Four decades of sedimentation of ideas, impressions, desires, lusts, hurts, hurts and more hurts and more than one attempt to clean up the mess and many resignations later you are back to square one. I mean ! Something has to be done. It is important to think.
Resolutions don't last if the here and now connection is not kept. There is nothing like I shall do it afterwards . It is NOW. Or never...
That it took me more than 40 years to admit this is quite suggestive of the tardiness of my progress. I almost said 'no progress at all', but I am wary of these clean-sweep terms like always and never. unless you mean to sound profound do not use them. Their function is ornamental. Realistically, they are unfortunate terms, redundant and extra-functional because they overstate. Terms like these lie on your behalf, not at your behest, and embarrass you later when your guard is down. Avoid using terms like never. Or, like Bond 'never say never again'.
***
Days are just days. They become good or bad depending on our inner attitude. I had a 'bad day' yesterday. Today is 'good', one hopes, because I reflected on the mistakes of yesterday which rendered it 'bad' for me. That precise moment helped me to resolve not to repeat what turned my yesterday bad.
PS: That resolve lasted till yesterday. The mistake got repeated, although in moderation, yet it was the same mistake nevertheless.
***
If you realise that the crux of all conflict among men is our inability to reconcile the opposites what do you do?
Any reaction, however positive in intent will only perpetuate the conflict. It may not reflect on your immediate field of interaction, but add to the overall human condition. The ideal of Human Unity gets blurred before our eyes and forward march of human race gets stalled. All these suspended moments in the collective aspirations of the race get accumulated and we have wars. Wars are desperate measures of the planet to usher in peace. We need peace as the basic condition to fulfill whatever it is that we seek to fulfill as species.
One easy solution seems to take everything lying down. Offer no resistance. But that is not a solution at all; it is a shortcut to slavery and dependence.
I do not know what exactly I am at. A bit sleepy, a bit relaxed, bit worried, a bit ... everything. Almost.
I do not know whether I want to do this right now, but I trust the cathartic effect blogging has had on me in the past. So I write, not knowing clearly what it is that I mean to type and this is certainly not automatic writing.
May be I shall write about a creek, only, why a creek I don't know...
A creek is a smallish water inlet, a stream that comes inland which has a tidal swell-ebb behavior.
That's almost all that I know regarding a creek! Chances are, my definition above may be incorrect. One thing is certain: A creek pertains to a water body.
My creek here has a regular deep olive, brackish water hue. That already indicates sea not too far.
There are rocks with barnacles, sharp shelled and dirty. The tides have silt grey gooey deposits between the cracks through which water weed and other swamp trees grow. These are low trees, spreading along horizontally, with small thick leaves. They bear small fruit, inedible and full of sap. They ripen and fall in the stream making that peculiarly soothing sound,'gullugck-pitt'! The branches are twisted. When seen against night sky their silhouettes spook you out. The air is salty, it smells marine, a musty constant wet smell. Muddy hued branches have incisions made by sharp claws of crows and other birds, may be animals and other creatures more at ease on hard ground than water. During high tides when marine life is brought into the tangles of these trees those animals feed on them, or may be, if they are at all there then they feed on them. Those animals with sharp claws are never sighted. They go about their business surreptitiously.
But birds chirp and crows caw. Kingfishers sit on extended branches, not crying, not moving, hoping that they would turn grey like the bank or the branch upon which they perch. They are stone still but conspicuous! And yet they catch good deal of fish. The blue of their wing sparkles, juxtaposed with the blaze of the orange and the red of their beaks off-set by their tiny red feet against unshapely grey branches. They are by far the most beautiful dots in sight along the creek's length .
My creek's source and end are only assumed. No one has ever told anything about the beginning and end of my creek. When you describe her, you describe only a segment, a small portion of her meandering length. My creek, in spite of herself, arouses mystery in the mind which cares to look at her and wonder, but for most part my creek is a blind spot: she is there, and yet not there because she is always so there that you don't notice.
This is mostly as she is in clear weather. In torrential rains my creek disappears, her waters merge with the great downpour somewhere midair almost, as if several zillion kith rush on to meet their many zillion kin in a massive watery collective embrace -a many mouthed kiss, colossal - rendering every visible object an invisible grey mist.
That is her only moment of truth. Moment when she seems animated and demonstrative. Otherwise my creek exists god like non-existent; flowing, feeding, giving, helping from her one imagined end to the other asking nothing in return.
Sometimes when I do not know what exactly I am at, confused or troubled, I imagine myself sitting by my creek, listening to the story she seems to tell, and with the turn of tide my peace returns.
Tomorrow, the 15th, is the festival of lamps. Tonight they will burn the effigy of Narakasura, the demon of Hell. When the evil Hell-power represented in Narakasura will be destroyed lamps will be lit everywhere, marking the advent of a new dawn, a new beginning and enlightenment. All darkness will be dispelled; light will be ushered in and life will be "even as in heaven"...Well!
I have not celebrated Diwali after 1973. There is the usual greeting thing and other routine stuff but I really don't remember being enthusiastic about festivals like Christmas and Diwali post 1973. There was always something to mend instead of celebrating. However, that never prevented me from drinking a peg too many on Narakasura nights or on the 46 Xmas eves I have lived so far. I think that was because on such occasions there were friends to drink with well into the deep of the night celebrating Diwali. I usually hooked up with this one or that, depending on who was there, and drank to feel better. I usually ended up feeling worse, but that is besides the point.
This may present me as an alcoholic, which I am not.
Wait, what am I saying? This is all wrong because after coming to live down south I have stopped doing that. I do not have so many friends who drink, nor folks who are willing to stay up on festive nights with me. They tuck their dreams in their pillows and dream-sleep while I sit with my mending or read fat books waiting to sleep.
I will never understand why atheists all over celebrate festivals . They are associated with Gods usually. The nonbelievers everywhere- the French, the Italians, the Americans...even the socialist states importunately celebrate fests which have roots deep in religion. Moreover, the roots are more into religious myth rather than fact, so why do these high priests of reason and sworn analysts of Truth celebrate an occasion associated with the one they want to prove does not exist? These uneasy questions are rarely asked. It is an indication that man is naturally a self-indulging spoiled brat of God our father. Whenever he has a chance to fling the moral clamp out the window he does so without ado, keeping all the goodies. What he ends up throwing is God, for in all this the only 'baddy' seems to be God, poor fellow !; everything else is good, the wine & the women & the dance & the shindig.
The hypocrisy of it all annoys me. Just to protest against that I shall light one single oil-lamp on my doorstep tonight and pray privately to God. I shall sincerely ask him to heal our planet and ask him to make me a better human being.
End of last week an e-mail from a gallery announced that the season was commencing and that I may book the gallery to show my work. It promised a good season in a jumble of words, more like a hint than as a direct forecast. It did not use words like 'likely to' or 'shows signs of' etc.- which the weather forecast is often likely to use - in reference to the international crowd that may flock to India.
All these years I have had just one touring artist couple, Americans, quietly staring at a small work of mine on paper. That was some years back. They asked to see the artist and when I was presented to them, they said the work was "very special". They wanted to buy it, but I, agreeing that the work was special, did not sell it to them. I sent it instead to Chitrakala Parishad for their annual show. The said work is somewhere there in Bangalore, undoubtedly lying uncared for in some pile of other rejects. I did not go to collect it. It was not important anymore.
That, I remember, was a work done during a sort of 'seasoning' of my own artistic sensibility. It was like a rush, drawing me to paint and then sit there tinkering with forms and colours unknown to me, building out of shadows, layer upon layer, figures and marks telling deep and mysterious stories to me. It was cumbersome, technically stiff and unyielding, but when it worked the result was a pleasant, always pleasant, surprise. I got tired of doing that sort of thing because I felt that it was too much reliance on chance and technique. That "season" bore no cash to my crop! And then I stopped painting, waiting for something magical to happen that would make a studio available and money for material and bread and an occasional peg of Bacardi or something.
I surmise that "Seasons" often superimpose themselves in my life. At least there seemed to be one season with several branches. Imagine a winter in the main, branching out into summers and rains, even autumns, several and simultanious. Perhaps it was youth. Perhaps it is hormones. It may even simply be one of the many false notions I have about things. Why, I hold that life itself is a season: there is flowering, and there is withering; season is more about that than anything else after all. A day is a season, an hour could be a season! Really, what is not a "season"? It all depends on how the word is employed. A farmer may use it to describe good yeild, good money, good year. Ask a Sakura and she may just blush all over with the most charming bloom!
Monday, October 12
There
was already a residual necessity lingering to paint a face in the
manner of Lucien Freud long after work began on a work that Paula came
to call Sidney after it was finished. She decided with her Son that it was Sidney on a red background. But that decision, which seemed a determined one at the time, changed
by the weekend to Sidney with blue spots. Spots? Thus it went on
varying the various accompaniments of Sidney, but 'Sidney' remained,
staring, with his bored look, doing nothing.
By then the much hullabaloo-ed hotel in Bangalore turned out to be a
downer. Much to my annoyance the receptionist seemed to make perfect
conversation in English with my English speaking wife but miraculously
forgot vital phrases and verbs while talking to me. Well, I thought to
my self, suffer if you must, I shall make you my subject and
immortalize you in my little diary. He was the cock type, coulourful
and domineering with his hens. Keys seemed very important tool in his
hands; they completed his personality.
Speaking
of cock-men, I recently found out that Lenin was quite a cock-man. I
saw him propagating his doctrine, -his version of Marx's theory and his
meticulous application of it to Russia - amidst hens of his kind, the
Russian women I mean, although his obsession was with one not
altogether Russian but French, Inessa Armand. They were all there,
enraptured by the bald cock, oblivious of the cold Russian winter,
warmed up by the fervor of the revolution.
A
balding head resembles an egg, and head conjures up associations of
wisdom, knowledge, intellect and mind. And egg-born baby is wiser than
his parent. He should at least LOOK wiser than his mother. This mother
must look a bit trendy and sophisticated, interested both in societal
ties and bonding with her babe. And so a bit of colour was obligatory.
The thrust of the body tearing at the pull of her gazing head, in
consternation and confusion. What to do? Pills and tranquilizers.
But
not all resort to numbing of their prickly conscience; they grow big
mustaches and practice intimidating looks, looking ridiculous in the
bargain. For little do they realise how shacked they are to their
puffing and their enlarged self esteem. Some years back an art
collector had said in connection with an artist friend, who had really
made me proud, and my other artist friends - braggarts all - harping
on the correctness of their world view. "..difference between man and
boys!" That's what he had said. It will echo in my mind for many more
years.
...And
in the midst of all these metaphors and symbolology one fact stands
proud and daring like a silverback. The fact is that a handshake is
much more reassuring if it be candid and open rather than enveloped in
some ulterior motive. The more menacing looking it is, the milder, just
like a gorilla! I identify with the big ape. Had my morality been of a
eighteenth century gentleman, I might well have been a staunch worshiper of Rama, the avatar. Alas! I have tasted much more than the
fruit of Eden, I must survive my downfall to stand up as man!
Hundatwasser is not so celebrated, but he was an interesting designer. An artist and activist, architect and a iconoclast
to his marrow, he built his work with patterns of narrow and broad
colour strips. He did not flinch at the bold use of primary, blunt
colours and he was never happy with his name, Hundredwater, which he
changed hundred times. A girl, given to much coquettishness, when asked
to name the word that means rotating around oneself while dancing said
"pirutti". Since that moment she was nicknamed Pirutti by her
friends. Sometimes in idle moments many many such incidents pirouette
in my mind.
One such incident which recently popped-up was my friend Jesus and his dog Leader. Now leader was actually the mother
of Tarzan, who was fathered by a huge Great Dane with a puny name,
fifi. Leader littered a few times before she died, but many of her pups
were tiger striped Ochre coats. And Jesus's dad,
when he used to be at home dressed in striped pyjamas. They were green
or blue ( I forget) but the pattern was congruent with his dogs! I made
that drawing down there, remembering leader, a benign dog.
Was
it Paul Klee who said that drawing was to take a point for a walk? I am
willing to take it from the late Herr Klee, but not from an opportunist
like Chaudhary? Just to show how easy it is to take a point for a walk
I made a drawing with a sitting creature with proboscis, asking a
confused parrot to read his future from his multi-palmed arms! The
parrot said, "A PODDOSHREE (Padmashree) is certain!" One
thing leads to another. Reading palm and papers is a common activity of
a south Indian brahmin. They all sit in the same manner, the thin ones
resemble each other just as the thick ones resemble other thick ones.
If you do not buy into their offer of a discounted 'abhishekam' (at
Chidambaram and Madurai at least) they curse you in Sanskrit, or what
sounds like the language of Gods. Well, I curse in the language of the
queen mostly, and when I do not get results I get a certain
satisfaction that Sanskritesque swearing will certainly not give me.
We all get trapped into commitments, sometimes unwanted. I feel at the moment caught in a similar trap. My own doings, agreed, but I believe that by committing myself to it I have appeased some faint guilt lurching within, vague and unnameable. Guilt for not being up to a colleague's striving; of being, however inadvertently, some sort of an impediment in her progress.
The person I am referring to is a theater woman, a director; a person who has taught me quite a few things about theater and acting.
I feel, however, that feeling guilty is uncalled for. I am clear about my strengths and I am clear about my own line of development as far as theater goes. I was clear enough right from the word go that I wanted to operate from within a fence. Yet sometimes circumstances force you to stretch a little to help someone in need beyond that fence, and it is perfectly human to 'go out of your way' and break the ruling confines in order to help. This breaking of rule I had not done, but that was not out of any spiteful ill-will but because of my inability to take on more at that point in time.
My reference here is to another production of a play a couple of years back which took nine unnecessary months to put up.
There may be room for a debate to justify those long nine months I call unnecessary. I am aware that it is not justifiable prolongation, our shortcomings granted. The play was a huge challenge! First, it was Shakespeare. Second, we were adapting - adapting Shakespeare in itself is a task. Getting a 'Hamlet' to do justice to the character in the play, acceptably the most complex in English drama, was difficult. Adaption demands a certain modification. 'Modifying' the 'locale' to our needs meant that we had to change quite a number of 'pockets' in the text, and sometimes characters, and slash and slash and slash to make a five hour-high drama into a two hour play! It was quite like cutting a beautiful suit to make an apparel suitable for a dorm-party.
All that may justify some delay, yet nine months is a bit too much by any standard. My reasoning then was that the director should have taken stock of our strengths and weaknesses before asking for rehearsal schedules. I wasn't wrong in reasoning so, but I was rather unrelenting and non co-operative. Hence the guilt.
So when I was asked to work on this play about the Russian revolution (!), I said yes.
If playing Lenin is any incentive, then bob's your uncle? (Is it right to use that expression here? )
Yesterday we did a bit of work on Lenin-Krupskaya dynamics. It was alright as beginnings often are, but the fact is that WE STILL NEED ACTORS! It has happened in the past, many times over, but we don't seem to have learned anything.
This is not even about good actors and bad ones - the capacities and incapacity of individuals, their professionalism etc. will surface later on and we will face them when they do.
There may be others who may want to walk out because of valid reasons.
One thing however is clear to me. If this play stretches beyond reasonableness, I shall bail out. My director Will have to look for an understudy to save further delay that might ensue post my walk out.
But that is not my problem; it is hers. One thing more: as amateurs we are supposed to be doing it for the love of it. As amateurs, we often have to let go, compromise, patch up and present something to our audience that they may enjoy along with us. We, the actors, can hope to make a play enjoyable only if we enjoy it ourselves. When things become burdensome they are no longer enjoyable. I am certain that I do not want to do something that I may not enjoy doing. This play, 'Revolutionaries' is a burdensome theme in the sense that it is a slow drag. I do not care a button about a totalitarian regime, particularly a failed regime. Russian experiment failed. As a nation she has moved on. I do not want to be stuck with the analysis of what went wrong about something that I do not care about in the first place.
Why then am I doing it? Why am I committing to something I know is unwanted?
I shall know before long whether we will pull this one off or not; when it does I shall pull out of it.
Last night there was garbha. I went to see. It was chaotic, compared to many others I have been to in the past, but it was beautiful too.
Chaos was caused, I think, mostly because of the new ones, both foreigners and Indians, who did not know the steps. Garbhas can have as many as 22 step-cycle or more. Last night they were doing the simplest one.
I saw quite a number of foreigners learning to dance the Garbha. There were the more experienced ones, some elderly, and some experienced youngsters. They danced effortlessly. Among them were experienced foreigners. They had mastered the step.
I marked the difference between the fluid movement of the Indians and the not so smooth movement of foreigners. There seemed to be, a certain jerky and stiff something in the way the foreigners did it. There seemed to be 'angles' to the movement of non-Indians.
It was interesting and I saw how the sensibilities were translated through their bodies in that simple dance of Garbha. There seemed to be no questioning in the way Indians danced in the sense of surrendering to the joy at a deep, (psychic if you like) level whereas the Western dancers held back some bit of their individuality. I can not express this quite as well as I would like to...
The Indian-non-Indian aspect is just marginal though. It is there in order to contrast just to emphasise a minor distinction. What mattered, I think, was that they were enjoying it so wonderfully. I could not help feeling that they were celebrating the joy of living, the joy of dancing with Krisna, and he was there. I know it, he was there indeed, and because he was so present, there was that delight in that comparatively chaotic dancing.
And that seems to be the magic, the beauty of Garbhas. It is such a humane celebration: the joy of living, being together and expressing the joy through dance.
Matisse painted something of the spirit in his 'jois de vivre'.
Nathuram Godse may be a misunderstood character. He is called a Hindu fanatic. I Have not exactly 'heard' his side of the story. (His court statements, letters etc. were all banned from the public until recently.)
One of his writings, published below - if it is indeed his, makes it clear that there was more to Godse's intent behind assassinating Gandhi than is publicised by the forces that were instrumental (then) for the making of Gandhi, the martyr, and Nathuram the Hindu fanatic. He was, not necessarily, a fanatic. He does not seem to hate Gandhi the person, but the politician , who he thought was frivolous in his demands. He seems to begrudge his policies only. Godse believed that Gandhi's policies caused untold misery to Hindus within India.
Another interesting point to note is that Godse had been working with the Hindu refugees fleeing from Pakistan where he witnessed horrible atrocities committed on Hindus. Despite this Godse did not harm a single Muslim in India, which he could easily have done (it seems).
It may be interesting to understand the motive behind Godse’s act.
Nathuram Godse was an intelligent man – editor of “Agrani” (one
of the "most famous" (sic) newspapers of the time, with Nana Aapte (as
a co-editor?). In his last editorial of “Agrani” which he changed
overnight – he said, “Gandhi must be stopped – at any cost” and he
justified why Gandhiji’s assassination was not only inevitable but also
a delayed action, which should have happened "LONG AGO."
He knew that he would be hanged and his name would be disgraced as Gandhi was considered a saint. Godse could have ran away and escaped punishment. But he did not. He is reportedly said to have called a police officer and courted arrest (There is no reason to disbelieve the statement of the man himself.)
The following seems to be a plausible backdrop to Gandhi's assassination:
"The central government had taken a decision — Pakistan will not be given Rs 55 crores. On January 13 Gandhi started a fast unto death that Pakistan must be given the money. On January 13, the central government changed its earlier decision and announced that Pakistan would be given the amount. On January 13, Nathuram decided to assassinate Gandhi." - ?
Nathuram Godse’s speech in court:
“ I don’t refute Gandhi’s theory of non-violence. He may be a saint but he is not a politician. His theory of non-violence denies self-defence and self-interest. The non-violence that defines the fight for survival as violence is a theory not of non-violence but of self-destruction.The division of the nation was an unnecessary decision. What was the percentage of the Muslim population as compared to the population of the nation? There was no need for a separate nation. Had it been a just demand, Maulana Azad would not have stayed back in India. But because Jinnah insisted and because Gandhi took his side, India was divided, in spite of opposition from the nation, the Cabinet. An individual is never greater than a nation.
In a democracy you cannot put forward your demands at knife-point. Jinnah did it and Gandhi stabbed the nation with the same knife. He dissected the land and gave a piece to Pakistan. We did picket that time but in vain. The Father of our Nation went to perform his paternal duties for Pakistan! Gandhi blackmailed the cabinet with his fast unto death. His body, his threats to die are causing the destruction — geographical as well as economical — of the nation. Today, Muslims have taken a part of the nation, tomorrow Sikhs may ask for Punjab. The religions are again divided into castes, they will demand sub-divisions of the divisions. What remains of the concept of one nation, national integration? Why did we fight the British in unison for independence? Why not separately? Bhagat Singh did not ask only for an independent Punjab or Subhash Chandra Bose for an independent Bengal?
I am going to assassinate him in the open, before the public, because I am going to do it as my duty. If I do it surreptitiously, it becomes a crime in my own eyes. I will not try to escape, I will surrender and naturally I will be hanged. One assassination, one hanging. I don’t want two executions for one assassination and I don’t want your involvement, participation or company. (This was for Nana-Apte and Veer Savarkar as they were against Gandhi’s policies too, Godse wanted to assassinate gandhi all by himself and took promise from Nana Apte that he will continue helping Veer Savarkar in rebuilding India as a strong free nation.)
On January 30, I reached Birla Bhavan at 12 pm. Gandhi was sitting outside on a cot enjoying the sunshine. Vallabhbhai Patel’s granddaughter was sitting at his feet. I had the revolver with me. I could have assassinated him easily then, but I was convinced that his assassination was to be a punishment and a sentence against him, and I would execute him. I wanted witnesses for the execution but there were none. I did not want to escape after the execution as there was not an iota of guilt in my mind. I wanted to surrender, but surrender to whom? There was a good crowd to collect for the evening prayers. I decided on the evening of January 30 as the date for Gandhi’s execution.
Gandhi climbed the steps and came forward. He had kept his hands on the shoulders of the two girls. I wanted just three seconds more. I moved two steps forward and faced Gandhi. Now I wanted to take out the revolver and salute him for whatever sacrifice and service he had made for the nation. One of the two girls was dangerously close to Gandhi and I was afraid that she might be injured in the course of firing. As a precautionary measure I went one more step ahead, bowed before him and gently pushed the girl away from the firing line. The next moment I fired at Gandhi. Gandhi was very weak, there was a feeble sound like ‘aah’ (There are proof that Gandhi did NOT say “Hey Raam” at that time – it’s just made up stuff ) from him and he fell down.
After the firing I raised my hand holding the revolver and shouted, ‘Police, police’. For 30 seconds nobody came forward and I scanned the crowd. I saw a police officer. I signalled to him to come forward and arrest me. He came and caught my wrist, then a second man came and touched the revolver… I let it go…”
Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other.I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Nairoji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.
All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well.
Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji’s influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence, which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, honour, duty and love of one’s own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.
In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history’s towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical, as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen forever for the freedom they brought to them.
The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very well in South Africa to uphold the rights and well being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the Judge of everyone and everything; he was the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma’s infallibility. ‘A Satyagrahi can never fail’ was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is.
Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible. Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with, as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster.
Gandhi’s pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect; it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and crossbreed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma’s sophistry could make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus.
>From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi’s infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork.
The Congress, which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism, secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls ‘freedom’ and ‘peaceful transfer of power’. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called ‘freedom won by them with sacrifice’ – whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country – which we consider a deity of worship – my mind was filled with direful anger.
One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi.
Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah’s iron will and proved to be powerless.
Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House.
I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots.
I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy, which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi. I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi’s persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims.
I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day in future."
Well?Possible indeed!
And at the same time, I feel that the text in red in this blog (which I have c+p'd from a copy sent to me) seems 'doctored'.
The new play scheduled to be performed here in January is called Revolutionaries. It is being produced for the first time by Auroville Theater Group (ATG). It was written by an American, late Phillip John Hobberman.The play tries to understand why or how the Russian revolution became USSR and how Stalin became the socialist dictator. It is around Lenin's illness (he had suffered three strokes by 1923-24. In January of 1924, Lenin died at the age of 53.)
I am playing Lenin in the play. In that connection I wrote an 'autobiographical', a sketch of sorts of what I thought might have been his mental make-up during this time, a trying period for him personally, when it was so crucial to give the party a definite course for its development.
It is believed that Stalin gave the party doctor orders to overdose Lenin with quinine, the drug that is suspected to have killed him. After his death however, no autopsy was carried out. Trotsky was in the Caucasian mountains recuperating himself.
When Lenin died, it was a cake walk for Stalin to assume absolute power.
Lenin was meticulous and he was a intelligent man. Obviously, he was a big egoist, as intelligent men usually are.
In my autobiographical sketch I have tried to ignore any strict adherence to history; my reference to it is a loose one. It is primarily an actor's objective with reference to the play-plot. Any other reference to many other important historical facts, I thought, would be detrimental to the objective of the play.
Following is what I wrote as Lenin, ill with three massive strokes in the year 1922-23.
My one problem – Vladimir Illych (Lenin)
The word destiny signifies nothing. And
‘god’ is a hollow
word. It has no meaning. The one
significant meaningful
word, the only word that can explain everything is history.
History is the inevitable reference to all
events upon earth:
birth, death and everything in between and
I, Vladimir Illych
Ulianov is a product of that history. When
I speak, the history
of Russia speaks through me.
A nation without its people is like a plate
without food. What
use is a mere plate that has no food on it?
What utility does a
mere plate serve, however precious may be
the metal of which
it is cast? So when I say Russia speaks
through me, it means
the peoples of Russia speak through me. I am Russia. I am
the
history of my peoples.
It is of no consequence when I was born or
when I will die.
It is enough that I acknowledge that I was
born in Russia.
The fact is, everything that lives dies. In
1887, Sasha Died!
Sasha died but his death sowed the seeds of
revolution in me.
Thus history continues to live, like relay.
And like Sasha, I
shall die one day. That is to say, Vladimir
Illych will perish,
but not his revolution, not his Bolshevism,
not his legacy of
Socialism. That is why I say, history does
not die. I am
completely identified with history, and by
that identity I am
Immortal! It is because of this that I say
birth and death are of
no consequence except historically.
Revolution has ensured the power to the
proletariat. Yet it is not
certain that the people who govern will be
the right catalysts so
that the power remains with the people.
There is always the threat
that it may be usurped by the few who
distinguish themselves
as members of politichescoebyuro or
politburo.
Going by the present state of affairs, I
see that simple objectives
are twisted for selfish, subjective ends;
ambition among those
at the helm of party affairs is rife…my
health does not permit
me to iron things out…I can trust nobody,
for nobody is capable
of understanding the ultimate and full
objective of the revolution…
the old Bolsheviks are as good as dead.
There is nobody I can trust.
NOBODY…
I see a bit of hope in Trotsky though. If I
have to risk trusting
somebody until I recover, Leon seems to
be my best deal. It is not
because he is faultless – quite the
contrary in fact - but because his
political opportunism is weaker than the
others. He is a show off!
Trotsky will not be able to play his cards
in the way that others
may, or can, so as to actually have
absolute power until my recovery
from this illness. Trotsky loves attention,
but real power scares him to
death. Leave him to lead alone and he will
shit his pants, I tell you!
A remedy to the deterioration of the party
is possible only if
Trotsky would take the burden off my
shoulders for as long
as I might take to recover from this stupid
illness of mine…!
He may or he may not. His need to satisfy
everybody equally
- above all himself - is strong. So he may
not accept the deputy-ship.
But if he does not then who else can?
Molotov? Kamenev?
Zinoviev? They are not capable of
understanding the larger picture.
Only Trotsky can to some extent, but he may
not accept to be
my deputy. Why can he not see the
importance of it with present
conditions?
Ah! Only if he shoulders my burden can I relax,
recuperate, get well and when I get well, I
can bring order to the party,
singlehandedly if need be! I have that
confidence, and I see no
obstacles in my path …
...except that power
mongering peasant…
He thinks that I can not predict his
politics. Stalin is corrupt.
He craves absolute power over the party,
the politburo and
the whole nation. I can almost predict that
Joseph Stalin will
be the dictator of our socialist state. If
that happens, the
whole revolution is fucked! Russia will be
fucked!! It will be ruined!
I feel that even the Tsar was perhaps
better as a dictator than that
peasant. He can not handle power; he will
ruin everything,
everything and absolutely!!!
The revolution did not start to end behind
closed bureaucratic doors
of the Kremlin alone, but Stalin can not
understand that.
Wherever there is class discrimination and
oppression there the
revolution must burn the oppressor! Russia is the
beginning;
just the beginning of the workers’ movement
for the establishment
of a classless society all over the world.
But…but…
Just six years and I can already see a new
kind of Czar –A communist
Czar! Joseph Stalin!
Yet it is not too late. I could remedy it.
But not with this god damned
illness!! I need help so that I can
recover. I need Trotsky’s help. I
need to get rid of this damn illness which
has crippled me so…
