University Dream
The dream goes backs to about 50 years.
It was in the Peradeniya Campus.
It was in the evening and I was doing my own jog around the campus. I was on the side of our physiology don’s house, who was a burgher gentleman.
I climbed a little soil mound and peeped over the window to see whether the madam was in.
Just to tease her.
To my horror she got into a panic mode and loudly said,
“Leela, a thief has come, catch him”
Leela is the wife of another don in the Faculty of Arts.
She got hold of a broomstick.
That the recognized weapon, those days and not T-56.
I moved sideways and I followed my instinct for a few steps and quickly took an about turn and ran behind her house and to the neighbours house from behind, knowing very well if I enter the front compound I could be caught, perhaps with a broomstick in her hand, too.
I took a detour and came round by another route to see Mrs. Leela was coming down across another alleyway with a big pole in her hand.
I took to my feet swiftly like a horse and was down a steep hill that lead to a small paddy field.
Yes, we had a little paddy filed inside the campus.
When I approached there well away from my attackers, I decided to have a pause to catch my breath and little peace in my mind.
I was in a pensive mood when an middle age woman approach me clad in muddy cloth with some kind of grass in her hand.I thought she was cutting grass for the cow she had.
Yes, we had cows in the campus.
She asked me whether I was a undergraduate.
I said, Yes.
Then she asked me whether I know the Vice Chancellor personally.
I did not know what to say.
Those days the V.C. is such a big stature, we undergraduates have no contact with him, unless we have done something very nasty and grave that we get a resound warning without an inquiry.
I did not want to accept my predicament but said to her, Yes, I knew him very well.
She said, “Aiyyoh Mahathaya Ahenum Baridaha Ahanna Thawa Kananayakata Wapuranna Denna Kiyala”.
“Could you please ask him whether she can have another season of paddy cultivation instead of the special grass she was asked to grow”.
I asked her what is this all about.
She told me that she was asked to lay the special type of grass on her paddy field instead of cultivating rice.
I asked, Why?
“Ane Maha Ragina Enawane”.
“Queen is visiting the country”.
I told her I would try and had a few seconds pause to gather my composure and make good the fundamental error of “Peeping Tom” behaviour.
I walked the long route back to the house of our don. On my way, I found the long pole Leela had dropped and I wanted to return it back in case she needed it.
As I was walking up with the pole in hand, I saw V.C. coming down the lane.
There was no way of avoiding him.
I raised the pole as if I was carrying a flag on top of it. I walked toward him bravely and there was no intention of running for the second time to escape from the V.C.
He came down slowly with a majestic imposing posture.
He was wearing a British hat.
He paused having come down to where I was.
I had become stationary by that time with the pole erect on my hand.
As he approached me I lowered it as if I was a pole vault jumper.
Are you practising how to carry a flag on a pole.
I said, No.
I was practising pole vault, I said.
I ordered a new one from England.
It is very heavy and it is of British standard, I told him.
This is of the correct weight for me.
Then he said, I see about your need anyway.
Thank you, Sir.
Where are taking it.
I said; “to whom it belongs”.
He said Good Old Boy.
By now I knew I was in a good working relationship with the V.C.
I took the courage to ask the question that poor lady could not ask from him.
“Sir, May I,...... may I.... make a request for somebody”.
“Who is that somebody?”.
He was very attentive and inquisitive.
I said I met that woman and she wanted another season for rice cultivation.
“That cannot be done”, he said abruptly.
Then, I looked at him very politely and said rice takes only three and half months to maturity and the grass only half that time and the Queen is coming one year from now and there is enough time to do both.
Is that so?
You seem to know quite a lot, “Are you an agriculture student”.
“No Sir, I am Medical Student” and put a little substance to my pole carrying adventure.
Then he said go and tell her she can have even two seasons but by the time Queen is here there should be a posh growth of green grass over there.
Then he went onto say,
“If I see you carrying poles instead of looking after patients, I will make you a pole bearer of the university and not in the parliament”.
That is the type of environment we had when we were in the University.
It is quite different now.
I walked up to the house and met the lady and handed over the pole.
She was puzzled.
She had seen me in a bit of a long conversation with V.C. and she did not know what to say.
Then I went to the house of our burgher don and talked to the lady as nothing improper had happened. She invited me for cup of tea with cookies, which was my original intention which was interrupted by her panic and commotion that followed.
I cannot remember how many lies I told her over the cup of tea.
That was a survival need as a young undergraduate, otherwise we would have been expelled within the first term of our academic year, if everybody knew what we did off academic hours.
The lady was a typical Victorian type.
I told her, if I was her, I would not invite the V.C. for a cup of tea, if my teacher was not at home.
She did not ask why?
Then, I said, V.C. was trying to enter the neighbour house’s from back door and he detoured having seen me with the pole.
Is that so?
Yes, I said loudly.
Mind you that was the biggest lie on that day.
By that time, I have begun not to hate Leela for carrying a big pole to hit me instead of a broomstick.
Everybody, knew V.C. was a ladies man and there were enough in the Art Faculty to prey at that time but not in the Medical Faculty.
We exchanged pleasantries and I was a regular visitor and she was like a real aunt to me.
She is no more but probably in heaven.
Now this one is for you.
How many lies in total, in this episode.
Unlike politicians who lie for a living in broad day light, I am entitled to a few lies in my dreams.
Could you help me to count them.
I have lost count of them.
Dream is a good recipe for people like me and we have this satisfaction of lying in our deep sleep mode.
That is why dream are for us and not for politicians.
I am told that the politicians see their lies in their own sleep and they get terrified and wake up ever so often not knowing how to coin the next lie.
My dream applies to all politicians from Biden to Trump to Putin to Mahinda to Gotabaya to Ranil to Anura to any future politicians....................
Friday, August 3, 2012
Ebony and Ivory
Live Together
In Perfect Harmony
Side By Side On My Piano Keyboard,
Oh Lord, Why Don't We?
We All Know
That People Are The Same
Where Ever You Go
There Is Good and Bad
In Everyone,
We Learn To Live,
We Learn To Give
"Ebony and Ivory" was banned for a while in South Africa during the Apartheid era.
In
the early 19th century mammoth ivory was used, as substantial source,
for such products as piano keys, billiard balls, and ornamental boxes.
One thing that Paul forgot to mention was that the piano keys were made of ivory.
I make that record here, even belatedly (he is alive and kicking well unlike the dead elephants).
Paul McCartney is the writer and Stevie Wonder the other of the duet.
This song hit the chart in 1982 and I was in England.
I was neither black nor white but a browny (not a brown Sahib) and was feeling the pinch.
All the jobs I did up to that point were the ones white man did not want to work.
One place had the highest maternal death and another place had highest neonatal death in UK.
All the same, I worked for humanity and mostly neonates.
Worked hard to improve the lot including newly established wings and hospitals and planning for new ones in Dartford.
I
was focused when British doctors were either half drunk or fully drunk
and one social worker was killing destitutes to get their social
benefits illegally and there was a mad GP and mad nurse murdering N.H.S.
patients and babies.
All three were in prison, one committed suicide in the cell.
Then the last case was a little girl who was seduced by the father who was a policemen.
I had enough and left UK for good never to return.
These people who are agents of human rights, look straight into the mirror and see who is more innocent.
I abhor violence and killing even in war.
But I abhor killing innocent animals, more.
Saturday, September 28, 2019
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Let Go Principle of Dhamma
The “Let Go” principle according to the nature of events unfolding is not something discussed in depth in the West.
I make following prepositions.
None may be correct, some may be correct, certainly, not all of them are correct.
1. Mind inhabits the brain when suitable but exists it when impossible for functioning. Body and Mind in a comforting cave of existence.
2. Mind does not become extinct at death.
3. It automatically and instantly grabs another living body and brain by default.
4. The transition period is ill understood as seen in “Near Death Syndrome”.
There is no inter-phase or Untar-Bhava or elderly wise men helping the soul. The transition is quick and automatic without an intervening phase. It is like the transmission of an electron through a transistor gate. The mind enters the transistor portal and goes into the next “Bhava of Existence” instantaneously and it is one way ticket and no coming back.
The mind floating in space and looking for a place of rebirth of choice with wise men helping in, is not at all plausible. The wise men have no right to intervene except masterly inactivity.
Imagine how all the souls waiting for a rebirth point of entry and thus keep floating in space.
There will be War or Clash of Souls.
I hope you got the point, I am driving at.
Each soul has his or her own pathway of transition not even so called God can intervene.
5. It either grabs the current body of existence (at least temporarily) with doctors’ help (resuscitation) or has no choice but to exit and enter its own individual path.
6. Mind can exist outside the body.
7. Body can exist without a mind.
EBENs of extraterrestrial origin, comes to my mind.
EBENs do not have a soul or self but are biological robots. This is where the bio-engineering would create biological entities / agents that can reproduce identical biological robots.
The presumption here is that without a previous existence of the mind, a “new soul” cannot be created de novo.
8. Highest level of mind’s existence is its detachment from the entanglement with the body (current or future existence) or Nirvana in Buddhist Terminology.
9. There have to be many minds of existences and there cannot be a “Unity of Mind” (as a God or super agent of creation).
10. All of the above is not true.
11. Some are plausible and some are not.
