Mahendra Nath's Site

                                                             ESCAPE FROM ACTS OF GOD

Bhagwat Gita embodies this Vedantic teaching and is regarded as essence of all vedantas. ‘The laws of Gita are applicable to every human being’ as Swami Vivekanand said ‘just as law of gravity is applicable to every substance in the world.’ Enduring values of the Gita are indeed for all mankind. The Gita reveals that every human being is a complete, adequate self. The knowledge of the self – and that knowledge alone – will eliminate sense of inadequacy with which we all suffer. According to Swami Dayanand Saraswati when one discovers oneself to be a full and complete being, all the conflicts and grief vanish, happiness becomes natural, effortless; one becomes a spontaneous person; life becomes a sport.

Adi Shankaracharya, greatest of the commentators on the Gita held that Right Action is the way to knowledge; for it purifies the mind, and it is only to a mind purified from egotism that the intuition of the divine ground can come. Self-renunciation, according to the Gita, can be achieved by the practice of two all-inclusive virtues - love and non-attachment. The effectiveness of the Gita teaching is evident from the declaration of Arjun “My confusion is gone.  I have no hesitation in doing what is to be done”.  This is what each of us should be able to say after assimilating the teaching of the Gita.

The 18 chapters of the Gita, in the arrangements of their ideas, fall into three sets of six chapters each. This is the conclusion arrived at by many Gita students. According to them, the Gita, being a book which re-interprets the very essence of the Vedic Law in the entire scheme of its discussions, the Divine Song expresses the Truth of the Mahavakya: “THAT THOU ART’ (Tat twam asi) and it is called the “instructional message” (Updesa Vakya)”. This crisp sentence summarizes the entire Vedic lore and its philosophy.

The first section of the Divine Song, comprising the opening six chapters, explains the significance of the term “thou” (Twam). This is the focal point where mind and matter, action and thought have their meeting place in human psychology. The second section, opening with the seventh chapter and concluding with the twelfth explains the term (Tat) gives a glimpse of metaphysical truths in the Hindu cultural tradition. The last six chapters express the meaning of the term “Art” and deal with practice and morality.

Among the audience that day was Julian Rogers, anchorman at TV6’ Morning Show. He invited me as a guest one morning to talk about measures to reduce vulnerability of people to disasters. Alas, my discourse on the TV was interrupted by some minor political bacchanal and Rogers spent most of my time talking live on phone with MP Griffith with the conversation and the sound of raindrops on Mr. Griffith’s roof being broadcast live. When at last Rogers turned his attention to me a caller chastised him for wasting my presence. I thought the caller to be very perceptive. Rogers beggingingly looked at me for rescue and asked me to support his conduct. I did not oblige. Instead I humorously told him that I was myself trying to interrupt his telephonic conversation the best way I knew – by organizing rain on Mr. Griffith’s roof! The man did not even laugh and never again invited me to be a guest at his show. In fullness of time the future minister of National Security, Joseph Theodore, would withdraw his work permit and Rogers, who thought himself to be immortal at TV6, would be sent back to his native Barbados.
I myself came across the face of immortality when Ira gave birth to a baby girl, Anika, on 13^th October 1994 – her face was exactly like my mother and I felt that 30 years after passing away she had manifested herself again. This was just one instance of renewal of life that is constantly taking place in the universe. Truly, what is there in the world to fear and grieve? And happiness is always around the corner as the innocent and beautiful face of Anika affirmed.
After I had signed and delivered the report (for dealing with chemical disasters at Point Lisas), quite amazed I was to get it back from the Ministry of National Security for my comments on the report! Of course, I had great pleasure in certifying that it was a great report and that it should be implemented in toto. Alas, nothing of the sort happened. Apparently when the Cabinet considered the Report, it was decided that an American consultant would be appointed to review it. And that was if not death of the report, at least it being put into amnesia

From Chapter XXVII - Trubled Surface of a Friendly Planet
On my return to Trinidad the Trinidad and Tobago Television invited me to a call-in programme to talk about increasing disasters in the world and how they could be managed. After I had given my oft-repeated treatise on both the topics, calls were invited from the public. One caller sympathized with me and suggested that the disasters were increasing because of man’s activities. I agreed: population increase, deforestation, poorly built houses in vulnerable areas, improper industrial waste – all contributed to increased disasters. “No’, the caller interjected, “You don’t understand me. Disasters have increased because the man is sinning more now”.

I respectfully disagreed and told him that violent activity pervaded our universe and had done so ever since the primordial fireball of creation. One meteoroid was believed to have been responsible for extinction of dinosaurs some 65 million years ago when ancestors of man were still living on trees.

From Chapter XXVIII - Stop Yellowing of the Sky

India’s President, Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, came as the guest of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago at the end of May 1995 to take part in the 175^th anniversary of arrival of Indians in Trinidad. A reception was held at the Hilton Hotel by the Indian High Commissioner, Jagannath Dodamani, and his wife Chitra at which were present all the high and mighty of the Country. Lovely Giselle La Ronde, the former Miss World, as the Public Relations Officer of the Hilton was charming all the guests by her attention to all the guests. The guests themselves were lining up in a mile long queue to be introduced to the Indian President. I opted to go to a queless bar and with my glass refilled with scotch, mingled with the guests who were not in the queue.

Ex Prime Minister ANR Robinson could not and would not stand in the queue to be introduced to the visiting President. He has never been strong at patronizing liquor bars. Either awe or indifference kept the other guests from approaching him. When I exchanged pleasantries with him I remembered that when he was prime minister he had held a reception for Mr. Sharma when the latter had visited Trinidad as Vice President of India. I introduced ANR to Chitra who graciously led ANR and presented him to the President ahead of the queue.

Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday was among the first to be presented to the President, like me he was happy with the scotch that he was sipping and people were continuously approaching him to greet. And when I joined that crowd, sarcastic and witty as ever he remarked that he was keeping away from me because I had been in a very exalted company – no doubt referring to my brief encounter with ANR.

From Chapter XXIX - Scare of Nuclear winter and a Vision of Emergency Housing
No sooner had I rejoined NEMA that I got an invitation from Don Schramm, Director, University of Wisconsin-Disaster management Center to be a conference fellow at the first International Emergency Settlement Conference at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. It was an offer that I accepted without any reluctance and the government approved without any hesitation.

I could always be trusted to make a mess of a straightforward itinerary.   Instead of making use of the air ticket to fly all the way to Madison, I disembarked at Chicago, checked in a Hotel, walked the ‘Magnificent Mile’ along the Lake and took a Greyhound bus next morning for Madison. View of the countryside was not all that great and just when I was wondering why I had spurned a half-hour flight for a four-hour bus ride the bus broke down and I spent six hours in a wayside restaurant before another bus took the passengers to Madison well after dinner time.

 The small town atmosphere near the University was enchanting. And I spent many hours walking on the Main Street astride which were the restaurants serving varied cousines and stores selling all types of merchandise. My room at the University overlooking a lake was charming and conducive to lonely study.

From Chapter XXX - A Reason to Live and a Reason to Die
When we stopped at London during our return journey, the place appeared to be quite charming now that summer was there even though Prime Minister John Major acted as a spoilt sport by turning down an offer to appear nude in Britain’s Cosmopolitan magazine.

We checked in an apartment at Earl’s Court and Rashmi and Neil joined us from Daventry. They drove us to Natural History Museum in London that was indeed King to Bombay’s Prince-of-Wales Museum. Kiran spent all his – and our – time taking in the history of dinosaurs and Darwin’s research section and saw to it that at least he and all the adults were at the same level of education. Neil suggested that we spend our last full day in England visiting Leeds Castle. I said I wouldn’t like to drive all the way to Yorkshire to see a castle. But it turned out to be located in nearby Kent. Thankfully the British did not rule India long enough to relocate Mount Everest near New Delhi!

From Chapter XXXI - Designing out Dangers
But now Inder Vir Chopra had become India’s new High Commissioner in Trinidad. And I was delighted when he introduced his wife, Nanita, to me at a function in San Fernando as daughter of General Rajendra Prasad – a General under whom I had commanded 4 Engineer Regiment almost 30 years earlier. Nanita was as every bit as charming as her father and almost as wary of my drinking as her father had been!

The UWI’s Caribbean Disaster Management and Research Centre (CDMRC) agreed to form an alliance with the NEMA to conduct this 7-day workshop. Integration of disaster reduction in national planning was the strategy for making a safer Trinidad and Tobago. At the end of the workshop, the participants, that came from Barbados, Guyana, St Kitts, and the Bahamas – and Trinidad and Tobago -, drew plans for the six institutions.

President of the Republic, Noor Hassanali, himself came to award the certificates of successful completion to the participants. His Excellency congratulated NEMA on the contribution it had been making to disaster management education in the region. Very graciously he remarked: “The several individuals and corporate citizens who contributed to the success of the Workshop exemplified the creed that our worldly possessions including our skills are but bounties which we hold upon trust from our creator and which he expects us to share with fellow members of the human family. I am therefore pleased to commend not only the participants but also the sponsors and the tutors. I extend my best wishes for the future of NEMA – with the hope that it receives the support that it deserves – in the important service which it renders to the national community and to the region”.
Unknown to the President – and the Prime Minister – that support would be withdrawn from NEMA in one year’s time.

From Chapter XXXII - Miami Vice
When I announced to Zia that I was headed towards Miami, scenes from the TV series ‘Miami Vice’ began haunting her and to save me from that ‘wickedness’ she decided to escort me for the trip. In the United States, Bill Clinton had just been installed as the President for the second time and was pondering over awesome implications of evidence of life on Mars, killing of 19 Americans in Saudi Arabia, imposing of strict Islam in Afghanistan by Taliban after the seizure of capital Kabul, and of penetrating cigars on an intern named Monica Lewinsky. The President only symbolized what the author, Mike Davis, described all Americans to be at that time: ‘We are all finally, prisoners of the same malign “American dream”.’

While we were studying possible impacts of hurricanes, the real danger was brewing elsewhere. Osama bin Laden was proclaiming “We issue the following fatwa to all Muslims; the ruling to kill all Americans and their allies, civilian and military, is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country.”

Political provocateur Bill Maher has said: “We talk a lot about God and religion and mankind and humility, but in reality it’s a lot about God blessing America and really thinking ‘we are the chosen people’.” ‘The chosen people’ housed us in Hotel AmeriSuites in Miami for a week’s workshop where Zia spent days watching TV while I underwent instructions on effects of hurricanes. Lectures on formation of hurricanes were followed by visits to some coastal areas where we were taught the science of using dumpy level; staff and chains to determine rise in sea levels after a hurricane by measuring watermarks of the rising sea. That it was a technique I had learnt in my first year at my Aligarh University way back in1949 showed how primitive we were thought to be.             .......

US PREACHERS WARN ALIENS ARE THE DEVIL’S AGENTS screamed a newspaper headline. Thereupon Zia and I packed our bags and headed back to Trinidad. As it turned out the preachers from New Mexico did not have us in their minds. Worse. They were talking about extraterrestrial life. Considering that the latest research then showed that all life in this world had emanated from the Mars and that the God’s chosen people did not have much to teach about disaster and environmental management we saw no point in delaying our departure from America.

From Chapter XXXIII - Acts of a Lesser God
In 1880s Harvard geologist Nathaniel Shaler interpreted the world of nature as a place of purpose and design incarnating the plan of a beneficent Providence. Of natural catastrophes, he said: “Only by evolutionizing traditional religion’s teteology and ethics, he believed, could nature, humanity and god be prevented from a collapse into chaotic naturalism.” Be as it may, an earthquake registering 6.1 on the Richter scale hit Bojnurd, about 360 miles northeast of Tehran in Iran on 4^th February, 1997. 38 people were reported killed and 90 injured by the quake. It is not known if the Ayatollah described it as an act of God as he had in 1990 when 35,000 people were killed near the Caspian coast by a quake. With that equation in mind one, one can safely say, a lesser God manifested himself in two acts in Trinidad and Tobago at about the same time.

Pipelines ruptured, houses tilted, cracks snaked through backyards and along the roadway, and a strong smell of sulphur enveloped Piparo in South Trinidad one night as a long dormant mud volcano rumbled to life. The mud eruption sent residents screaming and scampering in panic from the tumbling mud that pulled down electricity poles, telephone wires, ripped apart pipelines and knocked down huge trees. Mohan Sumair, 48, was found dead at his home after unselfishly assisting others out of the volcano’s path. 45-year old Boyie Surate recounted how, when he heard the volcano’s roar, and saw the advancing wall of mud, held his wife in his arms and cried, “We will die today but we will die together”. Mercifully the mud’s deadly advance stopped only a few feet from his house.

Next morning when I reached the site Education Minister Adesh Nanan and Agriculure Minister Dr Reeza Mohammed were already there talking with about three hundred residents their evacuating from their homes and finding accommodation in tents that would be requested from the Army. They were very happy to hand over the situation to me. I requested the people to sit down and then come one by one to register with NEMA Coordinator, Nicole, for relocation who was given a chair and a table right at the meeting venue. Only fifteen came forth. The nearby Piparo Presbyterian School was found adequate to serve as a shelter and arrangements were made with the school and the Red Cross to make it operational. As it turned out only seven families availed of this facility – the rest went to the homes of their friends and relatives.

From Chapter XXXIV - 'Tsunamis do not occur in Trinidad and Tobago'
To virtually create a city in the midst of the Caribbean Sea a meeting was called by the Director of Town and Country Planning division. The idea was to discuss an application for development on the reclaimed area west of the port of Port of Spain. Massive buildings and shopping areas were planned to be built. I objected saying if any earthquake hit the area the ground would liquify and the buildings would collapse. The engineers designing the development assured that they would design earthquake-proof buildings. But I literally threw cold water over the project by saying that the tsunamis (seismic sea waves) and flooding of the surrounding area would still cause problems. I was told tsunamis just don’t occur in Trinidad. Yes, former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George had also said on August 1, 1934 “Believe me; Germany is unable to wage war”. Even so permission for buildings was withheld because of my objections.

From Chapter XXXV - Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Industrial Disasters

After I had submitted the Report to the Cabinet in 1994 for Disaster Preparedness at Point Lisas Estate I had hoped that all concerned would come to know all about industrial disasters and steps would be taken to reduce the possibility of their occurring. But instead of ‘thinning out’ the non-essential staff from the Estate a KFC outlet was built at the entrance of the Estate soon after. I immediately protested to the PLIPDICO’s Chief Executive Officer, Neil Rollingson. Soon Rollingson together with his chairman, Peter Quintell-Thomas descended to my office one afternoon and told me that this sort of behavior was not expected from an ‘educated’ person like me. They went on to reveal to me that they were planning to build ‘Atlantic Plaza’ on the Estate for retail outlets, food outlets and services. It was implied that they had political backing for their plans. I had only accused them of adultery and they came thundering to my office boasting of their intentions to rape! .....

That evening I asked my friend Sat Balkaransingh of Nrityanjali Theatre to put together a cultural performance that would show fusion of Indian and African music and dance. Prime Minister Basdeo Panday was our chief guest at the function and so thoroughly he enjoyed the programme that he himself gave a recitation of ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ for the benefit of the small group that was surrounding him. After the performance as I led the Prime Minister to meet the artists who had performed so well, the look on Minister Theodore’s face betrayed displeasure as if he as the sun had been eclipsed for a brief period.

From Chapter XXXVI - Headless Humans Next

As my contract as NEMA Coordinator was ending on 31^st December 1997 I sought an interview with Minister Theodore to determine if I was needed any longer on the job, specially to implement these recommendations. But I was perhaps seen as a Carthaginian on a wild and frightening elephant who should be avoided by a Roman Brigadier.

But what I did not understand then was that I was

The interview with the Minister never came through. In early January I was informed that the Ministry had found another candidate for the job. It was a decision I welcomed with my heart and soul. At last I would be a free man. I had longed for a life that would have travel to far off lands, reading, writing and meditating as its activities. And this was all to be mine now.