Love for the nation through a story “पुरुस्कार (Puruskar)” written by renowned author Shri Jay Shankar Prasad

The main character of the story is 'Madhulika', a teenage girl. Who is the daughter of Singhamitra, a heroic soldier from the state of Kosala. Singhmitra had in earlier times defended the honor of Kosala state with his valor and ultimately supreme sacrifice.

The story begins with the scene when Indra was worshiped every year to maintain the tradition of the kingdom of Kosala. This was an agricultural festival in which the king acquired the land of a farmer of his kingdom and did a day's agricultural work in it and carried out the celebrations. This time Madhulika's farm was acquired by the king. The King wanted to give a huge amount of money to Madhulika , but she refuses to take the money, and says that she will not deal with her farm, no matter what.  

In this festival, many other kings and princes from the surrounding states used to come as guests. This time, Arun, the prince of Magadha had also come there and was watching this incident.

The celebration is over, Madhulika does not take the award. 

Prince Arun is greatly impressed by beauty, wit and bold stance 

of Madhulika. He comes to meet her in Madhulika's hut at night, 

pleading with her to become his companion, emphasising that 

he will ask the king of Koshal to get her field back. 

But Madhulika turns down his request, so Arun returns.

Madhulika , depressed, does not go to her farm again and works out other chores to live her life. Time passes by, three years are over. Madhulika, distressed by her financial disaster, remembers Prince Arun. One night, by chance, the prince arrives in her hut as a refugee. He tells that he has revolted in his kingdom and has been expelled from his kingdom. Madhulika also falls in love with him so believes him. Arun persuades Madhulika to ask the koshal king for the land near the fort in exchange for her farm. Since that land is near the fort, from there Arun can easily attack the fort with his fellow soldiers. He tempts Madhulika that he will capture Kosala and establish his rule and make her his queen. Madhulika was madly in love, so she too is tempted to become the queen. She goes to the King of Kosala and asks for the land near the fort. Arun is happy to find the land. Immediately, he goes underground in Kosala and starts preparing to attack on Kosala.

But Madhulika's mind is perturbed after analysing her actions and the certain result of her actions. She recalls that on one hand, she did not compromise her honesty and principles and did not exchange for her farm, but now she is using the king's given land to shelter an enemy of the kingdom. While her father laid down his life to protect the state and she is betraying the state. A feeling of guilt overwhelms her and love for her state awakens inside her.

Her conscience reprimands her and she tells the king all things that the rebel prince of the neighbouring kingdom of Magadha, Arun, is planning to attack on Kosala. The king’s army soon catches Arun and slapped a death penalty.

While praising Madhulika for love of the state, the king asks Madhulika to seek any award of her choice. Madhulika quietly walks towards Arun and stands beside him, and demands the death penalty for herself as well. “मुझे भी मृत्यु दण्ड मिले”

Happy Teachers Day !!!

Today is “Teachers Day”.  On this day, I want to recall names of some of the school and college teachers who have important role to play in my education. There have been many teachers but I will limit mention of two from each institution. 

Primary school (Up to grade 5)

• Pandit Raj Narayan Sharma : He was headmaster of my primary school. Additionally, he used to do “Panditai” as well, and was little healthy. We used to call him “Mote wale Pandit ji”. A very knowledge person, with great command on Hindi and general Knowledge. 
• Shri Kanchan Lal Ojha: He taught us mathematics in grade V. He had great grasp over mathematics and was very creative in explaining mathematics concepts with simple examples.

Junior High school (6-7-8):

·     Shri Ram Gopal Sharma : He was my Sanskrit Teacher popularly known Shashtri ji. Additional he used to conduct Shrimad Bhagvat Mahapuran program at many places. He used to tell us stories every Friday, which we used to wait eagerly whole week.

·     Shri Hari Prasad Sharma : He was my geography and History teacher. He used to take us to maps on the wall and used to tell us details by pointing his stick in his hand, on the map.  He was a very humble person. Many of our classes also used to be under a banyan tree, with all of us seated on the ground.

High School(9-10)

• Shri Ambika Prasad : He was my Maths and science teacher with ever present gentle smile on his face. He never hesitated in throwing a piece of the chalk on the students creating disturbance in his class.
• Shri Kayam Singh : He was my Biology teacher. He had setup a rich lab where he made us do many dissections of the frog to understand anatomy. He had some chronic stomach problem and used to chew “azwain” all the time, and quite frequently we could hear the firework noise Jin the class. He was extremely helpful to us in providing after school classes help.

Inter College ( 11-12):

• Shri HC Gupta : That’s how he was known, was my Maths teacher. He had taught my father as well, and occasionally shared stories of my father with me. He provided me free coaching of the mathematics areas where I needed help.
• Shri LN Jain: An avid pan (Beetle leaves) eater, was my chemistry teacher. He was a strong RSS leader and was thrown in jail during emergency by Indira Gandhi. His favorite topic was process of converting one organic compound into other though chemical reactions. His expertise in lab was exemplary.

Graduation (B.Sc)

• Shri Yashovarshan Mittal : Ours was his first batch and he used to teach us Organic chemistry. An extremely smart and dashing and towering personality.  He had special love for me. He provided me many free of cost coaching sessions after college hours in his home, along with good food and tea. He was more of a friend to me rather than teacher.
• Smt Renu Jain:  For Mam also, ours was her first batch. She taught us “Astronomical Trigonometry”.  She also had special liking for me. Once she became so angry on me when I scored 49 marks out of 50 in an internal exam of her subject. She did not talk to me for a week. I understood her anger and promised her to work harder and then kept my promise. She was elated in happiness when I secured Gold medal by standing first in University.

Post Graduation (MCA-AMU Aligarh)

• Prof Shailesh Maheshwari : I was my Guru and “go to” teacher in case of any problem, which were many in Aligarh Muslim University, and taught us Operations Research, Automata theory, Touring machines, Logic gates , Compiler construction and many other subjects. He was very helpful person. We used to stay in a room in the Aligarh City and used to frequent to Professor’s home for good discussion and of course good food. I am in touch with him till date.
• Prof S K Varshney : He was a very strong RSS leader, in otherwise predominantly Muslim faculty of AMU Aligarh. He taught us Systems Analysis, Computer Organizations and other abstract topics of computer science. His ability to explain abstract topics with so much ease using examples, made his different than others.
• I would like to express my gratitude to Prof Qadir and Prof Mohd Afzal. They helped me a lot , former in financial accounting and economics and later in computer programming.

Post Graduation( MBA- Suffolk University Boston)

• Dr Suzyn Ornstein : She was professor of “Organization Behaviour”, the first subject I took in MBA. She was very particular about grammar of the assignments submitted to her. She was extremely dynamic person and had uncanny ability to explain complex organizational topics with very simple interactive examples.
• Prof Neil Hunt: He was my International Marketing Professor. He had an unconventional method of teaching. I had registered for this course in Andover, satellite campus of the Suffolk University , which was a distant suburb of Boston. He used to take us to Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Driving ranges, Bowling etc for the classes. His moto was learn, but start with fun.

And of course my late grandfather was a great teacher for me in my childhood, who himself was educated till 2^ndgrade, but was able to teach me advanced elementary maths concepts with much ease in interesting manner.

My father and my mother continue to be my all teachers. I feel privileged to have teachers like my parents.

And then who will disagree that wife has extremely important role as a teacher.

And lastly our children  teach us a lot.

Our 73rd Independence Day - My thoughts

As our great nation celebrates its 73^rd Independence Day , we have many reasons to pump our chests with pride, as our great nation has shown tremendous progress and resilience since coming out from the British captivity in 1947.

Some of the achievements are being cited below:

• ·      We are the largest functional democracy in the world. Irrespective of political differences, the world witnesses amazing , magnanimous and peaceful transition of power after every general election.
• ·      We are sixth biggest economy in the world and are on way to become 3^rd biggest in a decade or so.
• ·      We are IT super power. Our IT skills are well-respected in the world. The top executives of many companies across the globe are Indians.
• ·      We are a nuclear power with a doctrine of no first use, means our weapons are only for deterrence.
• ·      We are one of the select few countries capable of manufacturing nuclear submarines, fighter planes, aircraft carrier etc
• ·      Our Space programs are exemplary. Our reach now extends to Moon, Mars and beyond.
• ·      Our missiles contingent now includes ICBMs and A-SATs.
• ·      Many of our corporations are truly world class with brand value like any global corporation.
• ·      We are able to see eye to eye in dealing with world powers like America and China. The episodes of Docklam with China and Balakot with Pakistan, fill our hearts with pride.
• ·      Many of our public sectors have been instrumental in laying the foundation for industrial revolution.
• ·      We are self-sufficient for the most part in terms of food/agriculture.
• ·      Many of our educational institutions like IIT’s, IIM’s, NITs, are second to none
• ·      We have been able to execute extremely complex infrastructure projects such as Konkan/Jammu-Srinagar railroad, Metro, National highways, bridges for north east connectivity etc
• ·      Our armed forces, in spite being one of the strongest in the world have consistently behaved in an extremely responsible manner.
• ·      We have been able to remove 73 years old Article 370 from J&K so as to bring J&K at par with other states of our motherland, enabling people from J&K to realize their full potential.
• ·      The long list goes on …….

But at the same time, the long British rule has left a huge negative mark on our national values, national morale and national ethos, and we as society have not yet fully recovered from it. Many of us do not want to recover from it due to selfish reasons. Hence, a lot of work needs to be done before we can call ourselves truly free. I’d like to cite a few of the areas.

We will be free when our attraction to the colour of the skin will vanish in thin air and when we are able to realize that true colour of an individual is the colour of his/her character and how the individual is contributing for the betterment of the larger society. Our society seems to be judgmental on skin colour. I will ask a question to prove my point. Would our countrymen tolerate Madam Maino (Gandhi) the same way, if she had been from Nigeria, Chad or Ethiopia and not from Italy? I am absolutely sure that answer from a large chunk of people would be “Hello no”.

We will be free when our society is able to show empathy towards millions of the poor people and look after them, what Swami Vivekananda referred them as “दरिद्र नारायण”. Whether we like it or not, agree or not, we have a huge problem at hand. We as nation constitute a mere 2% of the world land and have to house approximately 20% of the world population, thus creating unbridgeable imbalance between demand and supply of resources. A sizable percentage of our nationals are forced to go to bed hungry.

We will be free when many leaders our nation will stop following the policy of appeasement and vote bank and they will be able to see writing on the walls that years of following these policies has done serious and irreparable damage to our great nation.

We will be free when all our countrymen, no matter which religion they come from, no matter which region they come from and no matter which language they speak , will starting lining up under the common religion of “भारतीय” to chant “सुजलाम , सुफलाम, मलयज शीतलाम, सस्य श्यामलाम मातरम, वन्दे मातरम” with tears of joy in their eyes and choke of emotions in voice.

We will be free when each of us in our society is truly able to demonstrate the principle of inclusivity “वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम” and keep a mindset that we are one large family. Only this principle can keep us united. We are an amalgamation of hundreds of cultures, each with their own language, traditions, customs, values and rituals.

We will be free when many of the so called intellectuals will not have to bash the religion of the majority of the people in our country to be called intellectuals. Over the last decade or so, it has become a fashionable thing to attack the religion and Gods of the majority of the country to prove themselves as intellectuals. This destructive “टुकड़े टुकड़े” gang needs to be shown its place and this manipulative “intolerance” gang needs to be dismantled.

We will be free when our national leaders will speak in a single voice on matters of national security to meet the aggression from China from North, Pakistan from west, Lanka from south and Bangladesh from east, on the lines of former prime minister and nationalist Late Shri Lal Bahadur Shashtri, that “Force will be met with force”. Our leaders need to realize that dialogue and Force, both have well defined role in intra-country dealings. Recently the great work done across the borders by our armed forces has been undermined by many leaders and their respective  political parties, putting national security at huge risk.

We will be free when our society will see the equality between sons and daughters and put a complete end to feticide, and realize that men’s need for women and vice versa goes much beyond biological need. The men and women together are complimentary to each other and one is not complete without other.

We will be free when our society will move away from “चलता है” attitude which has put us backward by decades if not more and has been one of the biggest reason for prevalent mediocrity everywhere.

We will be free when our society in a united way will face today’s challenges and find solutions for better tomorrow.  As Baba Ramdev says “लोग अपने दुख से दुखी नहीं हैं , वे दूसरोंके सुख से दुखी हैं”. Our society needs to show compassion to each other, whether it is on road, parking lot, ticket queue or for that matter, any other public place.

We will be free when we are able to eradicate the chickenpox of corruption, which is just not limited to government sector but has spread its wings in the private sector as well, from our society completely and that we will be able to take a pledge that we are not going to bribe no matter how much delay occurs in getting the job done.

This wish list is long but very much achievable. A small price to pay true unabashed freedom.

Devendra Singh

August 15, 2019.