The Absurdity We Live With: On the Meaninglessness of Life

Abhishek Jha2 Comments

A man comes to get his family back to where he wants to build his future with them. Tickets sorted, luggage packed, web check-in done, security cleared, boarding completed—a customary selfie, snapped. The plane takes off for about 3-4 minutes until it doesn’t and comes crashing down. News flashes on our mobile and television screens. Content-creators start playing to the tunes of social media algorithms to get more reach and followers. We ask ourselves – what’s the meaning of life?

What’s the meaning of life? Is that the most meaningless question humanity has ever asked itself? Is the question nothing more than self-indulgence, hovering over the boundary between self-awareness and vulgar narcissism, flimsily wrapped inside a philosopher’s cloak to create a façade of being the most important question ever asked in the history of humanity? Maybe.

There have been thinkers, philosophers, and authors who have thought and written about the meaning of life. Fortunately, a respectable corpus of literature is available on the meaninglessness of life as well. The Outsider by Albert Camus is a brief but powerful story of a man going through the motions of life as any other ordinary human being. The events of his life can’t be defined as extraordinary, heroic, or tragic. Camus masterfully constructs a gaze that doesn’t expect anything, least of all the extraordinary, from his narrator or the protagonist. The story faithfully mimics life where everyone is the protagonist of their own life but merely a bystander in everyone else’s. Unless an external gaze starts expecting you to act in a certain way, there isn’t anything particularly right or wrong about your life. Often, we succumb to this external gaze, an image that the world around us projects for us and wants us to conform to. We go about indexing, tagging, and storing the events and actions of our lives as per the definitions determined by this gaze. The question ‘what’s the meaning of life’ is perhaps the mother of this gaze that gets further propagated by tales of heroism and shame, books on vigilantes and traitors, movies around the action and the romantic hero archetypes, or content on social media memes and reels.

While we do find such ideas coming from authors like Albert Camus, Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, and several others – when they confront us with their contemplations on the subject, the question about the meaning of life or the meaninglessness of it appears before us with its fangs out in open and swinging over our belief system only when we see or experience death up-close. Whether it’s the death of a parent, sibling, child, or an accident like a plane crash where many people perish at once, a riot, an earthquake, or a flood where many lose their lives, or when we go through near-death experience or have a close escape – the question of inherent absurdity of life dawns on us. However, if one looks at it closely, it’s the absurdity of life that one is talking about and not only of death. Death is absurd, for sure, but what makes it absurd is the absurdity of life itself. It’s the absurdity of our daily lives that should take more of our attention than death. A person is born, grows up, goes through formal schooling and higher education, must wrestle through countless challenges. Another person is born, grows up without formal education, and faces his own set of struggles. Another person is born but doesn’t live long enough to grow up, let alone ponder questions of absurdity of life. And yet another – doesn’t even get to leave the womb.

It’s not the end of this life that necessarily defines its meaninglessness. Paradoxically, death might be the only event of life that lends life a trace of meaning. It’s in the life itself, the Sisyphean life, us pushing the boulder up the mountain, watching it tumble down, and rising to push once more– where we see true absurdism or meaninglessness of life. While Camus tell us to imagine Sisyphus as being happy doing what he is doing, and that the answer to absurdism is not suicide or resignation but rebellion, how does one find happiness in an endless, purposeless labor?

Perhaps the only way to do that is to look at Sisyphus as a hero and assign meanings to the boulder – responsibilities, family, love, or career. Or we turn Sisyphus into a Christ, and nail him to a cross for our sins, redeeming our own absurd lives through his sacrifice.

Swami-Shashankananda

Condolence Message on the Mahasamadhi of Srimat Swami Shashankananda

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It is with deep sorrow and anguish that we inform you that on 1st October 2024 at 11:43 am, most revered Swami Shashankananda Ji Maharaj left his mortal coil at Ramakrishna Mission TB Sanatorium Hospital, Tupudana. We were fortunate to have his august presence at our Morabadi ashram on 30th September for the Temple shifting ceremony. Maharaj Ji dedicated his life to spread the message of Thakur, Maa and Swami ji. Let us take a moment to pay our homage at his lotus feet.

Swami Shashankananda Ji Maharaj joined the Ramakrishna order as a Brahmachari in 1963 when he was initiated by most revered Swami Madhavananda Ji, the then President of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission. Later he received his Sanyas Diksha from Swami Vireshwarananda Ji Maharaj. He served at the Headquarters (Relief Office) and at various places through out India like Delhi, Chandigarh, Khetri, Raipur, Narottamnagar, Taki and Saradapeeth as an assistant.

He had a special attachment with Swami Atulananda Ji maharaj, whom he served as an attendant in the former’s later days. At Delhi Ashram, he was inspired and guided by Swami Ranganathananda Ji and Swami Swahananda Ji. He was given the herculean task to start an integrated rural development project under the name ‘Pallimangal’ by Revered Swami Vireswarananda Ji Maharaj and Swami Atmasthananda Ji Maharaj.

He played a leading role in establishing Pallimangal activities at Kamarpukur and neighbouring villages and also in the construction of 100 houses at Baptalla of Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh. Workers, volunteers and villagers of Kamarpukur, Jayarambati and neighbouring villages still remember him fondly for his contribution in the fields of agriculture and cottage industries like manufacturing of incense sticks, weaving, bakery, bee-keeping etc. He served as the Principal of Samaj Sevak Shiksha Mandir at Belur Math and set up many subsidiary organisations for youth and marginalised sections of Bengal especially around Sundarban area.

Just as Swami Swahananda had once prophesied that “Mahesh (Swami Shashankananda) will serve the Indian villages”, Maharaj Ji was posted at RKM Morabadi, Ranchi in 1997 to serve the tribal villages around the area. He was further inspired by a phone call by Swami Ranganathananda Ji maharaj encouraging him to carry the message of the Bhagavad Gita to the villages. Swami Ranganathananda Ji also motivated him to work towards the abolition of Casteism and Untouchability.

He had composed Chowpais and Dohas on the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna which were full of dedication and devotion towards the holy trio and were loved by both lay devotees and monks alike.

Swami Shashankananda was not only a firm believer in the life and teachings of Swami Vivekananda but worked towards realising them in the fields of agriculture, rural development, tribal education and others.

He had a dauntless and indomitable personality and never compromised on his sense of morality and vivek. He believed that in a state like Jharkhand which is full of natural resources viz. land, water, wind etc, the solution to all higher education woes would be to teach students the knowledge to harness these renewable natural resources in a holistic manner. In 2013, he was invited by the then Chief Minister of Gujarat Shri Narendra Modi Ji as a Chief Guest for a state rural and agricultural programme. In his introductory speech, Modi Ji spoke at length about the dedication and ability of Swami Shashankananda Ji Maharaj.

His suggestions regarding the same were taken up sincerely by the State Governments as well as the central Government. Recently,  by his relentless pursuit and sincerity, he was successful in introducing integrated Agriculture Education courses in the Government Schools of Jharkhand. He had been engaged in rural developmental activities for 55 years including 18 years in West Bengal and Orissa and 27 years in Jharkhand. He served as the President of Bihar-Jharkhand Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Bhava Prachar Parishad for 17 years and had a tremendous role to play in doubling the membership of Private Ashramas from 15 to above 30. He was the founder Head of Ramakrishna Math, Purnia. For the last 5 years, he had set up his base in Mamarkudar (Bokaro, Jharkhand) and was working for the emancipation of poor children around the area by imparting them with scientific education coupled with spirituality and the ideals of Swami Vivekananda in a formal setting.

He was a multi-talented personality and was a composer, writer and singer. Maharaj Ji was not only a learned scholar but he was an author of numerous books as well as an orator par excellence. He also had a deep understanding of Homeopathy medicine. His melodious voice when he used to sing bhajans used to enthral one and all.  When he used to sing ‘Sri Ramakrishna Katha Sarovar’ everyone listened with rapt attention and devotees used to get immersed seamlessly in the bhava of Thakur (Sri Ramakrishna).

He dedicated his life to spread the message of Jiva Seva Shiv Seva (service to mankind is service to God) from village to village and city to city. Maharaj Ji was an embodiment of all that is good and noble. He is an inspiration to all of us present here. Let us all pay our respects to him today and remember the Shloka from Shrimad Bhaagvat which he realised by his life’s work.

न त्वहं कामये राज्यं न स्वर्गं नापुनर्भवम् ।
कामये दुःख तप्तानां प्राणिनामार्तिनाशनम् ॥

O Lord! I do not desire a kingdom, I do not want the bliss of heaven, and I do not even desire salvation. My only desire is that the suffering of beings tormented by sorrow should end.

Om Shanti!

As written and read by Sri Suresh Narayan Jha during the condolence meeting by the governing body of Ramakrishna Mission, Morabadi (Ranchi) and published on the ashrama’s website. TheSeer stands together in grief with all the devotees and lives impacted by Swamiji’s life, work, and eventually his passing away.

Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga, and Oscar Trimboli Walk into My Library…

Abhishek JhaLeave a comment

Jerry Seinfeld, an American comedian and actor once said, “According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”

I’m sure you have heard this before. Most likely, from some celebrated speaker in an event you attended or perhaps from a public speaking trainer who wanted to underline the importance of his role in your life. The fear is real, and it takes practice to ace the craft. However, it’s also true that in today’s day and age, if you want to improve your public speaking or let’s just say in general, speaking skills, there are plenty of platforms, tools, and devices to help you out. Work, home, physical gatherings, online events, there are places you would be called upon to speak and if you keep at it, you will reach a stage where the idea of speaking won’t make you look for caskets on Amazon.

But what about ‘Listening’? How often do you come across an Instagram ad that promises to make you better at listening? We don’t have much help around, do we? In all likelihood, the only times you have been told to listen was by your parents or teachers who wanted to drill down some idea in your head when you weren’t paying attention. While speaking well garners all the fanfare, listening well goes unnoticed more often than not. However, if you take a glance at your life, maybe for a little longer than you usually do, you will find people in it who are good at listening. Yes, those are the people who have really been your support. At the same time, you would also be able to point out people who don’t really listen or aren’t interested in what you have to say. I’m sure you don’t really enjoy their company. I’m trying to establish one fact here – if you can listen well, you get the power to immediately make a difference in the lives of people around you, and thereby in your life too. There are other benefits of course but let’s just stay with this one for now.

Thankfully, there are people working in this area. One of them is Oscar Trimboli who leads the Apple Award-winning podcast Deep Listening and has written the book – ‘how to listen’. Published by Page Two, the book came out in 2022 and serves as a good guide to build up your listening skills. The subject area of the book or what it intends to help you with, can be best described using a statement from the book itself – ‘Active listeners notice what’s said. Deep listeners explore what isn’t said’.

“All problems we have are interpersonal relationship problems”, said Alfred Adler, an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist and the founder of the school of thought known as Individual Psychology. This and several such ideas are discussed in the book ‘The Courage to be Disliked’ by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. The book is composed as a conversation between ‘the philosopher’ and ‘the youth’. The philosopher here is a practitioner of the Adlerian school of thought, and the youth is supposed to present questions from the reader’s point of view. I listened to the book on Audible around last month at the same time as I was reading the paperback, How to Listen.

Several problems of human life get discussed in ‘The Courage to be Disliked’. The authors do a great job of constructing a brilliant conversation between the two participants. This book is easily one of the best self-helps I have read so far and has the power to liberate you of several of your self-designed shackles. Since we are also on listening, I can’t help but point out that the philosopher who is answering questions and counter-questions from the youth, is also a great listener. He is a good speaker, no doubt, but his ability to address the questions asked as well as the ones that remain unasked by the youth, derives from how deep he goes as a listener.

Both the books come up with several interesting ideas worth some time in your mind space and if you can pick a thing or two from them for your life, they do have the power to change your way of looking at it. While ‘How to Listen’ provides a few practical tips at the end of each chapter that you can start using right away, ‘The Courage to be Disliked’ keeps the focus on how you react or respond to problems in life and demands accountability from the ‘individual’ you.

I loved spending time with both the books, the latter one a bit more because of its solid foundation in Adlerian psychology and the expanse of themes discussed even though I would have like the youth in the book to be a little more articulate and patient than he has been shown to be. Maybe, he should have grabbed a copy of ‘How to Listen’ before his meeting with the philosopher. As for you, you should grab a copy of both these books to glean some interesting ideas for life.

The new Rama temple in Ayodhya

Why the Ayodhya Ram Mandir Represents a Collective Catharsis for the Indian Mind

Abhishek JhaLeave a comment

“There are besides in the city temples pompous with lofty roofs, conspicuous among them the Serapeum, which, though feeble words merely belittle it, yet is so adorned with extensive columned halls, with almost breathing statues, and a great number of other works of art, that next to the Capitolium, with which revered Rome elevates herself to eternity, the whole world beholds nothing more magnificent.”, wrote Ammianus Marcellinus, a 4th century Roman historian, about the great Serapeum at Alexandria that housed the Greco-Egyptian God Serapis.

It was one of the first buildings you noticed as you sailed towards Alexandria. While the public memory keeps reminiscing the Colosseum or the Parthenon, very few are aware of the Serapeum. In AD 392, a bishop named Theophilus destroyed the Serapeum and almost all other temples in Alexandria, column by column. Catherine Nixey in her book ‘The Darkening Age’, describes the tragedy vividly – “One day, early in AD 392, a large crowd of Christians started to mass outside the temple with Theophilus at its head. And then, to the distress of watching Alexandrians, the crowd had surged up the steps, into the sacred precinct and burst into the most beautiful building in the world. And then they began to destroy it….”

The destruction of Serapeum (Read more about the Serapeum) marked the final triumph of Christianity in Egypt as well as throughout the Roman empire. Theodosius II (Emperor of the Eastern Roman empire) and Honorius (of the Western Roman empire), in one of their final edicts regarding pagans in AD 423, declared thus, “We now believe there are none.” (CTh. XVI.10.22)

Similar was the fate of almost all the magnificently built so called ‘pagan’ temples, repeated many times in history, by the fanatics of the new ‘religions’, starting with Christianity, and followed by Islam. One of the most well known monuments, Parthenon, which was the temple of the Goddess Athena in Athens and has inspired hundreds of poor imitations across the globe, was converted into a Christian church in the 6th Century AD and then turned into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest in the mid-fifteenth century.

***

Closer Home

An eerily similar fate was being thrust upon the temples of the so called ‘infidels’, or the Hindus, the Buddhists, and the Jains, or on a whole, of the Indian civilisation. Here was a way of life with an open architecture with enough and ever-expanding space for polytheists, monotheists, agnostics, atheists. The spirit of assimilation and open heartedness embedded in its philosophy and daily life in practice, let the society shape its Gods and Goddesses through history, worship them to their heart’s content and chosen ways, build glorious temples one after the other for their deities as each of the sects desired. Much like the Greek and the Egyptians, here was a race that had made great progress in philosophy, sciences, mathematics, architecture, and almost all the faculties known to humanity at the time. This civilisation that largely engaged itself in the physical as well as the spiritual progress of humanity was ambushed by a brute force of Islamic invasions carrying the mission of creating an Islamic world by the power of sword. People who refused to convert were slayed. Much like Hypatia of Alexandria, the Hindu and Buddhist scholars who tried to protect the existing and far more developed ways of life were murdered on the streets. Queens and princesses who couldn’t commit Jauhar were captured and turned into concubines of the officers of this new cult. Books by millions and libraries were set ablaze and destroyed. The progress of thousands of years was undone within a few hundred years of the Islamic rule.

***

What happened to temples of the Indians?

Kashi Vishwanath at Varanasi was demolished by Aurangzeb and a mosque known as Gyanvapi was constructed. The Keshavdeva temple was destroyed by Aurangzeb in 1670 and in its place Shahi Idgah was built in Mathura. The Somnath temple in Gujarat was destroyed several times and was converted into a mosque in the 19th century. Quwwat -al Islam mosque was built by Qutbud-Din Aibak in AD 1191 over a demolished temple built by Prithvi Raj.

DPD/Aug.49, A04a The Idgah, Mathura. This has been built on the ruins of Keshav Deo temple destroyed by Aurangazeb.

Amir Khusrow (1253-1325 AD), the court poet and chronicler of successive rulers of the Delhi Sultanate, and whose secular makeover is overdone in our country, sings glowing accounts of the destruction of several temples in his writings:

From Miftah-ul-Futuh or Key to the Victories, in praise of Jalal-ud-Din Khilji’s victories, 1290 –

Jhain: “Next morning, he (Jalal-ud-Din Khilji) went again to the temples and ordered their destruction. While the soldiers sought every opportunity of plundering, the Shah was engaged in burning the temples and destroying the idols. There were two bronze idols of Brahma, each of which weighed more than a thousand mans. These were broken into pieces and the fragments were distributed among the officers, with orders to throw them down at the gates of the Masjid on their return (to Delhi)”.

Devagiri: “He (Alaud-Din) destroyed the temples of the idolaters and erected pulpits and arches for mosques”.

From Tarikh-i-Alai, or the Treasures of Victories, in praise of Alauddin Khilji, 1296 –

Somanath: “They made the temple prostrate itself towards the Kaaba. You may say that the temple first offered its prayers and then had a bath (i.e. the temple was made to topple and fall into the sea)’ He (Ulugh Khan) destroyed all the idols and temples, but sent one idol, the biggest of all idols, to the court of his Godlike Majesty and on that account in that ancient stronghold of idolatry, the summons to prayers was proclaimed so loudly that they heard it in Misr (Egypt) and Madain (Iraq).”

Ranthambhor: “This strong fort was taken by the slaughter of the stinking Rai. Jhain was also captured, an iron fort, an ancient abode of idolatry, and a new city of the people of the faith arose. The temple of Bahir (Bhairava) Deo and temples of other gods were all razed to the ground”.

The Somanath temple, in fact, was destroyed multiple times by different invaders starting with Mahmud of Ghazni in 1025-26 AD. Al Biruni, who worked in the court of Mahmud, and accompanied Mahmud’s troops between 1017 and 1030 AD on some occasions and chronicled their conquests, described Somnath temple’s destruction in detail:

“In January 1026, Somnath Lingam was smashed, after killing 50,000 devotees, and the loot amounted to 20,000,000 dinars, each containing 64.8 grains of gold. The smashed Shivalingam were carried to Ghazni where some of the fragments were turned steps of the Jama Masjid in the city while the rest were sent to Mecca, Medina, and Baghdad to be desecrated in the same manner.”

The list runs into thousands. There are several such accounts that are so graphic that reproducing them here won’t come without a lot of pain and trauma for the writer and the readers. If nothing else, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in over 25 days by the Talibani forces in Afghanistan should still be fresh in public memory. If not, the story of the Hagia Sophia church built over the foundations of a pagan temple turning into a mosque during the Ottoman conquest followed by its conversion into a museum and back into a mosque by Turkey’s Erdogan in 2020, give enough indication to the magnitude of plunder and horror that must have been orchestrated during the medieval centuries starting from Mecca and Medina, travelling to Jerusalem, across Europe, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, and other places where ‘many gods’ were comfortably worshipped without much of a problem before the new religions with ‘one, true God’ came about knocking at the doors.

Kashi Vishwanath/GyanVapi
Oasis.54515, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It became business as usual at one point of time and an act of great honour for the rulers to get temples demolished and have mosques built over them. One such mosque called ‘Babri Masjid’ was built at the birthplace of one of the most well-known and worshipped gods of the Indian civilisation – Shri Ram, at Ayodhya.

Leaving the question of faith and the fact that Hindus have known the place as the birthplace of Ram and have continued to worship the deity there from time immemorial aside, the excavations of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) discovered parts of non-Islamic structures that predate the Babri mosque. Maulana Abdul Hai in his book Hindustan Islami Ahad Mein (Hindustan under Islamic rule) mentions – “This mosque was constructed by Babar at Ayodhya which Hindus call the birth place of Ramchandraji… Sita had a temple here in which she lived and cooked for her husband. On that very site Babar constructed this mosque in H.963”. Further reading – Sitaram Goel’s Hindu Temples: What happened to them.

Almost all the temples revered by the Indians were desecrated and demolished; the idols broken into pieces to be thrown away or scattered on the steps of some mosque. To add salt to the wounds, in most cases, a mosque would be raised right on top of the demolished temples, reusing parts and columns of the older structure.

Perseverance of the Indian spirit

Despite this, the Indian spirit of many gods, many paths, refused to die because of the incessant struggles of our ancestors. We lost multiple generations of our population to genocides and conversions, but the Indian civilisation lived on. If anyone thought it was not so, the all-pervading sounds of the conch shells and the night illumined by billions of lamps across the country on 22nd January 2024, would have laid to rest, all the doubts in the minds of the naysayers.

A few hours before this, the hallowed banks of river Sarayu saw its Ayodhya reclaiming its glory where a magnificent Ram Mandir has arisen after about 500 years at the very spot it is believed to have been demolished by the commanders of Babur to build the Babri masjid.

A few years before that, the Supreme Court of India after examining all the evidences and arguments from all the sides, had granted the ‘Ram Janmabhoomi’ or ‘Ram’s Birthplace’ to its rightful worshippers on 9th November 2019.

A vast majority of the country celebrated the event like it was a long-cherished dream of the Indian spirit. This was a rare event in history, and perhaps the only one at this scale, after the reconstruction of the Somanath temple in the modern times, where a symbol of barbarism, plunder, and a procrustean idea had to surrender to the symbol of a progressive conception. That this has happened in India should not be a surprise for any serious student of history, given the long history of resistance and relentless pursuit of truth our country has mustered through centuries of foreign invasions. Millions of devotees, several legal experts, uncorrupted historians, and multiple organisations have persevered in this pursuit of truth. A name that must be mentioned here is that of Shri KK Muhammad (former Regional Director-North of ASI) who was part of the first excavation team at Ayodhya under Prof. BB Lal in the year 1976. He has been on a mission to restore ancient temples and structures lying in ruins across the country and has prevailed over an army of Irfan Habibs and Romila Thapars.

The temple, its prana-pratishtha, the celebrations, the ocean of devotees assembling in the city, the ochre flags across buildings, streets, and temples, the larger-than-life images of Shri Ram represent a collective catharsis for the Indian soul that has suffered at the hands of foreign invaders for the last 1000 years and the subterfuge of the home-grown communist historians and scholars for more than 75 years. This second homecoming of Shri Ramachandra, who himself used to worship another chief deity of India – Shiva and began the Akal-Bodhan (untimely awakening) of the female deity, Goddess Durga, thereby further promulgating the idea of plurality so entrenched in our culture has unfettered the Indian mind. This Indian mind has been so far known to be an assimilator of ideas, a collector of the best inventions of the world. Hereafter, it will also be known as the great protector and restorer of its own discoveries, inventions and ideas.

आ नो भद्राः क्रतवो यन्तु विश्वतोऽदब्धासो अपरीतास उद्भिदः।
देवा नोयथा सदमिद् वृधे असन्नप्रायुवो रक्षितारो दिवेदिवे॥ (Rigveda, 1.89.1)

May noble thoughts, unsuppressed, unimpeded, and that manifest the unknown come to us from every direction. May the Gods who do not impede advancement and are always ready to protect us, lead us towards progress.

Reverie Under the Bangalore Clouds

Abhishek JhaLeave a comment

The clouds have engulfed all of sky. On the horizons, in patches, where clouds have not been able to spread themselves, the sun sends its sometimes golden and at times silver gleams. These linings present hope that when it’s time, they will splatter the entire sky sunny. The birds are having a great time with the sun on leave today. They hop, fly, and race against their siblings under the safety of clouds that won’t precipitate anytime soon. They are tired from a long night of rain and deserve a break and the weakening clouds. The divine photographer has applied some filters on trees. The greens of the world have become richer in all of one night, the poor greys and hays have received some wealth too. Their apex predators – cattle are out too, and coupled with their commensal friends, egrets, walk to break their fasts.

The sweet soft whiff of zephyr landing on the skin feels like the medicine prescribed by the divine doctor. The birds have banded together for a chirpy concert.

Some flowers managed to stay perched on their parents’ shoulders throughout the night. A few that wanted to break free, did so at the first drop of rain, to create their own destiny. The benches in the parks look their best version, empty, and clean. The rains have brought them some rest as well after a full day’s work. At least till the sun is not out, they don’t have to support the weight of humans and dogs, or that of their egos and emotions.

The sun keeps rising meanwhile trying to break open the yokes of clouds. Perhaps it knows its place in the world and must show up no matter what. There are cracks and there is a shower of rays through the clouds. The cosmic drama contains twists, not much unanticipated for now, but reaches unexpected and unimaginable crescendos when you start thinking about a longer period, think millions and billions of years, or even thousands. We will be there to watch it, as we are now, watching events that unfolded billions of years ago. We might take up a different form, become a single cell organism or become the mirror image of the aliens we are so fond of in our movies. The remnant consciousness of life will still observe.

The clouds do not seem to lose any heart and they keep up with the sun, hovering around to desist it from its habit of stealing the show. It’s not yet time for the drama to end. The suspense must be kept under clouds for some more time. The cattle need more time to go back home with a merry belly. The birdlings want to test their strength for a little longer. The benches are not done with their time off yet.

The audience must get some more time to take out their gadgets and record this moment – in images, sounds, or words. The ones without the gadgets must get some more time to register these moments in the collective consciousness of humanity to pass it down to new humans. With these moments, may the spirit of gratitude too pass down from the elders to the young, of all the species, for our cosmos, that has chosen to keep us as its audience when it can choose to dismiss us at any point of time from this stellar show.

A group of people looking into their phones

Why You Should’t Pixel(8) Your Life Any Further?

Abhishek JhaLeave a comment

Not everything that can be said should be told. Not everything that can be thought of should be written. Not everything that is possible should be done.

A dancer positions his phone to shoot himself, jumps in the air, picks up his phone, drags himself a couple of extra feet higher in the air.

A group poses for the camera, picks up the phone, finds their expressions didn’t look as expected, edits their expressions.

A father gets clicked tossing his baby in the air, gets the phone, and drags the baby a foot higher on the screen.

That’s how the latest Pixel 8 from Google is trying to woo its potential customers. I happened to watch this ad video recently and it got me immediately thinking about a few other things.

It’s already too late as well as cliched to say that AI is fast changing how we perceive reality but as we keep moving ahead, we will be time and again faced with the question whether its pervasiveness in our lives and the unhinged applications being employed by businesses to lure customers is taking things too far. If we just talk about photography, what was originally a magical tool to capture and relive real moments in life, has shape-shifted with the new AI powered magic erasers and magic editors, creating moments that you haven’t lived, actions you haven’t performed, emotions you haven’t felt, expressions that you haven’t expressed. Of course, this hasn’t begun now or here. What started with seemingly simple filters, has ushered a new world of alternate reality for the consumers, or put more honestly, a parallel universe of falsehood and deceit.

My team at work went for a day excursion last week and one of the chief attractions there was the ATV bike riding. While a few folks rode amazingly well with lots of slo-mo worthy moments, a few who were doing it for the first or the second time, understandably, struggled to complete the circuit. I’m sure they will do better as they try it a few more times. That is, if they don’t have a magic editor on their phone. With it, they don’t have to try again at all. Get yourself clicked, drag the ATV a couple of feet higher in the air on your magic editor, and you end up being on par or even better than the other riders in the group or outside. Well, you know you aren’t really there and that you have completely tragically deprived yourself of the thrill of traversing the circuit of continuous learning and improvement, but who has time for the old-world self-reflection stuff when you have already convinced the world that you’re the best!

While you can think about this from a purely advertisement or brand positioning point of view and that will perhaps also remind you of how the conventional or the mainstream ad-world is based on lies and deceit (remember the popular cosmetics brand that promised to bleach you white?), I would like to approach it from the perspective of a consumer. I checked how viewers had responded to the ad from the Pixel makers on YouTube and no surprises there, people are excited about the new features that authenticate their perceived insecurities and help them create an alternate reality for themselves. When the smartest brains of our time are working to get us dopamine addicted, one doesn’t really need to be as smart as them to foresee that this is not going to end well for a whole generation and a few more in the future.

This is not a one-way street. Our need to portray what we are not, is fuelling the latest tech features on our mobile devices, in the cosmetics world, on the fashion scene, etc. with fake photography, social media, and other AI applications playing the facilitator’s role to perfection. At the same time, the increasing consumption of such make-believe world, and the availability of options that were once limited to perhaps only movie stars (where we knew we were watching a make-believe world), has created an Olympics of deception around us where almost everything needs an edit or enhancement or a magic trick before going to the outside world. It does beg the question then?—?have we stopped (at least most of us) living our own life the way it came to us and are caught for most part of our days, months, and years of life living for the beholder(s)? All of this, while we have come to forget the fragrance of flowers because we were too busy using them as background. All of this, while our children grow up not knowing what ‘skinned knees (ghutna chhil gaya)’ means. All of this, while we forgot to meet all the new people in all the new places we visited because we wanted to pour photo-dumps on Instagram later, all the taste that we were unable to imprint on our tongue and soul because we wanted to show to the world what we ate last night. All of this, while we no longer know what success drawn from blood and sweat looks like because we are too busy camouflaging our failures. All of this, while the life that was given to us sans all those artificial filters, airbrushes, and magic editors keeps slipping out of our hands! Pixel 8 and the ilk might bring more clarity to your pictures but I’m sure they will further pixelate the lines between the life that’s real and rushing under a fast-forward button and the life that’s nothing more than a collage of self-congratulatory lies created to turn us into digital zombies.

Note: This write-up is not against Google/Pixel 8 but rather an appeal to creators to prioritise better. With all the computing power in the world under their fingers, it is embarrassing to see what businesses choose to solve with every iteration of their products.

Sister Nivedita or the Mother of Indian Reawakening

Abhishek JhaLeave a comment

“Let me plough my furrow across India just as deep, deep, deep to the very centre of things, as it will go. Let it be either as a hidden voice sending out noiseless things from a cell or as a personality, romping and raging through all the big cities – I don’t care! But God and my own strong right hand grant that I do not have to waste my effervescence in Western futilities. I think I would rather commit suicide! India is the starting point, and the Goal, as far as I am concerned. Let her look after the West if she wishes – and if Sri Ramakrishna approves.”

Those words written in 1903 in a letter to another great woman of her time, Mrs. Josephine McLeod, present in the most precise manner, what Sister Nivedita thought of her role or her work in India. She didn’t live a long life. Born in 1867 and gone away too soon in 1911, much like her Guru Swami Vivekananda, her life, full of the kind of heroism that’s almost impossible to imagine, reads like a mythical lore. It’s not only the scarcity of time that she shared with her Master who was born in 1863 and passed away in 1902 but also a lot in temperament, the unyielding bias towards action, the capacity to devour knowledge with single-mindedness, a life seeped in Vedanta, and the burning love for India and Indians. Sister Nivedita was all the things Swami Vivekananda could have asked for in his spiritual heir as well as the expression of his ideas on the question of Indian freedom, sovereignty, and social reawakening.

One of the first works of importance on Sister Nivedita’s life (after Lizelle Reymond’s French biography) authored by Pravrajika Atmaprana when she was at Sister Nivedita’s Girls’ School in Calcutta in 1961 stands tall as the first book that should be read about Sister’s life and work before moving on to other works dealing with different aspects of her life. The book that has stood the test of time and is still in publication gives an authoritative and lucid account of Sister Nivedita’s life, her mission, and the makings of her mind. The book follows a linear path for most of its content and begins with her early life, her first body of work as a teacher, the meeting with Swami Vivekananda, her contributions to the Ramakrishna movement, wanderings in India, more of her work in India, her contributions for Indian sciences and art (including her support for Sir JC Bose and help in authoring and getting his books published when he was being banished and plagiarised by the academic hegemonies of England as well as her encouragement for Nandalal Bose, Abananindranath Tagore, Anand Coomaraswamy, and others (Sister Nivedita and Indian Art) to rejuvenate and develop the distinctive Indian style of art as opposed aping the west), her interactions with the political currents and figures of the time, partition of Bengal, more work, and her passing into eternity. The book is a simple and short read but packs in a lot of material related to Sister’s life. It helps that for most of the part, the author relies heavily on Sister’s Nivedita’s own speeches, letters, diaries instead of concluding from second-hand sources or interpretations.

It didn’t take me too long to finish reading the book. However, every time I think of the Sister through the pages of this book, the significance of her work keeps getting greater, so much so, that to write about her life and work in a 300 pager, would seem like an insurmountable task. It is then to the credit of the author who has not only been successful in presenting a comprehensive understanding of her life and work but also has provided a strong foundation for all the subsequent works on Sister Nivedita. Pravrajika Atmaprana of the Sri Sarada Math was also instrumental in getting the five volumes of Complete Works of Sister Nivedita published during her tenure as the Head Mistress of Sister Nivedita Girls’ School till 1970.

While the book talks about different realms of Sister’s life, it never flinches its focus from the unique relationship between Sister Nivedita and her Master – Swami Vivekananda. It details all the training and tribulations that Sister Nivedita went through to prepare herself for the work that was to be done by her. While Swami Vivekananda spoke on a range of subjects with Nivedita, he left her free to choose her work and the means to carry them out, with nothing more than an occasional nudge if he felt something needed to be addressed and tendered his whole hearted support for all her initiatives towards girl education and service of the poor or the diseased.

The book might also leave you a tad sad towards the end at the inevitable fact called ‘mortality of life’ and how it most often doesn’t let the whole magic unfold. While Swami Vivekananda left this world in 1902, much before he could see Sister Nivedita carry out his mission with every single bone of her body, Sister Nivedita too passed away at a tender age of 44 with an ocean of dreams in her mind waiting to reach the shores. I have always wondered how differently our nation’s destiny would have shaped, if one of her most dauntless and romantic lovers had lived a couple of more decades and had remained active on the national scene. The shortness of her life though, doesn’t blur the enormity of her work and the fact that she kindled the fire of sacrifice and deshprem in the hearts of millions of Indians. She keeps living then, much like her master, in our hearts, and it wouldn’t be a hyperbole to say that if Swami Vivekananda sowed the seeds of national and spiritual rejuvenation of our peoples, Sister Nivedita watered, nurtured, and made sure the seeds were cared for to grow into healthy saplings even after he was gone.







The Pleasure of Finding a Feynman Book

Abhishek JhaLeave a comment

“Do you know what that bird is? It’s a brown throated thrush; but in Portuguese it’s a …, in Italian a …, in Chinese it’s a …, in Japanese it’s a …, etcetera. Now, you know in all the languages you want to know what the name of that bird is and when you’ve finished with all that, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You only know about humans in different places and what they call the bird. Now, let’s look at the bird.”
Melville Feynman

I began my 2023 with a couple of books – The Rebel by Albert Camus and Richard Feynman’s The Pleasure of Finding Things Out. The Rebel is definitely something that shouldn’t be finished in one sitting. The author is trying to understand and explain the evolution of the political ideas of our world from first principles and provides detailed arguments for his conclusions. I am currently living with that book, which means I carry it to my workplace, to leisure trips, and theatres but haven’t finished reading it. On the other hand, I reached the end of Richard Feynman’s work pretty quick and what a delightful read it was!. The book is a collection of his lectures and interviews over his lifetime and etches out the makings of a great scientist and one of the most eccentric spokespersons of Science.

The book begins with a beautiful foreword by another great theoretical physicist whose name will invariably be mentioned whenever Richard Feynman’s work is invoked. Feynman in his inimitable style takes us through his childhood, his father’s way of kindling curiosity, the future of computing (where several of his predictions have been realized in our time), role of Science, his attempt at a bit of philosophy while describing science and its role in this world, Cargo Cult Science, and his take on the relationship between science and religion. Thanks to the editor, Feynman’s tone and his directness with speech have been left almost untouched and that makes the book much more enjoyable. It is not an easy task to marry a science book with a high entertainment value but when it’s Feynman talking about science, there isn’t really much anyone needs to do. If not for anything else (there is quite a lot of anything else), I would recommend this book to anyone for that single reason.

“One of the things that my father taught me besides physics (laughs) whether it’s correct or not, was a disrespect for respectable … for certain kinds of things. For example, when I was a little boy and a rotogravure – that’s printed pictures in newspapers – first came out in the New York Times, he used to sit me again on his knees and he’d open a picture and there was a picture of the Pope and everybody bowing in front of him. And he’s say, “now look at these humans. Here’s one human standing here and all these others are bowing. Now what is the difference? This one is the Pope.” – He hated the Pope anyway – and he’d say, “the difference is epaulettes” – of course not in the case of the Pope but if he was a general, it was always the uniform, the position, “but this man has the same human problems, he eats dinner like anybody else, he goes to the bathroom, he has the same kind of problems as everybody, he is a human being. Why are they all bowing to him? Only because of his name and his position, because of his uniform, not because of something special he did, or his honour, or something like that.” He, by the way, was in the uniform businesses, so he knew what the difference was between the man with uniform off and the uniform on: it’s the same man for him.”
Richard Feynman

The first highlight of the book for me is the recounting of his days at Los Alamos when he was all of 24, working on the Manhattan project in a team that consisted of the brightest and the most celebrated scientists of the time. His thoughts before accepting the offer to work there, his time there, and after getting the job done –  make for an interesting read owing to his unique vantage point. You will easily understand when you read these pages that he never missed having fun while doing science. You will read a lot of anecdotes in the book that will make you smile and even laugh out loud at times.

When you think about the methods used to teach science, particularly in schools and colleges, barring a few exceptions, I believe we have come a long way on the wrong path. I believe the only work needed to initiate a child onto the path of developing a scientific outlook is to fuel the natural curiosity a new child come with to this world. Feynman talks about his father’s contribution in what he became in his life. What you read there is a playbook of how science teaching should happen in this world. He also weighs in on the matter with his own ideas on how science teaching should really be done. This marks the second highlight of this book for me. There are a quite a few lessons for the science teachers around the world from one of the greatest teachers ever to have lived on our planet.

This is my first read on or by Feynman and I’m hooked enough to read up a few more. The unravelling of the genius that lived not very far from us in the past is something that can’t be missed. The good thing for us readers is that Feynman loved to talk about science and there are plenty of lectures and interviews to go through. Freeman Dyson once mentioned about him thus: “half genius and half buffoon, who keeps all physicists and their children amused with his effervescent vitality.” If I may add, physicists, their children, and eventually all of the world that cares to meet him through his talks and books, Feynman keeps everyone amused.

Harry Potter Reunion

‘Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts’ Is the Nostalgia Ride All Potterheads Deserved

Shilpita Biswas1 Comment

“Mysterious thing, Time”– Albus Dumbledore. It really is! And that’s what you realize when you are invited to revisit the wondrous wizarding world you had left behind 10 years ago. That’s how “Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts” begins and if there’s one word that could describe the whole 1 hour and 42 minutes retrospective special (streaming on HBO Max and Amazon Prime), it would definitely be “Nostalgia”! It is true that some of the books from J.K. Rowling’s debut novel series had released much earlier than the movies, but it was not till 2001 that most of us, who had been living in different parts of the world, got a chance to experience the amazing and unbelievable Wizarding World of The Boy Who Lived. The movies made the novel popular; they allowed the story to reach out to children even in the remotest corners of the world. And thus, started a journey for every Potterhead out there, which would change their lives forever!

As John Williams’ “Harry’s Wondrous World” plays in the background and the Hogwarts Castle comes into view once again from across the Black Lake, with all its lighted turrets and windows, and Emma Watson opens the doors to the Great Hall, we are ushered into that world once again, which happens to be our “healthy form of escapism” even now, as so rightly quoted by Matthew Lewis aka Neville Longbottom.  I feel the best part of being a 90s kid and a Potterhead simultaneously, is that you sort of grew up with the actors. Seeing them who had brought the young characters alive onscreen, who had given colors to our imaginations, like Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Evanna Lynch, James and Oliver Phelps, Tom Felton, Bonnie Wright and so many others, all grown up and in their late 20s or early 30s now, getting married or having kids just like our friends are, all around us, made me realize how much time has passed. Even then, it feels like yesterday that we were watching the films with utmost awe and wonder in the movie theaters.  

As I delve deeper into the reunion special episode, which has been divided into 4 chapters, each representing two movies at a time, showing glimpses of the shots and the sets and also the actors’ experiences while shooting for each of them, I can’t help but wonder at how beautifully they have recreated the aura of the wizarding world throughout the entire duration of the episode. Starting from the actors receiving their Hogwarts’ letters, addressed to them in their specific locations at the time, like “The Coffee Shop, Chelsea” or “The Black Cab” reminds us of Harry’s shocking expression, when he receives his first Hogwarts Letter with the specific address “The Cupboard Under the Stairs”. It also reminds us strangely of how as children, when we had turned 11 years old, we actually prayed to God for sending us that letter, so that we could journey from our ridiculously boring Muggle world into the amazing world of Harry Potter. It reminds us of the innocence we once had, and how we seem to have lost that along the way.

Each of the four chapters begins with the narrator reading out a line from J.K Rowling’s books and as we move into the first one, The Boy Who Lived, we are reminded of some of the amazing actors who had contributed as much to the series, as the child actors. The twinkling eyes of Richard Harris could not have been more apt for the long-bearded, white-haired Albus Dumbledore, drawn at the back of the first ever book cover of the Harry Potter series. Maggie Smith’s Professor McGonagall, Robbie Coltrane’s Rubeus Hagrid, Alan Rickman’s Professor Snape and Richard Griffiths’ Uncle Vernon, seemed to have jumped out of the pages of J.K. Rowling’s book. Stuart Craig, who was the Production Designer for the entire Harry Potter movie franchise, had created the impossible world of the wizards with utmost ease and grandeur. Thousands of lighted candles were hung from the end of fishing lines to recreate the floating candles adorning the ceiling of the Great Hall, as mentioned in the books. The scenes where we witness the Burrow for the first time and see how a wizarding family washes their dishes or knits their sweaters, the comparison between good and bad wizarding families so drastically portrayed with the entry of Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy, brings the first chapter to an end.

The second chapter, Coming of Age, portrays the third and fourth movies of the series and was indeed the time when we too were in limbo between our childhood and adulthood, just like Harry, Ron and Hermione. These books or movies ushered in the era of crushes, infatuations and the pangs of teenage love along with the introduction of deep and dark concepts of dementors sucking out your joy and happiness, of overcoming your deepest fears and darkness, of standing at the threshold of adulthood. New actors like Gary Oldman, David Thewlis and Timothy Spall were introduced into the series. At the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the entire universe shifts suddenly and the series which was popular as a childrens’ book, soon became something more sinister with the introduction of Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort. The death of Cedric Diggory marks that moment when Harry has his first reality check and so does the audience, as we are prepared to face the perils of adulthood. 

In The Light and Dark Within, Mathew Lewis as Neville and Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood, bring forth the world of “misfits” and “oddbots”, where children who are shy or introvert or different from those around them, children who have been bullied in schools or in playgrounds, relate themselves to popular and famous characters for the first time, and find that they can belong in the society too. The two-dimensional, complex character of Draco Malfoy, torn between what is right and what is not, reflects so many of us who had once made all the wrong choices in the wrong company and had later learnt from our regrets and mistakes. Helena Bonham Carter, who had played the role of the psychopathic, evil, and most devoted Death-Eater, Bellatrix Lestrange, talks about the impact the series has had on generations of children who failed to get good marks in exams, or who weren’t the best when it came to sports. The world of Harry Potter showed with immense humanity, depth, and vulnerability that being different makes us special as we fall in love with the characters of Luna and Neville.

Before they move onto the last and final chapter though, they remind us of the fact that these were the movies in which Harry encounters grief for the first time in his life as he loses Sirius and Dumbledore, the two adults who had been closest to what the orphaned boy could claim as “parents”. As the reunion special takes us inside the pensieve, into the memories of some of the great actors who have passed away in the 10 years since the last movie of the franchise released, we raise our wands along with so many other witches and wizards, all watching the reunion from the comforts of their homes, to remember and honor all those amazing actors like Alan Rickman (Severus Snape), Helena McCrory (Narcissa Malfoy), Richard Harris(Albus Dumbledore in first two movies), John Hurt (Ollivander the wandmaker), Richard Griffiths (Uncle Vernon) and Robert Hardy(Cornelius Fudge).

In the final chapter, Something Worth Fighting For, scenes from the last two movies are reminisced by the actors, as the trio leaves the comfort of their school for the first time and faces the struggles of the real world, as we all do, when we leave school or college. Mathew Lewis talks about the last speech of Neville in front of Lord Voldemort, the speech which sealed Neville’s character forever as one of the bravest Gryffindors we knew and as the true son of his brave Auror parents, and how that speech had impacted him both as a human being and as an actor. For fans like us, who had read all the books by then and already knew how the series would end, held onto these two movies as our last thread of connection to the world we had loved and craved to belong to, the last thread of connection to our childhood which was slowly slipping away. Potterheads would often claim this series to be more than just a children’s book, because the magical world which J.K Rowling wove around Harry Potter had lots of stories within stories, had individual character curves, had concepts so philosophical and deep that it often had a transformative effect on people’s lives!

As the last day of the shoot is shown and the actors are seen crying and hugging each other, we realize that even though they might not live on, the characters they portrayed will do and the legacy of Harry Potter and the masterpiece which J.K.Rowling has created, will continue to inspire generations to come. Emma Watson echoes the very thoughts of my heart and soul when she says, “There’s something about Harry Potter that makes life richer. Like, when things get really dark and times are really hard, stories give us places we can go, where we can rest and feel held”. The wizarding world of Harry Potter has been that story and that place for me, my source of happiness and inspiration in times of grief, loss and desperation. As I therefore, see the last scene of the special episode unfold before my eyes, and Dumbledore looks at Snape’s patronus, uttering one of the most epic dialogues of the series, I realize that every time someone would judge or question my devotion towards Harry Potter and the Wizarding World and ask, “After all this time?”, I would probably utter the same words Snape did – “ALWAYS!”

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Photos of JJ Goodwin and Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda’s Most Faithful Friend Who Rests at India’s Ooty

Abhishek JhaLeave a comment

Swami Vivekananda said of J.J. Goodwin, “Those who think they have been helped by any thought of mine, ought to know that almost every word of it was published through the untiring and most unselfish exertions of Mr. Goodwin…a disciple of never-failing devotion, a worker who knew not what tiring was….”

In life as well as in death, some people stay young. These people take up one thing and pour the last drop of blood coursing through their veins over it. Their life becomes a relentless pursuit of that one object. Nothing can distract them. No force can deter them from their chosen path. They keep at it until one day life stops and death gives them their much deserved rest. Irrespective of their age, at work and in rest, they stay young.

I got introduced to Josiah John Goodwin as a child when I was introduced to Ramakrishna-Vivekananda literature. If not for this man, most of Swami Vivekananda’s talks and lectures might have become the food of oblivion. I have known that this man of only 23 was noting down some of the most vital messages ever passed on to humanity. I have known that he refused to take payments in just about a week’s time at work with Swami Vivekananda. I have known all along that Mr. J.J. Goodwin came to India with Swami Vivekananda as the most faithful devotee and friend. He recorded in shorthand, Swamiji’s lectures from Colombo to Almora which became the bedrock of Indian nationalism, socialism, humanism, and most importantly a reinvigorated ignition switch for the Indian freedom struggle. I have known that he was only 28 when he died due to fever in the year 1898 in Ootacamund (Ooty). I have known that his death was perhaps the dearest of losses for Swami Vivekananda. I knew that he rests somewhere in Ooty listening to the poem his Master dedicated to him on learning of his demise.

In the book, The Life of Swami Vivekananda by His Eastern and Western Disciples, a passage on Mr. Goodwin explains, “Mr. Goodwin would take down a lengthy address in the evening, work through the night in typewriting off his stenographic reports, and then hasten towards midnight to the newspaper offices, the conductors of which were anxious to print the Swami’s lectures, and this continued day after day, The Guru loved his disciple with infinite tenderness and initiated him into the practices and ideals of the Vedanta philosophy, so that he became an expert in grasping its contents and faithfully reporting them. It is needless to say that the Swami was grateful beyond words to his disciple. He could not speak too highly of him ; he saw in him a great Karma Yogin, one who could unselfishly perform work for the sake of work and who could live the life of ideals. Mr. Goodwin,  of course, refused any remuneration as soon as he understood the Swami and had been with him for a fortnight. Though he came from the ordinary classes of society and his education was not of a scholarly type, he exhibited remarkable intellectual adaptabilities with reference to the Swami’s work. His youth and his enthusiasm proved valuable stimuli. The Swami often spoke of him, saying, “He is chosen for my work. What would I do without him ! If I have a mission, he is indeed a part of it.””

Goodwin was born on 20 September 1870 at Batheaston, England. His father Josiah Goodwin was a stenographer and an editor of the Birmingham Advertiser, the Wilts Country Mirror and the Exeter Gazette. Goodwin worked as a journalist from the age of fourteen, and had an unsuccessful journalistic venture in Bath in 1893. He left Bath and travelled to Australia, and later on, to America.

As I stood before his memorial in the cemetery of CSI St. Church in Ooty on 3rd March, 2021, I was overwhelmed with emotions not much of surprise or disbelief but of the familiarity of the moment. It was as if I was there to see someone specially dear to me. I felt I was standing before a man whose absence I had been mourning ever since I read about his death at a tender 28. Whether you know it or not, J.J. Goodwin is the guide who is always by your side when you are reading Swami Vivekananda’s words. His words are here for us to read because there was a young British stenographer who was skilled enough to take down those extempore outpourings of the great teacher verbatim when others failed as well as dedicated enough to work tirelessly to produce printable copies night after night and lecture after lecture.

I sat there looking at the tombstone and all the things written on it and I felt that my mourning was complete. It was as if I was preordained to be there to pay my respects to him. I sat there as I would sit for the dearest of my kin and friends. As he rested in a corner in the cemetery, I kept wondering if he died so young only because it was time for him to rest. I don’t know many people who deserve to rest more than he did. I hope that when I and you rest, our rest too will be equally well deserved.

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Partition Horrors Remembrance Day – 75 Years Too Late?

Abhishek JhaLeave a comment

The government has notified 14th August as ‘Partition Horrors Remembrance Day’. Citizens have expressed their views about the declaration. While many have thanked the government for the decision, there are a few who do not like the idea. We will go to the most commonly cited reasons for the apparent dislike in a while. I have a few other things to mention at the outset.

For most of us in our 40s, 30s, and 20s, partition has been a non-event. Thanks to the ideologically sold-out historians in charge of our textbooks, the partition seemed like a clerical routine, a formality to be completed before we could get our freedom. If you didn’t look for it, you wouldn’t find it. Why was it so? Was it to let our wounds heal or to shut our eyes on them while they festered across our body for the want of good nursing? These can be difficult questions but they have answers, no matter how inconvenient!

Long ago, I met with an accident while riding my bike. My foot was badly hurt with deep cuts which couldn’t be stitched in the hospital. The only way out was regular disinfection of the wounds, application of ointments, and a bandage dressing that needed to be changed every day. I hated the routine but there was no other way. This went on for about two weeks. After two weeks, the nurse noticed some dry tissues on top of the wound. I thought the wound was healing. Before I could feel any comfort at the development, in a blink of an eye, the nurse tore off the tissue. The insides had very little improvement and he went back to cleaning and dressing the wounds. This was the longest I had nursed a wound. I was not allowed much movement for about a month. Now, if this wound were to be wrapped in a bandage, never to be opened again without any sterilization, cleansing, or nursing, the inevitable consequences would have been either amputation or death! 

Separate land for the Muslim population was demanded. Mohammad Ali Jinnah launched the Direct Action Day to insist on a ‘divided India or a destroyed India’. Jinnah’s supporters and all the people who wanted a separate country for Muslims came on the streets. Riots between Muslims and Hindus broke out. More than 4000 people lost their lives and 100,000 were left homeless in just 72 hours in Kolkata. In the months of October-November of the same year, in the Noakhali district (now in Bangladesh), the Hindu population was massacred in an organized attack by the Muslim rioters. More than 5000 people were killed, thousands looted, raped, and forcefully converted to Islam. Around 50,000 to 70,000 refugees were sheltered in the refugee camps at different places. This was not during the partition and happened in 1946. The cycle of bloodbath kept running without rest. There were no gods on earth or in the heavens. This land was drenched in the blood of her people. I am not even going into what happened to the minorities in Pakistan (both eastern and western) after the partition.

The wound had been festering since Syed Ahmed Khan’s insistence that Hindus and Muslims were two different nations in a nation of many nations. There were a few good doctors who tried to limit the damage, contain the infection but most of them looked the other way. The idea was brought to fruition in the form of a tragic amputation of the Indian land and its people. So, next time you hear your well-meaning friend telling you that India is a nation of many nations, prod a little more for his rhyme and reason. Scratch the surface and you will find a secessionist or separatist hidden beneath.

A lot has been written about the number of people affected. I will not go there as the most modest numbers pale the most inhuman tragedies in other parts of the world. I will be concerned with the makings of the partition and their fading memories. Why has partition been allowed to become a mere blip in our history books or popular retellings of our country’s history? When millions of people were looted, raped, and killed, why did the partition become an event sanitized off its blood-stink of sectarian fanaticism and identity politics so quickly and so easily? Our doctors who were trusted with the healing process wrapped a piece of rag on it and left the nation to keep the amputation operation alive, to inflict on us a slow and painful death from our festered wounds, to forget that once upon a time Pakistan was India, to legitimize the demand for an independent Kashmir, to uproot the Indian people from their fertile and well-cultivated land physically, mentally, as well as spiritually so that one day, a so-called history buff from the Bollywood would nonchalantly tell us that India was born in 1947!

The court historians of the congress party were tasked with two jobs: 

1. Establish that India won her freedom without spilling a drop of blood. 

2. Establish that there were only two people chiefly responsible for India’s freedom. 

3. Erase all such instances of violence from the minds and hearts of the Indian public where the perpetrators identified themselves as Muslims. 

They did their job well but paper boats don’t sail too far. 

Some of the opposers of the move have said that a lot has already been written over the partition. This essentially means that they want the partition to be their pet project so that they can keep collecting grants and funds from the world in the name of governmental apathy.

The neo-Marxists want to forget the partition. This is the group that is hypocrisy redefined and underlined. They want to remember the upper caste atrocities through books, movies, and every literature festival and subway graffiti of the world. Personal becomes political and political becomes personal. They want to keep reminding you of your savarna privilege at the most innocuous of your expressions. However, ‘reminiscing the partition’ becomes the Van de Graaff generator leaving their hair strands all shocked and alarmed!

A few intellectual roleplayers wrote while defending Holocaust Memorial as well as International Holocaust Remembrance Day and protesting Partition Horrors Remembrance Day that in the holocaust, there was just horror and that there were no positive stories. However, the partition also had positive stories of help and support. They also added that the holocaust had one clear villain but during the partition, both the communities suffered equally. This is the most juvenile and the most insecure argument put forth. The suggestion that both the communities suffered is true but clearly, there was only one villain – the group which wanted to see a ‘divided India or a destroyed India’. There are no two ways about it. Holocaust too had stories of hope and help, but these folks have spent too much of their time using government vouchers in 7-star hotels and holiday vacations outside India to find time to read anything on that. 

I maintain that the announcement has come 75 years too late. My celebration of Independence Day has been a chequered experience since the time I learnt about partition and its horrors. I think it will remain so for the general people of our country. You can’t unsee, un-remember, unlive partition – or the horrors of it. It will be remembered no matter how inconvenient it may be for some people who are too thin-skinned for truth and have their sense of entitlement under threat with the announcement. For any healing to commence, it must not be a product of lies and cover-ups. A truth and reconciliation commission on the lines of the South African initiative will be a positive second step in this direction.

References: Halfway to freedom: a report on the new India in the words and photographs of Margaret Bourke-White
Photograph: Margaret Bourke-White

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Syed Mujtaba Ali’s Afghanistan – The Land Next Door

Himali Kothari1 Comment

Afghanistan first entered my immediate realm of awareness on Christmas day 1999. “Switch on the news, an Indian Airlines flight has been hijacked,” someone had informed over the phone. For almost a week, the drama unfolded on the news. At the time, the size of Afghanistan for me was a strip of a runway, and when news cameras panned out, brown mountains in the backdrop. Political negotiations were carried out. Prisoners were exchanged for hostages. And Afghanistan retreated to the 1/2-inch border it had shared with India on the map in my school syllabus.

About a year and nine months later, I was in the computer cluster at University. My fingers tapped away at the keyboard as I cleaned up my dissertation to get it ready for submission — the final step in my MA degree. Autumn was around the corner, and there was a nip in the air, but the computer-lab was warm. Body heat from overcrowding combined with heat from printers running non-stop had given the room its own ecosphere.

I don’t remember how the news came in. But, within seconds, all the 50-odd computer screens were tuned in to the same video – a plane crashing into one of the NY twin towers. My first thought was, “This is some elaborate prank.” That illusion shattered as a second plane crashed into the other tower. It came crumbling down on live television. Those images replayed many times over the next few days, and the 9/11 attack was the centre of all conversation. Amidst all that, I submitted my dissertation and returned home. My image of Afghanistan was now the size of a computer screen, but it had moved. It sat atop the rubble of what had been two iconic buildings in New York.

For the next few years, it peeked out from newspapers. Dusty brown streets and countryside. American soldiers in army fatigues. Afghans in kurtas and paghdis. Children with dried streaks of snot and tears across their faces. Kidnapped journalists. Hostage videos of masked men toting guns. I relegated the montage to the ‘Irrelevant – Ignore’ cubbyhole of my conscience.

The year was 2015.

“I am reading In A Land far From Home,” my friend Yash told me. “It is hilarious. You should check it out.” I Googled it and found an excerpt. Meh! But then the whole title caught my eye, ‘In A Land Far From Home: A Bengali in Afghanistan’. Some catchphrases in the blurb had me hitting buy on Kindle tab: An intrepid traveller and a true cosmopolitan, the legendary Bengali writer Syed Mujtaba Ali …spent a year and a half teaching in Kabul from 1927 to 1929…he chronicles with a keen eye and a wicked sense of humour…first-hand insight into events at a critical point in Afghanistan’s history.

Set in 1927-1929, the story is a memoir of Bengali writer Syed Mujtaba Ali. Armed with a BA degree, Mujtaba Ali takes up a job in the education department of Kabul. Afghanistan is an unknown territory at the time, and it appeals to the young graduate’s appetite for adventure. The first third of the story describes the author-protagonist’s journey to Kabul. Travel delays, breakdowns, red tape in procuring documentation and crossing the ‘biggest test in the world – the Khyber pass’ as per his Kabuli bus driver threaten to throw him off track. But, he perseveres. He distracts himself with observations of his fellow travellers who amuse him and confound him in turns. After weeks of travel, he reaches Kabul and settles down in a rented house.

The second third of the book details Mujtaba Ali’s first year in Kabul. A year without incident. When he is not teaching classes at the university, he spends days picnicking in Gulbagh amidst apple and pear trees and nargis plants. Abdur Rahman, his Harlan-Moula, aka man Friday, plays mother hen. He fussed over him, treats his palate to local delicacies and his mind to folklore and homegrown customs. As the story progresses, the lush Tulbagh and the snowy peaks of Paghman visible from Mujtaba Ali’s window fill my head. The aromatics from Abdur’s feasts tantalize my tastebuds. The sights, the food, and the people invoke my travel-lust. Pangs of FOMO strike as realization hits. A trip to Afghanistan in this lifetime? Unlikely.

The last third of the story forebodes why.

The year 1929 sets in — Mujtaba Ali’s second year in Kabul. Signs of trouble have been brewing, yet, when it strikes, it appears out of nowhere. Ali’s description of shops pulling down shutters, people running in panic and screams of ‘Bacha-e-Saqao is coming’ filling creates images from the dacoit movies from 70’s Bollywood. But neither the 70s nor Bollywood had arrived then. This is real. The king abdicates, and Kabul falls. It is under the reign of Bacha-e-Saqao, who had already captured vast parts of the country. Over the next few months, thievery and rioting are rampant in the streets. Diplomats, ambassadors and ex-pats are evacuated by the embassies as the situation spirals. But, it is not that simple for our protagonist. India is under British rule, and a poor Bengali teacher is at the bottom of the priority evacuee list. Money and food are in short supply, and Mujtaba Ali is driven to the brink of death by starvation. He survives on the kindness of local friends and the loyal Abdur. Finally, it is his turn to leave. He describes his last view of Kabul as the airplane takes off:

I saw white snow covering the horizon. Standing in the middle of the airfield was a figure who could only have been Abdur Rahman, bidding goodbye to me by waving the tail of his turban.

His turban was dirty, as we did not have any soap for such a long time. But I felt Abdur Rahman’s turban was whiter than the snow, and whitest of all was Abdur Rahman’s heart.

The time when I read the book, I was surprised by the end. It seemed abrupt like the author had run out of ink, and not the proverbial kind. But, when I read it today, it appears apt. Perhaps, it is that picture of Afghanistan he wanted to carry home?

In 2021, it is challenging to ignore images. They follow you. They pop up in your palm unsolicited. They get lodged in caches and cookies and other things with innocuous names. The videos of people running through streets. Shouting at family members to hurry along. Clambering over the airport fence. Running alongside taxiing aircrafts. Clinging to the sides of planes. With every second, these images multiply.

I sort through the cubby-holes in my head, looking for one in the farthest corner. But, it is in vain. The exploding montage refuses to budge and settles in a pile marked – I am here. Deal with it.

Image Courtesy: US MARINE CORPS/REUTERS

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