the unmoved signals too, nodded heartlessly, a railway lamp winked to the guard and the train began to move, all in time. They were gone.

Local girls are what add colour to mountain military camps. Farewell sisters.

Writing to father in war. Eastman Johnson 1863.

True, the soldiers were not soldiers but they were all hushed up heaps of wrongs and evil doings, the poet admits. They did wrong to the villagers and they will be doing wrong on the war front too. Therefore their losses in battle, limb or life, needn’t be regretted. All military movements are secret and under cover of night. So the people never heard to which war front these soldiers were being sent. As everywhere, the local girls were what added colour to the monotonous life in the upland camp. Romances might have budded and nipped. Tears and sighs might have been shed in darkness, and weeping farewells told in whispers. To meet and part, that is the soldier’s life. And they, the village girls, had jokingly asked them boys: cousins, will you ever return? The soldiers had mocked their words then, but after feeling the dead heat of the battle front, the poet wonders, whether they would still be mocking those meaningful words of the village women.

For those who return from field to camp alive, trodden paths would be half-forgotten in their semi-madness.

Help daddy gone to war. Norman Lindsay 1915.

Soldiers gone to war front have a lesser chance of survival and returning alive to their camp, the least in those times. Direct combat was characteristic of military operations, till this war ended, when it gave way to covert operations, carpet bombing from sky and if possible, nerve gas and nuclear attacks. But in that dawn of 20th century, war techniques had not progressed much from the primitive. Only a few of them may return perhaps, too few to receive a proper reception of bells and drums and yells. And those who do return will be invalid, silent and thirsty apparitions, not walking but creeping back silent to still village wells, up half-known roads, yearning for a place to lower their weary bodies on. Even the once-familiar roads would be half-forgotten in their semi-madness, after having gone through the unspeakable horrors of war.

Entered the services of the church, found it hopeless for the poor, and condemned it.

Mountain military camp entrance. U S Federal Govt.

Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 and brought up in a religious atmosphere by his parents. His full name was Wilfred Edward Salter Owen. Fallen from fortune, this family could scarcely provide for the education of their four children; Owen served as a teacher-student and matriculated. Theologically trained by his mother, the Bible influenced him during this period. In the Reading University, he studied botany and old English. To earn boarding, lodging and tuition fees, he served as an assistant to the vicar at Dunsden parish, this close familiarity leading to contempt of church later. Reluctance of church to get involved in helping and alleviating the pain of the poor was what infuriated him to condemn church. Disillusioned by church, he left England for France and lived there for a while tutoring English and French in private homes when war broke out.

The mother and son stood looking across the sun-glorified sea, looking towards France with broken hearts, saying goodbye to each other.

In France, Owen staying and working near Pyrenees Mountain Ranges remained totally oblivious of war for a time. But copies of The Daily Mail newspaper his mother sent to him from England opened his eyes and he began to regularly go to a nearby hospital, acquaint with a doctor and inspecting war casualties brought there each day. At last he could no longer endure his impatience and in 1915, returned to England and volunteered to fight. He was sent again to France to fight in 1916 where from he was brought back wounded and shocked for recuperating. Before going to France for war, he and his beloved mother Susan Owen ‘stood looking across the sun- glorified sea towards France with breaking hearts, saying good bye to each other’ when the son quoted Rabindranath Tagore’s words ‘when I go from hence, let this be my parting word’. Susan Owen is known to have written a letter to Tagore when he was in England. We don’t know for sure whether her letter reached Tagore after her simply writing ‘Tagore, London’ in the address column of the envelope, but we certainly know about the reputation, efficiency and dignity of the British Postal Service, especially during the war period. 

Publication of his poems in time would have prevented Viet Nam nightmare.

Reconnaissance before attack. Pedro Americo 1871.

Enlisted in 1915 into Rifles Officers’ Corps in England, shell-shocked in mortar explosion in a trench in France, and removed of all romanticism for war, he was removed to War Hospital and brought back to England for recuperating. His romantic ideas of war faded when his soldiers and he had to go through gas attacks, sleeping for months in the open in deep snow and frost, loosing friends to death and the stench of rotting dead blanketing the earth all around. War in his eyes now became just a political equation, unbalanced. No wonder he had to be admitted in the psychiatric department of the hospital. His were the same psychic experiences thousands of Viet Nam War Veterans went through decades later. Publication of his poems and experiences in time would have prevented altogether the nightmare we called Viet Nam and resulted in the governments’ adopting a more humane attitude towards soldiers. 

Back to regiment from safety, to die with loved friends and comrades.

Even though Owen from his youth very much wished to become a poet and was impressed by the writings of Keats and Shelley, his actual writing of poems which made him world famous were written during the fifteen months he spent in trenches in the war front in 1917 and 1918. The war which once shocked him then seemed to thrill him, the reason for which can be attributed to the poetic sentimentality and recklessness to be with his loved friends and comrades in the war front in the days of their misery. Certainly like all poets or cowards, on regaining health and fitness, he could have left war and lived in security and safety after released from the War Hospital. He indeed had joined or formed an intelligent literary circle there in Edinburgh during the days of his recuperation. But instead, he returned to his regiment, to be killed days later, just before the war ended. In fact, his friends and family were eagerly waiting for his return when the news of truce reached them. The news of his death reached his village on November 11, 1918 along with the bells of armistice and peace. What horrifies us is the vain death of a brilliant poet in duty who filled his poems with the futility of war. It was the sacrifice of a poetical fame for fine citizenry. 

Would Owen have lived longer if he was recognized as a published poet and also given the Military Cross?

Burn crops so that enemy won’t eat. Emanuel Leutse

Rejoining duty on fitness, he was delegated to lead a party to storm the enemy positions in a village in Ors. He seized a German machine gun and used it to kill a number of Germans. He was shot on the bank of a canal and killed while trying to cross the canal, only days before the war ended. He always considered him as a remarkable war poet, who he actually was, but only four of his poems had been printed by any publishers in his life time. That too was only because he happened to be the editor of the magazine The Hydra published by the War Hospital at Craig Lock hart, Edinburgh where he recuperated. And this Hydra Magazine had only a very limited circulation among the patients, doctors, nurses and staff of that hospital, a very discouraging situation for any poet. What would have happened had he not been shell shocked and admitted there but died directly in action? Would fate have changed his destiny if he had been given due recognition as a published war poet by printers…? He always sought in secret the Military Cross for his supremacy as the most talented war poet of his times, but it was awarded only after his death, in 1919. What if Military Cross had been awarded earlier while he lived…?

Personally manipulated a captured enemy machine gun and inflicted heavy losses on the enemy.

What the other side feels. Horace Vernet 1814.

The citation to the Military Cross awarded to the poet reads: ‘2nd Lt, Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, 5th Battalion. For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in the attack on the Fonsomme Line on October 1st/2nd, 1918. On the company commander becoming a casualty, he assumed command and showed fine leadership and resisted a heavy counter-attack. He personally manipulated a captured enemy machine gun from an isolated position and inflicted considerable losses on the enemy. Throughout he behaved most gallantly’. Even after this Military Cross awarded for his gallantry, the world was not willing to acknowledge his poetry. Today, Wilfred Owen is a synonym for war poetry but for having been presented with this much fine war literature to read, we owe our debt to his family. He sent 600 letters to his loved mother who kept them all safe, from which was the war front feelings, emotions and experiences of Owen were discerned later. His sister donated these letters to the University of Oxford where people can still see them. His brother collected his manuscripts and helped bringing out his poems as a book.

Writing boldly about the horrors of war was his catharsis to escape from shell shock trauma.

American marines in Belleau Wood. Georges Scott.

Was Wilfred Owen overly influenced by friends like Siegfried Sassoon and physicians like Arthur Brock is still a thing of debate, which they did more or less. Sassoon himself was an accomplished poet who advised Owen to abandon the old style he followed since when he was ten years old and turn to more seriously writing about the futility of war. We shall dismiss all critics’ allegations of them sharing an attachment more than manly. Arthur Brock treated him when he was admitted in the War Hospital following shell shock trauma and advised him not to try to forget the horrors of war which haunted his mind, but to go straight continuing to boldly write about them which would serve as his catharsis, a fine clinical advice in those times of Sigmund Freud. Anyway, since joining the army and fighting in the front line, we see a dramatic change in the poetic style of Owen. Every soldier who took part in the world war underwent war horrors and trauma which went untold in the chronicles of historians. With Owen putting them into words after actually experiencing them, recorded them in livid humility for future generations to see and evaluate in times to come.

World War started with liberation, and ended with cessation, annexation and colonization.

The dead soldier. Joseph Wright of Derby 1789.

Liberation of Belgium was the objective with which the First World War started but war politics soon turned into the objective of grabbing colonies for future which the civilians did not recognize but poets like Wilfred Owens and philosophers like Bertrand Russell did, and they reacted through their writings to rouse civilian conscience. Theirs was not blind rage against wars but mature protest against abandoning the honoured causes of war and turning to use war to grab colonies. Owen’s poem ‘The Strange Meeting’ even went to creating the extreme human situation of a dead American soldier meeting a dead German soldier whom he had killed and listening to his version of the war, the enemy finally becoming a friend.

The front line picture painted by Wilfred Owen in The Send- Off.

What is left of a war. Juan Manuel Blanes 1879.

Publishers of his times ignored him, perhaps due to their inability to cope with or even go through the great quantity of war poetry poured in each day. He, as an acclaimed poet and as a civil servant dedicated to those soldiers under his care, wanted only for his poems to be read by all and the people to open their eyes to the futility and horrors of war. Who can say this brilliant young man who sacrificed his life for his country would try to limit the circulation of his poems by wishing not to be read here again? We think it only just and fair to include his lines here, without which this appreciation won’t be complete or contained. See the front line picture painted by Wilfred Owen in The Send-Off.

THE SEND- OFF * WILFRED OWEN

Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their way
To the siding-shed,
And lined the train with faces grimly gay.
Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray
As men’s are, dead.

Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp
Stood staring hard,
Sorry to miss them from the upland camp.
Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp
Winked to the guard.

So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.
They were not ours:
We never heard to which front these were sent.
Nor there if they yet mock what women meant
Who gave them flowers.

Shall they return to beatings of great bells
In wild trainloads?
A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,
May creep back, silent, to still village wells
Up half-known roads.

______________________________
Pictures Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
______________________________

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Appreciation Studies, Armistice In Ww1, Bloom Books Trivandrum, British Poets, English Poems, First World War, Futility Of War, Irony Of War, Killed In Action, Military Cross, Military Poets, Mountain Military Camps, P S Remesh Chandran, Pity Of War, Reintroduced Literature, Sahyadri Books Trivandrum, Soldier Poets, The Send Off, Truce In World War First, War Front Action, War Poems, Wilfred Owen, Years 1917 And 1918

Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra
Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of ‘Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book’.

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Comments

Sivaramakrishnan A
18th Jan 2013 (#)

My fervent hope and prayers are for war and strife to end. Am I being idealistic? So be it! We have come thus far and we know wars kill and affect the most innocent. The heroes who are decorated for bravery also end up with mental anguish at being part of the insane violence. I believe few start wars and incite their citizens. With the help of technology the majority should unite and not fall into their vicious hands time and time again. Like a World War veteran reminisced – what use a piece of paper of peace in the end for those who are killed and maimed? Thanks for this wonderful post – siva

PSRemeshChandra
30th Jan 2013 (#)

War is an unnecessary expense in which nations waste resources and innumerable units of precious time and man power. To defeat another country, we spend unimaginably huge sums of money. Most often those countries could be bought with only a fraction of this money. Such futile and waste is war because it never improves mankind. Thank you dear Sivaramakrishnan A for your informative and inspiring note.

Md Rezaul Karim
20th Jan 2013 (#)

Wow! what a nice piece of article to read, wonderfully attached paintings and pictures. Thank you Ramesh ji.

PSRemeshChandra
30th Jan 2013 (#)

When I saw these paintings and pictures for the first time, I thought they were waiting for the right literary creation. Wilfred Owen’s Send Off suited them most. I am immensely thankful to those painters and photographers who were moved like Owen by the horrors of war, to create these masterpieces. I hope the painters, photographers and the poet would supplement each other. Thank you dear Md Rezaul Karim for caring to leave a comment.

Madan G Singh
22nd Jan 2013 (#)

A wonderful post. You have put in a lot of effort. Congratulations

PSRemeshChandra
30th Jan 2013 (#)

When I read your articles in Wikinut, I feel the same as you noted here. What can I say when a compliment comes my way from an accomplished writer like you? Thank you dear Madan G Singh.

Sivaramakrishnan A
31st Jan 2013 (#)

Thank you RameshChandra. It is time war and violence are removed from the face of the earth. What use making all the arms for them to fall into “wrong” hands! What use a piece of peace treaty for those killed, maimed and orphaned? Even the survivors and victors carry severe scars mentally. Politicians start the war making use of the innocent people creating hatred. And the less said about religious fanatics of all hues the better – all Gods can defend themselves, thank you! They don’t need our help! Best regards – siva.

Madan G Singh
1st Feb 2013 (#)

Thank you for the nice words, but I feel I am ordinary. But I really appreciate your writing.

The Healing Artist. Scenes From The Life Of Jesus Christ 2. Paintings Of James Tissot. P.S.Remesh Chandran.

051. The Healing Artist. Scenes From The Life Of Jesus Christ 2. Paintings Of James Tissot. P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

By PSRemeshChandra, 31st Dec 2012.  Short URL http://nut.bz/31l0a4s4/

Posted in Wikinut>Essays

Healing is an art, closely associated with divinity. We consider doctors who heal our diseases as gods. It is the learning and spiritual cleanliness of the doctor that heals the diseases in most occasions. To heal the sick, we needn’t possess the required conventional medical qualifications necessarily; the qualities of ardence and purity will do instead. The science and art of healing is closely connected with the word. Word here means, and applications and manifestations of sound.

They taught Jesus the layouts of miracles in the north eastern Himalayan kingdoms of India.

What makes some people capable of doing things which others consider impossible feats and miracles? Some people have the ability to foresee future and know about what is going to happen in the far distant future, near future, or at the next moment, but knowing about future is a heavy knowledge, unbearable to man, something an ordinary man cannot bear. If two persons sit at one place and one of them describes in a song whatever are happening there around them, beginning with what were happening at that place in the past, yesterday, today, and then coming to what is happening around them at that very moment, and then nearly coming to describing what are going to happen at the very next moment, he cannot complete the song for the other person would have passed through a phase of alienation from his self and swooned. First he would suffer nausea, then his knees would weaken, limbs stiffen and then everything would be darkness. We will be bewildered at the power of the word. We cannot even do this as an experiment because what will we do if the other person does not recover but passes away? Human corpuscles are unable to pass through the barriers of time, even for a short while, even while in an experiment. Once we know about what is going to happen next, we will loose our normal self, which is tuned and aligned to a state of knowing not much about the future. Ignorance of future is the bestial bliss which makes possible for life to continue, along with the power to forget, the safety valve which saves the brain from overcrowding and collapsing.

Touch, smell, hearing, sight and taste are not the end of senses; we will gain more as evolution progresses.

He heals the lame. James Tissot.

Knowing about future is a faculty like touch, smell, hearing, sight and taste. When man first made his appearance on earth, he certainly was not equipped with all these five senses. The first amoeba could not certainly see and listen. Senses were gained one by one from mother earth through Aeons as the first inanimate element evolved into an animate organism, then into multi cellular organisms and then into beings with fully developed body systems. During these stages of evolution and development, each capability of sense came our way gradually. Thus we now have five senses. Who believe it is the end? More senses or faculties would be released to us as and when we become riper enough to bear them safely and usefully, after passing through higher stages of many more evolutions. Materials for more exotic senses or faculties are resting in the ground earth for their time to come before they could be passed on to humans and other beings that would inhabit the earth in the future.

If human corpuscles and soil could be brought to the medium of sound, faculties could be exchanged from earth to human body.

Resurrection of the widow’s son.

Suppose a man, through his perseverance or gift, gains in advance any of these future faculties. It may be the ability to walk above water or see into the future or heel a person in distress. Our normal tendency would be to deny the existence of that very faculty. It is like a blind man sure denying the existence of sight or a deaf man denying the existence of hearing. What we do not have experienced, we tend to deny existing. How can a blind person know that the swan and the milk are white, and how can a deaf person normally know that music is sweet? So, when we hear that a man has walked above water or that a man has seen the Sun enveloped in thick icy clouds, moving lonely through the expanse of the universe in a future time, we will say that it is just his imagination, that he is having fits of delusion, or even schizophrenia. Philosophers and scientists have always believed that, if soil and human corpuscles could be made to come into a common medium, at least for a while, senses and faculties could be gained, taken in or released, exchanged. Many ancient Indian philosophers believed that that common medium is sound, the basic medium upon which the construction of this universe, stone, grass and human body is based, and they, accordingly, even formulated appropriately synchronized sound systems in the right, desirable modulations and frequencies in the form of Mantras, the application of which evidently gained for them those rare unexplained faculties, with which to successfully treat incurable diseases, raise the dead from the grave or take leisurely walks between the realms of space and time. It is also true that every kind of matter, in its final analysis, reveals rapid motion of particles, and that what is on the other side of such rapidly moving particles, functioning as a base for the existence of those particles and also functioning as the prime constituent in the construction material of those particles is sound. Every religion in the world believes that the universe originated from sound. The Indian philosophers went further and even defined that sound which in their opinion is ‘Aum’ which actually has no exact beginning or end as it should be. Long meditations in the still and silent Himalayas might have helped them find this ultimate truth.

Pain, fatigue, fever, irritation and itching make us incapable of calling out energy from reserves and attend to the single task of healing.

The healing of the officer’s son.

When lame men walk, blind men see, dumb men sing in the presence of holy men, we would consider those as miracles, but to those holy men, these people have just healed. They are here in this world to deliver relief and the only thing the sick and disabled need to have in their conscience is faith. Faith is what gives the ailing person the positive energy to call out all reserve energy from the different parts of the body and soul and move them forward like an army towards the sole objective of correcting the system error and healing the person of his ailment. Numerous distractions such as pain, fatigue, fever, irritation and itching make one incapable of concentrating and commanding all energies from their reserves to get them engaged in attending the single task of healing. Speech and word is very much involved in the healing of the sick. Jesus very much liked to talk and be always with people, possibly always to remain in the middle of them. Travelling through Galilee, talking about the principles of goodness, staying in their synagogues and wayside inns, he moved the minds of peoples to confidence and belief. Crowds came to him bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and the many others, laid them at his feet and he heeled them all with just his kind words and touch. Once they prayed fervently with their soul with concrete belief for their healing, deliverance came their way and the miracle happened. It is their faith that heal them, not actual divine interference.

Life can be called back before the soul finally decides to disentangle from the body. 

The healing of Peter’s mother-in-law.

Raising dead men from the grave is an easy thing, for those who know how to do it. It is thought to be possible to call back the fleeting life before the soul finally decides to disentangle from the body. Sometimes the life would not have left but have plunged into an unrecognizable coma, the soul sitting on the narrow ledge between life and death. Most often, a strong vocal command or a shake would only be needed to call the life back, provided the voice or shake resembles that of a close person of long intimacy. Doctors who are very kind, considerate and deliquescent to their patients would have many such stories to tell you. Sometimes death deprives a woman of double privilege. A woman who looses both her husband and her son to death is thrown to destitution and poverty with no one to take care of her. While travelling through the city of Nain, accompanied by a great crowd, Jesus saw another crowd coming out of a town carrying the coffin of the only son of a widow. Her grief was such great and uncontrolled that Jesus was moved in his heart and said to her, ‘do not cry woman’. He went up to the coffin, touched it and said: ‘Young man, I say you to get up’. The young man did sit up and begin to talk as if he had not died. Jesus gave her son back to the grief-stricken mother; the first resurrection done by Christ in his earthly life.

Word sent through the wind will reach the target and heal. 

Suffering little children come unto me.

When the mighty Roman Empire fell, the world rejoiced because such unjust, haughty and cruel was their administration. The famed Roman Justice was nothing but the political and economic suppression of heathens, pagans and other civilized nations and races. No empire since then has been successful in this world in saving itself from falling, for they were all based on and founded upon unkindness. But occasionally in history, here and there, we see officers with good intentions and better understanding, employed by these administrations. Many of them were noble and brave men who believed that Jesus was a saviour. Seeing the sufferings of Jesus during his trial, judgment and crucifixion, we shall not think that all Roman officers took part in them with pleasure. One such officer, a Centurion, walked 20 miles to request Jesus to come to his house and save his dying son, some say it was his slave. 20 miles was not a short distance one way. Jesus had come a second time to Cana of Galilee from Judea, the first being when he attended a wedding there and turned water into wine. The officer pleaded Jesus to come to Capernaum, his village, and save his son. Jesus just told him, you may go, your son will live, do have faith, and that he is not coming. While travelling back, the noble man’s servants met him on the way and informed him that his son was recovering. The time he began to recover was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him that his son would live. Jesus told the man and his disciples that miracles alone would make them believers and so let it be happening.

God does not allow complications or intricacies, which is why he and we resemble children.

Healing of lepers in the mountain.

Once, the Disciples of Christ came to ask him who the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is. His answer was, unless we become like little children in their humbleness, we shall never be any where near the path to the kingdom of heaven. Children are the most like god, resembling him most in their humbleness, purity and radiance. The many thousands of children who never have heard his word or name also are equally beloved to him. The line ‘suffer the little children to come unto me’ is a most misquoted and misunderstood one. It does not mean, make children suffer so that they can come unto me, but let all suffering children come unto me. God does not allow complications, or intricacies, that is why he most resembles children.

Mary was the person who healed the person who healed all people. 

The sick awaiting the passage of Jesus.

Mary of Magdalene is believed to be a very chaste woman who led so chaste a life that ‘the devil mistook her to be the one who was to bear Christ into the world’ and he sent seven demons to trouble her and spoil her. She represents the age when Christianity and Church were matriarchal before a Pope was appointed to turn it into patriarchal to suit Romans. In ancient icons, she is portrayed with a pot of ointment, balm for the distressed, and as a wound healer. Actually she was the person who healed the person who healed all people. She was the intelligence against which Christ grinded and sharpened his convictions before preaching them to the world. What Christ lacked in worldly experiences, emotions and feelings, she possessed in plenty, the eve in the garden.

Even when John had confidence in his betrothed, they did not have.

The ointment of the Magdalene.

Mary Magdalene was one of the two persons who guarded the tomb of Jesus, the other being his mother, Mary the Virgin. She was the first mortal to witness the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and also the first person authorized to tell the apostles of the resurrection. She spent her last years with Jesus’ mother and her remains are contained in Constantinople. Hers is the life of equality with men, in its holiness and greatness. We know, Pilatos was under authority of the Roman administration. Mary after the death of Christ straight went to see Emperor Tiberius in Rome and made a formal complaint about the cruelty and distinction he showed to Jews. The emperor was convinced Roman justice was denied to Jews in Israel as a result of which Pilatos was recalled to Rome, recalled to what kind of Roma justice we needn’t to know just like we needn’t to know about what Judas did to himself after giving back the money he received for pointing out his master. Mary walked the earth with Jesus, his companion, soother and inspiration. As a grown up Aramaic youth could not walk alone, she served as his answer. She was the beloved, betrothed and the bride of John the Evangelist who, when he became a devoted preacher, ordained his bride on a godly mission. There were stories of Mary was Jesus’ wife but John denied it as a false story. We know, it was not John who betrayed Jesus but Judas Iscariot. In the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries and throughout middle ages, Mary was considered and worshipped as the apostle to the apostles since she was sent to inform the apostles of the resurrection, as confirmed by John’s words. In the early church, an apostle was a person who was delegated to tell the world the good news that he would come again. Mary emerged as the greatest visionary and leader after the death of Jesus. Equally intelligent and dedicated as Jesus in god’s services, Mary but considered him as her master and teacher, the fact which drew John’s admiration that prompted him to make her become the most ideal student and follower. Gospel of John stands out alone as a lasting monument to the intellectual achievements of this trio.

Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Martha at Bethany is the Jewish Roman equivalent of the Greek school of thought. 

Mary Magdalene at the feet of Jesus.

Like Mary Magdalene, Jesus and John constituted a historical trio in Christianity, Mary, Martha, Jesus and Lazarus constituted an unforgettable quartet. These sisters of Lazarus whom Christ resurrected from the grave, who were born in the village of Magdalene in Galilee and lived in Bethany, marks the women’s work behind the strongest philosophy in the world. They were the furnishers and providers for the travelling ministry of Christ. Both were Christ’s pupils, often competing with each other for his attention and for their positions. While Mary was the philosopher, Martha was the practical who fed the philosophers. Because they were poor, their life was not recorded with care in the chronicles of those times. Martha’s home at Bethany became the usual haunt of Jesus and his followers, for there they would get at least food to go on with their endless debates and philosophic speculations. Martha welcomed, boarded and fed all journeymen missionaries as well. She was a church unto herself. In those times, their culture was a mix of Roman, Greek and Jewish, all male-dominant and considering claiming to be god a heresy, warranting death by burning at the stake. Martha was the first person who boldly declared that Jesus was the Messiah, the saviour whom their prophets and their patriarchs claimed would liberate Jews from yokedom. When all male followers of Christ ran away for fear of arrest during crucifixion, these women were those who stayed, fearlessly. It is not strange to notice that these women’s and Lazarus’ devotion to Jesus was above everything usual and normal for that time. The reason was, it originated from the reverence of healed people to their doctor, which if seen in that sense, anyone in the modern day world can understand. They indeed had problems, and Jesus healed them, and hence their extra ordinary belief, allegiance and loyalty. Once enlightened through Christ’s own teaching, there were none more enlightened than them. It was that simple.

If twenty long centuries failed to understand the meaning of a woman’s act, what can one century of totally fame-thirsty academicians do?

Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Martha at Bethany.

What can a young lady do before her worshipful master is sent to death? We know what Plato did before his master was given hemlock to drink in the prison was weeping, cursing the authorities and pledging to take revenge. Mary also did what she could do at that moment, in her femininity, with the resources available to her which was washing his feet with precious ointment and drying it with her unbound hair, with the whole male population of the town looking, before going to storm the emperor’s gates in Rome with accusations of injustice done on Jews by judge Pilatos. It was her kind of homage to her master who stayed in her home. She truly represents the kind of people Jesus attracted. Learned scholars have inappropriately and unnecessarily gone to the extreme absurdity of finding this woman’s hair as a symbol of her sexuality, and her gesture, a last attempt to seduce Christ. What was this young woman ought to have done as her last service to her loved master who was saying farewell to the world, lying there nailed and pinned to the cross, with the angry throng of emperor’s soldiers yelling for his blood all around? Leave him there, run to the house and bring clothes and water to wash his blood and sweat running from his nailed organs, before sending him clean and presentable to the other world? Pronouncements of many modern day researchers and writers look like Judas Iscariot and Judge Pilatos are reborn every day. Mosquitoes, even below a cow’s milk dugs, will look for blood only.

21st century scholars are now unrolling newly discovered papyrus rolls to prove that it was a wife’s send-off, not a beloved disciple’s, probably some papyrus rolls hidden by the chauvinist church for the exact purpose of to be rediscovered and revealed in modern times. Why is it Christianity still have only male ministers? We have yet to see a matriarchal pope or even a bishop or a vicar. If twenty long centuries failed to understand the meaning of a woman’s act, what can one century of totally fame-thirsty academicians do? Mother Mary and Saint John had confidence in their son and bride, but they do not have!

If Mary seems to get the full credit for saving Christianity, create another Mary and halve her credit.

Blind leading the blind to a ditch.

We know, when we are a child, we are washed by the closely related women in our family, not by men in the family. When we grow up and are able to look after ourselves, they absolve themselves of this responsibility and make us begin to wash ourselves. When they outlive us and we are dead, we again become their child and they wash us before we are cremated. The same thing happened with Jesus also. After lowering from the cross, he was washed by the women of his family, including Mary Magdalene of course, but our learned rabbis in the modern western world, find this as a proof to establish that Mary was Jesus wife, not adopted sister of the family. They adore the mutually respectful associateship of Sartre and Madame Bowery but not Christ’s sacred associations because, new theories for disparaging these ancient philosophers and educators are their stepping stones to instant fame. As a last trick, based on texts which never were written by contemporaries, they tried to prove that Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany were two different persons, so that credit due to Mary for saving Christianity would be halved. Actually Bethany with the assemblage of Mary, Jesus, the twelve learners and the numerous visiting journeymen scholars under the patronage of selfless Martha was the Jewish-Roman equivalent of Plato’s Academy in Greece, gone to full swing five centuries earlier. They would even question the relationship between Plato and Socrates, even not considering the existence of Xanthippe as the master’s wife, but considering only the usual male relations prevalent in those times. They never understand philosophers and revolutionaries, male and female, but think those sets of minds are calibrated like their’s. Only those who get exhilarated at the intellectual pleasures of indulging deeply and freely in ideological battles going around them would know about the magnificence of psyche ruling over physique. Academics and scholars of 2000 years strove in vain to defame the philosophic brilliance of this Jewish school of thought but they forgot the single fact that it was western, fraught in the ascetic cast of the east, come to the world to stand. Remember what Jesus spoke in the temple of Jerusalem: god’s intentions are not understood by the learned and the clergy, it is revealed only to the ordinary laymen and children.

We are indebted to two great repositories for keeping these pictures for people’s viewing.

The First Part of this series, Rise Of A Star. Scenes From The Life Of Jesus Christ 1, can be read here.

The next parts will soon be published.

______________________________________________________
Pictures Courtesy: First and foremost we are to thank those citizens of Brooklyn City who took a public collection and kept these pictures in public custody. We are immensely indebted to those two prestigious Institutions Wikimedia Commons and Brooklyn Museum for magnanimously making available these pictures to the public. And our thanks and respect goes to James Tissot for rendering these paintings beautifully for posterity.
______________________________________________________

Link to Brooklyn Museum: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/

Link to Wikimedia Commons page:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:The_Life_of_Jesus_Christ_by_James_Tissot

Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here:
https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles

To read about the life and people of Kerala, the author’s native land, visit KERALA COMMENTARY here.

For more articles of this kind, visit SAHYADRI BOOKS here or BLOOM BOOKS, TRIVANDRUM.

Tags

Bloom Books Trivandrum, Christ Pictures, Jesus, Jesus Manifests His Power, Jesus Paintings, Jesus Pictures, Jesus Teaching, Jesus The Christ, Jewish Roman School Of Thought, Life Stories, Mary Magdalene, P S Remesh Chandran, Paintings Of James Tissot, Photo Essays, Reintroduced Literature, Sahyadri Books Trivandrum, True Stories, Water Colour Paintings Life Of Jesus Christ

Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of ‘Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book’.

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 Madan G Singh

8th Jan 2013 (#)

An excellent post and very illuminating as well.

Rise Of A Star. Scenes From The Life Of Jesus Christ 1. Paintings Of James Tissot. P.S.Remesh Chandran.

050.

Rise Of A Star. Scenes From The Life Of Jesus Christ 1. Paintings Of James Tissot. P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

By PSRemeshChandra, 28th Dec 2012.  Short URL http://nut.bz/2nuw71e4/
Posted in Wikinut>True Stories

In the modern day world, tracing the life of a great man is not difficult, for there would be photographs of his taken by contemporaries in his time. But what would we do to observe the life of a great man who lived among us before 2000 years? We have the only option of searching for paintings that may exist in castles, caves, churches, monasteries or archives. Luckily, to view the like of Jesus, we have a unique collection of paintings done by a single person, saved at a single repository.

Holy Virgin Mary in her early life, a maiden.

The Holy Virgin in her youth. James Tissot.

There have been thousands of paintings based on Jesus Christ’s life, done by hundreds of gifted painters in all countries, done in all centuries. These paintings include those done by such talented and gifted ones as Andrea del Castagno, Andrea del Verrocchio, Boticelli, Caravaggio, Dieric Bouts, El Greco, Filippino Lippi, Fra Angelico, Giovanni Bellini, Hieronymus Bosch, Leonardo da Vinci, Ligier Richier, Lotto, Mark Antokolski, Nicolas Poussin, Perugino, Peter Paul Rubens, Piero della Francesca, Piero di Cosimo, Pieter Brueghel, Raffaello Sanzio, Rogier van der Weyden, Signorelli, Tintoret, and Titian. Most of them are lost, some of them are in public museums and churches and not a few of them are in private collections. Not one can see them all even if he is blessed with so many lives. There have been artists who attempted picturizing scenes which he liked and admired, and also there have been other artists who attempted painting all the important scenes like a historian whether he liked and admired those scenes or not. There have been much differences in drawing the face of Christ. There have also been much differences in the artists’ research and learning the costumes, backgrounds and body postures in Jesus’ times. There have been excellently bright pictures done in vibrant colours by artists who could afford costly materials. And there also have been equally brilliant pictures done by poor artists on cheap materials who could not afford even the buying of their daily bread. They all shared one thing in common- exhilaration at the simplicity and humbleness of that divine life. If you want to follow the life of Jesus with your eyes, without straining unnecessarily to read printed words, your choice of artists are very limited for the brightness of the picture and the likeness of the face of Jesus changes with each artist. The author’s selection is James Tissot, and the readers can have the privilege of reconstructing the life of Christ with other painters. Anyway it would be a worthwhile attempt for we would be going through everything man was born with, passing through anger, darkness, tears and sunshine, especially learning the meaning and purpose of tears.

Testing of the suitors of the Holy Virgin.

Testing of the suitors of the Holy Virgin.

A fine collection of scenes from the life of Jesus Christ, done by a 19th century painter named James Tissot is saved and collected at one place, the Brooklyn Museum. He did these paintings in water colour over a charcoal base on woven paper, all four hundred of them, probably commissioned by a church, taking only six years from 1886 to 1894 to finish them. We cannot all go there and see these pictures and go through the life of Jesus Christ once again, but they magnanimously shared those magnificent paintings with Wikimedia Commons, a few of which are reintroduced here in the order of their happening in the real life of that great revolutionary. We are greatly indebted to both these great institutions for making this endeavor possible. Links to both these institutions are provided at the end of this article to lead readers to these two repositories which made this great service of storing safe the scenes from the eventful life of the saviour of this world, a saviour spiritually and physically.

It is the early life of Jesus Christ that is pictured here, from the girlhood of the Blessed Mother, her betrothal to Saint Joseph, the anointment, the birth of infant Jesus among sheep and cows in a manger, the visit of the three magician priests from the East, the slaughter of all infants who might become a challenge to king Herodes, the flight of this holy family to Egypt, their sojourn in Egypt and their return from Egypt, the presentation of Jesus in the temple and the last picture of Jesus Christ carrying a wooden plank, before he vanished at the age of twelve years. There would be three more articles that would be published here, if circumstances permit. They are Jesus- The Healer, The Story Of A Crucifixion and What Happened After The Cross.

Betrothal of the Holy Virgin and Saint Joseph.

Betrothal of the Holy Virgin and Saint Joseph.

James Tissot, the French painter who lived in Paris and London during the years 1836 to 1902 abandoned all his other subjects when he was moved by the pictorial scopes of the New Testament. He painted nearly 400 of them within the six years between 1886 and 1894, all in the simplest of mediums, opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper. In Brooklyn Museum’s words, these paintings were hall marks of ‘archaeological exactitude and historical authenticity’. To learn the customs, costumes, architecture and landscape of the Holy Land, he travelled through the Middle East and took countless number of photographs and made innumerable number of drawings. These paintings were purchased by public subscription. The people of Brooklyn at the turn of the 20th century took a public collection called out by the newspaper Brooklyn Daily Eagle, purchased the paintings and made them available on public display at the Brooklyn Museum. The world has to thank them three for this great act of theirs which kept these pictures in public custody instead of reaching private archives.

The Annunciation. Fulfillment of divine intentions.

The Annunciation. James Tissot.

Like all mothers in the world, Mary also was a lovely young girl, attending dutifully the chores of a community life. Like all mothers, she also was betrothed to a person. The only difference was, since it was destined to give birth to a saviour of the world whom she will have to loose at an early age which was known to eastern sages, and also since she will have to undergo the hardest and severest trials in her life which would be shared by a man, her husband had to be carefully chosen to help facilitate the completion of the mission. So, her suitors were tested.

Birth of Jesus Christ in a humble cattle shed.

Birth of Jesus Christ in a humble cattleshed.

Annunciation, reincarnation, etc are alien to many communities and sects in the world but it was not so with the ancient Egyptians and Indians. Egyptian and Indian beliefs and faith are confident about the truth of both. Are we not all annunciations of our creator irrespective of our parents’ bodily relations? Are we not reincarnations of our ancestors, imitating them in speech, gesture, look, walk, conduct, and nature, everything, made possible by the mysterious messengers whom we call genes?

The adoration of the shepherds.

The adoration of the shepherds. James Tissot.

Population census in old times was different from now in that now enumerators come to our house but then people travelled to the city for their count and details to be taken. Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem to take part in the census but did not get a place for Mary to give birth to her child. They knocked on every door but could not find a place. Every house and public place been occupied, she got shelter in somebody’s cattle shed. There was none to attend Mary in her pains. God had chosen his son to have the lowliest and most humble place for his birth. The most innocent and worthy beings in the world, sheep and cows, witnessed the birth. Apart from the incessant snow and cold, it was the most stainless birth for a human. It was the simplest of people, belonging to the most ancient of professions, shepherds, who first came to see the baby, with presents of course. Great things start simple.

Three Magician Priests from the East, guided by a star, journeying to see the child.

The Magician Priests journeying. James Tissot.

Three magician priests in the east, probably in India, Tibet and Afghanistan, glimpsed the appearance of a new star in the sky and sensed that a divine birth has happened somewhere in the world. Star watching had been developed by then as a full fledged science among the ancient Indians and the Babylonians. These three magician priests from the east, or Magi in the short form decided to trace the child who would be very divine for his birth to be announced by the appearance of a new star. They decided to follow the path guided by the lonely star, the lode-star, wherever in the world that child might be. Bearing eastern presents like camphor and saffron, suffering hardships all the way, they travelled thousands of miles through snow-clad mountains and parching deserts, accompanied by their people, staff and spies, and finally reached where the star led.

The adoration of the three Magician Priests from the East.

Adoration of the Magician Priests. James Tissot.

The presence of so large a group of persons from the east cannot be hidden from the city authorities. They certainly had to pay a visit to Herodes. Either they might have been successful in revealing not the actual purpose of their journey or the exact place of their visit. A king can guess many things in his intelligence or his courtiers can. He already knew there would be challenges to his throne and that the challenge in only newly born. He ordered the killing of all newly-borns. Why the story of Christ is linked with the story of Christna we can guess now. Lord Krishna when he was born, was prophesied to have born to kill his uncle, the king Kamsa. He knew about the prophecy but did not know which child. Therefore he ordered killing of all newly borns. Krishna’s father folded him in a shawl and in heavy rains, while a huge snake provided umbrella protection, took him secretly to safety and hiding. Scholars believed, the names Christ and Jesus were given by the Hindus of India coining from Sanskrit which infuriated the Sanskrit-studied European Max Muller who attempted vainly to disprove this belief.

The massacre of the innocent children by King Herodes.

Massacre of the innocents. James Tissot.

Countless number of newborns were slaughtered by the king’s soldiers to prevent one among them growing up and de-throning him some day.

The flight of Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph and Infant Jesus into Egypt.

The flight into Egypt. James Tissot.

Look, the bent head of Mary, tilted down by the burden of the world’s sins and crimes, is what the author of this painting wanted the world to note. To save one’s child, to save the world, to rescue humanity, what persecutions and hardships will a mother have to undergo during her life? Since the birth of the child, never had she got a moment of solace or relief, except when looking at its tiny face.

The sojourn of a Holy Family in Egypt.

The sojourn in Egypt. James Tissot.

It is not the only time in world’s history that holy persons have had to flee. Lord Krishna and Prophet Muhammad Nabi also had to flee from pursuers at one time in their lives. Many have lived in exile, before returning to teach the world goodness. Sree Rama, Pandtava Princes in Mahabharatha and King Nala had to live in hiding for many years. They had to make their living at those times, obeying the customs of the land which gave them hiding, engaging in what occupations were available there.

The return from Egypt.

The return from Egypt. James Tissot.

Now the boy is grown up, nearly twelve years old. Watchful eyes of spies of the Magi might be following them from a distance. They know the boy would be recognized, and are prepared to take him with them to safety.

Jesus found in the temple.

Jesus found in the temple. James Tissot.

Presenting a child at the temple was a custom, not only in Jerusalem but in every ancient community. Jesus also was presented so soon as he was returned from Egypt. We know how authorities will become suspicious when a child 12 years old appears from nowhere all of a sudden, that too 12 years after the massacre of all new born babies in Jerusalem who might grow up as a threat to King Herodes’ throne. We have to assume that there were spies from the east, looking for any threats to the child and report back to the three magician priests.

The youth of Jesus before the time of his vanishing.

The youth of Jesus. James Tissot.

There has been debates on where Jesus had been during the years he vanished. It is only logical to assume that the three magician priests from the east took him back considering the child’s safety and the importance of his mission. They trained him in the north eastern kingdoms in India, moved him through Ladakh to Tibet and returned him to his place of mission after 18 years of education. It is not strange to note that most of the people in these north eastern states are now Christian and their native language is now English.

Note:

It is not irrelevant here to include a note of comment by the author, published elsewhere:

‘2000 years back, when this famous carpenter of Jerusalem, fleeing from the traitors and aggressors and wormy authorities of his land to secure his life and save his philosophy till his mission is completed, found safety, security, hospitality, solace and moral fighting powers in the far northern native kingdoms of India. That is how the missing years in the life of Christ is explained. When he was born in a cattle shed, again due to haughty abuse of authority, three magician priests from the east, that is from India, read the stars and found their way through thousands of miles to the west to bless the newborn babe, all this journey guided by a lonely star. In those times star watching had developed as a full practical science only among the Indians and the ancient Babylonians. The spices they brought to the child as presents also denote the land where they came from. In ancient Greece, when the great teacher Socrates succumbed to death in an evening in a prison cell in Athens, Plato wept and decided he would take revenge upon the authorities for the death of his master. When advised by friends to flee from Greece before authorities found and executed him too, he fled, travelled the route Alexander later took and reached India. His missing years were spent in India, learning the philosophies and fighting talents, which he when returned, displayed brilliantly and became the master of kings. We see in history, after the execution of Socrates for criticizing state, after just three generations in the time of Aristotle, Socratic philosophies became the ruling principles of the state when King Phillip of Macedonia appointed Aristotle as Alexander’s master. Many anti-religious people in Asia, especially in countries like communist China do not know India became home to how many thousands of Jews who lost homes during the mad military maneuvers of the two world wars. They do not even know how many millions of Nepalis, Burmese, Tibetans, Kashmiris, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis refugees India received and protected during international power turmoils. During these turmoils, countries like these closed their borders. The Hindus, Christians and Muslims of India, with traditional true Indian hospitality, receive anyone who has lost a home. The honourable Dalai Lama was not the last. He has been living in India with his people for half a century, happily accepting India as their second home. He was not a citizen of China, but he lost his home in Tibet, the most un-Chinese act in the past century from the un-Chinese rulers of China. He will return to his free nation. The people of India will see to it. India can shelter, protect and train every lone bird which has lost its sky and nest. It is a generations- old tradition of India. Every returning bird will capture the world, and India will smile inwardly and go on as before’.

Great people, city and institutions we thank for this endeavour.

Pictures Courtesy: First and foremost we are to thank those citizens of Brooklyn City who took a public collection and kept these pictures in public custody. We are immensely indebted to those two prestigious Institutions Wikimedia Commons and Brooklyn Museum for magnanimously making available these pictures to the public. And our thanks and respect goes to James Tissot for rendering these paintings beautifully for posterity.

Link to Brooklyn Museum: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/
Link to Wikimedia Commons page:
‘http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:The_Life_of_Jesus_Christ_by_James_Tissot’

Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here:
https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles

To read about the life and people of Kerala, the author’s native land, visit KERALA COMMENTARY here.

For more articles of this kind, visit SAHYADRI BOOKS here or BLOOM BOOKS, TRIVANDRUM.

Tags

Bloom Books Trivandrum, Jesus, Jesus Manifests His Power, Jesus Paintings, Jesus Teaching, Jesus The Christ, Life Stories, P S Remesh Chandran, Paintings Of James Tissot, Photo Essays, Reintroduced Literature, Sahyadri Books Trivandrum, True Stories, Water Colour Paintings

Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of ‘Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book’. Unmarried and single.

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Sivaramakrishnan A

31st Dec 2012 (#)

Very thought provoking, passionately written. Lots of events of history and interpretation of religious texts have to be deduced and derived from various sources. I believe nothing are cast in stone as those who record are human too lending themselves to own interpretations. They can be carried away too – siva

PSRemeshChandra

1st Jan 2013 (#)

The changes happening in our being causes us write. And our writing causes us change. I do not know which force is stronger. You would know better. Since I became familiar with the paintings of James Tissot, I had this feeling they had to be reintroduced before a very good reading public. After publishing and seeing them for the first time in the form of a web page, I also discovered one new thing: seeing them by scrolling from down to up provides a new experience, that of going to the past of Christ, he becoming tinier and tinier till he becomes a lovely tiny little baby.

Buzz

31st Dec 2012 (#)

Fabulous Star article on the life of Jesus, dear friend, with beautiful images to boot. Happy New Year!

PSRemeshChandra

1st Jan 2013 (#)

The time draws near the birth of Christ,

The moon is hid, the night is chill,

And Christmas bells from hill to hill

Answer each other in the mist.

Happy New Year to Dear Buzz, and all by Wikinut Friends.

Life Without Fear. Bertrand Russell Essay. Reintroduced by P.S.Remesh Chandran.

049.

Life Without Fear. Bertrand Russell. Essay. Reintroduced by P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

By PSRemeshChandra, 8th Oct 2012.  Short URL http://nut.bz/s6rjyi46/
Posted in Wikinut>Essays

Fear is an ancient feeling of human beings, the right application of which saved mankind from taking too many risks and helped facilitate the continued existence of mankind. Actually fear is the essential pre-requisite to courage. But in the modern day world which is not as danger-prone as the ancient primitive world had been, man fears to even release his breath. World famous philosopher Bertrand Russell analyzes the operation of fear.

Fear can be avoided through the right kind of education.

Bertrand Russell was a British philosopher who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. Principia Mathematica, History Of Western Philosophy, and Marriage And Morals are a few of his famous writings. ‘Life Without Fear’ is an extract from his book ‘New Hopes For A Changing World.’ He is discussing how human life is ruled by fear and how fear can be got rid of. He says, fear prevails over man’s dealings with nature, with other men and with himself. Russell is of the opinion that fear can be avoided in human life through the right kind of education.

Fear is entirely different from the rational apprehension of danger.

Fear of danger, fear of no food, fear of death, fear of destitution and fear of other human beings are natural to all men. Fear is a natural basic reaction which is common to all men and animals. But, Russell says, it has no ground. Fear is a kind of foolishness which makes man unwise in his dealings with nature, with other men and with his self. Fear has no rational basis. Fear and the feeling of danger are different. Feeling of danger is logical when a danger really exists. It enables man to think out what kind of action can be taken against the possible danger. Therefore, feeling of danger is desirable. But unreasonable fear prevents people from admitting danger and taking wise precaution against it. A pre-knowledge of danger enables man to adopt different kinds of treatment for different kinds of dangers.

The limitations imposed by nature on man causing fear also can be bypassed.

Nature imposes certain limitations on man which also cause fear. Short supply of food and raw materials and the unavoidable death are fearsome limitations imposed on man by nature. Even Arch Bishops someday thought that drought and excessive rain could be prayed against. People were urged to gather to pray against Plague which only helped to spread the disease. But the days of superstitions are gone. The limitations imposed by nature on man also can be bypassed which are what history is made with. Mankind did not end with recurring floods or the ice age. It continued its march onward, conquering natural obstacles on the way. Discovery of fire and fur and fat helped harness the ice ages. Inventing row-boats helped survive floods. Even natural limitations can be effectively dealt with by science. By more labour, more food can be produced. By better methods, the use of raw materials can be economized. By wise living, death can be postponed. The scientific attitude has the two-fold merit of helping not only understanding the evil but also providing the intelligence to eradicate it.

A man’s fear of other human beings is logical and reasonable.

Fear of other human beings is reasonable and somewhat logical. Aggressiveness has only increased in this world. We all fear, someone will do things harmful to us. We bark at our neighbour for fear that he will attack us, and he barks at us back for the same reason. In such situations, a display of friendliness will do wonders and oil the wheels of life to make them run smoothly.

‘Saying thank you here and there
Saves a lot of strife,
Saying thank you as you go on
Oils the wheels of life.’

There, non-resistance diminishes the aggressive impulses in the other. But in some other circumstances it would be showing courage that would be wiser for the occasion. We cannot flee from facing real dangers. When they come one after another, we conquer them one after the other.

[First prepared in 2004]

Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here:
https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles

To read about the life and people of Kerala, the author’s native land, visit KERALA COMMENTARY here.

For more articles of this kind, visit SAHYADRI BOOKS here or BLOOM BOOKS, TRIVANDRUM.

Tags

Basic Reactions, Bertrand Russell, Bloom Books Trivandrum, British Philosophers, Curing Aggressiveness, Fear Of Man, Fear Of Nature, Feeling Of Danger, Life Without Fear, Limitations Of Man, Merits Of Scientific Attitude, Oiling The Wheels Of Life, P S Remesh Chandran, Reasonable Fears, Reintroduced Literature, Sahyadri Books Trivandrum, The Forewarning Of Fear, The Rule Of Fear

Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of ‘Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book’. 

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rama devi nina
1st Jan 2013 (#)

Interesting exploration of fear …

PSRemeshChandra
8th Jan 2013 (#)

Fear not, dear Rama Devi Nina,
Fear isn’t going any where,
It is one ancient primitive bird
Flitting across man’s mortal sky.