4..
PLAYING THE SOLDIER
I
am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair,
disappointment, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow.
I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly,
foolishly, obediently, innocently hurt one another.
Once
again I run from my surroundings and without telling either my family or
friends, reach
In
the list of the world’s worst self-inflicted tortures, training as an infantry
soldier must come Number One. Rudely awakened at dawn, rushed to intensive
Physical Training for an hour, a quick breakfast of Poori Alu, an hour’s drill
with rifle, then on to Weapons Training in Field Service Marching Order that
included negotiating an Obstacle Course and charging with bayonets and all
punctuated with abuses, shots and even man-handling by Instructors. Some sort
of education in the afternoon, compulsory hockey or football in the evening, a
quick dinner and then on to guard duties on alternate nights. Sometimes we
glimpse with awe officers who come on horses to check on our training and all
the staff and recruits become numbed on seeing them as if bitten by snakes.
Whatever these officers order is carried out instantly and unquestioningly.
Well, that is an incarnation worth yearning for.
But
this torture at least deadens the pain of parting from Devika.
After an intense 16-weeks torture I am assigned to 3rd Brahmans
In August 1914 we move to
As soon as the girl and her
companion see me in uniform their eyes shine up and they invite me to sit next
to them. The older man is the girl’s uncle and escorting the girl back to her
parents’ home at Delhi – apparently she stays When the Muslim boys get down at
Aligarh railway station, the girl – Shashi is her name - confides to me she was
afraid that the boys would harass or even molest her and saw me as angel coming
to rescue her. I am overwhelmed and fall in love with her instantly. She
insists I visit her at
At
coming out of a door from one
end of the sitting room and exits from the door at the other end. As she walks
past she stealthily gives me a glance and a smile that makes me almost faint.
On reaching
Thus I leave with the Jhansi
Brigade for
Germans
have attacked
The bond between soldiers
is very important. At the battlefield, comrades are introduced, and their
closeness is illustrated. Their defiance of another accused soldier is as a
group, and so is their reading mail together on the toilet.
Training camp at Hampshire was an awful experience, and largely meaningless,
but it forged a tight bond between me and my friends. This bond is part of what
helps us survive at the front.
The
downtime between trips to the front is when each man's individual personality comes out. They bicker and argue,
but that is part of the camaraderie. Here we see the group as individuals, but
not in a way that breaks up the strength of the group.
The
boys are excited because Havaldar Ram Singh, the man who
united them through hate, is now on their territory. They become closer through
their reactions to bad things, like to the front or to Ram Singh.
After a night
attack by Germans many of us are injured and some killed. "Do I walk? Have
I feet still? I raise my eyes, I let them move round, and turn myself with
them, one circle, one circle, and I stand in the midst. All is as usual. Only
the Sepoy Inder Singh has died. Then I know nothing more.
Let
the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing
more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear.
The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my
eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out,
heedless of the will that is within me.
My
friend Devendra receives shrapnel from the German Artillery on 31st December
1914, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army
report confined itself to three words: Nothing to report. He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as
though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long;
his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.
At Forest
Park Hotel, Brockenhurst, Hampshire, which has been converted into a hospital
for us, I feel very separated from the people who don't understand the front. My
encounters with people and memories of my past only make me miss my comrades,
who are now the only people I can truly relate to. Even the visit of Queen Mary
means nothing to me.
After
convalescence we are rushed to Neuve Chapelle for assaulting Germans. Neuve Chapelle is the battlefield of the Indian Corps'
most famous, and costliest, action in 1915. I bond to an enemy soldier. The man I kill
becomes my comrade, for the time when he is trapped and alone. I again bond to
the enemy when separated from my own comrades.
One by one, the men
closest to me at the front are picked off and killed. More and more my
strength, my comrades, is gone, leaving me alone.
I,
alone as the last of this group, feel that nothing more can be taken from me,
because the thing that gave him strength, my comrades, has already been taken.
I give up because the war has taken my only friends who understand me. The miserable have no other medicine but
only hope. I have hope to live, and am prepared to die.
Innocence Again,
with this quote, I come to the idea of the permanent damage that has been done
to my soul. I will never get my innocence back, no matter what I do.
Happiness
and satisfaction come from stolen food and survival. On some level I am sad
that I gain so much pleasure from food and rest, that I have been stripped so
bare.
The war has placed
a wall not just between me and my past, but between me and my family. Even
Devika has been reduced to a translucent image. But as soon as the war ends,
the Army has no need for me.
On my release from the Army and return to the family home I wish I had never come home because it has only made me aware of how isolated I now am from my family and my townsfolk. The only person I can enjoy being with was Girish, a fellow solider. I am powerless to help my sick mother, who cannot understand what I have been through. I leave half of my savings from the Army service and leave home again to wander around the Country to heal my soul – perhaps never to return to the place of my birth with which I find no attachment in my heart.
5.TRAVEL NOTES OF A WANDERER
I am convinced that because
of my unattractive looks, dim-wit, lack of education, and lethargic nature I
have been rejected by my family, the love of my life and even the Army. At the
age of twenty-five when my education should have been complete I am given the
parting advice from my commanding officer to retrain myself. Luckily Roman
Hindustani, a language that was taught to me in the Army, comes into use. The
local Hindi newspaper at
What follows are some
selected paragraphs, translated in English, as they were published in the ‘Dainik Usha’ from
Benaras. 17 January 1919.
I begin my journey by
traveling IIIrd class in train to a place where the whole
The University started functioning from 1
October 1917 with the
Benaras is holy and dedicated
to Shiva. Hindus have revered this site as a sanctuary for thousands of years:
thus, it has become a truly holy place.
Melodious Sanskrit chants hang over the
Three ways lead to the
ultimate goal: the path of knowledge (Gnana Yoga), that of love (Bhakti Yoga),
and that of work (Karma Yoga). The path of love is regarded as the easiest: he
who loves does not think of himself for the time being; his soul opens out and
the man who has become entirely free of himself has by the very fact found his
God.
Towards sundown I head again
to the Ghats to view a saint who has
sat for ten years in a sort of pigeon-house which he only leaves once a day in
order to bathe in the
A number of pilgrims have
come here to die on the banks of the
I lodge at a Dharamshala in
Sarnath. A field of ruins marks the place where once a great Buddhist monastery
functioned. Withdrawal of state patronage and vandalism by the Islamic invaders
brought it to ruins. A museum stands nearby where some of the rescued works of
art are displayed. Among them the Ashoka emblem of three lions – it really
looks majestic. I watch an Indian Army Colonel with his wife, his son and two
pretty daughters browsing through the museum artifacts. Ashoka lion would have been more appropriate
on his epaulets than the crown which now adorns them
I walk across to the Stupa
erected by Ashoka to mark the place where Buddha delivered the first of his
sermons which became famous. I meditate in the serene atmosphere. Buddhism is
great for the man who is weary of life and does not wish to be born again and
again. Not for me the Nirvana of Buddha. I would rather come back again and
again with improved karmas to live in peace and love and to spread sweetness
and light.
I have to change trains at
Cawnpore to reach
On the afternoon of April 13,
1919, some 10,000 or more unarmed men, women, and children gathered in
Amritsar's Jallianwala Bagh ( "garden"; but before 1919 it had become
a public square) to attend a protest meeting, despite a ban on public
assemblies. It was a Sunday, and many neighbouring village peasants also came
to
The governor of the Punjab province
supported the massacre at
Mosques of
But for present blood is flowing the other
way. The Mussulmans have formed a special party for Khilafat, by which they
demand that the custody of Islamic holy places in he Middle-East be restored to
the Khalifat of Turkey whom they accept as leader of all Mussulmans. And Gandhi
is supporting this movement. Even the most liberal Hindus are wondering what
this all has to do with treatment of Indians under the British rule?
The East India Railway
deposited me at a comparatively clean Railway Station among the sound of
hawkers selling tea in earthen pots and saboni( a special
Four days back inauguration of
the
Good news comes from
But the event of the
Century takes place in far away
To do more research on
these subjects, on this last evening of mine at this town I head towards the
newly built Lyall Library. Kalicharan, the Librarian asks me to talk to the
Honorary Secretary who has just entered the premises. The young man, Amarnath
by name, is very pleasant, knowledgable and tells Kalicharan to give me all the help and
then asks me to to
join him at the adjacent Library Club for a drink. When I reach the Club
Amarnath is playing a complicated card game with three others. He asks me to
watch them and try to understand this ‘very absorbing’ game called Bridge. I resolve
that one day I will try to learn it. When I reveal to him that I am lodged at a
Dharamshala he insists that I have dinner at his home. We walk along the lonely
Grand Trunk Road, turn into the Railway Road (on which he indicates a house
with red doors that he is planning to rent for a princely sum of eight rupees a
month) and then across a Tonga Stand to Gulluji-Ki-Gali whre he lives with a
cousin. He is twentyone and has just got married to a lovely sixteen year old
Kamla. As I take my leave after the hastily cooked vegetarian dinner, Kamla
asks me to come again the next day –New Year’s Day. Very sadly I decline
because I have a train to catch next morning. But I promise to return on
another New Year’s Day even if it takes me a dozen years to do so.
In the evening I head towards
Chowk to loiter in the main shopping area of the City. I notice some boys
harassing an old ugly looking Muslim beggar woman who has a begging bowl in her
hands. She is greatly relieved when I chase the boys who were even throwing
pebbles at her. The boys tell me that she is a mad woman. Nevertheless, I walk
with her till she is safe from the hooligans. I ask her who she was and where
was her home. Spontaneously she says she is Begum of Bhopal, heading towards
the Palace and enquires who I was. In the spirit of the pervading madness I reply
I am the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army and was on my way to meet the
Prince of Wales! Both of us laugh and keep walking together.
Understandably, she says she
is fed up of this life of a thousand worries and an unattractive face and if
there is to be a next life she would like to be born a beautiful princess. And
I say if there is to be
a next life I would like to be born to be an
army officer and perhaps fall in love with her. “Inshaallah”, she says. As
But why not dream? After all
it has been just announced in
One Maulana Hasarat Mohani tabled a resolution
in the Congress session seeking Complete Independence, whispers a fellow
correspondent. But Gandhiji responded by asking the Congress delegates to “in
all confidence reject his proposition”.
Dehradun – 13th March 1922
The Prince of Wales Royal
Indian Military College has been inaugurated today by the Prince of Wales
himself in this sprawling area of
located astride the road to Mussoorie, marking a capitulation of the
But the news pervading the
atmosphere is of the arrest of Gandhi for sedition as a consequence of the
massacre some policemen by a 3000 strong
crowd at Chauri Chaura,
The city is abuzz with the
personality of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das. He was recently released from jail
and began to advocate what he called non-cooperation from within, meaning the
Government should be fought by Congressmen from their seats in the Legislative
Councils. This lead to the formation of Swaraj Party and the Congress
recognized the party as its own body. Elections to the Bengal Legislative
Council are held. The Swaraj Party, led by C. R Das, becomes the largest single
party capturing 46 seats out of 139 in the Provincial Legislature. Das
practically begins a dictator in
I manage entry into an
ancient palace of the Tagores for a musical night. On this memorable night I
observe noble and spiritualized faces of the Tagores. Among them Abanindranath,
the painter, and Rabindranath, the poet. The latter appears like a guest from a
higher, more spiritual world. Ancient paintings are hung in the lofty hall. Te
sound of Rabindra Sangeet reverberates the hall. The music embodies very richly
and gorgeously coloured profundity.
Thanks to my Journalist
credentials, I am even permitted a tour of
Chitor - 13th October
1924
The proudest memories of the
proud Rajpus are connected with Chitor. Here Badh Singh, the head of the Deolia
Pratapgarh, fell in the fight against Bahadur Shah of Gujrat; it was here that
Padmini, the beautiful queen for whose sake Alauddin Khilji stormed the
fortress, committed johar, together
with all the Rajput women when all hopes of victory had vanished, while Bhim
Singh died with the whole of his tribe on the ramparts. Here the bride of Jaimal
of Bednor fought along wit her husband against the legions of Akbar.. But the
Hindus know nothing of these events. They
don’t even care about the major anti-Hindu riots that occurred last month in Kohat
in NWFP. In three days (September 9-11) of riots over 155 Hindus and Sikhs were
killed. The entire population of Hindus and Sikhs living there had to flee for
their lives.
As I go down from the fortress on an elephant after praying at the ancient Shiva temple I am no longer confined to space. It is a strange condition that I experienced last on the Western front during the great war when I thought I was on the verge of death. I am glad that my life did not end in that far-off land for the cause of foreigners. If I have to die early I would like to give up my physical body for my motherland. For I am convinced of the reality of my being that is for ever blissful.
6.
SEEKING A
HERMIT’S LIFE
Six years of traveling,
witnessing and reporting of mostly depressing events has made me again want to
run for another life. Rejected by my own family, my first love and the Army, belonging
to no one and no one belonging to me I wish to wander off to the much talked-of
Self-Realization of Hinduism. When I tell my Editor of my plans, he is
delighted and says he will keep supporting me so long as I keep writing my
experiences. This is an offer I cannot refuse. My first destination is the
complex of Ajanta-Ellora which I have seen advertised at every Railway Station.
I need to travel to
What really happened in the Marabar caves? This is the
mystery at the heart of the novel, the puzzle that sets in motion events
highlighting an even larger question: Can an Englishman and an Indian be
friends? "It is impossible here," an Indian character tells his
friend, Dr. Aziz, early in the novel.
"They come out intending to be gentlemen, and are
told it will not do.... Why, I remember when Turton came out first. It was in
another part of the Province. You fellows will not believe me, but I have
driven with Turton in his carriage--Turton! Oh yes, we were once quite
intimate. He has shown me his stamp collection. "He would expect you to
steal it now. Turton! But red-nosed boy will be far worse than Turton! "I do
not think so. They all become exactly the same, not worse, not better. I give
any Englishman two years, be he Turton or
Forster's novel follows the fortunes of three English
newcomers to
"Why, the kindest thing one can do to a native is
to let him die," said Mrs. Callendar.
"How if he went to heaven?" asked Mrs. Moore, with a gentle but
crooked smile.
"He can go where he likes as long as he doesn't come near me. They give me
the creeps."
Despite their countrymen's disapproval, Miss Quested,
Mrs. Moore, and Mr. Fielding are all eager to meet Indians, and in Dr. Aziz
they find a perfect companion: educated, westernized, and open-minded. Slowly,
the friendships ripen, especially between Aziz and Fielding. Having created the
possibility of esteem based on trust and mutual affection, Forster then
subjects it to the crucible of racial hatred: during a visit to the famed
Marabar caves, Miss Quested accuses Dr. Aziz of sexually assaulting her, then
later recants during the frenzied trial that follows. Under such circumstances,
affection proves to be a very fragile commodity indeed. A Passage to
The book changes my mind. My
‘Self-realization’ will have to take place side by side with I doing a little
bit for my country. On arrival at the Victoria Terminus of
Three great religions have
carved their spirit side by side into the rock: Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
As I step inside the Temple of Kailas which has been carved out of a single
rock in all its amazing complexity I bow my head to our ancestors who dedicated
their lives for a hundred years or more to create this marvel of worship n
three levels inside the precincts. I begin to shudder. But the divine chants
that must have pervaded the atmosphere once have long since died. Now some
Mohammedan inhabitants hold their sheep market here. The dead live only in
stone. I cannot tear myself away from the temple. I come out and climb on the
top of the rock, survey the view which the designer of the temple must have
done a thousand years earlier, meditate for a short while and then descend to
visit other caves on either side of he Kailas where two other great religions –
Buddhism and Jainism – have carves their spirit. Now I understand why Hinduism
always advocated that all religions lead to God and are to be respected. I wish
Christianity and Islam had followed the harmonic existence with Hinduism rather
than the antagonistic one they have adopted.
At the
He has also written a small book entitled The
Mother as a kind of "instruction manual" for the practice of
Integral Yoga. He explained his view of money and wealth: "Money is a sign
of universal force, and this force in its manifestation on earth works on the
vital and physical planes and is indispensable to the fullness of outer life.
In its origin and its true action it belongs to the Divine. But like other
powers of the Divine it is delegated here and in the ignorance of the lower
Nature can be usurped for the uses of the ego or held by Asuric influences and
perverted to their purpose."
He says that it is possible,
not only to transcend human nature but also to transform it and to live in the
world as a free and evolved human being with a new consciousness and a new
nature which could spontaneously perceive truth of things, and proceed in all
matters on the basis of inner oneness, love and light. Paradoxically, it is an Englishman, Rudyard Kipling,
who writes a poem which may help humans to become evolved human beings:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
Mahabalipuram - November 1928
To
end my pilgrimage of
Here five temples have
already been swallowed by the sea and the days of the main temple – that of
Vishnu – seem to be numbered. Buddha was
right when he said nothing is stable on the earth. And no body or any work is
irreplaceable. There is no point in clinging to the past. We all have to do our
best today so that we can also find salvation in our own ways just as our
ancients did in their own way – sacrificing their labour beforehand rather than
cherishing the fruits of their work. That was living in the spirit of the great
doctrine of Bhagwat Gita.
Yesterday
when I arrived, the sky was overcast, but again and again a sharp wind would
scatter the grey shrouds. This morning at sunrise I waited patiently at the
Tiger Hill to glimpse Kanchanjanga. Just when I was about to give up, I raised
my eyes to look at the gloomy sky again and was delighted to behold eternal
snows on the horizontally spread beautifully and uniquely shaped Kanchanjanga.
I was overwhelmed with this unearthly mountain on the top of which no man has
ever stepped. Joyously the spirit leaps over all boundaries and roams over the
mountain range. Not too far away in the same range of Himalayas is
When it feels heavenly just to glimpse this
beautiful mountain, to be deeper in them must be like obtaining Nirvana. No
wonder all the great Hinduscriptures like Vedas, Upanishads, Ramayana and
Mahabharat were written by our sages in the
To elevate
Jawaharlal Nehru on their shoulders were present Pathans from
by the Indian National Congress. One hopes
that these Pathans are not weaned away by the separatists.
May the light of the Supreme Being that
touches me here also remain their guiding light rather than
some obsolete ideas of exclusiveness.
At noon the clouds began gathering again and I
decided to trek back to my dharamshala in
It
seems to me today as if my goal lay in Mahatmadom; as if I were right to cast
off the skin of humanity; for already there is nothing human which ties me in
my innermost self. And just as Mahatmas are supposed to be, thus should and
could supermen be (I detected a bit of Aurobindo in this). In their sphere none of the laws is valid
which determine earthly greatness. They teach that humility is more than pride,
that ambition is evil that all struggle after earthly happiness is a mistake
and that only he shall gain life who loses it.... The Mahatmas demand from him
who wishes to follow them the renunciation of everything which here is regarded
as worthy to be striven after. It seems to me today as if all earthly purpose
had died out in me, as if all vanity, all striving after elevation and fame,
were dead. The air of
I
assume that in sphere of life, there are higher, but not highest
manifestations. The perfected figure of man is unattainable, and none of us
will ever reach the perfection of a Buddha. To attain one’s maximum should be
the aim of man’s life. This then is the truth which is at the bottom of the
theory of evolution. We must strive after perfection, although each perfection,
which has been attained, seen from the next highest standpoint, appears as a
limitation. And at the times when my wandering faith makes a halt at the Karma
doctrine, I would gladly believe that my present fate signifies the punishment
for a period in which I was all too extravagant a demon.
The
times of blind belief are over. Where faith in the absolute value of definite
manifestation has passed away, where authority is no longer binding, where
ritual is no longer a support, where only that which is understood appears
absolutely real, only two possibilities are left open: one of them is of
destruction. We will die of decomposition if we do not discover any means of
salvation, for the old ones are no longer effective, and a descent from a
natural levels only possible in the form of a fall. The other, the positive
possibility – and the only one – consists in our recognizing the fact of the
new natural level, and in erecting a higher ideal upon this. We must understand
perfectly, become absolutely free from dogma and prejudice, and realize a
synthesis of humanity above personality where empirical manifestations are used
only as a means of expression.
Now
I can do all and everything in the spirit of the ‘one’ so that all and
everything must contribute to my eternal welfare. What should discourage me,
now that I know? What should impede me? Neither disease nor misfortune, neither
my own failure nor that of others, neither virtue nor vice. Everything in life
serves the
man who knows. Every one becomes exemplary in case he attains his supreme
perfection within the limits given by nature; that is what I could, what I must
attain to.
How
sublime is the myth that Brahma was at play when he created the world. I know
nothing more serious than the way real children play. The existence of a God is
only conceivable as play. Thus Shakespeare looked upon it when in the mood in
which he created his comedies. They are the work of a god, not of a man; of a
being for whom tragedy has ceased to exist, for whom law and fate are empty
words, because he has come to know nothing beyond the rules of the game.
