A Girl of 19

‘Make a Wish and it will be Granted’ when said by a King can be a great opportunity. We can ask for treasures, land, titles, privileges, amnesty and anything that our imagination can conjure. But when such a wish was granted to a 19 year old girl in 1431, all that she asked for was freedom from taxes for her village, Domremy, France. This wish was promptly and happily granted by King Charles VII and even on his insistence, the girl refused to ask for anything else. This grant was honored for next 350 years. 

When her country was besieged by enemies and was on the verge of losing the hundred-year war, when her King had lost all hope for regaining his crown, and when Saints appeared in her dreams and said, march forward and save your country, she simply followed the words of Saints against all odds and won battles after battles and regained her country from the clutches of enemies and gave back the crown to the King Charles VII. 

When all around her were feeble and weak, had lost all hope for life and light, had spent themselves on politics and war games and yet it was defeat that stared at them squarely at their face, she gave them hope and faith, in innocence, in sincerity of purpose, in conviction, and above all else in God. When she was accused of lying of her visions and voices of God that she heard clearly and was threatened to punishment by death, she still stood by her word and preferred herself to be burnt at the stake to recanting her statement.

Joan of Arc, a village girl from the village Domremy, Vosges, France was born in 1412, burnt for heresy and sorcery in 1431 by the then Church, was rehabilitated in 1456, designated venerable in 1904, declared Blessed in 1908 and finally proclaimed a Saint in 1920. She is the most notable warrior saint in human history and most studied figure from the middle ages. 

She displayed a strange superiority over people in her midst, superiority akin to that of Jesus Christ and of Socrates. When she made War Generals and Commanders look like fools by her strategy and stupefied courtiers and lawyers with her arguments that belied fine understanding of the times and situation, she only made herself their enemy. She was still a young rustic girl and was unable to understand the fury with which they got back at her. It is also this fury which made people in power and so the called superior wits, force Socrates to drink hemlock and shout cries of “Crucify Him” for Christ. 

Joan was the daughter of a working farmer who was also a headman of his village. As a child, Joan played being the young lady of a castle, her mother and her brothers went along and played with her these childlike games. It is a popular romantic artifice that turns every heroine into either a princess or a beggar maid. Joan of Arc was most decidedly neither. She was absolutely illiterate and did not know A from B. However she was not ignorant. She could not write letters but dictated them to be sent to Generals and Kings and attached excessive importance to them, when she was called shepherd lass, she warmly resented it. She also understood the political and military situation of her country much better than most of our today’s newspaper-fed university graduates. 

It may or may not be of much importance as to how did she look. Was she beautiful in the conventional sense? Not one of her comrades in village court or camp or even when they were praising her, alluded to the fact that she was beautiful. Most men declared her to be sexually unattractive despite her being in the bloom of her youth. Nevertheless there is one reason for crediting her with an extraordinary face. A sculptor of her time in Orleans made a statue of a young woman with a face that is unique in art in being a portrait that is so uncommon as to be unlike any real woman one has ever seen. It is surmised that Joan served unconsciously as the sculptor’s model. There is no proof of this however those who have seen those extraordinarily spaced eyes cannot but raise this question most powerfully, “If this woman be not Joan, who is she?”

Man, Superman and Supraman

A glasshouse must not be a very attractive place to live. Everything inside is clean and beautiful, neatly arranged, proportionate and artificial. Every leaf is plastic, smell of soil non-existent, sunlight filtered, growth calibrated and death sanitized. A man uprooted from his roots and placed in an alien culture is little better than a plant inside a glasshouse. Life today makes such demands on us that almost necessitate a deracination. A life in a foreign culture is likely to create admiration for it and at the same time engender contempt for our own culture. It may also work in the opposite direction however the likelihood of emergence of a harmonious sonata that combines the best of both cultures is rare and precious. Indian and British cultures came together to create a master who gave meaning to both the cultures and also transcended both in giving prototype of a man who will be beyond these and every other cultures. 

Aurobindo Ghosh was born on 15^th August 1872 in Calcutta India however was promptly shifted by his father first to Loreto Convent, Darjeeling and within 2 years to England to prevent him from contracting any strand of Indian culture. His father wanted his sons to grow up in England and prepare themselves to join the elite Indian Civil Service. Aurobindo Ghosh stood 11^th in the prestigious ICS examination though he was getting increasingly convinced that he does not wish to serve the British. He left the shores of England and took up various jobs in Baroda, Gujarat before he plunged into Indian politics and the freedom movement. He also took up deep study of Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, and Indian Scriptures. He believed in aggression and wanted the Indian National Congress to engage into an active confrontation with the British Government. His impassioned speeches, inflammatory articles in various magazines and supposed involvement in Alipore Bomb Case made him spend numerous months in jail. Lord Minto, the then Governor General of India famously remarked, "I can only repeat that he is the most dangerous man we have to reckon with."

Anandamath of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee had a great influence on Aurobindo Ghosh. He idolized the character of the monk who fights the soldiers of East India Company for India’s freedom. He was also guided by Yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele. He retired from politics to Pondicherry in 1910 and began his outward spiritual journey. 

Sri Aurobindo as he came to be known later was able to see man as an evolving species. He took off from where Darwin had left. His man was to develop into another man that would be as different and superior to the present man as he is today to an animal. Its physical form would be more luminous, flexible and adaptable and his mind would not need thoughts and experiences to learn but a light would enter his mind and illuminate his being. Sri Aurobindo called it the Supramental Being. The man as a species today will evolve and the limitations of his body and mind will become vestigial as he attains the status of Supramental Being. 

Sri Aurobindo interpreted Indian scriptures in the light of supreme logic and with a touch of sublime beauty. His epic poem Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol in 12 books and 24,000 lines is an enduring contribution to not only philosophy but also to English literature. He critiqued the works of Shakespeare with meter of sound and rhythm of meaning and explained Kalidas with a familiarity that only a supramind can fathom.

Eyes O Eyes, Heart O Heart

Orange is orange and apple is red. Elephant is big and heavy whereas sun is bright and hot. We know this since we perceive color, size, temperature and weight. In other words we experience these qualities. These are simple experiences and they bring great joy to us when we stop and contemplate them. The gift of life is that we do not stop at these primary experiences and are capable of having complex and sublime experiences too. When we feel awe or fear, joy or anxiety, love or loss, passion or revulsion, we experience a number of primary ideas together. John Locke, the philosopher from England told us that all that we learn comes from experiences that we gather and when we are born; our mind is like a blank slate or “tabula rasa”. 

‘All our knowledge comes from experiences’ is the theme of the masterpiece that John Locke wrote in 1690, just two years after the glorious revolution in England. The masterpiece “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” changed the way we looked at our mind and suddenly we understood.  The ‘Essay…” gave the doctrine that there are primary and secondary qualities. The primary qualities are those that cannot be separated from the body like solidity, figure, motion etc and secondary qualities are all the rest like color, sound, smell etc. The primary qualities are in the body and secondary qualities are in us. Such simplicity of thought was rare and powerful in philosophy and therefore influenced even physics. It became source of many important theories in the field of heat, light and electricity. This essay also inspired the ideas embedded in American Constitution. British Constitution is predominantly based on this essay and on doctrines espoused by him. The French adopted the ideas of this essay in their constitution in 1871. 

John Locke is the apostle of the revolution of 1688. Bertrand Russell, the famous mathematician and philosopher calls it the most moderate and the most successful of all revolutions after which hitherto no need for any revolution has been felt in England. Locke is one of the most fortunate philosophers. He completed this essay just when the government of his country fell into the hands of people who believed in his ideas. His views therefore were held and pursued by most vigorous and influential politicians of his times. 

John Locke was born in 1632 and his father’s name was also John Locke. Though he lived to be 72, all his influential works were produced in a short time span of about 6 years from 1687 to 1693. He studied at Oxford University but he did not like the rigmarole of the syllabus and university education. He enjoyed studying works of Rene Descartes. He was deeply interested in medical studies and obtained a bachelor’s degree in medicine as well under the guidance of Thomas Sydenham. He worked closely with scientists like Robert Boyle who described the relationship between pressure and volume of a gas. He also discussed matters with figures like Sir Issac Newton and John Dryden. The events that he saw in his life time were English Restoration, The Great Plague of London and The Great Fire of London. Constitutional Monarchy and Parliamentary Monarchy was in their infancy during his life time. He died on 28^th October 1704 and is buried in the house where he lived since 1691. He never married and had no children.

Uncle Sam and Uncle Tom

Uncle Sam is a popular name for United States of America. This name is associated with ideas of power, control and dictatorship. USA exerted this authority on the whole world and was therefore never liked by people of other countries. The situation however in the United States  was not always so rosy and pleasant. Its people who came from all over the world, considering it a land of opportunities, were not treated as equals. Those who were given the color black to their skin by God were considered slaves and lived a life of indignity and exploitation. 

Uncle Tom is an equally popular name that relates to USA and this name too does not show USA in good light. Uncle Tom is the chief character of the famous novel ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ written by Ms Harriet Beechter Stowe in 1852. It was revolutionary for its passionate evocation and indictment of the practice slavery in American society. The author presented Uncle Tom as ‘a man of humanity’. He was also the first black hero in American fiction. Uncle Tom’s Cabin had several characters that attained iconic status; Simon Legree, Little Eva and Topsy Sambo are even today American bywords. They made a heartrending and a dirty picture of America, which showed blacks as a tradable commodity and as people who ‘don’t have the same feelings as we do’. It was a society divided into only four categories slave catchers, slave traders, slave owners and those who aspired to own slaves. 

Uncle Tom’s Cabin emphasized that slavery was an unchristian practice and both cannot exist together. Ms Stowe accentuated benevolence as a feminine trait and also called outraged feminine feeling as the widest opposition to slavery. Little Eva, daughter of dissolute and weak Augustus comes across as sensitive and saintly whereas Mr Shelby sells Uncle Tom to the negro trader Haley and Simon Legree and his brutish black attendants beat him to death. At his death, Uncle Tom with his Christian meekness stands up to Legree as morally superior wholly perfect human being. 

Ms Harriet Beechter Stowe, the author was born in Connecticut in 1811 and was brought up on tales of devotions, Christian charity and brotherhood. She was exposed to slavery, race riots, runaway slaves early in her life. She moved to Maine, after her marriage and joined Bowdain College as a professor. She wrote this novel as a reaction to the passage of Fugitive Slave Act. It became one of the most-sold books of 19^th century, was translated into 37 languages and was reviewed by renowned figures like Thomas Macaulay, George Sand and Heinrich Heine. She wrote several novels however only Uncle Tom’s Cabin has survived.

Ms Stowe was always outspoken on controversial moral issues like temperance, women’s suffrage and of course slavery. Perhaps her early religious training aided her to be fearless and confident. She enjoyed friendship of several greats of English literature like Lady Byron and George Eliot. Mark Twain was her neighbor. Leo Tolstoy admired her book and called her ‘a brilliant soldier in the liberation war of Humanity . The greatest tribute to her came from Abraham Lincoln who greeted her at the White House in 1863 as “The Little woman who started this great revolution’.

A Train Journey Not Taken

Love for life and hatred for death is a malady that most of us suffer from. If there were a person who suffered from it the most, it was Sisyphus. The legendary Greek poet, Homer tells us that Sisyphus had put Death in chains so that no human being had to die ever. The God of Death, Pluto could not endure the sight of Death in chains and promptly sent god of war to punish Sisyphus. Sisyphus was condemned to ceaselessly rolling a big stone to the top of a mountain whence the stone would fall back of its own weight and Sisyphus will again have to take it up the mountain. This punishment of hopelessly unending and futile labor was considered to be most dreadful that could have been inflicted upon Sisyphus for his sin.

This meaningless nature of life was the subject of the famous philosophical essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” written by Albert Camus. He presents Sisyphus's ceaseless and pointless toil as a metaphor for modern lives spent working on futile jobs in factories and offices. People today work every day on the same task that has no end and purpose that is absent.  It is tragic however only at the rare moments when man becomes conscious of its futility. Camus dwells upon Sisyphus' thoughts when the stone has rushed down and he is marching down the mountain, to start afresh.

This essay introduced the philosophy of the absurd. In this philosophy he wonders what a man should do when he fails to find meaning, unity and purpose in his life. Should he commit suicide? The answer that Camus gives is No, as suicide is also meaningless and absurd. What is needed is a revolt, a constant confrontation against this absurdity.

Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and one of the most important philosophers of 20th century.  He was born in French Algeria to a Spanish mother who was half deaf and father who was an agricultural worker. His father died in WW I in 1914 and Camus passed his childhood in poverty with his mother. He was a bright student and was admitted to University of Algiers. He was also the goalkeeper of the university football team though he had to give up football later as he contracted Tuberculosis.

He was always politically active and was in and out of the communist party of France and Algerian People’s Party. He also participated in the Hungarian revolution.  He always sided with parties that promised anarchy. He argued passionately against the institution of marriage though he married twice, first to Simone Hie, a morphine addict and later to Francine Faure, a pianist and mathematician. He also conducted numerous affairs, most famous of them being the one with the Spanish-born actress and star of Parisian theatre Maria Casares.

Camus was always bracketed with Jean Paul Sartre as a fellow Existentialist who together promoted the cause of absurdism.  Camus remarked to Sartre "If nothing had any meaning, you would be right. But there is something that still has a meaning” and this he ascribed to qualities that people imbibe when they play football or any sport. These qualities he mentioned as camaraderie, solidarity, joint effort, cooperation etc.

Camus was awarded Nobel prize for literature in 1957 “for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times". He was youngest recipient of Nobel prize for literature after Rudyard Kipling and first African-born writer to have won this award. He died two years after receiving the award in a car accident. From his pocket was found a train ticket which he was to board and he did not and took the car ride instead with his publisher who also died in this accident.

A Great Leap Behind

India, China, England, France, USA are all countries today. In India, we offer 15^th August 1947 or 26^th January 1950 as the two dates when India became a country. Many also say that India is more than a 3000 year-old country. How was a country formed? How did the world map look like before we had the names of the countries that cover it today? 

Earlier a civilized man lived alone and also lived together with others. Together they were called a tribe and later a society. How these societies transformed themselves into a country is a question often we ignore or do not consider important. A British philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) considered this question of great significance and wrote a book on it called ‘Leviathan” or a Sea-Monster. This book changed the way we understood the formation of a country. 

The first part of this book is about man as an individual and it says that his thoughts don’t occur at random but are governed by rules. His idea of good and bad are also very clear. If he desires the object, it is good, and if he hates it, it is bad. The fear of invisible power is religion, if allowed publicly and superstition otherwise. Hobbes maintained that all men are equal and they try to preserve their freedom. In a state of nature, there should be no property, no justice or injustice, and no war however men also have a desire to lord over others. These two desires make this world a nasty, unsafe and unpleasant place, perpetually at war against one another.

The second part of the book talks about how men want to escape from these evils. According to Hobbes, they do this by coming together and forming communities and choosing a central authority that governs and protects them. They give away a part of their freedom and in return expect the authority to protect them from perpetual war. This central authority came to be called state or country or government in due course. Once the government is chosen, the citizens lose all rights except that which governments find expedient to grant. The right to rebellion is also taken away because the government is not bound by any rule but the people are. And so the government is Leviathan, a monster, a mortal God.

Hobbes, when compared to his predecessors, stands out as starkly secular. He does not worry much about what happened to Adam and Eve at the hour of temptation nor does he work himself up at the prospect of facing the wrath of God. Hobbes was son of a vicar who was ill-tempered and uneducated and was brought up by his uncle as his father lost his job while quarrelling with a neighboring vicar. At the age of 15, Hobbes went to the Oxford University and spent almost 6 years there. In his writings, universities are constantly criticized and he maintained throughout his life that he profited little from his stay at the Oxford.

Hobbes had the good fortune of meeting and conferring with several great historic figures. He met the dramatist and competitor of Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, philosopher Francis Bacon and Lord Herbert. He was one of those who saw ‘Meditations’ of Descartes before they were published. He was greatly influenced by Galileo, Kepler and Euclid. He firmly believed that the only relationship that any two countries can have is that of animosity and therefore war is the only link possible between them.

Hobbes’ thoughts are vigorous; his solutions are logical and often reflect a hardliner’s stance. However his theories are crude as he does not consider facts that disprove his theory, he is impatient of subtle arguments. In the territory of philosophy, he is more like a tribal war lord rather than a suave prince. He suffered from error not because the basis of his thoughts were unreal or fantastic but because he over simplified issues. He uttered the words “A great leap in the dark” moments before he died.