From the banks of the Pangong Lake

This is Gandhijhi’s letter (post card ) to my father, who passed away exactly 38 years ago. The Letter is interesting for several reasons. This is actually an answer to some question put by father regarding charaka (spinning wheel ) , spinning, yarn etc. Note the date: 6/3/1925 – A period he was very busy with national politics. The great man takes time to answer a person whom he does not know well and that too about a rather extraneous ( at least to us today) matter. Gandhiji was great with details and he knew many things about yarn, cloth, machines etc. (There is an incident in William Shirer’s book where Gandhiji goes to Manchester and tells the factory workers there that the machines in Ahmedabad are much more efficient !!)

As far as I can make out the letter reads :

MY FRIEND,

I HAVE YOUR LETTER. WE HAVE FOUR FEET WINDERS AND AS THE YARN IS WOUND THE TURNS ARE COUNTED. THUS THE COUNTING IS DONE ……TIME AS WINDING.

THERE IS NO OBJECTION TO YOUR SELLING THE YARN TO THE SPINNER SO LONG AS YU ARE SATISFIED THAT IT IS TO BE TURNED INTO CLOTH ,

YOURS SINCERELY

M.K.GANDHI…

6.3.25 (1925)

My father ,as many of his generation, was influenced profoundly by Gandhiji

I am enclosing the other two blogs I had put in sulekha more than a year ago:

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The young man and the great soul:

The young man sat on the steps leading to the river. It was early morning and he had had his daily bath in the holy river. Now he had to really take a hard decision. He had after all come a long way to study at this famous university. He had literally run away from his native town to come and study here. It was the occasion of his sister’s marriage. His father had given him a few rupees to buy some groceries. But he had not gone to the shop. Instead he had gone to the railway station. The money he had was not enough for this long journey . Therefore he had traveled this length of 1500 miles almost without ticket. And he had been here for the past seven years. He had obtained his Bachelors in Science. He got admission to Master’s and it was now the end of the two years. The final examinations were about to start in a month . And then he would be a scientist ! And he could go home and take care of his parents and his brothers.

But his mind was going astray quite a lot these days. He had not earlier thought much about the country. He was too much wrapped in himself and his family. And later in his studies. But he now realized the slave status of his country. And then this man who was supposed to havea adone wonders in South Africa came to give a lecture at the university. He remembered the day. There were lectures by princes. And by that famous theosophist , the Irish Lady. When these lectures were going on in the big auditorium a little man had quietly come and sat on a back bench. Some people recognized him and called out his name. THE GREAT SOUL ! He was asked to come up to the dias. Then he spoke. Then everything changed.

The young man went back from the lecture totally spellbound. And since then his studies did not mean anything to him. Added to it was the clarion call of this leader who was called the Great Soul: STUDENTS STUDYING IN INSTITUTIONS WHOSE FINANCES COME FROM THE COLONIAL MASTERS SHOULD DISCONTINUE THEIR STUDIES AND LEAVE THE INSTITUTIONS .

What should he do now ? Should he follow the leader’s call and stop his studies ? Or should he take his exams as his friends advised ? He thought for a minute to write to his father and ask his advice. But he gave up this thought since he knew his father would not like him to discontinue his studies. He went to his favourite teacher and asked him for his advice. The teacher told him to complete the examinations. He said he knew that the young man would pass with flying colours. The young man liked the teacher. But his advice sounded wrong.

Then he decided to go to the leader himself for the advice. He knew that the Great Soul would be in town on a certain day.. It was difficult for him to meet him. But he persevered and finally met the Great Soul who told him that it is the first step in the process of non cooperation. If the young man wanted to fight for the freedom of the country he was told there are no choices. The young man was now convinced. He still wanted to look after his family but decided that he has to think of other means to do so. Science was not the path for him. For the final time he wanted to meet the vice chancellor of the university . He was also a very distinguished gentleman. And he had met him on several occasions. The vice chancellor welcomed him and asked him about the studies. The young man told him about what he thought was his mission. The vice chancellor told him to take the M.Sc degree and then do whatever he wanted. But the young man told him that he had promised the Great Soul himself. When the vice chancellor heard it, he knew that the young man was determined. He game him 50 rupees and wished well.

The young man went to the railway station with the money in his packet. He smiled to himself. How different was this journey from the one he had made 7 years ago !. This time he did not have to run to the bathroom whenever the ticket collector appeared . And also unlike in the old times, he knew very well what he wanted to do. He wanted to follow the advice of the Great Soul and serve the country in whichever way possible. He had received the light from the sun. May be he can be another sun. Or atleast a candle!

(In the above story, The GREAT SOUL is Mahatma Gandhi ! Time was 1920. Place was Benares. The university was BHU. The vice chancellor was Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya. The young man was my father, He, of course, did not become a scientist. Instead he became a journalist . His newspaper was in the forefront of the freedom struggle in Mysore State. If interested pl see the blog called AUTUMN OF 1942 - FATHER IN JAIL) http://tainadu.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/04/autumn-of-1942-father-in-jail.htm

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Another blog:

Gandhiji was in Mysore on 23 July 1927. When Sri P.R.Ramaiya (my faher ) met him and asked him for blessings, he wrote the famous shloka ' Sukha dukhe ..' from Bhagavadgita in Sri Ramaiya's diary. This shloka served as the motto for the newspaper my father edited

Ghashiram Kotwal – Vijay Tendulkar is dead

It was the early ‘80s and the biggest cultural event of the time was the production of GHASHIRAM KOTWAL by Jabbar Patel. It was written by the great Vijay Tendulkar who died 2 days ago on 19 May 2008. It was a wonderful play and I remember seeing it in one of the Bombay theatres. My knowledge of Marathi was/is limited, but I still enjoyed the play. The opening scene, if I remember, was the chorus by the Pune Brahmana Mandali.

WIKIPAEDIA talks about the play :

Ghashiram Kotwal is a Marathi play written by playwright Vijay Tendulkar in 1972, as his response to the rise of a local political party, Shiv Sena, in Maharashta. The play is a political satire, written as historical drama. Based on the life of Nana Phadnavis(1741-1800), one of the prominent ministers in the court of the Peshwa of Pune. Its theme is how men in power give rise to ideologies to serve their purposes, and later destroy them when they become useless.It was first performed on 16 December 1972, by the Progressive Drama Association in Pune. Jabbar Patel’sJ's production of the play in 1973 is considered a classic in Modern Indian Theatre …The play stands out also for the use "Tamasha" Genre in the play so you have a lot of singing and dancing used here to good effect, here the "abhangas" (devotional songs) mixed in with the "Lavnis" (Love songs)…. This play caused a lot of controversy because some people believed that it hurt the feelings of the Brahmin community and that it showed the statesman Nana Phadnavis in a bad light. Hence it was temporarily banned in the state

The story (taken from an internet site) is as follows:

The Peshwa empire was run by the ageing, but extremely ruthless debauchee, Nana Phadnavis, on behalf of the minor Sawai Madhorao. The Brahmins who have the run of the city were a licentious lot, their days are equally divided between bhajans and lascivious tamashas, temples and gambling dens, pious wives and dancing girls.
Into this city, fabled for its prosperity and its powerful Brahmins, comes a poor Kannauj Brahmin from Aurangabad, Ghashiram Kotwal.
Ghashiram tries to make a living in the city when he is victimised by its xenophobic Brahmins. He is insulted and thrown out of Pune on false charges. Ghashiram vows revenge and returns with his daughter. He sets her on Nana, who is so besotted with her that he appoints Nana his kotwal, or city magistrate.
Ghashiram gets a work force mostly from the Ramoshi tribe and lets loose a regime of terrifyingly rigorous moral policing over Pune. He cracks down on the brothels, raids homes to catch out adulterers, stops all the money-spinning rackets and punishes the smallest crime of corruption with torture and death. Some poor Telengana Brahmins he jails on flimsy charges die a painful death in prison. The Brahmins of Pune rise up against the kotwal. By now Nana has no use for Ghashiram and he has had his fill of the kotwal’s daughter. The two are put to a painful death. The regime survives — and Pune returns to its colourful, venal ways.

This is from wikipaedia :

Vijay Tendulkar(1928-2008) was a leading Indian playwright, movie and television writer, literary essayist, political journalist, and social commentator primarily in Marāthi. He is best known for his plays, Shāntatā! Court Chālu Āhe (1967), Ghāshirām Kotwāl (1972), and Sakhārām Binder (1972).Many of Tendulkar's plays derived inspiration from real-life incidents or social upheavals, which provides clear light on harsh realities. For over five decades, Tendulkar had been a highly influential dramatist and theater personality in Mahārāshtra.

A piece of sky fell on us

A piece of sky fell on us …….

The Event:

Around 7 in the morning on June 30^th 1908, people northwest of Lake Baikal observed a column of bluish light, nearly as bright as the Sun, moving across the sky. About 10 minutes later, a flash was also scene. And later …A piece of sky fell on the earth almost 100 years (June 30.1908) ago and devastated a region as big as a huge metropolis. This is the centenary year of the ravaging of Tunguska !

An artist's rendering of the flash ( by William Harman)

Siberia itself is a sparsely inhabited place. But region around the Tunguska river , could be called the Siberia of Siberia ! It is dammed lucky that nobody lived in that region. The explosion (about ~10-20 megatons)was larger than the effect of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima The estimate for this event is bout 50 such bombs . How big was the ‘ stone ‘ that was responsible for the disaster ?About 30-100 meters across! (Some of the estimates in literature are quite different) The explosion knocked over an estimated 80 million trees over about 2000 square kilometers. The earthquake from the blast measured 5.0 on the Richter scale . Many reindeer were killed.

Devastation of a forest by the event

Over the next few weeks in 1908, it seems night skies were aglow such that one could read in their light, from dust suspended in the the sky by the explosion. The observatories in America observed a decrease in overall light that lasted for several months, also from the suspended dust. A New Yorker article describes it in less prosaic terms: The night of the Tunguska explosion the skies were unnaturally bright across Europe—as far away as London people strolled in the parks past midnight and read novels out of doors while the sheep kept right on grazing and the birds stirred uneasily in the trees.

The Cause:

The solar system is a host to several marauders. These are objects which don’t stick to a particular path. The more important ones are the comets, asteroids and meteors . Everybody knows comets. Smaller rocks are termed meteorites, Asteroids are bigger boulders pebbles (ranging from a few meters thick to several thousand kilometers – these are termed as the debris left behind when the solar system was made) going around the Sun in an orbit in between that of Mars and Jupiter.

In general there is nothing to worry about asteroids. They just outinely encircle the sun. But occasionally one of these objects strays from its path because of a gravitational tug from another such object which could lead to a collision with the earth. When these objects come towards the moon , there is a direct hit on the moon causing the famous craters (ditches ) . However when tthey come towards the earth they have to encounter earth’s atmosphere. Most of them break up creating fireballs. The ensuing destruction is directly related to the size of the fireball. Craters are quite unlikely when these objects impact the earth.

It is believed that Dinosaurs were wiped out in a comet/asteroid impact of 65 million years ago. The culprit was probably a metropolis size object from t he sky. Direct impact is not the one which is responsible for large size destruction of the animals. There would , of course, be vast forest fires (as in Tunguska) which will destroy many animals. A vast quantituy of dust is thrown out into the sky which keeps the sunlight out for decades. This leads to severe cooling which slowly delivers the death blow. A lake CHICXULUB in Mexico has been seen at what could have been the impact point . The famous meteor crater ( also called Barrington crater) in Arizona was caused by an asteroid just 24 meters across about 20 – 50000 years ago. ! A similar crater which is a lake today is the LONAR crater in Aurangabad. .

The Lonar lake ( 1 km dia)

The opinion about the primary object which caused Tungusa depends on whether one is in New York or in Moscow. The Russians think it was a comet whereas the Americans believe that it was an asteroid. There are people who believe that it is due to an explosion of a UFO in air. Pieces of spacecraft has been found but it is said that they could be debris of some Russian space vehicle. There are also reports of a lake nearby which could have been due to the impact of the object from the sky

Such explosions are supposed to occur about once in a century. Much bigger ones are supposed to occur once in a millennium. If it had happened about 5 hours later the piece of sky would have hit the Russian(then) capital of St Petersburg and completely devastated the city. About 2 million people would have died . The Tsar with his whole retinue would have been eliminated and one wonders what would have been the future of Russia. Would the October revolution have taken place ? A youth called Vladimir Lenin would have continued living in Paris writing manifestos after manifestos!

( Thanks to the internet sites for the pictures)

James Stewart, the actor who taught me how to speak English

There is this young lawyer who comes from the east coast to cowboy country in the southwest. . He preaches that disputes should be settled by law and not by gun. He is certainly a strange figure and cannot stop talking peace in that cowboy country. For his peaceful ways he is called the ‘ pilgrim ‘ by a local rancher who befriends him. The rancher, who knows how to use a bullet or two, tries to tell the lawyer to not talk about peace all the time. But one fine day the lawyer somehow manages to anger a notorious outlaw who calls him for a fight. Well, this young lawyer really does not know how to use a gun but nevertheless accepts the call for the fight. People worry that this nice kid will end up getting. killed. Then the day dawns and everybody is there to see the fight. The bully and the lawyer face each other and both pull the gun at the same time. People close their eyes not wanting to see the kid die. But look ! Something strange has happened. The bully is shot and is dead whereas our lawyer cannot believe that he shot him down ! Whatever it is, the kid gets famous for killing the outlaw. Eventually he makes it to the US Senate. Did the kid lawyer really shoot the bully ? I wont spoil it for you !

This is what I remember from that famous movie of my early days of cinema viewing. This classic western was directed by John Ford , probably the greatest director of western films. The notorious outlaw was played by Lee Marvin , who later won an Oscar for the film Cat Ballou (with Jane Fonda ) . The Big man who keeps calling the lawyer as pilgrim and who is wonderful with gun is played by John Wayne, probably the most famous actor in that genre of films. And the the lawyer from the east was played by an actor who was already at the pinnacle of movie fame. He was James (Jimmy) Stewart and the film was The MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE . James Stewart , if alive, would have been 100 years old this month . He was named recently as one of the top three Greatest Male Stars of all times by the American Film Institute.

It is probably strange to introduce James Stewart with this western film because it was not really his type of a movie. However, there were elements of comedy in the film and and Stewart excelled in such stuff. Those were called screwball comedies . It was not the Chaplin variety but some thing conveyed with nods, expressions and small talk. There were many other actors , even greater in some ways and many more handsome - but he probably represented middle America better than anybody else. James Stewart really was the quintessential mid westerner – no New York or California in him. According to some, he was boy-next-door and it is for this that he is best remembered.

James Stewart did several Hitchcock films. The ones I remember are The Vertigo, The Man who knew too much , The Rear Window. Vertigo was really great with the seductive Kim Novak trying to play two roles. The Man who knew too much which starts in Morocco had Doris Day singing the famous Que Sera , Que Sera and the famous scene at the symphony. The Rear Window had him lying in his bed with a plaster around his leg watch a murder from his window and try to avert another. He was nominated several times for Oscars and I think he won it once.

James Stewart was quite well known for some of his earlier films like the Philadelphia Story (with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn), Mr Smith goes to Washington ( directed by Frank Capra , it is an idealistic film how people can do good in poltics ) , It’s a wonderful life (shown every Christmas). I was lucky to see all those films later . According to Wikipaedia ‘ He won many of the industry's highest honors and earned Lifetime Achievement awards from every major film organization.’ What is equally important is that he was almost universally described by his collaborators as a kind, soft spoken man. He died in 1997.

There is an important reason for the likes of me to remember English movies and old American actors. At that time in our lives , English was still a script staring up at us from text books. It had yet to become a language, a tongue in which we could speak to others. It was during those days that we made our slow transition from regional (Hindi etc) movies to English moves. Just like we had learnt to speak Hindi earlier, we were going to learn English now with the help of movies. We were taken in by the great Marlon Brando but we could not make head or tail of his speech. But actors like James Stewart, Gregory Peck etc spoke English which one could understand and we tried to speak like them. If we had even little success at all in our lives later in conveying our thoughts and feelings to others , the credit should go to English movies and actors like Jimmy Stewart ! It was the likes of him who helped us make an alien tongue our own ! Happy 100th birthday , Jimmy, from your English student !

(Photos courtresy of internet)

Murrow

Edward Murrow, the Grand Daddy of Newscasters

Playwrights adore Shakespeare, Scientists adore Newton ! But whom do newscasters adore ? Is there anybody up there who is adored by the likes of Rajdeep Sardesai and Prannoy Roy ? Yes, there is ! And he is Edward R Murrow who was born almost exactly 100 years ago (25/4/ 1908).

Our college libraries in the sixties were almost non existent and even otherwise they were more museums than libraries since all that we could do was to look at the dusty books in glass shelves. But we were lucky that we were wooed by various countries which started their own libraries in big cities. We had the British Council library and then there was the USIA – United States Information Agency – library. USIA was started by President John Kennedy to spread American values all over the globe. And Kennedy was very good at selecting the right person for the right job. He selected Edward Murrow to head the USIA . After all who knew dispersal of information better than Murrow ? According to Wikipedia Mainstream historians consider him among journalism’s greatest figures;

Murrow was one of the few who really exploited the radio. His dispatches to the United States during the II World War were very popular. He would start his reports from UK with the words ‘ This is London’ which became the catch phrase later for all broadcasts.

With the beginning of the TV era, Murrow switched over to the new medium with ease and became a national icon. He was known for his very honest reporting of events and an in depth analysis. The 1950’s were scary years for the American liberals. Senator Joseph McCarthy, a rabble rouser, became the darling of the American right when he began a scrutiny of important Americans for their attitude towards communism .According to Wikipedia “ During this time many thousands of Americans were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies.” Scientists like Robert Oppenheimer and Linus Pauling , writers like Dashiel Hammett and Arthur Miller , entertainers like Paul Robeson and Charlie Chaplin were on McCarthy’s list. It was to the credit of Edward Murrow that he took on Murrow and totally discredited him. It is said that Murrow’s tv program was very important in bringing McCarthy down.

Murrow was a heavy smoker and died of lung cancer in 1965. According to Wikipaedia, “ Upon his death, Murrow's colleague and Eric Sevaried said of him, "He was a shooting star; and we will live in his afterglow a very long time". Another colleague Walter Cronkite said of Murrow, "He's the head of the parade, he's the pinnacle of the pyramid. He led the way." “

It was said sometime ago that Virender Sehwag did not know at all about the Vinoo Mankad. One hopes that the present day newscasters know at least something about Edward Murrow and more importantly emulate him.

(My interest in him stems from the fact that my father was a journalist)