Front Cover

Caricauture celebrating first anniversary of Samar –
Art by: Rahul Vikas

Letter from the Editor

This is our annual issue in your hand. We are almost a week a late. The business of our team in various kinds of social works has increased to the height of the highest skyscraper of the city. The pressure has surmounted on us in a manner that it seemed we are sitting in an iron furnace. Anyhow, all is well when it ends well. We are out of true blues.

We have started our journey with a dream of publishing a literary magazine. The seed of the dream was sown on very first day of the year 2006. The offspring it bore was ticklishly blooming in the month of February. It was our inaugural issue.

The front cover of the issue was a clear depiction of our dream. We had started with a small step. Though it was small but firm and steady because it was predecided – may what comes.

Children, flowers, nature, social traumas, historical blunders, and political debates have been favourite topics of our contributors. Front cover of one of the issues had facsimile of a world famous painting of a world famous painter of the history called Pablo Picasso. The painting was – Guernica. Guernica was a village in Spain – the motherland of Picasso. Senseless warriors destroyed it. The crying women, yelling children, scorching animals in this painting remind us of our own brutality – we the civilised one tear the flesh of each other with our teeth.

We have paid homage to Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhagat Singh, Mother Teresa and famous music director Naushad Ali and many more by putting their pictures on front cover or submitting an article on them.

Most of the readers of Samar are young children. They have been taking keen interest in various social issues. They have shown their penmanship on the issues of Reservation, Western culture, Right to Information, Religious Orthodoxy, Infatuation, Patriarchy, Democracy and scientific temperaments. These debates are always invited by Samar. There are always ample of spaces in pages of our coveted magazine for these genuine and youthful ideas. We have tried our best to provide information to young readers. There have been contributions from enthusiastic writers about geographical, economic, and cultural information of a particular country. We have told them about poor conditions of children in this world. The malnourishment among children is a case of sheer apathy of humans. On the other hand, we have provided brief history of world famous poets in each issue. These articles created a sense of poetry among youths, the literary discussions have been encouraged through these articles.

The canvas is very broad and brushes are highly varied. We have brought colour palettes with our selves and plucking colours from the nature and society. What we have painted till now is beautiful and fragrant, what we will create in coming years will be belligerent and alarming. We can do anything, because we know nothing is impossible.

Final word we can say on this auspicious occasion is that Time is the only parameter of our success. It will be testimony for our toil and labour. It will be presenter of our performances.
….. And it will be torch bearer of our long march to the goal of greater good of greater number of huddled, poor, deprived masses. And it will be done with decency of silence, elegance of work and later on someday it will open its chest of achievements. As somebody has said –
Waqt aane de bata denge tujhe aye Aasman
Hum abhi se kya batayen kya hamare dil mein hai
(Let the chosen moment arrive we will tell you O Heavens!
We can’t tell you at present what is our goal where we are going)





Thank you


Yours truly,
Editor

Your Voice

I liked the last issue of volume one and the article with the title “Humanity is endangered” touched me. It is true that humanity is endangered but it is more appropriate to say that humanity is made endangered and humans themselves do it. The reason is that humans are best creatures of God and also all alone who is marching ahead with the time. Human heart is never satisfied, the more it get the more it desires. To fulfil the desire, the human beings suppress ‘others’. Bur who are these ‘others’? They are again human beings. As the writer writes that history has witnessed Muslim kings attacking mosques and Hindu samrats attacking temples, the fact to be noted is that kings never fought for the religion. The war always took place with two feudal powers on either side. Sometimes I think that humanity is destined to be endangered. For example during freedom struggle, Indians shed their blood for freedom. By 1930’s, their struggle started giving positive result and British were ready to sit and discuss. But fate doesn’t like peaceful settings and as a result, communal harmony reached its zenith. Generation X must frame a system, which can brig permanent solution to these inevitable problems. We generally come across the terms like, ‘conserve water’, ‘conserve minerals’ , ‘conserve soil’ etc., but I would like to coin the term-“CONSERVE HUMANITY”

Shahbaz Patna

Adolescents Psychology

A human infant is born with tactile qualities. The process of learning starts with childhood and ends with death. Learning, perception, motivation, judgment, and emotions helps in human growth. Children perceive things and learn with a sense of touch. Early intellectual growth arises first and foremost out of the child's physical interactions with objects in his environment. Children do not know to discriminate in objects, even in genders. As they grow, the child develops a sense of gender identity, thinks of himself or herself as a boy or girl, and begins to relate to others differently according to their gender. They learn how to dress and decide what to wear. For example, a 5-year-old boy will not feel comfortable if he is dressed in frock or other girl’s cloths that he knows. Gradually the child experiences sexual feelings and at the same time learns to respond to their stimuli. With this process of learning children are introduced in a wider stage, adolescence period, when he or she is 12 years old. During the period of adolescence the physical, physiological changes, thoughts, behaviour, and social relations changes radically.

Adolescents often decide about their future line of work and think about starting their own families in a few years. For example, adolescents can begin to decide what to buy with their own money or who will be their friend. One of the first things they do is to start making their own decisions. Adolescents can spend hour’s day dreaming about their future life. They act responsibly without demanding freedom as payment. However, they have limited freedom and they are weak economically. It is very common in adolescents who receive allowances and have ample of free times. They have more time for themselves, love to socialise with people of same age group, and often involve themselves in peer relationships. They began to have more fun and become less serious than older generations.

Another common characteristic in adolescents is a sense of uniqueness. Searching for a unique identity is one of the problems that adolescents often face. Adolescents often have role models. Every movie stars, sports players, stage players, or rock stars have mostly adolescents as their fan following. It is not necessary that they will stop following their fans after the end of adolescence phase. Adolescents often express a desire to be like their chosen role model. In west, most of the adolescents follow rock music. This often raises the sale of the records. According to pop singer Jo Stafford

"Rock and Roll is an economic thing. Today's nine-to fourteen year old group is the first generation with enough money given to them by their parents to buy records in sufficient quantities to influence the market. In my youth if I asked my father for 45 cents to buy a record, he'd have thought seriously about having me committed."

In India, we see the majority of adolescents follow movie stars. Adolescents choose their role model and often try to copy their style of living, attitude, hairstyle, clothes and so on. According to India Today majority of boys follow Salman Khan and wants to be macho like him and girls want their dream date like Salman Khan.

The adolescent's psychology is broader and more complex. The major problem with adolescents is group socialism. They opt to spend times with peers than their parents. The adolescent comes to rely heavily on the peer group for emotional support. Adolescents in a peer group are less likely to be depressed or have anxiety. It is difficult for a depressed adolescent to make friends. Though family does everything in rising a child and family support is quite influential still peers influence adolescents about issues as educational aspirations and performance, in most cases there is overlap between family and peer influences. This is the reason why most of the adolescents are confused about their decision and often fail to conclude.

Attitude of adolescents towards people changes, particularly towards parents. Adolescent person share talks and keep relationships formally towards parents and more informal towards members of his or her age, particularly person of the opposite sex. Adolescence is the period during which the person experiences a rise in sexual feelings. During this time, the person learns to control and direct his sex urges. The concept of dating a boy or a girl arises in their mind. This is very natural and very less people can have control over it. An adolescent person enjoys companies of a person of opposite sex. Sexual feelings in adolescents sometime lead them to wrong way. When depressed desires of adolescents are not satisfied, they find alternatives to get satisfy by reading or watching pornography, talking to the person of opposite sex with wrong intentions in mind or by some other way. Sometimes these depressed desires occupy one’s mind and the emotional instability may cause youth crime like rape. Therefore, it is very important to understand adolescent’s psychology and behaviour. Several movies in west like American pie, A Short Story About Love (Polish), Eu Tu Mama Tambian (Spanish) and in India movies like Rockford, Ek Choti Si Love Story depicts the life, nature, attitude, relationships, and sexual feelings of adolescents.

Adolescents of every age have somewhat similar features. The physical and physiological changes of adolescence proceed radically; however, the general steps of changes in adolescence apply to most people.

Azmi

Poets of the world

John Donne (1572-1631)

Donne was born in London sometime between Jan 24 and June 19, 1572. His mother was descendent of a family, which was reputed in the field of literature and art. His maternal grandfather, John Heywood was an epigrammatist and playwright. His father was a merchant. His father died when he was only 4 years old. His mother married another man who reared John Donne and other children. Donne’s childhood was probably happy and playful. He was a good and laborious student. He matriculated from Oxford University at the age of twelve. Then he went to Cambridge University, there he did his graduation but both Universities did not allow him to get a degree because he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Protestant Queen Elizabeth. In John Donne’s time Protestant Christian, waves were flowing like a hurricane. English royal families were also under influences of the wave. This wave, on the contrary harmed Donne a lot. In 1592-94, he tried to study comparatively the details of both the version of Christianity. This was a study, which we can say were the starting points of his inclination towards religion and spiritualism. This is clearly reflected in his poetry. Look at this poem –
A Hymn to God The Father

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run,
And do run still, though still I o deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done
For I have more.

This poem was written during his illness very late in his life (1623). In this poem, he is talking to God bout his sins. According to Christian theology, every man is born in sin, as a result of Adam’s disobedience of God- which was man’s original sin. This topic of the poem shows his interest in religious connotations. There are many hymns he wrote in similar fashion. Moreover, he would give sermons to commons and nobles while holding the office of chaplain. This was known as his primary job. Less people knew that he was a great poet too.

John Donne, as mentioned earlier read too much about theology, and religion was interested in old church, eventually became a chaplain in a respected church of Britain. Before this dramatic change in his life, he had to suffer too much. In 1597, he joined Sir Thomas Egerton as a secretary. He remained there for five years. There he was respected too much. He was given equal status in Egerton’s home. He lived there happily.

During his stay he married, Miss Anne More who was niece of Mrs Egerton’s second wife. Sir George More who was chancellor of British garter (a kind of order) did not approve this marriage. John Donne was imprisoned for a brief period of time; dismissed from the job and got banished. He was unemployed, penniless at the age of 30.

For next ten years, he lived in poverty and humiliation. He was supported by different kinds of charity. He changed his dwellings on several occasions. Meanwhile he had 12 children, five of them died. His poverty was being enriched. This poverty and misery made him to study theologies and religious texts. As mentioned earlier his inclination towards theology took him to the position of priest of church, he was being urged by his friends since 1607 to take holy orders in Church of England. He refused the idea, travelled all through Europe (financed by patrons) and tried to find secular employment.

In 1614, King James I refused him to give any works other than responsibility of church. Ultimately, he joined church in 1615. Thereafter he remained in church till his death. His poetry, his prose, his letters and epigrams bore reflections of his vocation and deep contemplation. Although, most of his poetry was published after his death but he was writing poetry since 1590. The only published book in his life was “Anniversaries”. It was published in 1611-12. Usually Donne was writing religious lyrics; in later stages he started writing hymns around 1620 but in very beginning of his poetic life he was writing love lyrics. His love poems were dramatically different from other Renaissance poets. His directness in the poem where the lover directly talks to his ladies is clear departure from styles prevalent in those time.

Encyclopaedia Britannica writes –

“Donne’s poetry is marked by strikingly original departures from the conversation of 16th century English verse particularly that of Sir Philip Sydney and Edmund Spenser. Donne replaced their mellifluous lines with a speaking voice whose vocabulary and syntax reflect the emotional intensity of confrontation and whose metrics and verbal music conform to the needs of a particular dramatic situation. One consequence of this is a directness of language that electrifies his mature poetry. ‘For God sake hold your tongue and let me love’, begins his love poem ‘The Canonization’ plunging the reader into the midst of an encounter between the speaker and an unidentified listener.”

In 1623, he wrote a book of essays “Devotion upon Emergent Occasion”. This book shows that he was indulging himself deep in the divinity and spiritualism. We can take example of his famous poem-

Death Be Not Proud –
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dust overthrow
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

These lines show his original contemplation. He is personifying death and making it meagre in front of man’s immense power. These are the some special things in his poetry that influenced the poets like Browning and T.S. Eliot three hundred years after the inception of these beautiful lines.

Donne’s devotional lyrics especially the ‘Holy Sonnets’, ‘Good Friday’ (1613), ‘Riding Westward’ and the Hymns(1635) , passionately explore his love for God, sometime through sexual metaphors and depicts his doubts, fears and sense of spiritual unworthiness. None of them shows him spiritually at peace.

The first two edition of Donne’s ‘Poems’ were published posthumously in 1633 and 1635. For nearly 90 years after his death people were reading his poetry but in 19th century he was not popular. In 20th century, his poetry was revived because of T.S. Eliot.

In 1617, John Donne’s wife Anne died. This made him subdued and disappointed. His letters show how much he cared for his wife. He vowed that he would never marry again. He gave full time in devotion and spiritual sermons. The power and eloquence of Donne’s sermons soon secured for him a reputation as the foremost preacher in England of his day.

On February 25, 1631 Donne was fatally ill with stomach cancer, left his sickbed to preach a final sermon to court. This sermon was published as ‘Death Duel’ some people say it was a sermon of his own funeral. He died on same day.

Milind


References-
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2002
The New Golden Treasury, Motilal banarsidas, 2005

Mystery of the creator

The early man had little knowledge how nature worked and why, except what he himself could experience, out of this feeling of mystery must have emerged the concept of supernatural. The feeling that there is a true reality behind this life – this is how the concept of divinity, of the transcendent, a universal God, bigger than the human and nature, a source of nurture, a ruler on destiny would have developed. This concept of power, of a Creator, in the sense of that is everything, a power of the higher and this reality must have come about. The concept of religion has to be traced back in faith of a holy power that goes beyond this universe, and supports it. It could be that this was not given a form, and stayed a vague term of providence, as a creating and recreating force, working in food, sex, fertility, birth, death and the changing seasons. When this view, that this force exists, found its own life in different aspects and functions, this developed into spirits, ghosts, and idols, with its own tasks.

It reappears throughout the whole of mankind. The remerging of faith in every phase of cultures and religions since prehistoric times, gives a clear indication that is something that is a spontaneous part of man itself. It is an expression of a feeling and thinking man is born with, not so much an outcome of observation and knowledge of this universe and nature. Without a doubt, this developed into the monotheism of today, in the God as only creator and sustainer of all the things.

Humankind always has to form something into a shape, to name it - an experience or feeling a scientific idea about the world around us. We always have to label it, put a name card on it. Shape it into image. This is no weakness, it is build within our nature, and it helps us to deal with the things we encounter in life. But in one thing we went wrong, went ahead of ourselves, and crossed a limit. We do not search God; we search for a form or a place for him.

Science has come a long way. Every time the thought they had reached a limit, a new horizon appeared. The knowledge of the building that forms our material world got smaller and more complicated over the years. First we started to understand that everything was build with small ‘construction’ blocks, and we called them molecules. This idea is thousands of years old, coming from the ancient history, passed on to us through the ancient Greeks. The fundamentals of the laws of the building blocks grew over the ages, until 19th and 20th century we started to understand that they had so many properties, they had to be formed by even smaller particles. Being present in each molecule in a different amount and formation and giving each molecule its unique qualities. Protons, neutrons and electrons and of course these later turned out to be constructed by again smaller parts, quarks. Quarks had smaller substances and form, there on, it never stopped. Now we have reached a point we know we cannot go further. We start to understand we live in one unlimited energy field. No vacuum, no spaces between the energy. Scientists have given it different names but they all agree on the properties, Zero Point Field, Akasha field. This does not matter.

Of course, it is important we have to look at scriptures in a scientific way. We have to look at the psychology and social factors behind. Let us stop giving God a form or place. Let us stop trying to grasp the Ungraspable. God is everything and cannot be comprehended. This is sometimes hard for people to understand. We are a “thing” that can never engulf the Everything. However, we still can have a relationship with Him. We have been created with a meaning, so to know us; we have to start with knowing Him. Some people say; “look god inside of you”. I say it around; “look you are inside of God”.

‘I am the producer and Destroyer of the whole universe. There is nothing else, O Dhaman gaya! Higher than Myself, all this woven upon Me, like number of pearls upon a thread. And all entities which are of the quality of goodness, and those which are of the quality of passion and of darkness, know that they are, indeed all from Me; I am not in them, but they are in Me.’

Bhagwad-gita Chapter 7, verses 6 and 10

‘Know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above an on earth beneath; there is no other.’
Deuteronomy 4,39

“It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the All. From Me did the All come forth, and unto Me did the All extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone and you will find Me there.”
Gospel of Thomas, verse 77

‘To God belongs the East and the West. Wherever you turn the presence of God is everywhere: All- pervading is He and All-knowing.’
Quran, Chapter 6 verse 115

‘This is God, your Lord; there is no God but Him, the Creator of all things. So pay homage to Him, for he takes care of everything. No eyes can penetrate Him, but He penetrates all eyes, and He knows all the mysteries, for he is All-knowing’
Quran, Chapter 22, verses 102-3

‘That is so for God is the undeniable Reality. It is He who brings the dead to life, for He has the power over everything.’
Quran, Chapter 22, verse 6


First-Hand analogy!

It would be as if somebody grabbed your hand, folded your fingers so it formed a fist and say; “the fist can help me, this fist is special. Hit that person for me, protect me, fist” wouldn’t you say; “the fist is not special, without me it can’t do anything. I decide if I would help you, the fist can’t decide on its own. I’m the master. Why don’t you ask me to help you? Why do you ask a part of me, that has no power of its own? Where has this idea come from?” then the person might say; “Ok, then I ask you to help me with your fist”. Wouldn’t your answer be; “I decide if I help you with my fist, I decide what I’m going to help you” imagine then you helped him, protected him using your fist. Afterwards he would say; “thank you, I swear there is no protector but you and your fist is your helper.” Wouldn’t you start all over again? “my fist didn’t hep you, I did, why mention it even? I used my fist, and maybe it was an important means to help you, but still I helped you. It was me, and me alone who helped you. Why mention it like you have to?”
If you praise a created thing, you praise a drop inside God. Does this drop really have any power?

Understand this and you know the true relation between you and God. There is no space between you and your Creator, no barrier. The revelations say there is no god except God, no power except the Power.

To be continued…

In next month, “in the signs of God in Creation of Universe”



Rasshad Khan

The wheel is Man’s greatest invention until he got behind it

Man is curious by nature. Curiosity has taught man to unfold the hidden secrets of nature. If this curiosity is lost then all the hidden secrets of nature will be lost forever. Human being always wants to ride on the horse of nature. In other words, it means he wants to capitalise the precious vitalities possessed by nature. Same way the curiosity has taught human about the secrets of locomotion.

The wheel is man’s greatest invention there is no doubt about this, we cannot imagine this world without wheel. This wheel has made this world smaller and smaller. If we compare the life of man in pre wheel era and post wheel era then we can conclude that wheel had changed the entire life of human being. It increased the efficiency of man. A man, who was able to do a work in weeks, started doing the same work in a day. The wheel has also reduced the distance between the two places. Today we can cover distance of thousands of kilometres in short span of time; we can even reach to the moon, which was a fiction and fairy tale story in pre-wheel era. We have seen the great pyramids of Egypt, which are among the Seven Wonders of the World. It was impossible to construct such a wonderful structure in that time. According to Discovery channel, the wheel has been invented since time immemorial. In this way, we can say that wheel has given an enormous comfort to human body.

Every coin has two sides and each side has its role. If it has advantage, it also has disadvantage. Wheel has made man lazier than ancient man. Lack of physical labour is harming the physical efficiency. In the Second World War America dropped nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, people are still suffering from various kinds of disabilities. World trade centre was destroyed with the help of aircrafts. Vehicles like car, bus, and trucks are causing pollution, these vehicles are making our environment unsafe and unhealthy. Accidents take so many lives. Turbines are also creating air pollution. Guns, the biggest enemy of human life, are an invention of wheel.

The disadvantages of any invention cannot hide the labour and intelligence behind that invention. The hard labour and great ideas have always changed the course of life. The point here I want to make is that even if nature provides many things to us it is up to humans how they harness it. Sometime a great idea is being developed in front of me but I cannot recognise it and thus I miss the bus. If I clutch it with my capabilities and intelligence, I could do a lot many good things, which have never happened earlier in this world. Similarly, I can create massive destructions too. However, in both the cases I have to recognise the hidden secrets of nature. In the case of Wheel, humans got it in their clutch when they got behind it (simple, isn’t it?)

Nevertheless, we are in sophisticated world. We have to move forward. Therefore, there will be lots of invention having advantages and disadvantages but we should keep in mind to make right use of invention.

Saima Fatma

Picture Gallery

Feel to be educated
Captured by ~ Devashish

How lucky I am!
Captured by ~ Devashish

Excitement at its bliss
Captured by ~ Azmi

Full time Job

Captured by ~ Azmi

Nestling childhood
Captured by ~ Azmi

VOTE OF THANKS

We are proud and happy to present the first edition of second volume of ‘SAMAR’. We hope you must have enjoyed the magazine. You can also read the magazine online at www.mysamar.blogspot.com. You can also give your feedback through e-mail or post.

Last but not the least; again, we would like to thank the readers, writers, and sponsor of ‘SAMAR’.

EDITOR


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Back Cover

Children of Danyawa village, Patna district, Bihar.