Nondescript

Nondescript

I am no astronomer but when SR of my office volunteered to introduce me to the night sky of Kolkata I could not say no as I was thinking what is so special about the sky. I was wondering whether he would show me evolution of universe which is going on since eternity. Hydrogen and Helium together with Proton bumping in the nucleus creating new elements going down the periodic table after becoming heavier. I have read “A brief history of time “by Stephen Hawkins so all those myriad thoughts were racing through my mind.

SR as promised came to my flat in Golf Green with a nondescript gentleman in crumpled kurta and pajama. I did not bother much about that gentleman. SR was carrying a longish box. We all climbed up the stairs to the roof of our 11 storied flat.

SR opened the box and got busy in setting up a telescope with the help of the gentleman who to me at that time appeared as Professor Shanku of Satyajit Ray. I mean not physically as per Satyjit Ray’s sketch but in his simplistic behavior.

If I remember correctly the telescope was oriented towards norths as I was interested to see ring around Saturn.

SR and Prof Shanku ( i started calling him that mentally) adjusted a few knobs after having a deep discussion between themselves. Both looked through the scope and were satisfied.

‘sir you can see the Saturn with rings”.

“Do I take off my specs?”

“No, keep it !”

I bent down to the lower end of the scope and saw the spectacular rings around the planet through that, I was spell bound by that terrestrial sight.

“ The rings of Saturn are the most extensive planetary ring system of any planet in the Solar System. They consist of countless small particles, ranging from μm to m in size, that orbit about Saturn. The ring particles are made almost entirely of water ice, with a trace component of rocky material.”

Explained Professor Shanku and I was impressed by his knowledge.

Then both of them showed me Mars with two moons.

We were on the roof for more than one hour and they showed me Venus, Mercury , the milky way and finally a few constellations.

They had deliberately come after 8 PM so that all the planets are visible. We trooped back to our flat. My wife served them tea.

I did not know that more surprise was waiting for me. I had just returned from my UK trip and SR started asking me how was the trip.

I told them about my experience of England including the popular London tube.

Sipping tea professor Shanku started telling his experience of tube railway and informed that the tube of Moscow was better organized than that of London.

I was bowled out as I did not expect that non-descript gentleman to have travelled so wide. SR watched  bewildered look on my face and laughed.

“Sorry it is my mistake of not giving proper introduction of Dr.R, professor of Mathematics in JU and has vast knowledge of astronomy.”

I thought to myself that rightly I have placed him as professor Shanku as he was a man of science and gave respectful smile to him. He was feeling embarrassed by my reaction.

During that period  I had watched the Oscar winning movie “A beautiful mind” where Russel Crowe acted as Nobel winning mathematician Dr.John Nash ,who had done extensive work on Chaos theory. Dr.R informed me that he had met Dr.Nash in US and started explaining chaos theory and how psephologists use this for poll prediction. He gave a lecture which of course I could not understand fully.

I always wanted to meet a real intellectual and not a pseudo kind and was happy to come across Dr.R of JU and thanked Satyajit Ray for creating a carbon copy in his fictions. 

I wanted to share my experience of planetary system and Dr.R's knowledge of Chaos theory with others.

When i was posted in Bhopal i contacted SR and invited him along with Dr.R to BHEL to enlighten the  kids of six schools of BHEL,ladies club, officer's club and other employees.

Yes both of them came to BHEL,Bhopal with their that high powered telescope and shared their knowledge of planetary system , it was unique experience for those who attended these programmes.

In India people like Dr.R go unrecognized because in India the system of political patronage works. Watch those innumerable debates in channels and so called intellectuals occupying some important position in some institute which they never want to vacate and give way to younger generation.

I was invited by JU to participate in 100 years completion of their Electrical Engineering department after my retirement where one of the eminent Ex professors SD gave a presentation before my lecture. I often see him in TV connected with any technical discussion as expert but his presentations were straight lift from the articles appearing in the net, one has to simply Google it. He threw a question at me based on his latest knowledge acquired through web about use of permanent magnet in switch gears and incidentally i had read the same article so i shot back at him saying that his question was based on that article and the reply was also known to him. 

So much for Indian intellectuals the species which gained currency after private channels of TV came in.Now of course intellectuals have colors as per their political leanings so we often hear them called as Red,Green,Orange etc. For me that Dr.R still remains a true quintessential intellectual who does not sell his wares to get glamour and wealth, a nondescript to the core.

Sketches of Ghats of Varanasi

I have been visiting Varanasi regularly while i posted from BHEL in Singrauli Super Thermal Power Station of NTPC from 1981 to 1984.
Then after reading Shiva trilogy by Amish started visiting Varanasi from 2013 every year. During my those last 4 visits i have captured many shots in my camera and in my mind. These sketches are partly from those pictures taken by me and partly from memory. I must admit i was guided by some existing sketches of ghats of Varanasi.

Dhamekh Stupa in Sarnath near Varanasi

Mind blowing

Mind blowing

……………………….

It was a hectic day, getting up early in the morning to catch Shatabdi for Kathgodam and then a road journey of one hour by SUV to Naukuchiatal. By the time we reached it was 1.30 PM.

I was taking rest after lunch in our room in the kumaoon Mandal Tourist lodge when my nephew Shuvo entered. Me, my wife Madhuri and shuvo chatted for some time and then shuvo suggested we go out for a walk around the beautiful lake before it becomes dark. There had been snowfall in Himalayas ,the day temperature at Naukuchiatal was hovering around 12 degrees.

I got up from the bed , put on my warm jacket , shoes,cap and went out with Shuvo. The perimeter of the lake is about 5.5km and the road around it is partly metaled. We were enjoying the walk in that cold ,after a few minutes of walk we came across a tea shop. Some local people were having tea and were discussing the landslide victory of BJP in Uttarakhand , the same day ie 11 th of March,17 the result of assembly election was declared. It appeared a Sadhu whose Ashram is in the jungle near the lake had predicted the result. We got interested and sat down with them to know more about the sadhu.

“Does he perform miracle?” I asked curiously.

They did not like my question, my tone was cynical.

I quickly corrected myself by asking , “ Can he heal chronic diseases? As we often see Ramdev talking about powers of Himalayan jadi buti or herbs?”

“We heard that he has discovered many herbs for loss of memory, regaining health, improving concentration etc.” One of them informed us.

“You take this road till the metaled road comes to an end then on the right a dirt road will take you to his ashram. It is about 100 meters steep rise.” Another one told us helpfully.

We paid for our tea and started our walk around the lake.

“Let us go to that Sadhu.” I said.

“Can you walkup that steep rise?” Shuvo was not sure about my prowess.

I was also not sure whether I would be able to climb but still curiosity compelled me to push my luck, “ Don’t worry, I will manage.”

After 10 minute walk we came to the end of the tar topped road, we found two dirt roads one going straight circling the lake and the other one was at the right going up. We could see an arrow indicating Ashram of Sukhdev baba on that road at the right. We trudged on for about 10 minutes, it was pretty steep, arrived to a flat surface. Not a big Ashram ,a moderately big hut with lot of foreign back packers sprawling around on the ground. The sight of backpackers was not surprising as they can easily access cannabis in Himalayas.

The sadhu was sitting on a raised platform, his disciples were scurrying around. We caught hold of one of those disciples and started enquiring about herbal medicines.

“Come straight to me.” We heard Sadhu shouting at us in Hindi.

We were taken aback; we thought he had not noticed us.

We hurriedly walked towards the rostrum and bowed at him.

He smiled and said, “Cut out the formalities, don’t get mislead by this orange garb. I am no sadhu; I am a botanist and came to do research on medicinal herbs twenty years back.”

“Interesting, then why did you stay back?” I asked while both of us sat down in front of him.

With a beatific smile he said, “I love hills and while going up and down these hills I fell in love with nature. I discovered many medicinal herbs and cured the villagers from chronic diseases. They insisted that I stay with them, I had no money excepting my doctorate degree from Jadavpur.”

“Are you a Bengali?” I hesitantly asked.

“I know how to speak Bengali but I am from Bihar. My original name is Sukhdev Tiwari and now I am Sukhdev baba.” He said with a big laugh switching to Bengali.

“Look at those foreigners, to them I tell about Hindu philosophy, Budhism, Jainism and give them bhang or cannabis which is available in abundance in the hills. They go back to their countries and talk about me; more of them troop in every year during winter.”

I was impressed by his simplicity, “You must be getting offer from Ayurvedic companies?” I asked.

“Yes, Ramdev sent offer but I don’t want to commercialize  my research.”

“Do you have any herb for remembering things, I often forget the passwords or locker number.” I asked eagerly.

He called one of his disciples and told something. That guy brought some small baskets with labels.

He gave a pinch of herb and said,”first take your mind when approximately last you used your password which you don’t remember now”.

I was not remembering my email password of Yahoo since I switched over to Gmail. I remembered that my Gmail account is roughly 12 years old or so I tried to remember some event of 2005. I remembered to have shifted to our present address in Calcutta in February,2005, even I could recall my first visit to the flat before the purchase. Around that period I was using Yahoo so I took the pinch of herb. For a moment my mind went blank, a kind of zero experience and then with sudden jerk I came back to my senses. The mind was absolutely fresh and the password floated in my mind. I felt great.

“Yes, I can recall my lost password, thanks Sukhdevji.” I told him.

“You are kidding!” Shuvo whispered in my ear cynically,I winked at him.

“Please don’t discuss about this herb with anyone, this is my latest discovery. I had to go deeper in the Kumaoon mountain range with one of my volunteers and chanced upon this. I am in search of elixir of life which our sages supposed to have found in Himalayas.” Sukhdevji said.

“How did you find this?” I asked eagerly.

“Whenever I see some plants with small buds and flowers then I smell that first.From the smell I can make out whether that plant has some curative quality. After that I cut the stems, roots, buds, leaves, flowers and collect those in my bag. Once in three months or so I make trip to the hills to discover new herbs and of course my search for elixir of life will continue. I always take one of these volunteers with me. This memory herb is my latest discovery; of course I mix some other ingredients as well”

“Did you find any herb to reduce weight?” I was looking for a quick solution to reduce my weight.

He laughed loudly and said, “There are dieticians, gyms for that. Don’t you see film stars keep on adding abs at their own will? You contact one of them!”

It was getting dark and I already got a call in my mobile from my wife so nudged my nephew to get up.

Before leaving I requested him to give some of those concoctions of memory regain. He gave a small box containing the magic potion.

I wanted to pay but he refused to take money. Before leaving I asked about his prediction about BJP’s victory which we heard in the tea shop.

He said with a twinkle in his eyes, “ Oh,that! A team conducting exit poll had come to the ashram and they only told me. As they could not declare so I told on their behalf to the local people. Now local BJP leaders regularly visit me to find out if I need anything.”

The journey back was through the woods to the tourist lodge, we covered the distance in ten minutes.

I told Shuvo not to discuss about my taking that herb for memory and he kept it to himself.

After returning to Delhi I wanted to draw our maternal place in Birbhum which I have last seen in 1964. Surreptitiously I took that box out so that my wife could not see and took a pinch of herb. As experienced earlier, after a momentary blackout the complex in Bipratikuri , Birbhum got projected in my mind screen vividly. I could draw the layout correctly which was confirmed by my brother and sister. Later on I drew our house of Allahabad after taking a pinch of that herb. I have shared those pictures with my Face Book friends and in Google plus.

Well friends my request to you all is not to divulge about this mind blowing herb to anyone. I have a feeling this has shelf life and the potency may not sustain forever .
By the way after returning to Calcutta i am not able to locate that box of herb. I hid it in some such place that i forgot that secret location. Looks like i have to make another trip to Naukuchiatal.