Thursday 22 September 2022

 

Churma




 

This is a Hindi book that I have read after a long time, written by an educationist and a poet Mrs Dolly Dabral belonging to Uttarakhand, India. She has a long and extensive experience of dabbling in the literary world of organizing and reciting poetry at various fora and been lauded with much recognition. Having carved a niche there, she has now put her penmanship to prose starting with reminiscences of various bitter-sweet events throughout her life. Before writing ‘Churma’ she has already written a previous book, again a memoir noir in Hindi called ‘Africa House’.

Both books are an interesting sprinkling of events and characters that she came across. This is evident by the fact that they stayed on her mind adequately to be recorded in the written word and relished by the reader. The title ‘Churma’ is as most people would know, a Rajasthani delicacy and is a retelling of an old story that she had heard as a child. She clarifies in an interview that she chose it to be the first among the other stories to also indicate the mix of things that is life, just as there are different ingredients that go into the making of churma.

There are a plethora of books out in the market and discerning readers will definitely be aware of the particular mould in which most are written, that are Anglophonic in sound and craft both. At most times it feels that they have been written with the western audience in mind- a veritable disconnect with the local sentiments and thoughts that makes a read unrelatable however lucidly or skillfully written it may be. But then this is mostly seen in books written in English. To get the local flavors in a read, one must delve their teeth in the Hindi books to be instantly transported to the familiar and the forgotten.

So I was pleasantly occupied in reading these two books that are a nostalgia trip of the author and it is even more pleasant discovery that I am not averse to such trips. Mrs Dabral talks about the Dehradun and its people of yore- a time when sitting and chatting was a social norm that thrashed out knotty problems over tea, knitting and company. A time when cows were kept in the homes of most, learning classical music, donating, sewing etc was part of the home set-up. Try and imagine that Dun with today’s- it’s irreconcilable! Since I too belong to Dehradun, I found the stories relatable but it’s not as if such scenario was not there in other parts of the country.

The writing is a straight off narration of how things transpired without any literary embellishments to distract from the conversational tone of the telling. This makes the readability immense and you keep turning pages to know what happens next. The writer has impressive command on languages that she displays with Punjabi, Garhwali and Hindi with acute proficiency. She has started her journey in prose with interesting autobiographical accounts in form of stories in two book forms that have been well received by the readers. 

I hope she comes up with a work of fiction soon that regales its readers with the Dehradun/Uttarakhand of the 60s and 70s about which not much literature is available. This unavailability is also one big reason I feel why youth of this region are not suitably connected with the culture and ethos of the hill station. It has never been projected to them. And as such Mrs Dabral's books help fill that gap we find in the Garhwali literary scene.







Wednesday 21 September 2022

Book review: Ancient Hindu Science by Alok Kumar

 Book review: Ancient Hindu Science by Alok Kumar

 


This book is a long awaited one.


There has been a gaping absence of a comprehensive record or documenting of a literature that put all the knowledge that has been carried by the general masses in their consciousness through the decades but nowhere could be referenced as a physical document. This book satisfies that need to see the many achievements and accomplishments of the erudite ancients whose learning we still read, learn and make use of in our modern world. Although the author says that the book is an introduction to the vast knowledge systems of the Hindu learning in various fields like science (physics, chemistry, biology), astronomy, geography, geometry, mathematics, medicine etc, it very much touches the major aspects achieved in these fields and the influence it had all over the world. Bharata wasn’t the epicenter of learning just like that. It is heartening to affirm that it is indeed the ancient Hindu knowledge that enriched and helped advance not just the scientific thought but also in the spiritual and philosophical realms however long winded route the knowledge took like from India to Persia, Arabia, Greece and then to the European and Western world in general. Several translations of Indian texts made way across the world who in turn were made the richer for it. The work of al-Khwarizmi in Baghdad was made possible due to the discoveries and inventions of the ancient Hindus. His books were read by established scholars in Europe like Copernicus, Adelard of Bath, Leonardo Fibonacci, Pope Sylvester II, Roger Bacon et al who helped spread it further on. Voltaire, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Carl Jung, Max Muller, Robert Oppenheimer, Erwin Shrodinger, Arthur Shopenhauer, Henry David Thoreau and many other intellectuals were influenced by the Hindu knowledge and in fact this was the harbinger of the ‘Oriental’ studies that evidently brought about the ‘aha’ moment to the western world allowing it to revel in it and slake its thirst from the wisdom available so easily. It can be said that the world knew the true strength and stature of our culture to which we have awakened rather late but awake we are now.


An amusing and a bit surprising point that I realized while reading this book is the constant question mark we have been putting towards the education we take and dispense, especially like geometry and mathematics. Haven’t we oft heard as to what use are we going to put the learning of quadratic equations or trigonometry in real life? And for all practical purposes that is indeed the case. We do not need to use mathematics more than the knowledge of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Those in specialized jobs or maths ‘nerds’ may be using the complicated and advanced calculations to some use but that is not the norm.


Guess what? The ancients had the usage of these advanced knowledge systems in daily life. For example Hindus observed the several festivals and fasts that we still see being followed in our society. These sacred days are calculated with the help of the Hindu almanac called the ‘Panchang’ that is luni-solar in its format ie the the Hindu months of the year are lunar and the years solar. The knowledge of the ecliptic circle of the moon was something that every Hindu family could calculate to find the days of Amavasya, Purnima, Ekadashi, Chaturthi or the various days of fasting, festivals or the auspicious times for worshipping etc. This is how closely science was woven into the daily fabric of life.


How could the fantastic ancient temples we see today have been built without the use of trigonometry?


It is such bits of information that the book wisens us to, things that are common knowledge but lost to us of the deeper meanings they hold.  As another example, the concept of zero began as a philosophical idea of ‘sunyata’ ie nothingness- a void that indicates the ‘nirguna-rupa’ form of God. This eventually evolved into a mathematical reality in the form of zero. Thereby establishing a link between an abstract subject with an exact one! Reminds me of a college student being asked by his Mathematics professor to write a paper on the link between Philosophy and Mathematics. He was at sea to say in short. This book would have helped the student in multiple ways I am sure.


The book is well researched with several citations and references duly annotated. The language is lucid and without heavy vocabulary that makes it very amenable and immensely readable especially for the younger readers but is a good resource point for even the older readers for whom it may serve as a reminder of why we believe in certain things and for what reasons?


Recommend it to all to get to know the strands of Indian history that still influence the modern world in its workings as we see it.