25th Sept '19 Nirvay www.nirvaynews.com publishes this Odia coulmn 'Sarahad' the Boundary line picturing the contexts that needs boundary to honour or dishonour or redraw. It talks of a village man Ganga that puts his lifestyle that obeys his financial boundary so he doesn't have to depend upon anybody. Early days, a farmer in village used to grow almost what his family needed an viceversa what was need was almost grown in his field. That life was very close to soil so writers of those days named those people 'MatiRa Manisha' - the man of the soil. Life style was scripted in dictate of self-dependence. But when Gangi found smuggling a packet of maggy noodle through Bairagi a neighbour Ganga had to challenge Bairagi with a call to withdraw himself to his boundary, not interfering household of Ganga. As Bairagi didn't then invited altercation that found both rolling on the dust of the village road. But, now the lifestyle in village has indeed crossed that sarahad making village folks vulnerable to financial needs such that they have to seek freebies in exchange of their democratic rights, tha malady of democracy begins there.
Epic mother Sita in Ramayana crossed the sarahad drawn by Laxman leading to her abduction that unfolded into the poetics of saint Tulashidas , Ramayana. Does that mean crossing the sarahad at times beneficial? Had Sita not been abducted, the epic Ramayana probably would have not been written by the sage Balmik. That could be a hypothesis to ponder on sarahad, the boundary lines.
Boundary of nation, border is highly respected and heavily guarded as if all lie on that line. Lives are lost, honours are earned on the boundary lines. The problem multiplies when such boundary lines remain ill-defined like MacMohan line drawn in dead night silence without any thought resulting into two nations to the folly of a colonialist and foolishness of natives of which both the nations India and Pakistan suffer since their births the deformation that challenges both the nations so badly.
But also true, sarahad is redefined. Bangaldesh is born and old sarahad is scrapped for the new. The time got used to this sarahad. While sarahad offers a safe congenial space for an entity to blossom but nature inherently wants to change. Entity on living within the same sarahad may find the space not enough fertile for the succor it needs so the need of change. But, a change need not be a discard but an expansion. A person on move pushing its sarahad has chance to excel. So each busy in pushing its sarahad. But who does push this expanding Universe ? Did you say God ?
