Seeking Hope in Apocalyptic Times

In the eery stillness of the first weeks of the pandemic, the air heavy with anxiety and fear, it was hard not to think of the apocalypse. Would we ever emerge from this moment we could not understand, even as we registered the sudden deaths of people who were hale and hearty? The invisible peril from Wuhan was the stuff of mythology and horror films, terrorising humans who could not fathom what hit them but fell to it like ninepins.

Alongside the pandemic, a steady stream of frequent climate-induced disasters--floods, tsunamis, cyclones--remind us of the mythological end of time in several cultures, Biblical rains and floods or the pralayam of Indian puranas. The Ark of our times has turned out to be a private yacht and most of us are still drenched. The Big Fish that was to save the planet seems to have eaten all the small fish. 

"Hell in a handbasket" has been a phrase I have come back to several times a day. Just look at who we have become, the newspapers seem to say to me: mean, petty, conniving, untruthful, vengeful, egoistical, selfish, self-serving, arrogant, oblivious, unable to feel compassion, incapable of empathy, opportunistic. We watch people being lynched and raped and we film them first before briefly performing outrage and then moving on. We are just horrible. 

Our leaders. The less said, the better. In Indian mythology, the Big Fish ate the small fish and corrupt, venal Manus (kings) who oppressed and exploited the people and the earth eventually provoked the Pralayam. 

You tell me--if these are not apocalyptic times, what are they? 

And then yesterday, Ela Bhatt died. 

I did not know her personally. But in recent times, we have lost so many of these good human beings. Principled. Devoted to people--not work, careers, causes--but people. Humane. Hard-working. Trying to live their values. Gandhians. When I type the last word in the context of death, my heart breaks a little more. 

This year, I finally visited Ahmedabad, a city that has been on my bucket list for almost four decades. The first stop we made was to Sabarmati Ashram. I sat on the verandah of Gandhiji's home for a long time, looking at the river, and asking desperately for the courage and determination to get up and do what is needed every morning.

Social media and the derivative news media that report social posts as news have introduced us to many individuals who are famous for being famous or famous because they post online. Good for them! But it is not people of this time I want to be like. 

I want to be like the Gandhians whose presence and work I have taken for granted all my life. I envy that sort of engagement in public life, the span, the depth. I want to communicate like Gandhi. I also want that disciplined daily routine that gently accomplishes so much and is so elastic it accommodates everyone. I want to read and write like Nehru. I want to persist and work in ways that make life better for people everyday--like Ela Bhatt and Jaya Arunachalam did, to name just two. I want to aspire to be truthful and good and I want to bring that simplicity to my messy life.

We have ingrained from the capitalist, corporate world, the imperative of measurement. How many steps did I walk? How far have I come? How many people did I meet? How much money did I raise? How many people did I feed? How many votes did I win? They matter somewhere but they also don't matter at all.

Sitting on the porch of Gandhiji's cottage, looking at the trees and looking in the direction of the river (the high wall that obscures it must be a metaphor for something), I tried to breathe and pray and in some way touch the space and energy of all those well-intentioned visitors who met Gandhiji here, who seem never to have said, "I am so frustrated" or "I am so burnt out." I did not quite succeed. But I did bring back something. Hope, perhaps. 

Ela Bhatt's life work, like that of all the other Gandhians including Gandhi himself, points to one thing--doing something everyday adds up. This is something I too have always known. But the apocalyptic scale of humanity's problems makes me feel--makes many of us feel--that our efforts are useless. They are not.

I am also struck as I leave this blogpost midway to do housework at the equanimity, even joyful acceptance, with which Gandhi embraced the routine, mundane maintenance tasks of life. I am very distant from that ideal, performing them at best with efficiency and more often, with irritation. I could suggest that it is because we are so much more stressed in these times but I am honest enough to suspect that it is also temperament. I am not as evolved and perhaps, as a woman, the expectation of my acceptance riles me as much as the work itself. Topic for another blogpost! The point is that those routine tasks are also part of the big change or the big resistance we say we seek.

Hope lies in solidarity. The deep loss I feel about Elaben's passing is also related to this. We connect to each other through our values and friendships and these keep us going in hard times. When storm winds knock us off our feet, it is the people who hold on in solidarity that keep us from disappearing. When we disappear, these are the people who keep asking: Where is she? When someone like Elaben passes away, we lose a strong, steadfast link in that chain, one that has stood up so long that she has anchored many, many others. 

With the loss of each Gandhian, it is as if that world of principled action and integrity in public life slips further away from my reach and becomes a memory that too will fade. They feel like the last bastion of quiet goodness and that bastion is crumbling. To be as the words of Gandhiji's favourite bhajan suggest, one who knows the pain of others, helps others who are suffering, without ego or pride, is the hard road to hope. 

Will our children ever know of this wonderful world of goodness? All we now know is this apocalyptic moment of invisible evils, nature in fury and amoral, immoral humans. 

I seek hope everyday. In the discipline of a daily routine. In hard work. In the sincere effort to be as good as I can--not good at something, but just good. In solidarity with others--expressed at minimum as compassionate thought, hopefully with empathy and sometimes, as public support. Hope is in my effort. Success is also in my willingness to try. Maybe that was the secret of the charkha and spinning--to centre oneself in the task at hand. To keep spinning anyway. 

Many years ago, I wrote this: 10 things to do in times of political upheaval, DNA, March 27, 2017. It does not seem like enough at this moment, but if this is all I can do, I must do this at least.  

Ayodhya: Sabko Sanmati De Bhagvaan

Ayodhya means invincible. But anything with an absolute description like that is surely a metaphor. The town, its spirit and its history are defeated by the human battle over ground and walls and ceilings and this room or that room. The people perhaps defeated by being dragged into what ultimately are squabbles.

The idea... what is the idea of Ayodhya? I think of that para from the Valmiki Ramayana describing Ramrajya that I used to quote a great deal:

“Only more than a month has elapsed since you took the sceptre in your hand, O Raghava! And mortals have become strangers to disease, death does not overtake even men worn out with age, women undergo no labour-pains during parturition and human beings are well-built indeed. An abundance of joy has fallen to the lot of every citizen dwelling in the town, O king! Pouring down nectarean water clouds rain at the proper time. Even the very winds which blow here are capable of giving a delightful touch, and are pleasing and healthful. People living both in the cities and in the country, arriving in the capital, declare, ‘May such a sovereign be our ruler for long’, O king!” (Srimad Valmiki Ramayana, Uttara Kandam XLI: 15-21)

Perfect governance feels like a mirage. An idea easily squashed by human stupidity and cupidity.

***

Ever since I saw the Ayodhya judgment was due today, I have been thinking of our obsession with a physical location.

I have also been thinking of Sita. Abducted and ensconced in a grove that we, with our obsession for tying ideas down to physical locations, identify with Ella, Bandarawela or Nuwara Eliya in today's Sri Lanka, we are told she still found Rama in her heart, with her, in every part of her day. As she was in his.

To paraphrase a book I love, if you want to be with someone you love, aren't you already there?

Shouldn't devotion to a deity or a divine idea be the same?

***

I have also been thinking of Rama's perfect and ultimate devotee, Hanuman. Rama does not sit on a throne in a temple. In virtually every traditional illustration, except these stylised angry new Hanumans, Rama dwells in Hanuman's heart.

Hanuman is known for physical strength and valour, for this devotion and for sagesse. He was wise. By holding Rama in his heart, he freed his faith and love and devotion of time and place.

"i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)." The Internet is full of criticism of this ee cummings poem but to me it captures the kind of love you express to a beloved toddler--beyond reason and logic and trying to capture intense feeling in inadequate words: I love you to the moon and back. "i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)." No separation between you and me. Between Hanuman and Rama.

***

na jāyate mriyate vā kadāchin

nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ

ajo nityaḥ śhāśhvato ’yaṁ purāṇo

na hanyate hanyamāne śharīre 

(Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 20)

Krishna, also in essence Rama, tells Arjuna that the soul is not born and never dies, does not come into being or cease to be. Then, what birthplace? What birthplace for one who is not born and does not die? One who is without start or end, as we learn in the Vishwaroopa chapter? 

danṣhṭrā-karālāni cha te mukhāni

dṛiṣhṭvaiva kālānala-sannibhāni

diśho na jāne na labhe cha śharma

prasīda deveśha jagan-nivāsa

(Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 11, Verse 25)

"Having seen your many mouths bearing your terrible teeth, resembling the raging fire at the time of annihilation, I forget where I am and do not know where to go. O Lord of lords, you are the shelter of the universe; please have mercy on me."

I forget where I am and do not know where to go. You are the shelter of the Universe.

But we will confidently pinpoint the location of the birth of the one who is neither born nor dies, who encompasses and embodies and shelters the Universe, although we scarcely know if we are coming or going. 

***

Invincible, are our hubris, our ignorance and our inability to love without limit. 

***

As we wait for the Supreme Court's verdict on the Ayodhya case, in which we have reduced the idea of Rama to the persona of a land litigant, prayers for sense or even magnanimity have failed so we must pray for peace. 

We just celebrated Gandhiji's 15oth birthday. In the words of his favourite bhajan: 

Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram

Pateeta Paavana Sita Ram

Ishwar Allah Tero Naam

Sabko Sanmati De Bhagvaan

Sabko Sanmati De Bhagvaan.

What Gandhiji, Dev Anand and Vikram Sarabhai have in common

I have read three biographies in the last twelve months, choosing to do so with great enthusiasm either for the author or the subject or both. Last night, as I made my way through the third, I was struck by the similarity between these remarkable individuals, however unlikely it seems when I list their names: Gandhiji, Dev Anand and Vikram Sarabhai.

Gandhiji


Gandhiji is a fixture of any Indian child's early history lessons, an impossibly moral figure who cannot be real, a sculpture often overlooked in our city-scapes, a road which is often the 'main street' of our urban centres... anything but a person who lived, thought, felt, struggled as we did. This, in spite of the fact that he wrote copiously, candidly and compulsively about his life, thoughts and 'experiments with truth.'


Rajmohan Gandhi's account of Gandhiji's life and times brought home to me a person who was heroic mostly because he was trying and so honestly. I was moved by his transparent uncertainty, his need to be true to oneself and others, and his ability to reconcile life with ideal and do so without compromising the latter. I am awed by his ability to treat small and big things (by my definition) on the same plane: a household/prison/ashram routine, remembering details about individuals around him, projects that reflected his individual predilections (from naturopathy to brahmacharya) and visions that embraced humanity (satyagraha and independence). Not for him what is so easy for me to do: I cannot finish this chore today because I have a paper to write; I cannot exercise because I have to think about conflict resolution.


Dev Anand

Dev Anand. I cannot type this name without smiling; can you read it without smiling?


Dev Anand has epitomized charm for me since long before I thought about 'charm' or knew the word 'epitomize.' As he sashayed through town and country, wearing baggy pants and open smile, a beautiful SD Burman or Jaidev song on his lips, building houses and solving mysteries and facing moral dilemmas, I thought, they don't make real people like this! And even when the orange scarf came to stay and his face and mannerisms aged (it hurts to write this) while his spirit did not, I thought, they still don't make people like this! A few years ago, he was on 'Walk the Talk' and his energy was as infectious as his smile and his charm had been. I discovered another layer of Dev Anand-ness that I could really, really admire.


Dev Anand announced then that he was writing his memoirs and I waited for them like his countless other fans. He said he would launch them on his birthday (September 26) last year, and I ran to the bookstore on the very day. But how ironic! For this is a person who wrote about his past with the impatience of something speedier than Shinkansen (the Japanese bullet-train) and pronounced in his promotional interviews that he never listened to any of his old songs. Excerpts dwelt on his love-life, as does he in the manner of a stock-taking exercise. But this is not what is interesting about him. This is not why I think he is just phenomenal.


Dev Anand's autobiography impresses upon you his optimism, his self-confidence and his need to keep moving. He is sure we love him (of course!); he is sure his creativity is boundless (and it is!) and he has too much to do to conduct post-mortems on anything: movies, relationships, anything at all. I read the tome virtually non-stop, finishing it in two night-sessions. The writing style is unmistakably colonial university and there are stretches that are tedious for even those who do love him, but the compulsion to keep moving is irresistible and finally, that drives the reading process as well.



Vikram Sarabhai

And then, Vikram Sarabhai, as depicted by my contemporary at Elphinstone, Amrita Shah. Sarabhai was not someone I knew much about, but this looked like an interestingly written biography, fluently balancing the individual's story with that of his times. If I had to analyze my motivation for buying this, it would be partly that Amrita wrote this and Amrita writes well, and partly that biographies of this sort are still unusual in India.


Having never given Dr. Sarabhai any thought, I did not expect to find myself reading the story of a visionary, an institution-builder and a team-builder. As I read her account, I found myself thinking, 'Wow! Could I be like that?' I envied him his confidence and hoped there were things about him that I could identify with. The story of small beginnings to major institutions, the chutzpah to just go out and ask for what you need, the ability to take no for an answer and most importantly, the charisma and energy to draw talent to one's vision and the self-confidence to nurture another's genius--are all inspiring to one who is setting up a space of her own, with far fewer resources.

The commonalities


As I read Amrita's book, I found myself reflecting that in one year, I had been drawn to read three life-stories that have certain elements in common. Gandhiji, Dev Anand and Dr. Sarabhai were all raised in comfortable-to-affluent homes, but each in their own sphere of work was starting afresh. They were not without support, but it cannot have been easy to predict the way things would turn out for each of them. All three showed an unusual measure of self-confidence, whether because of temperament, a prediction or because they were to the manner born. However, that kind of confidence can also make a person stagnate and this happened with none of them. They chose their line of work, they followed their conscience/creativity/curiosity and they took chances.

All three individuals are high achievers but because their own success and achievement became by-products rather than their singular objective, they were able to create legacies that will survive them by generations.

In Gandhiji's case, arguably, we are that legacy, each of us Indians. In Dev Anand's case, it is a tremendous body of work, hits or flops, in Indian cinema which we will enjoy and analyze for years. In Dr. Sarabhai's case, that legacy is a network of enterprises and institutions that have been benchmark centres of excellence.


All three individuals began right where they stood. They did not wait for another life, another stage, another moment. Gandhiji's political career began when he found himself in a situation that needed a neutral arbiter soon after he arrived in South Africa. He did not ask: is this the moment, am I the right person? He just did what was needed to be done. Dev Anand did the rounds of studios and auditions, working as a postal censor during the Second World War. He took risks and capitalized on whatever opportunities came his way. Vikram Sarabhai put his fine education and his family resources to work in ways that remain visionary today. His biographer tells us that his scientific work pales in comparison to his institution-building, without prejudice to the former. To envisage the need for research laboratories, for cultural centres and for institutions for management education is not unusual, but to start them confidently in sheds, in available houses, with what one has, confident that other things will follow... to do this without waiting for the perfect moment. To me that is what he has in common with the two Librans in this discussion.


Those who spread dread are countless, especially, I am sorry to say, in India. Those who dream are fewer, but still not impossible to find. Those who make their dreams come true, a rare breed.


But rarest of all is a quality that these three gentlemen had/have in common: the ability to make their dream the dream of many, many others. Gandhiji told us we could win freedom through non-violence, and most Indians came to believe it with all their hearts. Dev Anand's portrayals of urban sophistication and charm are iconic, and his choice of themes and stories always surprising and new. Navketan's oeuvre will outlive his own story. Sarabhai, we are told, made everyone around him eager to make his dream come true and be the best they could be.


In all these life-stories, I saw glimpses of what every spiritual teacher advocates: mindfulness, being in the present moment, integrity, creativity and the courage to be creative. Ego, too, does not seem all bad; it is where confidence and conviction can receive reinforcements and it is what allows you to bounce back from failures. The ability to build partnerships and coalitions is also a common factor in all three stories, with Gandhiji being the best communicator by far of the three.


I don't really have a conclusion for these reflections are works-in-progress. I do know that this year, I will need a lot of these lessons as we work on creating our own non-profit research space in Chennai. The examples of these fine people will have to take me through the challenges of fund-raising, coalition-building, team-building and an endless procession of drafts and revisions for every single thing we write. I am sure this is not the last you will hear on this subject in this blog!

Gandhi and me (and you, if you like)

Everyone is writing about Gandhiji, why not me?

Earlier this year, I read Rajmohan Gandhi's 'Mohandas' and found it utterly absorbing. Having grown up on a mind-numbing diet of Gandhian hagiographical texts that caricatured and rendered him boring, I was captivated to discover him as a person, and a person I could have related to, in this account.

Six months after that reading, the image that stands out the most in my mind is that of a person all alone in spite of the crowd around. There is actually a paragraph in which the author signals this, but as the story of Gandhi's life moves towards its conclusion, it is hard to miss. When everyone called him Mahatma, placed him on a pedestal, asked him for advice, to whom could he have said: I am not sure or I don't know why but I just feel low today? To his credit, he did not hesitate to voice doubt. He was not encumbered by the need to keep up appearances. If he was not sure or if he found himself inconsistent, we know it now. 'Satyameva jayate,' but the point of departure with Gandhi was that he was as honest with himself and about himself with others as he could muster. This is greater heroism than camping in strife-torn Noakhali, in my view. Harder to overcome the impulse to construct a heroic meta-narrative for one's own life than anything else.

Also difficult, the need to align one's life and ideology, one's personal habits and one's rhetoric, and Gandhi tried to do this admirably and annoyingly; he was evangelical about some of these things. But as I write this, I think that for all my blogging about the lack of public sanitation, if I were Gandhi, I would probably go out there and start cleaning up after people. Now the moment I say that, this Gandhian streak seems less annoying and more admirable.

In fact, the alignment of personal and political in Gandhi's life is remarkable because of the way it manifests. In our day, it is more common to see it in the form of friendships at best and patronage or nepotism at worst. For Gandhiji, it took two forms. The first is this need to walk the talk, to do what you say should be done. The second is closely aligned: a cultivation of personal qualities that have been valued by this civilization at all times.

These qualities begin with the ability to be true to yourself and to be honest. Gandhi's language reflects his deep roots in Indian ways of thinking and being, and being true to yourself is also being true to your dharma (however you define it). This is the second quality: courage of conviction, and doing what is right or righteous. Gandhi's references to Rama evoke not a mythical or historical personage as much as they do a set of values for public life: upholding dharma or law, carrying out one's duty, doing what is needed, taking action. (It is another matter that we may read those definitions of dharma or right action differently; but the right or even duty to define for oneself is surely part of this tradition.)

More than all of these, for years now, I have been struck by the idea that a satyagrahi must first meet some criteria before she can offer satyagraha (not wage, but offer). The notion that a degree of personal evolution is a prerequisite for political or public action moves me greatly. It resonates with the important Indian value that saiyyam (self-control or self-discipline, but less negatively) is to be cultivated by all persons and personages. The Puranas are full of stories about gods (Indra, most often) who are unable to control their lusts, their egos, their anger. Indra's repeated fall from grace is a mythical illustration of Shantideva's advice that a moment of anger can be a monumental spiritual setback.

I will not declare here that all politicians are bad or politics stinks. But how many politicians or political activists can you think of that come into the public arena without avarice or ambition, without anger or without ego. Each of these is harder to lose than the one before. We may not seek fame and fortune in politics, but how much better is it if your activity is constantly fueled by anger?Nowadays, I find that perpetual outrage very hard to be around. Yes, there is a great deal to be outraged about, but witnessing the anger, one should be able to move without it towards action. And leaving behind ego? For most of us, it would be hard to separate our selves from our egos even intellectually.

Gandhi's view that the satyagrahi within has to cultivated before a person can offer satyagraha is therefore inspiring. It is irrelevant whether Gandhi or any other satyagrahi consistently and perfectly met this requirement. What is very relevant is the idea that social change begins within a single individual, that the individual's inner journey animates the public one.

This works on so many levels. If I am struggling and struggling with awareness and honesty that I am, I am more compassionate towards others, no matter what their challenges. Compassion enhances my identification with them, and motivates me to serve, surely an imperative in public life. The will to serve slowly diminishes the ego, as does the recognition that we are all the same. In the context of a long journey, small lapses are small; in the absence of that journey, there are only lapses.

As I grow older and want to commit more and more of my time to broader objectives, I find myself reflecting on this a great deal. My appreciation of Gandhiji's journey improves as I understand how profound his inner challenges must have been. At the same time, I grow fonder of him--almost as a family member--as I realize that his road and mine or yours are not that different. He too had to work hard at overcoming a liking for this or a distaste for that. He too had to learn patience. He had to learn to be honest, more and more honest. Because he acknowledged being challenged, it is easier to face our challenges. It was not his ambition to become a Mahatma, but by looking each situation in the eye and patiently seeking to resolve it, responding to the demands of each moment, and then being honest about his inner struggles each time, he became one.

Mahatma-hood has served Gandhiji ill. It has separated him from us. It has taken a quirky, lively person and made him a plaster-of-Paris saint cum cure for insomnia. It has created an industry of image-makers for this iconoclast. It has replaced the drama and colour of his life for vapid dialogues and insipid sepia tones. The Mahatma's life is told as a string of discrete events--born in Porbandar, went to South Africa, got pushed off a train, started a farm, came to India, became Father of the Nation--which obfuscate how he lived and who he was. None of this makes a difference to Gandhi, but what a loss to us!