I attended yet another full Science conference in Faridabad as a part of our work for our Institute’s current client in Bangalore. One scientist asked me later about my background because he felt that I had drawn him into answering questions where he hadn’t known the answers himself before he answered them. A few of the scientists asked me more about my PhD topic. In all my years with Sociology – I never attended any full conferences and across the last year and half I’ve attended more science conferences as a non-scientist and a non-academician than I did as a social scientist and an academician. I talked with more than a dozen of scientists for a current project and for future workshop plans. I can’t write about all of my observations and experiences – some parts, most likely, I think (and my client expects) will be a public report someday. I can mention one thing though which has nothing to do with the project itself – I am now sure that there is no common or general ‘Indian accent’ regarding the use of the English language in its spoken form. I have a couple of hilarious but not unkind stories but I shall store them for some other fine day. Anyhow, it’s about the underlying plans (for there were individuals from a few organizations who were very interested in the workshops which we conduct) for which I’m keeping my fingers crossed; well, unless I’m typing up stuff for work or brochures or content material or sending off e-mails or typing stuff like this.
With Christmas here I was wondering again about Jesus, joy, suffering, miracles and religion and Hinduism and how even Christ is sometimes (by maybe crazy people but nonetheless) included within our pantheon of Gods as an avatar of Vishnu. So not only have we incorporated The Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu but we’ve somehow managed to include Jesus as well. But truth be told when I was fairly young I used to wonder in an almost academic manner about the strange similarities between Jesus and Krishna – in their births being predicted, in their both being hounded by evil kings even before they were born, in the legends that surround their respective births. And yet sometimes I’m taken aback by the differences too among Krishna, The Buddha and Jesus and Shiva but that would end up being a whole new blogpost! But let me write a bit because I’m in the mood. Personally vis-a-vis Jesus I had a delightful, sometimes naughty and the strongest of bonds when I was a kid. I wasn’t a very good kid but I couldn’t help but talk with Jesus. I can’t remember the long and convoluted conversations I used to have with him but we did converse a fair bit like buddies. I called out to him when I was much, much older in years but the relationship had changed. The Buddha most often has smiled at me…but I’ll be darned if I know what he means by his smile. I got seriously interested in The Buddha after reading one essay 'My Master’s Word' which Suvro da had sent to me when I was in my first semester at Purdue. Among other things, The Buddha also makes me wonder about where he actually went after he broke off from the cycle of rebirth and I can’t help but still be perplexed about how he could leave his baby son and wife behind; I understand it from a clinical and even a ‘far-beyond’ perspective but I don’t get it emotionally and I wonder from the wife’s perspective – didn’t she miss him horribly when he went away without a word? I’ve had a less chatty relationship with The Buddha even though there have been a couple of very serious conversations. But he does smile. I’ve seen him very clearly in my mind’s eye smiling and saying ‘it’s all right’ especially when I was in the last leg of my PhD and sitting and typing very furiously in the main library at Purdue and right after seeing in my mind a flash of the blogpost by my PhD case-study exemplar on whether ‘death makes us momentarily serious’. The Buddha was telling me that it was all right if I didn’t include him, The Buddha, in my study. Vis-à-vis Krishna – when I was in my twenties, in short and sharp jabs I started feeling most intensely and at various emotional, intellectual, philosophical, material and (dare I say?) spiritual levels the relationship Meera had with Krishna and Arjun shared with Krishna – I feel these within even if I can’t really understand most of it but I fail to see or sense what the real deal was between Radha and Krishna…if Krishna didn’t love Radha the best why have so many poets sung about Radha and Krishna; none of the other gopis feature as individuals, and how come Indians being Indians picked on this love affair as the ideal-type: Radha was considerably older than Krishna, it was an illicit intimate physical love affair, Radha was an adulteress and Krishna is, and I for one do believe the legends, noted for loving 16,000 gopis at the same time and he had the exceptional ability to make each one of the gopis believe that he loved her…and there, in that world, Meera was only one of the gopis. Nobody really special until she came to earth as Meera, where she comes into her element. And yet Maharaj Kumar, if I believe the legend of Cuckold (and I do) made sure that Meera would never again forget him as a man. And what indeed became of Radha and the other gopis when Krishna becomes King of Dwarka and moves off and away and marries Rukmini and the rest of his wives? I can see nothing ignominious or brutal in how he died though. He knew he was going to die – he chose his death and it must have been a relatively quick death. It is far, far better than being nailed to a cross. That makes my flesh crawl and the cry torn out of a soul, ‘Lord, why have you forsaken me?!’ I can quite understand at some level how incredibly canny a politician Krishna was and how carefully he used his super-human powers and why he neither tried to halt the Kurukshetra war nor prevent the complete annihilation of his kingdom but the part which I don’t understand – I really don’t. Indians don’t make a big deal of Rukmini and Krishna although they mention in the passing that out of all his wives – he loved Rukmini the best and that she was an avatar of Lakshmi (then who, pray was Radha and and what about Meera?). In Shiva’s case – he keeps loving the same child/woman who comes to earth in various avatars – which actually makes perfect sense to me but Krishna comes across as inscrutable. My best friend says that Krishna being the Ultimate God: he did not have any hierarchy of loving, but I still can’t believe that he didn’t love someone here and there much more and much more intensely. Maybe I'm too dim to get it. I’m sure each one of the gopis wanted him for her own and went into frenzies – but what about him? He wasn’t stupid so why would he not discriminate in terms of whom he loved? He loved Arjun more than any of the Pandava brothers even if he never declares that out-loud. So how did Krishna choose which women he would love? And why is it that Radha stands out among the gopis? I remember one bit from a book by Devdutt Patnaik on Myths and Mithya which elaborates upon many of the legends about the Gods: it would seem that some human beings are simply blessed to be loved and ardently by a great God without doing much or anything and I think this is because maybe they carry some sort of a pure and elusive essence that charms the God and some folks keep churning away and trying and trying and failing more often and have to work much harder to win God’s love maybe because their essence is impure and rough and calloused and ugly. But why did Meera have to wait thousands of years and why did Krishna keep her waiting and what about Maharaj Kumar? Surely he deserved to be loved by Meera? And what made Radha so special to Krishna? I don’t understand or sense or see and so this gets me wondering and even raging or sulking a bit once a month, like clockwork, especially over the last some years till Fimh insists that I must calm down and soothes me and even gets me to smile in spite of myself sometimes with his naughty liners even though I honestly think that he chuckles in glee sometimes when I rage or sulk. Once in my life and it was when I was a little over 33, I felt I were swinging with a complete version of my Fimh in an embrace and on a silver swing in a deep forest with distant bells chiming with perfect music very softly somewhere…I remember the feeling, the waves within, the nameless bliss and the timeless moment vividly as I do some other parts about the surreal and magic and mystery and mystical of life which sometimes really feel as real as the pain and suffering and angst and the despair and the wrenches and monotony and the horrible periods of waiting and the very concrete, tangible and material aspects of life and living. I don’t know about the why or the how of it. It sort of reminds me now about what Willie experienced during a near death experience – of being with Modesty and walking through a beautiful forest and with the ‘stars singing’. I know too that I’ve felt like Meera (even though I cannot sing a note) and Arjun too (even though I wouldn’t know which side was up with a bow and I’d be utterly hopeless at stringing it), which have been clear moments of being. There goes the pompous poof-top Richard Dawkins saying that I’m both barmy and benighted. I’d much rather chortle over what Suvro da has to say about Dawkins. This double-post has become mighty long. On this note I doth depart to attend to other stuff.
Written between 24th-25th of December.
26th December 19:17hrs
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