Indian Ascendancy

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The man who was Chesterton

Wed, 28 Nov, 2007 , 03:10 PM

I am a true Chestertonian. I am sure that all true Chestertonians will surely assert and maintain that there is something presumptuous, if not preposterous, in the breezy title of this article. In fact, they will be right because it is almost impossible to confine the multi-faceted genius of G K Chesterton (1874-1936) within the gamut of a single title or label.

He was an influential English writer from 1900 till his death in 1936. His prolific and diverse output included journalism, philosophy, poetry, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy, and detective fiction.

Not many have equalled him in literary stature in modern times and his fame as playwright, poet, novelist, literary commentator, editor, pamphleteer, apologist and essay writer is awe-inspiring.

The range of his interests is staggering and the variety of subjects about which he wrote is enormous.

A career in journalism gave Chesterton mastery over one of his favourite literary forms. He became the most popular essayist of his day, upheld as a model to the generations of English School Children between the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 and the end of the II World War. He was a columnist for the Daily News, the Illustrated London News, and his own paper, G K’s Weekly. He also wrote articles for the Encyclopedia Britannica. In the United States, his writings on distributism were popularized through The American Review, published by Seward Collins in New York.

Chesterton was a BBC Radio personality of renown. During the early days of broadcasting, his piping voice became as well known as the high-pitched tones of H G Wells (1866-1946), the urbanities of Max Beerbohm (1872-1956) or carefully nurtured brogue of Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) all the time enhanced by Chesterton’s obesity and eccentric touches of dress.

G K Chesterton’s overriding sense of life’s complexity and contradictions led him to be known in his time as a ‘Master of the Paradox’. He wrote in an off-hand, often informal, whimsical prose studded with startling paradoxes. Here is a striking example of his style: ‘Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.’

He was a literary critic of the first order and wrote books of lasting importance about Charles Dickens (1812-1870), Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) and Robert Browning (1812-1889). He also produced a classic book in 1913 titled ‘The Victorian Age in Literature’.

In my view, Chesterton’s master piece was his work ‘Orthodoxy’ which was published in 1908. This book was written more than a decade before his conversion to Catholicism. It is a comprehensive view of the conservative approach to religious and social life. In it, Chesterton argues that in life it is sensible to change anything excepting our goals what he termed ‘fixed ideals’. His point being: So long as we hold to a single end, our failures to achieve it will still move us closer to success; but if the goal keeps changing, all our failures are pointless!

Chesterton is one of the few Christian thinkers who are equally admired and quoted by both liberal and conservative Christians, and indeed by many non-Christians. Chesterton’s own theological and political views were too finely nuanced to fit comfortably under either the ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ banner. Chesterton attacked both these labels in this manner: ‘The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.’

Chesterton also wrote a series of celebrated detective stories about the Priest-Sleuth Father Brown. The Man Who Was Thursday is arguably his best-known novel. He has the well deserved reputation for being one of the wittiest men who ever lived and he was rarely bested in riposte.

Chesterton was a large man, standing six feet four inches tall and weighing around 134 kg. His obesity marked by his great girth gave rise to a famous anecdote. During World War I, a lady in London asked why he wasn’t ‘out at the Front’; he replied, ‘If you go round to the side, you will see that I am.’

On another occasion he remarked to his friend George Bernard Shaw, ‘To look at you, anyone would think there was a famine in England.’ Shaw retorted, ‘To look at you, anyone would think you caused it.’ Chesterton loved to debate, often engaging in friendly public disputes with such men as George Bernard Shaw, H G Wells, Bertrand Russell and Clarence Darrow. According to his autobiography, he and Shaw played cowboys in a silent movie that was never released.

Chesterton usually wore a funny cap and a crumpled hat, with a swordstick in hand, and had a cigar hanging out of his mouth. Chesterton often forgot where he was supposed to be going and would miss the train that was supposed to take him there. It is reported that on several occasions he sent a telegram to his wife from some distant location (often mistaken and many times wrong!), sending such messages as ‘Am at Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?’ to which she would reply, ‘Home.’

In his autobiography, Chesterton wrote about himself as follows: Apart from vanity or mock modesty (which healthy people always use as jokes!), my real judgement of my work is that I have spoilt a number of jolly good ideas in my time.... I can, if you will let me, lay claim to one little modest negative virtue. I have always been free from envy. I believe the biographers or bibliographers of the future, if they find any trace of me at all, will say something like this: ‘Chesterton, Gilbert Keith: From the fragments left by this now forgotten writer it is difficult to understand the cause even of such publicity as he obtained in his own days; nevertheless there is reason to believe that he was not without certain fugitive mental gifts’.

In a famous essay titled ‘A Defence of Nonsense’, Chesterton wrote: It is altogether advisedly that we quote chiefly from Mr Edward Lear’s (1812-1888) ‘Nonsense Rhymes’. To our minds he is both chronologically and essentially the father of nonsense; we think him superior to Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)... Lewis Carroll’s ‘Wonderland’ is a country populated by insane mathematicians. We feel the whole is an escape into a world of masquerade, we feel that if we could pierce their disguises, we might discover that Humpty Dumpty and the March Hare were professors and doctors of divinity enjoying a mental holiday. This sense of escape is certainly less emphatic in Edward Lear, because of the completeness of his citizenship in the world of unreason... Edward Lear introduces his unmeaning words and his amorphous creations, not with the pomp of reason, but with the romantic prelude of rich hues and haunting rhythms.... Our claim is that nonsense is a new literature (we might almost say a new sense)... .Nothing sublimely artistic has ever arisen out of mere art, any more than anything essentially reasonable has ever arisen out of the pure reason. There must always be a rich moral soil for any great aesthetic growth. The principle of ART FOR ART’S SAKE is a very good principle if it means there is a vital distinction between the earth and the tree that has its roots in the earth; but it is a very bad principle if it means that the tree could grow just as well with its roots in the air... If, therefore, nonsense is really to be the literature of the future, it must have its own version of the Cosmos to offer, the world must not only be the tragic, romantic and religious, it must be nonsensical too. And here we fancy that nonsense will, in a much unexpected way, come to the aid of the spiritual view of things... The simple sense of wonder at the shape of things, and of their exuberant independence of our intellectual standards and our trivial definitions, is the basis of spirituality as it is the basis of nonsense. Nonsense and faith (strange as the conjunction may seem) are the two supreme symbolic assertions of the truth that to draw out the soul of things with a syllogism is as impossible as to draw out Leviathan with a hook. The well meaning person who, by merely studying the logical side of things, has decided that ‘faith is nonsense’, does not know how truly he speaks; later it may comeback to him in the form that nonsense is faith.

Chesterton’s poem ‘The Great Minimum’ is my favourite poem. Here are a few lines from this great poem:

‘It is something to have wept as we have wept,
It is something to have done as we have done,
It is something to have watched where all men slept,
And seen the stars which never see the sun
It is something to have smelt the mystic rose,
Although it break and leave the thorny rods,
It is something to have hungered once as those
Must hunger who have ate the bread of God’s
Lo! Blessed are our ears for they have heard;
Yes, blessed are our eyes for they have seen:
Let thunder break on man and beast and bird
And the lightning. It is something to have been.

In all his writings, Chesterton consistently displayed wit and a sense of humour. When ‘The Times’ invited several eminent authors to write essays on the theme ‘What’s wrong with the world?’ Chesterton’s contribution took the form of a letter:

Dear Sirs,
I am.
Sincerely yours,
G K Chesterton

Splendid saga of TNSC Bank:Centenary of stellar growth

V SUNDARAM | Tue, 27 Nov, 2007 , 04:09 PM

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act but also dream, not only plan but also believe”—Sir P Rajagopalachari.

Histories of great enterprises like Banks are sometimes written by those who have had no part in them but have made their names as writers and historians. Others are written by some employees with a bent for h Sample Image istorical research and a passable literary style. Some get written by the founders or their successors—men who have played leading roles in an Institution’s development. Others again appear in print in such a way that after a few years nobody can remember who did the actual writing, who commissioned the work or indeed why it should have been written. As a free lance journalist, I do not come under any of these categories. My interest in the growth of this Bank arose in 1988 when I was serving as Secretary to the Government of Tamilnadu in the Department of Co-operation. I am, however, confident and hopeful that my story relating to the exciting birth, growth and development of The Tamilnadu State Apex-Cooperative Bank (TNSC Bank), which has just completed 102 years of useful and purposeful service with a mission, will serve to disarm the critics and do away with any uninformed speculation about the role and origins of TNSC Bank.

To trace the course of a river from its source, even if only on a map, can be a fascinating occupation; to follow the germination of an idea from its conception to the point at which it emerges in practical form can also be an interesting exercise. The establishment of TNSC Bank in 1905 was not a chance event, neither was it the result of a mammoth deal brought off at a single stroke. It was rather the fulfilment of a long cherished idea which developed and took shape over a period of years, motivated step by step by a single mastermind like Sir P Rajagopalachariar who was the first Registrar of Cooperative Societies in the old Madras Presidency. The idea of organizing a bank for financing Cooperative Credit Societies emanated from Sir P Rajagopalachariar.

In this grand mission, the man who guided him was Dewan Bahadur S Subramania Iyer (1842-1922). It was a brilliant and original idea because the Cooperative Societies Act X of 1904 which became law on 25 March, 1904, whether by design or oversight, merely contemplated the establishment of Primary Societies which were expected to finance themselves. It was Sir V C Desikachariar, the first Secretary of the Madras Central Urban Bank Limited (the great grandfather of today’s TNSC Bank) who gave a practical shape to the proposals formulated by the first Registrar of Cooperative Societies Sir P.Rajagopalachariar.

On 16 September, 1905, 17 gentlemen (Their signatures can be seen above) sent a letter of application to the Registrar of Cooperative Societies for the registration of the Madras Central Urban Bank Limited under the Cooperatives Act X of 1904. This galaxy included Dewan Bahadur Hon’ble Justice S Subramania Aiyar, Hon’ble Sir V C Desikachariar, Hon’ble V Krishnaswami Aiyar, Hon’ble Justice P R Sundara Aiyar, and Hon’ble P Thyagaraja Chettiar.

The Government of Madras in GO Ms. No. 1022, Revenue, dated 19.10.1905 accorded the necessary sanction for the creation of the Madras Central Urban Bank Limited. ON 23 NOVEMBER 1905, Sir P.Rajagopalachari, THE REGISTRAR OF COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES REGISTERED THE BANK UNDER THE COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES ACT OF 1904 (See Below).

The Bank started functioning on 26 November, 1905. The First General Meeting of the Members of the Bank was held at “Devonshire House”, the palatial residence of Dewan Bahadur SSubramania Aiyar (later Hon. Justice Sir S. Subramania Aiyar) on 26 November, 1905—the very first day on which the Bank commenced its business. The Initial Authorised Share Capital was Rs 25,000/- divided into 50 shares of Rs 500 each. The first loan of the bank was disbursed to No. 21 Big Kancheepuram Urban Weavers Union on 14.2.1906. The first Fixed Deposit was received on 14.3.1906. The Bank’s first accounting year ended on 31.3.1906 with a net profit of Rs.20 - 9 annas - 0 paisa.

In the First Stage (1905-1917) the Shareholding in the Bank was confined entirely to individuals. By the end of December, 1911, the Bank had become well established and its foundation was well laid. The Working Capital of the Bank then stood at Rs 16 lakh. In March 1910, the Authorised Share Capital of the Bank was raised to Rs. 1 lakh, comprising of 1000 ordinary shares of Rs 100 each. From 1905 to 1911, loans aggregating over Rs 29 lakh were disbursed to Primary Cooperative Societies. On 1 July, 1911, a Department for Current Accounts was opened. Until then only Fixed Deposits were accepted by the Bank. Some outstanding developments took place in 1909-10. Salem District Urban Bank was registered on 25 January, 1909, Cooperative Supervising Union at Utramerur was registered on 5 August, 1910, and Coimbatore District Urban Bank was registered on 16 September, 1910.

In the Second Stage (1917-1920) pursuant to the Report by Maclogan Committee on Cooperation, the General Body of the Bank decided on 31.3.1917 to admit Cooperative Societies as Shareholders of the Bank. Prudential and Savings Deposits were accepted by the Bank for the first time in 1917.

In the Third Stage (1920-30) the Madras Central Urban Bank emerged as a real Federation of Central Cooperative Banks, styled as the “Madras Provincial Cooperative Bank Limited”. The response from the Primary Cooperative Societies to avail themselves of the offer of admission to the Membership of the Bank was not adequate. Taking note of this fact, Hemingway, the Registrar of Cooperative Societies in 1919, proposed a new scheme of a far reaching character for federating the Central Banks into a higher Central Organization of their own. In short, his proposal was to convert the Madras Central Urban Bank into a real Provincial Apex Bank. From 1 July, 1920, Central Cooperative Banks alone were admitted as shareholders of the Bank. The Bank moved to its own premises at Luz Church Road on 1 February, 1921. THE BANK’S FIRST BRANCH IN CHENNAI CITY WAS OPENED ON 17.2.1921 AT ARMENIAN STREET IN GEORGE TOWN.

In the Fourth Stage (1930-1956) the Madras Central Urban Bank underwent a great structural transformation. The Silver Jubilee of the Bank was celebrated in a grand manner on 20 July 1931. By a Resolution passed at the General Body Meeting of the Bank held on 18th June 1931, the name of the Bank was changed as “THE MADRAS PROVINCIAL CO-OPERATIVE BANK LIMITED”. On 1 October 1937, the Head Office of the Bank moved into the “College House” building (the very site where the Head Office of the Bank is now functioning) and the Town Branch on Armenian Street, was merged with Head Office. The old Head Office of the Bank at Mylapore was converted into a Branch. During the period from 1937-1940, the Bank opened 3 New Branches in the very important localities of Madras City – Mylapore, Egmore and Triplicane.

In the Fifth Stage (1956-1970), the Government of Tamil Nadu became a share-holder of the Bank on 27.3.1957 in pursuant to the recommendations of the All India Rural Credit Survey Committee of the Reserve Bank of India. Consequent on the re-naming of our State as Tamil Nadu in 1970, the name of the Bank was also changed as “The Tamil Nadu State Co-operative Bank Limited” in the same year.

After 1960-61, The Tamil Nadu State Co-operative Bank entered the field of industrial finance. Innumerable Co-operative Spinning Mills and Co-operative Sugar Mills were financed by the Bank by way of Working Capital Loans, Term Loans, Bridge Loans etc. The norms and the standards set and enforced by TNSC Bank for industrial financing in these sectors became ‘the model’ for the rest of the country.

In the Sixth Stage (1970-1976) we notice that the Tamil Nadu Co-operative Societies Act was amended with effect from 17th October 1970, to provide representation to the ‘weaker sections’ of the society in the Board of Management of the Bank. For the first time, a Special Officer of the Bank with power to exercise any or all of the functions of the Board of Management was appointed under the Tamilnadu Cooperative Societies (Appointment of Special Officers) Act, 1976 on 10 June, 1976. Thiru M. Ahmed, I.A.S. was appointed as Special Officer.

In the Seventh Stage (1976-1980), the Special Officer of the Bank was also assigned the duties of the Managing Director of the Bank and thus he became Special Officer and Managing Director of the Bank. In the (1989-1987), the TNSC Bank started financing National Consumers Cooperative Federation, a national level organisation. The Ninth Stage (1987-1998) saw the TNSC Bank focus on Training and Human Resource Development.

Progress is a permanent movement and not a temporary condition; a continuing journey and not a static harbour. TNSC Bank is no exception to this rule. On 26.11.2007 this great Bank has completed 102 years of useful service to the farmers and weavers of Tamilnadu by extending the required credit in the manner and measure required through the various Cooperative Institutions like the District Central Cooperative Banks, Primary Agricultural Cooperative Banks and Primary Weavers Cooperative Societies. As a Commercial Bank, the TNSC Bank today is known for the outstanding quality of its personalized customer service in all its Branches in Chennai City. Customers can be one and held only through a multitude of acts and attitudes. The Bank Officers and staff have succeeded in creating a mental and emotional climate of friendliness and goodwill towards all customers in every Branch, making every aspect of banking transaction a joyous and happy adventure.

Karthik Purnima in different parts of India

V Sundaram | Sat, 24 Nov, 2007 , 03:58 PM

India is a land of cultural unity amidst diversity. Languages, dialects, customs, festivals, dress, codes, cuisine, conduct, religions, philosophy, art, craft, literature, politics—there is nothing that is the same and certainly nothing that can be held together by just singing a national anthem.

There has to be something more, ‘something’ deeper than a national bird and national symbol. In ‘Atharva Veda’ there is a poem which describes this ‘something’.

“Unified am I, quite undivided,
Unified my soul
Unified my sight, unified my hearing
Unified my breathing—both in and out
Unified is my continuous breath
Unified, quite undivided am I
The whole of me”

Only temple dedicated to

Lord Brahma at Pushkar

That ‘something’ which unifies is what this country leans upon as a source of strength for the ages to come.

Once upon a time long ago, the great Saints and Sages who lived on this sacred soil injected this sense of unity into our life-streams.

Kartik Purnima at Varanasi

Our festivals like Deepavali, Dashera and Karthik Purnima are not simply a show of lights. When we celebrate festivals like Karthik Purnima, we celebrate the Festival of Eternal Illumination, asking for light to dawn on our minds, in our hearts, letting its warm glow mix with our life and blood.

On such festival days we celebrate the victory of good over evil, of virtue over vice, of immortal life over mortal death.

Bathing ritual for elephants on Kartik

Purnima at Sonepur in Bihar

Milling crowds on banks of

Gandhak river in Bihar on

Kartik Purnima Day

Sadhus bathing in the Ganges

at Patna on Kartik Purnima

Thiruvannamalai temple

Jyoti Vilakku at Thiruvannamalai

on Kathikai Deepam

Kartik Purnima on the banks

of River Ganges at Haridwar

Karthigai Deepam or Kartik Purnima

V Sundaram | Sat, 24 Nov, 2007 , 03:15 PM

‘“When we live in darkness, our human life is a constant want.
When we live in Light, our Divine Life is a constant achievement.
Light in the physical is beauty.
Light in the vital is capacity.
Light in the mind is glory.
Light in the heart is victory’ — Sri Chinmoy

ROWS OF agal vilakkus in front of every house... this is the celestial image that at once comes to mind when we think of Karthigai Deepam—the festival of lights that is celebrated throughout Tamil Nadu during the month of Karthigai (November-December).

Today (24.11.2007) is Karthigai Deepam Day in Tamilnadu and Karthik Purnima Day in Northern India. It falls in the month of Karthigai when the star Krithigai is on the ascendant according to the Tamil Calendar on a full moon day. Karthigai is essentially a festival of lamps. The lighted lamp is considered an auspicious symbol. Traditional belief is that it wards off evil forces and ushers in prosperity and joy. While the lighted lamp is important for all Hindu rituals and festivals, it is indispensable for Karthigai.

The lamps lit on Karthigai Deepam Day are of varied sizes, shapes and colours. Traditionally, huge lamps are lit in temples and agal vilakkus adorn the thinnais (front portico) of houses. Bigger lamps made of mud, stone and metal are lit inside homes. Many modern families in Chennai no longer prefer the oil lamps that stain the floor and the walls. Instead, they use scented candles, including those shaped in the form of the agal vilakku. In flats that do not have balconies or open spaces, the single candle lit next to the front door is a testimony to a hoary tradition.

The ancient Tamils are said to have even imported lamps from as far as Greece and Rome, through the ports of Arikamedu (near Pondicherry), Mallai or Mamallapuram and Mylai or Mylapore (part of present-day Chennai). One such imported lamp was of the hanging variety, designed in the shape of a swan with a fish placed at the top. At Arikamedu, archaeologists have unearthed a flat circular clay lamp with 12 nozzles or petals or openings for 12 wicks.

Golden temple Amristsar Lit Up

on Guru Purab Day

Behind every important Hindu Festival lies an interesting and fascinating mythological story. ‘Karthigai’ is no exception to this general rule, hallowed and enriched by song, myth and legend. There is an interesting story explaining the link between Karthigai and lamps. Legend has it that Lord Vishnu and Lord Brahma began to quarrel as to who was the more powerful of the two. While they were fighting, Lord Shiva appeared before them in the form of a huge Pillar of Fire.

Lord Vishnu and Lord Brahma gave up quarrelling and decided to find the top and the bottom of this Pillar of Fire which seemed to have neither any beginning nor any end. Since Lord Shiva took a gigantic form, they were not able to find him anywhere.

Then Lord Shiva appeared before them in the form of a flaming light whose ends cannot be defined on the hill of Thiruvannamalai. Therefore, this festival is also known as Annamalai Deepam. In short, Karthigai Deepam day commemorates the appearance of the Lord as a Jothi Sthambam, an infinite pillar of light at Arunachala.

Another exciting story about the ‘Karthigai Festival’ runs like this. In pre-historic antiquity, there was a demon called Tripurasura. He had, through his severe austerities, obtained the Divine Boon that he could be invincible and immortal so long as the three forts in which he had entrenched himself, were not demolished in one stroke. The forts were impregnable, one within the other. If only one or two of them were destroyed at a time by his opponents, they would immediately spring up again as strong as ever and the demon remained unconquerable and unshakeable.

Such was the invincible might and transcendental power of the Divine Boon obtained by Tripurasura. Finally all the Gods came to understand that only when all the three forts were demolished and razed to the ground in one stroke could Tripurasura be vanquished and destroyed. In despair the defeated gods approached Lord Shiva to come to their help and protect the world.

Guru Nanak (1469 - 1539)

According to tradition, Lord Shiva destroyed Tripurasura on Karthigai Deepam Day. The whole creation heaved a sigh of relief and once again righteousness reigned in the world. Thus this auspicious Kartika Purnima-Full Moon Day saw the great victory of good over evil and so this day is observed as a day of rejoicing from times immemorial. On Karthigai Deepam Day at night a big light is lighted in honour of the Lord’s victory.

Karthigai Deepam is the oldest festival of Tamilnadu. There are extensive references to ‘Deepam’ in several works of Sangam Literature. It is believed that Lord Muruga, the divine light of Lord Shiva, took his form during this month. The ten-days festival is also known as ‘the Festival of Lights’ and is said to be the extension of the Deepavali festival of India. In some communities, people keep doubling the number of lamps every day from the day of Deepavali till Karthigai Deepam and thus the burning lamps present an enchanting spectacle during the night.

One of the earliest references to the festival can be seen in the Ahananuru, a book of poems, which dates back to the Sangam Age (200 B.C. to 300 A.D.). The Ahananuru clearly states that Karthigai is celebrated on the full moon day (Pournami) of the Tamil Month of Karthigai. It was one of the most important festivals (Peruvizha) of the ancient Tamils. Avvaiyyar, the renowned poetess of those times, refers to the festival in one of her famous songs. Avvayar in Poem No.11 in Agananuru compares an arid region where the Elavam Flowers are in full bloom which is now rightly identified as the Flame of the Forest.

The blossoming elevam flowers are compared to the bevy of beautiful maidens joyously lighting the Karthigai lamps in a steady methodical row in an organized manner. Nakkirar in Poem No. 141 refers to the physical fact of the full moon day attached with Karthigai star which is called Arumeen (Six stars). Tolkapiyar in his Tolkappiyam refers to the Karthigai lamp in these words: “Like the lamp’s flame pointing upwards”.

In another Tamil Epic Jeevakachintamani written by Thiruthakka Thevar, a Jain poet in the 8th century, the poet describes how the people celebrated the Karthikai Deepam festival with great enthusiasm and devotion. In another Tamil work, the Kalavazhi Narpadu dating back to the third Sangam period (after 1000 B.C) the poet says, “In the battle the blood oozing out from the dead soldiers´ bodies is like the red coloured flame of the lamps lit during Karthikai Deepam festival”.

There are many temple inscriptions which describe the importance and religious significance of Karthigai Deepam in Tamilnadu. For example, a mid-sixteenth Century inscription at the Arulalaperumal Temple in Kancheepuram, refers to the festival as Thiru Karthikai Thirunal.

In Sambandar´s Tevaram, while trying to raise a young girl Poompavai from the dead, he asks with deep feeling soaked in sorrow, “O Poompavai, have you gone without seeing the ancient Karthikai festival?” Another song in Tevaram says that the Lord is verily the Deepam (lit during the Karthikai festival).

When the great poet Muruganar asked Ramana Maharishi about the significance of the Karthikai Deepam festival, Ramana Maharishi composed a stanza of four lines in which he says, “The true significance of the Karthikai Deepam festival is that it turns the intellect inwards and having fixed it in the Heart merges it with the indweller of the Heart”.

Today lakhs of people would be flocking to the Arunachaleswara Temple in Tiruvannamalai to worship the BHARANI DEEPAM. According to tradition the flame this Deepam does not flicker on this day and reveals the transcendental form of Lord Muruga reaching up to the sky.

The Deepam actually a colossal circular metal vessel with a capacity to hold about 2,000 litres of ghee, a height of five and half feet and diameter of five feet. The wick of the lamp itself is made up of 30 meters of ‘Ghada’ cloth, burnt with 2 kilos of camphor, in order to keep the light steady, firm and unflickering. On the night of ‘Karthigai Pournami’, when the lamp is lit in Tiruvannamalai it can be seen across an area of 35km around the shrine.

In Northern India, Karthigai Deepam Day is celebrated as ‘Karthik Purnima’ Day. Having a holy dip in a sacred river on this day is considered as very auspicious in different parts of Northern India like Pushkar, Kurukshetra, Haridwar, Ayodhya, Kasi or Patna. The Kartik Purnima Snan (holy bath) on the banks of Gandak River in Sonepur, near Patna in Bihar coincides with the Asia’s largest cattle fair there.

A spectacular Fair takes place in Pushkar in Rajasthan on Karthik Purnima Day, made colourful by bedecked Camels, decorated cattles, adventurous competitions, breathtaking events, jostling rustic crowds, meditating sadhus, holy dip, vivid varied stalls and festivities marked by great gaiety, fun and frolic.

Large fairs are also held on Karthik Purnima Day in Bijnor (Khari Jhalu block), Moradabad (Tigri), Budaun (Kakora), Bareilly (Chaubari), Muzaffarnagar (Shukra Tal), Garhmukteshwar, Anupshahr, Unnao (Ganga Ghat), Kanpur, Faizabad (Ayodhya), Varanasi and Ballia (Dadri) in U.P., drawing crowds from one lakh to four lakhs.

Dev Deepavali is celebrated on the occasion of Kartik Purnima in Varanasi when the Ghats of the River Ganga come alive with thousands of Diyas (earthen lamps). Dev Deepavali, celebrated on the fifteenth day of Diwali, is a tribute to river Ganga by the people of Varanasi. It is believed that on the day of Dev Deepavali, the Gods descend on Earth.It is interesting to note that the Kartik Purnima festival also coincides with GURU NANAK JAYANTI and the Jain Light Festival.

‘Paganish’, ‘Heathenish’ Indian Christianity-I

V Sundaram | Fri, 23 Nov, 2007 , 01:41 PM

I was shocked to read a news item to the effect that a school in Chennai has imposed an illegal (even criminal!?) fine of Rs 500 on a seven-year-old boy studying in class III and suspended him for a few days, for coming to his class with mehendi on his hand which he had applied during the pooja performed in his house for the annual pilgrimage to Sabarimala.

The boy’s parents, both lawyers, have removed him from the school and have complained to the State Human Rights Commission and the Director of Matriculation Schools about the way the school had treated him.

The parents of the boy in question have alleged that the 150-year-old Doveton Corrie Group of Educational Institutions punished their son Kaushik Ram by asking him to stand in the centre of the playground for more than an hour for coming to school with mehendi on his hands, besides suspending him and imposing the fine on him.

The boy’s father R Ganesh Ram, a practicing advocate, and his mother G Prabhavathy, Additional City Public Prosecutor, claimed that the Doveton Matriculation Higher Secondary School principal.Petal Theodore abused them verbally using unparliamentary words in public view when they pleaded with her to revoke the suspension. Says Kaushik: ‘My class teacher Ann saw the mehendi on my hands and took me to the principal.

She (the principal) made me stand in the playground for an hour and sent me home with an Anna (brother).” The School Management, when contacted, insisted that mehendi was among the few things prohibited on the campus to ‘ensure discipline’.

Admitting that the child was asked to pay a fine of Rs 500, correspondent of the school said, ‘The principal suspended him for one-and-a half days, so that the mehendi could get washed off. She (the principal) is a salaried person who adheres to school rules. It is essential that children be disciplined at any cost. Our staff escorted the boy to his house when he was suspended.’

The school, according to him, had served suspension orders on several children on many occasions. The boy’s parents are not ready to buy this explanation. The interesting point to be noted is that the boy’s father Ganesh Ram is an old student of the very same school. He said: ‘We were ready to pay the fine.

But the principal abused me. She did not even have the courtesy to call me inside her room. She insulted me in front of other parents and staff members. The treatment meted out to my son reflects the manner in which the institution is behaving with children belonging to a different faith.’

In my view what has happened in Chennai to Kaushik Ram cannot be viewed as an isolated incident. I have made general enquiries in different parts of Chennai city and many Christian schools belonging to different Christian denominations are playing the same game with the diabolical intention of brow- beating Hindu students into a weak cultural submission. In one of the leading Christian Schools at Adyar, I have heard parents complain that their wards are being punished for speaking even in Tamil in school. English is being upheld as the only permissible spoken language during school hours!

In December 2006, another equally bizarre incident symbolic of ‘Christian compassion’ and ‘Christian Brotherhood’ took place in a school called St. Christ Church School in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh. A Hindu student Sarvesh Yadav studying in the fifth standard in this school was allegedly beaten up by his Christian teacher for attending the school with kumkum on his forehead and wearing a mala (garland) round his neck. He had gone to the school after taking the ‘Ayappaswamy Diksha’. It is understood that he was also not allowed to appear for his examinations.

To quote the words of Sita Ram Goel in this context: ‘High-sounding theological blah blah notwithstanding, the fact remains that the Christian dogma is no more than a subterfuge for forging and wielding an organisational weapon for mounting unprovoked aggression against other people. It is high time for Hindus to dismiss the dogma of Christianity with the contempt it deserves, and pay attention to the Christian Missionary apparatus planted in their midst.

The sole aim of this apparatus is to ruin Hindu society and culture and take over the Hindu homeland. It goes on devising strategies for every situation, favourable and unfavourable. It trains and employs a large number of intellectual criminals ready to prostitute their talents in the service of their paymasters, and adept at dressing up dark designs in high-sounding language. The fact that every design is advertised as a theology in the Indian context and every criminal euphemised as an Indian theologian, should not hoodwink Hindus about the real intentions of this gangster game.

Hindus are committing a grave mistake in regarding the encounter between Hinduism and Christianity as a dialogue between two religions. Christianity has never been a religion; it’s long history tells us that it has always been a predatory imperialism par excellence. The encounter, therefore, should be viewed as a battle between two totally opposed and mutually exclusive ways of thought and behaviour. In the language of the Bhagawat Gita, it is war between daivi (divine) and asuri (demonic) sampads (propensities). In the mundane context of history, it can also be described as war between the Vedic and the Biblical traditions.’

While most Christian Schools in South India are resorting to subtle, devious and other uncivilised methods to change the so called ‘barbarous’ cultural habits of the Indian heathens and pagans, the official Catholic Church and several Protestant Churches have been trying to use the time-honoured cultural practices of the Indian heathens and the pagans in their churches and other Institutions as part of what they have called ‘Dialogue’ and ‘Inculturation’.

A Vatican document of 1990 called ‘Redemptoris Mission’ (The Redeemer’s Mission) clearly declares that ‘Dialogue’ is still a means of conversion rather than a meeting between equals. Winand Callewaert, a prominent Catholic indologist, summarised the message of ‘Redemptoris Missio’ (RM) thus: ‘The Church is by definition a missionary’.

For our subject, it is important to note that R M strongly emphasises the need of missionary activity in Asia. For this Mission ‘Dialogue’ and ‘Inculturation’ are recommended as the best strategies. The challenge consists in tuning that dialogue to the primordial goal, viz. evangelisation. After all, {RM declares} the obvious road to salvation is the Church, which alone is entrusted with the fullness of the instruments of salvation’. RM continues to assert that Christ is the only redeemer of men, the only mediator between God and men.

As a paganish and heathenish practising Hindu, I am amused to see another recent news item relating to a Keerthanai Vizha sponsored by a CSI Church in Coimbatore on 18 August, 2007. Presbyter-in- Charge of the All Souls’ Church Rev Dr S Jeyaseelan said, ‘We are trying to take it forward in a big way with the help of younger generation.

The beats of tabla and strains of veena will soon fill the church air with to give our ceremonies a desi note. The festival is an attempt to revive singing Tamil lyrics. Secretary of the CSI Bishop Appasamy College described the programme as ‘an attempt to go back to our routes. It is true we are Christians and we have accepted Jesus Christ. On the same hand, we want to give importance to our traditional music and culture. There are many Keerthanas written by our poets which remain ignored till date. We want to revive and popularise them throughout South India.’

This process of switching over from westernised hymns to Tamil lyrics is being actively promoted by the church - both Catholic and Protestant - as an integral part of the ‘Programme of Dialogue’ and ‘Inculturation’. This diabolical process of conversion involves and even demands the giving up of musical instruments like keyboard and electric guitar of the liberated west for harmonium, tabla, mridangam and veena of the savagely paganish and heathenish untameable East.

It has been reported that the churches in India are turning to Indian culture and traditions, instead of looking westward, as has been the practice during the last 300 years. The traditional lamp or ‘kuthuvilaku’ has now firmly found its place in the altars of many Indian churches.

Also saffron is popular among many Christians who go on `Padyatra’ to pilgrim centres. Lately, many churches in South India are trying to shed their western outlook to become more indigenous for the ruthless implementation of the programme of Evangelisation and Conversion through the twin pincers of ‘Dialogue’ and ‘Inculturation’ referred to above.

The emerge of Catholic and Protestant Christian ashrams in several parts of the country is not an isolated development. These institutions are linked in a chain which known as the ‘Ashram Movement’ and which different denominations of Christianity are promoting in concert. This ‘Ashram Movement’, in turn, is known as Indigenisation or Inculturation and which has several planks.

The plan has already produced a mass of evangelical literature which is being continuously reviewed in conferences, seminars and spiritual workshops at regional, national and international levels. What strikes me most as I wade through the literature of indigenisation is the sense of failure from which Christianity is suffering in our country. Or, what seems more likely is that this literature is being produced with the express purpose of creating that impression.

What happened to a Hindu boy called Kaushik Ram in Doveton Matriculation Higher Secondary School; Chennai cannot be dismissed as an isolated miniscule incident. I earnestly hope that a proper fact-finding official enquiry would be ordered by the government to enquire into the ugly incident and that effective action would be taken to prevent the recurrence of such incidents in schools run by Christian Missionaries. No civilised government can concede the right of the minority to ride rough shod over the feelings, sentiments and emotions of the majority.

(to be continued)

Beleaguered Lanka, besieged Rama Sethu

V Sundaram | Thu, 22 Nov, 2007 , 03:01 PM

I fully endorse the view of Dr S Kalyanaraman that the government of India in its mindless and soulless approach to the hasty and foolish implementation of the Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project (SSCP), should not lose sight of the adverse impact the project will have on neighbouring Sri Lanka which has been culturally and spiritually linked with India for centuries.

To quote Kalyanaraman: ‘ the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay Straits waters are the common wealth of India and Sri Lanka. This is exemplified by the Indira Gandhi-Sirimavo Bandaranaike declaration of June 1974 declaring these as HISTORIC waters under hwe UN Law of the Sea 1958, enshrining the age-old rights of coastal people of both the coastlines north and south of Dhanushkodi and Talaimannar.

As a big brother, it is the responsibility of the government of India to take into account the concerns of its Sri Lankan brothers and sisters, coastal people of Sri Lanka, in particular, and ensure that drinking water supply to both Jaffna and Rameshwaram is not adversely impacted by the ill-designed Setu Channel project. Rama’s memory is cherished in Jaffna and also in Rameshwaram.

There is a Sita temple at Nuwara Eliya near Kandy, the only temple for Sita Devi in the world. There is a Tirukkedeeswaram temple in Mahatittha, just as there is a Rameshwaram temple in Setutirtha. The Ocean is one body of water, indivisible and an Indian Ocean Community should evolve on the lines of European Community.

In this IOC, both India and Sri Lanka shall be active partners for Abhyudayam jointly using the resources of the ocean. India should encourage the further development of not only the Thuthukudi port but also Colombo port and it will be folly to look upon Colombo as a port competing with Thuthukudi.’

K.T. Rajasingham is of the view that ‘the ambitious SSCP initiated by India would spell danger to Sri Lankan marine trade and that this threat may extend even beyond our marine trade’ Many geologists in India share Rajasingham’s view that the cutting of a canal in the Gulf of Mannar region would definitely create conditions and generate marine forces leading to the definite possibility of many islands in the West and Northern Coast of Sri Lanka getting submerged.

It is also feared that a portion of the Jaffna peninsula could also go under water once the Miocene Era limestone reefs are extracted and their continuity forcefully terminated. Once the sea belt in the Gulf of Mannar is dredged on a continuing basis as planned, there will be an imminent danger of destruction of coral reefs in the region.

Coral reefs provide people with living sea walls against tides, storm surges and hurricanes and above all tsunami. In short, they act as ‘giant sand factories’, creating limestone in interminable succession from dissolved minerals in sea water and leaving behind sands and sand walls to protect the shoreline against erosion.

Against this background, it is a tragedy that India has decided to implement a catastrophic land subsidence programme without taking into account the serious environmental impact/implications it might have on a neighbouring country.

The United Nations Law of the Sea mandates that neighbouring States need to be consulted and sufficient safeguards and guarantees provided. The government of India, led by the anti-Hindu instincts of T.R. Balu, seems to have treated this UN law with indivisible Dravidian contempt.

In this context my attention has been drawn to the report of an experts committee set up by the Government of Sri Lanka to study the implications of the Sethu Project and which was submitted to the government recently. This committee was headed by Secretary to the Ministry of Education Ariyaratna Hewage.

The committee consisted of experts drawn from various areas relating to marine sciences as well as a representative of the Sri Lanka Navy. One of the main concerns of the committee was the adverse environment impact the SSCP could have on Sri Lanka. This Committee of Sri Lankan Professionals has cautioned that the dredging project could have disastrous environment impacts, particularly maritime environment, on Sri Lanka.

The primary concern for Sri Lanka is that the initial dredging, the infinite maintenance dredging and subsequent shipping through the channel, could have negative impacts on Sri Lanka’s maritime and environment resources. What is most disconcerting is the absence of any response from the Indian Government to Sri Lanka’s concerns.

The Committee of Sri Lanka has also noted that the environmental impact assessment (EIA) carried out by India is inadequate for a number of reasons. Environmental analysts, like Sudharshan Rodriguez, are of the view that the EIA report furnished by NEERI, had used secondary data going back to 1976.

It is understood that the experts committee has expressed the view that the NEERI never took the trouble of studying the increased turbidity in the ocean that would be caused by SSCP intervention nor has it studied the dangerous possibility of a tsunami passing through the canal water flow, which will be made possible through the deep water channel linking the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal.

Mudaliar C Rasanayagam was the first to write about the formation of the Jafna Penuinsula in his famous Tamil work ‘Yalpana Charithram’. He stated that this peninsula with its sprout thrust into the sea, rests mostly on a limestone coral bed that spans the entire region and is over-topped with sand brought down by the tidal waves from the adjacent coast. He noted that there is ample proof to show that several rivers that were earlier flowing on the island are still active and flowing through underground channels into the sea.

This view has been upheld by S.U. Deraniyagala of the Department of Archeological survey of Sri Lanka who has observed: ‘The present bed of the Palk Straits, which separates India from Sri Lanka, consists of miocene limestone, suggesting that the Jaffna limestone formation is a continuous one, extending from north-west Sri Lanka upto South India.’

Many oceanographers are of the view that a great part of the Indian Ocean is an ancient area in transition and has not yet completed its full formation. This section of the Indian Ocean has the most complex relief and the earth crust is still in motion, as evidenced by volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Sri Lanka fears that the SSCP will cause unforeseen and untold underwater disturbances leading to disastrous consequences for Sri Lanka.

Further, Sri Lanka is also seriously worried about the lack of concern on the Indian side about the unique, biologically rich resource areas linking two marine eco-systems in the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay. Unless accurate forecasts are made of the mitigation effects, it could eventually destroy this fragile marine ecosystem.

This is all the more significant in the light of the northern and north western communities in Sri Lanka being heavily dependent on the fisheries resources of this area. The concerns of Sri Lanka are about protecting the endangered species, protecting the fisheries resources, the coastal and maritime eco diversity system, integrity of the eco system in the seas around the Island and the paramount need for immediate and long-term ecological stability.

According to research done in Jaffna, by Sri Lanka-born UNDP consultant Prof Ranil Senanayake, fresh water fishes such as Dandiya (Rasbora Daniconius), Tittaya (Amblypharygnodon Melenittus) and Amblypharygnodon Melenittus, migrate towards underground caverns and chambers, during dry weather and surface when it rains.

This also demonstrates the existence of massive underground freshwater caves off Jaffna, with which the salt water of the Palk Straits would mix if the SSCP gets completed. Then there will surely be continued and unabated dredging work in the channel. This will definitely lead to the total extinction of such species of fresh water fish in that area, over a period of time.

Moreover, as a direct consequence of maintenance dredging, rare species of mammals, dugongs and fish and invertebrates such as the guitar shark and cone shells would become extinct.
It has to be noted that one cone shell (Conus Zonatus and Conus Gloria Maris) is worth around US$ 3,500 a piece. To sum up, dredging will also reduce the photosynthetic rate, resulting in the collapse of the fishing industry.

Sri Lanka has proposed that a plan be drawn to ensure that vessels that cause pollution and oil spillage are identified and necessary compensation mechanisms are put in place in an organized manner. Sri Lanka should, invariably, be involved in the preparation of contingency plans for oil spills, including modalities to work out the cost of marine pollution and other navigational emergencies and how they be met.

Finally, Sri Lanka has proposed the sharing of information on existing studies and collaboration on further studies and assessments and the setting up of a common database for India and Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government has also suggested that a joint environment management plan for impact assessment and monitoring of the project area be established.

The experts committee has observed that both Sri Lanka and India will benefit tremendously if the recommendations are implemented to minimise the adverse environmental impacts of the SSCP.

In conclusion, in the context of our national security, the views of Subramanian Swamy are relevant. He has said that the Dravidian movement which includes the DMK, MDMK, PMK and DK support the demolition of Rama Sethu ‘the bridge between Sri Lanka and India, which the Ramayanaya epic says was built by Hanuman — only to facilitate the movement of illegal brigand boats of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), to move quicker from Tuticorin to Chennai on the Palk Straits, and on international waters. At present the Rama Sethu Bridge comes in their way. Swami says that the Indian government could proceed with the Sethu Samudram Project without demolishing the Rama Sethu Bridge.

Did Jesus ever exist?

V Sundaram | Wed, 21 Nov, 2007 , 03:09 PM

Recently one of my friends, an Anglican Christian, who was my classmate in St. Stephen’s College, Delhi from 1958 to 1963, gave me a copy of the recently published book in England titled ‘Jesus Never Existed’.

This book has been authored by Kenneth Humphreys, an Englishman. This book is a bold, uncompromising and unrelenting exposure of the counterfeit origins of Christianity and the evil it has brought to the world. Kenneth Humphreys writes about no ‘hidden code’, no ‘arcane wisdom’, no ‘lost treasure’, no ‘secret bloodline’.

His analysis is rooted in ‘fact’ and is totally devoid of any mystery. He presents the stern, grim and scorching truth about the greatest fraud in history.

In an introductory Chapter titled ‘Jesus Never Existed ---- A crackpot idea?’ Kenneth Humphreys has stated that in a culture based upon Christianity, the denial of Jesus’s existence may appear at first glance absurd or even stupid.

To quote his words in this context: ‘After all, goes the argument, mainstream scholarship accepts that there was an historical Jesus, even if there is no agreement as to actually who he was, precisely when he was, what he did or what he said. Yet for more than 200 years, a minority of courageous scholars have dared to question the existence of Jesus.

Their skepticism and outright denial of the historical figure of Jesus is not the result of perverse obduracy in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Rather, it is a rational response to the dearth of evidence and an honest riposte to more than a suspicion of fabrication.’

Kenneth Humphreys has provided a brilliant rebuttal of what amounts to the fake historicization of the great hero, a saviour who rescues followers from death itself. He has presented his story in a vivid, vital and vibrant manner, drawing his inferences and conclusions based on an acutely cohesive and reasoned exegesis.

Here again, the exact words of Kenneth Humphreys are very relevant. ‘Unpalatable as it may be to some, there is nothing spiritual or miraculous in this exposition. The phantom superhero of the Christian story emerged over time and from a particular social milieu in a culture long attuned to religious synthesis. Beliefs created the man, the man did not create the beliefs.

If collective visual thinking seems too prosaic an explanation for such a grand idea as Jesus Christ, King of Kings, reflect for a moment that the same process, of fashioning a Jesus from within one’s own psyche and projecting him back into an ancient pageant, continues even today. It is how children have been indoctrinated, generation after generation.

The illusion is fragile, it requires faith because it assaults the rational senses and is confounded by every daily experience: the ‘righteous’ suffer misfortune in equal measure as the ungodly. Believers are comforted that their faith is no vain illusion by the assurance that unlike all other Gods of antiquity, theirs alone had an historical presence. Few are aware that how contentious is that supposition’.

Kenneth Humphreys gives documentary evidence with facts, figures and pictures/photographs to prove that ‘Jesus of History’ was long held captive by the Church itself. Beginning from the Age of Enlightenment in the first quarter of the 18th century, less reverential minds like Voltaire, Rousseau and many others gained access to this ‘Divine Prisoner’ and were aghast that only a spectre was to be found.

That realization inaugurated a fierce war between critics and defenders of the faith. Finding itself impotent and powerless against the gradual encroachment and progress of ideas flowing from the advances in science and scholarly enquiry, the Church started regrouping its forces to claim the academic high ground.

The Church established and staffed Seminaries and Colleges of Biblical Study, funded Universities and sponsored Archaeological Research. As a result, most of the New Testament Scholars have been drawn from the ranks of ‘believers’ and they approach their subject with a certain reverence. They often go out of their way not to give offence or disturb the mental peace or pious enthusiasm of Jesus Lovers, even when the evidence is clear, irrefutable and damning.

Kenneth Humphreys argues that such scholars, usually straddle between two worlds. In one world, stands a ‘theological’ Jesus Christ, with whom they may well have ‘a personal relationship’. That Jesus is acknowledged to be a ‘matter of faith’. In the other world perambulates ‘the historical Jesus’.

Their painstaking, meticulous investigation of the history, culture and politics of Palestine in the Second Temple Period has created an historically authoritative background. The veracity of the context is not in question. Roman Judaea in the 1st century AD certainly existed. If is against this graphic background that a wafer thin construct of “Jesus” makes his spectral appearance.

Kenneth Humphreys comes to the brilliant conclusion: “Jesus is intruded into the scene as a consequence of faith not of history, for the so called ‘evidences’ for Jesus or late and part of a forgery mill which has characterized Christianity from the 2nd century down to our own time. It is the historical context ‘itself’ which allows the phantom saviour to “live”, “die” and “resurrect” and thereby cast its false shadow back upon history”.

Kenneth Humphreys gives an interesting description of the manner in which the ‘false fiction’ is presented:
“We are certain that Jerusalem existed, Herod, Pharisees and Romans, why not a Jesus? Cue the Discovery Channel Documentary: ‘these are the Types of sandals Jesus would have worn. This is the Type of tree he would have rested under’.

Most of the historians of Christianity, raised and educated in a Christian culture, are always content to assume that Jesus lived, respectfully deferring to the options of Biblical Specialists who are often men of faith. Given the paucity of irrefuntable evidence, they lace their uncertainty with a “probability”.

Referring to a recent scholarly investigation into the “real Jesus”, by a writer called Geza Vermes in this book ‘Changing Faces of Jesus’, Kenneth Humphreys observes that this writer at no point has considered that the superhero may not actually have existed, beneath all the layers of invention he has so assiduously peeled away. No wonder Geza Vermes closes with a dream of a “returning Christ”—the very dream he had at the beginning of his study!

Likewise, Kenneth Humphreys says that the famous Historian Michael Grant, in his investigation of Jesus, glosses over non-existence in just two paragraphs with the cavalier comment “Jesus was probably born at Nazareth... or perhaps some other small place”. Though obliged state again and again that there is no evidence or only fabricated “evidence” from a later time, he maintains an insistence through out that the shadowy figure “must” be real.

To quote the inimitable words of Kenneth Humphreys again:”... a scholar who announces that he thinks that there was no historical Jesus is likely to face scorn, even ridicule, and will gain little for his candour. It is much safer for academics to aver the ‘possibility of a man behind the legend’ even while arguing that layers of encrusted myth obscure knowing anything about him.

This ‘safe’, and ‘frankly’ gutless option maintains simultaneously the ‘obscurity’ of carpenter in an ancient provincial backwater (“absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”) and an academic detachment from ‘faith issue’ which raised that supposed obscure guru to an iconic status”.

Jesus Never Existed is not a book meant for those who wish to keep their faith in the cool, cloistered bliss of historical ignorance. Jesus Never Existed brings out the scorching truth that the triumph of Christianity was a disaster for humanity — made chillingly ironic by the bogus nature of its central character, superstar and “saviour”. I am only using the words of Kenneth Humphreys.

Reading Kenneth Humphrey’s book, I am reminded of the plot of the fiction novel The Da Vinci Code which graphically presents the discovery of historical evidence, (concealed by the chruch) that Christ and Mary Magdalene were married and began a bloodline that continued through the centuries. It depicts Christianity as the biggest cover-up in history,

Rahul? Opium? Drug Cartel? Future Star Of India?

V Sundaram | Mon, 19 Nov, 2007 , 03:09 PM

In every Congress Session, Sonia Gandhi surrounds herself with a band of drones in her midst, whether they come from the ancient landed aristocracy or princely monarchy or clannish/casteist plutocracy or tycoons from different categories of carefully chosen ‘Mafia Worlds’ or common people with no uncommon backgrounds.

The essential fact of the matter is all of them - regardless of their economic and social status- act like ordinary type of creeping and crawling pub-crawlers.

Such a kind of disgraceful ‘crawling session’ was held recently in New Delhi when Prime Minister covered himself with everlasting glory when he shamelessly declared: ‘Young leaders of the party like Rahul Gandhi can win the minds and affections of our youth and take the Congress Party and the nation to new frontiers and new heights of glory.’

After the Poorna Swaraj Session of the Indian National Congress at Lahore in December 1929 and the Quit India Resolution Session of the Congress at Bombay in August 1942, the most historic session of the Congress took place in New Delhi last Saturday under the inspiring and unmatched leadership of Sonia Gandhi and her band of flatterers.

At the Lahore session in December 1929, Jawaharlal Nehru became the Congress president. In that session Nehru declared: ‘Success often comes to those who dare and act regardless of the consequences. It seldom goes to the timid.’

Ever since Sonia Gandhi became the Congress president some years ago, her unwavering message in spirit to her party men at all levels has been: ‘Success often comes to those who creep and crawl regardless of the consequences to the nation. It seldom goes to the brave and spirited, least of all to the decent, virtuous and honest.’ The same message was presented at last week’s Congress session in New Delhi.

After the Congress session in Hyderabad in January 2006, in these columns I had observed that ‘the Indian National Congress today has degenerated into what I call the Servants of Sonia Society (SOSS)’.

In the glorious days of the Indian National Congress, Mahatma Gandhi was the supreme leader. In Biblical fashion we can say: ‘At the beginning was Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi was with the Congress. Congress was Mahatma Gandhi’. Today Sonia Gandhi is in the place of Mahatma Gandhi in the same Biblical quotation. Mahatma Gandhi was trying to throw out the foreigners supported by his Congress party, which was fully behind him. Today we have an IMFL (Indian Made Foreign Leader) who is fully supported by the Congress party.

Dr Manmohan Singh is the decorated bugle-boy of the party. After the New Delhi session, the SOSS has been renamed as SOSRS (Servants of Sonia Rahul Society). Nehru’s ‘Tryst with Destiny’ in 1947 has become a ‘Tryst with sycophancy and treachery’ in 2007. For Nehru, that moment meant ‘the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finding utterance’. For Sonia Gandhi and her party today it means ‘The soul of a wayward, pampered and patted vagrant, not a our nation, finding utterance.’

In this sad and disgraceful situation, I am reminded of what Mahatma Gandhi said: ‘Bad self- government is better than alien good government’.

Dr Manmohan Singh government has reversed this position. Today the collective motto of the UPA government is that a ‘foreign-led secular government is better than a local/national /saffronised self-government!
To quote the words of Anjana Suthan, ‘Rahul has been projected as the ‘Future of India’, in an ‘orderly’ fashion by the PM and other elderly leaders of the Congress party.

One really wonders whether these men are ‘leaders’ or ‘orderlies’! The PM had earlier said the same during the campaign for UP assembly. It is truly shocking to see that a qualified and experienced leader like Manmohan is imposing an immature novice like Rhaul on the nation. It shows the level of spinelessness and sycophancy prevailing in the Congress party today. Truly distressing, disgusting and disappointing!

When I look at the way in which Rahul Gandhi with his outstanding and impeccable academic, political, ethical, moral and social credentials has been projected as the political heir of Sonia Gandhi, I am only reminded of what George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) wrote about a budding politician in his ‘Major Barbara’ in 1907: ‘He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career’. Viewed in this light Rahul Gandhi has a glorious future in Indian politics.

I have referred to the SOSRS. I am not using this term out of my wild imagination. Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915) established The Servants of India Society (SOS) in 1905 at Pune. In the prospectus of this Society Gokhale wrote:

‘Much of our work must be directed towards building up in the country a higher type of character and capacity than is generally available at present: And the advance can only be slow. Public life must be spiritualised. Love of country must so fill the heart that all else shall appear as of little moment by its side.

A fervent patriotism which rejoices at every opportunity of sacrifice for the motherland, a dauntless heart which refuses to be turned back from its object by difficulty or danger, a deep faith in the purpose of providence which nothing can shake. ... Equipped with these, the worker must start on his mission and reverently seek the joy which comes of spending oneself in the service of one’s country.’

The thousands of Congressmen who have assembled in New Delhi last week like flocks of sheep and herds of cattle are imbued with a different spirit. Gokhale believed in spiritualisation of public life. Now, Sonia and her party men believe in the criminalisation of public life. Our great Prime Minister’s message to our nation at his party forum last week can be summarised as follows:

‘Let our public life be Soniaised, Rahulised, Priyankaised with a fervent patriotism for Italy and Quaottrocchi. Love for Sonia must so fill the heart that all else should appear as of little moment by its side. Let us rejoice at every opportunity of sacrifice for Sonia and her family.’

Rahul Gandhi has made himself famous not only in Indian history but in world history through his awe-inspiring and historic pronouncements and messages. In one of his recent messages he made very touching and revealing references to the poppy crop, opium and alcoholic liquor which went down well with most Congressmen of today’s vintage. The pseudo-secular mafia of mass media which is totally committed to the cause of criminalisation of our politics and public life by Sonia Gandhi and her Party (which means her family only!) completely blacked out the public dissemination of this great message. Dr.Sub-ramanian Swamy took note of this fact and issued the following statement to the press:

‘The nation is today watching with consternation the series of ridiculous firmans being issued by Rahul Gandhi to Congress Party workers.

First, Gandhi told the Congress that growing opium must be made more profitable by the Finance Ministry by fixing a higher price for the poppy crop. Opium can quickly be converted to heroin, which destroys the health of its consumer, besides promoting crime. Second, Gandhi told the CWC that there is nothing wrong in abandoning Khadar cloth, which hitherto was compulsory for the Congress party workers.

Little did he realise that Khadi Gram Udyog, which still provides employment to lakhs of the ‘aam aadmis’ for whom Congress leaders shed tears in public, would be destroyed by his firman and lakhs would become unemployed.

Third, Gandhi informed the CWC that to drink ‘a peg or two’ of alcoholic liquor is nothing wrong. This would naturally boost the liquor industry, and in turn corner future investments from essential goods sector, on the market principle of investments chasing high profits, thereby creating a shortage of essential commodities for the ‘AAM AADMI’.

It would therefore now be appropriate for Gandhi to add two more firmans for completeness. Fourth, it is not wrong for a Congress worker or leader to get married to a Colombian girl holding Venezuelan passport anonymously in the island of Tenerife in Canary Islands, and not tell the public about it, even if the girl is a daughter of a heroin peddler.

Fifth, there is nothing wrong for a Congress worker to keep a foreign passport, especially Italian under a modified spelling of one’s own name for use in emergencies and for anonymous foreign travel to obscure places like Cayman Island for banking operations, and purchasing participatory notes on hawala laundered funds.

This five-point programme of Rahul Gandhi then can replace all the 4-20 programmes of the party of his mother. In the days of Mahatma Gandhi, there was ample room for men of brains and character in the Congress party. Very unfortunately today men who conspicuously lack both brains and character only are able to make it to the apex slots in the Congress.

Only the shallowest and the most ignoble men are able to triumph easily over the most brilliant and high-minded in the party. In other words, the more character and capacity a candidate for office possesses the greater is his handicap. This is the solid message given by the Congress party and its President to the teeming millions of India today.

When mass media in India tries to choke all the sources of truthful information on vital issues affecting our nation, I derive my inspiration to write from the words of Winston Churchill (1874-1965): ‘If truth is many- sided, mendacity is many-tongued. History cannot proceed by silences.

The chronicler of ill-recorded times has none the less to tell his tale. If facts are lacking, rumour must serve the larger public interest. Failing affidavits, he must build with gossip’.

An unknown Charles Dickens and R K Narayan

V Sundaram | Sat, 17 Nov, 2007 , 03:31 PM

Meeting him is a delight. He radiates every manifestation of intelligence, imagination or life. He is life-enhancing in the highest degree. Even the most frozen monsters in our midst will respond to him and, in spite of themselves, find themselves on terms of both respect and affection with him.

Natural courage, simple candour, honesty, intelligence, interest in ideas, lack of pretension, child-like vitality, gaiety, a very sharp sense of the ridiculous, warmth of heart, dislike for the pompous, the bogus and a self-important- that is how I can describe my friend T N Mahadevan whom I met for the first time about four years ago. There is something extraordinarily vital, vivid and vibrant, and essentially human about him.

He is kind, affectionate and gay. His moral feelings on any issue, which he never tries to conceal, does not make him conscious or priggish. His moral feelings are closely linked with and allied to his deep and critical aesthetic sense. He has a tender social conscience; he respects earnestness and public spirit. He is a willing and life-long slave of self-imposed obligations. He dislikes only the idle and fraudulent.

I discovered his great talent as a writer a few months ago when Mahadevan gave me some chapters of his intended autobiography in long-hand for my perusal. He has his own style of writing a naturally beautiful, elegant and graceful English prose, very reminiscent of the writings of Charles Dickens and R K Narayan.
Mahadevan was born in Trissoor on 15 February, 1925.

This is how he describes this event in his autobiographical narrative: 'The House where I was born was demolished years ago. In its place stood a brick and concrete structure when I visited Trissoor some 20 years ago. The Mithunapalli Temple to its south, Sarkar High School to the north and V G School for Girls across the road, still standing as I remembered them from early childhood, bore testimony to my eminently forgettable origin in the evening of 15 February, 1925, barely two weeks before my father died of a wasting disease which could have been 'Sprue'.

Mahadevan had his schooling in Trissoor. Later he studied in National College, Tiruchy and completed his intermediate course in 1942. Then he went to Maharaja's College, Ernakulam, for doing his BSc in 1942. During this period he got himself actively involved in India’s Freedom Movement as a top student leader. When the Quit India Resolution was passed at the Congress Session in Bombay, now Mumbai, on 9 August, 1942, Mahatma Gandhi and other great Congress leaders were arrested and taken to unknown destinations.
Mahadevan organised a strong protest movement against the arrest of those great national leaders.

Despite his active involvement in the freedom movement while being in college, he managed to scrape through a B A degree. Recalling his college days, Mahadevan observes with evocative poignancy: 'Most of my teachers are dead and gone. Thanka Chechi who knew me as a child and was later known as Miss Thankam, Professor of English, is still alive (1995) I understand but hardly functional because of severe arthritis. Though I was never her student, she loved me like a brother as she did her own cousin Janardhan with whom I grew up from early childhood. She gave me silent support during my days as a student leader and did her best to shield me from the understandable ire of Ramachandra Iyer who was Head of the Department of Physics and helped in getting me admission in the Physics Major Course. I have not met her since I left college. I should like to before she dies and assure her about my abiding affection and gratitude.'

Joining as a technical assistant in Indian Oxygen and Acetylene Company Ltd. Bombay in 1945-46, Mahadevan rose to the position of chief executive after nearly 40 years in 1985. In the early phase of his distinguished career in this company, he was a formidable trade union leader. In 1956 he moved over to Calcutta, now Kolkata, and took up a managerial position. He played a very important role in the field of import substitution in a scarcity-ridden economy of licence-permit-control-quota Raj. To quote his words: 'It was in 1958, if I remember right, that the bottom fell out of India’s foreign exchange reserves.

The situation turned so precarious that T T Krishnamachari, then Commerce Minister in the Nehru Cabinet, had no alternative but to suspend virtually all imports for a period of three months. To subsidiaries of foreign companies like my company, it came as a rude shock. Mukherjee and I and a few others from our technical and marketing departments took it up as a challenge to develop in India substitutes for what we were conditioned only to import hitherto.

Indian manufacturers of chemicals, plastics, capital goods and engineering products were offered on a platter a captive market for goods of less than acceptable quality that they were already making or developed in a hurry to exploit the new demand. It was a development most welcome and deplorable. Welcome because we were forced to become more self-reliant and innovative, deplorable because the average Indian manufacturer did not go beyond producing what was just passable in a short supply market by any means and at any cost.'

T N Mahadevan’s characterisation of some of his close relatives is very much like that of Charles Dickens's portrayals of Micawber, Uriah Heep, Mr Murdstone, Mrs Trotswood, etc. This how he describes his father’s sister’s son called Pichu Athan: 'Pichu Athan had a soft corner for my Amma. He claimed to have tried for her hand and lost it to my father, his favourite uncle, who was not much older but stronger and evidently more aggressive in his pursuit. ... The DNA concerned in his configuration was custom made for bluffing, harmless lies and hyperbole. I believed he had a genuine problem identifying fact from fiction, the genuine from the counterfeit, the good from the evil.

Often he deluded himself into believing that he was a student of Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam (he was only a school dropout!), was a dashing hero who carried swooning Eurasian girls on the pillion of his ‘Bullet Bike’ (his widowed mother could not afford even Chappals for the Prince!), a great musician and musicologist and an authority on English literature! Pichu Athan collected around himself a crowd of listeners, including unwelcome brats like us, whenever he reminisced about his stupendous achievements.

On such occasions, he made his imaginary tales interesting and made such telling use of his Malayalam expletives and swear words at any suggestion of contradiction or doubt that everyone found it prudent to swallow his stories hook, line and sinker. ... A good soul, utterly harmless, a man who helped many to find their jobs and feet in his heyday in Bombay, Pichu Athan passed away unsung and unhonoured. ... A sad end indeed to a colourful character whose bark was worse than his bite.'

In his personal memoir, Mahadevan has given interesting account of the characters of some extraordinary men who worked along with him in the Indian Oxygen and Acetylene Co., Ltd., under the caption ‘More Oddballs’. One of the most interesting characters he has described is one man called Sarma whom Mahadevan calls as ‘Dada’. This is how Mahadevan pays his tribute to this odd character: 'A man suspicious by nature and vengeful if provoked, Sarma became my admirer at work. Our relationship grew closer outside the office too.

Soon he became ‘Dada’ to me and my wife and ‘Doctor Mama’ to my children whom he loved with a tenderness he showed only to his daughter... When under the influence of the narcotic goli he took every day, Dada’s mood and temper swung from the benevolent and benign to the intolerant and ruthless. All of us gave Dada a wide berth at these times, often in the afternoon after lunch! ... This prince of oddballs who loved me more than any of my own brothers suffered a bad stroke on the eve of my transfer to Delhi in 1975.

He lingered for sometime in a vegetable state and passed away at the end of the year. In thousand years I would not find another ‘Dada’ as utterly unfeeling and ruthless as the original and as selflessly affectionate and caring too when he was in the right mood after helping himself to the right dose of his ‘Goli’.'

If you write for the general public, you will be insulted and told that you are no scholar. If you write for scholars, you will have no influence because you will be dismissed as a 'highbrow' which is a term of contempt. The choice between the solid, liquid and gaseous forms of communicating ideas is difficult.

Through his fascinating autobiographical memoirs, Mahadevan makes it abundantly clear that common things are never common place. Birth is covered with curtains precisely because it is a staggering and wonderful prodigy. While it is true that universal things are often strange, yet at the same time it is also equally true that they are very subtle.

Through Mahadevan’s brilliant descriptions and portrayals, we come to understand that most common things can often be highly complicated. We also come to see that just because a thing is vulgar, we cannot immediately conclude that it is not refined. I am reminded of the beautiful words of G K Chesterton (1874-1936) in this context: 'A mother-in-law is subtle because she is a thing like the twilight. She is a mystical blend of two inconsistent things - law and a mother. The caricatures misrepresent her; but they arise out of a real enigma. ... The nearest statement of the problem is this: It is not that a mother-in-law must be nasty, but that she must be very nice.'
Mahadevan’s poignant writing reminds me of the following beautiful lines of P B Shelley (1792-1822):

'We look before and after,
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.'