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