It was Charles Dickens who in his “A Tale Of Two Cities”
had given the voice to the underlying tragedy of modern civilization with his
incomparable sense of history with these lines at the very start of the novel:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom;
it was the age of foolishness.” We at Songsoptok do believe these lines are
relevant to any civilization at any period of time, which is the greatest
tragedy of our civilization. Two of the greatest poets and human souls of the
modern age Rabindranath Tagore and Jibananada Das, in spite of their strong
belief in the innate good sense and love of beauty in humans, had to search the
innermost depths of their souls to overcome the stark dark reality of the
crisis of our modern civilization. Even we are in the same situation today.
Hiroshima-Nagasaki was one of the worst challenges faced
by our civilization. The Dickensian ‘worst times’ is a reality still continuing
almost everywhere in today’s world in different shapes and capacities. We have
witnessed Vietnam War, Two Gulf Wars, manmade devastations in the Middle East
and elsewhere. The war mongers are roaming free with their nuclear warheads and
military divisions keeping humanity at ransom. The human conscience is being challenged
by the unprecedented horror and bloodbath, lies and deceptions, media
propaganda and intellectuals’ depravity.
Yet those who still have anchored their beliefs in human
conscience will always try to build up a new world order of peace and universal
brotherhood out of these ruins- for handing over a legacy to the unborn
generations. And we at Songsoptok have considered ourselves as the inheritors
of that dream, of that effort. Keeping all these in mind we thought that it was
also our responsibility to cater these ideas to all, to bear the torch of human
determinations, to build up a common platform for all who still nurture their
individual faith that something needed to be done even with limited capacities.
Actually this was the background of Songsoptok: The
Writers’ Blog. We have tried our level best to bring together the like minded
writers, thinkers, social workers, innovators of new ideas to bring out their
best creativity in this web journal. Our dream was to build up a world forum of
cultural exchange among various races, religions, nationalities, and cultures
to nurture different traditions and heritages only to build up a world
consciousness that all are equal with different shades of beauty. We still
believe that this is the best alternative to counter the war mongers’
conspiracies and their political vendetta to divide and rule the world. And
only if it can be done the world can be saved from the Dickensian tragedy of
modern civilization. We had tried to reach and invite all those who in their
personal spheres are concerned about all these problems and the underlying
tragedies of modern civilization, and are constantly trying to deliver their
best in their individual capacities. We believed that to bring these
individuals in a world forum would make a great and sustainable impact upon the
readers of our web journal; which might be escalated in time and would
encourage others to follow. This was our responsibility in Songsoptok. At least this was our promise too when we started
our journey in web journalism on the eve of the 153 birth anniversary of poet
Rabindranath Tagore. 9th May 2014.
Since then we at Songsoptok have tried our level best to
keep our promise. Attentive readers will find it in all the thirty five numbers
of Songsoptok of these last three years. We have tried to focus various
important problems of our current civilization, as well as numerous
achievements of human endeavors. Our primary focal point of understanding was
to cater various views and opinions on any topic of discussion. To achieve this
we at Songsoptok have taken hundreds of interviews of writers and workers,
thinkers and dreamers world around. We have also published important essays and
articles discussing numbers of different viewpoints and opinions. We have done
all these as we have told already, only to promote cultural exchanges of
different traditions and heritages, to communicate with different sets of
viewpoints to build up a common world conscience. We know our limitations, we
are well aware of our mistakes and difficulties, but there was no lack of
effort from our side to achieve our primary goal. Yet we have failed miserably.
Not that the issues were not up to the mark. Not that, the readers has deserted
Songsoptok finding it worthless. But we have failed to bring together more and
more like minded writers and researchers, workers and performers, those who
would keep on providing Songsoptok with their creative excellences years
together. This is the only area which we have really failed to cover-up.
We believe in quality, we believe in honesty, we believe
in dignity. So at this point of time after completing three years in web
journalism, we realize that it is now beyond our reach to maintain the quality
and to cater the service that we had promised at the beginning of our journey.
So for the time being let us call it a day for Songsoptok. With this issue we
are closing down Songsoptok: The Writers’ Blog. Our website will remain open to
our readers around the world. Anyone can visit our site to review all the back
issues. With this note we would like to thank all the writers who have participated
in this three year long journey of
Songsoptok with their creative contributions. We would also like to
extend our thanks to our readers who are still with us. We are extremely sorry
to let you down by closing this web journal, hope you would realize our good
intentions and the magnitude of our humble honesty. There is no good in
continuing without delivering quality works. And we at Songsoptok believe it
from our within..
So this April, in this concluding number of SONGSOPTOK:
The Writers’ Blog we are presenting an Anthology: ‘Best of Songsoptok.’ Readers
will find out one hundred items of best entries that have been published by us
during this period of three years of web publication in Songsoptok. We do hope
that this Anthology will become popular among the readers. We would like to
extend our thanks to all those, who have supported us continuously since the
start, and to all our readers round the world.
FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK
SONGSOPTOK: THE WRITERS’ BLOG
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