Friday afternoons, more so the ones before a long weekend, have a tendency to introduce sleep. Yesterday, I was just heading down to get a coffee from the cafeteria around 2pm when an email from Judy Lendvay-Zwickl, the Director of Research at the Conference Board of Canada, made me sit up with shock...the message line said, 'Sad news about Prem' Intuitively, I guessed its contents. My friend, Prem Benimadhu had kept his last appointment in life...
Over the last few years I had been privileged to get to know this wonderful human being. Vice President at the very respected think-tank, the Conference Board of Canada, he was best known for his in-depth and brilliantly delivered forecast of the Canadian Human Resources scene every year. The annual 'ceremony' (yes. I call it a ceremony because Prem's presence made it one) in October where he unveiled his forecast of what salary growths etc. one could expect in the Canadian economy reminded me of similar occasions in the sixties when India's most prominent lawyer Nani Palkhivala used to analyze the budget every year on March 1, the day after it was delivered in Parliament, to an audience of economists and financial experts on the lawns of the colonial Cricket Club of India. It was an occasion to wait for and experience. The numbers one could always read off a presentation, the way Prem delivered them was what made the difference.
As a new Canadian and member of a visible minority I felt proud that one of my 'country cousins' (I intentionally use that word) had this oracle-like status, and, would puff up with pride as he answered questions with a gentleness that spoke of his deep wisdom. Born in Mauritius, Prem was totally fluent in French, and, God did I love the way he could intersperse his English comments with French, like a full-blooded True Norther...I could fall in love with the man just for that...
Very early in life I learnt that the best way to learn was not to enter into arguments with the wise, but, to just listen to them. So, I was content to let Prem do the talking while I sat back and listened, and, let his wisdom sink in. Once I suggested to him that we go out for lunch after the meeting. Somewhat gingerly I asked him if he like Indian food (don't know about these desis who have been outside for long). His eyes lit up and said a definite, "Yes." And that meal set the foundation for a friendship that I value.
Thereafter we went out for lunch a couple of times (it always was Indian food) and on one such occasion after I had got to know Prem and could foist my humour on him, I told him that we were country cousins. He corrected me and said, "No, we are not country cousins...we are bhaiyyas..." ('bhaiyyas' literally means 'brothers' in Hindi...however, the word "bhaiyya" is also a somewhat derogatory reference to the intellectual capabilities of the residents of the North Eastern states of India, UP and Bihar, made by their supposedly more intelligent South Indian counterparts...Prem's ancestors were from North Eastern India, and, I am from the South)
Working out at a gym some years ago, I saw Prem on TV being interviewed on an Asian channel and he was talking, yes, Hindi...Ever since then I have always ribbed him about the Hindi interview...he told me that he was surprised into speaking Hindi by the anchor...she hadn't told him that he would have to answer her questions in Hindi...btw, his Hindi was good and grammatical, not the Bambayya I spoke...
I told Prem once about the book I had co-authored, 'the Itinerant Indian',and, sent him a copy. I had actually told him that I would not autograph it, but, send it with a thumb impression as that was the way the colonials taught illiterate Indians to sign documents. Prem actually read the book, and, told me he liked my nostalgic account of the Indian Railways. Thereafter I have noticed that he used to introduce me as a published author. Once I added, "Yes, of a book that is competing with the Bible for the largest number of copies given away free..."
Whenever we met we talked, not of Labour Economics (in any case what I know of Labour Economics can be written on the back of a postage stamp with space to spare), but, of Indian weddings, food and strict parents. The last time we met I introduced him to South Indian cuisine and we talked about the menu I was planning for my daughter's upcoming wedding. He asked me 'How many guests ?' I said, 'About three hundred..." and, he said, "That is a small wedding by Indian standards..."
On that occasion, Prem took a fascination for the South Indian sambar (a tangy gravy made with tamarind) and I had promised to call him home and make it for him. Looks like you will have to take a rain check on that, Prem...
Wish you and yours much peace as you make this transition...
++++++
For those who have not met this wonderful person here is a link to the Conference Board's site
http://www.conferenceboard.ca/about-cboc/et/prembenimadhu.aspx
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Dhanyoham asmi (I am thankful)
Some four years ago I had accompanied a close friend to the local police station when she had to file a complaint of marital harassment. As we sat in the parking lot I made a statement that could have been considered insensitive, "Everything we get, good or bad, is what we have desired for..." Most surprisingly, my friend looked at me and said, "That is so true...whatever has come my way is what I have worked to get into my life..."
My friend is by no means a psychotic. On the face of it she did not desire the marital harassment she had faced for over ten years. So, why was she agreeing with me instead of asking me to get out of the car and walk home for making rude and insensitive statements...
Over the last few weeks as I have faced some of the strongest work related pressures I have known, once again something has opened a vein within me. In 1995, for the first time in my life I lost a job. At that time, Deepak Chopra's books came into my life, and, also simultaneously the work of Ramana. In 2006, I had work related pressures pounding at my career and the work of my good friend Srikumar Rao in the form of 'Are you ready to succeed ?' came my way. This time, the Secret...In fact, a lot of what the Secret says is material that Srikumar has said in language understandable to those brought up in the Hindu/Buddhist cultures...I was going to ask Srikumar about the similarity, when I remember Srikumar's opening remarks at the seminars he holds, "If you have anything to argue about the ideas I am going to present, please remember that none of these ideas are mine. They have come from beings who have evolved themselves to a much higher stage of awareness...so really there is no quarrel you have to pick with me..." Generally this leads to much better discussion, and, the Secret opens in the same vein.
The principle is very simple, everything is out there in the stream of consciousness, like a magnet you attract to yourself to where you position yourself. This is fairly simple and obvious for the good stuff you attract to yourself, the wealth, the name, the fame etc.
Very difficult to see how you attract the bad stuff, the failures, the illnesses and all the stuff you don't want. Brought up with the theories of Karma it is easy for the believer in reincarnation to putting down your stomach ulcer to the fish you baited with fish hooks a few lives ago (an elder relative's explanation of his stomach ulcer to me...)
I have been a very reluctant believer in linear reincarnation, for the simple reason that there is nothing permanent to reincarnate. The theory of there being a flowing stream of consciousness which attracts things like a magnet is a more acceptable theory (emphasis on theory) to me.
Coming back to the Secret it seems to open up very clearly why we attract the 'bad' things that we do to ourselves. It is what we are scared of and constantly think about...the illnesses, the pains, the aches. In 1985 when I was living by myself in Bahrain, I remember reading a survey that in 8 cases out of 10 individuals who go through a major prolonged family separation come down with some major illness. Pronto, by end 1985 I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes. Of course, the diabetes was also brought on by genetic factors and 35 years of eating starchy foods...what was important was that the news item triggered it off...for years I have known that reading that news item almost literally switched on the diabetes switch...I can talk of several such switches going on in my life, and, one that I recently switched off...
I could go on. I don't plan to. Is there an antidote to all this assuming that one needs an antidote ? Ramana (Maharishi) may not have needed an antidote and I remember talking to my wife about this...these pleasures of the bodily world made no attraction to the Ramanas...it was like having a plate of Hyderabadi lamb biryani cooked and kept on the table...would never attract me because I was not on that frequency...no reflection at all on the lamb biryani, it is just as beautiful a creation as any in God's world...Ramana was on a different frequency, and, like the Hyderabadi lamb biryani holds no attraction to me, the pleasures and otherwise of the world held no fascination for Ramana which was why he could stare ahead with equanimity...I leave it to you to decide if his state was an evolved state...
For those of us for whom the pleasures still hold an attraction, self very much at the top of the line, the first step is to give thanks. Very difficult when the chips are all down. I remember the story that Rajneesh used to tell. An old Jain sadhvi who was travelling came to the outskirts of a city only to find that the gates of the city had shut for the night. As she settled down to spend the night alone by herself she could start hearing the jackals baying, fear set in and she could not fall asleep. Then, she caught sight of the full moon and she suddenly realized that she had never seen the full moon in all its glory. The cool, calm light of the full moon in autumn (sharad jyotsna shubram Sankara described it as and it also features in his verse 'drisha drageeyasa...) lulled her to sleep. She awoke in the morning with thankfulness. Dhanyoham asmi, I am thankful, is the expression Sankara often used. Look around and in the darkest night when the wolves bay you will always see a full moon...you just need to look for the full moon, not the wolves...
And finally, the words of my good friend and mentor, Baba, Dr Phadnis. In the tradition of Vipassana there is a practice called Adittana, where you sit a full hour without movement of any sort. In the words of Baba, "If at the end of an hour's adittana sit you feel that you have accomplished something, then the whole practice is lost..." There is nothing "I" achieve. It is just being in the dance of the Divine Leela, for, as Ramesh says, "everything that the mind conjures up is a concept..."
If all this makes no sense and sounds like the words of a confused mind needing help, just listen to this song. MS Subbulakshmi, the well known Indian classical singer used to almost always sing it as the last song in her concerts. Essentially it says, "I have no complaints...You have given me everything..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKdHPCw3K9c&feature=related
One of my favourite visualizations is to exit life listening to this song. So, for those who maybe near and around at that time, try and have a copy of the song ready -:))
My friend is by no means a psychotic. On the face of it she did not desire the marital harassment she had faced for over ten years. So, why was she agreeing with me instead of asking me to get out of the car and walk home for making rude and insensitive statements...
Over the last few weeks as I have faced some of the strongest work related pressures I have known, once again something has opened a vein within me. In 1995, for the first time in my life I lost a job. At that time, Deepak Chopra's books came into my life, and, also simultaneously the work of Ramana. In 2006, I had work related pressures pounding at my career and the work of my good friend Srikumar Rao in the form of 'Are you ready to succeed ?' came my way. This time, the Secret...In fact, a lot of what the Secret says is material that Srikumar has said in language understandable to those brought up in the Hindu/Buddhist cultures...I was going to ask Srikumar about the similarity, when I remember Srikumar's opening remarks at the seminars he holds, "If you have anything to argue about the ideas I am going to present, please remember that none of these ideas are mine. They have come from beings who have evolved themselves to a much higher stage of awareness...so really there is no quarrel you have to pick with me..." Generally this leads to much better discussion, and, the Secret opens in the same vein.
The principle is very simple, everything is out there in the stream of consciousness, like a magnet you attract to yourself to where you position yourself. This is fairly simple and obvious for the good stuff you attract to yourself, the wealth, the name, the fame etc.
Very difficult to see how you attract the bad stuff, the failures, the illnesses and all the stuff you don't want. Brought up with the theories of Karma it is easy for the believer in reincarnation to putting down your stomach ulcer to the fish you baited with fish hooks a few lives ago (an elder relative's explanation of his stomach ulcer to me...)
I have been a very reluctant believer in linear reincarnation, for the simple reason that there is nothing permanent to reincarnate. The theory of there being a flowing stream of consciousness which attracts things like a magnet is a more acceptable theory (emphasis on theory) to me.
Coming back to the Secret it seems to open up very clearly why we attract the 'bad' things that we do to ourselves. It is what we are scared of and constantly think about...the illnesses, the pains, the aches. In 1985 when I was living by myself in Bahrain, I remember reading a survey that in 8 cases out of 10 individuals who go through a major prolonged family separation come down with some major illness. Pronto, by end 1985 I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes. Of course, the diabetes was also brought on by genetic factors and 35 years of eating starchy foods...what was important was that the news item triggered it off...for years I have known that reading that news item almost literally switched on the diabetes switch...I can talk of several such switches going on in my life, and, one that I recently switched off...
I could go on. I don't plan to. Is there an antidote to all this assuming that one needs an antidote ? Ramana (Maharishi) may not have needed an antidote and I remember talking to my wife about this...these pleasures of the bodily world made no attraction to the Ramanas...it was like having a plate of Hyderabadi lamb biryani cooked and kept on the table...would never attract me because I was not on that frequency...no reflection at all on the lamb biryani, it is just as beautiful a creation as any in God's world...Ramana was on a different frequency, and, like the Hyderabadi lamb biryani holds no attraction to me, the pleasures and otherwise of the world held no fascination for Ramana which was why he could stare ahead with equanimity...I leave it to you to decide if his state was an evolved state...
For those of us for whom the pleasures still hold an attraction, self very much at the top of the line, the first step is to give thanks. Very difficult when the chips are all down. I remember the story that Rajneesh used to tell. An old Jain sadhvi who was travelling came to the outskirts of a city only to find that the gates of the city had shut for the night. As she settled down to spend the night alone by herself she could start hearing the jackals baying, fear set in and she could not fall asleep. Then, she caught sight of the full moon and she suddenly realized that she had never seen the full moon in all its glory. The cool, calm light of the full moon in autumn (sharad jyotsna shubram Sankara described it as and it also features in his verse 'drisha drageeyasa...) lulled her to sleep. She awoke in the morning with thankfulness. Dhanyoham asmi, I am thankful, is the expression Sankara often used. Look around and in the darkest night when the wolves bay you will always see a full moon...you just need to look for the full moon, not the wolves...
And finally, the words of my good friend and mentor, Baba, Dr Phadnis. In the tradition of Vipassana there is a practice called Adittana, where you sit a full hour without movement of any sort. In the words of Baba, "If at the end of an hour's adittana sit you feel that you have accomplished something, then the whole practice is lost..." There is nothing "I" achieve. It is just being in the dance of the Divine Leela, for, as Ramesh says, "everything that the mind conjures up is a concept..."
If all this makes no sense and sounds like the words of a confused mind needing help, just listen to this song. MS Subbulakshmi, the well known Indian classical singer used to almost always sing it as the last song in her concerts. Essentially it says, "I have no complaints...You have given me everything..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKdHPCw3K9c&feature=related
One of my favourite visualizations is to exit life listening to this song. So, for those who maybe near and around at that time, try and have a copy of the song ready -:))
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Slumdog Millionaire
Yes. Last night, thanks to my son, I finally got to see Slumdog Millionaire.
(My rating:***stars. However, it has won 8 Oscars and that is all that matters)
Bollywood has finally arrived, albeit through the hands of a Brit…I can assure you that if the name Danny Boyle had not been stamped all over the film, it would not have had the success it has had…like the fact that while writing a book on Gandhi may get you the Nobel Prize, Gandhi himself would have never won the Nobel Peace Prize…or, the reality that the well known Indian poet Tagore qualified for the Nobel Prize in Literature only after Yeats ‘discovered’ him…the success of Slumdog Millionaire is a reassurance to all my white friends that they still rule the world, and, the likes of Hindustan will always need their approval before they can make it big…God’s in His Heaven and all’s right with the still Rudyard Kipling-esque world…
It is interesting that a Brit made the film…for I believe that while many white races ruled parts of India it is only the Brits who understood it well enough to really rule it and milk it thoroughly…much better than even the locally born politicians of today can…the film has that understanding stamped all over it…
The point here is that I cannot see an American making Slumdog Millionaire, a Canadian perhaps, yes, but, Canadians are more British than Americans are…and now, of course, there is a reverse colonialism of sorts for I read in a restaurant menu the other day, “Chikken Tikka Masala, the national dish of Britain…” as a close relative of mine once said, “The Indian restaurants on London’s Drummond Street are perhaps the best payback Britain is getting for two hundred and fifty years of the Raj…”
To those of my white friends who keep asking me, “Does Slumdog really show the true India ?” in the tone of someone wanting confirmation that the ghosts and ghouls in Shyamalan’s horror films really exist, the answer is Yes. That is India…
at the same time I can assure them that I can take them to parts of downtown Detroit or even Toronto that would qualify for similar status…
Also, for those of us Mumbaikars who have grown up in the city when it was Bombay, just remember the ‘sixties song that Uma and Usha, the daughters of the then Police Commissioner of Bombay sang:
Come from England, Come from Scotland, Come from Ayre-land
Come from Holland, Come from Poland, Come from any land
Come to Bombay, Come to Bombay, Bombay meri Hai
(Bombay meri Hai, Bombay is mine)
…..
The ladies are nice
The girls are full of spice
Bombay Meri Hai…
Yes, along with the cess pools like the one the young Jamal falls into, in his quest for Amitabh’s autograph, there is a spirit and spunk to Bombay that really makes us, Mumbaikars, say, Bombay Meri Hai, in the spirit of a mother hugging her child…
One more point, the movie is a testament to the Westminster-style liberalism that the Brits built up in India, fostered subsequently by the Nehrus of the world (more English than the English as several people in India maintain)… that a senior Indian diplomat, currently the Deputy High Commissioner in Pretoria, authored the book ‘Q&A’ on which the movie is based…I cannot think of many so-called bastions of western style freedom of speech, where a serving civil servant would not lose his job for writing such an expose of the underbelly…the President of India actually congratulated Vikas Swarup when Slumdog bagged all the Oscars that it did…and catch the Chinese allowing such a film on the cess pools of Shanghai !!...which I am sure exist…
I also believe that Slumdog won the awards that it has because it gives expression to the human belief that things will finally always change for the better, particularly in these recessionary days...like the other myth that good ultimately triumphs over evil…
Time and again we have heard of rags to riches stories, and, we always believe that one day each of us is destined to find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and life will change for the better thereafter.
There is a saying attributed to the Buddha that two mountains of gold will not be sufficient to satisfy the cravings of a single human, and, once the two mountains of gold come your way you will still want the third, and, the fourth…and the ending of Slumdog Millionaire and the finale fantasy dance of Jai Ho (may there be success) in between two trains on a Bombay suburban platform summarizes the human dream, fantasy or hope, choose the word you want to…
Jai Ho
PS--- Never again will I be able to listen to the bhajan ‘darshan do ghanshyam nath…’ without flinching…it is one of my favourites and Slumdog has put a new perspective on it…
PPS --- I had answers to all the questions including the Jeff Hobbs one. Does that get me the twenty million ?
(My rating:***stars. However, it has won 8 Oscars and that is all that matters)
Bollywood has finally arrived, albeit through the hands of a Brit…I can assure you that if the name Danny Boyle had not been stamped all over the film, it would not have had the success it has had…like the fact that while writing a book on Gandhi may get you the Nobel Prize, Gandhi himself would have never won the Nobel Peace Prize…or, the reality that the well known Indian poet Tagore qualified for the Nobel Prize in Literature only after Yeats ‘discovered’ him…the success of Slumdog Millionaire is a reassurance to all my white friends that they still rule the world, and, the likes of Hindustan will always need their approval before they can make it big…God’s in His Heaven and all’s right with the still Rudyard Kipling-esque world…
It is interesting that a Brit made the film…for I believe that while many white races ruled parts of India it is only the Brits who understood it well enough to really rule it and milk it thoroughly…much better than even the locally born politicians of today can…the film has that understanding stamped all over it…
The point here is that I cannot see an American making Slumdog Millionaire, a Canadian perhaps, yes, but, Canadians are more British than Americans are…and now, of course, there is a reverse colonialism of sorts for I read in a restaurant menu the other day, “Chikken Tikka Masala, the national dish of Britain…” as a close relative of mine once said, “The Indian restaurants on London’s Drummond Street are perhaps the best payback Britain is getting for two hundred and fifty years of the Raj…”
To those of my white friends who keep asking me, “Does Slumdog really show the true India ?” in the tone of someone wanting confirmation that the ghosts and ghouls in Shyamalan’s horror films really exist, the answer is Yes. That is India…
at the same time I can assure them that I can take them to parts of downtown Detroit or even Toronto that would qualify for similar status…
Also, for those of us Mumbaikars who have grown up in the city when it was Bombay, just remember the ‘sixties song that Uma and Usha, the daughters of the then Police Commissioner of Bombay sang:
Come from England, Come from Scotland, Come from Ayre-land
Come from Holland, Come from Poland, Come from any land
Come to Bombay, Come to Bombay, Bombay meri Hai
(Bombay meri Hai, Bombay is mine)
…..
The ladies are nice
The girls are full of spice
Bombay Meri Hai…
Yes, along with the cess pools like the one the young Jamal falls into, in his quest for Amitabh’s autograph, there is a spirit and spunk to Bombay that really makes us, Mumbaikars, say, Bombay Meri Hai, in the spirit of a mother hugging her child…
One more point, the movie is a testament to the Westminster-style liberalism that the Brits built up in India, fostered subsequently by the Nehrus of the world (more English than the English as several people in India maintain)… that a senior Indian diplomat, currently the Deputy High Commissioner in Pretoria, authored the book ‘Q&A’ on which the movie is based…I cannot think of many so-called bastions of western style freedom of speech, where a serving civil servant would not lose his job for writing such an expose of the underbelly…the President of India actually congratulated Vikas Swarup when Slumdog bagged all the Oscars that it did…and catch the Chinese allowing such a film on the cess pools of Shanghai !!...which I am sure exist…
I also believe that Slumdog won the awards that it has because it gives expression to the human belief that things will finally always change for the better, particularly in these recessionary days...like the other myth that good ultimately triumphs over evil…
Time and again we have heard of rags to riches stories, and, we always believe that one day each of us is destined to find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and life will change for the better thereafter.
There is a saying attributed to the Buddha that two mountains of gold will not be sufficient to satisfy the cravings of a single human, and, once the two mountains of gold come your way you will still want the third, and, the fourth…and the ending of Slumdog Millionaire and the finale fantasy dance of Jai Ho (may there be success) in between two trains on a Bombay suburban platform summarizes the human dream, fantasy or hope, choose the word you want to…
Jai Ho
PS--- Never again will I be able to listen to the bhajan ‘darshan do ghanshyam nath…’ without flinching…it is one of my favourites and Slumdog has put a new perspective on it…
PPS --- I had answers to all the questions including the Jeff Hobbs one. Does that get me the twenty million ?
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Thanks, Dad
My first memory of him was of him standing on the pier at Southampton waving to us as the ssCarthage docked. He was wearing a light coloured jacket and had come to receive us as we joined him…that was my father…Dad to me, Mr KN Ramanathan, Anna and other terms to the rest of the world…
For the next thirty one years we were together…there were occasions when Dad and I did not see eye to eye…like the occasion, as an eighteen year old, I wrote an article supporting legalizing abortions and Khushwant Singh published it in the Illustrated Weekly under the bye line, KR Ramanathan…and somebody called Dad to congratulate him on his progressive viewpoint...Dad had nothing for or against legalizing abortions…the only thing was that he felt that it should not be mistaken that a retired General Manager of the Press Trust of India, a leading Theosophist and a much respected senior was talking about these apparently (to him) frivolous things…so he told me, “I have nothing against what you write…please use the name Raja Ramanathan when you write in future…so that people do not think it is me writing…”
I had the bug to write very early in life…brought on by all the articles that Dorai Anna was writing…so, at age five I once scribbled the alphabet or something like that, stole money from Akka’s wallet for the postage and posted it to "the Hindu" office in London…I also enclosed a one Pound note since I had heard that one had to pay the newspapers to publish your thoughts…whoever received the letter recognized the address and called up Anna, who was the seniormost Indian journalist in London then and asked him to come and collect the note (I think one Pound wasn’t enough for them...more may have done the trick...)…he came home that evening and asked me where I got the money from…I told him, a la George Washington of cherry tree fame and others, “from Akka’s wallet”…he laughed and told Akka, “…this child wants to write that is why he stole the money…I will help him…” from then on, I would write and he taught me how to type since he told me that all articles had to be typed and I would have submit them for his review…I could type much before I could write full sentences in long hand…he also wanted me to learn shorthand, and, paid my fees several times over to achieve this, which never came to pass…nothing ever got published, till Chandy and Annie took pity on me and put my articles in "the Itinerant Indian", but, it taught me much about how to deal with a child stealing money to do something he wanted to…
Throughout his life he never disciplined me (Dorai Anna may say, “Yes. That was the problem…”)…he would always make his point, sometime forcefully, and, then move on…yet, most importantly, if you made a mistake doing it the way you thought was good, he was there to bail you out…and that was another parenting lesson I learnt, “As long as I am alive, and, this house is there, you and your family have a meal here…” he was the ultimate safe haven, a place you could go to when there were storms raging and fires burning all around…
When we learnt that his old duodenal ulcer had turned into a carcinoma, I remember praying that he would pass away without having to suffer the pain of cancer or live the indignity of being connected to tubes…I am, given my limited perspective of life and pain, happy to report that prayer was answered…he died as they were strengthening his lungs prior to fixing a date for radical surgery…he did not have to live connected to tubes…
I remember the evening, February 28, twenty eight years ago, when he was already in a coma for about twelve hours…suddenly his body heaved and Akka who was by his side, realized what was happening…breaking into tears herself, she told me to recite the Universal Prayer, written by Dr Besant, his mentor, as the breaths started slowing down and Dad moved into the great beyond...
O Hidden Life vibrant in every atom
O Hidden Light shining in every creature
O Hidden Love embracing all in oneness
May each who knows himself as
One with thee
Know he is therefore
One with every other
And that is my last memory of him…
Thanks, Dad wherever you are
PS--- Goenkaji, I am slowly beginning to sense what you mean when you say, “The debt you owe to your parents can never be paid off, however many lives you live…”
For the next thirty one years we were together…there were occasions when Dad and I did not see eye to eye…like the occasion, as an eighteen year old, I wrote an article supporting legalizing abortions and Khushwant Singh published it in the Illustrated Weekly under the bye line, KR Ramanathan…and somebody called Dad to congratulate him on his progressive viewpoint...Dad had nothing for or against legalizing abortions…the only thing was that he felt that it should not be mistaken that a retired General Manager of the Press Trust of India, a leading Theosophist and a much respected senior was talking about these apparently (to him) frivolous things…so he told me, “I have nothing against what you write…please use the name Raja Ramanathan when you write in future…so that people do not think it is me writing…”
I had the bug to write very early in life…brought on by all the articles that Dorai Anna was writing…so, at age five I once scribbled the alphabet or something like that, stole money from Akka’s wallet for the postage and posted it to "the Hindu" office in London…I also enclosed a one Pound note since I had heard that one had to pay the newspapers to publish your thoughts…whoever received the letter recognized the address and called up Anna, who was the seniormost Indian journalist in London then and asked him to come and collect the note (I think one Pound wasn’t enough for them...more may have done the trick...)…he came home that evening and asked me where I got the money from…I told him, a la George Washington of cherry tree fame and others, “from Akka’s wallet”…he laughed and told Akka, “…this child wants to write that is why he stole the money…I will help him…” from then on, I would write and he taught me how to type since he told me that all articles had to be typed and I would have submit them for his review…I could type much before I could write full sentences in long hand…he also wanted me to learn shorthand, and, paid my fees several times over to achieve this, which never came to pass…nothing ever got published, till Chandy and Annie took pity on me and put my articles in "the Itinerant Indian", but, it taught me much about how to deal with a child stealing money to do something he wanted to…
Throughout his life he never disciplined me (Dorai Anna may say, “Yes. That was the problem…”)…he would always make his point, sometime forcefully, and, then move on…yet, most importantly, if you made a mistake doing it the way you thought was good, he was there to bail you out…and that was another parenting lesson I learnt, “As long as I am alive, and, this house is there, you and your family have a meal here…” he was the ultimate safe haven, a place you could go to when there were storms raging and fires burning all around…
When we learnt that his old duodenal ulcer had turned into a carcinoma, I remember praying that he would pass away without having to suffer the pain of cancer or live the indignity of being connected to tubes…I am, given my limited perspective of life and pain, happy to report that prayer was answered…he died as they were strengthening his lungs prior to fixing a date for radical surgery…he did not have to live connected to tubes…
I remember the evening, February 28, twenty eight years ago, when he was already in a coma for about twelve hours…suddenly his body heaved and Akka who was by his side, realized what was happening…breaking into tears herself, she told me to recite the Universal Prayer, written by Dr Besant, his mentor, as the breaths started slowing down and Dad moved into the great beyond...
O Hidden Life vibrant in every atom
O Hidden Light shining in every creature
O Hidden Love embracing all in oneness
May each who knows himself as
One with thee
Know he is therefore
One with every other
And that is my last memory of him…
Thanks, Dad wherever you are
PS--- Goenkaji, I am slowly beginning to sense what you mean when you say, “The debt you owe to your parents can never be paid off, however many lives you live…”
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Yours wistfully
Surfing aimlessly across the internet yesterday, I stumbled across a collection of official correspondence of Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India…Most of the letters in the collection dated to 1959 and as I have heard of a 50-year archiving rule before they become public I think the letters must have just been released…
Rajen Babu as he was known, was, to begin with, a brilliant lawyer having topped several Calcutta (?) University exams before going on to get his Doctor of Laws…he subsequently became quite a renowned lawyer in Bhagalpur…till his skill at writing petitions on behalf of the indigo workers of Champaran brought him to the attention of Gandhi…and the rest, as they say, is history…
His official correspondence as President of India gives us a wonderful whiff at the simple and at the same time brilliant mind of this very great man…all the values of the Gandhian freedom fighters come through, and, the also the first hints of transition away…for example, there is a very interesting piece of correspondence between him and Nehru (hereinafter referred to as Panditji) about the size of the delegation, consisting of largely family members, that Rajen Babu took on a state visit to Ceylon…Nehru starts off by saying that we need to be sensitive to the strain these state visits put on the host country…and Rajen Babu, in the end, acknowledging that he would definitely keep this in mind for the future…
In the correspondence that I read, Sri Prakasa, then the Governor of Bombay, and, Govind Ballabh Pant, the then Home Minister come through as his closest friends…Sri Prakasa and he have exchanged letters on how Rajen Babu felt that Sri Prakasa should not take the Night Air Mail flight to Delhi (remember that institution of the ‘50s/ ‘60s, the planes coming from Bombay, Delhi, Madras and Calcutta to Nagpur, and, going back with the mail) because it would tire him…and Sri Prakasa saying how it would save money…catch any Governor of today caring for such things…
The gentle humanness of Rajen Babu is so transparent…Padmaja Naidu, the then Governor of West Bengal and Sarojini Naidu’s daughter is ill with a temperature and heading to Delhi for a Governors’ conference…Rajen Babu tells her, “Come and stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan so that I can have you properly looked after…”
The Gandhian in him comes through clearly in the numerous letters where he refuses invitations to serve on Committees or recommend friends from the past to jobs…”it would not be appropriate for me in my present role to do so. I hope you will understand…” he says time and again to friends he spent time in British jails with. The only occasion I see him express an interest is when the veteran Gandhian, G. Ramachandran asks him to join the Trust of the institution he is setting up in Gandhigram, near Madurai…”Let me talk to the Prime Minister about this,” Rajen Babu says…
The camaraderie of the freedom fighters is evident in every affectionate letter that he writes…whether it be on the death of a family member…a marriage he cannot attend…or just inquiring about their health…”Keep me informed of how you are recovering” he tells so many of his former jail mates and they do…and his affectionate notes to the families as his colleagues pass away…”It is inevitable, but that does not reduce the pain. I am with you…” is his constant refrain...
Some of the letters also very deeply reflect the strong chasm that existed between Rajen Babu and Panditji…Rajen Babu was definitely old school Gandhian…Panditji talked of the hydro electric dams being the temples of modern India…there is a twelve page letter he has written to Panditji on what he feels needs to be done to help the country…which includes introducing Gandhiji’s “Nayi Talim”, basic education, making Hindi the official language and providing incentives for Khandsari (home made jaggery) projects…wish I were a fly on the wall to see and hear Panditji’s responses to his suggestions…
Rajen Babu was not Panditji’s choice for President of India…Panditji would have preferred Rajaji…and that comes through in their world view…in one letter Panditji tells him that it would be preferable if he called him to discuss these different views rather than write about them…this is one place where Rajen Babu tells Panditji to go fly a kite…he feels it is his constitutional obligation to communicate his thoughts and he intends to do so the way he choses…
I would have loved to read the correspondence that must have been exchanged in 1955 between Panditji and Rajen Babu over the Hindu Code Bill…At one stage Rajen Babu who was opposed to the Bill had told Panditji that he would not sign it…Nehru bluntly told him that the President was a ceremonial role and that he had no option but to sign it…
Somewhat prophetic is also his letter to Panditji asking him to ensure that the coming budget (1960) provided enough money to defend the border with China…
Despite their differences they were old colleagues and there is an affectionate letter from Nehru inviting Rajen Babu to join him and the Cabinet for lunch on December 3, 1959, which was Rajen Babu’s seventy fifth birthday…and Rajen Babu’s acknowledgement of the invitation is equally touching…
There is an old world wistfulness that I experienced as I read these letters…a world where even politics was gentlemanly…it reminded me of the walk I took in Besant Nagar during this holiday one Saturday morning…after a few minutes it struck me that there was no fragrance of idlis and sambar cooking any more and no one played MS’ Suprabatham anymore, like they used to in the ‘70s…they are gone, and, so is the spirit of Rajen Babu and his letters…gone…
And then the realization...”Change,” they say is the only, “permanent thing…”
Rajen Babu as he was known, was, to begin with, a brilliant lawyer having topped several Calcutta (?) University exams before going on to get his Doctor of Laws…he subsequently became quite a renowned lawyer in Bhagalpur…till his skill at writing petitions on behalf of the indigo workers of Champaran brought him to the attention of Gandhi…and the rest, as they say, is history…
His official correspondence as President of India gives us a wonderful whiff at the simple and at the same time brilliant mind of this very great man…all the values of the Gandhian freedom fighters come through, and, the also the first hints of transition away…for example, there is a very interesting piece of correspondence between him and Nehru (hereinafter referred to as Panditji) about the size of the delegation, consisting of largely family members, that Rajen Babu took on a state visit to Ceylon…Nehru starts off by saying that we need to be sensitive to the strain these state visits put on the host country…and Rajen Babu, in the end, acknowledging that he would definitely keep this in mind for the future…
In the correspondence that I read, Sri Prakasa, then the Governor of Bombay, and, Govind Ballabh Pant, the then Home Minister come through as his closest friends…Sri Prakasa and he have exchanged letters on how Rajen Babu felt that Sri Prakasa should not take the Night Air Mail flight to Delhi (remember that institution of the ‘50s/ ‘60s, the planes coming from Bombay, Delhi, Madras and Calcutta to Nagpur, and, going back with the mail) because it would tire him…and Sri Prakasa saying how it would save money…catch any Governor of today caring for such things…
The gentle humanness of Rajen Babu is so transparent…Padmaja Naidu, the then Governor of West Bengal and Sarojini Naidu’s daughter is ill with a temperature and heading to Delhi for a Governors’ conference…Rajen Babu tells her, “Come and stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan so that I can have you properly looked after…”
The Gandhian in him comes through clearly in the numerous letters where he refuses invitations to serve on Committees or recommend friends from the past to jobs…”it would not be appropriate for me in my present role to do so. I hope you will understand…” he says time and again to friends he spent time in British jails with. The only occasion I see him express an interest is when the veteran Gandhian, G. Ramachandran asks him to join the Trust of the institution he is setting up in Gandhigram, near Madurai…”Let me talk to the Prime Minister about this,” Rajen Babu says…
The camaraderie of the freedom fighters is evident in every affectionate letter that he writes…whether it be on the death of a family member…a marriage he cannot attend…or just inquiring about their health…”Keep me informed of how you are recovering” he tells so many of his former jail mates and they do…and his affectionate notes to the families as his colleagues pass away…”It is inevitable, but that does not reduce the pain. I am with you…” is his constant refrain...
Some of the letters also very deeply reflect the strong chasm that existed between Rajen Babu and Panditji…Rajen Babu was definitely old school Gandhian…Panditji talked of the hydro electric dams being the temples of modern India…there is a twelve page letter he has written to Panditji on what he feels needs to be done to help the country…which includes introducing Gandhiji’s “Nayi Talim”, basic education, making Hindi the official language and providing incentives for Khandsari (home made jaggery) projects…wish I were a fly on the wall to see and hear Panditji’s responses to his suggestions…
Rajen Babu was not Panditji’s choice for President of India…Panditji would have preferred Rajaji…and that comes through in their world view…in one letter Panditji tells him that it would be preferable if he called him to discuss these different views rather than write about them…this is one place where Rajen Babu tells Panditji to go fly a kite…he feels it is his constitutional obligation to communicate his thoughts and he intends to do so the way he choses…
I would have loved to read the correspondence that must have been exchanged in 1955 between Panditji and Rajen Babu over the Hindu Code Bill…At one stage Rajen Babu who was opposed to the Bill had told Panditji that he would not sign it…Nehru bluntly told him that the President was a ceremonial role and that he had no option but to sign it…
Somewhat prophetic is also his letter to Panditji asking him to ensure that the coming budget (1960) provided enough money to defend the border with China…
Despite their differences they were old colleagues and there is an affectionate letter from Nehru inviting Rajen Babu to join him and the Cabinet for lunch on December 3, 1959, which was Rajen Babu’s seventy fifth birthday…and Rajen Babu’s acknowledgement of the invitation is equally touching…
There is an old world wistfulness that I experienced as I read these letters…a world where even politics was gentlemanly…it reminded me of the walk I took in Besant Nagar during this holiday one Saturday morning…after a few minutes it struck me that there was no fragrance of idlis and sambar cooking any more and no one played MS’ Suprabatham anymore, like they used to in the ‘70s…they are gone, and, so is the spirit of Rajen Babu and his letters…gone…
And then the realization...”Change,” they say is the only, “permanent thing…”
Saturday, January 17, 2009
The sage of Sindhula
It is now a week since we came back from India…the stomach is slowly settling back to the North American sterility…the glow of the warmth of the humanness that dominated the last four weeks alongside with the constantly upset stomach is beginning to become a memory…and the snow banks bring one back to the reality of the moment…the warmth was there, gone, the cold, snow is here, that is all that is real…the search for the next trip is the mind’s desire to re-enact enjoyable experiences and ignore the coldness of the snow…
As I sit back and look at the four weeks one experience stands out for me as going beyond words…and being the fool that I am, I shall try to put it in words…
Whenever in Bombay I have always tried to go and spend sometime in the presence of the sage of Sindhula (on Nowroji Gamadia Road), Ramesh Balsekar…this time, with my constantly upset stomach I was not sure that I would be able to do so…however, one morning, I think it was on Christmas Eve, I was able to manage to make it in between a breakfast date with my daughter and son-in-law at the Taj President and a shopping appointment…
After a quick breakfast at the Taj President I caught a taxi and got off about kilometre ahead of the correct intersection, more by mistake than design…as I walked through the early morning Bombay traffic I realized how out of shape I was, physically, and, mentally ?
Balsekar’s satsangs used to start at 9.00am and the watchman would let us in by 8.50am. So, when I reached at 8.45am, I was a little surprised when he told me that the satsangs now started at 9.30am, and, I could go up at 9.20am. My North American efficiency was offended…why had they not changed the posting on the website ? I could have spent another half hour in air conditioned comfort at the Taj President ? Supposedly the anger of an organized mind…in reality the sputterings of one’s ego that is caught up in ideas…
I sat myself down on the steps of Sindhula building and watched the motley crowd of satsangis come…a white woman who looked like a relic of the hippie revolution…a forty something Indian woman who looked like a liberated lesbian from Lamington Road…men in shorts and a man trying to find place to park his Mercedes…and then, of course, Shirish who is Balsekar’s aide de camp…Shirish recognized me and we spoke…I didn’t see his wife Kalindi, didn’t ask him…maybe they are no longer together…
The watchman let us in at 9.10 and I used the somewhat rickety lift of Sindhula
Balsekar is now past ninety and has undergo surgeries…he is very frail and uses a walker to move around…so much has changed since I first met him in 2002…there is still fire in him, but, it burns differently, not with the crackle that was there in 2002…
These days Balsekar does not talk much…they play a video of one of his talks and he sometimes makes a comment or if someone asks a question responds to the question…
He came in, and, the Liberated Lesbian gave him a hug…he sat down, wiped his mouth with the clean hand towel he always has…looked around to survey the motely crowd in front of him…I was swinging away on the jhoola and somehow decided to be more respectful when he caught my eye and moved to a chair…
The video came on and a Balsekar of some ten years earlier was talking with a person who was a medical doctor…the difference between the sage and the common human is that the sage has no sense of personal doership…the sense of personal doership is what distinguishes the human from the sage and the animal…
JP Singh who records Balsekar’s talks had told me to jot down any questions and ask Balsekar towards the end…he gave me a book and I made furious notes…Why does the Source create a sense of personal doership as the sense of personal doership seems to the cause of all trouble ?
Waited, like back in the IIMA days to get the maximum impact for my question…my friend Ramki whom I met in Chennai with whom I appeared for the IIMA group discussion tells me that in 1969 I was adept at making a comment in a group discussion at the most advantageous moment…creating a stir and then going off to sleep…
And then, I caught the sage’s eye…went in front of him, sat down on the cushion, and, introduced myself as Dr Phadnis’ friend, uncle of Radha, Dr Phadnis’ daughter-in-law…unlike in the past, the sage nodded in recognition, not with much warmth…I was disappointed…I remember how happy I had been when once he told me that ‘Yes. I can see you are Radha’s uncle…she looks like you very much…’ the mind had been hoping for that sort of a stroke…the guru had a different message this time…
With all the deftness of the logic that years of academic learning has given me I logicked with Ramesh, like I had with Swami Chinmayananda forty years ago…”If the feeling of doership is the root cause of the problems, why does the Source, supposedly infinte in compassion give us that ?”…I asked the sage…
Diamond cuts diamond is what comes to my mind…but that is presumptuous for I am no diamond…the diamond of Balsekar’s mind honed with enlightenment and his own academic training at LSE bore down on me…
“What are you ? He raised his fingers, pointed at me, ‘you are just a three dimensional object’ How do you presume that with this limited, defined in space time and mind you will understand the infinite ? Just accept that it is part of the divine hypnosis, Leela and stop struggling…”
I bent down to do pranam and he accepted the bowed head…I was about to get up and go when I sensed that the sage was not done with me…
“What did you think of the video ? All the questions that the doctor kept asking ?”
I hesitated, not knowing what to say…”I think his search was deep and hence all the questions…” I uttered the words without really having something to say…
The sage looked at me deep…picked up his clean hand towel and wiped his mouth and swallowed…”You know when you ask a question, try and see why you ask a question…there has to be sincerity in asking a question…not the pride that goes with the assumption that you have the answers…the sense that I have to cross examine this man to get at the truth…the Guru does not work that way…when you come to me, keep yourself open, not full of your ideas…if you have too many ideas that keep surfacing you will never be able to hear what the Guru has to say…to hear the Guru you have to be humble, not cross examining with pride…”
The sage had nothing further to say…he once again wiped his mouth with the clean hand towel…beckoned to the next questioner…to me it sounds like the words of Krishna
Athava bahunai tena
kim gya’tena tava’rjuna
vishtabhyaham idam sarvam
ekam sena’stito jagat
Of what use is this knowledge to you Arjuna ?
All that you need to know is that in a fraction of myself I sustain the whole Universe
I am still not listening with emptiness…the mind is still showing off, dancing a jig to show how much I have read and now…when all that shit diarrheas out of the system then I will be ready for the sage…
----
As I sit back and look at the four weeks one experience stands out for me as going beyond words…and being the fool that I am, I shall try to put it in words…
Whenever in Bombay I have always tried to go and spend sometime in the presence of the sage of Sindhula (on Nowroji Gamadia Road), Ramesh Balsekar…this time, with my constantly upset stomach I was not sure that I would be able to do so…however, one morning, I think it was on Christmas Eve, I was able to manage to make it in between a breakfast date with my daughter and son-in-law at the Taj President and a shopping appointment…
After a quick breakfast at the Taj President I caught a taxi and got off about kilometre ahead of the correct intersection, more by mistake than design…as I walked through the early morning Bombay traffic I realized how out of shape I was, physically, and, mentally ?
Balsekar’s satsangs used to start at 9.00am and the watchman would let us in by 8.50am. So, when I reached at 8.45am, I was a little surprised when he told me that the satsangs now started at 9.30am, and, I could go up at 9.20am. My North American efficiency was offended…why had they not changed the posting on the website ? I could have spent another half hour in air conditioned comfort at the Taj President ? Supposedly the anger of an organized mind…in reality the sputterings of one’s ego that is caught up in ideas…
I sat myself down on the steps of Sindhula building and watched the motley crowd of satsangis come…a white woman who looked like a relic of the hippie revolution…a forty something Indian woman who looked like a liberated lesbian from Lamington Road…men in shorts and a man trying to find place to park his Mercedes…and then, of course, Shirish who is Balsekar’s aide de camp…Shirish recognized me and we spoke…I didn’t see his wife Kalindi, didn’t ask him…maybe they are no longer together…
The watchman let us in at 9.10 and I used the somewhat rickety lift of Sindhula
Balsekar is now past ninety and has undergo surgeries…he is very frail and uses a walker to move around…so much has changed since I first met him in 2002…there is still fire in him, but, it burns differently, not with the crackle that was there in 2002…
These days Balsekar does not talk much…they play a video of one of his talks and he sometimes makes a comment or if someone asks a question responds to the question…
He came in, and, the Liberated Lesbian gave him a hug…he sat down, wiped his mouth with the clean hand towel he always has…looked around to survey the motely crowd in front of him…I was swinging away on the jhoola and somehow decided to be more respectful when he caught my eye and moved to a chair…
The video came on and a Balsekar of some ten years earlier was talking with a person who was a medical doctor…the difference between the sage and the common human is that the sage has no sense of personal doership…the sense of personal doership is what distinguishes the human from the sage and the animal…
JP Singh who records Balsekar’s talks had told me to jot down any questions and ask Balsekar towards the end…he gave me a book and I made furious notes…Why does the Source create a sense of personal doership as the sense of personal doership seems to the cause of all trouble ?
Waited, like back in the IIMA days to get the maximum impact for my question…my friend Ramki whom I met in Chennai with whom I appeared for the IIMA group discussion tells me that in 1969 I was adept at making a comment in a group discussion at the most advantageous moment…creating a stir and then going off to sleep…
And then, I caught the sage’s eye…went in front of him, sat down on the cushion, and, introduced myself as Dr Phadnis’ friend, uncle of Radha, Dr Phadnis’ daughter-in-law…unlike in the past, the sage nodded in recognition, not with much warmth…I was disappointed…I remember how happy I had been when once he told me that ‘Yes. I can see you are Radha’s uncle…she looks like you very much…’ the mind had been hoping for that sort of a stroke…the guru had a different message this time…
With all the deftness of the logic that years of academic learning has given me I logicked with Ramesh, like I had with Swami Chinmayananda forty years ago…”If the feeling of doership is the root cause of the problems, why does the Source, supposedly infinte in compassion give us that ?”…I asked the sage…
Diamond cuts diamond is what comes to my mind…but that is presumptuous for I am no diamond…the diamond of Balsekar’s mind honed with enlightenment and his own academic training at LSE bore down on me…
“What are you ? He raised his fingers, pointed at me, ‘you are just a three dimensional object’ How do you presume that with this limited, defined in space time and mind you will understand the infinite ? Just accept that it is part of the divine hypnosis, Leela and stop struggling…”
I bent down to do pranam and he accepted the bowed head…I was about to get up and go when I sensed that the sage was not done with me…
“What did you think of the video ? All the questions that the doctor kept asking ?”
I hesitated, not knowing what to say…”I think his search was deep and hence all the questions…” I uttered the words without really having something to say…
The sage looked at me deep…picked up his clean hand towel and wiped his mouth and swallowed…”You know when you ask a question, try and see why you ask a question…there has to be sincerity in asking a question…not the pride that goes with the assumption that you have the answers…the sense that I have to cross examine this man to get at the truth…the Guru does not work that way…when you come to me, keep yourself open, not full of your ideas…if you have too many ideas that keep surfacing you will never be able to hear what the Guru has to say…to hear the Guru you have to be humble, not cross examining with pride…”
The sage had nothing further to say…he once again wiped his mouth with the clean hand towel…beckoned to the next questioner…to me it sounds like the words of Krishna
Athava bahunai tena
kim gya’tena tava’rjuna
vishtabhyaham idam sarvam
ekam sena’stito jagat
Of what use is this knowledge to you Arjuna ?
All that you need to know is that in a fraction of myself I sustain the whole Universe
I am still not listening with emptiness…the mind is still showing off, dancing a jig to show how much I have read and now…when all that shit diarrheas out of the system then I will be ready for the sage…
----
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...
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...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
