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.