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Category: Specials

Death is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity- make it count!

Posted on by Penguin India

‘Oh, I bless you with a long life, but anyway, you will die one day.’

Yogi, mystic, visionary but above all a great spiritual teacher- Sadhguru bestows both life and wisdom in this one brief, all- encompassing blessing which reminds us that death is the world’s greatest equaliser and mortality is a fact of life. The knowledge of impending death can plunge even the hardiest of souls into a dark pool of fear and misery. Contrarily, in Death- An Inside Story, Sadhguru points out-

‘Calamities, especially like death and illness, are a tremendous opportunity to look beyond the limitations of what you normally understand as life.’

What if death was not the catastrophe it is made out to be but an essential aspect of life, rife with spiritual possibilities for transcendence? For the first time, someone is saying just that!

In this unique treatise-like exposition, Sadhguru expounds on the more profound aspects of death that are rarely spoken about. And in doing that he offers an expansive perspective on death which has the power to change how we understand our existence in this universe. He says-

 

I was born like you, I eat like you,

sleep like you and I will die like you

but the limited has not limited me

Life’s bondages have not bound me

 

Here are 5 ways Sadhguru can help you change your perspective on death-

 

  1. ‘Moving from the physical to the non-physical is the greatest moment in your life. So is it not very important that you make it happen most gracefully and wonderfully?’

The darkness that clouds our thoughts at the idea of death colours our experience of it. Sadhguru nudges us gently to look away from the repetitive activities of life and approach death as a unique experience. It is that very last moment of life when we transcend the limitations of our physical body. It can be done just once and it is the last thing we will do. And so we can choose to do it with grace.

 

  1. ‘If you want to make use of the opportunity that death presents, you cannot approach it with fear. This is not something that you can handle all of a sudden at that moment. So it is important that on many levels we prepare for death beforehand.’

Even though we all fear death, we must prepare ourselves for a certain day when we would experience it. Shunning the thought of death or cowering behind a wall of terror is not the best way to go. Sadhguru reminds us to learn from nature. When wild animals sense their impending demise, they withdraw from food and find a place where they just sit. This preparation is a way to bring dignity to death. If you bring in death gracefully your disembodied phase will not be hellish.

 

  1. ‘If you develop the necessary capability, whichever way death comes, you can maintain your awareness and die well. If you have not lived a life of awareness, the possibility of you suddenly becoming aware in an extreme situation like death does not arise at all.’

In one of the most enlightening discussions on death, Sadhguru makes a startling revelation. He explains that a man who dies in a violent encounter is in no way in any kind of disadvantage compared to one who is dying of disease or old age. Any man who has lived a life of awareness can die well as there will be that moment between injury and death where that awareness brings acceptance. Some people live well only in good situations but those who live well whichever kind of situation comes to them, die well, no matter what kind of death comes to them.

 

  1. ‘The fear of death has come to us because we have gotten deeply identified with this body. Our identification with this body has become so strong because we have not explored other dimensions.’

Sadhguru explains that death is as natural as life is and therefore, a morbid fear of death is unnatural. It demonstrates how we have lost touch with reality. We believe that we came with this body and that thought begins to define us. The flesh we hold so dear is what we gather in the womb after our conception and it is this flesh we shed when the end comes. To be aware of this reality we must remember to differentiate between ‘This is mine.’ and ‘This is me.’

 

  1. ‘The fear of death is about what you think you will lose by death. The fear of death is essentially the fear of loss.’

The fear of losing all that we know and love limits our experiences. People who have expanded their range of thought in the pursuit of awareness are convinced that they came with nothing and therefore, would lose nothing from death, so they welcome it without fear. Sadhguru encourages us to go beyond the limitations of the body with sadhana and to use our life to know that which is beyond the physical.

At a time when the world is torn asunder with disease, violence and hate, Sadhguru exhorts us to remember the fragility of life. He says, ‘Those who are constantly aware of the mortal and fragile nature of Existence do not want to miss even a single moment; they will naturally be aware. They cannot take anything for granted; they will live very purposefully. Only people who believe they are immortal can fight and fight to death.’

 

To confront your fears and rise above them, read Death- An Inside Story!

7 Reasons Why You Should Read ‘Soar’

Posted on by Penguin India

A story of eternal friendship between Bholanath and Khudabaksh, regardless of their respective religions, Amit Majmudar’s Soar is set in World War I and is the need of the hour.

We figured this might not be enough to get you to pick up the book, hence, here are 7 reasons why you should read Soar:

Friends who pray together, stay together


‘When it was time for Khudabaksh, a Mussulman, to do namaz, Bholanath’s was the second hand raised before his closed eyes. And when Bholanath, a Hindu, rattled off his Shiva stotras, Khudabaksh pressed his palm in place so his friend prayed with joined hands.’

They spoke pigeon but confidently volunteered as translators


‘…an officer from the Royal Messenger Corps came looking for a translator. Since both of them spoke pigeon, or at least the dialect of pigeon spoken in their native Junagadh, Bholanath and Khudabaksh volunteered.’

 

Their conversations quite evidently provide a sense of comic relief

‘ “I remembered what the Brahmin told me before I left,” he said. “I lost all caste by crossing the sea. So I am all contamination, through and through—how can soil soil me now?” ‘

 

There’s a non-communal pet squirrel, Kabira, involved who consumed a balanced diet of shlokas and suras

‘Bholanath dropped the pages and grabbed the rope to steady Khudabaksh. Before the pages (drifting lazily, back and forth) could reach the basket floor, the squirrel darted under them at top speed and caught them. They vanished into her mouth like snowflakes caught on her tongue.’

 They prioritized their friendship & breakfast over discussing a potential partition

‘ “What if, some day, Hindus fall on Mussulmans, and Mussulmans fall on Hindus?” …  Once Hindus and Mussulmans are in two separate places, how will we go out on our feast-day binges? “Maybe Mussulmanistan wasn’t a wise idea after all.” “Do you know what is a good idea?” “What?” Khudabaksh smiled broadly. “Breakfast.” ‘

Through their mindless banter, they were wise enough to propage that a war never ends


‘ “A war doesn’t even end then. After the last soldier finishes screaming, the other soldier can still go on groaning. A war ends only when prime ministers write their names on a piece of paper.” “If prime ministers were as wise as children, all wars would be fought with pistols.” “And they’d be over by sunset, too. Or earlier, if someone brought out a kite.” ‘

Over and above everything, the book highlights the helplessness of the poor to the point where they had to join the military to make ends meet

‘The money is why they had done it, or rather, why the women in their lives had pushed them to do it, Khudabaksh’s wife and Bholanath’s mother. The nawab of Junagadh had promised fifty troops to a proposed 1st Royal Gujarati regiment. As an incentive to his subjects, he announced a bonus of one hundred rupees—more than two good-for-nothings like Bholanath and Khudabaksh would bring home all year.’

Amit Majmudar’s Soar, is a humorous read that has been able to deliver a very important message of friendship soaring above all else through Khudabaksh and Bholanath’s mindless banter. Since it is set in World War I, you will come across scenic depictions and their conversations that are bound to make you realize that war is pointless- no one wins.

Do give it a read and tell us what you think!

 

6 Reasons to Read Rohini Chowdhury’s Beautiful Translation

Posted on by Penguin India

The most popular devotional text recounting the adventures of the Hindu god Ram ‘The Ramcharitmanas’, composed by the poet-saint Tulsidas in the sixteenth century during a dynamic period of religious reform, was instrumental in making the story of Ram-and his divine feats against Ravan, the demon king of Lanka-widely accessible to the common people for the first time.

Rohini Chowdhury’s exquisite translation brings Tulsidas’s magnum opus vividly to life, and her detailed introduction sheds crucial light on the poet and his work, placing them both in the wider context of Hindi literature. Here are a few reasons why you should pick a copy of Rohini’s translation of this timeless epic.

It is a clear and accurate translation of Tulsidas’s epic poem, and conveys, in the best way possible, its scale and grandeur.

~

The author has rendered each original doha and sortha into four lines in English translation.

~

Tulsi’s institution of the Ram Lila may be seen as an attempt at a degree of social integration…this inclusivity remains, by and large, a feature of the Ram Lila even today.

~

Tulsi wrote for an audience which was familiar not only with the story of Ram, but also knew the dozens of ‘backstories’ that weave in and out of the main narrative… Rohini’s translation attempts, in footnotes, endnotes and a glossary, to give as much background information as she could.

~

The Hindu gods all have more than one name, and Tulsi refers to them by these different names, Rohini has kept the names as Tulsi has used them; but to make it easier to the modern-day reader she has added the various names with their meanings under the glossary entry for the relevant god or goddess.

~

Rohini’s translation attempts to give the reader some idea, at least visually, of the structure of the poem. Therefore, the dohas/sorthas are indented; chhands, stutis and shlokas are in italics; and the chaupais form the main body of the text.

~

This translation is a tribute to Tulsidas’ epic poem and brings to the reader the richness and depth of storytelling Tulsi das brought into it.

Meet These Chatty Dead Folks!

Posted on by Penguin India

How would you feel if you woke up waiting in an endless room one day?

Chats with the Dead gets us to meet Malinda Albert Kabalana (or Maali Almeida), who sets out to reach ‘The Light’ – a place where the afterlife comes to an end and the next life on Earth begins. As he glides his way through the afterlife, he meets some dead folks – who are way chattier than one would expect the dead to be. They have some very engaging stories to tell.

We are revisiting some of our favourite afterlife folks below!

 

Dead Lawyer

The Dead Lawyer is witnessing a protest by 113 victims of the 1987 Pettah Bomb blast demanding justice. She wonders:

‘If suicide bombers knew they end up in the same waiting room with all their victims, […] They may think twice.’

*

 

Dead Lovers

Adjusting to the mysterious afterlife, Maali notices the Dead Lovers by the elevator at Galle Face Court. The woman wears a chiffon dress and the man is in a banian and Burberry shorts. The couple tells Maali that,

‘We went together in 1948. […] He was Sinhala, I was Muslim. I think you know the rest of the story.’

When Maali inquires why haven’t they gone for The Light, the Dead Lovers respond with:

‘They say The Light is bigger than heaven or hell […] Easy to get lost. If you think you have found a soulmate, go to them and hold tight.’

*

Dead Mother

Maali comes across his Dead Mother who admits,

‘There is so much to see. I listen to music in different homes. I like to play with the children. I like watching married couples fight.’

When Maali asks her about The Light, she replies:

‘I was abused throughout my marriage. I was forced to give up a baby, my firstborn. If I step into The Light, will they reward me for suffering? Or punish me for being a bad mother?’

*

Dead Dog

A few adventures later, Maali ends up in an exhibition titled ‘Law of the Jungle. Photography by MA.’ The gallery is filled with the finest shots taken by Maali. While looking at the photographs, he’s interrupted by his first visitor – the Dead Dog. And the Dead Dog can talk!

‘If I am reborn human, I will commit cot death.’

*

Dead Leopard

Towards the end of his journey to The Light, Maali is visited by the Dead Leopard who is fascinated by human intelligence. The Dead Leopard admits:

‘I tried to survive without killing. Lasted a month. What to do? I am a savage beast. Only humans can practice compassion properly. Only humans can live without being cruel. I want some of that.’

Maali disagrees and tells the Dead Leopard that humans are most savage of all living beings. The Dead Leopard still wishes to be a human in his next life and asks the way to The Light. He says,

‘Leopards can’t invent lightbulbs. I’ll take my chances.’

Shehan Karunatilaka, bestselling author of Chinaman, is back with a darkly comedic tale of voices from beyond!

A Window To the Calcutta We Love from ‘Sarojini’s Mother’

Posted on by Penguin India

Sarojini-Saz-Campbell comes to India to search for her biological mother. Adopted and taken to England at an early age, she has a degree from Cambridge and a mathematician’s brain adept in solving puzzles. Handicapped by a missing shoebox that held her birth papers and the death of her English mother, she has few leads to carry out her mission and scant knowledge of Calcutta, her birthplace.

In Sarojini’s Mother, Kunal Basu takes us to Calcutta and offers a window into the city we love. Below are some of the highlights of Calcutta from her book.

 

Rex; the tourist trap

“Like most tourist traps that flaunted names like Copacabana or Casino Royale, its daytime business thrived on fruit juice and Western food easy on the stomach. Like chilli-less omelette and salads washed thoroughly in bottled water. At night on Thursdays, which was a dry day in the city, the owner would slip you a joint or a bottle of rum.”

The Calcutta Tram

“My foreign friends love the tram. It reminds them of the nineteenth century. Astride the rickety chairs smelling of stale urine, they can imagine black-and-white photos of horses chugging along the rolling stock, sahibs in top hats and half-naked natives.The Calcutta trams the oldest in Asia, I tell them, older than Shanghai’s. Like an old man, it totters along, unable to keep up with cyclists and walkers. In return for slowness, it offers a welcome respite from the crowds.”

Afternoons, on the street outside the Rex

“With the morning gone, now afternoon prayers had shops shutting down and the crowd had thinned. Siesta time in force, fewer rickshaws plied the streets and travelling salesmen had set down their wares to take a well-deserved rest. The trees were the ones to rise to the occasion, cooling everyone with fanning boughs that ferried the smell of rice and assorted meals cooked by the eateries to feed the hungry. With the fight over leftovers won, dogs had settled down under shadows, gawked at with envy by a caucus of crows.”

Similar afternoons in the slum

“The slum was quiet in the afternoon, the dwellers dozing after the morning’s hard work. Street dogs, normally defensive of territory, gave us free passage. The sound of radio drama came from the huts, and the occasional whimper of a hungry child.”

A lovers’ haunt; The Planetarium

“‘Why is this place so popular with lovers?’ Saz whispered as we settled down. ‘Because it’s dark here and they can do whatever they like.’ I thought I should tell her the truth. ‘Without a place of their own, it’s hard for couples to be intimate. Here nobody minds them. The guards turn a blind eye to the hanky-panky.’”

The Museum that makes you feel like you are in London

“You feel you are in London, not Calcutta, as soon as you walk into the National Museum. Once called the Imperial Museum, it was the nation’s oldest and largest. Villagers, who thronged there on holidays, called it Jaadughar—the House of Enchantments. I took Saz to the museum to bring up a delicate matter.”

The Special Exhibit of the Egyptian Mummy at the Museum

“‘Why bring a mummy over from Egypt to Calcutta?’ Saz sounded genuinely surprised. The reason wasn’t clear to me, but it could’ve had something to do with the Brith moving their possessions around like a rich man moves a vase from the hallway to the parlour. Because of its eerie reputation, the mummy room was the quietest spot in the museum, perfect to raise the delicate matter with Saz.”

Calcutta Racecourse; Close cousin of England’s Ascot.

“The grandstand, which was the gallery for commoners, was already at bursting point, tea stalls busy and toilets frantic. Dignitaries arrived amidst great commotion at the members’ stand, flaunting vintage cars with shining brass fittings…Our Calcutta racecourse was a close cousin of England’s Ascot, but the super jackpot days were rough, Suleiman had told me. The smell of money attracted quite a lot of riff-raff, and the cash counters needed extra protection.”

A Hotel in a neighbourhood that fits even guidebook’s description

“Squeezed between a barber’s salon and a travel agent, [the Peace Hotel] was easy to miss in a neighbourhood that fitted every guidebook’s description of Calcutta, being the perfect location for noise and dust, impossible crowds and bullish traffic. Set against the imposing backdrop of the National Museum, it flaunted jam-packed alleys dealing in trinkets by day and drugs by night.”

——————————————————————————————————————————

Read Sarojini’s Mother for more of Calcutta and find out if the verdict of science will settle the puzzle of motherhood for Sarojini.

A Story Worth (Re)Telling

Posted on by Penguin India

The Ramcharitmanas is one of the most popular and celebrated devotional texts in India. It’s cultural and traditional significance stands even today.

Composed by the poet-saint Tulsidas in the sixteenth-century during a period of religious reforms, this text was instrumental in making the story of Ram, his feats against Ravan, and the values he stood for accessible to the common people as opposed to just the priestly class.

Rohini Chowdhury’s latest translation of the magnum opus makes it even more accessible to a new and wide readership. The story and its teachings are as relevant as ever in the world today.

Read on to find an excerpt from Rohini Chowdhury’s introduction, in which she conveys the enduring significance of this text and why she decided to translate it:

 

My own engagement with Tulsidas began one crisp autumn night fifty years ago in a small town by the banks of the Ganga, when I saw my first performance of the Ram Lila. The sky was sprinkled with stars but I had eyes only for the drama unfolding upon the crude wooden stage before me, where the story had reached a critical point: Hanuman’s tail was to be set on fire. The sets were crude, the costumes garish, the acting unsophisticated— but the story transcended all such concerns, such was its magic and power. I did not know it then, but that was also my first intimate encounter with the Ramcharitmanas, upon which the Ram Lila is based. Growing up, Tulsi’s poem was always around me—chanted in the homes of friends or neighbours, sung on the radio, or the theme of plays and dance dramas. So when the opportunity came to translate it into English for Penguin India, I accepted it with alacrity—and the last five years that I have spent walking behind Tulsi, one of the greatest literary minds of all time, have been a pleasure and a privilege. My translation does not do justice to Tulsi’s extraordinary poetic genius. His use of wordplay, his rhymes and alliteration, and the sheer musicality of his poem I have found impossible to capture in English. I have therefore contented myself with being as clear and accurate as possible in my translation, and to convey, to the best of my ability, the scale and grandeur of his great poem.

The Ramayana tradition

For at least the last two and a half thousand years, poets, writers, folk performers, and religious and social reformers have drawn upon the story of Ram as a source of inspiration. It has been told again and again in countless forms and dozens of languages, making it one of the most popular and enduring stories in the world. More than any other hero, Ram has been upheld as dharma personified, the epitome of righteousness, and his actions as the guide for right conduct. In recent times, the story has provided inspiration for films, novels, and in the late 1980s, a weekly television series watched by more than eighty million viewers.

The oldest and most influential surviving literary telling of the story of Ram is the Sanskrit epic called the Ramayana. Composed sometime during the first millennium bce, and consisting of some 50,000 lines in verse set in seven kands or books, it is attributed to the poet Valmiki, and is widely  regarded as the ‘original’. The influence of Valmiki’s Ramayana has been so profound that the title of his epic has come to denote the entire tradition, from oral and folk performances to literary texts and translations. Within this rich and varied tradition also lie the Ramayana songs from Telangana, the folk performances of the Ram Lila in northern India, the eleventh-century Tamil Iramavataram (‘The Incarnation of Ram’) by Kamban, and Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas.

Published across three volumes, this translation brings alive the story of Lord Ram like never before!

A Coherent View of the Macrocosm of Pakistan

Posted on by Penguin India

In the seventy or so years since Independence, much less has been written about the Princely States which acceded to Pakistan than those that remained in India. The name of the once great State of Bahawalpur is no longer remembered among its well-mapped peers over the border in Rajasthan.

Bahawalpur is a series of conversations between the author, Anabel Loyd and Salahuddin Abbasi, amir of Bahawalpur and the son of the erstwhile Nawab of Bahawalpur. The latter reminisces about his family and sheds light on Bahawalpur’s princes through old records, letters etc.

The book begins with a quote from Shakespeare’s infamous play, The Tempest, ‘What’s past is prologue’. This means that the past is a preface to the future – we cannot forget the lessons of history. As Salahuddin Abbasi takes you back, you can’t help but draw parallels between the long forgotten princely state of Bahawalpur of the past and the Pakistan of the present.

Jinnah’s aspirations for nationality and not communality- buried 

Jinnah’s vision of a country had been buried, over time- not only under the flow of patronage and corruption but also under the illusion and imperative, the ‘mirage’, of the Islamic state.  

The sheer one-upmanship of the everyday, increasingly archaic, public practice of religion in Pakistan hinders the running of a contemporary progressive state and argues an almost impossible case for reinstatement of Jinnah’s aspirations for nationality rather than communality. 

While the state promises Jannat to the poor, the young do dream of a better existence

Pakistan is more than ever girt with the restraints of caste, creed and class, but young people continue to dream of something better and of levelling the ground. Those living in extreme poverty may be easily seduced or coerced by the promises of extreme Islam: a glorious life to come after death providing some sort of solace or reward for the lack of any uplift through education or public services during the only earthly existence available to them.

The partition may have given us hindsight…

Pakistan looks backwards for religious authenticity, to a dream of national identity and unity never fulfilled after Partition which tore the country from its past.


But Pakistan no longer looks back far enough to its extraordinary history as part of a greater whole. That pas was cast into the deep chasm of Partition.

…But what about foresight?

Nowadays the country often appears neither to look back nor forwards beyond the trappings of new infrastructure in transport systems, shopping malls and increased urbanization. Such changes leave the poor exactly where they have always been, with nothing, and, regardless of the blandishments of government, does little to encourage outsiders to come in.

The wealthy get enmeshed in the threads of corruption and nepotism while trying to rise above it

Education abroad seems to have become a standard for those who have inherited status or have gained vast new wealth. Not all are lured for long by migration for the sake of further fortune. Those who return are entrepreneurial, creative and determined to find ways to circumvent or rise above endemic corruption in order to move forward. However, they may already be enmeshed in the threads of nepotism and corruption by virtue of the endless unbreakable network of familial connections at the top of Pakistani politics and society.

Anyone with a penchant for history and politics would definitely consider Bahawalpur an insightful read. Read it and tell us what you think?

How can Nepal Become an ‘Asian Tiger’?

Posted on by Penguin India

By 2040, it is projected that China will be the largest economy in the world, followed by India. The two put together will have nearly a third of the world’s population and GDP. Now, there exists an opportunity for Nepal to unleash its potential and return to the time when it had the advantage of being in between two prospering neighbours. In ‘Unleashing the Vajra’, author Sujeev Shukya tries to understand the past in order to learn how to get the future right—Nepal now has just two decades to relive its glorious past.

The listicle below brings to the forefront a few quick facts to show that Nepal has the potential to regain its past glory and make a mark.

Strategic Location 

By 2050, it is estimated that, the Shanghai–Mumbai axis will continue to dominate the agenda of future markets, economic development and global economic thought leadership. Nepal falls right in the middle of all this.

Population Boon 

Nepal is geographically small, but Nepalis tend to forget that they are also the forty-eighth most populated country in the world with a population that is nearly one and a half times that of Australia, and only a few millions less than that of Canada.

Tourism

An annual tourist volume of more than 30 million Chinese travelling to the Tibet Autonomous Region every year can also be a potential lucrative market for Nepal.

Vision 

Nepal needs to look at how it will deliver the same vision of prosperity to its people by 2050 with equal emphasis on capital, asset utilization, parameters of human development, and of course, happiness.

Economy and Growth

For Nepal to graduate to a middle-income country by 2030, when the country’s population will be around 36 million, it needs to be a $100 billion economy with a per capita income of $2500. This would require an investment of about $7–8 billion each year.

New Model 

Nepal is the prospective bridge between India and China, two countries that will be controlling 35 percent of global GDP in 2050. This is the time for Nepal to emerge with a new economic growth model rather than being a yam between two boulders.

Sujeev Shakya argues that it is imperative to understand history and learn from it to shape events for a better future. Unleashing the Vajra outlines the factors that will determine Nepal’s destiny in the years to come.

When Destiny Rolls Her Dice and Flips Fortunes

Posted on by Penguin India

When the Kingdom of Aum falls under the spell of corrupt forces, all its past glory turns to dust and the land, once lush and fertile, becomes a barren wasteland. It falls upon Saahas, the courageous young General and heir to the throne, to fight the darkness that had shrouded his beloved Aum. But victory eludes Saahas as the play of destiny takes him on a journey both arduous and treacherous.  General Saahas becomes a hunted man and Aum plunges into chaos, submitting meekly to the tyranny of the self-appointed Raja Shunen and the wily Queen Manmaani.

What was this web that Saahas had become entangled in?

Submerged under wave upon wave of dilemmas, Saahas is bewildered by the power of the Saade Saati–the dreaded seven and a half years- yet is determined to find his way towards his destiny.

Gitanjali Murari’s The Crown of the Seven Stars begins with a letter from Destiny which hints at a revelation- ‘And I promise you an enthralling story of one man who dared to fight me, catching me quite unawares, so revealing the truth about these accursed seven and a half years.’

Read on to find out what the period of Saade Saati brings –

The fear of failure

Saade Saati, the dreaded seven and a half years that befall each person at least once in their lifetime, brings with it crushing failure-

‘You fear it, for it results in nothing but failure; failure that eats you from the inside, corroding you, until you wish you were dead. And when you emerge on the other side of it, you weep, not with relief, but because you are quite broken.’

*

There is light at the end of the tunnel

Saade Saati may make the sufferer feel helpless and fearful but it is a finite period which does come to an end and the wheels of fortune turn again. The astrologer Arigotra leaves Saahas with hope for the future but also a reminder of the futility of his battle against Saade Saati –

‘Eight months of it have already passed. Less than seven years remain. Go away, my lord, and only return when the time turns auspicious.’ The dying man’s words smote Saahas with the finality of a hammer. They laid bare his helplessness, making him acutely conscious that the hopes he had cherished on his journey back to Aham were laughably puerile.’

*

The right attitude is key to getting past this play of destiny

Acceptance and patience may help sufferers find value even in a bleak situation. The old priest of Yadoba offers some perspective to Saahas who is consumed with the idea that the period of Saade Saati is ‘fruitless’-

‘But if the soldier were to take a deep breath, calm down and contain his vital energy instead of wasting it by running from pillar to post, he will realize that the Saade Saati, far from being a curse, is a boon. It is the gods telling us to stop and reflect, to know ourselves, learn a new trade perhaps, spend time with the family, study the scriptures. Anything—read, play, evolve.’

*

The learning is in the experience, not in despair

Whatever destiny may have in store for you, the period of Saade Saati can be a learning experience. As Destiny reveals the motive behind this game, a ray of sunshine pierces through clouds of bewilderment-

 ‘You see, I had always planned for Saahas to be king. The Saade Saati, the trials, the tribulations, I had gone to so much trouble to create obstacles for him. Just so he would become the king Aum deserved.’

With destiny rolling her dice at every turn, will Saahas emerge wise and fearless from the maze of the Saade Saati? Would the throne find its rightful heir?

Read Gitanjali Murari’s The Crown of the Seven Stars to find out!

When fundamental rights became a roadblock for Nehru’s Congress

Posted on by Penguin India

The year was 1950. A feeling of euphoria was palpable as, after three years of deliberation, the Constitution of a newly independent India had come into effect. The Nehru-led Congress was ready to hit the ground running till their grand plans came to a screeching halt in the face of an expansively liberal Constitution that stood in the way of nearly every major socio-economic plan in the Congress party’s manifesto. With a judiciary vigorously upholding civil liberties and a press fiercely resisting his attempt to control public discourse, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru created the constitutional architecture for repression and coercion in the form of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

‘Four months after the Constitution’s inauguration, it was becoming increasingly clear that the champions of personal freedom had feet of clay, that beneath the surface of an ostensibly democratic leadership lurked deeply authoritarian instincts.’  writes Tripurdaman Singh as he revisits the Sixteen Stormy Days in 1951 when fundamental rights—the heart and soul of the Constitution- become lacunae in the same Constitution.

Read on to find out how fundamental rights caused grave difficulties for the government in power-

 

                             The right to fight indefinite detention

On 6 February 1950, 28 detainees filed a petition before the Bombay High Court challenging the validity of the Bombay Public Safety Measures Act on the basis of the new Constitution which, under Article 22, made indefinite and open-ended preventive detention, without an advisory board to approve detentions beyond a period of three months, unconstitutional. The unprepared government took the first hit.

‘The detainees were no longer subjects seeking the government’s leniency and clemency; they were free, rights-bearing citizens, newly empowered by the Constitution written in their name, with the ability to knock on the doors of the highest court of the land to demand the liberties guaranteed to them.’  

Front cover of Sixteen Stormy Days
Sixteen Stormy Days || Tripurdaman Singh
                               The furore over right to free speech

Barely three days after the twenty-eight communist detainees were freed by Bombay High Court another battle for Constitutional rights erupted in the Madras province when over 200 communist prisoners, demanding the status of political detainees rather than common criminals, went on strike. The violence that followed accelerated the downward spiral of the government and led to more strikes by other prisoners.

‘The enraged policemen retaliated by locking the 200-odd offenders in a hall with no means of escape and opening fire on them, killing twenty-two people in cold blood and injuring 107 others in a gruesome demonstration of the new republic’s lack of respect for the life and liberty of its citizens.’   

                                The blurred promise of land reform

Land reform had been a major part Congress agenda and Zamindari abolition and land redistribution promised to herald a new phase of equality for a new India. However, even before the constitution came into effect a legal battle began to erode the promise made by Congress. Suits filed by pre-eminent zamindars led the courts to examine the constitutional validity of the entire Management of Estates and Tenures Act.

‘Observing that the drastic and far-reaching restrictions placed on the power of the proprietors to deal with their property with no corresponding compensation left them practically without any rights over their own property, the court held the law to be void ab initio—both before and after the creation of the Constitution.

 The decision came as a bombshell, leaving the Bihar government and its Congress leaders shocked and rattled. The judgment reiterated the judiciary’s commitment to fundamental rights…’

                      The first legal challenge to the idea of reservation

Petitions filed against the discriminatory practice of reservation led courts to examine the issue of admissions being strictly regulated according to set communal proportions, instead of merit, which infringed upon fundamental rights. The violation of both Article 15 (1) of the Constitution of India, which protects citizens from discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth and Article 29 (2) formed the basis of the case. Noted lawyer Alladi Krishnaswamy Aiyyar laid bare the glaring issues in the ‘Communal Government Order’ in court-

‘Aiyyar argued that the right granted by Article 29 (2) of the Constitution, which in unequivocal terms prevented any discrimination in the matter of admissions to state or state-aided institutions, was an individual right personally granted to each citizen. It could not be sidestepped by granting restricted community-based opportunities, it was not a right granted to people as members of a particular caste or religion.’

The essential foundations of the Constitution, which Sardar Patel called its ‘idealistic exuberance’, had now become a real, multifold problem for Nehru who, irked by constitutional restraints obstructing his political goals, eventually wrote to his chief ministers-

‘Recent judgments of some High Courts have made us think about our Constitution. Is it adequate in its present form to meet the situation we have to face? We must accept fully the judgments of our superior courts, but if they find that there is a lacuna in the Constitution, then we have to remedy that.’  

Thus began the story of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

 

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