A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken. -James Dent
JUNE-2009( Year-3-Issue-28)
In this section: Flavour Of the month: Lord Tennyson. Favourites Forever: F.W. Harvey. Poetry Here & Now: Devi Nagrani, Shail Agrawal. Story: Edgar Allan Poe. Kids Corner- First story of Dasavtar and a short poem by Ogden Nash along with the monthly review of news and views in Vividha.
When we take a day off from our daily hustle & bustle, our thoughts are automatically turned to our home...our dear ones, things that are closer to our heart. In this issue of Lekhni we are trying to do the same..trying to know what is, and what is not so important to pant and rush after in a limitted span of time...In other words to create extraordinary for ourself out of ordinary and mundane.....Discovery of ourselves ....
knowing and living fully , one really needs to be fully centered not just floating and expanding its outer spheres only. We all know it is not possible. Crisis of identity is always a big issue with all immigrants.
Living in this part of the world, I have often wondered how we, who belong to the older and wiser generation, can keep India and Indian culture alive in a foreign country; yet blending the best of the west and east for our future generations. Task is never easy & demands lot of understanding and a sympathetic attitude towards the ever changing needs of the present global civilization.
To develop a healthy democratic culture, art and literature must reflect a happ blend of the naustalegic past and a realistic present …. Sure; one must know and fully understand its great heritage , but to know what is going on , success & failures of its present, are equally important.too … Motivations and needs are issues of vital importance in today’s shrinking World. They will always keep on shaping and reshaping our day today lives, so what ticks and what is outdated needs to be fully understood and that also without denting the sensivity or our pride
Often that thin line between 'isms' and experiments in the name of art or creativity, and obscenity and vulgarity is very thin one indeed, yet for the flow of art it cannot be forgotten also. ‘ Lekhni ’ is also trying to shoulder its’ responsibilities in its own small way. This three fold task of combining beauty, social and moral values and benefit factor is never easy. It can not claim that it has achieved all , what it sets out to achive! May be just a drop in the ocean, but enthusiasm and a sincere effort is always there ....
It fully knows that road ahead is very long and windy one and a forward march very very tought indeed . It also knows that in this uphill struggle it has to keep on moving undefiantly and relentlessly...keep on striving hard to understand and create a better understanding about each-other, be sympathetic about our changing cultural, social & enviourmental needs.
However preoccupied and hard pressd for time in its' duty Lekhni may be, it never forgets that its' success is entirely a joint effort by all of us; people who read and write in it..and its critics too; who help us to decipline and improve ourselves...a valuable tool in our progress. .
Once again thanks again for being with Lekhni family in its thick and thin.times.
Lekhni appreciates its readers & supporters, and is always grateful to its writers & poets & critics .
On The wings of thought, I, rise high and high To See the glory of nature In Pleasure and paradise, In pool of pain and misery
Where I Wander from dawn to dusk Wherever desire takes me, In pursuit of pleasure To See something exciting To See something unseen. Finally The urge to free myself From my own web Compells me To retrace and go back, To the Source.
For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not - and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified - have tortured - have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror - to many they will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place - some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.
From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat .
This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point - and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.
Pluto - this was the cat's name - was my favourite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets.
Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character - through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance - had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me - for what disease is like Alcohol! - and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish - even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.
One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.
When reason returned with the morning - when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch - I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.
In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law , merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself - to offer violence to its own nature - to do wrong for the wrong's sake only - that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; - hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; - hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; - hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin - a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it - if such a thing wore possible - even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.
On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.
I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts - and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire - a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words "strange!" "singular!" and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about the animal's neck.
When I first beheld this apparition - for I could scarcely regard it as less - my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd - by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.
Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place.
One night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat - a very large one - fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast. Upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made no claim to it - knew nothing of it - had never seen it before.
I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favourite with my wife.
For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but - I know not how or why it was - its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually - very gradually - I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence.
What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed, in a high degree, that humanity of feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures.
With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast. At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly - let me confess it at once - by absolute dread of the beast.
This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil - and yet I should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to own - yes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to own - that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had been heightened by one of the merest chimaeras it would be possible to conceive. My wife had called my attention, more than once, to the character of the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and which constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had destroyed. The reader will remember that this mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by slow degrees - degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time my Reason struggled to reject as fanciful - it had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name - and for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared - it was now, I say, the image of a hideous - of a ghastly thing - of the GALLOWS ! - oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime - of Agony and of Death !
And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast - whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed - a brute beast to work out for me - for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God - so much of insufferable woe! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest any more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight - an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off - incumbent eternally upon my heart!
Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates - the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.
One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.
This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard - about packing it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellar - as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their victims.
For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney, or fireplace, that had been filled up, and made to resemble the red of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect any thing suspicious. And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped it in that position, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went over the new brickwork. When I had finished, I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly, and said to myself - "Here at least, then, my labour has not been in vain."
My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness; for I had, at length, firmly resolved to put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the moment, there could have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and forbore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night - and thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul!
The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed as a freeman. The monster, in terror, had fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered. Even a search had been instituted - but of course nothing was to be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured.
Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.
"Gentlemen," I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, "I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this - this is a very well constructed house." [In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.] - "I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls are you going, gentlemen? - these walls are solidly put together;" and here, through the mere frenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.
But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend ! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! - by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman - a howl - a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.
Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!
Dashavatar: It is described in Indian mythology that for the benefit of humanity Lord Vishnu (Sustainer of this world) took ten incarnations. It is also described in the Geeta that whenever dharma is threatened Vishnu mounts his eagle (Garuda) and comes to the rescue. As the demands of each age is different; hence his forms are different also. Here in this column we introduce our young readers to the fascinating story of his first incarnation.
Matsyavtar
( Lord Vishnu incarnates himself as a fish in the earliest era 'Satyuga')
A pious and just king called Manu prayed and performed severe penances all his life. One day as he was performing rituals with river water, a small fish came into his hands and just as he was about to throw the fish back into the river, the fish requested to the king to save its life. Heeding its request, the king put the fish into a jar of water but the fish started growing and the jar was not big enough for it. Then the king threw it into a small river, but it soon outgrew the river also. Then the king threw it into Ganges and then into the ocean, but the fish was getting bigger & bigger. The king realised that it was Lord Vishnu himself and then the Lord Vishnu made an appearance and made a special request to the king. He predicted that the world would come to an end ; caused by a huge flood in seven days. He then requested the king to build a big and strong boat and take the seven sages, seeds of all plants, one animal of each type into it . He told him that he would appear as a fish to propel the boat to Mount Himvan to ensure survival from the flood and into the next Yuga. True to his words, after seven days the Lord Vishnu appeared. The king tied the boat to the fish using the royal serpent Vasuki and the fish safely led them to mount Himvan and kept them there till the flood was over. In the new era, the king populated the land again for the new era and that is how the world was saved.
वरिष्ठ हिन्दी कथाकार गोविन्द मिश्र को साहित्य अकादमी पुरस्कार
समकालीन कथा लेखन में अपनी विशिष्ट पहचान बनाने वाले प्रसिद्ध हिन्दी कथाकार श्री गोविन्द मिश्र को उनके उपन्यास ' कोहरे में कैद रंग ' के लिए वर्ष 2008 का साहित्य अकादमी पुरस्कार प्रदान किया गया। इस बार हिन्दी साहित्य के लिए 13 लेखकों की पुस्तकें नामित हुई थीं। सर्वश्री प्रभाकर क्षेत्रिय, डॉ. सूर्यप्रकाश दीक्षित और प्रो. लालचन्द गुप्त की निर्णायक समिति ने श्री गोविन्द मिश्र की इस पुस्तक को पुरस्कृत करने का निर्णय लिया। अब तक श्री गोविन्द मिश्र के दस उपन्यास, ग्यारह कहानी संग्रह, पांच यात्रा वृतांत, चार निबंध संग्रह प्रकाशित हो चुके हैं। साहित्य अकादमी पुरस्कार के अलावा श्री गोविन्द मिश्र को उनके प्रसिद्ध उपन्यास ' पांच आंगनों वाला घर ' के लिए वर्ष 1998 का प्रसिद्ध व्यास सम्मान एवं समग्र साहित्यिक योगदान के लिए भारत के राष्ट्रपति जी द्वारा ' सुब्रह्मण्यम भारती सम्मान ' सहित अनेक पुरस्कारों से पुरस्कृत व सम्मानित किया गया है। भारत सरकार के सांस्कृतिक आदान-प्रदान कार्यक्रमके अंतर्गत श्री मिश्र जर्मनी, चेकोस्लोवाकिया और हंगरी की यात्रा कर चुके हैं। वे 1996 में त्रिनिदाद एंड टोबेगो में आयोजित पांचवे विश्व हिन्दी सम्मेलन में भाग लेने वाले भारत के प्रतिनिधि मंडल में शामिल थे। उन्होंने मॉरीशश की हिन्दी प्रचारिणी सभा की स्वर्ण जयंती में भारत का प्रतिनिधित्व किया था।
' लेखनी ' परिवार की ओर से श्री गोविन्द मिश्र को हार्दिक बधाई।
समकालीन हिन्दी कविता के महत्वपूर्ण कवि, दिनेश कुमार शुक्ल को उनके कविता संकलन `ललमुनिया की दुनिया' के लिए वर्ष २००८ का केदार सम्मान देने का निर्णय लिया गया है। निर्णय की प्रशस्ति में लिखा गया है कि दिनेश कुमार शुक्ल हमारे समय के उन थोड़े से कवियों में हैं जो आज वैश्वीकरण से उत्पन्न बाजारवाद से आक्रांत दुनिया के सुख - दुःख को हार्दिकता के साथ एक बड़े फलक पर उठाते हैं। उनके नए संग्रह `ललमुनिया की दुनिया' में हमारे जीवनानुभव ही नहीं, जीवनमूल्य और मानवीय सौन्दर्यबोध भी है। कविता की डूबती दुनिया में वे जिस तरह मनुष्यता को अपनी संवेदना से रेखांकित करते हैं, वह पाठकों को चमत्कृत करता है। बिल्कुल कवि कुँवर नारायण की तरह उनकी कविता में भी मनुष्यता को बचाने की चिंता है, संवेदनशीलता के साथ। निराला और मुक्तिबोध की तरह इस कवि ने भी कविता को शब्द- लय और भाषा के सौन्दर्यबोध के साथ इसे अपनी कविता में साधा है।
ज्ञातव्य हो कि दिनेशकुमार शुक्ल का `ललमुनिया की दुनिया' वर्ष २००८ में अनामिका प्रकाशन, इलाहाबाद द्वारा प्रकाशित किया गया है। यह इनका पाँचवाँ संकलन है . इसके पूर्व केदार सम्मान से निम्नांकित समकालीन हिन्दी कविता के महत्वपूर्ण कवियों को सम्मानित किया जा चुका है - नासिरा अहमद सिकंदर (१९९६) , एकांत श्रीवास्तव (१९९७) , कुमार अम्बुज (१९९८) , विनोद दास (१९९९) , गगन गिल (२०००) , हरिश्चंद्र पाण्डेय (२००१) , अनिल कुमार सिंह (२००२) , हेमंत कुकरेती (२००३) , नीलेश रघुवंशी (२००४) , आशुतोष दुबे (२००५) , बद्री नारायण (२००६) , अनामिका (२००७) ।
साहित्य और साहित्यकारों से निरंतर संवाद रखने वाली संस्था जयजयवंती ने गत मई की बीस तारीख को आयोजित अपनी संगोष्ठी में हिन्दी के वरिष्ठ लेखक और संपादक श्री राजेन्द्र यादव जी को जयजयवंती सम्मान से विभूषित किया। गोष्ठी में डॉ.गंगा प्रसाद विमल, सुश्री विनोद बाला अरुण के अलावा कई साहित्यकार और साहित्यप्रेमी उपस्थित थे।
School for "Untouchables" Makes Academic History in India
BANGALORE, May 20--The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) released their results on Wednesday, and for the second year in a row the entire 10th grade class of Shanti Bhavan (www.shantibhavanonline.org), a tuition-free home and school dedicated to Dalit (formerly known as "Untouchables") children, secured First Division in the nationally accredited ICSE examination. Shanti Bhavan is the first school for Dalits to achieve First Division in the ICSE exams in India's academic history and have replicated that success again this year.
Over 1,500 schools in India and abroad take the ICSE annually, and the tests cover a wide range of subjects, from Physics and Chemistry to English Literature and Computer Applications. First Division on the ICSE is equivalent to a 3.5 GPA and higher by U.S. standards. The ICSE exams are administered over a three-week period and high scores can pave the way to entry into India's elite universities like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM).
Shanti Bhavan's student body comes from families facing extreme poverty. Their parents are employed as sewer cleaners, carcass handlers, and in other low-paying jobs. Many are, or have been bonded-laborers, trapped in debt to landowners and money-lenders. Due to poverty and social injustice, graduating from high school has been difficult for Dalit children and only a small percentage has ever taken the ICSE.
Dr. Dagmar Etkin, a former Harvard instructor and an environmental scientist, taught Chemistry and Environmental Studies to the 10th grade. "The children of Shanti Bhavan are as intelligent and educated as any of their peers. They would fit in perfectly in a class of freshmen at Harvard." She added, "I cried when I saw their huts and the overwhelming poverty. It was difficult to believe this is where my students had come from. The ICSE results prove that Shanti Bhavan's model is working."
Located in Tamil Nadu, India, Shanti Bhavan is also a safe and caring home for the children, offering food, clothing, medical care, and all their necessities, free of charge, though it costs the school a little over $4 a day per child to do so. The institution's stated goal is to alleviate poverty through high quality education, opening up professional career paths that would normally be denied to this segment of the population.
"The World Bank's broader definition of poverty is $2 a day. With just double that, we're able to meet all the needs of the children," explains Abraham George, the founder of the school. "Basic primary education isn't enough these days; after going through such programs, the poor aren't able to achieve better opportunities for themselves. There should be no glass ceiling in education for the economically deprived."
‘Summer is coming, summer is coming,
For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not - and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified - have tortured - have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror - to many they will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place - some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.
Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!
Ogden Nash
VIVIDHA विविधा 
समकालीन कथा लेखन में अपनी विशिष्ट पहचान बनाने वाले प्रसिद्ध हिन्दी कथाकार श्री गोविन्द मिश्र को उनके उपन्यास ' कोहरे में कैद रंग ' के लिए वर्ष 2008 का साहित्य अकादमी पुरस्कार प्रदान किया गया। इस बार हिन्दी साहित्य के लिए 13 लेखकों की पुस्तकें नामित हुई थीं। सर्वश्री प्रभाकर क्षेत्रिय, डॉ. सूर्यप्रकाश दीक्षित और प्रो. लालचन्द गुप्त की निर्णायक समिति ने श्री गोविन्द मिश्र की इस पुस्तक को पुरस्कृत करने का निर्णय लिया। अब तक श्री गोविन्द मिश्र के दस उपन्यास, ग्यारह कहानी संग्रह, पांच यात्रा वृतांत, चार निबंध संग्रह प्रकाशित हो चुके हैं। साहित्य अकादमी पुरस्कार के अलावा श्री गोविन्द मिश्र को उनके प्रसिद्ध उपन्यास ' पांच आंगनों वाला घर ' के लिए वर्ष 1998 का प्रसिद्ध व्यास सम्मान एवं समग्र साहित्यिक योगदान के लिए भारत के राष्ट्रपति जी द्वारा ' सुब्रह्मण्यम भारती सम्मान ' सहित अनेक पुरस्कारों से पुरस्कृत व सम्मानित किया गया है। भारत सरकार के सांस्कृतिक आदान-प्रदान कार्यक्रमके अंतर्गत श्री मिश्र जर्मनी, चेकोस्लोवाकिया और हंगरी की यात्रा कर चुके हैं। वे 1996 में त्रिनिदाद एंड टोबेगो में आयोजित पांचवे विश्व हिन्दी सम्मेलन में भाग लेने वाले भारत के प्रतिनिधि मंडल में शामिल थे। उन्होंने मॉरीशश की हिन्दी प्रचारिणी सभा की स्वर्ण जयंती में भारत का प्रतिनिधित्व किया था। 
साहित्य और साहित्यकारों से निरंतर संवाद रखने वाली संस्था जयजयवंती ने गत मई की बीस तारीख को आयोजित अपनी संगोष्ठी में हिन्दी के वरिष्ठ लेखक और संपादक श्री राजेन्द्र यादव जी को जयजयवंती सम्मान से विभूषित किया। गोष्ठी में डॉ.गंगा प्रसाद विमल, सुश्री विनोद बाला अरुण के अलावा कई साहित्यकार और साहित्यप्रेमी उपस्थित थे।
"The World Bank's broader definition of poverty is $2 a day. With just double that, we're able to meet all the needs of the children," explains Abraham George, the founder of the school. "Basic primary education isn't enough these days; after going through such programs, the poor aren't able to achieve better opportunities for themselves. There should be no glass ceiling in education for the economically deprived."
