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The theatre of Excess : The Hindu Magazine-Wide Angle-  Feb 6, 2022

Mr Rizvi's is a valiant attempt to bring the mutually suspecting communities together.  Im a strong votary of the Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb and a passionate lover of Urdu literature and culture. I would definitely want this rich culture to soothe the frayed nerves of today's generation.

But the ground realities are different.

Steeped in antiquity, Benares or Varanasi has been a seat of Hindu culture, religion, ethos and tradition from time immemorial. The Holy Ganges, the ghats of  Benares and the famous Kashi Vishwanath Temple are symbols of a tradition which every Hindu holds dear to his heart. A trip to Kashi ,even if symbolically, is ingrained in many Hindu rituals and practices. Kashi has been a seat of learning  being blessed by the Saints of the past. Each of the ghats on the river reverberates with some  part of Hindu beliefs and practices from life to afterlife.

Such being the all pervading impact of Hindu way of life in Benares that it is difficult to imagine the need for further validation.

In the instances quoted by Mr Rizvi,  the beauty of the city from dawn to Dusk is captured by various poets and shayars. But none of these poets have touched the spiritual chord in the manner of  Raskhan or Rahim of Brindaban. Till such time as a yet to be born Sufi Mystic is drawn into the ethos of the city and propogates the oneness of all religions, the 'mili jhuli tehzeeb' will have pockets of stark differentiation. The newly erected corridor in the Kashi Temple premises may trigger unwanted comments as a consequence.

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1. The Delhi Decade

On an unusually salubrious afternoon in Chennai, as I was enjoying the well- curated greenery of my terrace garden- my wife proving that she has the proverbial green thumb- strains of KL Saigal's unforgettable song.. बाबुल मोरा नैहर छूट ही जाय.. wafted through the air- courtsey my grandaughter, a great aficionado of Old Hindi Film Music as she was tweaking her Radio Recorder. This put me in a reverie mode. Where have I heard this song before? Not to miss out on her whole  collection,  I asked her to play other legendary singers of the past as well. Begum Akhtar, Noor Jahan, Shamsad Begum, Uma Devi,  Pankaj Mullick, Mallika Pukhraj and of course our own ubiquitous Mohd Rafi and Mukesh. Each of them and their voices took me in their thrall as my appreciation of their immortal work reached a crescendo.

This tryst with the legends also fixed the coordinates of a time period which was difficult to recall but nevertheless possible with an effort. I would assume that 1950s or thereabouts is the period I became aware of the impact of these songs as I opened my eyes to an exciting new world.

Running parallel to my fixing the above reference point, was the vexing metaphysical question everybody asks himself at some point in his adult life as to 'Who am I"  "Where do I come from" and " where do I go from here ". Not qualified to answer such esoteric questions, I settled to give an account of my life in simple human terms without any touch of 'other worldliness'.

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The forceful article "The devastating impact of school closure, The Hindu. OPED dt 25th Jan " pierced my heart as it would have done to millions of parents, young and old.

I was looking for an escape from the stranglehold of the pandemic esoecially as it affected our children. I was buried under a plethora of medical evidence, mostly speculative, to stay away from any adventurous step that might harm my family or community. Closely following the protocol and submitting myself to the herd mentality, I have pushed through two and a half years of my post retirement life only to find that my children/grand children are facing enormous trauma of online learning - or punishment? - mandated by the School authorities.

We, the parents, owe it to our children to give them a holistic education where they meet their peers, interact with their teachers, participate in a little fun and frolic and learn the subjects 'on the go'. The gadget invasion has, undoubtedly, turned the world topsy turvy for children, giving them a false sense of learning.

It's time we set the clock back in time and reenergise the conventional method of imparting wisdom to avoid the curse of posterity.

Within the parameters of hygiene and safety, let's give our children a fresh breath of life.

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Science & Spirituality

Please permit me to join you in this fascinating journey into the realm of the unknown.

Science and Spirituality have been waging a war against each other for a millenium. Neither has been declared a winner yet.

Incisive thinkers of the modern age have often acted as arbiters with comments like " Science without Religion (spirituality) is blind and Religion without spirituality is lame"

"Science and Spirituality are two sides of the same coin"

"Science is but an offshoot of spirituality"

Great thinkers of the past too, in their intense pursuit of the unknown, confirm that the chariot of knowledge is always drawn by the twin horses of Science and Spirituality- the two steeds keeping the chariot in balance, as it were, guiding the charioteer to his destination.

Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the Atomic Bomb, saves himself from the ignominy of being instrumental in erasing half of humanity by quoting Bhagvat Geeta, Chapter 11, verse 32.

Mahatma Gandhi, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Aurobindo all infused their political and revolutionary careers with a heavy dose of Geeta as a spiritual exercise.

More recently, Dr Sivan, an outstanding Indian Space Scientist, and Head of the Chandrayan Expedition, offered his ardent prayers and gratitude to the Almighty at the Tirupati Temple for the success of his mission.

Thus one sees that Spirituality is at the core of human activity and no amount of Science or any other distraction will weaken its impact.

Many Western thinkers, scientists, philosophers and statesmen have sung paeans of the "Song Divine" and took to heart the instructions of the Lord to the hapless Arjun as a Universal Message.

It would be in the fitness of things, if we were to pay tribute to our Adi Gurus, Bhagvatpada Shankaracharya, Bhagvan Sri Ramanuja and Sri Madhava who explored the subtle and gross messages of the Vedas, Upanishads, Brahmasutras, Puranas and itihasas and presented them in a concise form to the lay public. Advaita of Shankara, Visishtadvaita of Ramanuja and Dvaita of Madhava are pearls of spiritual wisdom to be cherished and valued by the entire humanity.

One of the outstanding exemplars of spirituality in modern times is Swami Vivekananda who underscored the spiritual facet of Hinduism and took this message to an enraptured foreign audience. He was of the view that all the religions are innately spiritual in content but the antiquity of Hinduism, or as he called it Sanatana Dharma, confers on it a metaphysical dimension bereft of dogmas, bigotry or rituals and hence eminently suited for a spiritual following.

In conclusion, I would say that the subjective inward approach of Spirituality is the progenitor of logic, experimentation, proof etc. required by Science and dogmas, rigidity, adherence to injunctions as demanded by the objective and external approach of Religion.

Science and Religion are, therefore, the two offshoots of Spirituality, each with its angelic and demonic attributes.

Note: I have used Spirituality and Religion interchangeably for the sake of this article.

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Bharatnatyam today

There's a certain vintage strain that gnaws at the very root of Bharatnatyam which makes it resistant to change and adapt itself to a new set of rules. Compare it with choreography outside the ambit of classical arts, the rules and art are flexible enough to accommodate one another resulting in a pleasurable experience to the onlooker.. After all the lokdharmi aspect of art cannot be ignored.

Through the bold and innovative initiatives of scholars and iconic performers, Bharatnatyam has managed to stay relevant to this day. A digital environment was never envisaged where the art could grow organically

Nevertheless, the art has survived and looks for emancipation in the days and months to come.

It's for competent scholars/performers to extricate the art from a slow fall into a pedestrian human activity.

I daresay you have the wherewithal to make this happen.

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Delhi: the fountainhead of my dreams

I have fond memories of Delhi. Ten years of schooling followed by a five year combined graduate and post graduate stint at the Delhi University launched me onto a working career covering places outside Delhi. But Delhi continued to kindle my interest. On my various visits to Delhi, in between, on personal and official work, l used to drive past areas frequented by me as a carefree youth. A sense of remorse stuck me. How can I  bring back that sense of nostalgia when all that I see is high-rise residential complexes, snazzy malls, roads with medians as wide as the road itself, and kiosks of McDonald's or Pizza Hut instead of the  well laid out single storey houses enclosed in squares with anglicized names, the genial moongphali wallahs or the vendors touting their spicy 'chana chor garam masala' in paper cones, or the inventive kulfiwallahs keeping their pot of kulfi ice-cold at Delhi's savage temperatures? I now feel crushed by modernity and development—two sinister words coined to destroy the human soul. Where's the debt I need to repay for my growth as a wholesome individual if a substantial part of my past  is erased by thoughtless development? The situation is no different within the walled city of Shahjahanabad from which Delhi emerged as a modern city, I recall my occasional visits to Chandni Chowk with garrulous schoolmates some 60 years ago looking for second hand text books in the galis and kuches branching out of Chandni Chowk. A  sense of history did not dawn upon us then but now on a recent visit, I pondered whether Chandni Chowk should retain its glamorous title as the Bazaar of the East. Townhall is gone, fountain is gone. Kuchas and katras have vanished. A few Havelis are struggling for existence. Where's the bazaar atmosphere?  McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Haldiram, Samsonite and Tourister, Lotto and Adidas,  Samsung and Oppo do not replace incomparable street foods like Jalebis, kachoris, paranthas or Dahi bhallas nor the handmade clothes, garments or artefacts for which Chandni Chowk was famous. Gurdwara Sisganj, however, is defiant on the halfway mark of the Chowk and appears to be the lone sentinel watching the human greed around it. I deceived myself in the first place, by imagining that the heritage work recently  carried out by the Delhi Corporation will set the clock back by a few centuries and recreate the splendour of the Mughal era. The Mughals have given us history, the land is ours as much as it was theirs. In the present acrimony of renaming all vestiges of Mughal imperialism, let's not discard a treasure house of history to which we alone are the true inheritors. The Delhi Corporation has done precious little to inculcate this sense of pride. Let Chandni Chowk shine once again in the  moonlight reflected by the elysian canal conceived by Jahan Ara  and not by the proliferating and offensive neon advertising boards. Let's be sensible and value our past.