DISCOVERY OF INDIA

 

Outlook, India's English Weekly News Magazine in its 12th January, 2015 edition chose Jawaharlal Nehru's much acclaimed book " The Discovery of India' as one of the 100 Great Books of the World.  

 
On one fine day in  May, 2014 when I went to a old newspaper vendor shop  which I do regularly to buy second-hand books,  this book  was stacked along with some other old books and kept in a dusty corner.   I bought   a couple of others books  including  this one  for a price in kgs.  

But Outlook's description of the book woke me up from the slumber.   The  magazine termed this book   as  rambling account of the history and culture of India - from  Indus valley civilization to the British Raj.

In his Preface to the book Nehru says that the book was written in Ahmadnagar Fort prison during the five months (April - September, 1944).  The contents of the book offer a scholarly look into India's past,  and no doubt  that it is a thoroughly researched book with a minefield of information nowhere found in a single book.

Being an Indian, it is the duty of every one of us to read the book, not as an obligation but for the love of such rich cultural history which no country in the world has ! 

MY MISSION : KNOWLEDGE MISSION

In India, English still rules as the most vibrant and viable communication vehicle. There is no dispute in saying that the English is still the mainstay language for our educational and communication needs.

The language has a special charm in Southern and North-Eastern parts of India. Though, I was grown up with my mother tongue Telugu as a medium of instruction up to class 10, my father injected an irresistible charm in me to hone my English speaking and writing skills at the age of 6 or 7. Though English was not taught properly in my school days, it was my dad who had ignited an unflagging spirit and taught me to hone my language skills. Till I entered into my first year of graduation, I was not good enough at writing or speaking in English. Though I had taken English medium in my Intermediate (11th & 12th class) those two years had not helped much to hone my language skills. My father being a qualified stenographer but chose a different profession, used to cherish the career of stenographer which prompted me to learn stenography. So it was in 1988, I started my arduous journey of learning stenography and simultaneously started reading English newspaper - The Hindu daily. As suggested by my father, I used to underline the difficult words in the editorial page and refer dictionary to improve my word power on daily basis. My father used to suggest me to write a passage on any topic on my own to improve my craft. When I followed his word, the desire to excel in English reached to an unfathomable level and I dreamt of writing articles to newspapers/ magazines as a freelancer. An attempt was made by that time to write a letter to the editor of one prominent English newspaper regarding my opinion on certain political issue of that time. When I sent that letter, it was amazing that my piece of comments were published and my joy found no bounds.

The passing of stenography in the second year of my graduation was very much a smooth sail as I put my body and soul on it. By the time I entered into third year of B.Com, one day I was asked by my mother to bring sugar from a nearby provision store. Instead of purchasing sugar, my attention dragged to a nearby second-hand book/old newspaper vendor who stacked and kept a bundle of old English books. When I went near and saw, I was perplexed to see the priceless collection of Vivekananda literature, all published by Ramakrishna Mission. There was hardly any choice and I made up my mind to take the old books with my sugar money. Perhaps, I could not take home sugar, but the sweetness of those books is still lingering in my mind.

When the books were brought home, a recurring dream of Swami Vivekananda for some days put me in quandary to choose between my academic subjects and Vivekananda literature. I could not know what exactly happened to me. A sway of spirituality overpowered me and I find a new delight in Indian philosophy with particular reference to Vivekananda literature. It further drove me to find some other books of Vivekananda in the local Triveni Publishers where I got Vivekandan's famous Chicago lecture book. That electrifying lecture tremendously increased my courage levels. Mine, otherwise a shy guy who always feared to speak in English started talking in English as my friends of that time told me that I used to take long lectures on spirituality. Those books which I purchased occupied a proud place as a first collection in my personal library, started way back in 1989. I had been very kind that my parents did not yell at me for diverting the sugar money for books. Instead, they encouraged me to nurture my reading habit. Afterwards, my father used to give some money on the first of every month and I used to purchase a book or two, thereby I slowly built my treasure trove. Though I almost neglected my studies in preference to Vivekananda literature, I had not felt hard to cope up with exam pressure ,and in fact I excelled in my third year B.Com exams with more than 80 %.

After a little over 2 years struggle in private jobs, Heaven smiled upon me as I was selected as stenographer in a govt. organization. Though it seemed some sort of divine intervention of getting a government job so early at 22, I forecast that I must have to sail in troubled waters ahead. Like I predicted, a major accident dislocated my father's thigh joint and that incident crippled not only our financial well-being but had also taken away my sheen for competing Civil Services Exam. Though, the dream of Civil Services could not materialize, the charm for English did not diminish. I slowly improved my word power by reading newspapers and other english magazines.

There were so many mental challenges, mind wars and personal struggles which made my journey so daunting. In my late 40s I realized that blogging is a better way to express myself that would chisel my craft to perfection. To make the story short, I built my own website with a custom domain called ‘Knoweb’

‘Knoweb’ is an acronym for Knowledge Web . It is driven by a single point agenda of empowering the people with right kind of information. It is a pure Knowledge Mission!

CHANGE THE JOB TO SATISFY THE INNER 'YOU'

It is a virtual hell to continue in a job when your heart is craving for some other dream profession.

Doing a job is of course for those needy bucks. But, settling with less than what you ought to be should not be accepted as a fate.

Most people think that they should have high IQ (Intelligence Quotient) to score high in life. But, what is needed more than IQ is, RQ i.e. Risk Quotient. It is the ability to endure the risk and explore the uncharted territories. You can otherwise call it the amount of guts required to take a bold decision to tread a path for success.

But in the most of Indians, this RQ is abysmally low, because they are the poor souls to satisfy with what they have in their hand, than a desire to climb up in life. In this respect, our Western counterparts are on a much better footing.

A study reveals that any American adults changes his or her job on an average 7 times in their life time. By doing so, they make a wise choice and settle with the best they deserve.

There are countless people who leave their glittering careers only to settle in their dream professions. Chetan Bhagat, India’s legend novelist left his plum job as an investment banker to transmute his passion into a writing career.

So the home point is, drive your passion into a viable venture and monetize your abilities and the first pre-requisite is to increase the risk appetite or R.Q !

THIS IS RIGHT BOOK TO KNOW ''HISTORY OF INDIA''

India is a land of rich culture and traditions. It's civilization flourished when the western civilizations were in the nascent stage. To know what India did in the past centuries, you need to revisit the history and you could not find a better book than Sheila Dhar’s "Children's History of India'' published by Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India (ISBN 978-81-230-1872-0)

The first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru in his Foreword to the book on 1st August, 1960 said that ''I have looked through this little book and have liked it. We lack good books on the history of India, more especially for children. This book fills a vacuum and fills it well. The language is easy and suited to young boys and girls.''

Though, it was mentioned that this book is meant for children this books also serves elders as well. The interesting part of the book is all dates were given at the end of the book for reference purpose. The author says that the aim of the book is more to stimulate interest in the study of history than to present a comprehensive survey of facts.

The book is a lucid narrative of history of India in a sequential way. It is a book you need to keep in your personal library to come back and forth whenever necessary !

BUDDHA'S WISDOM

In the long chequered history of human civilization, one man whose teachings created ripples in the world and a religion took birth by his name - Buddha.

According to Wikipedia, Buddha was born either 563 BCE or 480 BCE in Lumbini (a place in present-day Nepal) and died in 483 BCE or 400 BCE which means he probably lived about 80 years on this planet. His marathon life helped the mankind to juice out his wisdom.

If we go into important landmarks of Buddha's life, we see that except his birth, all other phases of his life journey centered on India only.

- He attained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, India

- Gave his first sermon at Sarnath, India.

- Finally, he left his mortal frame at Kushinara or Kashia in Uttar Pradesh, India.

His teachings / insights in nutshell are:

Three Great Truths:

1. Nothing is lost in the universe. Matter turns into energy and energy turns into matter.

2. Everything changes.

3. Law of cause and effect. We receive exactly what we earn, whether it is good or bad.

Four Noble Truths:

1. Suffering is common to all.

2. We are the cause of our suffering.

3. Stop doing what causes suffering.

4. Path to end suffering is to get enlightened.

Noble Eightfold Path:

1. Right View.

2. Right Thought.

3. Right, Speech.

4. Right, Conduct.

5. Right Livelihood.

6. Right Effort.

7. Right Mindfulness.

8. Right Concentration.

So, no outside interference is necessary to blossom which is a self-driven process.

SRI CHINMOY - EAST's SHINING STAR OF WISDOM

There are many Indian Masters who went to West and propagated the message of India, after Swami Vivekananda.

Philip Goldberg in his much-acclaimed book "American Veda' termed him 'The Olympian Guru'. Born as Chinmoy Kumar Ghose in 1931, Sri Chinmoy was orphaned at 11 and spent next 20 years in the ashram of Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry, South India. Set his foot on New York in 1964 and worked as a clerk at the Indian Consulate before known to the world as Sri Chinmoy, the leader of a spiritual community in Queens.

Compare to other Gurus of his generation, it is said that Sri Chinmoy had relatively few disciples. He is such a prolific writer with more than 1,500 books, 115,000 poems and 20,000 songs. His core philosophy says that a sound body may lead to higher elevation in spiritual life which can be emanated from the fact that he used to participate in marathons and ultra-distance races. All through his works, he taught the Vedantic message of oneness.

Though his childhood is full of rough weather as his parents had passed away in much younger age, but something positive in life was in store for young Chinmoy who took shelter in Sri Aurobindo ashram, Pondicherry that changed his destiny. His following verse inspires me a lot:

"Our goal is to go from bright to brighter to brightest, from high to higher to highest. And even in the highest, there is no end to our progress, for God Himself is inside each of us and God at every moment is transcending His own Reality."

After a fruitful life of 76 years, Sri Chinmoy attained Samadhi on 11th October 2007 in New York city.

A FIERY POET - SUBRAMANIA BHARATI

If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.

                                                                                      - Isaac Newton

Some books come to us by divine intervention. Some years ago, I came across a translated version of Bharati's works authored by Prema Nanda kumar. In fact, that book was published by Sahitya Akademi and I tried to buy the same, but could not procure as it was out of print. I searched for other scholarly translation and immediately I was landed up in Usha Rajagopalan's - Everyman's Selected Poems of Subramania Bharati.

The book offers the treasure of information about the life of Subramania Bharati. He is one of the 20th century's greatest Tamil Poets. He was a child prodigy. Bharati was his title conferred on him at the age of eleven which means ' one blessed by the goddess of learning'.

His works are philosophical. When you read, you get a feel of reading Indian Ancient Texts : Vedas /Upanishads. His poems are devotional and catching his imagination on Nature is difficult to fathom.

Some of my favourite lines of Subramania Bharati are :

The hand opens a lock,

Wisdom opens the mind.

The mind controls the breath,

Right action shields the body.

I came across a baby fire,

I kept it in a tree hollow,

The forest charred and cooled.

Fire Power - is it young or old ?

Whoosh, crackle, snap, sizzle.

May we reap quickly the fruits of our effort.

May we earn wealth and joy, fame on earth.

( credit: Usha Rajagopalan's book: Selected Poems of Subramania Bharati )

His poem 'The Goddess of Beauty' is very touching. His other poem on the greatness of 'worker' is equally inspiring. His poem on 'Awake, Mother India!' helped in strengthening Independence Movement from British.

History reveals that great people have not lived fully on this planet and they came only for a short sojourn but during that short period, they made ripples. Bharati who moved India with his fiery poems also died at the young age of 39 much like Vivekananda who also left his mortal frame at the same age. 

Hope these stalwarts continue to inspire succeeding generations !

YOU ARE THE CREATIVE EXPRESSION OF GOD

A dictionary defines 'God' as "the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe." It says that the word 'God' was first used before the 12th century (source: Merriam-Webster online dictionary) But Indian Ancient Texts, Vedas proclaimed about God, Universe much earlier i.e. in 1500-1200 BCE (source : Britannica.com)

The Bing Bang theory says that the origin of this Universe is 13.8 billion years ago (source: Wikipedia). Joel Primack in his much-acclaimed work The View from the Centre of the Universe says that the visible universe is only 4 %. Dark matter is of 26% and dark energy 70% and their characteristics are that they would be detected only through gravitational effects. They don't emit electro-magnetic radiation. Why they are like that is not fully understood.

Deepak Chopra, the American - Indian doctor who spent a considerable amount of his life time studying the science and religious texts says that the essential stuff of the universe is non-stuff. He further says that matter is made up of molecules - atoms moving around in huge empty space with lightning speed.

The more you study the science, the deeper would be the mystery. Deepak says that the cosmic horizon is about 47 billion light years which is continuously expanding. He also says that there are roughly about 500 billion galaxies in the universe. To understand the arithmetic of the universe at this grand scale is very difficult.

We have so many intricacies in the present theories. Scientists when they started calculating time backwards, they faced utter difficulty to go beyond 10^-43 seconds which is known as Plank epoch. The reason is that their theories and calculations would stop working at that stage, because natural laws stop working beyond that point and the state of the universe before that point of time might be a thick quantum soup.

Not only that we are shrouded with so many mysteries within our own bodies.  In the midst of all these unknowns, if the man earnestly tries to make a self-search, he may find answers and this wisdom is not transferable and it must be earned only through ‘self-experience’.