Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) reached apotheosis of his literary endeavour with his 1925 publication An American Tragedy. In the following twenty years, until completion of the The Bulwark in 1946, nothing he wrote remotely equaled the power of the tragedy. His opus plus Sister Carrie has become a classic—so too Jennie Gerhardt to a less heralded extent. Some of Dreiser’s short stories, such as “Nigger Jeff”, “St. Columba and the River”, and “The Lost Phoebe”, could stand on their own in any American or world anthology. Due to its narrative thrust and other attributes (powerful romance), The Financier was and is the best of Dreiser’s ‘Trilogy of Desire’ (including The Titan and The Stoic). The first three-quarters of the autobiography Dawn made for compelling reading, as did all of the essays in Twelve Men. The Bulwark was and is a minor classic, truncated but yanking at heart strings as adamantly if not for as long as any of Dreiser novels. Newspaper Days, the second volume of his autobiography is a baggy and verbose twin of the heavily, and unfortunately edited, A Traveler at Forty.
“The last great American writer of Melvillean dimensions,” Jerome Loving wrote of Dreiser. Dimensionality and similarity is each writer’s search to uncover and understand the phenomenon of existence. It’s a spiritual quest, though neither men have any sectarian belief (Melville nominally Unitarian). What is and to whom does the “oversoul” of Emersonian transcendentalism belong? To Dreiser, the grand protagonist life itself suggests a something else: God or gods perhaps, behind the display of natural phenomenon. Hs opus suggests that God or gods, or the “Creative Force,” used humankind for his, her, its own purpose; a purpose hidden from humankind’s limited understanding; also theorising possibilities of additional God or gods in the background making use of, let us say, “primary” God or gods, for a like inscrutable purpose.
In his last years Dreiser looked through a microscope for clues to the phenomenality of being—to unravel mysteries of life. Switching gears mid-career, he became an explorer of consciousness who preferred the company of scientists to that of literary brethren (to the detriment of his art, I must add).
In Dawn, Dreiser theorised that humankind was an invention—a schemed-out machine, useful to a larger something. This theory marked his turn from an early mechanistic belief in universal proceedings to consideration of an oversoul, or creative intelligence, behind or causative to universal phenomenon.
But what “soul”? What cause? What intelligence? Ahab[1] tried to tear the veil that covered the quondam source; tried to expose the phenomenon of so-called “reality,” but being only a man, and mortal, failed—dying in the process. What is the symbolism of the great whale’s whiteness but a concealing veil thrown over appearances? Melville’s scientifically, scrupulously dismantled his leviathan part by part, yielding naught as to mysteries of origins and unquantifiable organic processes, while Dreiser wandered over the same dry speculative desert (as Hawthorne noted) too honest to be or do otherwise.
Dreiser had his own mystic creed; refusing to conform to any formal doctrine—his views in later years influenced by Quakerism, Hinduism, and Christian Science (which his wife “Jug,” and his character Eugene Witla of The Genius came under spell of). In Newspaper Days, and in a sour mood, he wrote, “Religion! What a mockery! Why pray? Of whom to ask? The one who loaded the dice at the start?” Elsewhere in that same book—and in a better mood—he wrote, “There is a sower somewhere. Is it planet, gas, element, fire? It gardens and sows—what is its plan, and why?”
Like many ex-parochial students, Dreiser had a profound dislike of Catholicism and her rituals. A dislike engendered, in Dreiser’s case, by scorn of an ineffectual father, John Paul Dreiser. In Dawn, Dreiser wrote of Catholics with ossified brains who rejected natural emotion as sinful; who spent inordinate amounts of time on their knees praying to an immense and inscrutable something which cared not for their adoration or supplication.
He denied sectarian pretense to divine authority and wrote about how little there was to the Christ legend aside from artistic spectacle. Ritual and churchly dogma infuriated him—particularly angered by the priest who at first denied Dreiser’s mother burial in the sacred grove because she was a lapsed Catholic.
Dreiser despised religion in the form of Catholicism as much as he came to despise oligarchy—though early in his career celebrated the power of the oligarch in the character of Frank Cowperwood, of the ‘The Trilogy of Desire’, apotheosis of laissez faire capitalism run amuck.
Will Dreiser’s work survive the muddle of brave new world exigencies? I hope so. The slow relentless and inexorable pace of his stories, with their accumulation of details, are or seem anathema to the cyborg-screed of flash fiction sound bites in the blogosphere, but the stories he told—all having to do with vagaries of the human heart—though perhaps out of vogue, will never not be relevant to the human oh so human condition.
Theodore Dreiser – The Giant, is an explication, exegesis, of the fiction of Dreiser plus much of his nonfiction. Included are synopses of each title. Between considerations of the work is a biography of the writer. (Note: Dreiser could be, in his work, pedantic and humourless: this study is neither.)
About the Author:
Wayne F. Burke writes both poetry and prose. He is author of 12 published poetry collections–most recently Whatever Happened to Baby Wayne? Hog Press, 2025; two works of fiction–most recently No Tab For Sully, a novella, Alien Buddha Press, 2025; and six works of nonfiction–including Theodore Dreiser – The Giant, Cyberwit,net., publisher, 2025. He lives in Vermont (USA).
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Ramakrishna Mission Durga Puja, Dhaka. From Public Domain
The very first time I heard Shah Abdul Karim’s [1]heart-stirring song “Age Ki Shundor Din Kataitam[2]”, I was transported to my childhood years in Dhaka’s Ramakrishna Mission Road, where we revelled during Durga Puja. Karim remembers lyrically “how happily” he and other village youths would spend their childhood days, “Hindus and Muslims/Singing Baul and Ghetu songs all together.” Karim’s song always strikes a responsive note in my heart because I recall how joyously my friends—whether Muslim or Hindu—and my family members would spend the Puja days every year in our Ramakrishna Misson Road paara or neighbourhood. Although my memories of those days have dimmed considerably by now, one thing I still remember clearly is this: after the two Eids, Durga Puja was the most important festival to light up our young lives then. Alas, those days are gone, not only for me, but for most people growing up in a paara in Dhaka.
One explanation for the spontaneity with which we would participate in the Ramakrishna Mission Puja festivities was demography. Our paara consisted mostly of Muslims but also of not a few Hindus. Our nearest neighbours, for instance, were two Hindu families. True, the events leading to 1947 Partition had created a divide of sorts between people speaking the same language but belonging to different religions, yet, on most occasions, we interacted freely with each other. Every day we would hear the ululations linked to prayers in our Hindu neighbour’s house just as they would listen to the azaan[3] drift into their homes five times a day from our neighbourhood mosques (sans loudspeakers!), summoning the faithful to join the congregation. On Puja days, they would send us prasads[4] and we too would share sweets our mothers would cook for our religious festivals with them. Pakistan was very much a state built around one religion, but do I deceive myself or were ordinary people much more secular and much less bigoted then?
Another reason for the ease with which we moved in and out of Ramkrishna Mission stemmed no doubt from the attitudes of the people who directed Ramkrishna Mission. Much like the Catholic American missionaries who ran the school and college where I would get my basic education, the saffron-clad men of this mission were always tolerant of paara children irrespective of their religion. We were allowed to play football in the Mission field, bathe in its pond for hours, pick the bokul flowers from its trees or while they were strewn in the shades, chat for hours on its lawn, or read in its reading room. Occasionally, one of the missionaries who would spend most of their time meditating or leading prayers for Hindus, would even drop in for a chat with my parents, both devout Muslims but very pleased to have others in our midst. Sure, there were limits even then, for we would not go inside Hindu prayer rooms, and our Hindu friends would never disturb us during our prayer times, but open-mindedness and forbearance ensured that most of the spaces we lived in in our community were shared ones.
Dhakkis or drummers performing. From Public domain
In any case, Durga Puja in Ramkrishna Mission was the most memorable experience of another religion I have ever had. The moment we would hear the tak dum tak dum of the drums pervade the spaces of our neighbourhood in the mostly warm but occasionally hot and humid end-autumnal days full of fleecy clouds in nearly always blue skies, our hearts would flutter. Those thrumming, magical beats announced unmistakably that the time for another fun-filled Saradiya[5]Puja week had come! The dhakkis or drummers, I do believe, were our Pied Pipers, for we would sprint like the spellbound children of Hamlin then to the open field in front of the mission prayer hall the moment we heard them. We would find them there pounding away on their drums, swaying and smiling and showing off their skills on those ponderous-seeming but colourfully decorated and deep-echoing dhols!
The whole of Ramkrishna Mission became a spectacle of sights, smells, and sounds for the next few days. No matter where or when we went to the Mission during the festival, we would experience a riot of colours, a medley of sounds, and a range of flavours that made the Durga Puja days[6] unforgettable. During Durga Puja, Ramkrishna Mission was truly in the carnivalesque mode, for there was an unmistakable mela or fair-like quality to it.
Hindu men and women would come dressed in their fineries, the married women glowing because of their vermillion smeared-foreheads and multi-coloured saris, the men looking happy and yet self-conscious in their bright but heavily-starched new dhotis[7], and the children beaming and giggling because of anything and everything. We too would dress up for the occasion because, whether Hindu or Muslim, this was an occasion to meet people, mingle, chat, display and (for the boys) ogle.
Playing ManjirasBlowing the Conch shellFrom Public Domain
The sound of the drums would merge with the tinkle of manjiras[8], the chiming of bells, the unique note coming from conch shells, the ululation of women, the chanting of the mysterious but solemn-sounding Sanskrit prayers and the incessant chatter of not quite focused devotees. Indeed, there was a constant buzz in the Mission compound every day from mid-morning till late in the evening. In the Mission field, hawkers would sell hot and spicy pickles and chutneys, delectable sweet and/or sour savouries, and flavoured and syrupy drinks. At times the missionaries and volunteers would serve watery but delicious labra khichuri to anyone who cared to line up and eat from the plantain leaves. The smell of the different food items sold through the day would blend with the smoke and scent of the ceremonial dhups or incense lighted for the occasion. The press of the crowd, the feeling of excitement exuded by the people who sat to watch events or wander from place to place, and the assorted Bangla dialects heard all around us created a matchless mix.
But of course, Puja was mainly a holy occasion for the Hindus of the city. While we Muslim children did not understand a lot of what went on and were often mystified by the seemingly endless cycle of rituals, there was much to keep us absorbed in at least a few of the religious events. At the centre of the Puja, undoubtedly, were the idols built for the occasion. They are traditionally unveiled on the sixth day of the moon and placed on a pandal, a temporary structure erected for the veneration of the goddess Durga. Even if we did not know the import of all that we saw, who could not but be overwhelmed by the centrepiece, the resplendent goddess, ten weapons in her ten hands, a benign smile on her face, glowing in light golden colours, draped in a flaming red sari, standing on her lion mount, taming the demon Mahisasur.
Also awe-inspiring were the attendant deities (how “filmy” are the idols made now!). We were captivated by the welcoming melodies of “agamoni” and intrigued by the “Chandipat[9]” or reading from the Hindu scriptures. Day and night we were captivated by the rituals of anjali as the deity was offered flowers and prayers.
For most of us, one of the more fascinating moments of Durga Puja came on the ninth day, when a little girl was made the kumari, symbol of pristine beauty. But the climactic event was the immersion of the deity in the mission pond on the last day. From the morning of this day we would witness intense activity. First, devotees would begin preparations to move the deity, then the pandal would be carried to the pond to the sound of ululations, and finally the Durga would be immersed in the pond water to chants affirming her victory and predicting her triumphant return the next year.
The Durga Puja days mesmerised all of us in the paara in many other ways. For instance, the dhaakis seemed to punctuate the days and nights of the Puja week with aarati[10]and ritual dances, gyrating and drumming with abandon and delighting us children. In the evenings, kirtans or devotional songs absorbed older people who were content to muse to musical tunes even in the middle of a crowd. But what fascinated most people young or old was the jatra[11] that was staged in any one of these evenings. Like the morality plays that I would read about later in my English Studies when studying the history of the theatre of Elizabethan England, this folk genre had angels and demons, characters like Vice and Conscience, music and dance, pathos and farce. In short, it was made out of a recipe guaranteed to please. Its plot, typically taken from an episode of a Hindu epic, was of the kind that would keep children as well as adults spellbound.
Jatra performed on an open (often makeshift)stage with the audience sitting all around it. From Public Domain
All in all, Durga Puja was a truly enthralling and synaesthetic experience; no wonder our senses were satiated by the end of the Puja week! The most important thing, I now realise, was that for nearly a week our paara came alive and we became part of a carnival that went on for days. And in the process our neighbourhood managed to come somewhat closer, for this was one religious occasion where differences were overcome to a great extent.
In 1967, my family moved from Ramakrishna Mission Road to another part of Dhaka and I have never been to another Durga Puja held there since then. But by 1965, a change had already come over our paara. The India-Pakistan war of 1965 had widened the rift created by Partition, a rift that seemed to have been bridged to a great extent in our neighbourhood. A few of our Hindu neighbours left for India after the war. The rest, I know from subsequent visits, have migrated to India over the decades. The Ramkrishna Mission Puja, I hear, is still a huge event, but I doubt very much if the whole neighbourhood comes alive during puja week like it did when I was there.
Will coming generations in our part of the world ever rediscover the joy that comes from knowing that despite different beliefs, people can participate spontaneously in each other’s festivals and even delight in them fully? In 1985, after six years spent in Canada, I remember walking past a Durga Puja pandal in Khulna with a nephew. I asked him, “Have you ever gone inside and enjoyed the puja festivities?”
“No,” he said, “there is a smell that comes from the dhup that they use that I can’t stand. Besides, we aren’t supposed to!” It was a moment that first made me realise that the dream of a secular, tolerant, humane Bangladesh had received a jolt in the years that I had been away. Subsequent events have been even more upsetting for those of us who believe in the values encapsulated in that part of our original (1972) constitution that was later “amended”. It is thus that Shah Abdul Karim’s song has so much resonance for me that every time I hear it, I keep thinking of the Durga Puja celebrations in Ramakrishna Mission that I had been part of once upon a time: “How happily once we village youths/ Would spend our days, Hindus and Muslims/…./ I keep thinking: we’ll never be happy like then/ Though I once believed happiness was forever/ Day by day things get worse and worse.”
(Published in Daily Star on October 20, 2007)
[1] Shah Abdul Karim (1916-2009) was a baul musician of note.
No one knew his name nor wished to know it. Only his face attracted those who came into contact with him. So it was said. A face whose huge, glowing eyes were turned both inwards and outwards, simultaneously. A face whose florid complexion, cheery and unfurrowed, bespoke a life of leisure, albeit not one of procrastination; a life of ease, but not sloth. In short, a life of early, unfought for independence.
I met my nameless stranger one fine autumn day in the Andalucian town of Granada, Spain, where he had been residing for several months, visiting the Alhambra Palace every day during those months. We had met in a small, non-distinct eatery, and he was very willing to converse with anyone who had leisure to tete a tete. We fell into lively conversation. Taken aback by his daily visits to the remarkable Palace, I enquired why he spent so many hours there.
“The Palace was built as a sign of religious, political and cultural power,” he began, munching energetically on his paella of rabbit. “But since 1492, that sign has been condemned to utter uselessness, reduced to a mere tourist attraction, however noteworthy. It has become completely useless since its mediaeval abandonment because it’s been drained of its original value.” Here he paused, I imagine, for me to intercede. I didn’t …
“You see, this is what attracts me most to the Alhambra; its utter uselessness for our world today. I do not consider mass tourism as an instrument of usefulness.” I kept silent to goad him on, for the turn of conversation piqued my curiosity. “The Alhambra epitomises all that I have spent my own life experiencing, consciously: the pleasures of uselessness.”
“Is uselessness a pleasure?” I nettled with a sunny smile.
“That depends upon whom it has been bestowed, sir. That depends for whom it has benefitted. The circumstances of my life and will to understand and decipher them, have conspired to draw me now into and outside of myself. My own self has become as useless as the objects that I set my eyes on each and every day as I saunter through the streets, gardens or palaces of wherever I happen to be. I have realised that such an absorption into social uselessness, and thus distance from social use, has constituted my raison d’être. And there lies the pleasure: this mode of existence is a project of life; a pure project of pleasurable uselessness to society and to myself.” His face, alit with integrity, bent low to attack the chorizos cooked in white wine sauce.
“When did you begin experimenting your project?” I asked, sipping my sangria.
“I would formulate it differently: When did uselessness experiment me!” he mumbled, his mouth full of chorizo. “It all began in Africa some thirty or forty years back, during my youthful days wandering through the Sahara desert en route to Timbucktoo. The Blue Men of the Sahara appeared absolutely useless to anyone or anything that we Europeans would call useful.”
“Such as?”
“Well, a roof over one’s head, a shower every hour, a steady, well-paid job, a car and such things … what we Europeans would term as useful, conditioned to adhere to the philosophy of infinite progress; to infinite social and political usefulness. All the Blue Men seemed to require were a few hours of sleep, food, water and the desire to procreate. Needs that all mankind need so as to account for our very presence on Earth. I lived in the desert for over a year, and little by little discovered that this lifestyle suited a possibility of existence, a life not of a desert-nomad mind you, but one of a useless idler, which as time went by, proved possible, be it in the cities of Europe and Asia or in their countryside towns and villages.”
“As I understand it, social success has no meaning for you at all?”
“Not at all. Success only invites humiliation or cruel jealousy, and the pursuit of wealth is a path marked by ruthlessness. I earn my living simply to eat, to dress according to the climate, to have a roof over my head when needed.”
“But a roof over one’s head could be expensive…” I intervened.
“I spend most of my nights out under the stars when the weather is warm. With the coming of winter, I seek refuge in Catholic missions, poor men’s shelters or in the numerous Salvation Army shelters. Any asylum that will not turn me down. As far as any permanent residence, I have taken up lodgings in the homes of generous people for a meagre fee, or have laboured on farms for my food and bed. Do not confuse uselessness with doing nothing. I’m no couch potato; I have done many things, but they do not fit into our social machine of imposed well-being. My life may appear negative to those who hold me in contempt, but my usefulness is as useful to mankind as it is to myself. Don’t forget what one Belgium writer once wrote: ‘It is thanks to a certain number of men who seem useless that there will always be a certain number of useful men.’”
“Who wrote that?”
“I forgot. But what difference does it make?” He wiped his mouth delicately, smacking his lips. He proceeded: “I imagine you probably believe me to be a social parasite or a social zero as Balzac once wrote, useless even as a human being. But read Friedrich Nietzsche on this point,” and he quoted: “’Thevalue of a human being does not lie in his usefulnes; for it would continue to exist even if there were nobody to whom he could be useful.’”
“Quite an imposing thought,” I acknowledged, sitting back. “But you must admit that you have been useful to the kind people who hire you on or who lodge you, even for a small fee.”
He snorted: “Perhaps. But I cannot speak on their behalf, only mine.” I noted that he wiggled out of that one quite ingeniously. His face shone with a strange light. An aura of mystery gradually covered it like a gossamer veil. The light suddenly went out.
“I’m sure your effort to separate yourself from the social body must be a terrible struggle,” I pursued without irony. “I believe that to be estranged from the social body is commensurate with being estranged from one’s own self. Am I right in assuming this?”
“Perhaps, but not from the individuals of those societies. I am not a misantrope. This being said, solitude, fasts and meditation have prepared me for outer trials and tribulations, which I believe, without vanity, to have overcome.” He began picking his teeth with a very long fingernail.
“And God?” I rebounded, eyeing him steadily. His lips broke into an artful grin.
“He has been my only Friend since the beginning, sir. And why is that? Because we have been useless to each other since our initial communion.” He stood, evidently undesirous to develop this rather paradoxical statement. I let it drop …
We slipped outside and my nameless companion suggested that we have a quick jaunt through the ‘Arab Market’ in Zacaten. Indeed, the weather was warm, that Autumn weather which I have always found so stimulating in Granada; Granada, perched high in her mountainous refuge like an eagle in her lofty nest. My strolling companion strolled into my reverie.
“Look at the sky, a bluish turquoise which reminds me so much of the domes of the mosques in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. That turquoise which solicits silence and contemplation.”
“So you’ve visited Uzbekistan?”
“More than visited, my friend. I lived there for five years studying under the spiritual guidance of the Nakishbendi Brotherhood, a Sunna movement founded by the Shah Nakishbend, and which has survived the anti-religious crusade of the Soviet Union. With those kind and learned monks I learnt the virtues and powers of silence, contemplation, discipline, simplicity and periodical talks.”
“In what language did you speak to them?” I ventured, a bit intrigued by this singular experience.
“In Uzbek, of course!” he responded dryly. “I also learned to read Arabic.”
“But are silence and talks not contradictory?”
“Not at all, sir. Clusters of roses certainly grow silently, but good soil, air and pure water are needed for their basic growth. If accompanied by a soft, melodious voice, they grow better. Roses heed to that voice as silence heeds to constructive talks. It was during the alternating passages of silence and talks that our spiritual guides opened our eyes and senses to the uselessness of worldly matters, and since then, this uselessness has become my second nature, even my first! Mind you, this discovery has nothing to do either with self-love or atomistic individualism. As I said, I have relations with people, albeit brief; and although I keep aloof from community aggregation and national gatherings, I have never spend my life gloating in an ivory tower. No sir, I live for wanderlust not social or individual hubris! The lust for wandering … And when one wanders one cannot but converge with people, learn from them. This does not necessarily mean that I derive an extraordinary pleasure from communicating with them. To tell the truth, I prefer my own company, if I may say so …”
“But you surely feel a responsibility towards others?” I pursued, more and more fascinated by this nameless chap, who by now had led me into a marvellous little garden out of whose spouting fountain splashed tinkling sprays here and there.
“Responsibility?” he chortled, as we sat down enjoying the perfumed scents of honeysuckles and roses. “Responsibility is only towards oneself. My words or gestures will be felt by others. Would you harm or humiliate your fellow man? Uselessness does not mean selfishness or egoism. In fact, it disciplines you to an awareness of others, an awareness those who whole-heartedly believe in social relevance will never come to understand for they must belong to a community, club or ideology in order to give pride and reason to their usefulness. They discredit the experience of uselessness. Don’t get me wrong, I do not live in a fantasy world like those who tout infinite progress or community spirit. These are abstract schemas for me. My Way is to strive to overcome anger, hate and jealousy within my own sphere of existence. This entails peeling away the veils that dim the lucidity of reality; my reality of being useless to the devastating machine of the useful well-being of mankind.”
“I would then conclude that your manner of living may be called cynical or indifferent?”
He was mortified by my question. “Cynical? A cynic questions then condemns derisively the circumstances that emerge before him or her; I neither question nor condemn. I simply carry on from place to place, experimenting novel circumstances, accepting them as if they had always been mine. Indifference? Well, if you mean stepping back and out of the world’s commerce, and not to take either that commerce or oneself seriously, then I am indifferent. The crisis of many individuals today is that they take themselves much too seriously, much more seriously than the seriousness of their work or vocations. And when this self-seriousness is struck down or dethroned a dreadful sense of uselessness seizes them, causing depression, or worse, suicide. My uselessness to myself and to others is more serious than myself. I am in the world but not of it!”
As we sat in silence, I gradually felt myself transported to another dimension of time and space. Scenes of my own life flashed before my eyes, lively colourful scenes and gloomy ones. I could not resolve whether this nameless fellow fascinated or revolted me. My own life had been ensnared in a web of social irresponsibility and imposed representations. I had become one of the many cogs in the slow and steady vast social wheel that turns and churns, and I sensed that mine had become worn-out and useless. I had so yearned to be of some use to society … But now? Yes, now? How could I restore my previous enthusiasm that had long been abandoned? I had to admit, though, that this man’s experiments heightened my ardour to … to do what? Was he sent to me like some mentor? He suddenly stood and bid me a good day with a whimsical smile, as though he had been reading my thoughts.
Before leaving, however, he said: “Tomorrow I shall have a walk in the gardens of the Alhambra. Please join me, I’m sure we have much to discuss. Meanwhile, let silence be your companion until that walk.” And he disappeared into the milling crowd.
Waking early the next morning, I resolved to meet my new and somewhat eccentric companion at the beginning of the long avenue that leads to the Gate of Justice. An avenue lined with sentinels of cypress and other trees, within whose morning freshness ran a warren of narrow paths.
We met at precisely eight o’clock. With a sort of fraternal benevolence, he took my arm and we strolled upwards past the Gate of Justice, the pompous palace of King Carlos the Fifth, paid our tickets and entered the palace proper, almost religiously, under the storied vaulted corridors, by the pencilled ornaments and tiled walls of arabesque blue, over the smooth, shiny marbled floors.
“Have you read Washington Irving?” he asked in a quavering voice, as if not to disturb the mediaeval palace denizens.
“Yes, a marvellous story-teller and keen observer,” I replied softly.
“You know he led a life of ridiculous usefulness until sojourning within the walls of this soporific fairyland. Gradually Irving fell under the pleasant and industrious spell of uselessness.”
I stopped walking.
“How so? That’s contradictory!”
“Is it?” he beamed, smiling that wide, wicked, whimsical smile. “Yet so it was. He learnt through daily experience that this whole palace of enchantment lies under the layers of absolute uselessness. Layers and layers of poetry, conversation, lyrical jousts and insignificant gestures which disappeared as quickly as they were conceived. Nothing! Nothing remains of that imagined uselessness. And that is precisely why he wrote his Tales of the Alhambra[1] ; it was out of the need to express his useless life within these lyrical stones.”
My sauntering companion fell silent. Only our footfalls could be heard weaving in and out of the slender colonnades, intermingling with the chanting fountains. The blue ceramic shone on the walls like a mirror reflecting the azure …
“I see your point, I think. Before dusk, at times I watch the sun glide from East to West over the Palace walls, the dark greys slipping into ochre reds, soon to be daubed, as the sun sets, by the overglow tones of chestnut, roan and dun.”
“Yes!” he whispered excitedly. “That is perfect uselessness. It serves absolutely no purpose to anyone … even to yourself. For, unlike Irving, who snapped his experiment in uselessness, succumbing to the desire of writing it down for all and sundry to share, I presume that in your case you have no urgency to express any posthumous glory?”
I shook my head thoughtfully, then asked: “You don’t feel the desire to keep a diary?”
“Write? A diary? What for — to satisfy my blotted ego seeking a useful outlet? These are vain insinuations, my good friend. No, it is quite enough to feast my sovereign eyes, to feed my independent emotions on this marvellous honeycomb frostwork and these fine, mullioned windows[2]. These artifices are as useless as the ephemeral poetry and conversations that rang euphoniously within the hallowed halls and courts. And indeed, why should we, mere strangers to this mediaeval marvel, impose an artificial usefulness to it all? Why should we break into lyrical extravagances of the budding rose or the flight of the owl? Into flights of phantasy poeticising upon the Towers above us where verses of love spilled forth their honied fragrances into a void of mute forgetfulness? None of that for me, sir. Within these courts and gardens I have come to the inevitable conclusion that my Destiny lies in perfect uselessness; namely, in my refusal to reanimate the beauty or the ugliness that has crossed my path for the past fifty years in Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa. I decline to spoil the uselessness of beauty and ugliness, to encumber my spirit and soul by searching for a ‘proper use’ for such human emotions and achievements.”
We had walked through the remarkable Court of Lions and were now entering the gardens of Lindaraxa, Sultan Boadil’s[3] wife. We sat down inhaling the gay scents of roses, oranges and lemons.
He sniffed the air, then murmured: ”A vague of indescribable awe was creeping over me,” here hepaused, lifting his eyes upwards: ”Everything began to be affected by the working of my mind, the whispers of the wind among the citron-trees beneath my window had something sinister…” My companion had chanted this broken sentence in a sort of drawn-out litany. “Yes, something sinister, indeed,” he ruminated to himself. “That point of inspiration led Irving from absolute uselessness to the search for putting uselessness to use. I enjoy reading Irving, but will never convert a ‘something sinister’ to a million-copy, world-wide read book.”
The sun rose higher and higher coating the pink tongues of dawn with a purplish blue. I turned to him: “Still, I cannot see how we as humans can escape from being useful Beings!” He looked at me, his facial features had suddenly hardened, or perhaps it was due to the effects of the shadows off the sun-lit fruit trees.
“Does my speaking to you now fulfil an emotional need? Was our conversation a psychological issue to such a profound hoarding of uselessness?” I asked.
He laughed so loud that a few puffy-eyed guards turned their heads in our direction. “Dear fellow, you have hardly understood our morning jaunt. We are simply idling our time away as uselessly as possible, as useless as a leaf dropping from that citron-tree, as a person who labours all his life to survive, a hermit in his remote cave, a desert-dweller, a traveller without name or record. How many of those intrepid souls took refuge in monasteries of the East and there left no trace of their earthly footfalls? They experienced true uselessness …”
“Even to God towards whom they must have addressed their prayers?” I enquired. He raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“That is neither for you nor me to answer, my friend.” He stood, shook my hand and left the gardens back through the Palace halls.
I felt a bit put out by his prompt and unexpected departure. It were as if he had abandoned me to unravel that last enigmatic thought of his. A silly feeling of course, but one that clung to me like the scents of the roses, oranges and lemons. My mind slowly became dull, my body numb. Had the nameless wanderer put me under a magical spell? The redolence and balminess of the gardens added to my discomfiture. At the same time, however, I understood that idleness is not a state or a condition which I could bear or champion as he does. I rose, heavily. Enough of this palatial beguiling and futile jaunting. That man, whoever he is, taught me a sound lesson: a person is born into our world to accomplish a particular use, one that is his or hers alone. There is no doubt in my mind about this.
I dragged myself from the gardens back to my hotel in the Old Market at Zacatin, an effort that enlisted all my emotional and physical strength.
I must confess that during the following days, in spite of my firm resolution towards usefulness, I idled my time away seeking out that nameless idler, tramping from street to street, garden to garden, restaurant to restaurant. Every morning I rose early and scoured the halls, courts and gardens of the Alhambra.
He had vanished into thin air, as the saying goes …
*
A few years later back in Amsterdam, my eye caught sight of a book entitled The Denizen of theUnderworld : The Art of Uselessness. I bought it out of some urgent curiosity that I could and still not explain rationally. The first sentences read : ”I am without shame, without guilt, without bad conscious. I truly prefer my cave swimming with mermaids, dwarves labouring at the furnaces, fairies hunting out medicinal plants. Here I breathe the air of pure uselessness, shielded against the charm and seduction of use.”
The author of the book had an odd name — Vigilius de Silentio — a name that might have fitted the face of my nameless companion whom I had met so many years ago in Granada. On second thoughts, though, that name could have fitted any face.
To tell the truth, the book bored me to death …
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[1] Washington Irving, edition Edilux, Granada, Spain.
[2] A vertical element made of wood or stone that divides a window in two. It is applied in Islamic and Armenian architecture.
[3] The last Sultan of Muslim Spain, exiled to North Africa.
Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.
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“If Washington goes to Dhaka, there’s a chance that Paris might make it to Stockholm. And of course Moscow would be moved to Geneva!?”
Sounds like gibberish? But this is a piece of the speculative conversation on transfers and postings that is regular in the drawing rooms of embassies and consulates, Dr Reba Som found out on her very first posting after her marriage with Himachal Som.
Both were Presidency graduates pursuing higher careers — he in Foreign Service, she on the threshold of a doctorate. But life as the wife of an ambassador wasn’t only about glamour postings, fancy holidays and brush with celebrities. It was a mixed bag of blessings, as the woman who had grown up in Kolkata with a grounding in Tagore’s music would soon conclude. For, there were the dark clouds of life away from ageing parents and school going children; from the comfort of familiar food and mastered language; from developing your potential and crafting your own identity in the world out there.
In recent years we have read accounts of retired ambassadors and career diplomats’ experiences in diplomatic life. In her memoirs, Hop, Skip and Jump; Peregrinations of a Diplomat’s Wife, Dr Som’s is a woman’s voice, abounding in stories and observations about how the spouses keep a brave front in alien surroundings to hold up the best image of her country. In this conversation, she voices outmore about her encounters with racism, with political emergencies and exigencies. In short, about her lessons in a borderless world of multicoloured humanity.
You went to Brazil (1972), then to Denmark (1974), then Delhi (1976), Pakistan (1978), New York (1981), Dhaka (1984), then Ottawa (1991), Laos (1994), Italy (2002). Please share your gleanings from these lands.
The roller coaster ride was a saga of discovery. Travelling across expanses of the planet earth that we had seen only on the pages of geography books and atlases was a great learning experience. I gained an understanding of diverse cultures, imbibed social customs, became proficient in languages, and was exposed to exotic cuisines. At the same time I faced homesickness. Each posting entailed the challenge of uprooting oneself, finding schools for children, and reinventing oneself every time.
A large part of this life was in the years that had no mobile phones, no video calls, no social media, no internet communication. What did you thrive on?
Continents and hemispheres away from home, the only link with family and friends then was the diplomatic bag. The weekly mail service ferried across oceans by the ministry in Delhi contained letters and parcels from home. We were asked to judiciously use the weight allowed to bring spices, tea, condiments, clothing and other necessities. It became a ritual to write long letters and send them weekly by the diplomatic bag to Delhi from where they would be posted to respective destinations throughout India.
Along with letters would come bundles of magazines and newspapers. These brought us news of home from which we were truly cut off. With no television or internet or phone calls, we were in the dark about all news, be it political, social or entertainment. Every week on the bag day we waited anxiously to receive the newspapers – and the letters, which had instructions, news, recipes, advice, gossip. All of these were crucial for nurturing our souls.
One telegram from my father in 1973 carried the cryptic message: ‘Reba, solitary First class.’ These were the MA results of Calcutta University which were out after a delay of two years.
I was most taken up by the understated humour of some of your encounters in your memoir. Please recount some of them.
On our very first posting, to Brazil, not only our unaccompanied baggage but also our accompanied baggage did not arrive. Eventually when the lost luggage showed up, Himachal’s ceremonial bandhgala[1]was steeped brown — in the colour of the gur[2] my mother had lovingly packed in!
In Brazil, we found the people to be fun loving but too flamboyant. They made tall claims that their institutions were the biggest in the world. But reality often proved the claims to be hollow. Such was the Presidential bid to make the tallest flag pole in the world in Brazil’s new capital, Brasilia. A very tall flag mast was indeed built but the huge flag atop it was torn to shreds since the engineers had not factored in the wind speed at that height. Brazilians mirthfully called it the President’s erection!
And at Denmark. we were surprised by a sudden news of our posting to Mozambique. We had long realised that we were mere players on the chessboard of postings – we could be shunted off across continents at the whims of the powers that be. By the same token, a couple of phone calls by the newly arrived ambassador undid the mischief. We were happy to unpack and settle down again. The only guilt I felt was when I met the owner of Anthony Berg chocolates: I had in no time demolished the entire carton of chocolates he had sent as farewell gift!
You are among the few I know who have mothered in different continents. So how different is it to become a mother away from India?
I always felt that the best way to get to know certain nuances of a country’s cultural tradition was to have babies in them. My elder son, Vishnu was born in Copenhagen and Abhishek, the younger one, in New York — and my experiences each time couldn’t be more different.
In Copenhagen, a social democrat country, hospital visits for full term pregnant women were fixed on a certain day of the week. On the preceding day they had to collect their urine in a jerry can and present it for lab examination. I was confounded and not a little embarrassed to meet other mothers-to-be, swinging their jerry cans like designer bags without fail on the appointed day. I learnt only later that, from the urine examination doctors would note the condition of the placenta and not unnecessarily rush patients into childbirth with caesarean and surgical intervention!
In NY, on the day of my discharge, the hospital staff were highly excited because Elizabeth Taylor had come in for one of her facelifts. I could not forgive them their magnificent obsession when, along with a goodbye hamper, they wheeled in a bassinet with a different baby. On my protestation the nurse rudely shouted, “Can’t you read… the tag says Som Junior?” Shocked by the implication I said, I could not only read but also see! And it was not my child. While everyone was looking on in disbelief another nurse wheeled in my little one. The babies had their diapers changed and were put back in the wrong bassinet.
Years later, we discovered in an informal meeting with an American ambassador that Abhishek was indeed an American citizen. Because, at the time of the child’s birth Himachal was posted not to the embassy in Washington but to the consulate in New York. Only consulate children were given the privilege. This discovery, rechecked by State Department Records, gave our son the US passport. It was a windfall as Abhishek went on to graduate summa cum laude from a prestigious management school in the US and enter Wall Street as an investment banker.
I must also share another truth about birthing away from India. Before Vishnu’s birth, my parents had come to Copenhagen. When I was discharged from the hospital I received their care and being fed Ma’s cuisine was the best gift I could have. So, when phone calls came from hospital, followed by visits enquiring about my state of depression, I was totally confused. I realised how many mothers suffered from postpartum depression in a society bereft of nurturing family care.
How could you master languages as removed as Portuguese from Lao and Italian from Urdu? Is a flair for languages the key to this proficiency or the training imparted before each posting?
I enjoy learning languages. My stint at learning French at Ramakrishna Mission Golpark stood me in good stead in grasping Portuguese in Brazil, French in Ottawa and Italian in Rome — all Latin languages. But there was also the hazard of mixing up some phrases and words, so similar yet so different! Like Bon Appetit in French and Bueno Appetito in Italian. Or Amor in Portuguese; amore in Italian and amour in French.
Sometimes though, I accidentally learnt how language travels. My mother had packed in many petticoats to match with my saris but without their cord. We went to a store that promised to hold all we need but all my sign language did not bring what I needed. “Phita is obviously not available here,” I told Himachal, preparing to leave. Suddenly the storekeeper perked up. ‘Fita, si senhora!” he said and produced bundles of cord.
In due time I found out that janala, kedara and chabi – Bengali for window, chair and keys – had travelled from India to become janela, cadeira and chavi.
What did Dhaka mean to one raised in West Bengal – per se the Ghoti-Bangal[3]divide, your roots or the cultural side with Firoza Begum and Nazrul Geeti?
Dhaka was a great posting in so many ways. It was a hop, skip and jump away from my home town Kolkata, with the same language and culture and yet was a foreign posting with foreign allowances!
As you know, there’s a subtle cultural difference in East and West Bengal. Both speak Bengali but in East Bengal, it’s a colloquial rustic dialect while West Bengal speaks its refined cultural form. This formed the infamous ‘Ghoti-Bangal’ divide: Urban Calcuttans looked askance at their country cousins from the East.
The difference extended to the palate. East Bengalis flavoured their dishes with more chillies and West Bengalis, with a pinch of sugar. For the fish loving people, the two iconic symbols are Hilsa and Prawns, for East and West. Emotions soared high in Kolkata when the supporters of the football teams, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, clashed, after intensely fought matches that spurred deadly arguments and bets.
Given this background, Himachal created a minor storm by announcing to his parents from Chinsurah, Hooghly in West Bengal that he would marry a girl whose parents were from Dhaka and Faridpur in East Bengal. Ghoti-Bangal feud remained the subject of much friendly banter between Himachal and me until we were posted in Dhaka. There, in a diplomatic turnaround, Himachal played down his Ghoti background to announce that his mother’s family was from Chittagong and he was born in the principal’s bungalow in Daulatpur, Khulna, where his grandfather was posted.
To give a bit of Himachal’s family background: Dr Pramod Kumar Biswas, the first Indian doctorate in Agricultural Sciences from Hokkaido University in Japan, had settled in Dhaka as principal of the Agricultural College. His charming daughter Kana won the heart of Dr Rabindranath Som, a veterinarian who weathered the predictable Ghoti Bangal storm to win her hand in marriage.
When my parents Jyotsnamay and Manashi Ray visited us, we couldn’t visit Patishwar in Rajshahi district, where my maternal grandfather Atul Sen had worked with Rabindranath Tagore before he was arrested for revolutionary activities with Anushilan Samiti, and exiled to Kutubdia, an isolated island in the Bay of Bengal. As a headmaster, he had given shelter to Jatirindranath Mukherji, popularly known as Bagha Jatin[4].
It was a breezy day when my octogenarian father revisited Faridpur Zilla School. The colonial bungalow had acquired a fresh coat of terracotta paint. Finding his way to the headmaster’s room, he announced with a lump in his throat that history had been rewritten, boundaries redefined and new national identities forged since 1923, the year he had matriculated.
The headmaster, delving through yellowing files, fished out the matriculation results for that year. My father’s face was that of an excited school boy impatient to show off his prowess: “Look at my maths marks! Oh yes, my English scores were a trifle lower than expected because I had a touch of fever, but look at Jasimuddin’s marks in English! Thank God, he passed it.” We looked around in hushed surprise. This isn’t The Jasimuddin, the beloved poet of Bangladesh? “But of course,” my father responded. “Jasim’s weakness in English was my strength!”
Dhaka was also personally fulfilling as my doctoral studies, which I had carried across three continents, found fruition at last! On another front, I met with success in gaining the confidence and blessings of Firoza Begum, the legendary exponent of Nazrul Geeti.
The songs of Kazi Nazrul Islam were a great favourite of my father. He often hummed those made famous by Firoza Begum. Since I had trained in Tagore songs from age five, I never aspired to master the distinctly different style of rendition. A chance encounter with the golden voice revived this desire. Firoza Begum bluntly refused. When I persisted, she wanted to hear me sing a few Tagore songs.
One morning I mounted three flights of steps, harmonium on my driver’s shoulder, to enter her flat with apprehension. At her bidding, I sang four songs of Tagore. She heard me without any comment, then she asked why I hadn’t been singing for Bangladesh television. My relief was palpable! I had passed her test.
Over the next two years, my weekly classes with her extended well beyond the music lessons to serious discussions on life itself and the meaning of religion. What began as a guru-shishya[5]relationship, transcended to deep friendship. She declined any remuneration and dearly wished that I should cut a disc. This wish of hers came true only when Debojyoti Mishra heard me and decided to record my Nazrul-songs for Times Music in 2016.
Food is perhaps the first face of culture. So please share with us some of your culinary adventures. Or should I say ‘fishy’ stories?
Adventures? I could talk about the chapli kebabs in Pakistan, or about putting samosas in Bake Sales. I could tell you about making rasgullas from powder milk. I could even tell you about our gardener in Laos who merrily collected every scorpion and caterpillar that came his way, “for snacks,” he told me. But let me focus on fish.
The very first party I hosted at home in Brazil led me to seek substitutes for Indian ingredients. Fish of course had to be on the menu, mustard fish at that. I had already learnt from the Brazilian ambassador in Delhi that surubim, being boneless, was the most suited for curries. So surubim it was for months until the day I had to go to the fishmongers – and found it was a monster of a whale!
In Pakistan, traversing the arid countryside of Sind, the train would stop at stations where fillets of pala were being shallow fried on large skillets. Savouring its delicate flavour we went into a discussion on the merits of pala versus hilsa. Both have a shiny silver body with thin bones, both swim upstream against current. The taste of hilsa steam-cooked in mustard sauce is a super delight in both Dhaka and Kolkata. There of course the discussions are on the merits of the hilsa from Padma and Ganga respectively.
In Laos I once called the plumber to ease the draining of the bathtub since the pipe had got clogged. He arrived with a live fish in a plastic bag and promptly emptied it into the pipe. It would eat through the slush as it travelled through the pipe, he assured me!
Post retirement, Himachal settled to honing his culinary skills. Cooking, which he had started in Ottawa, became his lasting hobby. He would shop for fish in C R Park or INA Market[6]. He would pore over cookbooks and plot innovative recipes. “Cooking,” he was quoted in Outlook magazine, “is art thought out with palate.” And his piece de resistance was the salmon baked whole.
Which was your most cherished, or striking, brush with celebrities in world history?
At one of the finest dinners in Copenhagen I found myself seated next to a countess. She invited me to visit her since she lived in the neighbourhood. The next day a liveried man arrived to escort us to an imposing manor house. We were welcomed with sherry and we had to select a card from a silver salver with the name of our partner for the dinner. I was escorted by a handsome young man who floored me when we exchanged names. He was the descendent of Count Leo Tolstoy!
Another memorable encounter was with a person straight out of the history books. I was strolling in a forested park outside Copenhagen. I noticed with a shock that I was looking into a glass topped coffin. The aristocratic face inside had an aquiline nose and a goatee that lent a refinement to the visage that still sported a faint smile. The starched lace collar was held in place by a jewelled button that showed impeccable taste. But the elegant hands tapered off to skeletal fingers, and the feet too had become skeletal.
The plaque at the bottom of the coffin informed us that this was James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, with whom Mary, Queen of Scots had fallen in love. It was a fatal attraction since both were married. But soon her husband, Lord Darnley, the father of her son James, the future king of Scotland and England, was mysteriously burnt down in a manor, and Bothwell was granted a divorce. However, their marriage incensed Catholic Europe, so Mary gave herself up to buy the release of Bothwell, who fled to Denmark.
‘Whoever marries your mother is your father’: this dictum defines the acceptance of whatever political dispensation you are forced to live with, at home or abroad.So how did you cope with a turmoil like Emergency or antagonism in Islamabad?
We had returned to Delhi in the midst of Emergency. We felt some relief to see trains running on time and punctuality being maintained in government offices. Corrupt officers were being hauled up and over-population being addressed. But the atmosphere was sombre and conversations hushed. The deep scar left by the Emergency saw Indira Gandhi being swept out of power the following year.
In Islamabad tension had mounted when I arrived over the imminent execution of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto[7]. Our residence had become the favourite watering hole for Indian and international journalists who knew Himachal from his Delhi days. Animated discussions over drinks were followed by quick despatches typed out on my rickety typewriter. Unending speculations on the unfolding drama had kept us on tenterhooks. Then one morning in April 1979, the phone rang to say, “It’s done.” [8]
How did Italy change your life?
Italy was easily the best posting of my life in embassies, not only because of its rich history. There I found Italian artists painting inspired by Tagore’s lyrics, and singers like Francesca Cassio singing Alain Danielou’s translations. What made them take it on? The question led me to rediscover Tagore.
My singing of Rabindra Sangeet also found recognition in Rome. My first CD album was released there. I was in many concerts. It was so fulfilling when my translation of Tagore’s lyrics into English found appreciation. Tagore himself believed that his songs were ‘real songs’ with emotions that speak to all people. I began translation in earnest. And that led me to write Rabindranath Tagore: The Singer and his Song (Penguin 2009). The book, with my translation of 50 Tagore songs, was considered very useful to many performing artistes who could understand and represent Tagore better in their art forms.
Please tell us about growing up with Tagore.
Like many girls in Kolkata I began learning Rabindra Sangeet from the age of five. Over the years the songs grew on me. The unique lyrics conveying a gamut of emotions spoke to me when I was far away on postings abroad. I continued my practice of the music through the years and felt vindicated when I got the opportunity to perform to appreciative audiences abroad and back in India.
Why did you work on his songs rather than his poems or stories?
There’s something compelling about Tagore songs. Remember that Gitanjali, which won him the Nobel, was a collection of ‘Song Offerings.’ Songs had given Tagore the strength to ride over the tragedies that had beset his life. They not only helped him express his grief over the deaths and suicides in his family, they were also his mode of expressing his frustration over the political situation that obtained then. And he felt his songs would help others too. “You can forget me but not my songs,” he had written.
Did you ever feel the need to jazz up the songs for Western audiences?
Tagore’s songs are like the Ardhanariswar[9] – the lyrics and the music are inseparable. The copyright restrictions that prevailed after this death did not allow translations. And that was a handicap since his music cannot be appreciated without comprehending his lyrics which are an expression of his creative thoughts.
I would say his songs have near-perfect balance between evocative lyrics, matching melody and rhythmic structure. And the incredible variety of his musical oeuvre touches every emotion felt by any human soul, without jazzing up.
Tagore’s songs are the national anthem of India and Bangladesh, and have also inspired that of Sri Lanka. But will his internationalism hold up with the change of order indicated by the recent developments on the subcontinent?
Tagore was known to be anti-nationalistic. He believed no man-made divisions can keep people segregated. He did not agree with the Western concept of ‘nation,’ he was an internationalist who accepted the ideals of democracy – ‘aamra sabai raja’[10], of gender equality – ‘aami naari, aami mohiyoshi’[11]; indeed, in equality of humans. What he wrote in lucid Bengali suited every mood. Georges Clemenceau, who was the Prime Minister of France for a second time from 1917 to 1920, had turned to Gitanjali when he heard that World War I had broken out. Even today people can relate to what he wrote.
How did all the hop skip and jump shape the feminist within Reba Som?
The wives of Foreign Service officers are often seen as decorative extensions of their spouses. People only saw the glamour we enjoyed on postings abroad, not the heartbreaks and disappointments we battled. Despite their qualifications the wives were not allowed to work abroad. Instead they had to be perfect hostesses: clad in colourful Kanjeevarams they had to prepare mounds of samosas and gulab jamuns.
But there was little recognition, appreciation or compensation by the Ministry of External Affairs of all the hard work and struggle they put in. To settle down in different postings in rapid succession. To host representational parties where they had to conjure Indian delicacies with improvised ingredients. To raise disgruntled children on paltry allowances.
Once, as the Editor of our in-house magazine, I had floated a questionnaire to all the missions abroad asking about the changing perceptions of the Foreign Service wives. That had opened a Pandora’s Box. Eventually in response to our requests the Ministry relaxed service conditions and allowed the wives to work abroad if they had the professional qualifications and received the host country’s permission. This was a veritable coup!
My own act of rebellion was accepting the Directorship of the Tagore Centre ICCR Kolkata (2008-13) after we returned to Delhi on Himachal’s retirement. It became a challenge for me to try and get the Tagore Centre on the cultural map of Kolkata, proving to myself and my disbelieving family in Delhi that it was possible!
Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Several years ago, probably around the 1990s, the critic Nilanjana S Roy had defined the current crop of Indian Writing in English novelists as a ‘Doon School-St. Stephens’ conspiracy’. It was an interesting but true observation since the writers who were popular at that time were all products of these elite institutions and were quite adept at imitating western culture and simultaneously wrote in a style that was quite polished and urban. Upamanyu Chatterjee, belonging to this category, and at present a retired Indian civil servant, had shot into fame way back in 1988 by writing a definitive urban Indian coming-of-age story with his first novel, English August: An Indian Story. Several years later in 2000, he won the Sahitya Akademi Award for Mammaries of a Welfare State. His seventh novel Villany focused on a new class of post-liberalisation, westernised urban Indians who were hitherto ignored in the regional as well as the English fiction of India. This meticulously crafted literary thriller, a riveting story of crime and retribution, now stands at the other end of the spectrum when we read Chatterjee’s latest novel Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life (2024). Narrating the life-story of an Italian Benedictine monk Lorenzo Senesi, who is on a spiritual quest to find the meaning in life, this meticulously detailed story is based on the life of Italian Fabrizio Senesi, an acquaintance of Chatterjee in Sri Lanka for the last few years, who turned out to be “a good friend” of his and who is now a European bureaucrat and a Development expert residing in Phnom Penh leading a successful professional as well as a blissful family life. As Chatterjee states in his foreword, “It is a true story, that is to say, like many true stories, it is a work of fiction.”
Divided into nine chapters, the locale of his story moves from Italy to London and then to Bangladesh. This is how things begin. One summer morning in 1977, nineteen-year-old Lorenzo Senesi of Aquilina, Italy, drives his Vespa motor-scooter into a Fiat and breaks his forearm. It keeps him in bed for a month, and his boggled mind thinks of unfamiliar things: where he has come from, where he is going, and how to find out more about where he ought to go. When he recovers, he enrolls for a course in physiotherapy. He also joins a prayer group, and visits Praglia Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in the foothills outside Padua. Detailing this part of his life we are told how this monastery will become his home for ten years, its isolation and discipline the anchors of his life. The first three chapters are full of quotes from the teachings of Saint Benedictine, the different vocations that Lorenzo follows, and give us details of monastic life as led in different Catholic institutions spread throughout Italy.
In the fourth chapter titled ‘The Visitor at the Abbey’, Lorenzo listens to a talk by one Luca Rossini, a Benedictine monk native of Bergamo, who since 1976 has been staying a little over seven thousand kilometers to the east in a place called Phulbari Para near the town of Khulna in Bangladesh where he runs an ashram as a dependent of the Praglia monastery. So, after eight long years of the introspective silence of a monastery, Lorenzo decides to go to Khulna. But before that he must spend eight months in England attending English-to-Speakers of-Other-Languages courses at an Academy there, till Luca would come to pick him up and take him to Bangladesh.
Upon arriving in Dhaka, the cacophony and different aspects of an alien culture that Lorenzo faces is described very beautifully by Chatterjee in great details. He starts wearing a lungi, eating with the fingers of his right hand, washing his clothes in a public tank along with female strangers, studying Bengali in the library with Luca, and tries to acclimatise with the place, the weather, and the people as quickly as possible. Apart from praying seven times a day, he also spends a lot of time decorating the walls of the chapel with different tempura paintings.
After some time, he visits another ashram called Rishilpi run by Enzo and Laura, an Italian missionary couple in Satkhira, some sixty kilometers away. Seeing the multifarious social upliftment activities that are being undertaken at their place, Lorenzo is intrigued by the idea of worming one’s way into a community and working for its betterment from within. Though remaining a Benedictine at heart, he decides to quit the Order and continue his search for some purpose to his life.
At Rishilpi he joins as Deputy Director, Health Services, and opens a sorely needed physiotherapy clinic that would attempt to instill a little meaning in the lives of the disabled and would educate the rest in matters of hygiene, sanitation, medical care and physical well-being. After surviving quite comfortably without money for the past eleven years and living a strict, disciplined monastic life, Lorenzo gradually undergoes a change when he starts interacting with people from all strata of society. Concealing his religion within his heart, he goes on working with a missionary zeal and after some time realises that even working with women felt marvellous.
In due course, he even falls in love and proposes to Dipti, the Headmistress of the same institution, and thus an ex-priest goes on to marry an ex-nun, both remaining devout Catholics forever. They spend the six happiest years of their lives at Rishilpi, till Lorenzo realises it is also life that is holding him back. With children, his responsibilities increase, he cannot go his own way. He needs money to survive and is called upon more and more often to lecture trainees in Dhaka at the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed. In this manner, he slowly broadens his acquaintance with the developing world, and becomes the ideal person to build a bridge between the first world donors and third world recipients.
In the brief concluding chapter of the book, Chatterjee tells us that if one ended Lorenzo’s story here, it is because, even though twenty-nine years have passed since his marriage and he and Dipti are alive and well in Phnom-Penh, he has not in essential changed and he is still in spirit, Benedictine. But what is most interesting is the fact that “he still continues, though, to live his life anti-clockwise, as it were, for (as we have seen) after passing his youth in search of direction for his spirit, he turned outward to the community – and to the joys and responsibilities of the domestic life – only in his mid-thirties; and it was not till his early forties that he properly set about addressing the matter of money. It is – broadly – the trajectory of the typical human life but lived in reverse.”
Chatterjee’s tour-de-force is his storytelling and imaginative prose combined with his trademark wit and attention to detail. In the acknowledgement section he thanks his friend Fabrizio Senesi for providing him innumerable clarifications about life in Italy and in Bangladesh. The long list of books that Chatterjee read and mentioned in the end provides ample proof that he undertook his research rather seriously and this is clearly reflected in the intricate details that he provides of places and people throughout the novel. The book is not a page-turner, and one must read it rather seriously to savour the meticulous effort that Chatterjee made to provide us a fascinating tale about an ordinary human being who finds that a life of service to God is enough, and that it is not enough.
Tahira Naqvi, the Pakistani American writer, has extensively translated the works of Saadat Hasan Manto, Khadija Mastur, Hajra Masroor, and the majority of works by Ismat Chughtai from Urdu into English. As a teacher/professor of Urdu language and literature at New York University, she has regaled us with several short stories that speak of cross-cultural encounters of immigrant Pakistanis in America, especially about how women experience acculturation in the New World. The History Teacher of Lahore is her first novel where she recollects the sights, sounds, and ambience of growing up in Lahore in intimate details. The setting of this novel is the nineteen eighties, which was particularly a time of unrest in Lahore. In this debut political novel, Naqvi eloquently portrays the struggle between a besieged democracy and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism on the one hand, and the thriving cultural traditions of Urdu poetry on the other.
The story begins with the young protagonist Arif Ali who moves from his hometown of Sialkot to Lahore with a dream of being a history teacher and a poet. A ‘tall, slight man in his late twenties,’ we find him relaxing on a bench in Jinnah Park — a place that has become haven for him to spend his time reading, far away from the ferocity of traffic and street crowds. In the days that followed, Arif realised that in the Government Model School for Boys where he taught, he was forced to teach the boys another kind of history for his sake as much as theirs. But that required deep thought, time, and enthusiasm. He befriended Salman Shah, another teacher in his school, and his rapport with him grew stronger by the day. But once again, Arif found the atmosphere in the school was becoming increasingly confining. He would often engage in animated chatter with the high school Islamiyat teacher Samiullah Sheikh, whom he found disagreeable. Not only dressed in Shariyah compliant clothes, but this man was also waiting for his opportunity to teach at a madrassah[1]. This was the period when bans were being imposed on popular music of the kind Nazia Hasan and her brother sang for the younger generation, and even though ‘Disco Deewane’ and ‘Dreamer Deewane’ were sung loud, fear had become an elixir for rebellion. Arif was forced to resign from the school and along with his friend Salman. he ultimately got another position as a history teacher in another private school, Lahore Grammar Institute, where there was more freedom to teach than in the earlier one. The free socializing among the sexes here was new and noteworthy for Arif.
As Arif’s impotent rage towards the increasing religious intolerance grew, he joined his friend’s uncle Kamal and his partner Nadira to secretly help them rescue underprivileged children in clandestine ways. In the meantime, his poetic creations found great impetus when he found a secret admirer in Roohi, Salman’s sister, and started sending her his poems regularly. Though they never met, Roohi would write letters to him every week, and gradually, the more letters Arif received from her, the more his feelings for her grew. The secrecy of their epistolary courtship continued for quite some time till things were disclosed and after a lot of twists and turns in the story, they were finally engaged to get married.
In the meantime, his friend Salman got engaged to a colleague Zehra Raza, and despite the Shia-Sunni clashes that prevailed in society all around, they were unaffected by such ideology. The three of them developed a close camaraderie among themselves, but soon after, the General’s death brought in a lot of political turmoil in the city. The mentality of the public also changed, people went en-masse to watch public flogging, and trouble loomed ahead when Sunni Shia, Ahmadi non-Ahmadi, Punjabi Urdu-speaking, Protestant-Catholic, divisions and sub-divisions, inter-faith, inter-class and inter-religion issues became more and more marked in all spheres of society. The warp and weft of faith produced such tangled intricacies as could only be imagined in nightmares.
As the nation was caught in the vortex of religious extremism, Arif’s position also underwent a great change in the school when he wanted to teach ‘true’ history to his students. He was caught in a dilemma when he found he was forced to teach false historical information in the doctored textbook that Aurangzeb with his hatred of other religions was adored whereas Akbar with more religious tolerance was totally sidelined. He tried to rectify the errors by providing supplementary notes to his students, but that landed him in more trouble. Apart from differences of opinion with the other teachers in school, Arif’s was gripped with a kind of fear and frustration when some unidentified goons threatened him to stay away from issues that did not concern him. Things got worse when a Christian student in his class was falsely accused of blasphemy and Arif decided to save him from being arrested. He embarked on a dangerous mission to resolve this Christian-Muslim conflict that landed him in the middle of sectarian clashes and without giving out all the details, one just mentions that the novel ends at a tragic moment.
In the acknowledgement section Naqvi states that she is grateful to her father for many things but especially for his Urdu poetry which she has used freely in translation. These poems, ghazals and nazms, help to explain the different moods of the protagonist and his mental situation very clearly. One interesting aspect of the novel is that each of the twenty-two chapters is prefaced by a small quote that in a way summarizes the mood and content of that chapter. Most of these quotes are from Jean-Paul Sartre, while others are from Spinoza, Ghalib, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, H.W. Longfellow, Jacques Derrida, Tertullian, Thomas Mann, and four entries particularly from The Lahore Observer dated 15 September 1990, December 1990, January 1997, and January 1998 respectively. These wide-ranging quotes not only increase the story-telling impact, but also endorse the erudition of the novelist herself.
To conclude we can say that Bapsi Sidhwa’s The Ice-Candy Man gave us the sights, sounds and details of Lahore during the Partition in 1947, and the same city becomes wonderfully alive again through the pen of another woman writer from Pakistan who had spent her growing years there, and who gives us details about it from the 1980’s onwards when the political situation of the country was once again very murky. The novel wonderfully portrays the radical Islamisation of the country that included murder, mayhem, and public flogging and more that was visible in Lahore, as this process resulted in terrible uncertainty in the lives of the city’s residents from all walks of life. Strongly recommended for all readers, we eagerly wait for more novels by Tahira Naqvi in the future. The insider-outsider’s point of view offered by her is remarkable and this debut novel can be counted as a collector’s item.
The year was 1881. The city — Kolkata. Its people, caught in the throes of a social and spiritual awakening the like of which they had never seen before, were sharply divided. Spinning between two worlds—one dying; one struggling to be born–they were all protagonists, all engaged in battle. Some to keep alive and perpetuate the old; others to hasten its death and bring about the birth of the new. But there were also those who felt the pull of both. Old and new. Traditional and modern. Science and faith. One such was Narendranath Datta, eldest son of Advocate Bishwanath Datta of Shimle.
Eighteen-year-old Naren was a fine figure of a man already. Tall and muscular, with broad shoulders and a heavy frame, his large, dark eyes flashed with spirit and intelligence from a strong, handsome face. He was a brilliant student and an even better sportsman. He could fence and wrestle and was an excellent boxer. Only last year he had won the Silver Butterfly at a college contest. With all this he was a fine singer and could play the pakhawaj and esraj[1].
PakhwajEsraj
That afternoon, he was pacing up restlessly up and down Hedo Lake Park under a sullen monsoon sky. Classes were over for the day, but he didn’t want to go home.
Naren: “What shall I do? Where shall I go? Home? Na! Na! Ma has filled the house with matchmakers. But I… I can’t even think of marriage just now. Life is short. Life is precious. I must discover the truth of it first. The worth of it.
“Shall I walk down to the Brahmo Mandir? I’ve gone there often with Dipendra. I like the prayers and sermons. I even join in singing the hymns. But…the experience remains on that level. Once, unable to control the curiosity that burns continually in my breast, I was guilty of a grave impertinence. ‘Have you seen God?’ I asked the Maharshi. But he had evaded the question. ‘You have the eyes of an ascetic,’ he had replied. ‘Abandon all enquiry and give yourself over to Him. With prayer and meditation, you will experience Him some day.’ The answer told me nothing.
“I’ve read the works of Western philosophers–Descartes, Hume and Herbert Spencer and have tried to make Logic and Reason my watchwords. I’ve tried to dismiss religion as the prop of the blind and weak. But…but certain religious customs have entrenched themselves in our culture from time immemorial! Can we wipe them out in an instant. And, even if we could, wouldn’t that create a terrible void?”
He laughed self-consciously. Was this a consequence of my meeting with Ramakrishna? Na Na. Not that. Never …
A few days ago, his uncle Ramchandra Datta had asked him to accompany him to Dakshineswar. And Naren, eager to escape the matchmakers, had agreed. He had been charmed with the place. The wide flight of steps rising from the river! The immense chataal[2]dotted with temples! The river itself — vast and unending as the sea! And, then, he had been led to a tiny room in the north west corner where, on a simple wooden chowki[3], sat a little dark man with a gap between his teeth and tiny, twinkling eyes. His hair and beard were unkempt and his coarse, half-soiled dhuti[4]rose to his knees. But the sacred thread that lay across his bare torso was thick and shining white. “Thakur,” Ramchandra Datta led the boy forward, “This is my nephew Naren. He sings well.” The man smiled and nodded encouragingly. And Naren, who enjoyed singing, dropped to the floor and sitting cross legged, a hand at one ear, commenced in a rich baritone…Mono Cholo Nijo Niketane…mind go to your own abode …
Ramakrishna in a trance
Ramkrishna went into a trance. He returned to consciousness and rushed up to Naren.
Ramakrishna: “I know you, my Lord! You are my Narayan! Why did you take so long in coming to me?”
Naren: (to himself) “The man is mad. Stark, raving mad! What do I do now? (Aloud) Let go of me. Please let go…”
Ramakrishna: “I will. If you promise to come again.”
Naren: (sternly) “I promise but I want to ask you a question first. Have you seen God? Tell me the truth.”
Ramakrishna: “Yes. I have seen God. As clearly as I see you standing before me.”
Naren had promised Ramakrishna that he would go to him again. But he had no intention of keeping his word. His reasoning told him that the man was a liar and a lunatic. But why was his heart saying something else? Why was it urging him to redeem his promise? He made a fresh resolve. He would go to Dakshineswar one last time and tell Ramakrishna, politely but firmly, that their worlds lay apart and he had other things to do.
A few days later Naren and his friends were enjoying a meal in an English hotel when he suddenly rose to his feet and walked out leaving everyone gaping in astonishment. Walking all the way to Dakshineswar, he barged into Ramakrishna’s room.
Naren: “I have just eaten what Hindus call forbidden meat. (His eyes challenged the priest) Now do what you need to do with me!”
Ramakrishna: “O re! Do you think My Mother will peep into your stomach to see what you hide in there? Beef and pork? Or vegetables and greens? She looks only into the heart. And yours is as pure as gangajal[5].” He put his arm around Naren’s shoulders. “See. I have touched you. Am I changed in any way?”
Naren: (aggressively) “How do you know where Your Mother looks or does not look? You claim you see Ma Kali and talk to Her. But I say your claim is false. I believe, like the Brahmos, that God is an abstraction–neither seen nor heard.”
Ramakrishna: (murmurs) “God? …. God is akin to a vast sea; an unending stretch of water. But when true faith is breathed upon it the water congeals and turns into ice—solid, tangible. And only then one sees God. Don’t I see you, one of the seven rishis, standing before me?”
Naren came home and thought long and hard. What did it all mean? Why had Ramakrishna called him one of the seven rishis[6]? Was the man mad? Or did he truly believe what he was saying? And, as the boy groped, his heart beat out the answer — dim and muffled but consistent. He, Naren, had assumed that faith and logic were polar opposites, and one could survive only by denying the other. But what if the two were one and the same? Ramakrishna saw faith as empathy in any relationship — human or divine. He saw Naren as that part of himself he considered his Godhead. Which was why his faith in him was unassailable. What a wonderful concept that was! Could he, Naren, ever establish that kind of empathy with anyone? Man or God? Wouldn’t his spirit deepen; grow richer if he could?
And now Naren understood one thing clearly. He was special because Ramakrishna thought him so. And he would have to carry the burden of love and faith placed on him, throughout his life, and make himself worthy of it…
A few months later Naren’s life changed dramatically. His father died and, as the eldest son, the responsibility for the family fell on him. Bishwanath Datta had been a prosperous advocate but, having always lived beyond his means, had died a pauper. What was worse he had left a trail of debts. Death had come to him so swiftly and suddenly — his wife and children reeled under the blow.
Vivekananda or Naren’s ancestral home in modern day Kolkata
With the creditors baying like a pack of wolves outside the door, Naren was forced to look for employment. He had no idea it would be so difficult. The streets were flooded with job seekers. Naren ran from pillar to post then, weak and exhausted with starvation and fatigue and crushed under a sense of defeat, he decided to run away from it all; to become a sadhu[7] and wander among the mountains. People would blame him for evading his responsibilities. They would call him an escapist. But he didn’t care…
Dakshineswar
Somehow, he didn’t know how, Ramakrishna got wind of his resolution and sent for him. Naren didn’t want to go. The man aroused all sorts of strange sensations in him. His body vibrated violently to Ramakrishna’s touch; his head swam, and his limbs felt weightless. Waves of rapture passed over his soul. Then, suddenly, he became his old, tormented, doubting, questioning self. He couldn’t bear these contradictions and decided to keep away. But Ramakrishna drew him like a magnet. Naren struggled against a current he didn’t understand for days, then succumbing, went to Dakshineswar. Ramakrishna took the boy’s hands in his and burst into tears. Something like a giant wave of light passed from those gripping hands and washed over Naren’s soul. His body trembled with ecstasy, and, in an instant, the truth lay bare before him. This little priest of Kali knew everything; saw everything. He sensed Naren’s suffering and suffered with him. The fire went out of the headstrong, stubborn boy. Loud sobs racked his chest and he clung to Ramakrishna’s hands as if they were his only hope.
Ramakrishna: “Naren re! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. S-o-o long!”
Naren: (blubbering like a child) “You say you talk to Ma Kali. Why don’t you ask her to give us some food? I’ve heard you call her the Goddess of Mercy; the succour of the poor and wretched. Am I not poor and wretched? Why doesn’t she cast her eyes on me? My mother and brothers are starving…”
Ramakrishna with Naren
Ramakrishna: “Why don’t you ask her yourself?”
Naren: “How can I do that? I don’t know her.”
Ramakrishna: “You don’t know her because you don’t care to know her. I have an idea. Today is Tuesday. Go to her quietly when she’s alone and tell her what you want from her. She’ll give it to you.”
Late that night, when everyone was asleep, Ramakrishna sent Naren, practically by force, to the temple of Kali. The torch of knowledge trembled as enlightened India took her first cautious steps into an unknown realm. A vision, dim and shadowy, of something beyond the tangible world was driving out judgment and debate. Reason was about to surrender to faith, logic to intuition, as Naren stepped into the womb of the temple where Ma Kali stood. An earthen lamp, flickering in a corner, cast a soft glow over the naked form, black as night and of breath-taking beauty. A pair of glittering eyes gazed intently into Naren’s as he walked on unsteady feet and sank to his knees before Her…
Suddenly, a tremor passed through his limbs, making the blood leap up in his veins. He had seen — yes, he was sure he had seen the exquisitely chiseled lips part in a smile. He shut his eyes and opened them again. Yes — there it was. A smile of love and tenderness. And was it, could it, be… triumph? He thought he saw the image sway gently. But the room was full of shadows. Perhaps he was imagining it all! In his desperation he tried to revive all his old arguments; to summon up the logic and reason that had sustained him all these years. But he felt them slipping away. His eyes were glazed. Strange currents were running in his blood — sweeping him away. In the poorly lit room, swaying between patches of light and shadow, the image of the smiling goddess was trembling into life.
Naren: “Ma…Ma… Ma go![8]” Naren called again and again; stopped and looked around as though puzzled. “Why am I calling out to her? What do I want from her? Ah! Yes. I want food for myself and my family.” He shook his head vehemently. “Na Na. She’s the Mother of the three worlds! And she has smiled on me. How can I ask her for mundane things like food and clothes?” Naren knocked his head on the floor and cried out wildly. “Give me knowledge! Give me faith! Give me light! And above all these give me strength. Strength to suffer and endure! Strength to renounce!”
Ramakrishna was ill. He had been suffering from a bad throat and violent fits of coughing for some months now. His disciples had moved him from Dakshineswar, where the river air was cold and clammy, to a house in Baranagar. They had also sent for several doctors who diagnosed his ailment as Clergyman’s Sore Throat. But their treatment wasn’t working. Ramakrishna’s health was deteriorating day by day. His tongue was bloated to twice its size and was covered with sores. And to drink even a drop of water was agony.
At length Dr. Mahendralal Sarkar was called in. He was the most reputed doctor of Kolkata. He was also the harshest and most unpredictable. Yet, looking at the slight figure lying on the wooden chowki, he asked with a rare gentleness, ‘Where does it hurt?’
‘I feel a swelling in my throat the size of a rose apple.’
‘Open your mouth. Let me take a look.’
Ramakrishna obeyed, his eyes fixed fearfully on the stern face above his. Looking down at the torn, bleeding, ravaged organ the doctor’s eyes softened and he shook his head thoughtfully. “What is the diagnosis doctor?” Naren whispered, drawing him aside.
“Karkat Rog.” A shadow passed over Mahendralal’s face. “The sahebs call it cancer.” But within seconds he was his usual cut and dried self. Turning to the patient he said roughly, “I’m leaving some medicines. Take them regularly. And talk as little as possible. The world can do without your eloquence…”
Naren’s face reddened. “He’s our guru,” he said angrily, “Our link with God. He merits your respect.”
“Hunh!” The doctor gave a snort of contempt. “Why can’t man leave God alone and do his work on earth as best as he can? Why…”
“His work is the discovery of God,” Naren interrupted, his face flaming, “Just as yours is the spread of Science.”
Mahendralal laughed. “Has any man obsessed with God, be he Jesus, Chaitanya or Buddha, been content to make it a personal quest? No. He has to scream his lungs out and pull crowds along with him. Anyway– they were not my patients so what they did is none of my business. But this man is.” Fixing his large, fiery eyes on Ramakrishna he said sternly, “Remember what I said. No sermons and homilies. Give your voice a rest — for the present at least.”
Two days later Ramakrishna vomited blood — great globs splattering on his clothes, bed and all over the floor. Groaning with pain he beckoned Naren to his side, and holding his hands, looked deep into his eyes. “I give you all I have,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “From this moment I’m a pauper. I have nothing left. Nothing.” Then, his glance falling on his wife, Saradamoni, as she stood weeping in a corner, he said, “I leave her in your care.” Fixing his eyes on his wife’s pale, drawn face he said, “Do not weep. Naren will be to you the son you never bore.”
At these words something stirred in Naren’s brain. An image rose before his eyes — of a bleeding, battered body hanging from a cross; a pale emaciated brow crowned with thorns; a dying voice murmuring… “Mother…Behold thy son.” Sharp, scalding tears rose to Naren’s eyes and he wept like a child.
Ramakrishna died after midnight, two days later. His disciples thought he was in bhav samadhi[9]. For his eyes were open and his fingers twirled in the air. A thin whirring sound, like that of a clock work toy, was coming from his half open mouth. They moved around him chanting mantras and singing kirtans[10] — all except Naren, who jumped to his feet and ran all the way to Mahendralal Sarkar’s house. But the doctor, when he came, didn’t even touch the patient. “Start making arrangements for the cremation,” he said quietly, “He’s gone.”
One of the disciples, fearful of a sharp rebuke, murmured nervously, “He’s in bhav samadhi Daktar Babu.”
The doctor’s eyes were somber and his voice gentle as he answered, “I’m an ordinary physician who was given the privilege of ministering to a great soul. But I recognise the end when I see it. He is not in a state of bhav samadhi this time. It is maha samadhi[11].”
Swami Vivekananda and other disciples at the Mahasamadhi of Ramakrishna on Sunday, August 15, 1886.
There were a few distinctive features about the funeral procession that wended its way to Neemtala. One of the mourners held a Hindu trident, another a Buddhist spud. A third had a Christian cross in his hands and a fourth a replica of the crescent moon and single star– symbol of Islam. Ramakrishna had preached the concept of jata mat tata path (there are as many paths to God as there are faiths) and, even in their hour of desolation, his disciples hadn’t forgotten it.
Not many people had heard of Ramakrishna. Consequently. the number of mourners was pitifully small. The funeral processions of some other sadhus of the city had contained thousands. Ramakrishna’s numbered a little over a hundred. But one of them …was equal to a million.
Exactly four hundred years ago, to the day, a Italian sailor named Christopher Columbus had set sail on a discovery of India and landed, instead, on the shores of America. To mark that epoch making event a great festival was being organised in the city of Chicago of which an important feature was the coming together of spiritual leaders from all parts of the world. Invitations had been sent to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Confucians, Taos, Shintos and Zoroastrians along with representatives from the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Protestant Churches. Even Brahmos and Theosophists had been invited. The only religion left out was Hinduism. And that was because Americans knew nothing about it. From what they had heard, it was a savage, primitive cult whose members worshipped monkeys, elephants and rivers. The speakers sat in rows on either side of Cardinal Gibbons –Head of the Catholic Church of America. There was a young man among them; a youth in his twenties with strong, handsome features and dark, flashing eyes. He wore a loose robe of orange silk and a turban of the same material. There was something riveting about his appearance and many eyes turned to look at him.
“Who’s he?” Someone whispered from the audience.
“A Hindoo.” Another whispered back, “From India. His name is …let me see…S-o-a-m-i…very difficult to pronounce…S-o-a-m-i Viv…Viveka…Ananda.”
Naren’s metamorphosis from a whimsical lad to a representative of Hinduism at the Parliament of Religions was owing not so much to his own efforts as to a sequence of events that had carried him on its wings. After Ramakrishna’s death he took serious stock of his situation. ‘Who am I?’ he asked himself, “And what should I do with my life?” The answer came to him readily. He was an ascetic. And the true ascetic was rootless and free like a river that needed to flow to keep its waters pure and clear. He took a decision. He wouldn’t stagnate in this little Bengal. He would explore every inch of this huge country and see what it was like.
And thus, Naren’s travels began. He went from place to place without aim or direction. If anyone gave him food, he ate it. If not, he went hungry equally cheerfully. Sometimes someone bought him a railway ticket. But, more often than not, he had only his legs and lathi to take him forward. Everywhere he went he impressed everyone with his knowledge, dignified bearing and fluent English. Gradually his fame spread. More and more people were talking of the scholarly young man who was steeped in the wisdom of the East yet as liberated in thought and spirit as any European. He started receiving invitations from the royals of India. From Hyderabad, Alwar, Kota and Khetri.
While staying in the palace of Raja Ajit Singh of Khetri, Naren had an experience he would never forget. One evening, on entering the Durbar Hall, he was surprised to see a woman sitting on a carpet facing the Raja who lay sprawled on satin cushions surrounded by his courtiers. She was beautiful, though somewhat past her youth, and dressed in rich silks and jewels. She was singing a love song with smiles and provocative gestures. Naren’s back stiffened and his nostrils dilated in distaste. The choleric temperament and intolerance he had taken such pains to subdue flared up in him and he turned to leave the room. Suddenly the woman rose to her feet. Abandoning the song, she was singing she started on another. The song was a bhajan[12], Prabhu avagun chitta na dharo — Lord, hold not my sins against me.
Naren stood at the door, his feet rooted to the ground. His heart thudded painfully and a voice within him whispered, “You call yourself a sadhu! Yet you judge this woman!” Suddenly Ramkrishna’s eyes swam into his vision. Soft and sad. Holding oceans of mercy! And, in a flash, he saw the woman — not as she stood before him, wanton and voluptuous — but as a human being who carried within her a spark of that same godhead that irradiated his own soul. His eyes softened. He entered the room and took his place with the others.
Naren wove back and forth like a shuttle over the vast tapestry that was India. And, wherever he went he saw illiteracy and superstition, poverty and abuse of power. The caste system was like an insidious web trapping and choking the life breath out of the people. “To hell with Hinduism!” he muttered bitterly. “What is the worth of a religion which humiliates and rejects its own followers? True morality lies in feeding the hungry, nursing the sick and comforting the comfortless.”
Kanyakumari with the Vivekananda rock Memorial, where Naren attained enlightenment
It took Naren four years to tour the whole country. Then, one day, he came to the end of his journey. Reaching Kanya Kumari, he sat on a rock jutting out of the sea. A vast expanse of blue green water stretched, as far as the eye could see, on three sides. Behind him was India. Sick, starving, suffering India! Burying his face in his hands he wept; deep harsh sobs racking his starved, fatigued body. But his mind was clear. He had to find food for his countrymen. He could think of their souls and his own afterwards. But how was that to be done? Science was the answer. Scientific knowledge and modern equipment had to be imported from the West and used to grow more food for the masses. But no one gave anything for nothing. What could his country give in return?
He thought for hours and, slowly, the answer came to him. Weak and enfeebled though she was, India had something the West had lost. Christianity was under severe stress, reeling under a weight of doubt and speculation. Despair was setting in. But India had a spiritualism that went back thousands of years. It had survived the shocks and traumas of innumerable invasions and still stood firm. Give us food and we will give you a philosophy. That could be India’s slogan. He would take this message to the West. But how? Suddenly an idea struck him the enormity of which made him spring up, trembling, to his feet. He would go to Chicago and speak at the Parliament of Religions.
Implementing the decision was easy. Funds were raised by his admirers –the largest donation coming from Raja Ajit Singh of Khetri. And it was the latter who designed the costume he would wear at the Conference and gave him his new name. And thus, Narendranath Datta became Swami Vivekananda[13].
Swami Vivekananda at the Chicago Parliament of religions (1893)
And now the hour, for which he had undertaken a long and hazardous journey, was at hand. Naren walked towards the rostrum his heart thudding violently, his mind blank. Looking with glazed eyes at the sea of faces before him he tried to think of his guru Ramkrishna, tried to recall Ma Kali’s face as he had seen it on the night of his first spiritual experience. But, strangely, another face swam before his eyes — the face of Saraswati, the Goddess of Learning. “Have mercy on me Ma!” he prayed, “Unlock my tongue and give me speech.”
Taking a deep breath he began: “Sisters and Brothers of America.” As an opening sentence, this was an unusual one. People started clapping, a few at first, then more and more joined in. Naren was puzzled. Western audiences were generous with their applause. He knew that. But this was something more than ordinary applause; something he couldn’t fathom. Stirred by an emotion he had never experienced before, his fears fell away. His voice rose sonorous and strong:
“I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance… As different streams, having their sources in different places, all mingle their water in the sea, so Oh Lord, the different paths that men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, all lead to thee…”
The applause rose to a crescendo. Like a mighty storm it washed over the vast hall, in wave after deafening wave. People rose from their chairs and ran towards the rostrum. The other speakers stared at one another. What had the young man said that they hadn’t? Everyone had, at some point or the other, advocated tolerance of other religions. What they didn’t realise was that their discourses had been academic exercises. Naren had spoken from the heart and, in doing so, had won over the hearts of the Americans.
Swami Vivekananda was in a fix. As soon as it became evident that the young ascetic had the power to draw crowds the go-getting Americans lost no time in making a few dollars out of it. A Chicago firm, The Sleighton Lysium Bureau, offered to organise tours in various towns and cities of the United States for the dissemination of his message. Vivekananda signed the three-year contract with alacrity but regretted his decision within a few months. His managers drove him relentlessly from forum to forum and what began as a joyous interaction soon became a painful drudgery. He also found himself out of sync with the average American mindset. They attended his meetings in thousands but most of them looked at him as though he were a rare and exotic animal and asked absurd questions.
“Hey Mr Kanand!” A man addressed him once. “Is it true that in your country mothers throw their babies into a holy river to be eaten by crocodiles?”
“Well,” Vivekananda smiled, “If my mother had done so would I be standing here before you?”
“Boys are not thrown,” another voice was heard. “Only girls…”
“Is that so?” Vivekananda’s lips twitched. “But if all girls are eaten by crocodiles, I wonder how males are born. Perhaps one of you can enlighten me.”
“Even if you deny female infanticide,” an angry voice boomed, “Can you deny suttee?”
“No. But sati has been punishable by law for many years. Now, may I ask you a question? Have you heard of Joan of Arc of France? Or of the thousands of women who were branded as witches and burned at the stake in all parts of Europe? You haven’t? That’s what I thought. The West has conveniently forgotten its own history. You will never question a Frenchman about Joan of Arc. But the moment you see an Indian you’ll make it a point to ask him about sati.”
However, not all Americans were this insensitive. Some came in a genuine spirit of enquiry and listened to him with interest. One of them was a wealthy widow named Ole Bull. Another was a charming, vivacious woman in her thirties. Josephine Macleod, for that was her name, attended all his lectures and, over the years, became a good friend and an ardent admirer.
But, in faraway England, another young woman was waiting for the call. A woman whose destiny would become synonymous with Vivekananda’s, who would, in time to come, make India her home, imbibe her spirit and culture and work for her people as though they were her own…
Margaret Noble was thirty years old–the daughter of an Irish clergyman and a spinster. Love had come to her drab, lonely existence twice but she had been robbed of them both times. Once by death and once — desertion. This last blow was harder to bear than the first and it was in this frame of mind that she first saw Vivekananda. Listening to him, she felt herself transported to another world. She saw herself standing by a well beside a banyan tree under which an ascetic, bathed in the hues of sunset, was murmuring verses in a strange, exotic tongue. The spell broke in a few seconds, and she went home. But, for days afterwards, his face swam before her eyes– a bright golden face with large dark eyes burning with power and passion. She tried to shake it off, but it kept coming back.
After this she started attending Vivekananda’s lectures regularly — though in a spirit of non-acceptance. Her education had given her rational views and she was atheistic by temperament. But though she rejected the Hindu yogi’s doctrines, she couldn’t stay away from him. Vivekananda was amused. Perhaps he heard in the young woman’s vehement denials, an echo of his own. He had ranted against Ramakrishna but gone to him again and again. Margaret, he knew, was going through a similar experience.
There was one thing, though, that had a profound impact on her. Vivekananda never once touched on the negative aspects of the human race. The word ‘Sin’ was missing from his vocabulary. He always appealed to the highest and noblest instincts of humans. “The world needs men and women,” he said once, “who can find the courage to…abandon their own small families and seek out a larger one…” These words fell like blows on Margaret’s heart. She had sought love; a husband and children–a family of her own. But they had eluded her. She didn’t desire them anymore. She would answer Swamiji’s call. She would walk in his footsteps and seek out a larger world.
Vivekananda returned to India after four years — a conquering hero! A special Reception Committee, set up by the Maharaja of Dwarbhanga, met him at Khidirpur dock and escorted him all the way to Sealdah. As the train chugged its way into the station, the air rang with a tremendous cry and the platform shook under the feet of thousands of people pushing, jostling and treading on each other’s toes to catch a glimpse of the man who had left the country as obscure, penniless Naren Datta and returned as the universally acclaimed Swami Vivekananda. Not that everyone came in a spirit of respect. Many were mere onlookers. Some others came to carp and criticise. “The man is no longer a Hindu,” they whispered to one another. “He has eaten forbidden meat and slept with mlecchha[14] women. Besides, what call has a Kayastha to don a sadhu’s robe? What is our great religion coming to! Chhi! Chhi! Chhi!”[15]
Vivekananda was unfazed–touched neither by adulation nor censure. He had his work cut out. The first thing to do was to go to Alambazar and seek the help of his co-disciples in opening a mission in Ramakrishna’s name.
“A mission in Thakur’s[16]name!” the inmates exclaimed, “Like the Christians?”
“Yes.” Squatting on the floor and taking deep puffs from a hookah, Vivekananda said, “I intend to put together a band of committed workers who will go from village to village, providing succour to the poor and needy and educating the masses especially the women of the land. And by education, I don’t mean literacy. That too. But the need of the hour is the inculcation of self-respect and self-worth in our people. India must awake from her stupor.”
From that day onwards Vivekananda turned all his energies into establishing the Mission of his dreams. It couldn’t have come at a better time for plague had broken out in the city and a severe famine was raging in many parts of Bengal. The disciples formed groups and moved from slum to slum and village to village, distributing rations, nursing the sick, burning the dead and teaching the unafflicted how to protect themselves from the dread disease. As for Vivekananda–he drove himself relentlessly though the strain was unbearable. After four years of living in a temperate climate, his body had lost its ability to cope with the heat and humidity of Bengal. He suffered from bouts of fever and dysentery but wouldn’t let up for a second.
He had his misgivings though. Funds were being organised by Ole Bull and Josephine Macleod. But how would he organise a band of women? Women, in this conservative society, refused to interact with males. He wondered what to do. Should he send for Margaret Noble?
The first glimpse of grey was paling the inky darkness of a winter night when a great ship inched its way into the estuary. Margaret Noble stood on the deck shivering, not so much with cold as with apprehension. She had severed all her links with England and come out to India. But would her new country accept her?
After Swamiji’s return, he had written to her a couple of times. Short, dry missives informing her that the Ramkrishna Mission had been established and that Ole Bull and Josephine Macleod were already there supervising the work. Not a word about her joining them. Then, six months later, the letter she had longed for and awaited, had come. A letter that had set her pulses racing despite the formal courtesy of its tone:
“Dear Miss Noble,
“I am now convinced that you have a great future in the work for India. India cannot yet produce great women, she must borrow them from other nations. Yet the difficulties are many. You cannot form any idea of the misery, the superstition, the shunning of the white skin. Then the climate is fearfully hot, not one European comfort is to be had in places out of the cities. You must think well before you plunge in. If you fail or get disgusted, on my part I promise you, I’ll stand by you unto death–whether you work for India or not.”
I will stand by you unto death…– a tremor of ecstasy passed over Margaret’s frame every time she thought of the words. Now, with doubt and fear gnawing at her heart, she repeated them over and over again like a mantra.
Belur Mathh
On alighting she sought his face eagerly in the crowd. Suddenly, a deep musical voice came from behind her. “Margot!” She spun around and got a shock. It was Vivekananda but how he had changed! He was only 34 but he looked close to 50! She didn’t know that he had been extremely ill. Diagnosed with diabetes he had been advised to make substantial changes in his diet, take a lot of rest and keep his mind calm and free. But he had shrugged off the doctor’s counsel particularly the latter part. The mathh[17]in Alambazar had been gutted by a fire and another one was coming up in Belur. Tension and anxiety had become part of his life. There was nothing he could do about it.
Sister Nivedita (1867-1911)
One evening, as they sat together looking out at the river in Belur, Vivekananda fixed his large dark eyes on Margaret’s clear blue ones and said softly, “I’m giving you a new name Margot. A new identity. From henceforth you shall be known as Nivedita. Do you know what that means? It means One who has dedicated herself.”
Fortunately for Vivekananda, the pestilence disappeared from the city as suddenly as it had come. But the grinding work and sleepless nights had taken their toll. He became very weak and had difficulty in breathing. The doctors were alarmed and ordered him to leave the dust and fumes of the city and go to the hills where he could imbibe some pure, clean air. Vivekananda had wanted to go on a pilgrimage to Amarnath for many years and he decided to do so now. Nivedita insisted on accompanying him. He was reluctant at first. It was an arduous, dangerous climb over steep jagged rocks and ice-covered terrain. The weather was wild and inclement, while the most basic amenities were missing. But Nivedita stood firm. She hadn’t come to India to enjoy a holiday, she pointed out. She had abandoned her own country and was trying to put down roots in this soil. She wanted to gain all the experience she could; to merge with the people and become one with them. Why couldn’t she do what he; what so many others were doing? Hadn’t she given herself to this country? Was not her name Nivedita?
On a dark cloudy day at dawn, a party of about three thousand pilgrims set off for Amarnath. Vivekananda and Nivedita walked side by side for a while. Then, suddenly, he left her and strode off to a ledge where a group of ascetics were flailing their arms and crying, “Hara! Hara! Bom! Bom![18]” Nivedita craned her neck to catch a glimpse of her guru. But she couldn’t see him. A throng of pilgrims had swallowed him up.
And thus, it was throughout the journey. He avoided her most of the time. Occasionally he would appear to make a gentle enquiry about her well-being or to bark out a command to the porter to secure her tent against the wind and rain and put a hot water bottle in her bed. Then he would be gone again. Nivedita walked in a crowd but alone. Footsore and weary; limbs aching with exhaustion; heart heavy as lead.
Along the mountain path the pilgrims walked, the line winding and unwinding like a giant snake. And now the path wound upwards, dramatically, over slippery snow-covered rocks for about two thousand feet. This was the last lap and the most dangerous part of the journey. Nivedita’s heart beat fast. Would she be able to negotiate it without him by her side? What if she failed? So many pilgrims lost their footing and fell down the treacherous precipices to lie there forever — buried under drifts of snow. What if she too…? Even as the thought came to her a voice, rich and resonant as a roll of thunder, called out her name. Startled she looked up to see Vivekananda leaning against a boulder smiling down at her. “Look Margot,” he said, “Look ahead of you.”
Following his pointing forefinger, she saw a stretch of level ground covered with a blanket of freshly driven snow which glimmered like a ghostly sea of silver in the light of the fading moon. At the same time, a shout of jubilation came to her ears. Singing and ululating, the frenzied pilgrims ran forward, slipping, falling, helping each other up. The perils of the journey lay behind them. Amarnath was less than a mile away.
Nivedita wanted to wait for Vivekananda. But the crowd engulfed her carrying her along on its waves. On and on she went propelled by the force of faith behind her, feet flying, arms outstretched; deafened by cries of “Hara! Hara! Bom! Bom!” Was this the merging she had envisaged and yearned for? Then why did she feel so restless? So empty?
Amarnath Temple with its shining pillar of ice
Nivedita entered the cave. In front of her was the shining pillar of ice that was the phallus of Shiva. But all she felt was a sense of anticlimax. Was this all there was to see at the end of this seemingly endless, nightmarish journey fraught with so much pain and peril? Water dripping from a crack in the roof of a cave and solidifying into a column of ice?
Vivekananda came in after a while. He had bathed in the river and his dripping body was naked except for a flimsy bit of saffron that covered his genitals. His eyes were stark and staring and his feet unsteady as he ran towards the linga[19] and flinging himself, face downwards, knocked his head on the ground. Then, rising, he stood eyes closed, head bowed over his hands, lips moving in a silent chant. Nivedita noticed that his body was swaying from side to side. As though he would lose his balance, any moment, and fall to the ground. But Vivekananda did not fall. He turned and, fixing his large bloodshot eyes on hers, cried out in a wondering voice.
Naren: “I saw Him Margot. He revealed himself before me. He who is the first in the pantheon! Deb Adideb Mahadeb[20] stood before me in a cloud of blinding light…. And you…you Margot?”
Nivedita: (shamefacedly) “To tell you the truth, I saw nothing and … and felt nothing. Nothing at all. The famed linga thousands come to see is nothing but a natural phenomenon. I’m sure there are dozens of such ice pillars in Europe.”
Vivekananda: “The eyes of your mind are shut like a newborn child’s and your soul sleeps within you. You understand nothing. Yet the great pilgrimage you undertook will not go waste. You’ll receive its fruits when you awaken–older and wiser.”
Returning to Kolkata Vivekananda flung himself into all his self-appointed tasks. But the old energy was gone. He looked and felt like a ghost of his former self. The doctors told him that his heart was severely damaged. It had gone into a shock and stopped the moment he had plunged his body, steaming and quivering with the rigours of the strenuous climb, into the icy waters of the river at Amarnath. He could have dropped down dead that very minute. But, since all organs have a way of recovering themselves, his heart had started beating again on its own. However, the muscles had slackened and it was, now, hanging an inch longer than it should. It was a dangerous condition and his condition could not improve. It could only deteriorate.
Vivekananda had lost touch with his family for many years now. But these days he found himself thinking of them often. He yearned particularly for his mother and went to see her one day. The old lady was shocked to see her son looking so sick and frail and insisted that he rest, excusing himself from his excruciating schedule. Extracting a promise from him to take her on a pilgrimage to Langalbandha, on the banks of the Brahmaputra, where Parasuram had been absolved of the sin of matricide, she cooked a meal for him and fed him with her own hands as though he was a child.
On his way back from Langalbandha, at Dhaka, Vivekananda had an unforgettable experience. It was a hot humid evening and, exhausted from meeting streams of people, he was standing on the balcony in the hope of catching some cool air when he noticed a phaeton at the gate surrounded by people clamouring in agitated voices.
A few minutes later, two women entered the room. One was stout and elderly; her face coarse and darkened with the ravages of her profession. The other was young and a ravishing beauty. “Sadhu Maharaj,” The older woman knocked her head on the ground at Vivekananda’s feet. “This is my daughter. No one would guess, looking at her, that she is very sick. She suffers from asthmatic attacks so severe–she screams with agony. We’ve come to you from very far with a lot of hope.”
“But I’m not a doctor,” Vivekananda smiled. “I try to cure the ills of the mind. And even in that I’m not very successful. I know nothing about the body.”
“Everyone says you are the greatest sadhu living. Read a mantra over my child’s head and release her from her suffering.”
“If I knew such a mantra, I would read it over myself. I’m an asthma patient, too, and suffer excruciating pain at times.”
“You’re testing me my lord!” The woman burst out weeping –harsh, racking sobs rasping out of a chest congealed with years of repressed grief. “I’m a lowly woman led astray in my youth…”
“I’m not testing you Ma,” Vivekananda shook his head sorrowfully. “Sadhus are human like the rest of mankind. If they had the power of bestowing life and health would they not be immortal themselves?”
The woman continued to weep and plead. “Touch my daughter and give her your blessing,” she begged. “That will be mantra enough for her.”
Suddenly the girl rose to her feet and pulled her mother up by the hand. Hate and anger flashed into her beautiful surma-lined[21] eyes. “You’re wasting your time Ma,” she said. “We’re fallen women–despised by everyone. He won’t touch me.”
Vivekananda smiled. Stretching out his hand he placed it on the girl’s head. “If by blessing you I can soothe your pain away I do so with all my heart. Now you must do something for me. If you find a doctor or a sadhu or anybody who can cure your asthma be sure to let me know. I suffer such terrible agony at times– I would be grateful for some relief.”
Nivedita was on a tour of Europe and America to collect donations for the Ramakrishna Mission. Away from the country she gained a clearer perspective. She saw India’s poverty, ignorance and subservience under an alien rule. She felt her pain and humiliation as she had never felt before. She told herself that the first task before anyone who loved India was to rid her of the foreign yoke.
While in America she heard of the great Japanese philosopher, Count Okakura, and his dream of creating a vast Asian race that could overpower the European. Okakura was in India, already, meeting people and pledging support on behalf of his own and several other countries of the east — not moral support alone but military and financial as well. An overjoyed Nivedita decided to abandon what she was doing and throw herself into Okakura’s movement. Swami Vivekananda heard about Nivedita’s return and felt disturbed and angry.
Nivedita: “Count Okakura is launching a movement for the independence of India. He wants me to accompany him to Mayawati. I’ve come to take your permission.”
Vivekananda: “Independence. Hmph! Is it a piece of candy you can snatch away from the British? Who doesn’t know or admit that living under a foreign rule is humiliating? But backwardness, ignorance and superstition are deep rooted social evils which have to be removed first. Freedom will follow. You’re chasing a mirage, Margot.”
Nivedita: “Why do you say that? Count Okakura…”
Vivekananda: “The most important task before you is to educate the women of the land. And that is what you should be doing.”
Nivedita: “I’m not a simple school teacher. I’m a daughter of India. You have dedicated me to her service. That is why I am Nivedita.”
Vivekananda: “No. I haven’t dedicated you to the service of any country. You’re a disciple of my guru Ramakrishna Paramhansa. I brought you here to serve humanity.”
Nivedita: “I haven’t strayed from the path of service. Is not freeing the enslaved service to humanity?”
Vivekananda: “We are ascetics. Politics is not for us. You have two options before you. To stay with the order and obey its rules or sever your connections with the math and follow your own inclinations. I cannot allow the Mission to be threatened.”
Nivedita’s face turned a deathly white. Stooping she touched Vivekananda’s feet and walked out of his presence. Two days later she left for Mayawati with Okakura.
Vivekananda was stunned on hearing the news. But strangely, what he felt most was neither outrage nor a sense of betrayal. He was overwhelmed by a feeling of loss. Nivedita had left him. Not because she had wanted to but because he had compelled her. Had he been too harsh? Too intolerant? He wanted to go to her and soothe her with a few kind words. But every time he thought of crossing the river his spirit quailed. He felt acutely exhausted and breathless these days and the slightest strain brought on severe palpitations. Yet, one day, he went. Dropping into a chair he said with a desperate urgency in his voice. “Come to the mathh Margot. Come as soon as you can.”
Vivekananda meditating
Nivedita went, early one morning, a few days later. She looked very beautiful in a flowing dress of white silk and a string of rudraksha[22] beads around her neck.
Vivekananda: “You came because I asked you. Not because you wanted to.”
Nivedita: “I wanted to with all my heart,” She murmured with tear-filled eyes.
Vivekananda: “You must be hungry. I’ll cook you some breakfast.” He went out and returned with a thala[23].
She ate. He washed her hands and wiped them tenderly finger by finger.
Nivedita: “What are you doing Swamiji? It is I who should be serving you.”
Vivekananda: “Jesus washed the feet of his apostles…” he murmured so low that it sounded like he was almost speaking to himself, “on the last day… “
Nivedita: (shocked) “Why do you say that? There are many years before you. You have so much more to give…”
Vivekananda: “No Margot. I’ve given everything I had. I’ve nothing left.”
Nivedita: (bursting into tears) “Who else but you? Who else but you?”
Vivekananda: “Sometimes it becomes necessary to cut down a large tree to enable the smaller ones to grow. I must make room for you.”
Vivekananda woke up, the next morning, feeling as though he had never been ill in his life. Rising he walked to the balcony without any pain or breathlessness. And, strangest of all, it seemed to him that his vision had improved. Was the sky really as blue as it looked today? The grass and leaves as green? Then a sensation, long forgotten, stirred in his belly. He was hungry. Prodigiously hungry. He yearned for ilish –thick wedges of the delicate fish — some fried crisp in its own fat, some nestling in a rich spicy mustard curry and some in a sweet and tart sauce. He fell hungrily on the food as soon as it was served. Pouring the fried fish along with its oil on a mound of smoking rice he crushed some sharp green chillies into it and ate big handfuls with noises of relish. When the last course, the sweet and sour fish, came he cleaned the thala with his fingers and licked them, “Yesterday’s fast has left me very hungry,” he said, “I’ve never enjoyed a meal so much.”
He spent the whole afternoon talking to some visitors, who had come to the mathh, without betraying a trace of uneasiness or fatigue. But the moment he retired to his room for a rest he exclaimed, “Why is it so hot in here? And so dark? Is there a storm brewing outside?”
His face was streaming with sweat and he was breathing in loud painful gasps. Throwing himself on the bed, he commanded his young disciple Brajen, “Open all the windows, Byaja, and fan me.” Despite the strong breeze that blew in from the open window and Brajen’s frenzied fanning, he cried over and over again, “I’m sizzling all over. This heat is killing me.” Suddenly his head slid from the pillow and fell over the edge of the bed. Brajen leaned over his guru and shrieked in fear. And now, before his amazed eyes, Vivekananda straightened his head slowly and lay on his back. A deep sigh escaped him…then all was still.
In a few minutes the room was full of people. The doctor was sent for. But no one thought of informing Nivedita…
The news reached her the following morning. Snatching up a shawl she ran out of the house, just as she was, and came to Belur. Swamiji’s room was crammed with people, weeping, chanting Ramakrishna’s name and talking in agitated whispers. They made way for her as she walked in softly, on bare feet, and knelt by the bed. He looked exactly as he had yesterday except that his eyes were as red as hibiscus and runnels of blood had congealed around his nose. Asking for some damp cotton wool she wiped the blood tenderly away.
Around two o clock in the afternoon someone said to her. “You must rise now. It is time.” Nivedita moved away without a word. Fingers of ice clutched at her heart as she watched the disciples bathe the body in gangajal and dress it in new saffron robes. Then they carried their guru to a sandalwood pyre set up under a huge bel tree in front of the mathh. Nivedita looked on as the sanyasis[25] chanted mantras and placed his belongings, one by one, on the pyre. Among them was the shawl he had worn the day he had come to see her. “Can I have that?” Nivedita asked the senior most disciple, Saradananda, timidly. “As a keepsake?” Saradananda hesitated a little. “Everything a sanyasi had used in his earthly life is supposed to burn with him. But if you are very keen…”
“No, no,” she said hastily. “There’s no need to break the rule.”
The pyre was lit, and the flames rose to the sky. Nivedita noticed that no one was talking to her. No one had offered her any consolation. She was an outsider already.
Hours went by. The sun changed from a white-hot blur to a ball of fire that resembled the dancing flames on which Nivedita’s eyes were fixed. Suddenly she felt a warmth, a melting in her ice locked heart. Startled, she looked down. A piece of the shawl she had wanted as a keepsake had come flying from the pyre, grazed her breast, and fallen into her lap.
Aruna Chakravartihas been the principal of a prestigious women’s college of Delhi University for ten years. She is also a well-known academic, creative writer and translator with fourteen published books on record. Her novels Jorasanko, Daughters of Jorasanko, The Inheritors, Suralakshmi Villa have sold widely and received rave reviews. The Mendicant Prince and her short story collection, Through a Looking Glass, are her most recent books. She has also received awards such as the Vaitalik Award, Sahitya Akademi Award and Sarat Puraskar for her translations.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
The city of Lima, Peru was founded by the Spanish conquistador, Francisco Pizzaro in 1535. Spanish scouts sent out by him reported the place had ample water, fertile lands, sea access, and fair weather influencing the decision to settle there. Now, the city is in the agricultural region known by the locals as Limaq. It was once the most important city in the Viceroyalty of Peru that ruled over a large part of South America. Today over one-third of Peru’s population resides in the greater Lima area. The moisture-laden winds from the ocean result in fog throughout most of the year. The cold Humboldt current keeps the Pacific Ocean temperatures low. The coastal region of Peru known as the Costa is a dry desert and rainfall is scarce. The combination of very little rain with a thick fog fascinates both residents and visitors. Most mornings were foggy during my stay in Lima.
Lima serves as the entry point to Peru and during your trips around the country, you can enter and leave Lima multiple times like I did. During one of my visits, I stayed with Cesar, a pharmacist with the Ministry of Health, on the 15th floor of a modern apartment complex overlooking the Pacific Ocean, in Magdalena del Mar, with a beautiful view of the Pacific.
Magdalena del Mar is fast becoming a trendy neighbourhood has an immaculate Heart of Mary Church, an ornate beautifully designed church in pink stone. Roman Catholicism with its emphasis on ceremonies, ornamentation, and ostentatious displays shares many similarities with the religions of the East. One afternoon after lunch, I visited the long stretch of beach which I admired from the fifteenth-floor window. I had to cross the Circuito de Playas, the six-lane highway that links several spots along the coast in Lima.
Heart of Mary ChurchArt Museum
The city of Lima is famous for its museums. The Museum of Art in Lima is wonderful. Located in downtown Peru at the Parque de la Exposicion (Park of the Exposition), the museum houses one of the best collections of Peruvian art from pre-Columbian times to the modern day. The artworks are mostly grouped according to the period of their creation. Different cultures like the Moche, Nazca, Chimu, Chancay, Ica, and the Incas are represented. After the Spanish conquest, local artists and artisans concentrated on religious Catholic art. Modern Peruvian secular art began in the nineteenth century. I read with great interest the struggle between two schools/visions on how this art should grow and develop. One school wanted a cosmopolitan art like that developing in Europe while the other school wanted Peruvian artists to concentrate on traditional Peruvian topics like Inca buildings, town planning, Peruvian plateaus and mountains, and the Peruvian Indian.
Holiday makers in Plaza de Armas.
The Plaza de San Martin is one of the most representative public spaces in the capital. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988 and is connected to the Plaza de Armas by the Jiron de la Union. The plaza pays homage to the liberator of Peru, Jose San Martin (1778-1850). The plaza was built in 1921 in honor of the 100th anniversary of Peruvian independence. The buildings lining the plaza date from 1910 to the 1940s.
Exhibits of Gold
In the 1960s, Miguel Mujica Gallo used his private collection, gathered throughout his life, to open the “Gold Museum of Peru and Weapons of the World”. The museum has over 7000 gold, silver, and copper objects. Gold and silver had a religious importance in pre-Columbian Peru. Gold represented the Sun while silver represented the Moon. The collection is valued at over 10 million US dollars. The other major section represents the weapons of the world. I found it ironic that humanity expended so much effort and resources on devising better and better ways of killing each other. There is a Japanese room at the museum highlighting the close ties between Japan and Peru. Many Peruvians of Japanese and Chinese descent are still able to read in their native languages while at the same time being fluent in Spanish.
On my last day in Peru, I decided to use the public bus to visit the ruins of Pachacamac which is located outside the capital in the city of Lurin. Pachacamac was a major religious site for the different cultures of Peru. As new cultures became dominant, they added their constructions to the holy site. The site was first settled in 200 AD and is named after the earth-maker God, Pacha Kamac. some museums in Peru there are concessions for teachers which I feel is a very good idea. School children visit museums accompanied by their teachers and museum guides to develop a good understanding of their culture.
Pachacamac MuseumQuipu, recording devices made from Camelid hair
Unfortunately, Pachacamac was too near the capital Lima to escape the attention of the rapacious Spaniards. The conquistadores were mainly driven by their limitless appetite for gold and a narrow bigoted religious view which regarded Roman Catholicism as the only true religion and other religions as heretic practices to be destroyed. They caused much damage to Pachacamac.
Pachacamac
The wind started blowing and a flurry of dust pervaded the air. The Sun Temple is the major building. There were separate locations for religious buildings, administrative buildings, and residential buildings and there were also granaries.
View from the Sun Temple
The Incas and the pre-Inca cultures practiced human sacrifice. Enemies were ritually sacrificed but young virgin girls were also sacrificed. These mamacuna (Virgins for the Sun), had important status. They wove textiles for priests, and brewed corn beer which was used in Inca festivals. The women were sacrificed in the highest ritual; they were strangled with cotton garrote. They were wrapped in fine cloth and buried in stone tombs. Each was surrounded by offerings from the highlands of Peru, such as coca, quinoa, and cayenne peppers.
Peruvian coffee like Peruvian food turned out to be a hidden treasure. Smooth without bitterness or harshness, the coffee can be drunk black without milk. Peru is also home to ‘poop coffee’. Dung coffee is made by having an animal (usually a civet) eat coffee cherries. The natural digestion process reduces bitterness. When they poop out the beans, they’re gathered, thoroughly washed, and typically take on flavors of the animal’s diet. Peruvians use the uber-adorable coatis, which are like tiny raccoons. They are fed the best-of-the-best Arabica beans and nature takes over from there!
Twined with the flavour of Peru is a beautiful legend which needs to be told to highlight their colours. In the good old days, a widowed mother, Pacha, worked day and night to feed her three sons. The sons were lazy and survived on the food provided by their mother. One evening while returning home the mother tripped on a stone and was injured. She was bedridden and became dependent on her sons. The sons were too lazy to work their farm and stole from the villagers and eventually started selling their farm part by part. They lied to their mother about their plentiful harvests. One day, the mother went to the farm to see the harvest but was beaten by the villagers who mistook her for a thief. Learning about this, the sons got angry and turned themselves into hail, frost, and furious wind devastating the villagers’ farms and houses. Since that day when the elders gather at night to tell stories, they talk about the hail, the frost, the wind, and how they ruin the fields from time to time, and they continue to blame the men of the village for having mistreated the mother (mother earth / Pachamama)!
I enjoyed my days in the city of kings. The weather was good, the accommodation was great, the food was excellent, great architecture and art greeted one everywhere, getting around was not too difficult and the cost was reasonable. What more can a man want? I plan to return one day in the near future.
Peruvian camelids
Dr. P Ravi Shankar is a faculty member at the IMU Centre for Education (ICE), International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He enjoys traveling and is a creative writer and photographer.
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Singapore moved from being a little island to a trading port to an affluent glamorous city that bridges the East and the West. Spanning the spirit of the wide expanse of this movement within a century are some iconic writers. One of them is Suchen Christine Lim, an award-winning author who writes narratives embedded in history, lined with hope and love — two values that need to be nurtured in today’s war-torn world.
Dearest Intimate is her most recent novel that shuttles against the backdrop of Japanese invasion of not just China but of what was then Malaya and modern-day Singapore. The story revolves between the worlds of Chan Kam Foong and her granddaughter, Xiu Yin. A passion for Cantonese opera that spans across generations weaves all the threads together into a single multi-layered rich tapestry of life. That life is never about a single strand or a single facet is brought into play by her intricate craftsmanship.
Suchen has taken seven years to complete this novel creating a story that immerses the reader in different time periods. The time periods are congealed with a variety of techniques of narration. Both, the first-person narrative — the voice of Xiu Yin — and the third person — the diary which unravels her grandmother’s story — are seamlessly knit into a whole. Though to me, the diary is perhaps more compelling with its historic setting and its interludes of amazing passionate poetry, like these lines:
“Though hills and mountains, rivers and plains separate us,
nothing can separate our thoughts and dreams.
Though a thousand li separate our bodies, no mountains nor
rivers, not even the Four Mighty Oceans can separate our heart.”
As the book progresses, it unfolds Xiu Yin’s journey towards rediscovering her strength and love. She rises from the ashes of an abusive marriage which is in sharp contrast to the marriage of her grandmother, Kam Foong, arranged by the family in a traditional Chinese village in the early part of the twentieth century. That victimisation and abuse see no borders of education and can be born of a sense of frustration and an over-competitive outlook is skilfully reflected in the marriage of Xiu Yin, whose husband is from an educated Westernised Catholic background. She had been brought up on traditional lores among Chinese opera artists. Interesting observations on gender issues and local concerns — like the housing policies in Singapore — are wound into the narrative.
To me, one of the most enduring qualities of Suchen’s novels are that they deal with the common man against a historical backdrop. In an earlier interview, she had said: “I wanted to see the past from the perspective of coolies, the illiterate, who have largely been left out of history books. And yet without them, who would pick up the nightsoil?” In this novel too, she has dealt with the common man — farmers and opera singers only the historic setting and their responses have changes because of changed circumstances. We live, feel, emote with the common people before, during and after the second World War to the modern twenty first century Singapore. The author’s skilful characterisation enlivens her creations. The cruelty of Japanese invaders during 1940s is highlighted in the suffering of the people and their abuse. Published around the same time as Sumantra Bose’s Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s Life, Struggle and Politics, which shows how the Indian leader thrown out of Congress took support from the Axis powers (German and Japanese), it gives a contrasting perspective. Though this is fiction, Singapore history does corroborate that the Japanese invaders were extremely brutal in their outlook, even among the colonials. Suchen’s reiteration of their cruelty is heart rending.
She has through her characters reiterated on the need of art not just to express but to make people laugh, give them hope and cheer them in dark times. This is an interesting theme which in itself makes one wonder if it is a comment on the perspectives of writers depicting unmitigated darkness. We find this strand of hope in great fiction from the last century — like JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series or Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. They all end with hope as do Suchen’s works.
Suchen’s oeuvre very often encompasses the story of migrants as it has done here. And the interesting progression in this novel is the migrants’ complete acceptance of their new homelands — Singapore and Malaysia. In an earlier interview, Suchen had said, “A man can rise and go beyond borders but the land that he leaves will always be in his bones and heart.” And some of her protagonists had headed back to China. But in this novel, one is left wondering if the characters from China have not transcended their national frontiers to embrace the Cantonese opera, declared an intangible cultural heritage, like Durga Puja, by UNESCO. Art and love have overridden all kinds of borders — and perhaps, that is why the name of the novel Dearest Intimate, which is used by Kam Foong for her love and for Xiu Yin by her beloved justifies the title. At the end, it is a heartfelt love story between humans and even between humanity and an art form that evolved to embrace the common man. Like all good books — it touches hearts across all borders with its message of love and acceptance as do Suchen’s other novels. To discuss, her world view and her novel, we had a brief conversation with Suchen —
What made you write this novel, Dearest Intimate? What led you to it?
I had a strange dream while I was on the Writers Immersion and Cultural Exchange (WrICE) residency in the ancient city of Hoi An in Vietnam. I dreamt of a pale orange pillow embroidered with two mandarin ducks and two rows of Chinese characters. When I woke up, I wrote down the two sentences in English, which eventually became the opening paragraph of this novel. So, you can say it was an unexpected gift from the universe that led me to write this novel.
In your earlier novels like A Bit of Earth the protagonist always felt for part of their homelands. However, in Dearest Intimate, the protagonists dwelt on the theme of love and Cantonese opera, not so much on homeland. Has your world view changed since your first novel? How and why?
Published in 1984Published in 2001
Well, I don’t think there is a quick easy answer to the how and why of change in worldview. The time gap between the publication of my first novel, Rice Bowl, and the latest, Dearest Intimate, is more than 30 years. Over that span of time my novels had examined issues of political /historical import, race and identity, moving from the past to the contemporaneous. Over the course of 30 years, it is natural for an author’s ideas and obsessions to change. I would be very worried if I do not change, or my characters and themes do not change. For example, my sudden interest in the pipa led to the writing of The River’s Song, which in turn led me to Chinese music and Hong Kong Cantonese opera and the learning of Cantonese.
Tell us about why you took up the Cantonese opera in a major way in this novel?
It was the strange gift of a dream of two mandarin ducks embroidered on a pillowcase, which reminded me of the Cantonese operas I used to watch as a child with my grandmother and mother. Such pillowcases with embroidered mandarin ducks were symbols of love and fidelity and were sewn by young women in love in Chinese operas. Cantonese opera was a part of my childhood that was largely forgotten till this dream. Looking back, I think in writing Dearest Intimate I was reclaiming that forgotten part of my childhood.
Why did the novel take seven years to write? What kind of research went into the novel?
Partly because the research was such fun. I wasn’t concerned about deadlines. I had already flung away deadlines the moment I resigned from the Ministry of Education years ago. And I must admit I was fortunate that I didn’t have to write to fill my rice bowl. My research obsession began after I had watched a Hong Kong Cantonese opera troupe perform at the Kreta Ayer People’s Theatre, and later, other operas at the Esplanade during Moon Festival. Curious about the actors’ training, I went to the National Archives and listened to the many interviews with old opera actors and actresses of local Chinese opera troupes. Every year, I flew to Hong Kong to watch one or two Cantonese operas, and once I even met Chan Poh Chee and Bak Suet Xin, the icons of Hong Kong’s Cantonese opera. When I started writing the novel I would watch one Cantonese opera on YouTube every afternoon, even re-watching a few favourites. Unhappy that I could not understand the literary Cantonese used in the operas I joined a Cantonese class in Chinatown to deepen my understanding of Cantonese.
Why did the novel take seven years to write? Well, one of the reasons is my troublesome health. I had several health issues to deal with. Very boring chronic issues which, naturally, gobbled up my time and distracted my attention. The most serious of these troublesomes was a minor stroke that affected my movement and speech for some months.
You have written many children’s stories, a play, short stories, non-fictions and novels. What is your favourite form of storytelling and why?
The novel. It is humanity’s greatest literary invention. Within the novel, raw messy lived experience is transformed into coherent narrative.
All your novels have a sense of hope and seem to reach out with the message of love and acceptance. Why is it you feel reiterating this is important?
I am glad you think my novels have a sense of hope. Hope is often the reason we live another day. Hope is what helps us to endure, to wait. To write, to make art is an act of hope.
What in your opinion is the purpose of art? You have repeatedly mentioned in your novel that people will respond better to hope or laughter in opera in dark times. Would you say this also applies to writing? Do you think people in dark times prefer books that give hope? Please elaborate.
I will quote Master Wu in the novel: “Play our music! Tell our stories! Sing our songs! Write our histories! Preserve our humanity! That is what the arts are for. Never, never for one moment forget who we are …” in the age of robotics, story-generating AI and Twittering twitterati.
Do you have any advice or message for budding writers?
Suffering is good for the writer. It will deepen lived experience and expand the heart’s empathy.
Thank you for your wonderful answers and for giving us the time.
Published in 2014Published in 1992More books by Suchen Christine Lim
(The book has been reviewed and the interview conducted online by emails by Mitali Chakravarty)
I first learned of Therese Nagai while listening to a student presentation. I was teaching a class of first year pharmacology students at Tokushima University. Their assignment had been to make a group presentation on something related to their major. One group chose to introduce Nagayoshi Nagai [1844-1929], the Father of Pharmacology in Japan, and the founder of Tokushima University’s Pharmacology Department. My ears perked up when the student mentioned that he had married a German woman.
How was it that I had lived in Tokushima for 26 years, yet no one had ever mentioned her to me? Didn’t ordinary people know of her? I knew of the Wenceslau de Moraes, the Portuguese sailor who’d settled at the foot of Mt. Bizan and who wrote about Tokushima in Portuguese. There was a museum dedicated to him at the top of the mountain. I also knew of the German prisoners of war who’d been interred in nearby Naruto during World War I. Because of these foreign men, the prefecture had established ties with both Portugal and Germany. But what about this woman, Therese? I was determined to find out more about her.
In the photo of Therese and Nagayoshi Nagai that pops up in a cursory Internet search, she is staring off in the distance, her expression determined, resolute. Her hair is pulled back, her Victorian dress buttoned up her neck and decorated with a large cameo pin. She looks serious, sensible. He is wearing Western clothes as well — a suit, and a tie. He gazes directly at the camera, but his head is tilted toward hers. She looks as if she might be lost in thought, thinking of her native Germany, or how to improve upon her life in Japan. He seems to be thinking only of her.
Nagayoshi was born in Myodo District in Awa Province, which is now known as Tokushima Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku. His father, a physician, taught him about the medicinal properties of plants, and expected his son to follow in his footsteps. His mother died when he was a child. As a young man, he embarked for study in Nagasaki, at the Dutch Medical College. Nagasaki was the first port of call in a country newly open to foreign trade, and the influx of Western culture, after 230 years of isolation. There, Nagayoshi saw pale, big-nosed Europeans for the first time in his life. He got a job at the first photography studio in the country, where he took photos of foreigners and Japanese, such as folk hero Ryoma Sakamoto. Sakamoto, who was also originally from Shikoku, albeit further south, in Kochi, encouraged Nagayoshi to go abroad and learn from the West.[1]
From Nagasaki, Nagayoshi went on to study at Tokyo University, Japan’s equivalent to Harvard — not bad for a boy from the backwoods. Still, when he was awarded a coveted study-abroad slot at Berlin University, he felt compelled to ask his father for permission to go. His father was afraid he would never come back. “You have a responsibility to become a great doctor,” he told his son. Nagayoshi couldn’t bring himself to tell his father that his interest had turned to chemistry and pharmacology. He had no interest in becoming a doctor.
After getting the go ahead from his father to set out on this great new adventure, he sailed by boat to San Francisco, then took a train to New York, and finally sailed on another steamer to Liverpool. In Europe, everything was shiny and new – the water pipes, the gas lamps, the glass windows. He was also deeply impressed by the architecture in Berlin, declaring in a letter to his father “Everything that is built by humans is finely detailed.”[2]
Although there were several boarding houses that catered to young Japanese men, he took up residence with Frau von Holzendor, where no other Japanese student was living in order to expedite his German language learning[3]. After she passed away, he moved into a boarding house run by Frau Lagerstrom.
The young Nagayoshi was intense and single-minded, too caught up in his studies to bother with a social life. His mentor, German chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann, suggested that if he was planning on staying in Germany, he should marry a German woman.
“That’s not as simple as you think,” Nagai allegedly replied. “Orientals are still a rarity in Germany. In Japan, foreigners are considered outsiders, and they’re called ‘Meriken’ and held at arm’s length. It will take time to get the consent of my father.”[4]
According to one biographer, Hofmann began plotting to find a German bride for Nagai. He invited his protégé along for an unveiling of a statue of his former teacher, Justus von Liebig, the founder of organic chemistry, the University of Giessen. The proprietor of the boardinghouse where Nagai was staying also accompanied them, perhaps as part of Hofmann’s plan. After the ceremony, Nagai decided to take a trip to Switzerland. On the way, he stopped at the Nassauer Hof Hotel in Frankfurt.
Looking out of his pension window, he spotted an attractive, young German woman, and asked Frau Lagerstrom how he might go about meeting her. She conspired for the two of them to have a meal with young Therese Schumacher and her mother. The Schumachers were visiting from their home in Andermach, a picturesque, medieval town on the left bank of the Rhine. Therese’s father was a local lumber and mining magnate. Nagayoshi was so tongue-tied at breakfast that he could barely manage to get a word out. When he finally spoke, he asked if she would like some honey for her bread. “Yes,” she replied.
After breakfast, Nagai and his landlady ran into the mother and daughter in town.
“Will you be going out somewhere tonight?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m going to the opera,” Therese replied.
Nagai invited himself along.
That evening they went on their first date to the Frankfurt Opera House, chaperones in tow. When asked later what the performance had been, Nagayoshi laughed and said that he didn’t remember. He’d been so mesmerised by the young woman sitting next to him, he hadn’t paid any attention to what was happening on the stage.
The next morning, Therese and her mother departed by boat to Wiesbaden. They continued on a day or two later to Schlagenbad, where the Schumchers had an exclusive contract to provide building materials for a new hotel under construction. When they returned home to Andernach, Therese was astonished to find Nagai, wearing a suit newly tailored for the occasion, waiting on the docks.
For the next three days, he was the guest of the Schumacher family. Therese gave the dapper scholar a tour of the main house, built in 1746, and the stone and lumber works.
“You’ve caught yourself a Chinaman,” Therese’s brother Mathias teased. More likely it was Therese who’d been snared by this polite, erudite Japanese visitor.
The following year, a delegation arrived from Tokyo Imperial University, inviting Nagayoshi to return to Japan head the university’s first Department of Pharmacology. In the film version of their story, Nagayoshi is torn between staying in Germany with the woman he loves and returning to the land of his birth. Of course, he was obligated to return. The university had sent him to Germany to learn for the benefit of his nation, after all.
He proposed marriage to Therese. She said “yes.” After becoming engaged, he returned to Japan alone. He worried that his bride-to-be would be discontent in backwards Japan, where country folk still clattered around in wooden geta clogs, and rickshaws were the choice mode of transportation. In the Japanese movie version of the story, his younger sister assured him that if Therese truly loved him, she would be happy to be with him no matter where they lived. It’s likely, however, that his father and sister were not quite as agreeable as they appear in the film. After all, in that era Japanese men rarely married for love, and Nagai, the only son, was eager for his father’s approval.
In 1885, Nagai experienced a breakthrough in his research, when he successfully isolated the active ingredient of Ephedrine. Later, his findings would be instrumental in the development of medication for asthma and cough suppressant. And even later, he would develop methamphetamine.
Nagayoshi and Therese were separated for months. When he finally returned to Germany, he was 40 years old. Therese was 21. They married on March 27, 1886, in a church in her hometown, Andernach, despite the fact that Nagayoshi was not Catholic. He would convert to Catholicism thirteen years later.
Once in Japan, Therese sent a flurry of letters back home to Andernach. She wrote of homesickness, but also of “standing firmly on two feet in their new life. I feel as if gradually new roots form and I become habituated to this strange way of life, to unusual manners. I’m making progress.”
Broadened by his own experiences abroad, and influenced by his sharp, young bride, Nagayoshi was a strong proponent of education for women. He co-founded Japan’s first college for women, now known as Japan Joshi Daigaku, where Therese was employed as an instructor of German. She was, reportedly, an energetic teacher, enriching her lessons with instruction on manners, customs and German cooking.
Eventually, they would have three children – Alexander, Willy, and Elsa, all brought up to be bilingual, and with an awareness of their German heritage.
In addition to being the Father of Modern Chemistry and Pharmacy in Japan, Nagayoshi served as president and founder of the Japanese-German Society. Therese is credited with introducing German food and culture to the Japanese, and, along with her husband, hosted Albert Einstein and his wife Elsa during part of their visit to Japan in 1922. Therese also helped to interpret for the couple.
Therese died in 1924.
When the eldest son, Alexander, first visited his mother’s hometown, Andernach, he claimed it as his second home. Later, during World War II, Alexander Nagai, would serve as a Japanese diplomat to Germany at the embassy in Berlin. One writer mused that his cross-cultural upbringing made him especially sensitive to the plight of the German Jews. Alexander was a member of a group that resisted intolerance toward Jews and is reported to have helped enable the issue exit visas to Jews who sought to escape Nazi Germany.[5]
In 1994, Teigi Nagai, grandson of Nagayoshi and Therese, donated an ornate chandelier to the church where his grandparents were wed in homage to their legacy and love.
[2] Hoi-Eun Kim, Doctors of Empire: Medical and Cultural Encounters between Imperial Germany and Meiji Japan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 91
[4] Nobuko Iinuma,Nagai Nagayoshi to Terēze : Nihon yakugaku no kaiso (Therese and Nagai Nagayoshi: Father of Japanese Pharmacology), Tokyo : Nihon Yakugakkai, 2003
Suzanne Kamatawas born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.
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