Were have all the ghosts gone?

I have this feeling that ghosts were there when we were kids but slowly those have left us as the population was exploding. But still when i go to a hill station i do come across some stories about sighting ghost . During my childhood days we would go for summer vacations to our mother's village ,Bipratikuri in Birbhum. Those days the village was not connected by road, no electricity, kerosene lanterns were the source of light at night.

It is about 7 km from Kankalitala near Bolpur.We would get down at Lavpur from a narrow gauge train and then travel by bullock cart to the village. It was backward in all respect with a middle school and a dispensary to boast.                

Kankalitala

Lavpur Station

With the sunset the village would be dark as there was no electricity. The kerosene lanterns were used extensively in the houses. The starlit sky or the moon would be the source of light. The kucha country road will be lighted by the diffused light coming out from the windows of the houses. We would hurry home after our evening outing to avoid darkness, often someone would have a torch. Walking down those half lighted roads and our moving shadows would give us goose bumps.The dark moonlit night would make our imagination to work in top gear.The reason for the thinking about the unknown was because we were from a modern city like Delhi where the evenings would be lighted by street lights and of course by all other lights from the various houses along the road, proportionately less of darkness than in villages .So the difference was that of between light and dark.At that phase of our childhood we would believe many of those ghost stories as we would listen ghost stories in the pitch dark night surrounded by dark outlines of palm trees creating an eerie ambience, the only source of light would be a kerosene lamp kept at the corner. We would sit closely huddled together when one of our maternal uncles would narrate some ghostly incident of the village .None of us would get up alone even for drinking water. I think today's children miss that thrill of the darkness and which generated much of the ghost stories. Now Hollywood has to produce those atmosphere by using special effect which we were getting free in those dark nights, it was the childhood thrills of unknown.

Then there would be some old broken down haunted houses in the village where nobody would be staying or may be some old lady would be staying alone. In our that village there was one such dilapidated house with a pond , we would not look at that house in the dark lest the ghost spots us. We heard many stories of ghost sighting in that house. Recently when i visited Bipratikuri i went to that house. I found that children were playing around that house and a club has come up, but that old house was still there. The pond was filled up.When asked about existance of ghost there those children laughed it off as a joke.

Third place of ghost sighting would be the adjoining burning ghat.We would hear many stories about how young men would lay bet to go there alone in moonless nights . . The scene of Srikanta ( Srikanta by Saratchandra Chattopadhya)accepting the challenge of spending the night in the burning ghat alone  ignoring the request of Rajlakhi would often play out in my mind.As a matter of fact i absorbed most of the nuances of that idyllic village through the writings of Saratbabu , including Indranath's escapades. .Indranath was fearless as per Srikanta. Indranath faced ghosts boldly , those days I believed that and would try to locate a fearless youngman like Indranath in that village.

That village has lost its charms now, there is a metalled road running by the side of the village,there is electricity, telephones,TV and all other the modern trappings.As usual there is violent politics of the kind we read every day in news papers,the goons have replaced the ghosts now.

It is said that ghosts have no religion, they don't fight with each other over religion.They also don't scare people with religious bias or prejudice.as a matter of fact the religious chanting scare them away.Looks like this fanaticism with the religions might be one of the reasons for their nonexistance in our spheres.Ghosts were secular in todays parlence.

I got this enclosure constructed around the banyan tree at the bus stop of Kankalitala around 1997 in memory of my mother. I am not sure whether today it is still there or not.

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In the name of cow

In the name of cow

………………………………

I did my schooling from Dehi. We were teased by North Indian friends for eating fish. Those days in Delhi Bengali meant fish eater and madrasis were the south Indians whose staple food was idli ,dosa  . I have not seen any of my north or south Indian friends eating non-veg, it was kind of taboo. Yes, all my Bengali friends were eating non-veg. During those days i never heard anyone eating beef. Come to think of that during our school days’ meat meant mutton and not chicken. During  one of our biyearly visit to maternal place in Bengal I witnessed sacrifice of a goat during some puja, that ghastly scene made a lasting impression in my subconscious mind and I stopped eating mutton, may be from class two or so. In our house those days whenever mutton was cooked then my mother would prepare separately egg curry for me. Of course I started eating mutton and chicken when I joined IIT,Kharagpur. Now I am more comfortable with aloo paratha than with mutton curry.
I remember "Cow"was the very popular subject for essay in all vernacular schools and almost in all languages.

Those days in Delhi we had seen sadhus coming with cow and declaring those as very holy , one could ask any question to those and those cows would reply by swaying their heads either sideways meant “no” or up and down meant ‘’Yes”. So the question has to be objective type with yes and no answers. Someone would ask, “Will I get a job?” obviously the cow would nod it’s head meaning ‘Yes’’. If someone asked ,”will it rain?” The cow would move its head sideways meaning ‘no’. Nothing divine here the clever sadhu with the rope tied around the neck of the cow would make it do all those head motions. This of course I analyzed much later. Sometimes some sadhu would bring a freak cow with a fifth leg hanging from the shoulder and declare that to be very auspicious. So all the ladies of our muhalla would line up to donate rice or money to the sadhu and get blessings. Yes, in north India cow is revered and not surprising all these cow related things are happening in Northern belt of India. In connection with job I was posted in Southern and Western India and found that in Tamil Nadu getting non-veg in common restaurant in 1980s was a problem. One has to go to military restaurant for non-veg, I had gone to such restaurants in Chennai, those were not really owned by army or any such thing but because they served non-veg so were called military restaurant. Now when I go to Madurai for Windmills, the official lunch served by the host is vegetarian.

I faced extreme vegetarianism in Wanakbori ,Gujarat  during 1985 to 88, no meat or fish shop was allowed in the Electricity Board Township. I was going to a market in a slum away from the Township for meat, for fish I was travelling some 8 kms away to a small town .Only egg was allowed to be sold in the township.

Now I come across many Marwaris, Punjabis who don’t eat non-veg in their houses but relish those in restaurants. During my posting in Refineries of IOC in Gauhati and Barauni I had no problem with non-veg, like in Bengal those were easily available in cooked or raw form anywhere.
The people of Andhra are like in Bengal which i realized during my 3 years posting in Vizag Steel Plant, they are non veg all the way.
Display of carcass of cow openly in a meat shop i had seen in Shillong, Khasis and Garos go for beef in a big way. 
While in Bhopal the officer's club dinner used to be veg affair till i reached there. After my joining as Executive Director  the club  started having a non veg dish in the special dinner parties, now possibly it is back to veg there. The marriage dinners would be veg affair excepting for Bengali marriages. I can never forget the delicious kabbabs and Birayani of MrsBuniyad Ali which Buniyad would bring lovingly during Eids, i really miss those and also Aftab who too would bring home cooked biryani during Eid.
By the way within last 3 weeks i attended 2 special dinners in Kolkata and both were totally vegetarian, of course those are nonbong affair.
During my first Dhaka visit in 1999 or so Dilawar Hussain a manager of Bangladesh Electricity Board was assigned to me to show around. He took me to Chittagong Power Station and then we returned to Dhaka. While walking the Dhaka Streets i saw a meat shop and meat in the form of a tree trunk. I asked Dilawar what was that. He was looking embarrassed and requested me to walk faster past that shop. But my curiosity got better of me so i again asked him,"What was that?" He shyly stammered and said, "Beef!" I was touched by his sincerity as he did not want to hurt my sentiments so was trying to avoid the question. 

This cow or non-veg is a kind of cultural issue and varies from region to region but some unscrupulous guys are whipping up sentiments to make these as national issue and diverting from the main issue of poverty, unemployment etc. As I have noticed there are good number of citizen who worship cow and at the same time we have a section who enjoy beef, then there is that section who are part of the supply chain of beef. So there three categories of people, vegetarians and non-beef eaters like me, beef eaters and beef suppliers, it is necessary that the fine balance is restored within the framework of the constitution as soon as possible to avoid the present atmosphere of barbarism in the name of cow vigilantism.

My friend Dev D

My friend Dev D

………………………

“I am also from Delhi,” Mrs. M informed me smilingly. She was a healthy lady in her late forties. We were having tea in my office colleague M’s flat in Vasant Kunj, Delhi. My flight to Calcutta was delayed so M took me to his flat to spend the intervening time.

When Mrs.M came to know that  I am originally  from Delhi then she informed me that she was also from Delhi.

I got curious and inquired, “Where did you stay in Delhi?”

“We were in those bungalows behind teacher’s quarter in Gole Market.”

Her above statement made me sit up and look at her closely. I was in my early fifties then and she was in late forties and also has put on weight, I was trying to find that smart girl in skirt whom I first saw on a swing in their garden. This happened when I was in school, possibly in class nine. I had gone to her house with my friend Durga. Durga used to blow away the school fees and she being his love interest used to make up for the shortfall. The visit of Durga was to collect money from her and also let out the secret to me about her being his girlfriend. Durga’s house was in the teacher’s quarter just behind her dad’s official bungalow.

Let me first confess that Durga was some kind of hero in our eyes and also he was one of my closest friends. Those days we were all fan of Devanand, for us Durga was our Devanand. His hair style was like that of Devanand puffed up and all ,his stances were like the hero, even he would dress up like Devanand. He would not miss any movie of Devanand. He had numerous female admirers because of his smart look. His mother was a teacher of a nearby government run public school for girls, we knew about girls going to his house on the pretext of meeting his mother and in turn meet the local Devanand but at no time he let us know that his real love interest was staying behind his house. That kindly chubby lady sitting in front of me that day in Vasant Kunj was that cute girl in her teens swinging merrily in the garden in late nineteen fifties.

While we would be playing football Durga would often bring his friend Zindi with him. He was another care free chap. Those two will keep us rollicking while narrating their recent adventures. Durga was a great bluffer so he was also known as Gulbaj(that's Bengali word for bluffer) Durga in our friends’ circle. In the class Durga would sit next to me and copy my notes. Most of the time he was flushed with money; often he would go out of the class with the pretext of going to the toilet , would come back with pocketful of peanuts and gathia. When we were busy in solving sum he would be busy eating those, he usually shared those with me too. I also gladly accepted his bribes in exchange of allowing him to copy the sums solved by me. Later on I came to know that all those money was from that girl who was staying behind his house...…cut to present, the middle aged lady sitting in front of me in Vasant Kunj.

He failed in class nine and thus could no longer sit next to me. Though he was not in my class but he would come every day to chit chat with me in our play field in chummeries where we were staying those days  which was close to his house in Gole Market.

I passed out and went to IIT, he somehow managed to pass higher secondary and did some kind of private course and became lab assistant in Cambridge School, Delhi.

Whenever I was in Delhi I would meet him in Kalibari of Gole Market. By that time they had shifted from the teacher’s quarter to a government flat on Reading Road near our school, Raisina Bengali. In the meanwhile we had shifted to Wilson Square which was very close to Birla Mandir, now of course those squares are no longer there.

I was told that he was a regular in Kalibari as he was addicted to three cards or was a gambler; he also boasted to me how he was making a tidy sum through gambling. He was much more matured than all of us, he had a steady girlfriend whereas we could not think beyond our studies, and he took to smoking, drinking, gambling much before we could dare to think about those in sixties.

That year I had come for Durga Puja in Delhi from Barauni refinery of IOC where I was posted then, it was sometimes in late sixties. He took me to his house and told me that he was planning to hitch hike to Europe. He showed me a map and elaborated his travel plan. The route was full of danger, he wanted to hitch hike through Khyber Pass to Afghanistan and from there find a way to reach Europe. He showed me his passport to convince me as I was laughing at his foolhardy plan. We used to kid each other a lot so I thought that this was one of his pranks which he was trying to pull on me. I wished him luck and left.

On my next visit I was told that he had left India , had reached Germany, so he was not bluffing about his hitch hike plan to Europe, i felt bad that i was doubting his intent.

After that many years had passed, I had gone to Delhi in 1973 for my first Durga Puja after my marriage and was visiting Kalibari to offer puja with my wife. My mother called someone from a tea stall and said to me , “Can you recognize him?”

A big fat fellow came out of the stall and hugged me tightly and said, “Somu, it has been years since we last met.”

Oh my god it was Durga, he had a French beard and weighing more than 100 kgs whereas I was still below 70kgs. If he would have passed by me in the road I would not have recognized him, it was completely a changed Durga in all respects. I was trying to find out our Devanand in that fat Durga, the real Devanand on the screen was still fit as a fiddle . He called out for someone in the tea stall, a foreign lady came out. She was introduced as his girlfriend and he informed us that he was going to marry her. She was a German lady. I introduced my wife to him and told her about his exploits.

Those days any one going to foreign meant he was minting money.

“You must be earning a good sum there in Germany.” I asked.

“No yar, I am just a worker. There are about 1000 Indians in Germany and I might be the one getting the lowest.”

“Did you see Munich Olympic?” In 1972 the Olympic was held in Munich, there was massacre of players from Israel by Palestinians.

“I was there but not watching the Olympic but breaking ice.” He gave a loud laugh and with that laugh I could get back my old friend Dev D where D stands for Durga.

That was our last meeting….he must have settled there with kids and all. His first love was married to my office colleague and well settled with a college going daughter in 1999.

At the Delhi airport I looked at me closely in the glass and found a man with 38 waist and a receding hair line staring back at me. But those moments in Vasant Kunj transported me back to my school days when I had hardly any pocket money but there was a satisfied complete life with my friends, parents and my relatives. Many of them are no more there. But a chance meeting like this brings back those good old memories and gives a chance to live through those past happy days.

The wise one

The wise one

………………….

“Do you believe in God?”

He smiled at me and said, “Why, your own Ramkrishna Paramhansa Dev has said …if you believe that God is there then He is there but if you doubt or look for proof then he is far away from you!”

It was pretty strong logic as I know many believers and the same time I know many non-believers. For example at Farakka Superthermal Power station we were facing a serious problem in our 500 MW turbine.I normally don't believe in rituals of puja etc but somehow thought of approaching the divinity for solution. Me,my wife went to Tarapeeth with two of my colleagues from finance Mukherjee and Thakur.We did puja there for BHEL. Parallely of course we were putting technical efforts to resolve the vibration issue.Lo,behold a letter from our collaborator from Germany resolved the issue. As it has been often found that one who keeps on helping others gets help from unexpected source. It's the circle of Karma, " Kar bhala to ho bhala ".

I have this habit of irritating the wise one by asking him random odd questions.

“Do you believe in rebirth?”

He laughed out loudly and said,” let me quote something for you!”

Quote

As per the scriptures, depending upon his good/virtuous and bad/sinful actions, the jivatama will be taken to Yama and after judgement he will be meted out the judgement as per his actions during his living years on earth, accordingly either he will be sent to heaven or hell .Only after he has experienced those that he will obtain another body on earth.

So the answer to your question, yes it depends upon the karma. More good karma means more time in heaven and hence it will take more time until the jivatma enters another body. Only after their stock of punya is over that they fall down to earth:

Unquote;

“Are you serious, The Wise One?” I asked.

“Don’t ask me?Ask Google? Google is the present day God, it has answer for all questions. It will give you both negative and positive answers. Even if I give any answer still you will check in Google. I know people are consulting Google before consulting doctor for any of their health related problem.” He said sarcastically.

“You are sidestepping my question” I said grudgingly.

“I know that you have been going to Varanasi every year, didn’t you find any answer there to your question?” He asked teasingly.

“Yes,I got part answer there. The devout Hindus go there to get Moksha from this life cycle of death and rebirth. I mean if they die there.”

“ If this rebirth is so certain then there is no scope of increase of population. It is soul the leaving one body and entering another body, it is one to one replacement.’ He said with a twinkle in his eyes and continued with the logic,” how does then new soul get created as in reality the population keeps on increasing?”

He confused me with his logics but made his point. Not only Hindu, Jain, Budhism talk about rebirth but Greek philosophers like Plato, Pythagoras held the belief of rebirth/metempsychosis.

I thought to myself not to pursue this topic of rebirth any further with him instead asked him , ‘What rules a man, his mind, body or soul ?”

“What is this QA session with me? When you asked this question to me then it is your mind prompted you to ask. My answer to you may be or may not be acceptable to you because instantly your mind will start analyzing. Take another instance you are passing a beggar in the street, you feel pity and want to give some money, here your soul has prompted you to act. The body is our external envelope but when that envelope starts dominating more than the content inside then the woes of acquiring more worldly possession start. Unfortunately, today we are in that materialistic world where people are in a hurry to acquire so you can say ruled by the body, bodily comfort is more important than spiritual fulfillment. There are many smart evangelists who are taking advantage of this mental chaos. You find televangelists giving out sermons day and night or those enumerable gurus operating from various ashrams. I see you are not wearing any ring in your fingers with stones but if you look closely then you will find most of the people wear rings with all kinds of stones to wade off evils or for good luck.”

True,I have noticed all kinds of artists, businessmen, politicians , in short celebrities have this ring fetish. So ring gets substituted for God. The other day a political leader told me that he had shouted on some guy for some work and later on he realized that he might get a curse from that guy so to escape that he paid him 500 bucks.

At the end of the day these are all faith or belief but somehow these click.

“Any more question?”

I could see he was enjoying the session with me.

“Next time I will come with some mundane questions.”

I got up and started walking out. He smiled at me with an imperceptible wink. While going out I could hear Righteous Brother’s “Unchained Melody” from the English movie “Ghost” was playing softly in the background and The Wise One was swaying with the music. I smiled back at him and walked out of the sanctum sanatorium.

Nostalgia

Nostalgia

………………

If it is a Sunday and it’s raining in the morning, then a certain nerve in my neural network triggers a reaction by injecting some chemicals which takes me back to my good old days and my nostalgic trip starts. That exactly happened yesterday when I woke up it was cloudy and then rain started….and I was transported to the past moving back and forth in the time capsule guided by the music which was wafting in from the music system tuned in Mirchi 98.3 playing Rabindrasangeet at that moment and then I pushed my pen drive containing collection of old Hindi and English songs….the songs are the best time conduit for seamless time travel….the mental age keeps on varying with the songs when I very first heard those. Sometimes it would be like in my school days when Kishore’s Mana janab ne pukara nahin is playing from the film Paying Guest…I am sitting in Regal cinema hall in Connaught Place and watching Devanand following Nutan…like this each of the song reminds of a day or events or some place or some close relatives,friends….when I hear the song Awaz deke hame na bulana  then I remember my first night spent in Digha sea beach during our first visit there , I cycled down to Digha with my friends from IIT,Kharagpur in 1963 or so…..behind our place of stay in Digha those days there was fir forest running along the sea beach and this song was wafting in from a distance in the night…sometimes I feel that there is a storing area in our mind where all the words and sounds get recorded and stored….the trick is how to access those and play it back at will….one may suggest why not self-hypnotize to access those sweet memories but it is easier said than done…I have read that people during hypnosis go back to their childhood days and start narrating bad experiences which a psychiatrist helps in deleting from the memory, I must admit I have not met any such person in my life time who has undergone this experience…during my second visit to Holland I was sitting with this Dutch gentleman in an outdoor cafe along Rhine  where he was telling me that his wife was a hypnotist and told some cases which she had cured. That is the only time when I had this first hand encounter with someone who was witness to dredging of subconscious mind.

Back to my nostalgic trip of 25^th June when I was swaying in time pendulum with the help of my music system where I had put it in “shuffle” mode so the songs were getting randomly picked and I was mentally getting kicked around in my nostalgic trip this call from Delhi came from the younger brother of my close friend who is no more now.....yes Kutu was my closest friend from my school days, we were staying in the same Chummeries of Gole Market…we had a common running veranda, we were staying at the two ends of the same veranda, we grew up together though in different class but in same school…I went out to IIT and then joined IOC,BHEL etc but whenever I was in Delhi Kutu will make it a point to meet me…my father retired shifted from Gole Market to Karol Bagh and finally settled in Pashchim Vihar and Kutu shifted from Gole Market to CR Park but the distance did not matter to him. He attended all important function of our house…he helped my parents in shifting house to Pashchim Vihar,he was by my side when I was grieving my mother’s death in 1994….the ring from his younger brother Jotu transported me back to the days spent with Kutu and that fateful day in hospital where he was in his last stages of prostate cancer…..i was in Calcutta when my youngest brother Budu rang me up to tell that Kutu was in critical stage, me and my wife Madhuri  rushed to Delhi and visited him in hospital, he was unconscious and lying helplessly there in hospital bed, I cried and thought of him being such a great footballer lying there so weak…he was captain of the football team of Delhi College…after 2 days he left us….any death makes me feel guilty that as though i have not spent enough time with that person because of my other priorities but then often most those priorities are wrongly placed ...

Last Sunday I mostly lived in the past….

A little push

A little push

……………………

“Sir, someone wants to meet you.”

I was in my chamber in Chatterjee International when my PA Late S N Bose came in.

“Who?” I asked.

Bose ushered in a middle aged gentleman dressed nattily.

“Sir, I am Arjun.” That gentleman said and then he became emotional, with tears in his eyes touched my feet. He broke down and said, “I have been looking for you for a long time.”

I could not believe my eyes, Arjun whom I knew was a strapling young man.

I still remember vividly the first day when I met Arjun in the canteen of Barauni Refinery.

Me,Bhatia and Verma like every day were there in the canteen for our morning tea when I noticed a young man hardly of 17/18 yrs or so of age in shorts was busy serving the clients. He was very actively running between the tables. I asked Nazareth, the manager of the canteen about that young man. He informed me that he had come recently from Bengal with an oil tanker driver.

Next day I called that young man to find more about him. After talking to him I came to know his name and how he had chanced upon a Sardarji oil tanker driver at Haldia and came away looking for a job opportunity. Thus Arjun landed in the canteen of Barauni Refinery.

This was sometimes in late 1975 when construction of Indian Oil’s Haldia refinery was in full swing. My father in law was Chief Engineer in Haldia Refinery then and my son was just born. I used to visit Haldia frequently those days as my wife was with her parents there.

I was surprised that inspite of a massive construction work going on next door Arjun had to leave the state as he could not land a job there. I took a pity on him and told him, “Next time when I go to Haldia I will take you with me and try to fix a job for you.”

He readily agreed.

I paid him for his train fare from Barauni to Calcutta plus bus fare up to Haldia and gave him my father in laws' address.

As planned I reached Haldia and Arjun came and met me. His village was hardly 20kms away. Munshida who was Deputy Manager Civil in Haldia Refinery was very close to me. I requested him to fix up Arjun with some labor contractor and he did so. Arjun started working as a laborer in the civil construction, would often visit my father in law’s bungalow to meet me. He used to bring wooden village toys for my son.Ín front of the bungalow he planted a palm tree which he brought from his village. The time passed on I resigned from IOC in 1978 and lost touch with Arjun.

That day in 1996 that was after 21 years he was standing in front of me narrating his progress in life.

From a daily labor he became a labor supplier. From there he became a civil contractor. He got married and seen to it that his younger brothers got good education. His one younger brother joined refinery as operator. He constructed a double storied house in place of that thatched roof hut which I visited during my stay in Haldia, he was owning a car and a motor bike. Later on my attendant Subhash who stays near Arjun’s village told me that he was politically strong too.

I was impressed by his progress in life, his hard work and entrepreneurship took him to a different level. I was just an enabler; rest was his hard work and determination.

I had a chance to visit Haldia Refinery in connection with BHEL work in 1998, the bungalow where my father in law was staying is very close to the IOC,Guest House. In the evening I walked down to the bungalow and found that the palm tree planted by Arjun has grown tall symbolizing Arjun’s progress. All the memories connected with that bungalow started flooding in my mind, in the moonlight I could see the Haldi River behind the bungalow flowing quietly towards the sea reminding the flow of time.

Many young men in India like Arjun are waiting for just a break and then there is no looking back for them. Also there are those who are born in privileged family and got all right breaks but could not achieve much. Recently in the company with which I am associated now there were interviews for the recruitment of fresh engineers. All the candidates were from private engineering colleges and must be from fairly well to do families. Some of them had come with their mothers. The senior officers who took their interview informed me that they could not find a single one up to the mark so did not select any.Possibly some  of these rejected candidates may take up some other profession and shine, we know many of these are forced to do engineering by their ambitious parents whereas their calling may lie somewhere else.

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.  

Soul searching

Soul searching

…………………

We trudged through the lanes of Deoghar towards Babadham , a sacred Hindu place of worship. The ancient temple of Baba Baidyanath is one of the twelve 'jyotirlingas' in India. Baidyanath Dham, is in  Santhal Parganas of Jharkhand.

As it happens in any Hindu place of worship soon we were surrounded by Pandas. It was irritating but I knew that it was inevitable. I looked at the crowd following us and I did a random selection. I selected an old panda with a wisp of white beard and unkempt hair in shabby gerua cloth.

I asked mischievously,” Why you guys are chasing us so much?”

“What to do? You are our crop.” He replied honestly.

“How many of you are there around this complex?”

“1000 of us depend on the pilgrims for our survival.”

“ok, let us then proceed to the temple complex.” I said to the discomfiture of my wife. She usually does not like to have a hanger on around.

The temple complex has a big yard selling all kinds of items required for puja offering. I knew these pandas have their preferred shops where they get commission and he was no exception. So it started with a basket of flowers, some sweets and of course bel leaf which is a must for Shiva Linga. Finally he took us to shop  selling water from Ganges.

For the first time I came across a shop selling graded water of Ganges. This particular shop had shelves with water of Ganges arranged like stepped gallery. The bottom most water in kansa pitcher was the cheapest and costliest was the one on the top shelf. The bottom one was from Shiva Ganga, which is a pond in Deoghar so was the cheapest. The costliest on the top was water from Gangotri, then next was Rishikesh, then from Haridwar and so on.

I reluctantly purchased the water of Shivaganga from the bottom shelf.

Thus after getting armed with puja samgri we stood in the queue. The weather was dry and winter had not yet set  in November. Finally we reached the sanctum sanatorium, a priest guided us to pay our offering to Shiva Linga.

Panda Rameshwar was all along with us. After our offering to Shivalinga I paid him the usual rate with some extra tips for him being honest. He was still hanging around with us.

Somehow after the visit of holy place I was in good mood so I inquired, “Anything more to see?”

Rameshwar hesitantly asked,” Will you be interested to visit an ashram ?”

“Whose ashram?”

“There is a sadhu who practices occult.” He said hesitantly.

I remembered to have visited such place during our visit to Tarkeshwar, those sadhus were in a crematorium ground where fresh dead bodies were being burnt. They were tantriks.

“If it is in a crematorium then we will not go.” My wife said.

“No, madam it is a very serene ashram with lots of flora and fauna, you will like the ambiance.”

“ Ok, lead us there, we have sometime before we proceed to Maithon.” We got in our taxi and he guided it to the destination.

The ashram was just outside the town, we drove through the gate on the gravel road with trees lined to a quint thatched hut. We could hear various birds chirping. A pond was visible behind the hut.

We got down from the car and Rameshwar led us to the hut.

I was surprised to find a very young sadhu sitting on a raised platform inside.

“Arey Rameshwarji come in, oh you brought some guests.” He smiled at us.

He invited us to sit on small stools which were strewn around. He asked someone to bring water for us.

Behind the sadhu there were almirahs with glass panes. I could see some scientific instruments on a table. There were canisters and bottles inside almirah. It was looking more like the chamber of a homeopathy doctor.

He was watching me closely and laughed seeing my dismayed look.

“Are you a man of science?”

“Yes, I am an engineer.”

“I am a scientist of occult science.” He said with a twinkle in his eyes.

I never heard such term as occult science. About occult every religion has something to say.

“Is occult a science subject?” I asked.

“When Jagadish Chandra Bose was doing research on botany then there was no subject as botany so he was known as physics professor similarly I am a master in physics and did doctorate in metaphysics but practice occult.” He answered.

“What is your subject of thesis?” I asked.

“Soul!” He replied.

“Anything to do with paranormal?” I asked

“Not really. As you know our body is mortal but our soul is immortal. I try to locate those souls.” He said solemnly.

“You mean those souls which left body.”

“You will be surprised to know that through my research I have found that the soul does not die but it disintegrates in many parts. Many religions believe in rebirth but then the number of birth would have been constant, when one dies  that soul goes in another body and another one is born so on. But in reality the population is increasing exponentially, how do we explain that? My theory  is because each soul gets fragmented after leaving the body and so enters in multiple bodies thus population increases. All the souls of the world freely migrate in stratosphere.” He patiently explained.

“Lobsang Rampa talked about astral travel of soul in his book, Third Eye. He was a British and claimed that a Tibetan lama’s soul inhibited his body. Is it something like that?” I was eager to show off my knowledge.

“Not exactly that. You see those canisters; I have captured some passing souls from Europe. I mean fragments.” He pointed to the almirah behind him.

I did not believe him but to humor him I said,” Is there fragment of Hitler’s soul  ?”

He knew I was not serious but sportively he ignored my flippant barb. He got up and brought a canister with a spout with a pump like arrangement of an inhaler.

“I could capture some of the local souls of talented people; here is one fragment of soul of a mathematician.”

“What do you do with the souls such captured?”

“These souls don’t recreate but get mixed with existing one. We inject these souls to those who need some kind of booster."

“But then a person will have multiple personality.” I queried.

“Aren’t we all having different personalities while dealing with situations, so no harm having multi soul in one body? After all our mind is the commander which is capable enough to decide which soul to use when.”

“We may become like Dr.Jekyl and Mr.Hyde.” I said hesitantly.

“Now we are getting somewhere in the discussion.” He said with a smile and continued,"In the film Exorcist a bad soul enters the body of a girl, then the girl was having two souls." 

“How do you inject the soul?” I asked eagerly.

“It won’t be effective for you as you have a matured soul. Mostly people with disturbed child come here; I examine those young ones and then prescribe soul for them. Sometimes people with some near one dying come for soul but these souls are of no use in a dying body as the other soul which is inhibiting won’t allow any other soul to enter. It is not elixir of life. As far as injection is concerned there is elaborate method which i can not share with you.” 

My wife who was not enjoying the talk said,”It is getting late, we must leave.”

I reluctantly got up, thanked the young scholar of soul and proceeded to our car.

“Amazing story!” I told Mr Trivedi, who narrated his experience to me in my office chamber over a cup of coffee.

“Do you believe that claim of injecting soul?” I asked.

“After watching the politicians changing their color I started believing that it is not the case of change of heart but change of soul. See that young scion of a leading political party returning after a sojourn of 45 days or so  changed to a new person all together. He must have been injected with some aggressive soul.” He guffawed.

“haha, well said.” I joined him in his laughter.