APC Roy

This little nothing is for one really great guy, who was born 150 years ago, and I am not talking about Tagore

He was a real genius, but I suppose we all know that. We have all heard of his great achievements in Chemistry, and of how fiercely proud he was of his country and his people. In fact his greatest books are titled "A History of Hindu Chemistry". He was researching on his people and their history, at a time when he could have been unraveling mysteries of Chemistry, and earning the glory. He could have stuck to worshipping goddess Saraswati, and reaped accolades, but he went on to create one of the earliest commercial ventures by a Bengali, namely “ Bengal Chemicals”, to show that we Indians lack in nothing.

But this we all know

It’s not our knowledge that is lacking, but our memory, and the fiery “something” that does not let you rest, the stuff some people call passion.

The reason why I sat down to write this out is because a newspaper article was lamenting the other day about how we should pay him our homage, and how his belongings should be preserved. All this is fine for a historian, and perhaps also for a renovation specialist. But it becomes of paramount importance to the people at large, only when they give up all hope of ever being close to the great genius of the person in question. Consider Netaji. His house is a great relic to his life and times, and that is all that we have preserved, not his ideals, not his opinions, just his slippers. I am sure if Netaji would have been around he would have beaten us all up with those very slippers.

And the worst thing with our memory is not that we have forgotten his achievements, but that we have forgotten his legacy. Just take one look at the pics of this genius on the net, and even a blind guy will point out the down-to-Earth humility, gentleness and the sharp mind behind his features. In a day and time, when we have finally accepted, that being humble is stupid, being down-to-Earth and gentle are signs of weakness, and the “complete man” is the one who flaunts the most expensive suits around, I really miss that guy. He wanted the nation to discover herself, but when we have finally “found” ourselves, I have a hunch that we are somehow more lost than we ever were.

It is thus that I believe that the dilapidated state of his house is some sort of poetic justice. If we can’t remember him in our actions, we don’t have the right to worship his image and his belongings. He did what he did not to get awarded a “cult” of divinity, but so that we can learn from his life and experiences. We have not, so we better show some guts and accept that we have let him down. Compared to finding excuses, and playing a blame game, that would definitely be worth the effort.

They say, that rather than just finding faults we should give suggestions and solutions. I am nowhere near being great enough to do that, but I don’t think that I need to. If we can just search our roots out a bit, and are open-minded enough to appreciate what we see, we will find plenty of lessons. How long it takes us to do THAT introspection, however, is the real question.


“Bhagaban tumi juge juge doot pathayechho bare bare
Dayaheen sangsare.
Tara bole gelo 'kshama karo sabe', bole gelo 'bhalobasho''
Antara hote bidwesh-beesh nasho.
'Baraneeya tara, smaraneeya tara, tabuo bahir dware
Aji durdine phiranu tader byartha namaskare”

- Rabindranath Tagore

Minds

Statutory Warning: If you are a self-confessed intellectual in search of an overly cryptic writing, or an obsessive, modern-day version of Romeo/Juliet looking for some emotional atyachar, please press the red coloured box at the top-right corner of this window, and see what happens!

Also, if you totally hate mathematics, you are forewarned ! The following article can cause severe headache, and a string of profanities at some inopportune moments.

Others may scroll down.

I once heard of a city-bred genius, who told his more rustic companion, that once you have seen one field, you have seen them all. In other words, nature can be quite boring. The friend replied, that perhaps he had never seen a field in his life.

Now, make no mistakes, I really love nature. But I also happen to be an insufferably analytical person. I just could not get the logic of the village guy. I mean, most of the fields do look the same, right? Could he just have been bragging?

It was only a few months back, that I got the solution to this irritable problem. I was studying a topic on probability, called Ensemble Averaging, and they talked about “realizations” of a random variable.

Unlike normal averages, where you add up a number of variables, here they considered just 1 variable. Now, what the hell is that? I was quite frustrated, till my usually-cryptic-but-kind-for-once prof gave me a hint. To quote him, say 1 hen lays eggs over 10 days, you have 10 eggs, and the average weight can be easily found. But what if 10 hens lay eggs on the same day? what then?

Once I got the hang of it, i realised what the village guy meant. There is just 1 field, but what if a hundred people look at it, all at different times?. Some see it drenched in sunshine, others see it under a rainbow. Stilll others enjoy its beauty with 'kids' of all ages playing their hearts out in the mud. Not to mention those mindless jerks like me, who might stare at it, without enjoying any of the above. According to mathematics, they are just looking at different "realisations" of the field.

It is all about your mind.

Now, How many millions of times have we heard that people change, people leave, people stop caring, blah, blah, blah...?

But what you have inside your mind is never going to perish. The class-bunkings, the first cigarette, cheating in the tests, a truly romantic date which was spent taking a walk on a very badly pot-holed road, they are all there in your mind. What about those memories? I mean, the people might have all changed, but your mind has preserved the best of their realisations for you to enjoy. Won't the world be a much better place for us all, if we could let everybody live their lives, not trying to change anyone, but spending time with those people that matter the most to us, in those avatars, that we hold so dear?

I don't wish to offer free advice here, but let's face it. Whether one is in pain, grief, happines, content, whatever, it is all in the mind. This doesnot make these feelings untrue, but when we understand that we can actually choose whether we are happy or sad, I think it helps.

A real damn lot.