Accidents and happier things

My heartfelt condolences for all those families who were bereaved by the catastrophic Air India Dreamliner crash in Ahmedabad on 12th June. May God give them strength to bear up and cope with their tragic loss, and may the souls of the departed rest in peace. This accident hits very close to home, because my older sister, who served with Air India till very recently, flew hundreds of times on the same aeroplane. And as the whole world knows by now, one man walked away from the flaming wreckage virtually unscathed. As we the devout like to say, raakhe Hari maare ke (who can slay the man whom God protects?). Remember the child who came back from the tsunami in Thailand back in 2004? A Jewish rabbi said only the other day in connection with the plane crash that it's not ultimately the technology and the pilots who save and kill, it's an infinitely greater power above. Even atheists should take time to reflect that in that attitude to life one may find a kind of solace and peace that no other philosophy has ever provided. It's the same attitude that helps best to stay calm before a major surgical operation, and every time your beloved child leaves home.

But I have a scientifically curious mind, too, and as some people may know, I have been an aircraft buff all my life: even as a teenager I could identify 'planes by the sound of their engines overhead, and reel off data about engine power and thrust to weight ratio and camber and angle of attack and yawing, rolling, pitching, banking and stalling speed and so on and so forth, so I simply cannot square what happened (unlike the Boeing 737 Max disaster a few years ago) with the fact that the machine was not very old, in good shape, had fairly recently undergone a thorough re-check for serious faults, and the pilot was a very experienced hand. Why were the flaps fully withdrawn while the landing gear had still not retracted, when just about anyone who knows anything about planes would swear that no sane pilot is likely ever to do that even by 'mistake' seconds after takeoff? And all this speculation about simultaneous loss of power in both engines, that is so, so unthinkably improbable that it strains credulity and goads one to start thinking superstitiously again... I am eagerly waiting for the final investigation report, and to know what the experts are going to do about it. And I shall still depend on the knowledge that statistically speaking, air travel remains the safest way to travel (but no, there is no special protective magic attached to seat number 11A, all you idiots).

Alas, instinctive socialist (and rational) man that I am, many disturbing thoughts come to my mind. Why do we make so much more fuss when people die in aircraft accidents than on trains, buses or on the road (more than 15,000 died on state and national highways alone last year); why do 26 terrorist victims manage to grab so much more attention, grief and outrage than, say, the 10,000 (at least) who died in the Odisha super cyclone of 1999? Isn't it only because air accidents involve well-off, well-connected, highly articulate, rich and super rich people? In this connection, remember that governments announce much larger compensation for aircraft-accident victims, too...

Meanwhile, moving on to a less morbid subject, here is a link to a Youtube video that might help lots of people - especially young people who have just begun to earn a living: it's about how to manage your finances wisely. Serious listeners will find that the speaker talks about 'spirituality' (!) in the same vein as I have been writing about the 'life of the spirit'. Paradoxically enough, having a spiritual orientation helps a great deal to make (and keep) money, and it has become increasingly necessary in an age when the whole world is provoking you to go in the opposite direction!

Strange 'monsoon' again: the first few showers gave a bit of relief from the heat, but since then the rain laden winds have moved up northwards, so Assam and North Bengal are already seeing their first floods, while we in the south are sweltering still. Oddly enough, the temperatures are much lower than what usually happens in mid-June, rarely going above 36 Celsius, but the humidity is oppressive (so it 'feels like' we are in the mid-forties), and the nights are too warm for comfort. The Met office says this is going to be a rainy week again: let's see if they get it right.

A Marwari old boy made my day yesterday by asking me to recommend some good fiction. Maybe it's time Bengalis started learning about culture from them!

I am already itching to make up plans for running away from Durga pujo again. I wish I could find a couple of good travel companions: it seems most of my favourites will be busy during that time this year. 

I wish I could get some encouraging and constructive feedback about the stories I am telling on YouTube, there on my channel or here. It would be of great help, believe me.

I am happy to report that the pipe I am smoking with a herbal (non-tobacco) mixture has been a good decision. And I am soon going to buy a pram - after 28 years - for the child of a dear old boy who is expecting a baby. Brings back glowing old memories!

Well, that's enough musing for now. I'll be back soon.

Turning into Sidhu Jyatha

I spent another deliciously restful and deeply satisfying week in Kolkata with my daughter and Swarnava. In a hundred little ways I am growing luckier as I grow older: not only because I am better off and Kolkata is a slightly nicer place to live in than in the 1980s (if you don't have to move about much!), but also because I have far less to worry about, far fewer people I have to pretend to respect and loving people to look after me. God, I can't stop saying how thankful I am. After life's fitful fever I relax well.

The last week, what with the early arrival of the monsoon, was rainy all through, and that was a big bonus, though the spells in between were horribly sultry when the air conditioners were switched off. My daughter says I always bring the rains along with me, whether in Delhi or in Kolkata, and indeed it has happened over and over again!

I was very well fed, and though I do not in general much enjoy eating out, the trip to China Town (Tangra) to dine at Golden Joy was a real treat; so was the Irani food that Pupu ordered in from sodabottleopenerwala, Berry Pulao and something else whose rather exotic name I have, unfortunately, forgotten.

Having found a lot of time to ease back and reflect - my favourite pastime lifelong - I mused over how much was repeating itself, only in a less vexing way. The college kids I looked at while driving past looked so similar to my own contemporaries from more than forty years ago that it seemed time had stopped. The lights are brighter, the streets are leafier, the power cuts almost a thing of the past. Hand-drawn rickshaws have nearly vanished, and even the toto-wallahs are far more likely to wear jeans and T-shirt than lungi and gamchha. A/c buses, autos and Rapido bike services have made hanging from bus doors history, and when all the Metro routes start functioning, travelling around will be as comfortable as it is in Delhi. 

Pupu and Swarnava keep asking anxiously every time whether I enjoyed my stay. Let this be on record: these days I come back only to make some more money while it is still to be made, and because there are a few dogs which are always delighted to see me back. Indeed, loving dogs now wait for me both here and there. More and more I incline to agree with Pupu's views on a lot of things - the girl has tried long and hard -  including the legend on her T-shirt: 'I like dogs more than people', sad though that makes me to admit it. My favourite boys have moved away, the girls have all forgotten me, as I should have expected them to, and Durgapur has given me only two things of long-term value: a livelihood and a low-cost, relatively quiet lifestyle. Any day Pupu migrates to some still-remote hill station and asks me to come along, I shall wind up here for good and move, lock stock and barrel, once and for all. And if I can still be of some practical use to them, whether it be housekeeping or nannying kids or writing stuff, I shall be quite fulfilled. Once my mother passes away, and I pray it is not too long now, I shall be the oldest member of my immediate family, and all I shall demand from God and man is that I be left in peace, until it is time for me too - my fondest dream for a long time has been to go like Don Vito Corleone.

For the young, life is all dreams, for the old, life is all memories. Very true for me. And since the memories are not uniformly good, I choose to dwell more and more on the good ones, shoving aside the rest. I wish readers would hark back to posts like Looking back, and Looking back once more, to find out how I do it. I also evaluate more and more (or 'judge', to use a currently popular buzzword - strictly inside my mind, of course) what has happened to me, what I have done, what I could have avoided and done better and so on. Strangely, I do not find much that I could have changed; I certainly don't think that given the circumstances, there was much that I could have actually avoided or done better. One thing I am not doing at my stage in life is trying to look, feel and act younger, whether that be by frequenting the gym or dressing a la mode or using fashionable slang or riding a heavy, noisy motorbike. I am happy the way I am - even with the no-frills, no nonsense style in which I am telling stories on YouTube - and if that draws people to me or drives them away, I am indifferent. It's people who tell me I don't look old or that I should do things to look and sound young who get my goat. Why can folks never be satisfied with the way they are, and why do they try so hard to impose their dissatisfaction on others?

One of my biggest regrets - one which I shall probably leave the world with - is that though my country has grown materially richer over my lifetime, as visible almost everywhere (see the fourth paragraph), it has definitely grown culturally poorer overall, whether you think in terms of things like congestion and pollution, or the general and huge decline of manners, intelligence, empathy and general knowledge in the sense of 'well stocked minds', helpful friendliness and such. So on the whole, to my mind at least, India remains a very unpleasant country to live in: and for those of us who wanted all along to see that she was 'developing', it is a deeply upsetting thing. You cannot even walk down a street without brushing past people talking about nothing but money, when they take a break from cricket or politics. Tragic, for a country which boasts ad nauseum about how culturally rich we are. Meanwhile, as a teacher, I shall probably retire with a deep sense of regret and failure, because too many of my students have become merely 'successful' (and that too, in a very petty middle class sense: no Ambanis and Dhonis and SRKs or Sundar Pichais among them!), and very few that I can boast about as truly good human beings in whose mental development I was proud to play a part. It is true, of course, that 99% of the parents expected nothing more from me than good exam scores, so I suppose I gave good value for money... but I didn't get much of what I had been looking for beyond making a living, that's for sure. Maybe that's true for every man?

I was exulting over crossing the one million page views milestone just a few months ago, and now, almost unnoticed, another 100,000-plus has been added to that number. Funny. I wonder, for the umpteenth time, which people keep reading, and why I get so little feedback. Some bloggers are much luckier. But anyway, maybe I shall have to stay satisfied with the little conversations I have here with that very small number who do keep commenting, and who are a pleasure to respond to, because they too can think and feel. That is a very vital reason why a liberal arts education is becoming more and more essential with the passage of time, though too few people yet recognize the need... civilization needs more and more people who can think and feel for themselves, not mere specialists who have no life of the mind and have become for all intents and purposes flesh and blood robots blindly following Standard Operating Protocols and 'systems'.

Well, anyway, as Tagore wrote, 'orey bheeru, tore upore nai bhuboner bhaar' (O coward, the world's responsibility has not been placed upon your shoulders)! So I guess as the years pass by, I shall more and more mind my own business. What that 'business' is likely to be hereafter, that is the question.

That's what I look like now, relaxing at home in the evening after classes, perusing the pipe - a habit I have revived after I guess more than two decades. One dear ex student commented that I look like Feluda's Sidhu Jyatha, and I am thrilled to bits. 

On AI again

It so happens that I am getting worried, and I do NOT think I am worrying needlessly.

One thing to remember: mankind invented everything that has really helped in the march of civilization - including language, the wheel, the knife, the light bulb, spectacles and the water closet, built everything from the pyramids to the Taj Mahal to the hydrogen bomb, went to the moon, decoded the DNA code and made possible in vitro fertilization, besides all the most wonderful works of art, music and literature, without AI - so what life changing things is AI likely to do for us hereafter? What sort of people are they who actually believe this nonsense and are helping it to spread?

Without AI but still with computers loaded with grammar- and spelling checkers, book editors and journalists write shoddily, pages filled with typos these days as they wouldn't have dreamt of doing even fifty years ago. Is AI likely to improve on this consequence of universal mental decay? (I read in today's newspaper that the IMD had 'forecasted' an 'anamoly' - I kid you not). These people still have jobs only because 99.99% of their readers are as unmindful or ignorant as they are.

I found out yesterday that the staff at my nearby drugstore in Kolkata (part of a major countrywide chain) cannot locate particular items on their shelves without checking for them on their 'systems' - whereas my old friend the chemist in Durgapur knows exactly where every one of his wares is. How will 'AI' help the former kind in keeping their jobs a little longer? And with or without AI, one of the insurance companies I used to be a customer of has been lately reminding me to update my KYC, oblivious of the fact that I closed my account with them more than a year ago - obviously their 'system' has not been updated because some (human) idiot behind the computers forgot to do his job on time: will AI really help them, and keep them from bothering me for nothing?

I don't understand all the current rage for integrating AI with just about everything: they are advertising AI-empowered TV, air conditioners and fans already; how much longer before we are sold AI-powered cakes and burgers? As for the supposed urgent need for 'integrating' AI in the classroom at all levels from school to university, exactly what does it mean? Think of a boy in high school (and remember I have been a professionally successful teacher for forty odd years): he must use his mind, and that in a disciplined, rigorous, prolonged, attentive fashion whether he wants to learn a language, mathematics or chemistry, right? He can at most be helped or hindered depending on whether his teachers are informed and skilled and wise at their work or duds. If the teacher can't teach well and the student cannot or does not want to learn, there will be no learning. Are there any two ways about it? How exactly will AI help to achieve that goal faster and better? Meanwhile, I can vouch from my own very recent classroom experience that a few of my students - actually, the stupidest of them, meaning those who cannot even understand why they are coming to me in the first place - have already 'integrated' AI into their work long before the bureaucrats and school boards have drawn up their plans. One boy, whom I caught out because he was using words in his answers which were far beyond his ken confessed that he was using the summary of the comprehension passage that ChatGPT had made for him, because the original was 'too much' for him to grasp. And I hear that PhD scholars are doing virtually the same thing simply because they cannot write basic prose any more. Is that a prevision of the near future? Why not shut down this whole thing called education once and for all, then?

And also meanwhile, the head of Google's AI development division is warning today's teenagers in school to prepare to handle AI in order to stay relevant in the job market 10-15 years from now. Others of his ilk are confidently (and apparently gleefully-) predicting job losses by the hundreds of millions, tens of millions of college graduates among them. So what kind of jobs will remain? A few thousand AI geeks, and maybe those whose work cannot be taken away by AI? Cooks and nurses, fish vendors and farmers and washermen, for example, since sufficiently skilled and versatile robots have turned out to be prohibitively expensive, if at all technically feasible? And maybe a few real teachers, serving those who still really want to learn something and know that real learning of anything involves close face to face human interaction, whether that be kung fu or literature?

And do the tech wizards really think that the hundreds of millions who lose their jobs in their youth (or never find any) are going to take it lying down?

Blogs, books and YouTube

 I am jotting down several passing ideas here before they fly away:

Seventeen years ago I wrote a post titled 'Forty five and counting'. I should have written one headed 'Sixty and still counting' in 2023, but I somehow forgot. Maybe I'll make up for it when I am sixty five, if I am still around and capable of thinking and writing!

I just learned that there are still elders in our town who are feeding their teenage children or grandchildren the old chestnut that 'If you work hard through school and college, you will have a good, assured and cushy career ever afterwards.' Who says only kids believe in fairy tales?

That old post called 'Lust Stories' is now beginning to irritate me. It was meant to be a sober review of a four-part movie which dealt - pretty soberly on the whole, can't even be called soft porn - with the issue of contemporary sexuality and related problems in India. It stays perpetually high on the most read list, for an absurd reason, as my Google search history recently informed me: many people stumble upon it while randomly searching for smut! I don't want to delete the post for good, but someone please tell me what else I can do about it.

I do wish that those who are enjoying my weekly storytelling on YouTube would write longer and more articulate comments (somehow just 'Great story Sir!' sounds very flat and unfulfilling), and spread the word among relatives and friends. I am glad to note that a few of my pupils' parents have become regular and appreciative listeners already. I shall be delighted to get advice about how to spread my reach beyond the immediate circle of students and ex students. Viewers are also welcome to suggest what they would like to hear next, as long as they don't repeat books and authors who have been done to death already.

I was going through posts written years ago, and I am beginning to wonder that I have written so much for so long on so many serious subjects. Besides raising a child and teaching for more than four decades, I shall definitely remember writing this blog as the most important thing I did with my life. How much it benefited others I shall leave my readers to decide.

Coming to books, I read something wonderful recently: The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King, which tells about a young female assistant (and gradually friend) that Sherlock Holmes finds in his advancing years, someone who is both his intellectual equal and on his side (unlike Moriarty), and who first trains under him then starts solving cases with him. The book was written in 1994 - strange that I didn't come across it for so long (thanks once again, Pupu)! - and it evolved into a 20-volume series. It was pure delight to read it: find out why for yourself. But maybe I shall not read the succeeding volumes: I don't want to contemplate Holmes growing increasingly rusty and senile. Healthy bit of feminism there, too - though the author has been most ahistorical in ascribing King Henry VIII's inability to have a legitimate son to his alleged syphilis (Henry did actually have more than one son), and it is a trifle rich to hear the girl saying to herself 'What do men know about driving?' while herself driving like a crazy drunk, barely avoiding serious accidents.

Tailpiece: I don't know whether I should be writing this - these days people are being hauled away by the police for less - but I greatly enjoyed listening to Avay Shukla's interview by Karan Thapar on YouTube today. Mr. Shukla, a retired IAS officer and popular blogger, has written in a recently published book that India is turning into a land of duffers. Look him up on Wikipedia, and watch the interview if you care and dare.

I end for now by asking my most favourite old boys and girls a very important question. Suppose I entirely stop giving private tuition to high-school goers at 65, what would be the best thing for me to do next? And how can you help me do it? I am asking very seriously, mind you, because it is about how I can most enjoy the dusk of my life.

AI rising, NI sinking

I still read The Telegraph of Calcutta daily, despite all the fluff and the garbage, and today the same paper carried two very, very thought-provoking, disturbing reports. One is that the new Pope, Leo XIV (a mathematics scholar, too!), in his first public audience, has identified AI as one of the greatest contemporary threats to 'human dignity, justice and labour'. Go back to the post titled The Life of the Spirit (first part), where I quoted Stephen Hawking gloomily forecasting the threat to civilization posed by AI. The very highest, keenest, most informed minds from  the worlds of science and spirituality now agree on this, as do humble I, while schoolteachers, journalists, engineers (at least a section of them) and tech entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley are going gaga over how rapidly technology is advancing, and what a golden age it is about to usher in for humankind. Bears thinking about, doesn't it? Keeps reminding me about Tagore's Muktodhara and Roktokorobi, and movies like Wall-E and the Matrix series.

The other was a recent interview of Shashi Tharoor, who has acquired a cult following as a user of 'sophisticated' English. In reply to a question, he said that more worrying to him than the rapidly diminishing power of communication among people (at least linguistic communication) in the age of Whatsapp and Instagram is the equally rapidly diminishing power of comprehension: people no longer have the intelligence, common sense, knowledge, wisdom or patience to reflect and understand anything that is nuanced, ambivalent, multi-layered in meaning: everything has to be reduced into simple binaries, right or wrong, good or bad, true or false, at the comic book level: whether it is about Gandhi deserving respect or Germany deserving all the blame for World War I or Trump being God or the Devil incarnate. I quote Tharoor: "... there have been studies demonstrating that today's young people are not able to engage with complex texts and in-depth reading. And this is really worrying... because unless one reads in depth, one is not able to gain very complicated ideas. You are then dealing with superficial ideas expressed in simple terms, which are very short... and that can really make you far more susceptible to propaganda... because you simply don't have the background and the complexity to understand that the issue is more complicated than they are describing, that there are actually more nuances and elements in it... that is really worrying".

I can only vouch for how absolutely right he is. I have been giving vocabulary and comprehension exercises to thousands over nearly four decades, and I have seen the precipitous decline in average mental capacity. I can also see, from the contents of syllabi and public examinations, how there is a concerted, global enterprise of deliberately dumbing down people by the hundreds of millions, so that they can grow up to become only drudges and mindless, undiscriminating consumers/publicizers of worthless goods and political propaganda: that alone is science or history which The Great Leader and his billionaire-techie friends say it is. AI  rapidly rising, NI rapidly sinking... I shudder to think of the world in the making.

Nor'wester!

I just want to put this on record: after many, many years, it is actually cold here today, on May the first! After the third kaalbaishakhi of the season (that itself had been playing truant for three successive summers at least), the temperature fell so sharply in the evening that I had to switch off the fans, and some of the kids were shivering as we stood in the squall outside my classroom, waiting for their parents. Well, at 21 degrees celsius right now, it at least feels cold, given that barely a week ago the mercury was nudging 39, and the weather app said it 'felt like' 46! 

Can't remember when the weather gods made me so happy in the recent past. All you who sleep tonight, sleep well, wherever you are. 

What's happening?

Rest assured, readers, I haven't forgotten this blog. Just been coping with summer, and new batches, and enthusiastically recording and uploading stories in the form of podcasts on YouTube (the current playlist is titled Goppoguchchho, with a tip of the hat to the bearded maestro). Also, growing more and more disheartened with writing because of the sad lack of comments and engaging discussions. Saddest of all, people insist on commenting via phone or Whatsapp, but simply won't write on the blog itself.

Besides, I have started cultivating a new hobby - cooking - after living 61 years without ever feeling the need for it. Too many reasons to list: among them, the desire to acquire one more dimension of independence, to stay more engaged with life as I grow old, the fact that I have always greatly admired good cooks, the theory that learning a new skill rejuvenates the brain cells, the need to fill the increasing amount of free time I have started allowing myself lately, etc etc. I have started with the basics - bhaat, daal, posto, dimer dalna - and I do not intend to go much further than saak and a chicken dish or two, because I do not have any lofty notion about my innate ability. But that should be enough to salve my ego. I blame all the women who have lovingly fed me all my life for the culinary illiteracy I have been saddled with, till now.

I have been growing more and more annoyed with an insufferable generation of parents (not all of them, of course, but a most disquieting proportion) who are now sending their children to me - those in the late thirties to late forties age group. Most middle class, middle aged people have always been stupid and coarse, vain and uninformed and fond of talking rot when they should stay quiet, but this generation really takes the cake. I wrote a piece called Juvenilia 16 years ago - do look it up, it will save me the trouble of dreary repetition - and simply nothing has changed, except for the worse. Really, civilization has been replaced by cars and phones and branded clothing. Given enough money in the bank, I'd have run away to my own little chalet in the hills, inviting only such guests as fit my definition of civilized. I am sure I wouldn't be troubled by too many visitors!

These days, I scroll through the phone to find out things that give me hope that there are still people who are doing their own thing, and good things at that, things that keep them happy while healing the planet (or at least harming it a little less than others). There is a web magazine called The Better India which feeds me with stories like that - I recently read about a young lady who has given up her media job and joined hands with her retired dad to open up something called BaapBeti Farm somewhere near Pune, and another housewife in Mumbai who has trained her family to reduce, recycle and reuse waste instead of throwing it all away. There is also a local initiative called Support Elders - the name ought to be self-explanatory - with whom I am planning to get involved. And I have some hopes of those old boys and girls, my own daughter prominently among them, who have stayed close to me: not that they will all become great, but maybe good, socially valuable human beings. Sparks of light in the enveloping darkness...

I have quite a store of stories to tell on YouTube - I have for now decided that I shall upload one every Friday - but there, too, I shall be glad to have ideas and suggestions to keep me going. And likes and subscriptions and comments, which will assure me that I am not hollering down a bottomless abyss. As for new readers, do look up the old posts on my channel too: some of you may find them interesting and useful.

Tailpiece: It tickles my funny bone when some people tell me that they still look up my Facebook page now and then. Funny, because I use it for no other purpose than as a notice board for current and future students and their parents!

Start of new podcast series

I have been urged and prodded to start telling stories anew on the internet. I am using both YouTube and Spotify to post the files. I shall decide after some time whether to keep both or just one of them. I welcome all my readers here to try them as I go along, and let me know their opinions, along with suggestions for further posts.

The Youtube link is 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyi0l3unlx0&ab_channel=SuvroChatterjee 

while the Spotify link is 

https://open.spotify.com/show/4D4LsEQTuGZ8asubC2OKq5.

Note: You can write comments on Youtube. Also please 'like' the posts if you will. And subscribe... that's how I'll know that my audience is growing. 

As I go along, you can help me by spreading the word in your own respective circles on the Net.

P.S., Friday, April 11th: The second podcast is up there on Spotify. Click on this link. And please let me know whether you are having any problems with accessing it, along with your reactions/comments.

P.P.S., April 16th: The Spotify channel is temporarily suspended. Continue to listen to podcasts on my YouTube channel only (just type in my name) - usually there will be a new one every Friday :). 

End-March diary entry

February and March went off with reasonably balmy weather on the whole this time, thanks to the unseasonal but very welcome drizzles last week. This weekend is predicted to be hot again, but that is only to be expected. If we are lucky, we might have some more rainy spells, as it happens in some years, so that we might be spared long weeks of relentless heat from April to July.

My admission season is practically over, though a few more will probably keep trickling in. From April onwards, it will be full season again, but for the first time in more than a quarter century, the workload will still be much lighter, only four days a week with two classes a day. I will have much more time to get post-lunch naps than ever before. Who says there are no perks to getting old? SRK anxiously declares ‘I’m not old’ and has to jump about monkey-fashion on stage to stay cool and relevant. Poor chap. I am proud and glad that I am old. So who’s winning?

So many things are coming full circle in the fullness of time. Many of my most beloved youngsters are getting married and having children of their own, and helping me to relive wonderful memories. And while I am still working for my keep, I can regard my earnings more and more as a nice pension rather than a huge and frightening responsibility. I can get more quirky and cranky with impunity – my inner circle will indulgently bear with it and forgive, and how many of those outside give me a wide berth will matter less and less with every passing year.

Thanks to Bibhas, I came across a vlog called ‘Goobie and Doobie’ on YouTube recently, made by a ‘loser’, a successful and high-earning Japanese-American neurosurgeon who gave up that life to be, in his own words, an unemployed wanderer, nature blogger, lay philosopher and ‘happy for the first time in his life’. A real life instance of The Monk who sold his Ferrari. I have grown very fond of him very quickly. More power to his elbow. Try it sometime if you have a much bigger attention span than the typical under-40.

I am reading the last of the Maisie Dobbs series, knowing, sadly, that the author has decided never to add to the list. I had grown very fond of Maisie, and immersed in her life. Recently, also, I read a book called Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel, that was truly very interesting – the early part of the Ramayana written from the perspective of someone who has a strongly feminist perspective and is also one of the least remembered or most reviled (a difficult to achieve combination!) characters in the epic. Strongly recommended, though not quite as lyrical and mellifluous as Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Palace of Illusions.

Thanks to Google photos, I recently discovered that a lot of people who broke off the connection with me long ago still keep sneakily looking up my blog. I wonder what keeps bringing them back, when they have ostensibly lost all interest in keeping in touch with me? A guilty conscience, secret admiration, sheer perverseness, or just endless time to kill?

On the government going after ‘comedians’ who mock and provoke the powers that be – because this issue has been much in the news lately – as a moderate conservative with very reasoned and firm views over a lifetime, I am very much in favour of free speech, but I strongly dislike grown up people who confuse freedom with licence: toilet humour is NOT an essential part of freedom of speech, it is actually very unhealthy for the future of society and civilization, especially if it becomes the only kind of humour that people enjoy. Crudeness, loud vulgarity and abuse are no good or essential part of ‘criticism’; never have been. Let the comedians learn a little about what good and effective comedy as well as criticism can be and should be. Their ‘responsibility’ to democracy does not end with making the great unwashed masses titter along.

I am sad to see that despite repeated requests here, so few have ‘found the time’ to leave behind a few fond recollections about their time with me (the link for the relevant Google form is given on the top of the right hand column here – but if you are reading this on a phone, you have to visit the web version). Conversely, I am very happy to see that several old posts have come back into the most-read list – it means that some people, instead of merely visiting the home page, are actively exploring this blog. I am sure they will not be disappointed with things they find; in fact, some of them might wonder that Sir said these things already so many years ago! Especially when it comes to books, videos and movies, I shall be glad to hear some thank you-s from those who enjoyed my recommendations.

Last trip of the season

My travel season started early this time round, with the Ooty-Mudumalai trip in October, and ended with a visit to the Dooars in North Bengal.

End-February is a time I treasure, because it is one of the few occasions when I get a long break from work, and the weather is still decent enough. So off I went to Siliguri on the 28th to see a cousin whom I had been promising to visit since 2014. A one-day halt, then I moved on to a resort in Lataguri, right on the edge of the Gorumara Wildlife Sanctuary, a barely two-hour drive. This was the very first time I was doing Dooars – ironical, since I have travelled to so many other forests around the country – and I discovered that a) Gorumara is seriously underrated, if you love forests with or without sightings of ‘exciting’ animals, b) many of the other now well-known hotspots, such as Chalsa, Murti, Tilapara and Batabari are actually only a few miles down the same highway, c) if you want to make a jungle safari, Lataguri is your best choice, because everybody has to come here to enter the jungle anyway. At this magical time of the year (schools everywhere keeping kids and parents busy with exams) everything was quiet, and it was a very nice two-night stay, with elephants and bison actually coming up to the gates at nightfall.  

Then off via Manbazar and Gorubathan through lush tea gardens into the hills. I stopped for an overnight stay at a lovely little homestay called Alpine Resort in the village of Kashyem near Kalimpong, very close to the better-known Ichchegaon and Sillery Gaon, which had been highly recommended by an elderly lady friend, and Bob Thapa the proprietor did not disappoint. If you want peace and quiet and long walks among the pines and lovely views of distant snow-capped mountain peaks (Kanchenjunga and Nathu-La among others), lungfuls of clean air and delicious hot local cuisine made from mostly home-grown stuff`without too much luxury and at a very modest price, this is the right get-away-from-it-all spot for you: noisy families, please stay away. For those not interested in noise and shopping (but the wi-fi connection is good), Bob's phone number for booking in advance is 8918112692.

Last stop, another two-hour drive to Bhalukhop village on the other side of Kalimpong to stay overnight with a sadhubaba friend (all personal details must be kept private) which had been very long in the planning. I could spend whole afternoons sunbathing on the wind-swept terrace, and spending the chilly evening staring at the lights of Rangpo in the middle distance. Suffice it to say that we enjoyed ourselves so much that we both deeply regretted that we were parting so soon, and I promised to return (this despite the fact that I had survived a rice with fish curry lunch at 5 p.m. Another first in life – I am living dangerously).

Back to Siliguri, and Durgapur on 5th March, after having woken up at the ungodly hour of 3.30 a.m. Again, it seems I am getting into a bad habit, but it couldn’t be helped. By the way, it was the Vande Bharat for the onward journey and Shatabdi on the way back. I can safely report that the former is a con game – in NO way better, yet grossly overpriced. Unless it is purely for matters of time-convenience, I am never going to take a Vande Bharat again – nor, I suspect, will millions of other Indians who have tried it once just for fun.

My mother had accompanied me on the entire trip. I was on tenterhooks all the way for all nine days, but she bore up wonderfully well, the magnificent eighty-year old.

Here the summer is already upon us. Today, says the weather app, is going to be the first time in six months that the mercury is going to reach that horrible tipping point – 37 degrees Celsius, and there are fears that the first of the heat waves is already about to strike. The last two summers were very nasty: God knows what is in store for us this time round.

You will find a few photos here.

The life of the spirit, part four

Now, to answer the questions that I myself raised at the end of the last post on this subject.

Materially speaking, I had a difficult early life, though we were never exactly poor, made harder still because in my mid-teens we abruptly fell on hard times, and then there was a long struggle before I was comfortably off again and reasonably secure in an Indian urban middle class sense. That should be kept in mind if one is to appreciate what I am going to say in the following paragraphs.

Two very helpful things happened to me early on that made it much easier to cope with worldly life than it is for most people of my class. One, I became intensely and empathetically aware of extreme poverty around me, which made bearing my own cross, such as it was, a relative breeze because I had made a habit of counting my blessings constantly, as few people do. Two, I learnt early to define my own real (worldly) needs clearly and definitively. There were things that were essential, things that were nice to have or do but not really necessary for my physical and mental wellbeing, and things that were most definitely unwanted, distasteful, harmful to my health, pocket and peace. Interestingly, that set of values has never altered much, only more and more items have by themselves moved from the second category to the last. I must add a third thing here upon reflection: ever growing contempt and lack of pity for people who waste their lives endlessly chasing the things in the second and third categories. Here is an illustrative though not exhaustive list of things in my three categories.

In the first were things like living in my own house, a fixed and moderate work routine, a bit of regular leisure, occasional holidays to travel in, lots of reading and watching movies and writing, not having to kowtow to society and bosses at the workplace, much ‘quality time’ to give to my daughter (and now mother), money enough to fulfill every basic need of the family, including education, healthcare, insurance and saving for old age, and much scope for adda with likeminded people. Through economy, diligence, persistence and God’s grace I have achieved all that, though some of it took time (so what? Only makes the achievements sweeter).

In the second category came things like swimming round the year, going frequently to beautiful places abroad, savouring haute cuisine now and then, becoming ‘famous’ for my work, living in a much cleaner, quieter, greener, more orderly place with a much more temperate climate and suchlike. I have enjoyed a bit of all that, and I hanker less and less for them with the passage of years, except perhaps for the last.

In the third category come all the things that most people around me run after all through life – everything from high scores in examinations to fancy weddings and regular parties at posh hotels and constantly replaced fashionable clothes, shopping for and flaunting branded goods of all kinds, obsessing over looks, counting ‘likes’ on social media and, above all, doing things simply because ‘everybody’ around them is doing the same, from watching cricket on TV to going on pilgrimages to seeking a job in Bangalore or Umrica. I have tasted most such things, found all of them unnecessary or downright silly and annoying after a bit, so I stopped wanting these things for myself early on, nor do I want them for my daughter. As I said earlier, I feel only contempt and complete lack of pity for the ‘sufferings’ of such people, because they have brought all that suffering – from severe indebtedness to poor health, perpetual frustration, jealousy, discontent and depression – upon themselves. Tagore describes them with these words: ami joto bhaar joraye phelechhi/ sokoli hoyechhe bojha (I have entangled myself with a burden which is hard to carry).

Many sad and bad things have happened to me, and will continue to happen, yet I have walked through my life with on the whole much less angst and misery than most. Tell me, reader, can you see how being ‘spiritual’ has helped me all along the way, or do I have to spell it out even further?

And this was only the passive aspect of being spiritual – not being affected overmuch by the ways of the world. I would not have ventured to write such a long and involved series of essays unless I was sure there was a positive side also – being able to ‘enjoy’ this worldly life (despite always having known that ‘Life is sorrow’) much more than the average individual because I have been spiritual for most of my life: at least since I started praying every night in kindergarten. That is what I shall briefly touch upon next.

To begin with, I have had immense pleasure, while at the same time acquiring knowledge of every kind, from reading all my life (I always say that 90% of all I know came from outside syllabi and textbooks), and listening to music. The same goes for writing, and I have been writing stuff since I was a pre-teen. I have greatly enjoyed the gift of laughter, and thousands of ex-students will vouch that I have shared it with them. I have been a good listener to more people than I can remember or count, and, as I have found out for myself, good listeners are desperately needed and very hard to find. These things in turn have hugely helped in my professional work; even more so the fact that through endless drudgery, disappointment and frustration (so many people simply can’t or won’t learn), I have been able to regard my work as a calling and not just a means of livelihood. I fear I would have burnt out much sooner otherwise: teaching is not everyone’s cup of tea.

I have found time for lots of sleep, which, as the Bard famously wrote, ‘knits up the ravelled sleeve of care’, as also walked tens of thousands of kilometers, and while I am infinitely thankful for it, I congratulate myself that I could do it because I could determinedly cut off all kinds of distractions and silly engagements all along. I have eaten a lot of good food without falling ill, simply because I never overindulged my palate. I have trained myself not to be too unhappy about all the things that I supposedly wanted and did not get in this lifetime – and lo! it turned out by and by that I never really wanted those things very much after all, only imagined for a while that I did, from a particular girl to a particular job (hence the prayer ‘not my will, O Lord, but Thy will be done’ has become ever more profoundly meaningful). I have learned to bear pain and sorrow and loss without making too much fuss, especially in the traditionally prescribed demonstrative way. I no longer expect much by way of lasting love and companionship from human beings. This has been particularly hard to learn and accept, because I was born deeply emotional and expectant with a very long memory, but now it is well learnt: all I have to remind myself whenever I feel bad is that people are weak and confused and changeable, they like to cheat themselves and pretend what they do not feel, so anyone who is looking for true love simply must turn to either fairy tales or to God. I am sure that both for myself and my loved ones, death, if it comes at the end of a decently long life and without too much pain and shame and dragging along, should be welcomed with open arms. And, finally, that life only makes sense if one spends the largest part of it looking for That Which Stands Beyond – see Come to God, the last chapter of my book (and that was written more than twenty years ago, when I was far from being an old man).

All this is what I have tried and found out and benefited from through my pursuit of spirituality as I understand it. Yoga and pranayam, mantras and wondering about God have filled the interstices, in case you haven’t noticed. Though I have not once claimed that they are essential and primary, the reflective reader will perhaps realize that in a very fundamental sense, they are. Also, as some of my best readers have pointed out, I have said most of these things here and there in a scattered way in numerous blogposts, so in a sense I am saying nothing new. Indeed, there is nothing new about the pursuit of spirituality: all that needs to be said has been said countless times over thousands of years. The point is to help people understand how important, necessary and life-changing it can be if they can see its urgent relevance in the here and now. If I get to know that I have helped half a dozen people to see it, my life’s work will have been well done.

By the way, I am delighted that this series of essays has brought back an old favourite post of mine, The worship of the wealthy, into the most-read list. I should have liked many more people to read up the post titled Socialism calling, part two, also.

Beyond this point, I should like to field questions, if there are any. Otherwise, I think I have now written enough on this subject.

Kanha, paradise

(click on photo for larger view)

I made a whistle-stop trip to Kanha Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh last week, flying out from Kolkata to Raipur in Chhattisgarh on Wednesday the 29th and returning on Saturday evening. It was well worth all the money and all the physical strain 😊

The last time I had visited was with my boys from the school, back in December 1991, a few months after returning from America. That, done in youth on a shoestring budget, remains a very rich and happy memory (I hope reading this post will ring a bell with some of the boys who went with us if they are reading this – they are almost fifty now!); this, done in much more luxurious style, will remain another treasured experience lifelong.

My companions this time round were only three (I think the ’91 team was 42 strong): my very good friend-cum-mentor Saibal, his wonderful wife Kulbeer, and young Abhishek, who is on the way to becoming my fellow traveller of choice on future jungle safaris.

The road trip to Kanha Jungle Resort, in Bamhni village, tehsil Baihar, district Balaghat, a couple of kilometers from the Mukki Gate which leads into the forest, took four hours and a half, so we arrived a little before 9. The resort was a delight, very leafy, with plush cottages adorned with hurricane lanterns hung from hooks out on the porches, and auto-dimming lights all around the garden. Even a swimming pool, though it was too early in the year for that. The staff was smart, efficient, and very, very polite. Saibal, being an old Kanha hand, was on friendly terms with everyone, from the proprietor to the drivers and guards and waiters, so we had special treatment all through. A couple of nightcaps before we turned in, knowing that it was going to be a very long day ahead.

On Thursday we woke up at 4:40 a.m., and were in the forest department Gypsy by 5:30. The Mukki Gate opens at 6 sharp, and a long procession of vehicles, each provided with an enthusiastic guide (many of them young and earnest women), trooped into the forest before diverging along different trails. We made four trips in all – one on Thursday morning (five hours and a half), another that afternoon (three hours and a half), and the same again on Friday. It was gruelling, trundling along on rutted kuchcha roads through clouds of dust, but the scenery was breathtaking – everything from vast sal groves and limpid lakes, man-high anthills, long stretches of grassy meadow and trees curling up other trees in out of the world shapes to peacock, langurs and monkeys, jackal and mongoose and cormorant and lapwing and crested eagle, Indian bison (gaur), spotted deer, barking deer, sambar, barasingha, leopard, bear, and, hold your breath: tigers every time we went in, ambling so close by you could reach out and touch their flanks, utterly indifferent to human presence, lords of all they survey. Only real wildlife crazies will know how fortunate that was: we met people, including professional photographers, who had been on the ‘hunt’ for whole days at a stretch without a single sighting. The only major species we missed was the wild hunting dog (dhole). Though it was chilly and foggy at daybreak, it quickly grew hot, the maximum rising to 32 degrees and minimum never going below 12 – most unfortunate, since traditionally it is supposed to be icy cold at this time of the year…

I cried off the third trip, firstly because, being the only senior citizen in the group, I couldn’t miss my beauty sleep four days in succession, and secondly because I needed some quiet, still time to myself for all-round enjoyment of everything that was on offer. So I awoke late, had a very leisurely breakfast, then spent several hours sunbathing outside my cottage, feet up on the wicker table, listening to birdsong and the wind whispering among the trees, watching butterflies, sometimes listening to music and sometimes meditating. It was as close to heaven as one can hope to reach on earth. I must not forget to mention that, to top off everything, every meal was absolutely delicious, leaving me struggling not to overeat.

Setting off on the road back at about ten on Saturday morning, I was back in Durgapur just about twelve hours later, Firoz having picked me up at Kolkata airport as he had dropped me off before. I slept like a log.

Kanha well deserves its reputation as one of the best maintained wildlife reserves in India. There are 100 odd tigers on the prowl right now. I bought a book, Shaping Kanha, which details all the loving and painstaking effort that has gone into it over many successive decades – and, strange to say about government officers (in this case foresters), they sound truly committed and passionate about their work. I also learnt about various NGOs which are giving yeoman service to the cause, including the one which had trained one of our guides; find them at natureguides.in if you have time on your hands and truly want to engage with something fulfilling, something that can change your life. I wish I were not too old for that sort of thing.

Bibhuti Bhushan wrote in Aranyak (I am translating as I quote from memory): ‘A day is coming when this earth will have been laid bare of all flora and fauna. May this forest survive for the material and spiritual sustenance of the unfortunate generations who live in such times’. These words kept haunting me as I travelled, every mile of the way, as well as that ominous prediction by some old Red Indian chief, ‘only when the last tree has died, the last fish has been caught, and the last river poisoned will we realize that we cannot eat money’. Thank God some people have paid heed, and I pray most earnestly that many more of our young will. In sharp contrast, here is a lament from the book I mentioned above: ‘In spite of living in the internet age, with so much progress (sic) in education, specially in urban areas, the state of awareness about nature and wildlife conservation is abysmally low in the young generation. The importance and role of wildlife and protected areas are hardly understood, let alone appreciated’. Will things change for the better before it is too late?

For some more photos, click here. All the best photos were taken by Abhishek.

The life of the spirit, part three

The quest for a (more) spiritual life will be meaningless and uninteresting to three kinds of people. There are, first, those (many hundred millions, alas, still) who are so poor that the mere quotidian struggle to keep their heads above water usually takes up all their time and energy (and yet, even they often indulge in painting, dancing, music, storytelling and religious rituals – witness the flourishing arts of our tribals. Food for much thought). Then there are those who are not fully human at all, even if they are fairly well off (no insult intended, but that’s the way a vast proportion of people are, quite content with endlessly pursuing only the animal impulses – eat, sleep, breed, fight and preen: especially more and more common among our relatively well off, ‘educated’ urban middle classes. Food for much thought again!), and those who are so happily engaged with worldly pursuits (whether it be business or government or scientific research or something like that) that they don’t need or have time for anything else. But a caveat: some members of even the second category feel the sudden and urgent need for spirituality, especially when they are badly shaken up by some or other kind of unexpected trauma or begin to grow old, tired and sick; and even those who belong to the last category might gradually begin to realize how badly things are going for the world as a consequence of the way humankind is living (waste, pollution, climate change, extreme inequality, increasing infantilization of culture, collapse of civilized manners and so on), and wonder whether or not they need to make drastic changes simply to survive for any significant length of time as a flourishing species. In that sense this kind of public thinking should not be irrelevant or uninteresting for anybody.

Also recall that I wrote before about ‘the cravings of the spirit’. By which I mean that there is some very deep and powerful urge in many if not most people to seek satisfactions of the sort that are not strictly sensual and material; not passively ‘consumed’ (as in watching  TV or Instagram Reels), not ‘profitable’ in the lazy, contemporary, narrowly commercial sense. The love of literature, art, music, sport and the pursuit of knowledge for their own sake is the example that is most accessible to the understanding here: so is a common housewife’s desire to keep her house tidy and pretty, to the extent that she does it for her own aesthetic pleasure, not to make her neighbours jealous. There are others, even in this day and age, who pursue ideals of justice and equity and love (even for animals and plants) with the same doggedness, with no significant personal ‘returns’. We know of countless people who have found deep and abiding satisfaction in such things even if they have not brought money or power or fame (most great artists and scientists were like that until very recently, historically speaking); indeed, they often had to give up the lure of the ‘safe and comfortable’ life and actively court hardship, ridicule, isolation and even physical danger in the relentless pursuit of their ideals. So many scientists have died without ever reaping the just rewards of their labour and talent; so many artists have found recognition only after death. There is much talk about ‘motivation’ today (and most motivational speakers cannot imagine what to ‘motivate’ you about except how to become rich and famous quickly without much risk and effort!) – what sort of ‘motivation’ urged such people on, do you think, unless it were the goading of the spirit?

So, spirituality – as I have been labouring to underscore – is not essentially about God and gurus and mantras and pilgrimages to ‘holy’ places and special codes of dressing and eating and so forth. But yes, spirituality is most definitely about becoming a) less material minded, b) less bothered about what the herd is doing, c) more comfortable, even happy, with silence and solitude, d) more willing to cut out endless distractions (get off social media, turn off your phone, grow a distaste for partying!), e) more interested in finding out what you really want most out of life (you can’t have everything – if you love to sleep, or if you are forever suffering from FOMO, becoming a billionaire should not be one of your goals), and f) more determined to focus on things that really matter to you.

This last is about learning to meditate. Again, as I have learnt from a lifetime of teaching and keep telling my pupils, meditation is all about stilling your mind and focusing on the task at hand, and that need not have anything to do with God and all that stuff. People have traffic accidents, quarrel over trifles, forget what they learnt only weeks or months ago, cannot long maintain exercise and diet regimens, make stupid mistakes in examinations and idiotic investments, simply because they cannot decide on and focus on their priorities. The spiritual mind is the habitually meditative mind, and the meditative mind is a calm, firm, well-sorted, focused mind. To some it comes instinctively, even from childhood, but a lot of people can learn to become like that through long and earnest practice. Therein lies hope, therein lies my motivation for writing in this vein…

Two questions are likely to arise at this point: a) have you tried it yourself? and b) what have you got from it? So the next installment is going to be of a very personal nature, trying to answer those questions.

First update of 2025

I haven't written for a month for four reasons: a) not much of great interest is 'happening' in my life at the moment ('no news is good news'!), b) I was waiting for a lot of people to read the last two posts, c) I was expecting many more people to engage in a debate/dialogue with me on the subject - probably the most interesting and important subject in the world, in my view, to all but those who live essentially animal lives. Otherwise, I want to bore neither myself nor uninterested or superficial readers, and d) I did not want to divert already distracted readers by writing on entirely unrelated themes.

However, a little personal update might not be frowned upon. I have been languorously enjoying the mild and fleeting winter, and reading up several books simultaneously. Of them, two have been most absorbing and highly recommended: Abyakto (Unspoken) in Bangla by Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, a more-than-100-year-old classic of scientific literature, and The Golden Road by William Dalrymple, though I am afraid the latter has gone a little overboard towards the end, and seems to be parroting the BJP line about how India is soon going to reclaim its grand position as a Vishwaguru. Even if that happens, it will take two or three more generations to achieve it. Also, I am going to live it up before summer sets in, with two long trips already planned over the next month and a bit more.

Special thanks to Bibhas of the ICSE 2002 batch for inundating me with thought provoking books, essays and videos. Such old boys are a rare find, and interacting with them is always 'a feast of reason and a flow of soul.' And special prayers for Swarnava: he will know why.

One more repetition: I shall be glad to hear from more and more old boys through this blog. Several of them have visited and/or called to warm the cockles of my heart over the last six months.

Donald Trump is being inaugurated just about now. God help us all.