The White Tiger

The White Tiger, a review

Very rarely, in recent years, have I sat through and read a book from cover to cover, at one sitting...yesterday evening, around 5pm, I took up Aravind Adiga's "The White Tiger"...I had seen the book in India, read reviews and yesterday discovered that beti pyaari had picked up a copy...

Started reading it with the usual scepticism.. .however, as the pages passed, it gripped me...sat till around 10pm reading the book before I nodded off...given the fact that by 10pm I have generally been asleep for about two hours, this should give you an indicator of how I was absorbed...finished the 250+ pages of the book this afternoon...

The fact that I have just returned from India, and, this book is all about what is happening within India perhaps made it so immediately absorbing... and then, a lot of the book is set in Gurgaon and I had just been in Gurgaon, and, could relate to all that was being said...I could recognize the malls and the Buckingham and Windsor mansions...this book gives one dimension of the changing face of India...or, in reality, is there a change at all, or, have just the players and the stage changed ?

The irreverence of the book was what held my attention to begin with...the writer describes Krishna (of the Bhagavad Gita fame) as one more chauffeur... and the descriptions of the filth of the Ganges...the book ends with the same irreverence where the protagonist hopes to found a 'good' school where children will not have to learn about God and Gandhi...

For the last eight years, ever since the call center revolution I have been travelling to India once or so a year...I have also sat listening to my North American friends returning and telling me how India is booming...Diet Pepsi and Kit Kat being freely available being the yardstick of such prosperity.. .I have always felt a nagging feeling of discomfort.. .Aravind Adiga draws a clear picture of this discomfort through the letters that his protagonist, Balram Halwai writes to the Chinese Prime Minister...

There is a brutality to poverty that is difficult to accept...it is different from the pictures of westerners adopting chubby orphans through World Vision...that brutality comes through loud and clear in cockroach infested servants quarters of Buckingham Apartments that Balram lives in...it comes through in the 'ammonia' smell of parking lots where drivers have to wait and urinate as they wait for their masters and mistresses to come back from late night parties...and more than anything else the principle of the Rooster Coop that keeps the poor and poverty going...

In the '20s when Katherine Mayo came out with Mother India, Gandhi wrote of it, '... it is the report of a drain inspector sent out with the one purpose of opening and examining the drains of the country to be reported upon, or to give a graphic description of the stench exuded by the opened drains...' In a sense Aravind Adiga's book could also be described as a drain inspector's report...however, I say that in an entirely complimentary sense...it takes courage for someone to expose the underbelly of the call centre revolution.. .looks like many have not read the book yet in India, or there would have been outcry by now to have Aravind deported...

One thing that struck me at a very personal level was the Rumi quotation that Aravind keeps using,

Like a madman I kept searching for the key
And then I realized the door was open...

Read the book to see how Rumi helps a rooster escapes the Rooster Coop...be ready for much gore, dirt and crap...a tremendous read...there is no moral at the end of the story...as Mr Ashok would have said...sorry, let me not take the punch line away...read it to see what Mr Ashok would have said to Pinky Madam...

A thought for a sixty first birthday

At the stroke of the midnight hour today, when the rest of the world sleeps, India will awaken to its sixty first birthday. Words modified from that memorable speech that India's first Prime Minister, a dreamer, a romantic, above all, my political hero non pareil, Jawaharlal Nehru, gave as the new nation awoke to life and freedom.

This morning, in the several messages that come to me from friends I have known over the years, was a video clip from my good friend Harihara Sarma Sethunathan. Sethu and I have known each from the days we were fifteen, attending Pre University classes at Madras', Vivekananda College. It was a clip of Gandhi's favourite bhajan, a song composed by the sixteenth (or maybe seventeenth century, a matter of trivia) mystic, Narsi Mehta. The song which many who have seen the movie Gandhi would have heard, is Vaishnav Jana Tho, and essentially means

For he or she is the true believer
He or she
Who knows the pain of the other

For those of you who would like to hear it here is a YouTube link

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=PGSf5SIWi1E

The clip is from the movie, Water, a movie, I think, banned in India. Some say that though it is truthful even Gandhi would have called it a 'sanitary inspector's report' like he described Katherine Mayo's book, Mother India.

Notwithstanding the merits of the movie, I have intentionally reproduced the clip, for it contains and captures the hope that Gandhi represented. Look at that scene, the child widow being carried in, the silent masses, and, the single, old man, sitting like the Buddha on the Dhamma Peetha (seat of wisdom) his head bowed in contemplation, and, the love with which he affectionately holds the child who garlands him...and in that there is a new consciousness that one becomes aware of...a consciousness that the Buddha was aware of when he said, "...for hate cannot be conquered by hate...love alone can conquer hate..."a consciousness that Gandhi brought into Satyagraha...

And a strange thought came to me...

In my college days I have read at great length debates in the Indian Constituent Assembly (pre-Independence Parliament) about whether Jana Gana Mana composed by Tagore or Bankim Chandra's Vande Mataram should be the national anthem. On the one hand we had the secularists and on the other, the upholders of a Hindu nationhood. The secularists won, thanks largely to my political hero's insistence that the last verses of the Vande Mataram were not representative of a multi cultural society (in fact several versions of the Vande Mataram do not carry those verses any more)...

Though Vande Mataram was popular in those days no one, even my political hero, did not think of making it the national anthem...wouldn't that have been such a tribute to what Gandhi had believed in...

So, the thought, which I know will get nowhere in the power politics of today, why not make Vaishnav Jan Tho the new national anthem ? Imagine the sight, President Bush or Putin of Russia lands in Delhi. Instead of the traditional jingoistic twenty one gun salute and inspection of the honour guard, they stand for two minutes in silence as the band plays the strains of

Vaishnav Jana Tho
tene kahiye
je peer parayi jaani re

and, an English version, or a Russian one, or a version in a language that those on the podium can understand...

Just a thought, it will perhaps go nowhere today...

However, I recall what Eckhart Tolle says in the opening pages of his recent book, The New Earth. When the first flower struggled its way through the cracks of a mountainside a few million years ago, it had no awareness that it was the start of a new consciousness, one that we associate with beauty, fragrance and peace, today...

And so, as we celebrate the sixty first birthday of India's Independence, a minute's silent meditation as we listen to and reflect on the words of this YouTube clip

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=PGSf5SIWi1E

Thanks for the thought, Sethu...

Banker to the Poor

As I caught sight of him in the foyer of the Grand Ballroom at Toronto's Royal York Hotel, it struck me how differently attired he was from those he was talking to. Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor, Nobel Peace Prize winner, was in town today today to talk to Canada's Top100 employers. Dressed in a blue kurta and white pyjamas with a cotton waistcoat he looked so different from the blue suited gentry surrounding him. And, after I heard him, I realized that his approach to business was just as different from the majority of the audience as his attire.

He talked for about an hour without any intellectual pretensions, straight from the heart. "After the liberation of Bangladesh, I came back from the United States where I was teaching, to teach Economics at Dhaka University...then, in 1974, the famine struck in Bangladesh...I saw how people living around the University were dying...it occurred to me that instead of teaching elegant theories of economics I should do something as a human being to help the people around me..."

Talking and mingling with the people who lived around the University he realized how much they were in the grip of loan sharks. It shocked him further when a quick survey that he carried out revealed that the total debt carried by about 42 people in his sample was about $27. Paying interest rates that could reach 1000% these people were crippled by the burden of debt. So, his first attempt was to get the banks to loan money to these people.

As he tried to do this the truth of the adage that a successful banker is one who gives you an umbrella when there is no rain and takes it away when it rains, came home to him. None of the banks were willing to lend to these people, and, when he offered to co-sign documents for the small amounts they needed, they told him that he was kissing his money goodbye.

The rest is now history. Yunus' trust in his borrowers was fully borne out. He had 98% repayment. And all this, as he says, without a single lawyer on his team. He told us how a woman who was given a loan of $20 or so took the money with trembling hands. She had never seen that much money given to her on trust. Slowly the Grameen movement built up, and, they started giving student loans for children to study thus setting off social change. Interestingly a large number of Grameen's clientele are women.

What Yunus spoke of is a very different model of doing business, a very different language from profit maximization. It is deeply spiritual. He talked of how traditionally poverty has been fostered by what he calls "the Bonsai approach." You take the same seed as that of a tree that will grow well, confine it in a limited space and you have a stunted tree. "Cute to look at," he says, "but, not one that enables everyone reach their potential. " I think he used the words, 'cute to look at" intentionally, summarizing our approach to poverty, particularly the western world's approach to poverty in places like the Indian sub continent and Africa...

As he finished, the suited-booted audience rose to their feet and gave him a standing ovation. The language and the business model of Social Business Entrepreneurship (SBE) that he spoke of was different, like the clothes he wore. However, I think some in the corporate world are beginning to see the merit of what he is saying. Danone, has established Grameen Danone in Bangladesh to provide Yoghurt and help deal with malnutrition among children. Another French company is setting up plants to purify the water of arsenic. All based on models of SBE. He is now calling for a Social Stock Exchange where the effectiveness of companies will be measured by their contribution to long term social sustainability...

Yunus spoke of the interest free loans Grameen has been giving to beggars of Dhaka. These are interest free and he talked of how they have transformed the lives of the beggars. Now, while they still make the rounds for begging they also hawk vegetables and so on. When some of his colleagues get frustrated since they are still begging, Yunus tells them, with a touch of his humour, "They are restructuring their business model...give them time..."

I do not know how religious a man Muhammad Yunus is. Listening to him, I realized that he is giving a socially relevant twenty first century perspective to the Koranic injunction of not taking interest...one that is helping millions find meaning and will one day hopefully confine poverty to the museums, which is the only place where he wants to see it...

Flotsam and Jetsam

The sixties flower power poet Allan Ginsberg talks of his first experience of attending a meditation retreat in one of the Tibetan traditions. He had managed to smuggle in a sheet of paper and some pencils, and, as the teacher was going round at the start of the course, the teacher saw the contraband items. With a smile he walked up to Allan and asked him to hand them over. When Allan hesitated the teacher asked him, eyes brimming with compassion, as Allan says, "Why do you need them, my son ?" Allan replied, "To note down a beautiful thought that comes..." Pulling the pencils out of his hands and breaking them into two, the teacher said, "...and it is the flotsam and jetsam of these thoughts that will keep dragging you back into the whirlpool...just focus on your breath..."

So, as I sat this morning, the flotsam and jetsam of thoughts surfaced creating their frothy attractiveness...like the froth on the top of a cup of Madras coffee...attractive yet devoid of flavour or anything...

Thinking of Allan Ginsberg my mind went back to the senior citizen who had helped me at the library yesterday. I could imagine her at one of Allan's rock concerts of the mid '60s, perhaps with a flower garland around her neck...what struck me about her was that she had not coloured her hair, and, as I looked around the library which is staffed largely by women who are in their golden years, I noticed that none of them had coloured their hair. Made me wonder whether it was a conditon of employment...

Now, I have tremendous regard, bordering on reverence, for a woman who does not colour her hair. The male world is somewhat different, and, we guys can let it all hang out since there isn't much to show in any case. (Actually, men have different issues. The success of erectile dysfunction drugs on the pretext of creating a better quality of life should give you an indicator.) At one time I attended a course for hospice workers, and, one of our 'field trips' was to a funeral parlour where they showed us how bodies were 'dressed' up before a funeral. I remember one of my co-volunteers, a woman in her fifties saying, "I must make sure in my will to clearly state that they should colour my hair before the visitation..." That sort of indicates the criticality of hair colouring to women. So, when you see a woman somewhere around the sixty mark not colouring her hair you say, "Wow, that requires some courage...for what you see is what you get..."

And then the mind wandered further.

Swami Chinmayananda was a religious teacher of some note in the '60s, '70s and '80s in India. The same attraction that would take me to watch the Washington Redskin cheerleaders took me to Swamiji's meetings in the '60s. I used to be fascinated by the attractive women who sang the invocatory prayers at his meetings. I remember Swamiji once opening a Bhagavad Gita class with the opening dhyana (invocatory) verse, "...parthaya prati bodhitaam bhagavatam narayanena swayam..." And then the chant would be taken up by this bevy of attractive women in white blouses and saris. There was a strange wild attraction that the ascetic Swamiji held for them that bordered on the erotic.

Anyway, in those days I had just been introduced to the thought or lack thereof of some atheists. And, in a free question and answer session, I decided to confront the Swamiji. "If all bodily and mental activity is caused by electrical impulses that emerges from the brain, and, death is defined as the cessation of such electrical activity, how can there be a life after death ?" I asked the question in one breath...Swamiji did not answer my question at that point...I was thrilled. I had scored a point...

As we were having lunch, Swamiji actually made his way to me. "What is your name ?" he asked, adding, "You asked a good question. I did not reply to you because I wanted to talk to you..." And then he sat down next to me and said, "Your question is very logical and perhaps correct. However, you cannot understand these matters with logic. It is a matter of experiencing it. When you were just a day old, all you could see was a mass of light with some sounds emerging from this mass of light. Then slowly some figures started becoming clear...one of those figures fed you, made you go to sleep and rocked you when you cried...and as your pupils started functioning better you gave a name and shape to that being...your mother...your brilliant logic is the all enveloping light that you see, nothing is clear...slowly, your pupils will start digesting all that light and clarity will emerge...let it be...someday the clarity that is not born of logic will emerge..." Swamiji did not wait for my response, he just continued on.

The clarity has not emerged, some forty years later. I still struggle with logic and purposiveness. Some years ago, I asked a Vipassana teacher, "If you say that nothing is permanent and that everything just arises and dissolves what is it that reincarnates, if there is no soul..." In the mould of Swami Chinmayananda she looked at me and said, "Just continue your practice. It will all become clear..."

And, as I struggle with maintaining my fledgling practice in the midst of all these non-issues that thought creates, the reality of what the teacher told Allan Ginsberg comes through loud and clear, "...and this is the flotsam and jetsam that will keep pulling you back into the whirlpool..." For, as Krishna says at the end of Chapter 10 in the Bhagavad Gita

athava bahunai tena
kim jnatena tav'a'rjuna
vishtabhyaham idam sarvam
ekam sena's stitho jagat

Of what use is all this (intellectual) knowledge to you Arjuna ? All you need to know is that in a fraction of Myself I sustain the whole Universe...

Happy Mother's Day

When my mother was born, in India, it was before birth records were maintained. Somewhere in 1949 or so when she had to make her first trip outside India, they needed to get her a passport, and, so the question of assigning her a date of birth came up. My grandfather was consulted on this important question and after some head scratching he came up with the memory that the Great War (World War I) broke out about two weeks after she was born. So, June 22, 1914, was assigned as her date of birth.

I mention this story about her date of birth because when I was little, she instituted the practice that my birthday would be celebrated twice every year, once as per the Gregorian calendar and once as per the Hindu calendar. Since I was growing up in England, she thought that would be a good way of ensuring that I stayed in touch with ‘our traditions.’ So, till the age of eight, I had cake and Jello on my birthday as per the English calendar and payasam (calling payasam rice pudding would be a bit of a travesty, however, it belongs to the genre of rice puddings) on my ‘star’ or Hindu calendar birthday. Needless to add, I also got two sets of birthday presents. This practice, I regret to state, was discontinued soon after we returned to India, in 1958. My mother did not see the need for me to keep in touch with practices, ‘back home, in Old Blightey…’

A mother is the huggable, soft being who has shielded you from imaginary ghosts as thunder crashes and lights streaks across the Indian monsoon sky. Notwithstanding her own fears she will deal with the ugly cockroach that comes out of the washroom as her eighteen year old son shrieks in terror. Though she is now gone for nearly twenty five years I still remember the warm feeling as a three or four year old, hugging her and going to sleep.

Motherhood is fiercely protective. See soccer moms arguing with the coach and the way a mother goose bursts into a fierce shriek when you approach the little goslings, and, you will know what that means.

Interestingly, the Buddha recognized this quality in his Metta Sutta. Defining the quality of Metta, or loving kindness he said,

mata yata niyam puttam
ayusa eka puttam anurakke
evam pi sabba buthesu
manasam bhavaye apparimanam

Just as a mother protects her child,
Her only son,
So should we protect all beings…
Such is the quality of loving kindness, fiercely protective, fiercely protective of the whole Universe, not, just one’s biological children...

Today, with diaper changing tables as common in men’s washrooms as in those for women, the quality of being a mother in some way goes beyond gender. This morning as Lakshmi and I went biking we saw a young man in his late twenties, teaching an eight year old to ride a bike on the trail while holding a second child his arms as the infant finished its bottle feed. Multi tasking which twenty years ago only a female mom would have been able to do.

And so, to all those who nurture and protect, this beautiful rendering of India’s national song, Vande Mataram, (Homage to Mother) rendered by one of the best Indian classical singers still alive, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OviaeN38F_0&feature=related

Politically incorrect thoughts at an unearthly hour

It is five thirty in the morning on a Saturday and I am up and chirpy. Tried to wake up the bharya priyaa,bp,sr, and beti priyaa,bp,jr, to ask them out for a walk, and, never realized that tam-brahm women could swear so well. They booted me out of the bedroom and asked me to make myself scarce (said in much more colourful language).

Actually I lied when I said it is five thirty in the morning and I am up and chirpy…I have been up and chirpy for the last two hours…You see these days very often, bp,sr, and I spend the weekend at bp,jr’s place. So, we landed up here last night. bp,sr and bp,jr went to the roof top of bp,jr’s condo for a roof top barbecue, and, I watched the comedy channel for ten minutes and was blissfully asleep by 8.00pm The net result of that early blissful sleep was that I was up and chirping around at 3.30am, much like a swallow that has returned early from Florida in mid winter and finds that everyone else does not share her enthusiastic world view.

So, I sat and meditated for an hour. As I finished I opened my eyes and saw the Rosedale Valley enveloped in a beautiful fog, a fog that did not cover everything, a fog that just left you remembering the beautiful colours of gold, red and orange as the valley sank into autumn a few months ago, and, the beautiful sunlight that will soon pierce through the fog and bring everything back into clarity.

Coming back to this mundane world, I realized that there was no milk for my morning cuppa, and, so I put on my jacket (still a tad cold out here in TO) and strode out into the streets of downtown TO to find a 7/11 shop for some milk.

The best time to get to know the downtown part of any metro is before it wakes up. Actually, cities like Toronto, Mumbai and London never go to sleep so that is not correct. What I mean are those wee hours of the morning when the ‘bhadralok’ (gentry in Bengali) have finished their merry making for the night and the denizens of the dark have come out to clear up.

Walk around any metro at this time and you will be able to get a clear picture of the social order of things. In Toronto, at that hour you will very rarely see a ‘mainstream’ Canadian (politically correct expression for ‘white’, though in Toronto it may not be statistically correct to classify ‘white’ as mainstream anymore…) out and about earning a livelihood. Every single person, awake and working, that I ran into was an immigrant, fresh off the boat as they would say. Even the one male hooker who offered his services to me sounded from Eastern Europe (audible minority, referring to their unfamiliarity with English, as opposed to brownies, from the former British colonies, like me who are the visible minority). The girls working the back shift at Tim Hortons were Filipina; the taxi drivers were ophthalmologists, cardiac surgeons and paediatricians from India, Pakistan and the sub contintent; the street cleaners were, I think, Mexican or Cuban. The next time an Indian tells me that he or she left India to get away from the caste system, I will wake him or her up and make them walk along Bloor Street at 4.00am in the morning, and, say, ‘…kya hai bachhu, idhar ka caste system dekha ?...’ “So, man do you see the caste system of this world ?”

I am not a social scientist who can analyze the phenomenon of immigrants doing the back shift. However, one thing seems to be sure, if you can make the 9 to 5 shift at work, that seems to be one sign that you have arrived.

My early morning search for milk was not without its brighter side, and, that came in the form of King Palace restaurant just behind the Metro Toronto Reference Library. There used to be a dingy looking Coffee Time there, and, I was a little surprised to see a very brightly lit restaurant which looked as if it had been transported out of Bombay’s Bhendi Bazar in the middle of Id. I have often walked down Mohamad Ali Road (btw, is it still known as Mohamad Ali Road ?) and Bhindi Bazar in the wee hours of the morning, during Ramzan, with Muslim friends as they enjoyed their repast of ‘bheja fry’ (fried brains of pigeon, I think) before embarking on the next day’s fast. Being a conditioned vegetarian I could not enjoy the food, but, like my friend Siddharta Gautama taught, practised ‘mudhita’ or the enjoyment of happiness through the happiness of others.

Coming back to King Palace restaurant, I first admired the place from outside. For a homesick Indian it is manna from heaven…they offer around the clock a choice of Indian favourites, Channa Masala (chick peas cooked in spices), Butter Chicken, Bhindi Masala (okra, sautéed with spices) et al…but, what was authentic was the bright lights with the TV showing a buxom Indian Bollywood star gyrating her voluptuous hips to good Hindi phillum mujic…I wasn’t ready at 4.30am to try any of their offerings, but, walked in, and, struck up a conversation with the owner…he is from Lahore, and, like all sub continenters who meet outside of the sub-continent, we got to talking of cricket…though he realized I wasn’t buying anything, he offered me a cup of chai…”Assalam walai’kum, dost” “Peace to you, my friend” we said to each other as I continued my search for milk at 4am…

Saturday afternoon musings

After my recent sojourn in India, weekends have been somewhat sacrosanct. There has been much happening at work, and, by the time I reach Friday, I am fairly burnt out. So, to get me stirred into action on a Saturday morning, even with a promise of idlis and vadas requires some minor earth shaking activity. This came in the form of a news item that floated across me that
Dr Avul Pakeer Jainelabdin Abdul Kalam, till last year the President of India, aka the Missile Man, the father of India’s missile program, would be presiding over the annual Thyagaraja aradhana in Toronto.

The Thyagaraja aradhana that is held early spring in Toronto is an attempt to recreate the annual Thyagaraja aradhana that takes place in Tiruvaiyyaru, Thanjavur, every year on Bahula Panchami day. At Tiruvaiyyaru on that day thousands of Carnatic musicians sing the Pancharatna kritis in honour of Saint Thyagaraja (circa 1767 to 1847), one of the founders, if one may use that word in this context, of Carnatic music. Thyagaraja has somewhat divine status in the tam-brahm psyche, thanks to his composition of several hundred songs in praise of Lord Rama.

In the Toronto version of the aradhana, local musicians sing the Pancharatna kritis which are said to be the best of Thyagaraja’s compositions and there is a festive occasion, with good, South Indian food served (a sine qua non for the success of any tam-brahm activity). Since Bahula Panchami falls in January, and, Toronto is snow bound at that time, Torontonians observe Thyagaraja Aradhana day early in spring.

The motivation to hear and see the Missile Man was sufficiently strong enough for me to invest a hundred and fifty dollars, Canadian, (this emphasis on the word Canadian for the benefit of my friends living south of the 49th parallel) , in renewing my membership of the Bharati Kala Manram, and, early Saturday morning I was there to experience this man.

The Missile Man has intrigued me. A true pan-Indian in the tradition of “…Ishwar Allah tero naam…sabko sanmati de Bhagvan…” (a line from a favourite hymn of Gandhi which means, 'May God, whose name is both Ishwar and Allah, bless all) he is said to be equally at home with the Bhagavad Gita and the Koran. He plays the veena himself, and, is a bachelor, reportedly celibate and a vegetarian. I have not read much of what he has written. However, one piece I recall reading was how the power of nature astounded him at a very early age. In his early teens he witnessed a powerful December cyclone (a somewhat common occurrence along the East Coast of India) wipe away an entire hamlet (Dhanushkodi, maybe ?) near his hometown of Rameswaram, and, that is supposed have left an indelible mark on him. An apparent man of peace in terms of his habits and inclinations, his sponsorship of India’s missile program has always left me wondering. Strong enough motivation for me to break the lazy peace of a Saturday morning.

Somewhat appropriately, Dr Abdul Kalam came in just as the musicians were singing Thyagaraja’s ‘Endharo Mahanubavalu…’ a song in praise of All those who are Realized Souls, All is the magic word, just not the one’s chosen by one’s faith.

I am told that the composition is a favourite of Dr Kalam’s, and, he was ushered in with much fanfare and the musicians had to stop their singing. I am not so sure that the nadaswaram and mridangam that accompanied Dr Kalam’s entry was in keeping with the tribute to Thyagaraja which is what Thyagaraja aradhana is all about. Left to himself, I suspect the Missile Man would have liked to come in unannounced and sit listening to the musicians sing his favourite Pancharatna Kriti. Such are the perils of celebrity-dom.

After the Pancharatna Krithis were over, the Missile Man spoke, and, his speech left me fascinated at the depth of that mind. He talked of music as an integrating force (that statement was not rocket science), and, then came the beauty. He spoke of those who are differently abled (disabled in common parlance) and the impact music has on them. He asked the musicians to go out and sing to those who are differently abled and those in prisons. He talked of the rhythm of nature (and science) and how everything in the Universe dances to a rhythm. Understanding that rhythm was no different, whether it is science or music he said. As he talked an old Sanskrit verse came to mind

‘…vajra’d’api katorani, mridu’ni kusum’d’api
loko’ttaranam chetamsi vignya’tum arha’ti ko’pi…’

Harder than the diamond, softer than the flower,
Is the mind of the person of wisdom
Such wisdom is difficult to comprehend for the ordinary soul…

And so, the beauty of music and the burning, destroying power of the Agni missile co exist peacefully…just another rhythm of the Universe…

Once his speech to the grown ups was over, he spoke to children, and, this was where his heart came through. Himeslf a consummate teacher, he spoke to them of his teacher, Sivasubramania Iyer, who in grade five or so took the class to the beach and showed them birds flying and taught them the first principles of aerodynamics. This must be what must have prompted Dr Kalam to take up aeronautical engineering in his post graduate days. He talked of his music teacher, Kalyani, who introduced him to the work of Thyagaraja. He asked the children questions (try this one, ‘If the earth makes a single orbit around the sun every year, and, I am in the seventy seventh orbit of my life, how many years old am I ?’ Much to what will be my mathematics teacher's surprise I got that one correct.) It was fascinating to see him talk and respond to children without any air of superiority, and, utterly, completely from the heart. Such openness and genuineness is a mark of greatness and is so rare

As I left the hall the words of Thyagaraja’s Pancharatna Krithi kept ringing in my ears,

“Endharo mahanubhavulu, andharikki maa vandanamuna…”

My homage to ALL the Realized Souls

Or, the same, in the opening words of the Buddhist prayer of refuge,

“Namo tassa bhagavatho arahato sammasam budhhasa..>”

“…my homage to all realized souls…”