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.  

Book review: Half A Life

 

Half a Life is a lucidly and cogently written book by the renowned and inimitable VS Naipaul that won him the Nobel prize for Literature in 2001. 

The story is about Willie Somerset Chandran facing an identity issue starting with his name. What emerges is the imagery of a tumultuous India in the 1930s but whose effects are negligible in the maharaja’s estate where the initial part of the story is set. The plight and dilemma of a temple community that is facing no patronage from the rulers since the advent of muslims and then the British, is what is leading the priests and its support system to look for better living and paying opportunities elsewhere. But in the backdrop of the freedom struggle going on in the country and Mahatma Gandhi’s call to give up foreign goods and uplift social barriers leads Willie’s father to take a decision that he lives to regret all his life.

With such rooting Willie wishes to escape the insecurity, the same life as his father’s in his coming future. The deep caste riven society would make it difficult for him to find a better life than what he had already. And thus starts his quest for a better life moving across the seven seas to Great Britain eventually to Africa, giving deep insights into the life during post-war England and the isolated yet communal lives of the business class during the last days of colonialism.

Half a life is a phrase to depict the unfulfilled or incomplete lives lived yet seeking to complete it through the course of events and individuals one meets. In this case Willie is not the high caste brown man in a foreign land or his own motherland that would tether him to any one place just as the business community of his neighbours in Africa were. As he observes-

‘…that the world I had entered was only half and half world, that many of the people who were our friends considered themselves, deep down, people of the second rank. They were not fully Portuguese, and that is where their own ambitions lay.’

In the end isn’t life all about compromises and adjustments? Willie wants to quit his marriage with Ana for he doesn’t want to live her life as he says.

‘Perhaps I haven’t been living mine either’ is her reply.

 

 A perfectly good read.

Book review: The Postcard

 This was my first acquaintance with Leah Fleming's work. The premise of the story is a postcard that is the axis around which the story revolves that intrigued me into it. True enough, it harks back to the days when writing letters was the mainstay of communication and it is a postcard that leads into an inter-generational search for one's roots that in return helps the reader traverse the various time scales via the social mores, dresses, beliefs, thoughts via multiple points of view. The story has the lives detailing the aftermath of pot WWI era and the fresh tidings of another war looming on the horizons.

It is a fine storyline except the reader sometimes gets a little confused about the timelines and some wartime details that one is unaware of owing to not knowing that particular history. Despite that, the story can be followed well but then again it spans a vast expanse of spatial detail like across Australia, Scotland, Egypt, Belgium, UK etc so the mental follow up needs to keep pace with the change of setting to get a deeper feel of the people and places. This also shines on the fact that the author is well traveled (or very well informed) about these aforementioned places with a good sack of nuggets or trivia stitched into the story. 

The protagonists are three ladies Phoebe, Caroline and Melissa. Out of them I felt the first two led very lonely, unhappy lives with lessons for the third one to have a go at love and second chances. 

All in all it makes for an interesting read.

Book review-- Makers of Modern Dalit History

 

Makers of Modern Dalit History is a joint effort by Sudarshan Rambadran and Guru Prakash Paswan. The book is well researched project to document the adversity and travails of the subaltern communities that make an important weft of our social fabric but are belittled or kept disadvantaged in the social ladder. The book documents eighteen luminaries from such disadvantaged backgrounds who defy the impossible to chart pathbreaking course of their lives. The personalities have been picked from far back in history like Kabir Das, Guru Ravidas, Rani Jhalkaribai, Veda Vyasa, Sant Janabai, Ayyankali, to closer in time such as Jogendranath Mandal, Babu Jagjivan Ram, Udham Singh, B R Ambedkar etc.

 Most individuals we have known with some details and some only by name. So it made for a pleasant and interesting read to know some unknown details from these life accounts not just about the adverse situation made due to the political, religious , social rules that they had to face and fight but also how they were able to motivate and take the masses along with them. Some facts like Guru Nanak , Guru Raidas and Kabir were contemporary and met together at least once was an eyeopener. The book must be read to find some such nuggets in those biographical chapters.<br />The language of the book is simple and without jargons so that one easily slips from one chapter to the next. And herein lies a little catch for one to catch the moment, era, ethos of an individual and then retain the flavour, one needs to forego jumping too quickly from one to the next. Other than that, the book is a reminder to the difficulties faced by a part of our society but the authors maintain the tone in a positive way rather than be recriminatory, exhorting for equity and progress for all within the framework of existing social and constitutional structures. 

A Bad Place

A confession from me first: I do not have a taste for the thriller-horror-supernatural-ghostly-other worldly kind of genre. So having received Mr Mayur Didolkar’s book ‘A Bad Place’ was a test of nerves for me whose dalliance with this genre has been far too less for me to claim of any accumulated insights about it. However the story has kept up my interest spiked from the first chapter itself and I have found myself curious to know the twists and turns about to be unleashed upon me. As curious as the characters in the story who knew some new facet/twist/shock was expected and yet they opened the forbidden door to enter and came out uninjured but changed nevertheless every time. And I too exhaled in relief! The author has used the local Maharashtrian lingo and set up for his story premise but that doesn’t mar the narrative. It effectively helps one place the story in its right background and moves it to the cityscape to show the choices, turmoils and decisions of a modern day resident who has to also deal with a superstitious ‘humbug’ of the supernatural elements. Despite the modern setup of the story I had butterflies in my stomach while reading. The writing is good, clear headed, pictorial and engaging. It’s a goodread for anyone that loves the unsettling feeling as if being in ‘A bad place’.

 It's been a while- well quite a while that I have jotted down a review though I have been reading some spectacular books. I am breaking the jinx..and my laziness with this review of the book 'Kunti' by Koral Dasgupta. I have quite a few reviews to pen including of Hindi writers too. So here goes. Hoping that my reading and reviewing keep pace this time.

The Review

Kunti by Koral Dasgupta is the second book in the series of the five satis namely Ahalya, Kunti, Draupadi, Mandodari and Tara. These stories are a retelling of the historical events as we know them through the epic sagas but the gaze is turned away from the traditional rendering of the events or tales. Here the point of view is of the ‘sati’- the heroine who states it as she must have seen it. That means through her the author brings out aspects that are not very obvious or are hidden due to more attention on certain other characters. Though the epics like Ramayan and Mahabharat have women with strongly etched characters and those that can stand apart on their own merit, they are largely seen wading in the shadows of the giants. Giants of the time when society was run mainly through the male thought process, the much clichéd—the patriarchal outlook. And since the aspects being discussed are something that have happened eons of years ago the author has tried to shift the platform from the earth to some other planes where the cosmic lords like Surya, Indra might reside. While there is an incredibility about assuming (imagining) such worlds but the way it is approached indicates a scientific basis of the protagonist in attaining her answers to the puzzles instead of a magical appearance of things. Kunti’s relationship with her husband Pandu is traversed with reasoning mind as to how it must have been for a warrior who was under the wings of the great Bhishma and who might have been riven by his own inadequacies as well as unable to match the charisma of his step brother. That Kunti is able to hold a candle to the latter in statesmanship and war craft and commands respect of all which is otherwise a privilege reserved for the husband, speaks of her ability and stature. Her actions further in the story only underline the maturity of her dealings towards her duties not only as a wife but the elder wife too.

All in all, as in all retellings one has to be circumspect about our traditional leanings about our sacred epics not to diss them but to see some overlooked aspects in a different light. 

A Slick Life

A Slick Life is a biography of my father Shri Satish Chandra Bhatt who was an ordinary man during extra ordinary circumstances living the tumultuous life during and post independence times of India. the story is set during the freedom struggle period when he was a little boy living without the presence of his father who was a freedom fighter. His childhood was spent amid such uncertain biddings while having a large extended family for company. This gives a glimpse of those lost times when large families were a thing and how it moulded his personality. his youth, education and finally the job accompanied by the aspirations of a newly formed nation is what his life story entails.

Why is it important that one reads a common man's story. there were scores like him after all. What was special about him. The truth is this book isn't to laud a man out of the blue and hammer people to read it just because it has been written. No. That is not the purpose for me- his daughter to have written the book. My aim for writing it was to track the course of his life which was concurrently following the track of the progress of our nascent nation and it was easier to learn the feelings, decisions and motivations of those times, at least some of them. Undoubtedly, it was my curiosity to know what the previous generation had done for the country that could be pointed out with pride and satisfaction that it had indeed helped move the engines of a broken down economy, zero industries and an education that could not guarantee employment. and hence to answer that he started with the dams, IITs and Scientific research centres that the government had initiated. That evoked some more queries , more and then some which lasted in a heavy and hearty and multiple exchanges with him over phone, face to face and sometimes some tidbits in notes that he would give me. 

A lot of time was spent in creating a coherent picture out of the snippets offered to me and with two small kids it was definitely an ask but something that I looked forward to. 

Why is it called 'The Slick Life'?

The protagonist's life takes him through  different routes finally to his karm-bhoomi which as an oil well driller in ONGC which was just starting out in its baby steps. Herein lies the destiny of both- the worker as well as the organisation trying to make the best of of the situation during the times when such advanced technology or money for oil exploration and scouting was not available but the people engaged- normal graduates were asked to somehow deliver the results. These were the pioneers who went through a rough regimen, training, learning on the job while trying to avoid fatal accidents all the time. With joi de vivre and bon homie especially of the Dehradun boys. This book is a homage to those wonderful people who bonded over their ties from Dun and became more than family even in later times. 

Just a reminder, the ONGC was not what we see now. Much initial blood and sweat has gone into its making and splendour it has today. And that is one major reason why I set out to chronicle those lives and times that was easily forgotten in the rough and tumble of normal lives as we see now. The characters are all from real life except a couple of them who you may try to identify when you read about them. 

I believe that those were the times when people really lived their lives well with all the perceived shortcomings and less riches. Hence the title- A Slick Life. And of course the word 'slick' is associated with oil and here we are, celebrating an oil well driller's life story that is also the story of new India.