|
|
|
General Forum: Offbeat n Jokes | | ఆయ్ ! దేశభాషలందు తెలుగు లెస్స ! ఉభయగోదావరి | |
| CATALYSTS OF CHANGE
Arvind Kejriwal
An IIT graduate, Kejriwal joined the Indian Revenue Service in 1992 only to realize that
///*** “much of the corruption in government is owing to lack of transparency in the process”. ****///
In 2006, he quit his job to work full time as a social activist. Now, Kejriwal is one of the main people behind the campaign for a Jan Lokpal Bill. On Saturday, as the government accepted civil society groups’ demand to include them in the drafting of the bill, Kejriwal called it a “victory of the people of India”.
Santosh Hegde
After retiring as Supreme Court judge in June 2005, Hegde was appointed Lokayukta of Karnataka in 2006. During his tenure, Hegde exposed major irregularities in Bellary’s mining industry and recommended banning iron ore exports. In his campaign against corruption, Justice Hegde caught babus and netas in the act. Now, Hegde has accepted the government’s decision to appoint him to the 10-member panel that will draft the Lokpal Bill. “Though the government has met our requests, powers against netas and requirement for sanction for prosecution are needed to strengthen the institutions,” he says.
Kiran Bedi
India’s first woman IPS officer has always had the shining image of an upright and no-nonsense officer. She took voluntary retirement from the service in 2007 and ever since, has been involved in various campaigns for social justice. Last year, her attempt to become Chief Information Commissioner failed, leading Bedi to plunge into the campaign for the Jan Lokpal Bill. “People who get blessings from Anna Hazare do not need anything else to devote to the country. We are getting the inspiration of sacrifice from Anna Hazare,” says Bedi, who was at Jantar Mantar throughout Hazare’s fast unto death.
Swami Agnivesh
A law and economics graduate from the University of Calcutta, Swami Agnivesh lectured on business management in 1963. In 1977, Agnivesh became an MLA and served as a minister in the Haryana government. In recent months, he has been acting as an interlocutor between the government and Maoist rebels. On Saturday, as the government issued a notification on the Jan Lokpal Bill, the saffron-clad social activist shouted from the dais that the fight had just started and this was not the end.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 10, Apr 2011 11:38:13 AM IST
“Lobbyists, arms dealers and political fixers can influence government policy but there is no place for an old Gandhian in this system.”
The worst victims of corruption in India are the poor. My fight is for the people living in the countryside who have to pay bribes to get what is legally due to them,” says Hazare. “I will continue to fight for the people.”
Anna Hazare has never claimed he is Gandhi. The boy who left school after class VII, joined the army just before the 1962 war with China. He was shunted off to the border after he took on his superiors over corruption in ration supplies. “I was always a troublemaker. I used to have a temper. I could not see someone doing something wrong that makes others suffer. I would end up opening my mouth and get into trouble,” says Hazare, who survived a massive Pakistani air raid on his convoy during the 1965 war. His comrades were riddled with bullets, Hazare survived. “That attack made me think about the purpose of my life. God saved me for a reason. I had to do something good and positive with my life,” says Hazare,
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 10, Apr 2011 11:32:42 AM IST
A good article. read on
CITIZEN ANNA AND AGENT PRASHANT
Corruption has taken centrestage and so have two crusaders seeking to stem the rot that is the other side of India Shining
Rashmee Roshan Lall | TNN
In fashionably liberal circles, Prashant Bhushan
is an authentic modern hero, the people’s ad
vocate who uses the killer argument to avenge
the aam admi on the bloodless battlefield of
the Supreme Court. Among his lawyer peers, Bhushan is somewhat disdainfully seen as an “activist who takes up causes, not cases”. Some politicians call him a “self-righteous” busybody with a penchant for the sensational storyline. Some others loathe the 55-year-old, who helped draft the Jan Lokpal Bill, as an anarchist impelled to bring down the system. To the man on the street, Bhushan is all but invisible.
But the results of his relentless war on what he calls “evil and venality” are all around. There appears to be a decided people’s clamour for the anti-corruption Jan Lokpal Bill he wrote with former Supreme Court justice Santosh Hegde. And at the beginning of March, Bhushan effectively humbled India’s chief political executive—the prime minister—as well as forced the highest court in the land to do his will.
With his trademark cautiousness, Bhushan admits this might be as good as it gets for a knee-jerk activist with “a passion for justice”. He acknowledges “I’ve been unwittingly catapulted into a kind of position of a hero, which I can see from the manner in which people are now wanting to interview me, as well as talk to me in the courts, congratulate me etc.”
It is safe to say Bhushan has made a career out of public interest litigation (PIL) having self-confessedly taken up “about 500 cases over 15-16 years” that deal with ‘good’ causes (environment, corruption, the Bofors case, Narmada dam). He made a career but not a fortune because he doesn’t charge for public interest cases, which he admits “take a long time, go on for a long time… more time than normal cases”. Effectively, therefore, he admits to spending just 25% of his time on paying cases, charging 5% of what other lawyers charge and earning just “enough to take care of my office expenses at any rate”.
Clearly, he is magnificently unworried about money. He lives in simple but great comfort with his former lawyer wife Deepa on one floor of his father’s house in Noida. The oldest of four children of well known lawyer and Prime Minister Morarji Desai’s law minister Shanti Bhushan, Prashant lives the dream described by American novelist Edith Wharton — the only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it. This is the starting point of the difference in Bhushan’s worldview and that of people he lumps together as “professional lawyers”. Most of them, he says severely, “are amoral, morally vacuous and they’re not bothered whether their client gets justice nor are they bothered whether their client’s cause is just or not.”
Bhushan’s fellow lawyer in the Supreme Court, Harish Salve, acknowledges the grubby and distinct reality of being a “commercial lawyer (not an activist). Sometimes, even we’re not convinced our clients are right”. Contrast that with Bhushan’s lofty refusal to “take up a case unless I feel my client is at least morally right.”
America’s leading expert on the Indian legal system and London School of Economics Centennial Professor Marc Galanter says Bhushan is quite remarkable for “being so empowered.” Unlike many great—and effective—activist lawyers, notably the late William Kunstler who fought for civil liberties, black people and native Americans, “Prashant’s circumstances have given him (financial) independence, Kunstler had the imperative of making a living. I find it admirable that Prashant has grasped the opportunity”.
And how. Just months ago, he successfully challenged the Prime Minister and Home Minister’s decision to appoint PJ Thomas as head of the country’s eight-yearold premier integrity watchdog, the Central Vigilance Commission. He was able to prove that the appointment of a man facing corruption charges to an anti-corruption institution was laughably inappropriate.
In mid-December, Bhushan managed to convince the Supreme Court it must monitor the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) inquiry into the 2G spectrum allocation scandal, which the lawyer argued had only benefitted the “favourites amongst the favoured”. The Court even agreed with Bhushan that the CBI had dragged its feet on investigating the mega scandal. It was arguably just the fillip needed to start nailing those alleged to be guilty. From then on, it took the CBI just six weeks to arrest former telecom minister A Raja.
Bhushan wasted little time taking aim at his next quarry in the 2G scam. On March 1, he told the Supreme Court that the CBI was behaving suspiciously by failing to investigate the direct involvement of the Tata group in the entire matter. Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly assured him the case was “progressing in the right direction. Prima facie there is no fault in its investigation. We are quite conscious that CBI must probe every aspect of the case.”
Bhushan had made his point. But he is not triumphant. Possibly just a tad self-satisfied. He talks about his own “moral authority” and the fact that his “responsible and consistent” campaign against judicial corruption means judges “both respect and fear you (him)”. Despite being mild-mannered and retiring, some might find him as boastful as an Arab dictator: “Even judges today are afraid of throwing in jail someone who they know is perceived to be right by the people.”
Chiefly though, he is unyielding and as a friend describes him, “all heavy seriousness” about his role in India today. The science fiction addict who once wrote a turgid novel of the genre, is clear that he is an “agent of change, a catalyst”. The IIT Madras student who left halfway, went on to Princeton to study philosophy and
economics but couldn’t
stay the course, is steady
as a rock about his destiny. He objects to the adjective “messiah”, saying “it can mean many things.
/////****I see myself as a person who tries to see the connections between what is happening and tries to spread the message that I feel should be spread about what is wrong with our economic policies, what is wrong with our judicial system.”*****/////
He studied law at Allahabad, doing part of the course before Princeton and taking his final exam on his return. He started early down the public interest road, inspired partly by his father’s views on justice, probity and corruption. Early on, he fought limestone quarrying in the picturesque Doon Valley. Then, there was the Bhopal gas tragedy litigation. He was Delhi president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, one of India’s oldest human rights organizations.
Bhushan is unembarrassed to be asked if activism is an indulgence for those who can afford it, chiefly people who don’t need to worry about feeding the family or putting a son through Oxford (Manav, oldest of his three sons, is studying Math there). “Activism certainly needs to be supported—by like-minded people or grants…I don’t need to seek grants because I come from a very well-to-do family”. Salve, who has faced Bhushan across the courtroom many times (“cases go up to two digits”) magnanimously says that “we need the Prashant Bhushans, we need people like him. Every system needs crackpots”. Bhushan himself describes Salve as his chief detractor but Salve insists that Bhushan is generally to be admired because “he takes every cause, good, bad or indifferent and argues it with passion.”
Salve’s words of praise may sit oddly with his deeds. In his own words Salve “drew the Supreme Court’s attention” to Bhushan’s September 2009 interview to a magazine in which he claimed “half of the last 16 Chief Justices were corrupt”. Bhushan now faces contempt of court proceedings. Salve denies animosity. “We’re all on the same side, as citizens, we’re against corruption but I think that he is sometimes out of sync with economic reality.”
This fierce romantic idealism seems to annoy Bhushan’s detractors most. Like America’s self-appointed “radical lawyer” William Kunstler, Bhushan is accused of being a “publicity seeker”. Some are suspicious of his chiming with writer Arundhati Roy to recall India Rising to right rather than jingoistic might. Some say the Jan Lokpal Bill would have been drafted with or without Bhushan. Others say the main opposition BJP would have achieved the same results on the 2G scam had Bhushan not managed courtroom success. His chief critics say he’s not really a serious lawyer at all, just a “cause-pleader”. But Salve will have none of this. “He is a good lawyer. His arguments are crisp and to the point. He doesn’t get into high philosophy and jurisprudence. He picks his cause and he bangs it hard”.
Bhushan, unemotional to the point of bloodlessness, bangs on. From his third floor office opposite the Supreme Court, he looks dreamily at the pigeons on the window sill: “There are some straws in the wind. There is reason for hope. Today you can sense a kind of arousal and excitement even among the urban middle class which one didn’t see earlier. There’s resistance everywhere against every kind of loot and degradation.”
Shobhan Saxena | TNN
In the mid-1970s, a former Indian Army soldier declared war on illicit distilling and gambling in his village, Ralegaon Siddhi, in Maharashtra. Some liquor shops complied with Kishan Baburao Hazare’s orders but for the rest, it was business as usual. Hazare decided to get tough when three drunkards from another village thrashed a local man. He caught the three men when next they entered the village, had them tied to a pillar and flogged them with his army belt till they sobered up and promised to go on the wagon. Soon enough, all the liquor vends in the area vanished. "It’s not easy to bring change. If you really want to do some good, it's sometimes necessary to be tough," recalls Hazare with a smile.
Anna Hazare doesn’t look like the toughie he talks about. He is short, moves slowly and talks softly. Dressed in a white dhoti-kurta, a Gandhi cap on his head, Hazare sits cross-legged onstage. Resting on a pile of white cushions, he surveys the crowd that has gathered at the site of his fast at Jantar Mantar in the national capital. Sometimes he claps his hands, joining the drumbeat of supporters singing revolutionary songs. Sometimes, he takes quick gulps of water from a steel glass offered by an attendant. Then as the sun climbs higher, he lies down, trying to sleep even as crowds swarm the stage from where he is challenging the government.
“Look at this man. From which angle does he look like a fascist? He is 72 and on hunger strike to fight corruption and the politicians are calling him a fascist and a blackmailer. When politicians, cutting across party line, speak the same language, we have to be careful,” says Ramesh Sharma, a social activist who has been camping at Jantar Mantar since Tuesday, when Hazare began his fastunto-death to force the government to accept civil society’s recommendations on the Lokpal bill. Indeed, politicians have been talking much the same langua g e.Cong ress spokesperson Manish Tiwari said Hazare had no locus standi on the issue because he was not an “elected representative” of the people; Mohan Singh of the Samajwadi Party accused him of employing “fascist tactics” and the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Raghuvansh Prasad Singh poured vitriol on him for “dictating” terms to the government.
Every time a politician opens his mouth against Hazare, he gets a fewhundred new followers, thousands of Facebook pages get updated and millions show their support for the man who has become a symbol of the fight against corruption. Bollywood actor Anupam Kher calls him a “selfless man who is risking his life for the sake of the nation”; Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy extends his “active support” to Hazare; Ravnish Singh, a jobless school teacher from Haryana sees “hope for the country” in him; student Shruti Khanna gets “inspiration from him to do something for the country”; and housewife Malti Rana from Faridabad feels as if “Gandhiji has come back to give us independence from the corrupt politicians”.
Anna Hazare has never claimed he is Gandhi. The boy who left school after class VII, joined the army just before the 1962 war with China. He was shunted off to the border after he took on his superiors over corruption in ration supplies. “I was always a troublemaker. I used to have a temper. I could not see someone doing something wrong that makes others suffer. I would end up opening my mouth and get into trouble,” says Hazare, who survived a massive Pakistani air raid on his convoy during the 1965 war. His comrades were riddled with bullets, Hazare survived. “That attack made me think about the purpose of my life. God saved me for a reason. I had to do something good and positive with my life,” says Hazare, who returned to his village in 1975 and decided to clean it up with the help of young people. As Ralegon Siddhi moved to prosperity, Kishan Baburao Hazare became anna (elder brother) to the villagers.
Today, he is anna or elder brother for much of India. “There is a lot of anger among the people and they don’t know how to express it. Suddenly they see an old man fasting to death not for any personal gain and they rally
around him,” says an IAS officer who just “walked by” Jantar Mantar to “soak in the atmosphere”. The officer, who doesn’t want to be named for obvious reasons, adds that “the government miscalculated the impact of his fast. In this country a selfless act of sacrifice can pull a lot of people.”
Simplicity is Anna Hazare’s greatest strength. Integrity is another major factor that distinguishes him from other public figures. “They are calling him names now but Raghuvansh Prasad and Mohan Singh have done nothing to fight corruption. Being honest personally is not enough, they are members of parties which are synonymous with corruption,” says Ramesh Sharma, the social activist. “Lobbyists, arms dealers and political fixers can influence government policy but there is no place for an old Gandhian in this system.”
Anna Hazare is a Gandhian with a difference. He is more like a street fighter who is not scared of taking on anyone because he believes his cause is just. And he is a man of many causes. At Jantar Mantar, groups of poor farmers from Maharashtra talk of him as a hero. For them he is a living legend. All his actions — the fight against the liquor mafia; the battle against corruption in government offices; the crusade for a Right to Information act in Maharashtra; the campaign against the Mumbai underworld—has become the stuff of legend. And now he has many new converts in his fight against corruption. “I read somewhere that corruption is a middle-class fad. That’s wrong. The worst victims of corruption in India are the poor. My fight is for the people living in the countryside who have to pay bribes to get what is legally due to them,” says Hazare. “I will continue to fight for the people.”
Hazare has been an activist for 40 years but has never touched hearts and minds in the way he did during his hunger strike for the Jan Lokpal bill. In a matter of five days, Anna Hazare has become a much larger figure than when he arrived in Delhi on April 3. Now, with the Lokpal bill issue settled for the moment, the fighter in Anna Hazare must surely be looking for his next big cause.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 10, Apr 2011 11:19:11 AM IST
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 27, Dec 2010 6:16:37 PM IST3
siri siri gaaru chaalaa baagundi
Posted by: Mr. Bhaskar At: 4, Feb 2011 0:07:45 AM IST
‘అమ్మయిగోరు రిచ్హాండి..’
(అమ్మయిగారు రిక్షా ఎక్కేసారు
రిక్షా వడివడిగా రోద్దుమీద సాగుతున్నపుదు సంభాషణ..ఇలా సాగుతుంది.)
‘మరి యేవూరండి మనది?’
‘వూరా..నేను అమెరికా నుంచి వస్తున్నానయ్య..’
‘అయ్యబాబోయ్..వమెరికాయే.అంటే మీరు యేరుపోట్టులో దిగారన్నమాట..’
‘అవునయ్యా..రాజమండ్రి ఎయిర్పోర్టులో దిగాను’
‘మరి అమ్మయిగోరూ వమెరికాలో మీరెటిసేత్తారమ్మా?!’
‘నేనూ.. నేను అక్కడ పెద్ద విమానాల కంపెనీలో పనిచేస్తానయ్యా..’
‘మరి వమెరికాలో రిచ్హతోక్కితే బాగా కిడతాదమ్మా?’
‘ఓ.. భలే కిడతాది..డబ్బులే డబ్బులు.!’
‘మరి నెనమెరికా వచ్హేస్తానమ్మాయిగోరూ..
మీ కూడా తీసుకుపోరూ..’
‘అలాగేలే..’
‘మరక్కడ రిచ్హవోల్ల సంఘాలుంతాయమ్మగొరూ?’
‘వుంటాయయ్యా బాబూ..’
‘అమ్మయిగోరు..ఒక దౌటంది..మరేమనుకోరుగా?’
‘నేనేమనుకోనులే ఏమితొ అడుగు మరి!’
‘మరయ్యగోరు యెక్కదున్నారమ్మ..?’
‘నాకింకా పెళ్ళే కాలేదయ్యా బాబూ..’
‘మీరింకా పెల్లి సెసుకోరెంటమ్మా..నాకు దెలిసిన సంబంధమొకటుంది అమ్మయిగోరు..’
(ఈ సమయానికి అమ్మయిగారు రిక్షా దూకి పరుగో పరుగు..)
ఇది గోదావరి జిల్లల్లో రిక్షావాది తెలివితేలకు ఒక మచ్హుతునక..
చూదంది మరి..
ఎంత మర్యాదా ఎంత మర్యాదా!
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 1, Mar 2006 10:31:41 AM IST
page 167
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 2, Feb 2011 5:25:59 PM IST
Nice stories
Posted by: nRuSimha rAyalu S At: 16, Jan 2011 9:03:26 PM IST
THE MESSAGE DOWN BELOW IS NOT READABLE CAN SOME ONE DO ANYTHING. I BELONG TO E.G.Dt. HA..HAA.. AAI
Posted by: Mr. Bhaskar Karthik At: 15, Jan 2011 1:27:36 PM IST
meedi kaanee gOdaarullO okaTaa, prasanna gaarU?
Posted by: Mr. see nu At: 11, Jan 2011 3:08:25 AM IST
అనగనగా ఒక ఊరిలో ఒక పిచ్చుక పిల్ల ఉంది..అది అల్లరిది ..దానికి తొందరెక్కువ..చెప్పిన మాట వినదు..ఒకరోజు దానికి పరమాన్నం తినాలనే కోరిక పుట్టింది.. అది అమ్మ దగ్గరకు వెళ్లి దాని కోరిక చెప్పింది.. పరమాన్నానికి పాలు,బెల్లం,జీడి పప్పు ,నెయ్యి అన్నీ కావాలమ్మా,నాన్న రాగానే వండుతా అని చెప్పింది అమ్మ..అయినా సరే ఇప్పుడే కావాలి, ఇప్పుడే కావాలి ఏడుపు మొదలు పెట్టింది పిచ్చుక పిల్ల. చేసేది లేక వాళ్ళ అమ్మే అన్నీ తెచ్చుకుని వంట మొదలు పెట్టింది..
వంట చేస్తున్నంత సేపు పిచ్చుక ఎప్పుడు పెడతావ్? ఎప్పుడు అవుతుంది ?అని అమ్మను విసిగించడం మొదలు పెట్టింది..పరమాన్నం వండి చిన్న గిన్నెలో దానిని వేసి వేడిగా ఉంది కొద్ది సేపు ఆగమ్మా అని చెప్పింది తల్లి ..లేదు లేదు నేను ఇప్పుడే తింటాను అని ముక్కు పెట్టింది పిచ్చుక .. దానికి బాగా కాలింది.. అది ఏడుస్తూ కూర్చుంది …
చెప్పిన మాట వినవు కదా అని అమ్మ దానికి చల్లార్చి ఇచ్చింది.. అయినా పిచ్చుకకు బుద్ది రాలేదు… నేను బయటకు వెళ్లి తింటాను అని మళ్లీ గొడవ మొదలు పెట్టింది.. వద్దమ్మా..నువ్వు చిన్న పిల్లవు..నీకు లోకం తీరు తెలియదు అని అమ్మ ఎంత చెప్పినా వినలేదు..
దాని గిన్నె ముక్కుతో పట్టుకుని ఒక పెద్ద చెట్టు పై కూర్చుని తినడం మొదలు పెట్టింది.. ఎక్కడినుండో ఒక కాకి వచ్చింది.. ఓయ్ ఆ గిన్నె నాకు ఇచ్చి వెళ్ళిపో అని పిచ్చుక పై అరిచింది కాకి.. ఇది మా అమ్మ వండింది నేను ఇవ్వను అని పిచ్చుక గొడవ చేసింది.. ఆ పెనుగులాటలో మొత్తం క్రింద ఇసుకలో పడిపోయింది … కాకి కి కోపం వచ్చి పిచ్చుకను ముక్కుతో బాగా పొడిచి గాయ పరచి వెళ్ళిపోయింది.. పిచ్చుకకు బుద్ది వచ్చింది.. అమ్మ దగ్గరకు ఏడుస్తూ వెళ్ళింది.. అందుకే పెద్దవాళ్ళు చెప్పినట్లు వినాలి…
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 27, Dec 2010 6:26:59 PM IST
కాకీ, ఎలుక, తాబేలు కలిసిమెలసి సంతోషంగా కాలం గడుపుతుండగా ఓ నాడు ఓ లేడి అక్కడికి రొప్పుతూ పరుగుతో వచ్చింది. దాన్ని చూసి భయంతో ఎలుక కలుగులోకి, తాబేలు చెరువులోకి కాకి చెట్టుపైకి వెళ్ళిపోయాయి. ప్రమాదంలేదని నిర్ధారించుకుని తిరిగి అన్ని ఒకచోట కూడాయి. “నువ్వు ఎవరివి? ఇలా పరుగుతో ఇక్కడికి ఎందుకొచ్చావు?” అంటూ ఆ లేడి ని అడిగాడు మంథరుడు.
“నా పేరు చిత్రాంగుడు.నన్నొక వేటగాడు తరమగా ఇలా వచ్చాను.” అని చెప్పి వారి మిత్రుడిగా తననూ చేర్చుకోమనీ, అక్కడ తనకు ఆశ్రయం ఇవ్వవలసిందని అడిగిందా లేడి.
లేడి సాధు స్వభావి కనుక దాని స్నేహం ఒప్పుకో తగ్గదే నంటూ మాలో ఒకడిగా ఇక్కడే ఉండవచ్చు అని అంగీకరించింది తాబేలు.
అప్పటినుండీ ఆ నలుగురూ స్నేహితులుగా ఎంతో సఖ్యంగా ఉండసాగారు.
ఓనాడు బయటకి వెళ్ళిన చిత్రాంగుడు తిరిగి రాలేదు. మంథరుడు ఆందోళనపడసాగాడు. లఘుపతనకం చిత్రాంగుడి జాడకోసం వెతుకుతూ వెళ్ళింది.
దానికి ఓ చోట వేటగాడి వలలో చిక్కుకున్న లేడి కనిపించింది.
లేడి కాకితో ఈ వెటగాడు రాకముందే నేను బయట పడాలి. నువ్వు త్వరగా వెళ్ళి హిరణ్యకుడిని తీసుకురా. తను ఈ వలకొరికి నన్ను విడిపించగలడు. అంది.
లఘుపతనకం వెంటనే ఎగిరివెళ్ళి మిగతా మిత్రులతో ఈ సంగతి చెప్పి. హిరణ్యకుడిని తన వీపుపై కూర్చోబెట్టుకుని ఎగురుతూ వచ్చి లేడి వద్ద వాలింది. ఎలుక ఆ వలని ముక్కలుగా కొరికివేయగా చిత్రాంగుడు వలనుండి బయటపడ్డాడు.
ముగ్గురూ కలిసి తామున్న చోటికి బయల్దేరి వస్తుండగా. హిరణ్యకుడు చిత్రాంగుడిని . ” నువ్వెంతో తెలివైన వాడివి. ఇలా ఆపదలో ఎలా చిక్కుకున్నావు”? అంటూ అడిగాడు.
తెలివైనవాడైనా తెలివితక్కువ వాడైనా ఎప్పడు ఏ ఖర్మ అనుభవించాలో అది అనుభవించక తప్పదు. అనే మాటకు నా జీవితమే నిదర్శనము.
అంటూ తన కథను ఇలా చెప్పింది.
బాల్యంలొ అడవిలో నా జాతి వారితో ఆడుతూ హాయిగా స్వేచ్చగా ఉండేవాడిని. ఓ వేటగాడు పన్నిన వలలోని పచ్చికను చూసి దానికై వెళ్ళి ఆ వలలో చిక్కుకున్నాను. ఆ వెటగాడు నన్ను ఆ దేశపు రాజుగారి కొడుకుకి బహుమానంగా ఇచ్చాడు. సైనికులు నన్ను జాగ్రత్తగా చూసుకునే వారు వేళకు ఆహారం అందేట్టుగా చూసేవారు.
ఓరోజు ఊరుచూడాలని కోటలోంచి బయటకు వెళ్ళాను. వీధుల్లోని పిల్లలు నావెంటపడ్డారు. నేను భయంతో పారిపోయి అంత:పురంలోని తోటలోకి వెళ్ళాను. అక్కడి దాసీలు నన్ను పట్టుకుని ఓ చోట కట్టివేసారు. అప్పుడు పెద్ద వర్షం కురవడం మొదలెట్టింది. ఆ వర్షం చూస్తే నాకెంతో ఆనందం కలిగి ’ ఆహ్హా ఈ వర్షంలో తడుస్తూ అడవిలో స్వేచ్చగా గంతులేస్తూ ఉంటే ఎంతహాయిగా ఉంటుంది! ఆ అదృష్టం నాకులేదు! అన్నాను. రాజకుమారుడి గది పక్కనే ఉన్నది. నా మాటలు విని రాజకుమారుడు బయటకు వచ్చి ఒక లేడి మాట్లాడం చూసి ఆశ్చర్యపోయి జోతిష్యుడిని పిలిచి విషయం చెప్పాడు. మృగము మానవ భాషలో మాటలాడటం అరిష్టము. వెంటనే దీన్ని పంపించివేయండి. శాంతి జరిపించండి అన్నాడు ఆ జోతిష్యుడు. సేవకులు నన్ను అడవిలో వదిలేశారు. అప్పుడే మీరు నాకు తరసపడ్డారు. అంటూ తనకథను వారికి వినిపించాడు చిత్రాంగుడు.
అంతలో వీళ్ళకి మంథరుడు ఎదురు వచ్చాడు. “ఎందుకింత సాసం చేశావు? ఏదైనా ప్రమాదం జరిగితే ఎలా? అంటూ ప్రశ్నించాడు హిరణ్యకుడు.
మీరు ఎంతసేపటికీ రాకపోయే సరికి మీకేం ప్రమాదం జరిందోనని ఆందోళనతో ఒక్కడినే ఉండలేక ఇలా వచ్చాను” అంది తాబేలు. నలుగురూ మాట్లాడుకుంటూ నడవసాగారు.
ఆవెటగాడు వీరిని అనుసరిస్తూ రావడం మొదలెట్టాడు. ఆ సంగతి ఎగురుతున్న లఘుపతనం కనిపెట్టి. “వేటగాడు వస్తున్నాడు పారిపొండి” అంటూ కేకలు పెడుతూ ఓ చెట్టుకొమ్మల్లో దాక్కున్నాడు. పక్కనే ఉన్న కలుగులోకి దూరి దాక్కున్నాడు హిరణ్యకుడు. చిత్రాంగుడు వేగంగా పారిపోయాడు. నేలపై వేగంగా నడవలేని తాబేలుమంథరుడు వేటగాడికి దొరికి పోయాడు.
వెటగాడు తాబేలుని పట్టుకుని ఓకర్ర కు కట్టుకిని ఆ కర్ర బుజంపై పెట్టుకుని వెళ్ళసాగేడు.
తమ మిత్రునికి కలిగిన ఆపద చూసి అందరూ ఎంతో విచారించారు.
హిరణ్యకుడు మంథరుడిని విడిపించడానికై ఒక ఉపాయం చెప్పాడు. అది అందరికీ నచ్చింది.
దాని ప్రకారం చిత్రాంగుడు వెటగాడు వచ్చేదారిలో అక్కడికి దగ్గర్లోని చెరువు గట్టుపై చచ్చిన వాడివలె పడుకున్నాడు. కాకి అతడిపై చేరి ముక్కుతో కళ్ళను పొడుస్తున్నట్టుగా నటించసాగాడు.
వేటగాడు ఒడ్డున చచ్చినట్టు పడిఉన్న లేడీని చూసి, దానికోసం తన చేతిలోని తాబేలును నేలపై జారవిడిచి లేడి వద్దకు వెళ్ళాడు.
హిరణ్యకుడు వెంటనే వెళ్ళి తాబేలుని కట్టిన తాళ్ళను కొరికివేశాడు. తాబేలు చట్టుకున చెరువులోనికి వెళ్ళిపోయాడు. లఘుపతనకం కావు మంటూ ఎగిరిపోయింది. ఆసందేశం విని చిత్రాంగుడు మెరపు వేగంతో పారిపోయాడు.
*********************************
ఇలా ఈ కథ లన్నింటినీ రాజకుమారులకు చెప్పిన విష్ణుశర్మ. మంచి స్నేహితులను సంపాదించుకుని ఒకరికొకరు తోడుగా హాయిగా జీవించాలి. స్నేహితుల వలన కలిగే లాభం ఏమిటో తెలిసింది కదా. అంటూ మిత్రలాభం కథలని ముగించాడు.
అలాగే మంచివారితో మంచి జరిగినట్టే చెడు స్నేహాల వల్ల నష్టం జరుగుతుంది. చెడుస్నేహాల జోలికి పోవద్దంటూ. హితవు పలికాడు.
మిత్రలాభాన్ని తెలుసుకున్నాం. మిత్రభేదాన్ని గురించి చెప్పండి. అంటూ రాజకుమారులు విష్ణుశర్మని అడిగారు.
అలాగే అంటూ మిత్ర భేదాన్ని చెప్పసాగాడు విష్ణుశర్మ.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 27, Dec 2010 6:21:19 PM IST
| |
|
|
|
| Advertisements |
|
|
|
|
| Advertisements |
|
.gif)
