David Blaine: How I held my breath for 17 min | Video on TED.com:
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Monday, December 24, 2012
Saturday, December 22, 2012
The Hindu : News / National : Spiritual he may have been, but spoke strongly against communalism
The Hindu : News / National : Spiritual he may have been, but spoke strongly against communalism:
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Spiritual he may have been, but spoke strongly against communalism
Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar may be known for bringing the raga to the West, but he also leaves behind a legacy of social and political engagement within India and throughout the world.
“Ravi Shankar was a shining example of India’s composite culture and was a vocal critic of groups who were seeking to divide and define us on communal lines,” says Ram Rahman, a founding member of the artist activist collective SAHMAT.
As Ravi Shankar’s early musical career took shape, so did his alignment with progressive politics: “He was an important part of the great moment of the progressive movement in the 1940s,” says the SAHMAT statement.
The maestro penned musical scores for films like “Dharti Ke Lal,” about the Bengal famine, and Chetan Anand’s “Neecha Nagar”, a pioneering effort in socially realistic cinema a decade before scoring the soundtrack for Satyajit Ray’s acclaimed “Pather Panchali”.
Ravi Shankar also composed music for the communist-affiliated Indian People’s Theatre Association which “had a huge impact in shaping modernism in the arts,” according to the statement.
In 1971, he and Harrison pioneered the rock for relief format— now so commonplace as to be almost cliché — with the “Concert for Bangladesh” held in New York to raise money for refugees fleeing from the civil war in East Pakistan to India. Shankar’s brother-in-law Ali Akbar Khan, along with rockers Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and Ringo Starr joined the benefit; together, the Eastern and Western musicians raised millions of dollars for UNICEF.
With the clouds of communalism darkening the horizon in the years before the Babri Masjid demolition, he was a critic of groups seeking to divide the country on religious lines, taking part in SAHMAT’s “Artists against Communalism” programmes in Delhi and Bombay in 1991 and 1992.
Describing himself as a “sensitive musician”, he expressed his anguish at the increasing communal divide: “This discordant cacophony has to stop. It is the duty of all of us to try our best in our own way to bring back harmony amongst our people.”
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The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : My Guru Pandit Ravi Shankar, my father and I
The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : My Guru Pandit Ravi Shankar, my father and I:
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My Guru Pandit Ravi Shankar, my father and I
LESSON ONE: Every single day was a learning experience — right from my first lesson in 1973 in Mysore, to the nine years of living and learning with him from 1984 onwards, to the numerous concerts I played with him. Photo: Shubhendra Rao
Like a true teacher, he taught me not just about music but about life too
It fills me with great sadness that I have to write this tribute today to my Guru, Pandit Ravi Shankar. With his demise, an era has come to an end. The last of the legends of that generation is no longer physically with us. But artists like Ravi Shankar never die because they will live on through their music. Millions of people across the world have been deeply influenced by this charismatic genius who was always way ahead of his time, and they will continue to be.
I was fortunate to be born into a family where my Guru was worshipped as God. My father, the late N.R. Rama Rao, was one of his earliest disciples — from the late 1940s, when this legend himself was in his twenties. Their close bonding asguru and shishya is still spoken about in music circles as “Ram bhakt Hanuman, Ravi bhakt Rao.”
My father, his shishya
My father was the epitome of a perfect shishya and I grew up with lots of stories of their beautiful relationship. Father sitting behind on a bicycle with the sitar and Guruji riding the bicycle to All India Radio for his work; father listening to hours of Guruji’s practice sessions with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Annapurnaji as he gave accompaniment on the tanpura; about the festive atmosphere that would set in weeks before Guruji arrived at my hometown, Bangalore.
They shared a beautiful relationship, one that continued until my father’s death due to Alzheimer’s disease in 2004. I remember the time Guruji went all the way to Bangalore to see him one last time. By then the disease was in a very advanced stage but the one person who my father could still recognise was his guru.
Even in the last few months, when, for all practical purposes, my father was not in this world and unable to recognise his wife and children, there was only one thing that could bring a semblance of a response from him — his guru’s music. We could detect some movement in his eyes and his fingers would start moving involuntarily.
Surely, the world knows Guruji as one of the greatest musicians and countless articles have been written about him for decades. Aside from the music I was privileged to learn from him; I was fortunate to see the human side of this great artist as well. His childlike enthusiasm to learn and live life to the fullest, his humility, and his humour — like a true “guru,” he taught me not just music but about life itself.
Every single day was a learning experience — right from my first lesson in 1973 in Mysore (where he taught me Raga Bhairav), to the nine years of living and learning with him from 1984 onwards, to the numerous concerts I played with him.
Despite his tight schedule during the two weeks in Mumbai in 1982 when he was working with Richard Attenborough composing music for the film “Gandhi,” he would teach me for three to four hours in the morning before going to the studio.
The Asian Games
In late 1983, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi gave Guruji a house in New Delhi’s Lodi Estate (where senior government officers live) as a token of appreciation for the music he had composed for the Asian Games.
At that point in his life, he wanted to spend more time in India and asked me to move to Delhi. The nine years that followed in the guru-shishya parampara are the foundation of my life. I learnt from him not just music or raga and tala but how to be a complete artist and to live the life of my music. For him, music was always a spiritual quest and I found this in every raga that he performed. He was the perfectnaad yogi.
I will never forget two of his blessings — the first was when his wife organised a surprise party to celebrate my wedding to Saskia as they could not attend the wedding in Bangalore; the second, when he visited the hospital a day after my son was born. Taking Ishaan in his arms, he said that he was only the second two-day old baby that he had held apart from his own son, Shubhendra Shankar (after whom my parents named me).
Last year, when I visited him at his home in California after finishing my U.S. tour, he told me, “Beta, I feel bad I could not give you enough time when I had to because I was busy with my concerts and tours. Now I have the time and want to give you everything that I have, but you don’t have the time because you are busy with your own concerts. I am really happy that you are doing well and my blessings are always with you.”
For sure, I will feel the void his passing has left, but I know he is always with me. His smile, his mesmerising eyes, his easy sense of humour, his passion for life and most important, his music will always live with me all my life.
(Shubhendra Rao, a disciple of Ravi Shankar, is a leading sitar artist and composer. Email:sitar@shubhendrarao.com)
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The Hindu : News / National : The illustrious ‘other’ who faded into the shadows
The Hindu : News / National : The illustrious ‘other’ who faded into the shadows:
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The illustrious ‘other’ who faded into the shadows
The Hindu ArchivesMusical legacy Baba Allauddin Khan with daughter Annapurna Devi.
In a world that has become used to packaged messages and instant communication, subtleties often fall by the wayside. Perhaps it is only natural then, that images generated by popular media — films, television, pulp fiction – are the ones that dominate our perception, be it of events, people or relationships. One such much discussed relationship was that of Pandit Ravi Shankar and his first wife, surbahar maestro Annapurna Devi, who lives in Mumbai.
Those not closely involved with classical music feel that the cause of the couple’s estrangement was professional rivalry, while those versed in the subject have more specific views. Most conclude that, given the usual complex relationship of a performing couple, and the popularly held view that her talent was greater than his, the husband’s jealousy must have been behind the rift. While Annapurna has steadfastly maintained silence on the details, even in the authorised biography — “An Unheard Melody: Annapurna Devi” (Roli) — by Swapan Kumar Bondyopadhyay, Shankar has been more open in his autobiography, mentioning her fiery temper and his equal propensity to flare up at that early age.
Having married Ravi Shankar when he was about 21 and she 14-15, she did perform surbahar-sitar duets with him a few times. The marriage did not last, however. She was not by his side when Ravi Shankar travelled around the world; his sitar concerts were a rage in the U.S. or when he performed at the iconic Woodstock Festival in 1969.
Bondyopadhyay’s book goes so far as to say Annapurna told him she will take to her grave the real reason for her withdrawing from public recitals.
Without much clarity on these issues, the image of Annapurna Devi as an unsung genius whose voice is muffled by a patriarchal society remains a picture without shades and subtleties. So there are other images worth considering.
Like her illustrious father ‘Baba’ Allauddin Khan, Annapurna Devi has proved a tremendous guru and groomed disciples like flute maestro Hariprasad Chaurasia and the late sitarist Pandit Nikhil Banerjee. Other acknowledged masters who blossomed under her tutelage include Pandit Nityanand Haldipur, Basant Kabra, Aashish Khan (son of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan), Ustad Bahadur Khan and Sudhir Phadke, besides her son the late Shubhendra Shankar.
Annapurna Devi exhibited in her music — so goes one version of the musical legend — a far greater proof of the genius of her father and guru than Ravi Shankar, or even her brother Ali Akbar Khan. Perhaps in addition to her prodigious knowledge of music — or as a result of it — she also developed a soulful, spiritual approach that has rendered her immune to the temptations of adulating crowds.
For over five decades now, she has been known as a reclusive if brilliant musician who refuses to perform in public, doesn’t record, receives hardly any visitors and takes only a few privileged students. Shankar, on the other hand, continued to garner musical fame and glory till his very last days, performing even after age and ill-health diminished his stamina and he had to use a sitar custom-made to suit his requirements.
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Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Jawaharlal Nehru’s Speech: A Tryst With Destiny « Bargad… बरगद…
Jawaharlal Nehru’s Speech: A Tryst With Destiny « Bargad… बरगद…:
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Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.
At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.
It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.
At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again.
The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?
Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.
That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity.
The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.
And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for anyone of them to imagine that it can live apart.
Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.
To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.
The appointed day has come – the day appointed by destiny – and India stands forth again, after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital, free and independent. The past clings on to us still in some measure and we have to do much before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. Yet the turning point is past, and history begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act and others will write about.
It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A new star rises, the star of freedom in the east, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materialises. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed!
We rejoice in that freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of our people are sorrow-stricken and difficult problems encompass us. But freedom brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face them in the spirit of a free and disciplined people.
On this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the father of our nation, who, embodying the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that surrounded us.
We have often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his message, but not only we but succeeding generations will remember this message and bear the imprint in their hearts of this great son of India, magnificent in his faith and strength and courage and humility. We shall never allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however high the wind or stormy the tempest.
Our next thoughts must be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of freedom who, without praise or reward, have served India even unto death.
We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good and ill fortune alike.
The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.
We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be.
We are citizens of a great country, on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.
To the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy.
And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service.
Jai Hind
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Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Full text of Suu Kyi's Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Lecture - Hindustan Times
Full text of Suu Kyi's Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Lecture - Hindustan Times:
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Full text of Suu Kyi's Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Lecture
Agencies
New Delhi, November 16, 2012
New Delhi, November 16, 2012
First Published: 02:54 IST(16/11/2012)
Last Updated: 02:55 IST(16/11/2012)
Last Updated: 02:55 IST(16/11/2012)
Here is the full text of Aung San Suu Kyi's lecture at Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial: There can be few occasions in life more fulfilling than those on which debts of kindness and friendship can be repaid. These past few months have furnished me with many opportunities to thank peoples and
organizations and governments for their staunch support for the democratic cause in Burma and for me personally. The sympathy and understanding we received from around the world enabled us to continue with renewed vigour along our chosen course in the face of immense difficulties. Words of thanks alone are barely an adequate return for encouragement and help given in generous measure when we were most in need.
Today, I wish to thank you for the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Prize that was awarded to me in 1995, the year that I was released from my first term of house arrest. The links between the independence movements of our two countries and my personal ties to India imbued the prize with a special meaning for me. The thoughts and actions of the leaders of the Indian independence movement provided me with ideas and inspiration. Our movement for democracy in Burma is firmly rooted in the principle of non-violence that Gandhi made into an effective political force even against the most powerful opponents. His influence on my political thinking is widely recognized. The influence of Jawaharlal Nehru on my life in politics is less well known.
“Panditji” was a name known to me since I was little past the toddler stage. My mother spoke of him as a revered friend, almost a father figure, both to her and to my father. I had little idea of his importance as a statesman beyond the fact that he was the Prime Minister of India. To my infant mind he was the kindly old man who had provided my father with two sets of uniform, the smartest he ever possessed. In January 1947 my father had stopped in Delhi for two days on his way to London for the Aung San-Attlee talks that were to be the first phase of formal negotiations for Burmese independence. He had left Burma in the thin cotton uniform of the People’s Volunteer Organization. Panditji took one look at the flimsy khaki outfit and decided it would not do for the icy weather of London. (That was one of the coldest winters in the history of England.) He gave instructions that two sets of a warm and smart version of the PVO uniform be made immediately. He decided that my father would also need a heavy overcoat but since there was not enough time to have one made to measure, a British Army issue greatcoat was procured. The most widely known photograph of my father shows him wearing this garment in the garden of 10 Downing Street.
My father was still a university student when he first met Jawaharlal Nehru and other Indian leaders. The student unions were at the forefront of the independence movement in Burma and shared aspirations led to ties of friendship between anti-colonial forces in our two countries. However, as the Second World War approached, the paths to freedom chosen by the Burmese diverged from the non-violent way of Gandhi. My father led a group of young men, the ‘Thirty Comrades,’ to Japan for military training and this small pioneer force became the core of the Burma Independence Army.
During the years under Japanese occupation, 1941 to 1945, Burmese independence leaders had little contact with the leaders in India but came to know Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army. At the end of the war, when Netaji’s brother Sarat Chandra Bose came to Burma to offer his services as a defence lawyer in the trials of members of the INA, my father delivered an address of welcome at a reception held in the City Hall of Rangoon. He referred to Sarat Chandra Bose as “one of the leaders of India. . . a great brother of a great Indian.”
He went on to say: . . . as far as the AFPFL (Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League) of which I am the President . . . is concerned, our policy towards India and Indians in this country is one of the broadest conception and generosity . . . We have no axe to grind, we nurture no feelings of racial bitterness and ill will. We stand for friendly relations with any and every nation in the world. Above all . . . we stand for more than friendly relations with our neighbours. We want to be not merely good neighbours, but good brothers . . . We stand for an Asiatic Federation in a not very, very remote future, we stand for immediate mutual understanding and joint action, wherever and whenever possible . . . for our mutual interests and for the freedom of India, Burma and indeed all Asia. We stand for these, and we trust Indian national leaders . . . implicitly. A few months ago. . . Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru stopped for one night in Rangoon on his way back to India from Malaya. At that time, I met him and we discussed these questions for about two hours.
The next and last time my father and Nehru met was in those few days in Delhi that acquired unexpected sartorial significance.
After my father’s death, Nehru continued to keep an avuncular eye on my mother from afar. Whenever she went to India or whenever he came on official visits to Burma, he made her feel his concern for her well-being and the well-being of her children. I may even have been taken along to meet him during one of his visits but I can only remember seeing him for the first time at Delhi Railway Station when I was about sixteen.
After my father’s death, Nehru continued to keep an avuncular eye on my mother from afar. Whenever she went to India or whenever he came on official visits to Burma, he made her feel his concern for her well-being and the well-being of her children. I may even have been taken along to meet him during one of his visits but I can only remember seeing him for the first time at Delhi Railway Station when I was about sixteen.
My mother was then ambassador to India and she and I and a small group from the Embassy and the Ministry of External Affairs were waiting to welcome Prime Minister U Nu who was travelling up by train from Calcutta. Nehru also came to meet U Nu and onlookers spotted him as soon as he stepped into the area that was cordoned off from the teeming crowds in the station. Cheers went up and shouts of “Pandit Nehru ki jai” resounded. His lower lip protruding in that famous petulant look, Nehru ignored all the plaudits and all the people (including me) and walked up and down the empty platform with my mother and talked to her exclusively. His aristocratic disdain for public approbation filled me with both astonishment and admiration. I wondered if Nehru’s public liked his cool arrogance or whether there was a bond between them that made exchanges of mutual courtesies unnecessary. Then I remembered that my father had been notorious for his stern, almost scowling expression and for his lack of social graces. Our people loved him for these very defects, which they saw as proof of his honest, open nature. I should add that towards the end of his life my father acknowledged that as a national leader, he could not continue with the rough diamond manners of a young revolutionary.
The year I went to Oxford, 1964, was one of the most significant turning points in my life. It was also the year Nehru died. Next to the overwhelming grief of the people not just in India but in all parts of the world, I remember most vividly reports of the poem by Robert Frost found on his desk. Oxford did not take me away from India for I made many Indian friends there. After my marriage, my husband’s work in Himalayan studies took our family frequently to the north of the country. My last sojourn in India was spent as a research fellow in the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies in Shimla from 1987 to 1988.
The year of Nehru’s birth centenary, 1989, was the year I was placed under house arrest for the first time. It could be said to have been the year of my political coming of age. When I joined the movement for democracy in 1988 the whole country was in a state of upheaval and my major concern was to try to unite the myriad political groups that had emerged from the cracks in totalitarian rule into a strong, coherent force for democracy. Each day was more than eventful: discussions, debates, public meetings, founding the National League for Democracy, touring the country to explain the aims of our party to the people.
The State Law and Order Restoration Council had announced that elections would be held in 1990 and the election laws were made public in April 1989. The Central Committee of the NLD was divided over whether or not the party should contest the elections. I pointed out that the laws made no provision for the transfer of power and that I did not believe the military regime would step down unless the winner turned out to be the erstwhile Burma Socialist Programme Party. We were still undecided with regard to the election issue when I was placed under house arrest in July.
The State Law and Order Restoration Council had announced that elections would be held in 1990 and the election laws were made public in April 1989. The Central Committee of the NLD was divided over whether or not the party should contest the elections. I pointed out that the laws made no provision for the transfer of power and that I did not believe the military regime would step down unless the winner turned out to be the erstwhile Burma Socialist Programme Party. We were still undecided with regard to the election issue when I was placed under house arrest in July.
The Chairman of the Township Law and Order Restoration Council, an army major, appeared at my gate with a warrant and a group of officers, civilian, military and police, in the morning of 20 July and I thought I was going to be taken to prison. As all members of the NLD had to be prepared for such an eventuality, I had already packed a small bag with the necessities of life in jail. My sons had come for their summer holidays and they understood that I was going to be arrested. When the Chairman appeared at the front door, Kim asked him if I would be kept as an ‘A’ class prisoner or a ‘B’ class prisoner. Somebody must have been talking to him about colonial times when political prisoners were given ‘B’ status, better treatment and more privileges than the criminal ‘C’ class. (‘A’ class was reserved for Very Important Prisoners, such as retired prime ministers.) The Chairman was somewhat disconcerted by Kim’s question and replied that I would not be taken to prison. This was how I learnt that I would be placed under house arrest under a section of the law that had previously never been invoked.
House arrest meant that external activities suddenly came to a halt. It was also an indication that our struggle would be difficult and long. I would have to decide how I would chart the course of my life for the foreseeable future. Among the ‘maps’ I used to see me through the years that headed into the unknown were Nehru’s autobiography and Discovery of India.
“Time seems to change its nature in prison. The present hardly exists for there is an absence of feeling and sensation which might separate it from the dead past. Even news of the active, living and dying world outside has a certain dream-like unreality, an immobility and an unchangeableness as of the past.”
I read the above words of Nehru and made comparisons with my own situation. I certainly did not see the present and the past as inseparable, perhaps because I had access to a short wave radio that kept me in touch with the outside world and made it come vividly alive for me. Or perhaps it was an unlikeness in our attitudes to life that made us view isolation in different ways. Even when I was put into prison briefly during 2003 I never had the sensation that present and past had merged into one. There was of course a sameness to the days but each was separate and distinct, so many different stones in a string of perfectly matched diamonds. I use the diamond metaphor deliberately because each day had to be used to forge anew an adamantine resolution to continue along the chosen path.
There was, however, also much in Nehru’s books to make me feel we had many things in common. I was struck by the fact that the very first fragment of poetry he quoted in Discovery of India was from one of my favourite poems, one that had lodged itself in my memory almost instantly at my very first reading of it, Yeat’s An Irish Airman Foresees His Death. Yet even in our liking for the same lines there was a difference. Nehru wrote of wanting to experience again ‘that lovely impulse of delight’ that ‘turns to risk and danger and faces and mocks at death.’ I had remembered the words as ‘that lonely impulse of delight,’ and I could not check to see which version was correct as I did not have the poem to hand. To me, ‘lovely’ changed the entire meaning of the poem. I wished I could have discussed the matter with Nehru himself. Was it not essentially lonely, rather than lovely, to delight in what would seem at least inexplicable if not outright undesirable, to most of those around us? When, after the years of house arrest, I managed to look up the poem I found that ‘lonely’ was indeed the right word. Was ‘lovely’ a misprint in my copy of Discovery of India or had Nehru misread the line?
To mull over the meaning of a word, to build a whole philosophy on the interpretation of a poem, these are pastimes in which prisoners, particularly prisoners of conscience, engage, not just to fill empty hours but from a need to understand better, and perhaps to justify, the actions and decisions that have led them away from the normal society of other human beings. To begin with, what exactly is our conscience? My father once spoke about the need to be able to stand confidently before the court of his conscience. But this court, how broad is the range of its jurisdiction? Did it restrict its mandate to our convictions and our public commitments or would it also enquire impartially into the love and care we owe in our private relations, our obligations to friends and families? This is a question that must surely trouble all who, regardless of the condition of near and dear ones, accept distress and danger in the name of a cause or a belief.
Nehru explores this dilemma in writing about his wife Kamala. In 1934, while serving one of his many terms of imprisonment, it was suggested to him “through various intermediaries” that if he were to give an assurance, even an informal one, that he would keep away from politics for the rest of the term to which he had been sentenced, he would be released to tend to his ailing wife. This roused a deep indignation in the proud independence fighter.
Politics was far enough from my thoughts just then, and the politics I had seen during my eleven days outside had disgusted me, but to give an assurance! And to be disloyal to my pledges, to the cause, to my colleagues, to myself! It was an impossible condition, whatever happened. To do so meant inflicting a mortal injury on the roots of my being, on almost everything I held sacred. I was told that Kamala’s condition was becoming worse and worse and my presence by her side might make all the difference between life and death. Was my personal conceit and pride greater than my desire to give her this chance? It might have been a terrible predicament for me, but fortunately that dilemma did not face me in that way at least. I knew that Kamala herself would strongly disapprove of my giving any undertaking, and if I did anything of the kind it would shock her and harm her.
Early in October I was taken to see her again. She was lying almost in a daze with a high temperature. She longed to have me by her, but as I was leaving her, to go back to prison, she smiled at me bravely and beckoned to me to bend down. When I did so, she whispered: “What is this about your giving an assurance to Government? Do not give it!”
The above passages fascinated me. The monumental egoism: ‘my pledges,’ ‘my colleagues,’ ‘myself,’ ‘the roots of my being,’ ‘everything I held sacred.’ The briefest appearance before an impartial court of conscience before deciding that he would be doing Kamala more harm than good by doing what was repugnant to his principles. And of course Kamala’s own words put the seal of approval on his decision.
Yet in full awareness of the egoism and some possible self-deception on the part of Nehru, I have to confess that I wholly endorsed his stand on the matter. After my release from my first term of house arrest, I made public speeches to supporters who gathered in the street outside my garden at weekends. On one such occasion, I spoke of the above episode and urged the families of democracy activists to cultivate Kamala’s fortitude and dedication. Such are the exigencies of dangerous causes. The lesson I really learnt however was not to deceive myself, or others, with the claim that we are making self-sacrifices when we follow our conscience; we are simply making a choice and possibly an egoistic one at that. When we give up what is dear to our hearts is it not sometimes to make ourselves less vulnerable? The ones who make the real sacrifices are those who let us go free to keep our secret trysts with destiny.
Politics is about people and people are about relationships, whether at a private or public level. The two Indian leaders to whom I feel closest are undoubtedly Gandhi and Nehru because many of the challenges they faced along the path to independence are the ones we have been facing over the course of our struggle which will marked its quarter century next year. The survival of their relationship, which was both personal and political, in spite of their many differences is one of the triumphs of Indian politics. When Gandhi decided to withdraw the Civil Disobedience movement, Nehru was deeply distressed. He railed: “Why should we be tossed hither and thither for, what seemed to me, metaphysical and mystical reasons in which I was not interested? Was it conceivable to have any political movement on this basis?” The doubts that arose in his mind over Gandhi’s methods caused Nehru intense agony. In his cell in Alipore Gaol, life appeared to him “a dreary affair, a very wilderness of desolation. Of the many hard lessons that I had learnt, the hardest and the most painful now faced me: that it is not possible in any vital matter to rely on any one. One must journey through life alone; to rely on others is to invite heartbreak.”
The lesson Nehru learnt is one we have to learn and relearn, again and again, along the long and difficult journey to goals that can only be won through hard work and perseverance. At the same time, if our hearts cannot cleave to our colleagues, if our loyalty to those who share our values and aspirations becomes strained, or we have reason to doubt their loyalty, we are cast adrift into a wilderness of uncertainty. During one of my periods of isolation, I jotted down on a piece of paper that if I could be sure of one, just one, totally trustworthy, totally reliable, totally understanding, totally committed friend and colleague, who would keep faith with me and with the cause in which we believed throughout the vicissitudes of this existence, I could challenge the combined forces of heaven and earth. In isolation, one tends towards melodrama.
When I heard on the radio, suddenly and unexpectedly one day, that the Central Executive Committee had expelled me from the party for the simple reason that I happened to be under detention, I felt myself to be in a curious no man’s land, far away from everything except my own volition. I realized that pressure must have been exerted on the party and that it must be going through a very difficult period. Finally I decided that it was for me to keep faith with my party as long as it kept faith with our cause, regardless of their official position with regard to me. I thought of Nehru’s ability to keep true to Gandhi in spite of serious differences between them and it strengthened my conviction that we had to cleave to comrades and colleagues despite dissension and disagreement.
As the hundredth anniversary of Nehru’s birth, 14 November 1989, approached, I copied a long paragraph from his autobiography on to a large sheet of paper:
Law and order, we are told, are among the proud achievements of British rule in India. My own instincts are entirely in favour of them. I like discipline in life, and dislike anarchy and disorder and inefficiency. But bitter experience has made me doubt the value of the law and order that states and governments impose on a people. Sometimes the price one pays for them is excessive, and the law is but the will of the dominant faction and the order is the reflex of an all-pervading fear. Sometimes, indeed, the so-called law and order might be ore justly called the absence of law and order. Any achievement that is based on widespread fear can hardly be a desirable one, and an ‘order’ that has for its basis the coercive apparatus of the State, and cannot exist without it, is more like a military occupation than civil rule. I find in the Rajatarangini, the thousand-year-old Kashmiri historic epic of the poet Kalhana, that the phrase is repeatedly used in the sense of law and order, something that it was the duty of the ruler and the State to preserve, is dharma and abhaya – righteousness and absence of fear. Law was something more than mere law, and order was the fearlessness of the people. How much more desirable is this idea of inculcating fearlessness than of enforcing ‘order’ on a frightened populace!
Nehru’s words not only reflected my own sentiments exactly but were so entirely appropriate at a time when the State Law and Order Restoration Council was imposing rule by fear in Burma. I hung the sheet of paper in the entrance hall of my house at a place where the security personnel, usually members of the military intelligence, who were my only ‘visitors’ could not fail to see it. At the bottom of the sheet, I wrote ‘Jawaharlal Nehru’ in large red letters not just in acknowledgement of authorship but as a defiant name flung at all who had a warped view of law and order.
During the years of house arrest I felt closer to those with whom I could identify politically, intellectually or spiritually through their thoughts, even if they were complete strangers or figures of the past, than to those whom I knew well personally. This I imagined to be a predictable state of mind for those incarcerated with nobody except their own conscience for company. What I had not expected was that such a state of mind would become as firmly rooted as the tree of life that joins the ground of everyday activities to the heights of aspiration.
Gandhi once said that Motilal Nehru’s most striking quality was love for his son: “Motilal’s love for India was derived from his love for Jawaharlal.” This comment led me to wonder if my love for Burma derives from my love for my father, whom I do not really remember. His image for me is inseparable from his part in the independence movement of our country, which often in my mind merges with our present struggle for democracy that has not yet come to an end. In spite of the strong ties of love, temperament and blood between his father and himself, or perhaps because of it, Jawaharlal Nehru was able to accept Gandhi as a father also, a political, spiritual father whom he could regard as the light of the people of India. The nature of such political, spiritual kinship binds us with a fastness difficult to put into words, as cold as calculation (“we fall unless we stick together”) and warmer than any personal passion (“we need one another to keep the core of our being intact”).
Recently, in a tribute to Vaclav Havel, I tried to explain why he and other friends and mentors whom I have never met in person are a major driving force in my public endeavours, which are no longer separable from my private life, by referring to an article about me written many years back, Ann, a friend from Oxford days. She applied some lines Yeats wrote for the Irish revolutionary, Maud Gonne to me:
How many have loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And the loved the sorrows of your changing face.
Ann omitted the last line, perhaps because she considered it inauspicious, but I am including it because the whole adds up to a most moving testament to friendship. To be loved for one’s questing spirit is to be loved in the best possible way and to be given understanding and support through the hardships of a long struggle is never to be alone.
Today, as I thank all of you for honouring me with the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Prize, I would like to express my deep appreciation for the leaders of India who became my most precious friends because their lives helped me to find my way through uncharted terrain. The discovery of Nehru was also a discovery of myself.
'via Blog this'
Friday, November 16, 2012
True Stories About Ordinary People by Sudha
Murty.
Sudha Murty chairperson, Infosys Foundation and author, is
known for her ability to glean interesting stories from the lives of
ordinary people and weave these narratives into a unique blend of
anecdote and fable. Her
latest collection of stories, 'The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk',
features a fascinating cast of characters, each of whom made an indelible
impression on the author. Extracted here is a nugget from 'Bombay
to Bangalore', one of the most heartwarming stories in this collection:
It was the beginning of summer. I was boarding
Udyan Express at Gulbarga railway station. My destination was Bangalore.
As I boarded the train, I saw that the second-class reserved compartment
was jam-packed with people. I sat down and was pushed to the corner of
the berth. Though it was meant for three people, there were already six
of us sitting on it.
The ticket collector came in and started checking
people's tickets and reservations.. Suddenly, he looked in my direction
and asked, 'What about your ticket?' 'I have already shown my ticket to
you,' I said. 'Not you,
madam, the girl hiding below your berth. Hey, come out, where is your
ticket?' I realized that someone was sitting below my berth. When the collector yelled at her, the girl
came out of hiding.
She was thin, dark, scared and looked like she
had been crying profusely. She
must have been about thirteen or fourteen years old.She had uncombed
hair and was dressed in a torn skirt and blouse. She was trembling and
folded both her hands.. The collector started forcibly pulling her out
from the compartment. Suddenly, I had a strange feeling. I stood up and
called out to the collector. 'Sir, I will pay for her ticket,' I said.
Then he looked at me and said, 'Madam, if you
give her ten rupees, she
will be much happier with that than with the ticket.' I did not listen to him. I told the collector to give me a ticket to the last destination, Bangalore, so that the girl could get down wherever she wanted. Slowly, she started talking. She told me that her name was Chitra. She lived in a village near Bidar. Her father was a coolie and she had lost her mother at birth. Her father had remarried and had two sons with her stepmother. But a few months ago, her father had died. Her stepmother started beating her often and did not give her food. She was tired of that life. She did not have anybody to support her so she left home in search of something better.
will be much happier with that than with the ticket.' I did not listen to him. I told the collector to give me a ticket to the last destination, Bangalore, so that the girl could get down wherever she wanted. Slowly, she started talking. She told me that her name was Chitra. She lived in a village near Bidar. Her father was a coolie and she had lost her mother at birth. Her father had remarried and had two sons with her stepmother. But a few months ago, her father had died. Her stepmother started beating her often and did not give her food. She was tired of that life. She did not have anybody to support her so she left home in search of something better.
By this time, the train had reached Bangalore. I
said goodbye to Chitra and got
down from the train. My driver came and picked up my bags. I felt
someone watching me. When I turned back, Chitra was standing there and
looking at me with sad eyes. But there was nothing more that I could do.
I had paid her ticket out of compassion but I had never thought that she
was going to be my responsibility!...
I told her to get into my car. My driver looked
at the girl curiously. I told him
to take us to my friend Ram's place. Ram ran separate shelter homes for
boys and girls. We at the Infosys Foundation supported him financially.
I thought Chitra could stay there for some time and we could talk about her future after I came back
from my tours.
I was not sure if Chitra would even be there. But
to my surprise, I saw Chitra
looking much happier than before. Ram suggested that Chitra could go to a high school nearby. I immediately
agreed and said that I would sponsor her expenses as long as she
continued to study. I left the shelter knowing that Chitra had found a
home and a new direction in her life.
I got busier and my visits to the shelter reduced
to once a year. But I always
enquired about Chitra's well-being over the phone. I knew that she was
studying well and that her progress was good.. I offered to sponsor her
college studies if she wanted to continue studying. But she said, 'No,
Akka. I have talked to my friends and made up my mind. I would like to
do my diploma in computer science so that I can immediately get a job
after three years.' She wanted to become economically independent as soon
as possible.. Chitra obtained her diploma with flying colours. She also got a job in a software company as an
assistant testing engineer. When she got her first salary, she came to
my office with a sari and a box of sweets.
One day, when I was in Delhi, I got a call from
Chitra. She was very happy. 'Akka, my company is sending me to USA! I
wanted to meet you and take your blessings but you are not here in
Bangalore.'.
Years passed. Occasionally, I received an e-mail
from Chitra. She was doing very
well in her career. She was posted
across several cities in USA and was enjoying life. I silently prayed
that she should always be happy wherever she was.
Years later, I was invited to deliver a lecture in San Francisco for Kannada
Koota, an organization where families who speak Kannada meet and
organize events. The lecture was in a convention hall of a hotel and I
decided to stay at the same hotel. After the lecture, I was planning to
leave for the airport. When I checked out of the hotel room and went to
the reception counter to pay the bill, the receptionist said, 'Ma'am,
you don't need to pay us anything. The lady over there has already
settled your bill. She must know you pretty well.' I turned around and
found Chitra there.
She was standing with a young white man and wore
a beautiful sari. She was looking very pretty with short hair. Her dark
eyes were beaming with happiness and pride. As soon as she saw
me, she gave me a brilliant smile, hugged me and touched my feet. I was
overwhelmed with joy and did not know what to say. I was very happy to
see the way things had turned out for Chitra. But I came back to my
original question. 'Chitra, why did you pay my hotel bill? That is not
right.' suddenly sobbing, she hugged me and said, 'Because you paid for
my ticket from Bombay to Bangalore!'
(Excerpted
with permission from Penguin Books India from Sudha Murty's 'The Day I
Stopped Drinking Milk: Life Stories From Here and There')
Art takes flight on little wings - Times Of India
Art takes flight on little wings - Times Of India:
'via Blog this'
Art takes flight on little wings
BHUBANESWAR: The dull and washed-out boundary wall of a government building at Satya Nagar had never attracted a look from any passerby. But Wednesday was different. A number of children came with their brushes and cans of paint and transformed the wall into a piece of art.
"Art is a form of expression that increases our ability to communicate and grow. It has a vocabulary, structure emotion and meaning like language. This event is a medium through which we allowed children to tell their own stories through painting," said Sujeet Mohapatra, secretary of Bakul Foundation that had organized the event on the occasion of Children's Day.
Around 60 students from 12 schools painted the 200-ft-wall giving flight to the theme, 'Books give us wings'. They drew pictures of pigeons, computers and books. "Since wings mean freedom we have shown a human figure with a broken handcuff being carried away on the wings of literacy and illumination. We also added symbols like Swastika and Feng Shui along with computers which reflects that despite advanced education we are firmly rooted in our culture," said Risav Mohanty, group leader from DAV Public School, Pokhariput.
Children were also very elated after the event. "It was a great experience to paint on a huge wall. We were very conscious as what we paint on the wall is going to remain there forever and hundreds of people will see it everyday. So it must be beautiful and send across a message," said Snigdha Das of St Xavier's International School.
Teachers too felt that the huge canvas would hone the skills of their students as well as popularize art. "Art is restricted to drawing books and art galleries. The concept of public art is yet to reach the people and stimulate their artistic senses. This may be a small but noble beginning to popularize the concept of art," said Bijay Panda, an art teacher.
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