Bharat Ek Khoj

After months of trawling through a million sites with Google, I finally manage to hunt down the title credits theme from Bharat Ek Khoj- A Discovery of India. This was a long running teleseries which formed an integral part of my childhood, directed by the venerable Mr. Shyam Benegal . I mean, he directed the teleseries, not the childhood.

I remember sleepy Sunday nights when I would be quietly captivated by the gravelly voices of Om Puri and Roshan Seth (as Nehru) recounting the 5000 year history of India from Vedic times to the modern-day independance struggle.

But the thing that instantly hooked me on was the title theme ...."Srishti ke pehle Sat nahin tha".. it had this strange, almost hypnotic effect on me. Many years later, I discovered that the theme was the Nasadiya Sukta from the Rig Veda.

Here's a translation from Sanskrit (by Prof: Raimundo Panikkar, courtesy Google)

At first was neither Being nor Nonbeing.
There was not air nor yet sky beyond.
What was wrapping? Where? In whose protection?
Was Water there, unfathomable deep?

There was no death then, nor yet deathlessness;
of night or day there was not any sign.
The One breathed without breath by its own impulse
Other than that was nothing at all.

Darkness was there, all wrapped around by darkness,
and all was Water indiscriminate, Then
that which was hidden by Void, that One, emerging,
stirring, through power of Ardor, came to be.

In the beginning Love arose,
which was primal germ cell of mind.
The Seers, searching in their hearts with wisdom,
discovered the connection of Being in Nonbeing.

A crosswise line cut Being from Nonbeing.
What was described above it, what below?
Bearers of seed there were and mighty forces,
thrust from below and forward move above.

Who really knows? Who can presume to tell it?
Whence was it born? Whence issued this creation?
Even the Gods came after its emergence.
Then who can tell from whence it came to be?

That out of which creation has arisen,
whether it held it firm or it did not,
He who surveys it in the highest heaven,
He surely knows - or maybe He does not!

What still amazes me is that the line of thinking behind this poetry is so bloody advanced- Imagine, 5000 years ago, people were contemplating philosophy, and making deeply existential enquiries into the beginning of creation.

And 5000 years hence, I am still coming to terms with where my next meal is going to come from (being a vegetarian in Singapore is notoriously difficult!)

The twist in the last couple of lines of the Nasadiya Sukta still astounds me. "He surely knows, or maybe He does Not" (know the Answer). That this comes from a "religious" source like the Rig Veda makes it all the more startling.

For the likes of me, 42 sounds like a perfect answer to the big Question of the Life, Universe and Everything. Thanks, Douglas Adams.

Swades and Cynicism

I was watching Swades the other day.

And for three hours, I was transfixed. I literally could not take my eyes off the screen. Shah Rukh Khan brilliantly underplayed his character and I think I am in love with Gayatri Joshi's firebrand character:). AR Rahman took the movie to a whole different level altogether...

Reviews almost universally panned it. My friends warned me that it was too long, too preachy, some even went as far as to call it ideological crap :) Wow, that was some baggage I was taking in.

So what's the fuss about, you ask? A Nasa scientist returns home for a vacation and is struck by the poverty and social ills that plague his country, and stays back to make a difference. That's the basic outline.

But contrary to all other views, I was only struck by the simplicity and the optimism in the film. The theme appealed to me on a personal level. As a software engineer working in Singapore, the story of Mohan Bhargava's rediscovery of Home resonated with my feelings for India. What I really appreciated was the sensitivity of the central character, and his wide-eyed belief that one can make a difference to the things around them. To me, it brought back memories of Unnal Mudiyum Thambi, a KB classic. However, what I could not believe was that the people who I consider my friends, people who share a similar background to me, could not relate to this movie at any level.

Why do people think of this movie as a "moral science lesson" to be contemptuously dismissed as "ideological crap"? Whether you agree with Mohan's choice or not is not the central issue. An approval of his choice, does not implicate you for not being able to make the same choices. Then why deny him his? Is it their guilt masked as contempt?

Is it cool to be cynical?..to dismiss our environment and its flaws as someone else's problem?.. I think it is great (and very easy)to be holier than thou. [Ironically, I'm taking a kind of a moral highground here as well:)]

I can understand this world-weary cynicism in a 50 year-old who has seen the way the world works and is bogged down by what s/he has seen. But from a 20-odd year old? How can anyone set off on their journey with such resignation? But even such inertia is forgivable. What is disturbing to note is that we go on to laugh at people who think they can make a difference, and set out to do so.

Enough ramblings for a night, I think.