Aches, Pains and Other Diseases
Life is a unity. It is one and indivisible yet manifest in all animals and plants. The tree in front of my house has same life as I, not similar but identical. Our bodies are animated by life. Tribal people all over the world call it the animator. They therefore recognize kinship with birds, animals and plants.
Life’s Wisdom is embedded in every being. Furthermore it comes afresh every day with the air we breathe and sunshine in which we bask. Everyone living in the wild imbibes it. But when some animals (particularly we humans) insulate themselves by living inside four walls, they lose touch with the free flowing Manna. But nature in its generosity does not give up. It punches us to puncture our shell. The pain immobilizes and makes us lie down to pay attention. If we recognize true nature and purpose of this pain, the gift of precious wisdom is delivered and the pain goes.
I illustrate this with a personal experience.
In the beginning of December 2008 I woke up one morning with a pain in my right thigh. It was not severe but vexing enough to ring an alarm. I tried to recall what all I had done the previous day. It was an ordinary day and I had followed my routine of exercise, deskwork and leisure of a couple of short naps. I definitely had not hurt myself. There was no telltale sign on my leg, no swelling, no red or blue color, not even a scratch. Yet the pain persisted and by the following morning it became severe.
I got up from bed feeling considerable pain but when I tried to walk the pain became so intense. I knew it was a major event not likely to go away as quickly as it had come. Both bedrooms in our duplex house are upstairs. So we got a bed brought down with the help of some visiting friends and I made myself as comfortable as was possible.
Low pain was constant but it flared every time I moved my right leg. I lay on bed and meditated most of the time. Neighbors got word and came to see me. They gave suggestions. I heard but didn’t feel the necessity to do anything in a hurry. It is not my habit to run to a doctor for every little ache. Four days passed. My friend and neighbor Sreedhar came in to announce that he was taking me to our good Doctor C. M. at 10am. I said okay for when this dear friend comes in such situations there is no other answer.
With great difficulty I walked the short distance from car to the elevator and we were in the doctor’s room. She sat me down and asked what had happened. I told her I did not think there was anything wrong with me. My pain was benign and had come with a gift! Dr. C. M. was not surprised, for she knew me well. “You may be right, but we have to find out our way,” she said. She made me lie down on a bunk, examined me, and said she will make appointments with some specialists and inform me when to come. In a week I was checked by three of them. All gave me a clean chit. She said she too was puzzled. She prescribed some pills twice. I bought and swallowed the first bunch, but quietly skipped the second. I knew they were painkillers and I did not need them.
There was nothing wrong with me. The pain was a wrap covering a priceless gift. I needed patiently to wait. After a long month I knew the gift was being delivered and it was with me. The pain mellowed and soon disappeared.
I had had such experiences many times since 1956. Most of them came when I needed guidance. The path to take was pointed. I was healed. I know that a silent Animator permeates my body. In fact that is who I am. It needs to draw my attention and communicate with me in silence, not words. If I am ready to receive the message it comes clear as bell.
Partap Aggarwal
January 9, 2010
Environment in a New Light III
Environment in a New Light III
“Prabhate mala darshanam” -unknown
This dictum probably comes from Vedic time. It says, “every morning look at your feces.” As we try to make our lifestyle more eco-friendly by avoiding wrong eating, saving water, and recycling sewage, this advice of a Rishi (sage) of ancient times is more appropriate now than it was then.
It sounds simple; some people may even think it simplistic. But it is profoundly wise counsel. I have lived by it all my life and it has worked like a powerful talisman.
By its odor, color, texture, shape, quantity our feces clearly tells us every single day whether or not we are eating the right food in right quantity.
For instance, normally our feces should not stink. Its rancid odor means we are eating wrong food in large quantity and it is not digesting properly inside the stomach. When we change our food, the offensive smell goes. This can be seen in animals also. I lived in upstate New York for several decades. In the 60’s and 70’s the state was dotted with small farmers many of whom raised dairy cows in addition. Cows were mostly grazed in the fields and fed some additional grain meal to sustain their high milk yield. Their excreta smelled okay. But later, in the 80’s and 90’s yield of milk per cow had to be raised in order for the farmer to remain competitive. Factory made feeds of higher nutrient content became vogue. They contained grain and waste materials from food processing plants. Some clever animal nutrition experts began to recommend feed factories to use waste products of butcheries. These included blood, ground up hoofs, bones and bits of viscera. Cow dung odor turned terribly obnoxious. Dairy farms began to stink so bad that one could smell them from miles.
This trend is changing for the better in the present millennium as dairy farmers go organic. I visited some of them in 2006. Offensive odor in many dairies had vanished. We visited a highly successful farmer who keeps 80 cows. “It smells good,” he said. My family and I live in a house right next to the dairy. He served us snacks and coffee in his house to prove his word. He also told us that Cornell experts had warned him that he would not be viable for long. “I proved them wrong,” he boasted! As you can see I am doing well.
In India we have always considered cow dung shuddha, (clean and safe). We use hands to lift, carry and use it. Our houses were regularly plastered with it. The reason obviously is that we fed the cows their natural feed, i.e. grasses. No wonder we call it gobar, not cow shit!
When I am at Navadarshanam I never use indoor WC, for I do not want to waste precious water and valuable manure. I find a secluded area near our house and a spot where a plant can use manure. I cover the excreta with mud or dry cow dung if some is found nearby.
Most of the time all is well but sometimes odors turn rancid. I quickly make amends. Sometimes one may notice little worms squirming and whole peas and other grains. Timely action sets things right. Feces may occasionally be too runny or hard. It may be of unusual color or have too much white mucus. It may come out as one long piece, or in small shreds. Sometimes I have to spread it with a twig to see clearly. Whenever one or more unusual signs appear, they tell a tale. I can easily recall what and how much I ate the previous day. Because of long experience I know what amends I need to make. Often all I have to do is miss one or two meals and all turns well. But occasionally I have to fast for a day or much longer. I must also avoid foods that do not agree with my stomach. One thing to remember always is to eat less.
Human feces dry quickly in open air. Good living soil decomposes it quite fast. I cannot even find it after three or four days in many places; microbes and insects have eaten it up. All of it is finished off and gone. There is no room for pathogens to lurk. But when we give human feces a watery medium, like in a modern flush latrine, pathogens love it and thrive. No wonder every city in the world faces a huge sewage disposal problem. There is no solution in sight while the problem worsens at alarming speed.
Mala Darshanam teaches us much more. But it won’t fit in this paper.
Partap, December 29, 2009
“Prabhate mala darshanam” -unknown
This dictum probably comes from Vedic time. It says, “every morning look at your feces.” As we try to make our lifestyle more eco-friendly by avoiding wrong eating, saving water, and recycling sewage, this advice of a Rishi (sage) of ancient times is more appropriate now than it was then.
It sounds simple; some people may even think it simplistic. But it is profoundly wise counsel. I have lived by it all my life and it has worked like a powerful talisman.
By its odor, color, texture, shape, quantity our feces clearly tells us every single day whether or not we are eating the right food in right quantity.
For instance, normally our feces should not stink. Its rancid odor means we are eating wrong food in large quantity and it is not digesting properly inside the stomach. When we change our food, the offensive smell goes. This can be seen in animals also. I lived in upstate New York for several decades. In the 60’s and 70’s the state was dotted with small farmers many of whom raised dairy cows in addition. Cows were mostly grazed in the fields and fed some additional grain meal to sustain their high milk yield. Their excreta smelled okay. But later, in the 80’s and 90’s yield of milk per cow had to be raised in order for the farmer to remain competitive. Factory made feeds of higher nutrient content became vogue. They contained grain and waste materials from food processing plants. Some clever animal nutrition experts began to recommend feed factories to use waste products of butcheries. These included blood, ground up hoofs, bones and bits of viscera. Cow dung odor turned terribly obnoxious. Dairy farms began to stink so bad that one could smell them from miles.
This trend is changing for the better in the present millennium as dairy farmers go organic. I visited some of them in 2006. Offensive odor in many dairies had vanished. We visited a highly successful farmer who keeps 80 cows. “It smells good,” he said. My family and I live in a house right next to the dairy. He served us snacks and coffee in his house to prove his word. He also told us that Cornell experts had warned him that he would not be viable for long. “I proved them wrong,” he boasted! As you can see I am doing well.
In India we have always considered cow dung shuddha, (clean and safe). We use hands to lift, carry and use it. Our houses were regularly plastered with it. The reason obviously is that we fed the cows their natural feed, i.e. grasses. No wonder we call it gobar, not cow shit!
When I am at Navadarshanam I never use indoor WC, for I do not want to waste precious water and valuable manure. I find a secluded area near our house and a spot where a plant can use manure. I cover the excreta with mud or dry cow dung if some is found nearby.
Most of the time all is well but sometimes odors turn rancid. I quickly make amends. Sometimes one may notice little worms squirming and whole peas and other grains. Timely action sets things right. Feces may occasionally be too runny or hard. It may be of unusual color or have too much white mucus. It may come out as one long piece, or in small shreds. Sometimes I have to spread it with a twig to see clearly. Whenever one or more unusual signs appear, they tell a tale. I can easily recall what and how much I ate the previous day. Because of long experience I know what amends I need to make. Often all I have to do is miss one or two meals and all turns well. But occasionally I have to fast for a day or much longer. I must also avoid foods that do not agree with my stomach. One thing to remember always is to eat less.
Human feces dry quickly in open air. Good living soil decomposes it quite fast. I cannot even find it after three or four days in many places; microbes and insects have eaten it up. All of it is finished off and gone. There is no room for pathogens to lurk. But when we give human feces a watery medium, like in a modern flush latrine, pathogens love it and thrive. No wonder every city in the world faces a huge sewage disposal problem. There is no solution in sight while the problem worsens at alarming speed.
Mala Darshanam teaches us much more. But it won’t fit in this paper.
Partap, December 29, 2009
Environment in a New Light (part II)
Environment in a New Light (part II)
“The need today seems to be to reexamine our way of life in every detail. Whatever seems in anyway to harm the natural order must be shed and what promotes health and peace needs to be adopted. For this we must have reverence for the Creator and discipline to obey rules that govern the universe.” We concluded the last article with this statement. Now let us see what all we need to shed and what to adopt.
AIR
Let us first talk of air, for it is our most important intake. We breathe it all day and all night throughout our lives. On waking up we need to stretch our limbs and take deep breaths. Next we city folks must find a way to soak in our quota of oxygen for the day. The best place for it is a local park where there are trees and other plants. Morning air has moisture that soaks up impurities. The plants pull this moisture, drink it and eat what’s in it. You see it as dew on the leaves. The air is washed clean, or relatively so! We must add this qualification because the amount of pollutants we put into the air is huge.
Let us walk in this morning air for ½ or at least ¼ hour. Brisk walk is better, but do not torture your body. Remember always to remain comfortable or you can hurt yourself.
Then sit down on a bench. Do basic neck exercises. These are especially important for people over 40, or if you use a computer for work. Take long breaths inhaling maximum amount of air so that your lungs are full and belly puffed up. Then exhale. Be sure the belly contracts. In most people this process is reversed and very harmful. To learn the correct way, observe a baby sleeping in a crib. That is the way we need to breathe every day all our lives. It is not difficult to learn.
Learn 6-7 basic pranayams as Baba Ram Dev teaches them. Do each 10 or more times. But this is not enough. In addition pick one and do it continuously for 15 to 20 minutes. I do the kapal bhati 500 hundred times. This way you absorb a lot of oxygen in your blood and rest of the body. Specific pranayams are recommended for different ailments. Take advice from a yoga teacher if you need it.
Next, you stand up straight and do some basic exercises of your arms. This is essential for people with sedentary jobs.
There are many benefits of this daily routine. One is that you become conscious of the quality of air you breathe and learn to avoid polluting it. You then know that it is good to avoid known polluted areas in the city. Cut down on shopping. Reduce your needs. Do whatever you can to be in cleaner areas. I always use Volvo buses in Bangalore. This also keeps me safe from prevailing road rage.
I have often mentioned what “I” do only to stress that you too can do it. For I believe that everyone can do what even I can do.
Partap Aggarwal
December 24, 2009
“The need today seems to be to reexamine our way of life in every detail. Whatever seems in anyway to harm the natural order must be shed and what promotes health and peace needs to be adopted. For this we must have reverence for the Creator and discipline to obey rules that govern the universe.” We concluded the last article with this statement. Now let us see what all we need to shed and what to adopt.
AIR
Let us first talk of air, for it is our most important intake. We breathe it all day and all night throughout our lives. On waking up we need to stretch our limbs and take deep breaths. Next we city folks must find a way to soak in our quota of oxygen for the day. The best place for it is a local park where there are trees and other plants. Morning air has moisture that soaks up impurities. The plants pull this moisture, drink it and eat what’s in it. You see it as dew on the leaves. The air is washed clean, or relatively so! We must add this qualification because the amount of pollutants we put into the air is huge.
Let us walk in this morning air for ½ or at least ¼ hour. Brisk walk is better, but do not torture your body. Remember always to remain comfortable or you can hurt yourself.
Then sit down on a bench. Do basic neck exercises. These are especially important for people over 40, or if you use a computer for work. Take long breaths inhaling maximum amount of air so that your lungs are full and belly puffed up. Then exhale. Be sure the belly contracts. In most people this process is reversed and very harmful. To learn the correct way, observe a baby sleeping in a crib. That is the way we need to breathe every day all our lives. It is not difficult to learn.
Learn 6-7 basic pranayams as Baba Ram Dev teaches them. Do each 10 or more times. But this is not enough. In addition pick one and do it continuously for 15 to 20 minutes. I do the kapal bhati 500 hundred times. This way you absorb a lot of oxygen in your blood and rest of the body. Specific pranayams are recommended for different ailments. Take advice from a yoga teacher if you need it.
Next, you stand up straight and do some basic exercises of your arms. This is essential for people with sedentary jobs.
There are many benefits of this daily routine. One is that you become conscious of the quality of air you breathe and learn to avoid polluting it. You then know that it is good to avoid known polluted areas in the city. Cut down on shopping. Reduce your needs. Do whatever you can to be in cleaner areas. I always use Volvo buses in Bangalore. This also keeps me safe from prevailing road rage.
I have often mentioned what “I” do only to stress that you too can do it. For I believe that everyone can do what even I can do.
Partap Aggarwal
December 24, 2009
Environment In a New Light
Environment In a New Light
Even as far back as the1950’s there was much talking about environment. Few people heard this talk seriously. I know many friends called such people doomsayers. As time went by pollution levels rose and the media began to think environment news was fit to print. Awareness level of people went up. They began to hear with more interest. But most of them thought ‘scientists’ would fix the problems. There is nothing to worry. More recently, when the globe began to overheat enough for people actually to feel the effect their interest level rapidly shot up. Environment talk became louder and concern more urgent. Many friends have begun to see sense in such talk and merit in this concern.
I persevered in my interest in environment study. As a result I have learned little more and become slightly wiser. Today I say there is no environment problem. For rain still falls and water percolates into the earth. The Sun shines and the air flows. New species of living beings evolve. Older ones adapt to the natural environment. New ones grow and change. Individuals die and yield their bodies to the living so that life should continue. Everything needed by the living is still provided by nature. Otherwise life on this Earth would have ended.
Even in my primary school I learned through shlokas of the Vedic Rishis that the entire universe is one single whole. All things are connected. Therefore, whatever any one of us does affects all the rest. Because we are part of a unity, whatever we do must get reflected in the whole. If my community and I cut down the trees around our settlement we must face consequences. But if we cherish the old trees and plant more for fruit and other produce we would benefit. Nature gives us a lot of freedom to act but whatever choice we make appropriate consequence follow. This law governs us humans and all other living beings. No one is exempt, not even Vishnu, Shiva and other deities.
Condition of our environment is bad and it is rapidly deteriorating further. It is not just one country or a few people who are responsible but it is the worldview and lifestyle promoted by the industrial civilization. Sadly it has spread worldwide and is still expanding. A few islands of sane living that still linger are fast disappearing.
The need today seems to be to reexamine our way of life in every detail. Whatever seems in anyway to harm the natural order must be shed and what promotes health and peace needs to be adopted. For this we must have reverence for the Creator and discipline to obey rules that govern the universe.
Partap,
December 13, 2009
Even as far back as the1950’s there was much talking about environment. Few people heard this talk seriously. I know many friends called such people doomsayers. As time went by pollution levels rose and the media began to think environment news was fit to print. Awareness level of people went up. They began to hear with more interest. But most of them thought ‘scientists’ would fix the problems. There is nothing to worry. More recently, when the globe began to overheat enough for people actually to feel the effect their interest level rapidly shot up. Environment talk became louder and concern more urgent. Many friends have begun to see sense in such talk and merit in this concern.
I persevered in my interest in environment study. As a result I have learned little more and become slightly wiser. Today I say there is no environment problem. For rain still falls and water percolates into the earth. The Sun shines and the air flows. New species of living beings evolve. Older ones adapt to the natural environment. New ones grow and change. Individuals die and yield their bodies to the living so that life should continue. Everything needed by the living is still provided by nature. Otherwise life on this Earth would have ended.
Even in my primary school I learned through shlokas of the Vedic Rishis that the entire universe is one single whole. All things are connected. Therefore, whatever any one of us does affects all the rest. Because we are part of a unity, whatever we do must get reflected in the whole. If my community and I cut down the trees around our settlement we must face consequences. But if we cherish the old trees and plant more for fruit and other produce we would benefit. Nature gives us a lot of freedom to act but whatever choice we make appropriate consequence follow. This law governs us humans and all other living beings. No one is exempt, not even Vishnu, Shiva and other deities.
Condition of our environment is bad and it is rapidly deteriorating further. It is not just one country or a few people who are responsible but it is the worldview and lifestyle promoted by the industrial civilization. Sadly it has spread worldwide and is still expanding. A few islands of sane living that still linger are fast disappearing.
The need today seems to be to reexamine our way of life in every detail. Whatever seems in anyway to harm the natural order must be shed and what promotes health and peace needs to be adopted. For this we must have reverence for the Creator and discipline to obey rules that govern the universe.
Partap,
December 13, 2009
Baba Amte’s Childhood Lesson
Baba Amte’s Childhood Lesson
I subscribe to a Hindi-language monthly magazine called Madhusanchaya. It is in fact a modest 8 page non-profit publication circulated to a small number of subscribers. But every issue has nuggets of wisdom. In one of the recent issues there was this beautiful piece that describes a touching incident in Baba Amte’s childhood.
When Baba was just about 6 years old his mother gave him a Japanese toy. It had a human figure set on a wooden base. The figure was so fitted on a spring that one could push it down flat on the base. But as soon as the figure was released it shot back up in its original upright posture. Boy Amte found it very amusing.
One day his mother sat him down next to her and asked, “Son, do you know that this toy has an important message for you?”
“No” said Amte, “ I do not get any message. Please, mother, tell me what it is.”
The mother explained, “In life, every one experiences many big and small pit falls. But one must remember not to feel overwhelmed. Knowing that they are a normal part of life one must stand up as quickly as possible and resume ones journey.
You must remember this lesson all your life.”
“Very good, mother,” said Amte. “I will always remember what you have told me. I promise.”
Baba Amte, a towering personality of modern India, lived a long life of very difficult struggles. But remembering what his mother had taught him he faced them with courage and overcame every single one of them.
Partap
December 8, 2009
1
Enjoyed your story about Baba Amte. He must have been extraordinarily courageous to have himself injected with leprosy when it was commonly felt to be contagious. When I looked him up in Wikipedia it said, surprisingly, that he was an atheist. It then offers a poignant quote from him: "I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see, I sought my god, but my god eluded me; And then I sought my sisters and my brothers, and in them I found all three." It also said he liked to think of himself as a "mechanic with an oil can" ministering to small ills, rather than the spectacular, although he played a major role in India's struggle for independence. Your story about his childhood experience is an interesting sidelight.
Wikipedia also said he worked with the Gonds. Remember the Gond community northeast of Hoshangabad (I think it was northeast)? At Rasulia, I was told they were an "island" of the original inhabitants that survived the southward migration of people displaced by the invasion of the Aryans. Are you familiar with any studies of them? From the N.Y. Times I get intimations that Maoist groups in Madhya Pradesh are trying to appeal to them. But it's all a muddle in my head and I'd like to read more about it.
Enjoyed your account of "Renu's first visit to America." It was funny.
Partap, your example may be spreading, in the sense of encouraging others to write up their recollections as well. My cousins and I are finding great joy in sifting through family diaries and records. But we know we're missing many stories. It's important to write them down as you have been doing. So far, I've written about 45, and still have many more to go. One, incidentally, is about John Gwaltney whom I think you knew at Cornell. I'll attach it to this e-mail and hope you get it.
Again, thanks for your stories. Winter is here. Today, I've been shoveling paths through about 5 inches of wet snow. Enjoy India's beautiful winter weather!
With best wishes,
Wendell
Thanks Wendell for the wonderful rich reply. I vividly remember visiting with John Gwaltney. We were both at an Anthropological meeting in NYC. He said many memmorable things. One of them was: you know I can place you so well that if I had a gun and wanted to shoot, I could get every one of you. This was when someone asked if he could find his way down the fire escape from fifth floor. I am glad Cornell hired him. For it I give my alma mater a high grade.
JOHN GWALTNEY
The rule is: "three strikes and you're out." But not for John Gwaltney. He had three strikes against him and he was still swinging.
One strike was his poverty. Another was his blindness. A third, he was black and bore scars of discrimination from childhood.
I don't know how he afforded classes at Columbia University. Perhaps he had a scholarship. If so, it didn't help with his transportation problem.
The rest of us lived on campus, a few steps from class. Not John. He lived in New Jersey. His itinerary every day included a bus ride from his home to the terminal on the Jersey side of the Hudson. Transfer to the train under the Hudson River to the Port Authority Terminal on the Manhattan side. Find his way through the labyrinth of this massive terminal to the subway station. Take the express train on the IRT line to 96th Street. Cross the platform to the local train to 116th Street. This put him just outside the gate to the Columbia campus. Cross the campus and up the steps near Low Library, across another plaza to Schermerhorn Hall. Then down several floors to our classroom in the basement.
John did this in utter darkness, without the benefit of eyesight. Going home, he reversed the sequence.
We sat next to each other in Professor Bowles class on the anthropology of India. Occasionally, John would be late.
"I feel off the subway platform at 96th Street," he explained one morning.
Once he had scratch marks on his arms and face. He laughed. "You know how the campus is almost completely paved over. Well, I found one of the few places where it wasn't, a bed of roses!" In climbing the stairs near Low he went too far and fell six feet over the side of the stairs into a flower bed.
Once, we were talking about Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal.
"You know, Wendell, I've got to tell you a story about his wife, Eleanor. I was a small kid. It was the 1930s and the middle of the Depression. My mom wanted something or other from Social Services and she got the run-around."
"You know what my mom did? She whipped off a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt. And do you know what happened? She got a letter back! And what's more, Social Services called up and said to come in and pick up the thing my mom wanted!"
Maybe that's where John got his moxie. Not once did he ever imply that he was a victim. Not even with three strikes against him. He was a doer and a mover.
Our paths went separate directions after Columbia. However, I heard that Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist at Columbia, took him under her wing. She may have given him a boost. But he did the rest.
Like his mother, whatever John did, he did under his own power.
The last I heard, John was a full professor at an Ivy League school, Cornell.
Enjoyed your story about Baba Amte. He must have been extraordinarily courageous to have himself injected with leprosy when it was commonly felt to be contagious. When I looked him up in Wikipedia it said, surprisingly, that he was an atheist. It then offers a poignant quote from him: "I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see, I sought my god, but my god eluded me; And then I sought my sisters and my brothers, and in them I found all three." It also said he liked to think of himself as a "mechanic with an oil can" ministering to small ills, rather than the spectacular, although he played a major role in India's struggle for independence. Your story about his childhood experience is an interesting sidelight.
Wikipedia also said he worked with the Gonds. Remember the Gond community northeast of Hoshangabad (I think it was northeast)? At Rasulia, I was told they were an "island" of the original inhabitants that survived the southward migration of people displaced by the invasion of the Aryans. Are you familiar with any studies of them? From the N.Y. Times I get intimations that Maoist groups in Madhya Pradesh are trying to appeal to them. But it's all a muddle in my head and I'd like to read more about it.
Enjoyed your account of "Renu's first visit to America." It was funny.
Partap, your example may be spreading, in the sense of encouraging others to write up their recollections as well. My cousins and I are finding great joy in sifting through family diaries and records. But we know we're missing many stories. It's important to write them down as you have been doing. So far, I've written about 45, and still have many more to go. One, incidentally, is about John Gwaltney whom I think you knew at Cornell. I'll attach it to this e-mail and hope you get it.
Again, thanks for your stories. Winter is here. Today, I've been shoveling paths through about 5 inches of wet snow. Enjoy India's beautiful winter weather!
With best wishes,
Wendell
I subscribe to a Hindi-language monthly magazine called Madhusanchaya. It is in fact a modest 8 page non-profit publication circulated to a small number of subscribers. But every issue has nuggets of wisdom. In one of the recent issues there was this beautiful piece that describes a touching incident in Baba Amte’s childhood.
When Baba was just about 6 years old his mother gave him a Japanese toy. It had a human figure set on a wooden base. The figure was so fitted on a spring that one could push it down flat on the base. But as soon as the figure was released it shot back up in its original upright posture. Boy Amte found it very amusing.
One day his mother sat him down next to her and asked, “Son, do you know that this toy has an important message for you?”
“No” said Amte, “ I do not get any message. Please, mother, tell me what it is.”
The mother explained, “In life, every one experiences many big and small pit falls. But one must remember not to feel overwhelmed. Knowing that they are a normal part of life one must stand up as quickly as possible and resume ones journey.
You must remember this lesson all your life.”
“Very good, mother,” said Amte. “I will always remember what you have told me. I promise.”
Baba Amte, a towering personality of modern India, lived a long life of very difficult struggles. But remembering what his mother had taught him he faced them with courage and overcame every single one of them.
Partap
December 8, 2009
1
Enjoyed your story about Baba Amte. He must have been extraordinarily courageous to have himself injected with leprosy when it was commonly felt to be contagious. When I looked him up in Wikipedia it said, surprisingly, that he was an atheist. It then offers a poignant quote from him: "I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see, I sought my god, but my god eluded me; And then I sought my sisters and my brothers, and in them I found all three." It also said he liked to think of himself as a "mechanic with an oil can" ministering to small ills, rather than the spectacular, although he played a major role in India's struggle for independence. Your story about his childhood experience is an interesting sidelight.
Wikipedia also said he worked with the Gonds. Remember the Gond community northeast of Hoshangabad (I think it was northeast)? At Rasulia, I was told they were an "island" of the original inhabitants that survived the southward migration of people displaced by the invasion of the Aryans. Are you familiar with any studies of them? From the N.Y. Times I get intimations that Maoist groups in Madhya Pradesh are trying to appeal to them. But it's all a muddle in my head and I'd like to read more about it.
Enjoyed your account of "Renu's first visit to America." It was funny.
Partap, your example may be spreading, in the sense of encouraging others to write up their recollections as well. My cousins and I are finding great joy in sifting through family diaries and records. But we know we're missing many stories. It's important to write them down as you have been doing. So far, I've written about 45, and still have many more to go. One, incidentally, is about John Gwaltney whom I think you knew at Cornell. I'll attach it to this e-mail and hope you get it.
Again, thanks for your stories. Winter is here. Today, I've been shoveling paths through about 5 inches of wet snow. Enjoy India's beautiful winter weather!
With best wishes,
Wendell
Thanks Wendell for the wonderful rich reply. I vividly remember visiting with John Gwaltney. We were both at an Anthropological meeting in NYC. He said many memmorable things. One of them was: you know I can place you so well that if I had a gun and wanted to shoot, I could get every one of you. This was when someone asked if he could find his way down the fire escape from fifth floor. I am glad Cornell hired him. For it I give my alma mater a high grade.
JOHN GWALTNEY
The rule is: "three strikes and you're out." But not for John Gwaltney. He had three strikes against him and he was still swinging.
One strike was his poverty. Another was his blindness. A third, he was black and bore scars of discrimination from childhood.
I don't know how he afforded classes at Columbia University. Perhaps he had a scholarship. If so, it didn't help with his transportation problem.
The rest of us lived on campus, a few steps from class. Not John. He lived in New Jersey. His itinerary every day included a bus ride from his home to the terminal on the Jersey side of the Hudson. Transfer to the train under the Hudson River to the Port Authority Terminal on the Manhattan side. Find his way through the labyrinth of this massive terminal to the subway station. Take the express train on the IRT line to 96th Street. Cross the platform to the local train to 116th Street. This put him just outside the gate to the Columbia campus. Cross the campus and up the steps near Low Library, across another plaza to Schermerhorn Hall. Then down several floors to our classroom in the basement.
John did this in utter darkness, without the benefit of eyesight. Going home, he reversed the sequence.
We sat next to each other in Professor Bowles class on the anthropology of India. Occasionally, John would be late.
"I feel off the subway platform at 96th Street," he explained one morning.
Once he had scratch marks on his arms and face. He laughed. "You know how the campus is almost completely paved over. Well, I found one of the few places where it wasn't, a bed of roses!" In climbing the stairs near Low he went too far and fell six feet over the side of the stairs into a flower bed.
Once, we were talking about Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal.
"You know, Wendell, I've got to tell you a story about his wife, Eleanor. I was a small kid. It was the 1930s and the middle of the Depression. My mom wanted something or other from Social Services and she got the run-around."
"You know what my mom did? She whipped off a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt. And do you know what happened? She got a letter back! And what's more, Social Services called up and said to come in and pick up the thing my mom wanted!"
Maybe that's where John got his moxie. Not once did he ever imply that he was a victim. Not even with three strikes against him. He was a doer and a mover.
Our paths went separate directions after Columbia. However, I heard that Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist at Columbia, took him under her wing. She may have given him a boost. But he did the rest.
Like his mother, whatever John did, he did under his own power.
The last I heard, John was a full professor at an Ivy League school, Cornell.
Enjoyed your story about Baba Amte. He must have been extraordinarily courageous to have himself injected with leprosy when it was commonly felt to be contagious. When I looked him up in Wikipedia it said, surprisingly, that he was an atheist. It then offers a poignant quote from him: "I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see, I sought my god, but my god eluded me; And then I sought my sisters and my brothers, and in them I found all three." It also said he liked to think of himself as a "mechanic with an oil can" ministering to small ills, rather than the spectacular, although he played a major role in India's struggle for independence. Your story about his childhood experience is an interesting sidelight.
Wikipedia also said he worked with the Gonds. Remember the Gond community northeast of Hoshangabad (I think it was northeast)? At Rasulia, I was told they were an "island" of the original inhabitants that survived the southward migration of people displaced by the invasion of the Aryans. Are you familiar with any studies of them? From the N.Y. Times I get intimations that Maoist groups in Madhya Pradesh are trying to appeal to them. But it's all a muddle in my head and I'd like to read more about it.
Enjoyed your account of "Renu's first visit to America." It was funny.
Partap, your example may be spreading, in the sense of encouraging others to write up their recollections as well. My cousins and I are finding great joy in sifting through family diaries and records. But we know we're missing many stories. It's important to write them down as you have been doing. So far, I've written about 45, and still have many more to go. One, incidentally, is about John Gwaltney whom I think you knew at Cornell. I'll attach it to this e-mail and hope you get it.
Again, thanks for your stories. Winter is here. Today, I've been shoveling paths through about 5 inches of wet snow. Enjoy India's beautiful winter weather!
With best wishes,
Wendell
First Visit of Renu to America on Donkeyback
In the year 1964 Renu went to visit her Mamaji (mother’s brother) in a small, very remote village in the Alwar district of Rajasthan state in India. That Mamaji was I, and here is the story.
I was doing an ethnographic study of the Meo people, also called Mewatis, and had settled in the village named Chavandi Kalan. This was in a semi desert area and the village was about 5 miles from the nearest big town Tapikada on the roadside. Camel was our usual transport. My younger sister and her family then lived in Delhi. She wrote and asked if she could visit us. I gave her detailed instructions how to reach the village and told her to be sure to inform me in good time so I could come to receive her in Tapukada. Her letter did not reach me in time.
When my sister with four small children, one of them being Renu, got off the bus I was not there to meet them. She waited for a while and as it was getting late in the afternoon her fear of getting stranded in a totally strange village began to turn into alarm. She went and talked with a shopkeeper. He knew me well and realizing the situation of my sister and the children quickly arranged help. There was a potter in the village that offered to help bring the visitors to Chavandi. It took him little time to get his three donkeys ready. He carefully loaded the luggage on the backs of the donkeys and also made room for the youngest two children to ride. The older children and my sister had to walk alongside the animals and the potter.
The road was unpaved and passed through many rough patches. There were streams to ford and dry beds full of sand to trudge. It was a daunting experience for my sister and especially for the children who had never been outside the city. Going was painfully slow. They had covered even half the distance when the sun went down. Going became tougher. Luckily the moon appeared and lit the path. By late evening the caravan arrived in Chavandi and were safely guided a villager to our mud house covered with thatch. Wow, my sister heaved a sigh and said, “What an experience!”
They stayed with us for a week. The children had the most thrilling time of their lives. My four and a half year old daughter Indu knew the village like the back of her hand. Everyone in the village knew her. She had many good friends. In her local Mewati style dress she blended in the local setting as a Meo. Acting as a guide to her cousins she took them everywhere and showed them whatever she thought was worth showing to outsiders. My wife Sudesh took her sister-in-law to meet her friends.
We went on several excursions—by walking, on camel back, and on bullock cart. We visited the nearby hills where we had a great picnic lunch.
My sister and the children had belly full of fun and it was the most unusual experience of their life.
To Renu this was America
Renu had always heard that Mamaji lived in America. So she concluded that Chavandi Kalan had to be America. There was no room for doubt in her mind.
All her friends in Delhi knew that Renu had gone to America to visit her Mamaji.
So they came to ask what America looked like. My sister was nearby but out of the children’s sight. She sensed what was to follow and sat down quietly to hear Renu’s description of America.
“Oh, America is not as big as Delhi but very different. There are very few brick houses. Most are built with mud, a few with stone. Women wear bright colored clothes and a lot of silver jewellery. Even little girls our age wear silver ornaments. My cousin Indu dresses just like the local children. Each house has an open yard where the elders sit and chat. Most men have beards.
There are many animals because all families own some. There are donkeys, horses, camels, cows, bullocks, goats and other animals. We rode on donkeys and camels. We also rode in bullock carts.”
One child asked, how do you go to America?
Renu answered. “We first ride a train, then bus, and towards the end we ride donkeys. Adults usually walk the last 5 miles. They packed our luggage on donkey-backs and put us children on top of it. It was very scary because the road was uneven. We came many times close to falling. I even fell once but luckily did not get hurt.
Someone asked: Did you like the visit?
Renu answered that she certainly would for it is much fun playing with American children and to visit those exciting places.
I am sure Renu remembers this, her first visit to ‘America.’
Partap
September 26, 2009
In the year 1964 Renu went to visit her Mamaji (mother’s brother) in a small, very remote village in the Alwar district of Rajasthan state in India. That Mamaji was I, and here is the story.
I was doing an ethnographic study of the Meo people, also called Mewatis, and had settled in the village named Chavandi Kalan. This was in a semi desert area and the village was about 5 miles from the nearest big town Tapikada on the roadside. Camel was our usual transport. My younger sister and her family then lived in Delhi. She wrote and asked if she could visit us. I gave her detailed instructions how to reach the village and told her to be sure to inform me in good time so I could come to receive her in Tapukada. Her letter did not reach me in time.
When my sister with four small children, one of them being Renu, got off the bus I was not there to meet them. She waited for a while and as it was getting late in the afternoon her fear of getting stranded in a totally strange village began to turn into alarm. She went and talked with a shopkeeper. He knew me well and realizing the situation of my sister and the children quickly arranged help. There was a potter in the village that offered to help bring the visitors to Chavandi. It took him little time to get his three donkeys ready. He carefully loaded the luggage on the backs of the donkeys and also made room for the youngest two children to ride. The older children and my sister had to walk alongside the animals and the potter.
The road was unpaved and passed through many rough patches. There were streams to ford and dry beds full of sand to trudge. It was a daunting experience for my sister and especially for the children who had never been outside the city. Going was painfully slow. They had covered even half the distance when the sun went down. Going became tougher. Luckily the moon appeared and lit the path. By late evening the caravan arrived in Chavandi and were safely guided a villager to our mud house covered with thatch. Wow, my sister heaved a sigh and said, “What an experience!”
They stayed with us for a week. The children had the most thrilling time of their lives. My four and a half year old daughter Indu knew the village like the back of her hand. Everyone in the village knew her. She had many good friends. In her local Mewati style dress she blended in the local setting as a Meo. Acting as a guide to her cousins she took them everywhere and showed them whatever she thought was worth showing to outsiders. My wife Sudesh took her sister-in-law to meet her friends.
We went on several excursions—by walking, on camel back, and on bullock cart. We visited the nearby hills where we had a great picnic lunch.
My sister and the children had belly full of fun and it was the most unusual experience of their life.
To Renu this was America
Renu had always heard that Mamaji lived in America. So she concluded that Chavandi Kalan had to be America. There was no room for doubt in her mind.
All her friends in Delhi knew that Renu had gone to America to visit her Mamaji.
So they came to ask what America looked like. My sister was nearby but out of the children’s sight. She sensed what was to follow and sat down quietly to hear Renu’s description of America.
“Oh, America is not as big as Delhi but very different. There are very few brick houses. Most are built with mud, a few with stone. Women wear bright colored clothes and a lot of silver jewellery. Even little girls our age wear silver ornaments. My cousin Indu dresses just like the local children. Each house has an open yard where the elders sit and chat. Most men have beards.
There are many animals because all families own some. There are donkeys, horses, camels, cows, bullocks, goats and other animals. We rode on donkeys and camels. We also rode in bullock carts.”
One child asked, how do you go to America?
Renu answered. “We first ride a train, then bus, and towards the end we ride donkeys. Adults usually walk the last 5 miles. They packed our luggage on donkey-backs and put us children on top of it. It was very scary because the road was uneven. We came many times close to falling. I even fell once but luckily did not get hurt.
Someone asked: Did you like the visit?
Renu answered that she certainly would for it is much fun playing with American children and to visit those exciting places.
I am sure Renu remembers this, her first visit to ‘America.’
Partap
September 26, 2009
Britanti
Britanti
Sometimes by mere chance a forgotten event pops up in mind. It may have remained buried deep in memory for many decades, yet it surfaces in surprising clarity. This happened when in the first half of August 2009 my younger sister Santosh and I went to our elder sister in Hyderabad. We were visiting and sharing old memories. Santosh suddenly recalled meeting an interesting man when we lived briefly in Bareilly, U.P. in the year 1948. She then was 14 and I about 17.
I also quickly remembered the man, for I had noticed him in the warehouse next to our house and gone over to befriend him. His name was Britanti. This Hindi word means a narrator. Indeed, he was an excellent raconteur and to use his skill he had an inexhaustible stock of stories. But in the city nobody cared to sit down with a humble watchman and listen. Britanti naturally was happy when I went over to converse with him-- especially hear.
He was a short lean man, about 45. I found out that he was able to read but not to write. This was common in his village. People were so eager to read the epic Ramayana that they learned to do so without bothering to learn writing that was not so pressing. Working as a watchman in an isolated warehouse gave Britanti plenty of free time to read but there was none to hear his stories. Since I was a captive audience he welcomed me and told stories sometimes nonstop. Most of them were rural folklore of the area drawn mainly from the Ramayana and other classics.
As we became friends, I began to notice peculiar personality traits of Britanti. One that struck me was that he ate not twice or three times a day like most of us but only once in two or three days. I am sure he told me why, but I do not remember all the details.
Britanti cooked with great seriousness and care. It was almost like worshipping God. He first cleaned his whole house and put a coat of mud mixed with cow dung on the floors and lower three feet of the walls. This was done with special care in the kitchen where even the stove was coated all over. All the utensils were of course rubbed to shine with sand and washed with clean water. While the floors dried Britanti went for his bath. He did not use soap but rubbed his skin and hair with a mixture of gram flour, yogurt, oil, and mud. He wore only an undergarment and tied a dhoti around his waist. His torso remained bare until the whole ritual was over.
His staple was chapattis, lentils and vegetables, or khichdi of rice and lentils with cooked vegetables. To garnish his food he used salt, turmeric, green chilies, and green coriander leaves. He used no expensive spices like black pepper. After the food was cooked he put some ghee over it to add taste and nutrition. He always ate alone sitting on the floor of his kitchen. No visitors were allowed at mealtime for it was a strictly private activity. He allowed me to sit and watch only after we had become very close friends. He also began to invite me to share his food when he noticed that I wanted to taste it.
The food was delicious, indeed very tasty. His favorite lentil was Tur that I had never tasted before. I liked it very much and always relished it also in the homes of many other local friends. Another dish I tasted for the first time was khichdi made with rice and split urad (black gram). This too was delicious.
Since Britanti did not eat daily as most of us, the quantity he ate appeared excessive. Both my sister and I noticed the huge heap of food he gulped down. We shared with other members of our family these peculiar habits of our friend. They were also interested and wanted to taste it. Britanti gladly cooked extra quantity and gave some to me. Everyone liked the food. In fact they were amazed that it tasted so good without using any nuts, spices or ghee at the time of cooking.
We noticed, or perhaps imagined, that his stomach bulged out enormously after eating the big meals. But I am sure we exaggerated the size of the bulge to add spice to the story. My sister had blown up the whole thing and thought that Britanti ate once a week and his stomach stretched out by 6 inches!
Partap
9th August 2009
Sometimes by mere chance a forgotten event pops up in mind. It may have remained buried deep in memory for many decades, yet it surfaces in surprising clarity. This happened when in the first half of August 2009 my younger sister Santosh and I went to our elder sister in Hyderabad. We were visiting and sharing old memories. Santosh suddenly recalled meeting an interesting man when we lived briefly in Bareilly, U.P. in the year 1948. She then was 14 and I about 17.
I also quickly remembered the man, for I had noticed him in the warehouse next to our house and gone over to befriend him. His name was Britanti. This Hindi word means a narrator. Indeed, he was an excellent raconteur and to use his skill he had an inexhaustible stock of stories. But in the city nobody cared to sit down with a humble watchman and listen. Britanti naturally was happy when I went over to converse with him-- especially hear.
He was a short lean man, about 45. I found out that he was able to read but not to write. This was common in his village. People were so eager to read the epic Ramayana that they learned to do so without bothering to learn writing that was not so pressing. Working as a watchman in an isolated warehouse gave Britanti plenty of free time to read but there was none to hear his stories. Since I was a captive audience he welcomed me and told stories sometimes nonstop. Most of them were rural folklore of the area drawn mainly from the Ramayana and other classics.
As we became friends, I began to notice peculiar personality traits of Britanti. One that struck me was that he ate not twice or three times a day like most of us but only once in two or three days. I am sure he told me why, but I do not remember all the details.
Britanti cooked with great seriousness and care. It was almost like worshipping God. He first cleaned his whole house and put a coat of mud mixed with cow dung on the floors and lower three feet of the walls. This was done with special care in the kitchen where even the stove was coated all over. All the utensils were of course rubbed to shine with sand and washed with clean water. While the floors dried Britanti went for his bath. He did not use soap but rubbed his skin and hair with a mixture of gram flour, yogurt, oil, and mud. He wore only an undergarment and tied a dhoti around his waist. His torso remained bare until the whole ritual was over.
His staple was chapattis, lentils and vegetables, or khichdi of rice and lentils with cooked vegetables. To garnish his food he used salt, turmeric, green chilies, and green coriander leaves. He used no expensive spices like black pepper. After the food was cooked he put some ghee over it to add taste and nutrition. He always ate alone sitting on the floor of his kitchen. No visitors were allowed at mealtime for it was a strictly private activity. He allowed me to sit and watch only after we had become very close friends. He also began to invite me to share his food when he noticed that I wanted to taste it.
The food was delicious, indeed very tasty. His favorite lentil was Tur that I had never tasted before. I liked it very much and always relished it also in the homes of many other local friends. Another dish I tasted for the first time was khichdi made with rice and split urad (black gram). This too was delicious.
Since Britanti did not eat daily as most of us, the quantity he ate appeared excessive. Both my sister and I noticed the huge heap of food he gulped down. We shared with other members of our family these peculiar habits of our friend. They were also interested and wanted to taste it. Britanti gladly cooked extra quantity and gave some to me. Everyone liked the food. In fact they were amazed that it tasted so good without using any nuts, spices or ghee at the time of cooking.
We noticed, or perhaps imagined, that his stomach bulged out enormously after eating the big meals. But I am sure we exaggerated the size of the bulge to add spice to the story. My sister had blown up the whole thing and thought that Britanti ate once a week and his stomach stretched out by 6 inches!
Partap
9th August 2009
My Father
My Father
I was born in Jaranwala on May 21, 1931. My father was in jail at that time. Earlier in the year he was participating in a peaceful, very mild, and harmless procession that was marching through that small town. People were carrying the tricolor Congress party flag and shouting slogans asking the British to go home and to leave India free. This kind of activities had begun several years earlier in other parts of India and had just begun in this area. The police arrived at some point and asked the people to disperse. Those who didn’t were arrested, later produced in court, and sentenced to jail terms of various lengths. My father at that time got one year. I have heard that this was his second and last visit to jail.
About 7-8 years later, as a small boy, I remember witnessing a similar scene. Its image is so well etched in my memory that I can quite vividly recall it to this day. There were about 100 people in the procession walking through the town’s main street. Most of them were young men belonging to shopkeeper families of different religions. There were Hindu, Sikh and Muslims and all of them looked quite serious about what they were doing. The long 3-4 abreast column of people began to spread into a circle at the end of the street where several policemen, some on horseback, were standing in the middle of the road.
They were shouting orders; ‘disperse, go home, you are breaking the law.’ The officer in charge of the police contingent was British. He had come from the District station. People ignored the orders and stayed put. Orders were shouted again and yet again. No one moved. Then the British officer rode forward and facing the crowd said in his highly accented Hindi: “Since you are not obeying I am asking one of the policemen to draw a line across the road. Those who dare to defy the law by crossing the line will be arrested.”
The police gave several minutes to the people to make up their minds. Fifteen to twenty men defiantly crossed the line. One of them was uncle Dewan Chand, my grandfather’s brother’s son. They were handcuffed and marched to the nearest police station. There they were locked up. We were not allowed to visit them. We learned that they would be produced before a judge in a court in Lyallpur in a week’s time. Later the exact date of the trial was announced. I went there with my older cousins and some of their friends. After waiting for some time we saw several handcuffed men being taken out of a court room. Among them was uncle Dewan Chand. He signed to us with two raised fingers and shouted with gleeful enthusiasm saying, ‘I got just two years in jail.’
I was very impressed thinking how brave he was. This experience added a big chunk to my knowledge and understanding of the world around me. Since then what I read and learned in school about British rule and our struggle for Freedom was real and highly meaningful.
Uncle Dewan Chand’s father Harnam Das lived in Lyallpur with his oldest son’s family. He was a congress party leader and very active in local politics. I met him many times and remember him clad in his beautiful handspun and hand woven clothes including his large turban. It was our elder Harnam Das who inspired my father and others to get involved in the Freedom struggle.
July 18, 2009
I was born in Jaranwala on May 21, 1931. My father was in jail at that time. Earlier in the year he was participating in a peaceful, very mild, and harmless procession that was marching through that small town. People were carrying the tricolor Congress party flag and shouting slogans asking the British to go home and to leave India free. This kind of activities had begun several years earlier in other parts of India and had just begun in this area. The police arrived at some point and asked the people to disperse. Those who didn’t were arrested, later produced in court, and sentenced to jail terms of various lengths. My father at that time got one year. I have heard that this was his second and last visit to jail.
About 7-8 years later, as a small boy, I remember witnessing a similar scene. Its image is so well etched in my memory that I can quite vividly recall it to this day. There were about 100 people in the procession walking through the town’s main street. Most of them were young men belonging to shopkeeper families of different religions. There were Hindu, Sikh and Muslims and all of them looked quite serious about what they were doing. The long 3-4 abreast column of people began to spread into a circle at the end of the street where several policemen, some on horseback, were standing in the middle of the road.
They were shouting orders; ‘disperse, go home, you are breaking the law.’ The officer in charge of the police contingent was British. He had come from the District station. People ignored the orders and stayed put. Orders were shouted again and yet again. No one moved. Then the British officer rode forward and facing the crowd said in his highly accented Hindi: “Since you are not obeying I am asking one of the policemen to draw a line across the road. Those who dare to defy the law by crossing the line will be arrested.”
The police gave several minutes to the people to make up their minds. Fifteen to twenty men defiantly crossed the line. One of them was uncle Dewan Chand, my grandfather’s brother’s son. They were handcuffed and marched to the nearest police station. There they were locked up. We were not allowed to visit them. We learned that they would be produced before a judge in a court in Lyallpur in a week’s time. Later the exact date of the trial was announced. I went there with my older cousins and some of their friends. After waiting for some time we saw several handcuffed men being taken out of a court room. Among them was uncle Dewan Chand. He signed to us with two raised fingers and shouted with gleeful enthusiasm saying, ‘I got just two years in jail.’
I was very impressed thinking how brave he was. This experience added a big chunk to my knowledge and understanding of the world around me. Since then what I read and learned in school about British rule and our struggle for Freedom was real and highly meaningful.
Uncle Dewan Chand’s father Harnam Das lived in Lyallpur with his oldest son’s family. He was a congress party leader and very active in local politics. I met him many times and remember him clad in his beautiful handspun and hand woven clothes including his large turban. It was our elder Harnam Das who inspired my father and others to get involved in the Freedom struggle.
July 18, 2009
My Mother (3)
My Mother (3)
Maa was married at age 15 into a joint family in Daska. My father was about 17. It was not a large family but big enough to provide most joys and glitches of a typical joint household. My father had six sisters and one brother. All were older except one sister. I am not sure, but from what I have heard, most of the older girls were married and had gone to their new families.
My father had already started the process of setting up a business at Jaranwala. It was in an area where after the First World War the British cleared the scrub and built a massive network of canals. Having remained fallow for several centuries the land was quite fertile. It was allotted as a reward to the Indian soldiers who had served in Europe. The majority was Sikh but there were also some Hindus and Muslims ex-military men.
Soon after marriage my parents moved to Jaranwala. My father’s youngest sister who was still unmarried went with them. She was exceptionally pretty and fun loving. As she came of age, boys were madly attracted to her. My mother tried to keep watch over her but the young lady was too clever. My father often heard complaints mainly through a close relative living nearby. My mother’s vigilance over her turned stricter than before but the inevitable happened. Cleaning and fixing everything up was messy. My father’s wrath found vent on my mother’s back. In fact my gentle mother suffered enormously on account of that beautiful, unruly teenager.
After several years of toil my father’s shop began to earn good profit. My grandfather and blind grandmother died in Daska. Father’s elder brother and his family locked up our ancestral home there and came over to Jaranwala. For a short period there was peace, but then my aunt died leaving 3 young children. Our weak, diabetic uncle married an attractive young sister-in-law. With her came a pack of troubles in the family. A variety of intrigues were hatched. Dubious relationships with friends in town began to surface. My aunt began to have children in quick succession. My mother too gave birth to a boy and a girl but both of them died. After that my three sisters and I came along and lived.
Clash between my mother and aunt intensified. My father often took it out on my meek innocent mother. Troubles in the family increased to an intolerable level for my father and he began to contemplate migrating to a new thriving port city called Karachi. In the late1920’s independence struggle intensified. My father got deeply involved and spent several periods in jail. When I was born in 1931 my father was in
Jail.
My father’s absence from home made my mother’s life much harder. Although my father was harsh on my mother his presence put a check on all members of the family and as a result there was less fighting. There were several reasons; my uncle was weak, my father was family’s breadwinner, and he was a strict disciplinarian.
Slowly but steadily the conflict level in the family rose to fever pitch. My father went to Karachi to explore business opportunities and within a year (1936) returned to take us there. I was about 5 years old. We lived there till 1947 when the country was divided.
My mother lived in Karachi for about 10 years and this was the best part of her life. She ran the household with love and great skill. The whole family thrived in her care. All my sisters were healthy and we did very well in school and in other activities. She watched over us with an eagle eye but remained unobtrusive as a mouse. I do not remember her stopping me from going with friends to play even when I was quite young. At as early an age as 7 I started regularly to go to an exercise and wrestling place every morning. My mother gave me money to buy a small block of butter from a dairy so I could eat it to build up my strength. I went to far off places for picnics and on expedition. Once, when I was in my 8th year, I used to go to a steep waterfront in the harbor area with other boys to learn to swim. For a time nobody in the family knew of this clandestine activity of mine but later they suspected it. By then I had learned to swim and demonstrated my skill to all my family when we went there on a Sunday evening. I was a strong swimmer and could dive from a high bridge. My mother and sisters were thrilled. My father heard and said nothing.
By her quiet but keenly watchful attitude my mother communicated her deep love and full confidence in my ability and sense of judgment. I was her only son amid three daughters. Hence in our patrilineal tradition my value as the male and carrier of the family name was unquestioned. Everyone recognized this and even I fully understood it. Yet my mother boldly gave me the freedom that most others in those circumstances would not have given. This gave me tremendous self-confidence. I excelled in studies, sports, and in many outdoor activities. Every Sunday evening with my parents’ permission I used to go with three other friends to eat at a restaurant. We went to a new place every time and paid from our own pocket money. Some years later my parents allowed me to go alone on a 1200-kilometer train journey.
When WWII started in 1939 imported hardware items became expensive and scarce. My father use to send them by post parcels to his customers in U. P. Every evening he stitched them up and made them ready for mailing. After returning from school I used to take them to the post office on my bicycle. Sometimes I made several trips because the loads were heavy. My father paid me 25 paise for each parcel. Some days I earned 2 whole Rupees that in those days was big money especially for a child. It made me about the richest kid in my class! My mother trusted me with the money and never asked my father not to spoil me with that much money.
When I was about 13 she took me as male escort to visit her brothers and parents in the city of Sialkot in Punjab. They had fallen to rock low time and the older of mother’s two brothers had TB. She took an Ayurvedic doctor with her. He was a confident young doctor and an uncle. His mother had died soon after his birth and my mother raised him. So he regarded my mother as his own. When we went to seek his help he came with us instantly without hesitation. After thoroughly examined the TB patient, he prescribed medicines according to his light. In his opinion recovery would take about a month and he sounded quite sure of it.
We returned to Karachi and bad news followed us. Mother’s younger brother, terribly depressed by the family’s miserable condition, committed suicide. A couple of weeks later the older one also died. The family was ruined; no earning member, two old parents, two infant boys and their young mother. Luckily some close relatives organized adequate help for the family to carry on.
All this crushed my mother. She did not talk much but her suffering was obvious. She was not eating properly and her movements were much slower. My older sisters were married and had gone to their new families. My father, younger sister and I were at home.
Maa complained of something clutching and pulling her heart and giving her terrible pain. Much worse than pain it was a sinking sensation that smotherd her. This syndrome was recurrent. It came and went and in between my mother dreaded its return. She suffered it for months mainly to continue to live for our sake.
A couple of times I heard her mumble (who will look after my Partap?). Childishly unaware of the meaning of her utterance, I tried to reassure her. Why do you worry Maa? You will soon be well and live long to raise me to manhood.
But the spasms were not abating. They were coming with menacing regularity. My mother kept bearing them bravely within herself. They were so complex, so wrenching, so severe that she was not able to describe them. My mother knew suffering for she suffered a great deal, but this was something else altogether. Heart attack is nothing compared to what she was feeling. Sometimes she said, ‘it feels as if someone is physically pulling my heart out of my body.’
One early morning when all of us were sleeping a massive attack of heart wrenching came upon my mother. It must have been totally unbearable. She released her body from our third floor balcony and dropped to the ground below with a thud. Life instantly slid out of the mangled corpse. We, and the whole neighborhood were stunned. They assembled, quickly wrapped up what was left, and proceeded to the crematorium in a procession.
A ton of ice hit me and traumatized my mind but I soon recovered. Mother was all over me and filled my entire body. ‘How would mother want me to act at such a testing time?’ I thought. I stopped crying and lifting myself up thinking I must be brave, strong, and able to help. Mother will be watching from the far. It would disappoint her if I cower and bend down. Suffering of my father and sister will increase.
I did not cry a single tear after that, and never again, not for my mother. For she was with me all the time for many years, even closer than when she lived in that body from where I came. I am thankful for holding on to some of what she shared with me. Her memory I shall treasure till my last breath.
Partap
11 July 2009
Maa was married at age 15 into a joint family in Daska. My father was about 17. It was not a large family but big enough to provide most joys and glitches of a typical joint household. My father had six sisters and one brother. All were older except one sister. I am not sure, but from what I have heard, most of the older girls were married and had gone to their new families.
My father had already started the process of setting up a business at Jaranwala. It was in an area where after the First World War the British cleared the scrub and built a massive network of canals. Having remained fallow for several centuries the land was quite fertile. It was allotted as a reward to the Indian soldiers who had served in Europe. The majority was Sikh but there were also some Hindus and Muslims ex-military men.
Soon after marriage my parents moved to Jaranwala. My father’s youngest sister who was still unmarried went with them. She was exceptionally pretty and fun loving. As she came of age, boys were madly attracted to her. My mother tried to keep watch over her but the young lady was too clever. My father often heard complaints mainly through a close relative living nearby. My mother’s vigilance over her turned stricter than before but the inevitable happened. Cleaning and fixing everything up was messy. My father’s wrath found vent on my mother’s back. In fact my gentle mother suffered enormously on account of that beautiful, unruly teenager.
After several years of toil my father’s shop began to earn good profit. My grandfather and blind grandmother died in Daska. Father’s elder brother and his family locked up our ancestral home there and came over to Jaranwala. For a short period there was peace, but then my aunt died leaving 3 young children. Our weak, diabetic uncle married an attractive young sister-in-law. With her came a pack of troubles in the family. A variety of intrigues were hatched. Dubious relationships with friends in town began to surface. My aunt began to have children in quick succession. My mother too gave birth to a boy and a girl but both of them died. After that my three sisters and I came along and lived.
Clash between my mother and aunt intensified. My father often took it out on my meek innocent mother. Troubles in the family increased to an intolerable level for my father and he began to contemplate migrating to a new thriving port city called Karachi. In the late1920’s independence struggle intensified. My father got deeply involved and spent several periods in jail. When I was born in 1931 my father was in
Jail.
My father’s absence from home made my mother’s life much harder. Although my father was harsh on my mother his presence put a check on all members of the family and as a result there was less fighting. There were several reasons; my uncle was weak, my father was family’s breadwinner, and he was a strict disciplinarian.
Slowly but steadily the conflict level in the family rose to fever pitch. My father went to Karachi to explore business opportunities and within a year (1936) returned to take us there. I was about 5 years old. We lived there till 1947 when the country was divided.
My mother lived in Karachi for about 10 years and this was the best part of her life. She ran the household with love and great skill. The whole family thrived in her care. All my sisters were healthy and we did very well in school and in other activities. She watched over us with an eagle eye but remained unobtrusive as a mouse. I do not remember her stopping me from going with friends to play even when I was quite young. At as early an age as 7 I started regularly to go to an exercise and wrestling place every morning. My mother gave me money to buy a small block of butter from a dairy so I could eat it to build up my strength. I went to far off places for picnics and on expedition. Once, when I was in my 8th year, I used to go to a steep waterfront in the harbor area with other boys to learn to swim. For a time nobody in the family knew of this clandestine activity of mine but later they suspected it. By then I had learned to swim and demonstrated my skill to all my family when we went there on a Sunday evening. I was a strong swimmer and could dive from a high bridge. My mother and sisters were thrilled. My father heard and said nothing.
By her quiet but keenly watchful attitude my mother communicated her deep love and full confidence in my ability and sense of judgment. I was her only son amid three daughters. Hence in our patrilineal tradition my value as the male and carrier of the family name was unquestioned. Everyone recognized this and even I fully understood it. Yet my mother boldly gave me the freedom that most others in those circumstances would not have given. This gave me tremendous self-confidence. I excelled in studies, sports, and in many outdoor activities. Every Sunday evening with my parents’ permission I used to go with three other friends to eat at a restaurant. We went to a new place every time and paid from our own pocket money. Some years later my parents allowed me to go alone on a 1200-kilometer train journey.
When WWII started in 1939 imported hardware items became expensive and scarce. My father use to send them by post parcels to his customers in U. P. Every evening he stitched them up and made them ready for mailing. After returning from school I used to take them to the post office on my bicycle. Sometimes I made several trips because the loads were heavy. My father paid me 25 paise for each parcel. Some days I earned 2 whole Rupees that in those days was big money especially for a child. It made me about the richest kid in my class! My mother trusted me with the money and never asked my father not to spoil me with that much money.
When I was about 13 she took me as male escort to visit her brothers and parents in the city of Sialkot in Punjab. They had fallen to rock low time and the older of mother’s two brothers had TB. She took an Ayurvedic doctor with her. He was a confident young doctor and an uncle. His mother had died soon after his birth and my mother raised him. So he regarded my mother as his own. When we went to seek his help he came with us instantly without hesitation. After thoroughly examined the TB patient, he prescribed medicines according to his light. In his opinion recovery would take about a month and he sounded quite sure of it.
We returned to Karachi and bad news followed us. Mother’s younger brother, terribly depressed by the family’s miserable condition, committed suicide. A couple of weeks later the older one also died. The family was ruined; no earning member, two old parents, two infant boys and their young mother. Luckily some close relatives organized adequate help for the family to carry on.
All this crushed my mother. She did not talk much but her suffering was obvious. She was not eating properly and her movements were much slower. My older sisters were married and had gone to their new families. My father, younger sister and I were at home.
Maa complained of something clutching and pulling her heart and giving her terrible pain. Much worse than pain it was a sinking sensation that smotherd her. This syndrome was recurrent. It came and went and in between my mother dreaded its return. She suffered it for months mainly to continue to live for our sake.
A couple of times I heard her mumble (who will look after my Partap?). Childishly unaware of the meaning of her utterance, I tried to reassure her. Why do you worry Maa? You will soon be well and live long to raise me to manhood.
But the spasms were not abating. They were coming with menacing regularity. My mother kept bearing them bravely within herself. They were so complex, so wrenching, so severe that she was not able to describe them. My mother knew suffering for she suffered a great deal, but this was something else altogether. Heart attack is nothing compared to what she was feeling. Sometimes she said, ‘it feels as if someone is physically pulling my heart out of my body.’
One early morning when all of us were sleeping a massive attack of heart wrenching came upon my mother. It must have been totally unbearable. She released her body from our third floor balcony and dropped to the ground below with a thud. Life instantly slid out of the mangled corpse. We, and the whole neighborhood were stunned. They assembled, quickly wrapped up what was left, and proceeded to the crematorium in a procession.
A ton of ice hit me and traumatized my mind but I soon recovered. Mother was all over me and filled my entire body. ‘How would mother want me to act at such a testing time?’ I thought. I stopped crying and lifting myself up thinking I must be brave, strong, and able to help. Mother will be watching from the far. It would disappoint her if I cower and bend down. Suffering of my father and sister will increase.
I did not cry a single tear after that, and never again, not for my mother. For she was with me all the time for many years, even closer than when she lived in that body from where I came. I am thankful for holding on to some of what she shared with me. Her memory I shall treasure till my last breath.
Partap
11 July 2009
My Mother (2)
My Mother (2)
My mother was raised in so small a village in Punjab that there was no school in it for girls. So she never learned even to read a write. But she was very learned in community skills such as making friends, maintaining good relationships with them, and home making. She could spin yarn, weave simple cloth, knit sweaters, and do a great deal more. When, later in life, she came to live in a large cosmopolitan city she learned Hindi and was able to communicate with most of her neighbors. We changed apartments 5 times in 12 years. In every new house she quickly found new friends.
She was a good person, but I do not remember her being religious in the sense of regular visitor of temples or a staunch believer in any ideology. Hence she never tried to teach us any kind of religious belief system. We would often go with her to the temple on some festival occasions and celebrate important festivals such as Diwali. But we were free to absorb religious ideas that appealed to us. Mother taught us many moral values and insisted that we learn to live by them.
My mother’s friends: the Iranian lady.
I vividly remember some of my mother’s friends. One was an Iranian lady roughly her own age. Our apartments were opposite each other on the third floor and we were neighbors for about 4 years. A wide cultural gap separated us. For instance, we were strict vegetarian but she ate meat or fish daily, we were Hindus and she of the B’hai faith, she spoke Persian and we Punjabi. But like my mother she had learned enough Hindi to communicate with the local people. The list of differences is long but the two became close like sisters. Both, however, had some strong ethnic constraints that were very hard to overcome. But they bridged the chasm so skillfully that nothing stood between them to dampen their love for each other.
My mother always gave food to her Iranian friend, especially to her children. But she could not bring herself to eat what came back from her friend’s kitchen. The wise Iranian lady took care to send only vegetarian food, which then our mother gave to us children. There were several other differences. But both of them understood the cultural divide and soon set up a comfortable working relationship.
The Iranian lady automatically picked up from my mother a kind of favoritism for me. She saw that I was very thin. Thinking that eating meat will probably put some extra flesh on my lean body she started to feed me fish, mutton and eggs. She would leave a plate full of food for me in one of her two bedrooms, find me and lock me in it. If other children wanted to come in she would send them away saying that she had washed the room and wanted everybody out till the floor dried. I suspect that my
Mother came to know this, but pretending ignorance she kept quiet. I am sure both friends knew what they were doing. They enjoyed keeping this loving secret for four long years until we had to leave Karachi at the time of partition in 1947.
My mother and her friend met every day, sometimes for several hours, and shared personal secrets, ate snacks, joked and laughed. Whenever we went to Punjab my mother remembered to bring some special gift for her friend. The Iranian lady too gave us gifts of food from her husband’s hotel and a variety of gifts she received from her relatives in Iran.
The Sweeper woman.
We had a Punjabi speaking sweeper woman coming daily to our house to clean the latrine and the bathroom. I remember her pretty cheerful face to this day. My mother was very fond of her and gave her some food to eat and sometimes grain or flour to take home.
Once on Maha Shivratri festival the sweeper lady asked my mother for some special food that is eaten to break the all day Shivratri fast. My mother was glad to give but she jokingly asked, “But, Jeeto, you people have become Christians. You cannot be observing fast on Shivratri?”
Jeeto replied, “Yes, Bibiji, you are right, we have become Christians. But that does not mean we have given up our Hindu dharma. We still celebrate all our old festivals, observe fasts, and do the pujas (worships). Some older Christians keep telling us to give up all Hindu customs and celebrations, but we are so far able to resist the pressure.”
Some Punjabi woman friends.
One floor below us lived two Punjabi families from Amritsar. They were of our own caste and in hardware trade like my father. Their establishment was large and they were wealthy. One of their boys was my age and we went to the same school.
My mother was friend of the ladies in both houses. They were of same age and often exchanged food, gifts, gossip and more.
During the years following Partition I met many old relatives. Whenever I met women who knew my mother I asked them what they remembered of her. Without exception they praised my mother very highly for her friendliness, kindness, and readiness to share.
No more specific memories come to mind at this time. I will write more when I recall anything.
Partap Aggarwal
June 27, 2009
My mother was raised in so small a village in Punjab that there was no school in it for girls. So she never learned even to read a write. But she was very learned in community skills such as making friends, maintaining good relationships with them, and home making. She could spin yarn, weave simple cloth, knit sweaters, and do a great deal more. When, later in life, she came to live in a large cosmopolitan city she learned Hindi and was able to communicate with most of her neighbors. We changed apartments 5 times in 12 years. In every new house she quickly found new friends.
She was a good person, but I do not remember her being religious in the sense of regular visitor of temples or a staunch believer in any ideology. Hence she never tried to teach us any kind of religious belief system. We would often go with her to the temple on some festival occasions and celebrate important festivals such as Diwali. But we were free to absorb religious ideas that appealed to us. Mother taught us many moral values and insisted that we learn to live by them.
My mother’s friends: the Iranian lady.
I vividly remember some of my mother’s friends. One was an Iranian lady roughly her own age. Our apartments were opposite each other on the third floor and we were neighbors for about 4 years. A wide cultural gap separated us. For instance, we were strict vegetarian but she ate meat or fish daily, we were Hindus and she of the B’hai faith, she spoke Persian and we Punjabi. But like my mother she had learned enough Hindi to communicate with the local people. The list of differences is long but the two became close like sisters. Both, however, had some strong ethnic constraints that were very hard to overcome. But they bridged the chasm so skillfully that nothing stood between them to dampen their love for each other.
My mother always gave food to her Iranian friend, especially to her children. But she could not bring herself to eat what came back from her friend’s kitchen. The wise Iranian lady took care to send only vegetarian food, which then our mother gave to us children. There were several other differences. But both of them understood the cultural divide and soon set up a comfortable working relationship.
The Iranian lady automatically picked up from my mother a kind of favoritism for me. She saw that I was very thin. Thinking that eating meat will probably put some extra flesh on my lean body she started to feed me fish, mutton and eggs. She would leave a plate full of food for me in one of her two bedrooms, find me and lock me in it. If other children wanted to come in she would send them away saying that she had washed the room and wanted everybody out till the floor dried. I suspect that my
Mother came to know this, but pretending ignorance she kept quiet. I am sure both friends knew what they were doing. They enjoyed keeping this loving secret for four long years until we had to leave Karachi at the time of partition in 1947.
My mother and her friend met every day, sometimes for several hours, and shared personal secrets, ate snacks, joked and laughed. Whenever we went to Punjab my mother remembered to bring some special gift for her friend. The Iranian lady too gave us gifts of food from her husband’s hotel and a variety of gifts she received from her relatives in Iran.
The Sweeper woman.
We had a Punjabi speaking sweeper woman coming daily to our house to clean the latrine and the bathroom. I remember her pretty cheerful face to this day. My mother was very fond of her and gave her some food to eat and sometimes grain or flour to take home.
Once on Maha Shivratri festival the sweeper lady asked my mother for some special food that is eaten to break the all day Shivratri fast. My mother was glad to give but she jokingly asked, “But, Jeeto, you people have become Christians. You cannot be observing fast on Shivratri?”
Jeeto replied, “Yes, Bibiji, you are right, we have become Christians. But that does not mean we have given up our Hindu dharma. We still celebrate all our old festivals, observe fasts, and do the pujas (worships). Some older Christians keep telling us to give up all Hindu customs and celebrations, but we are so far able to resist the pressure.”
Some Punjabi woman friends.
One floor below us lived two Punjabi families from Amritsar. They were of our own caste and in hardware trade like my father. Their establishment was large and they were wealthy. One of their boys was my age and we went to the same school.
My mother was friend of the ladies in both houses. They were of same age and often exchanged food, gifts, gossip and more.
During the years following Partition I met many old relatives. Whenever I met women who knew my mother I asked them what they remembered of her. Without exception they praised my mother very highly for her friendliness, kindness, and readiness to share.
No more specific memories come to mind at this time. I will write more when I recall anything.
Partap Aggarwal
June 27, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
