Queenstown is one of the much hyped tourist destinations in New Zealand. It has been dubbed as the adventure capital of the world. So it was almost sinful to live in south island for six months and return without visiting this place. Since my consultants were going on vacation (they go on vacations every coupla months) first week of July (it was school holidays then) I decided I would rather escape from the sin by visiting Queenstown. Car was broke and driving in snow was supposedly dangerous, flights were prohibitively expensive coz of the ski season and so the poor man’s mode – low fare bus became the only left option to get there. In fact I was happy to choose the bus, one reason being the scenery on the way which was to be enjoyed without concentrating on the road and the other obvious reason - time to spend with a book.
I had chosen a couple of books for the journey from the library. Sulman Rushdies’s “midnight children” was the first book to be completed. Next in line was “the argumentative Indian” by Amartya Sen. This book’s title attracted my attention when I found this in the library. I had always liked arguments and discussion. In a healthy way of course. In fact the spiritual masters recommend Satsanga – company of like minded people to discuss and foster knowledge. Indians are probably argumentative it ought on seeing this big book.
The bus journey started at 9 30 am. The day was unusually sunny with good views of the distant mountains which progressively became closer, all laden with a number of inches of snow, some fresh and some a few days old. Snow was everywhere, on the roads, over the roofs, in the carparks, on the hills, snowy white everywhere.
I started with Salman Rushdie. Somehow, I was not very comfortable with him. I have started feeling that if I read a book or watch a movie, I should learn something just not get entertained. This notion is my father’s. He would always ask me if there is something useful for my exams in the movie which I was pestering my Dad to take me to. I would be pissed off so badly when he asked that every time in the same simple and innocent manner. But he eventually obliged by taking us to the movie knowing for sure that there is no useful lesson to be learnt for my primary school exam. This idea somehow probably got ingrained in me. I was hence was looking for information and learning rather than entertainment when i took a book. The initial pages of Rushdie did n’t fit into my taste.
I took this argumentative book then. The book’s introduction itself told me that I would find stuff of my interest inside it. The first essay is about the tradition of arguments in Indian history. I was suddenly reminded of the word “Dargashasthra” which I have heard somewhere. This shasthra lays down rules about the conduct an argument.
The essay in superb style elaborates Inida’s history and tradition in Amartya Sen’s view. Sen himself acknowledges the fact that provided the diversity of India, talking of India by any single person is always selected, not complete. Many facts in the essay were new and interesting to me. For example, we fail to realize that India was a Buddhist nation for almost 1000 years. Carvaka’s atheistic philosophy rejects the existence of anything more than human perception and bashes all rituals as just means by Brahmins to earn a livelihood. This school of thought is about 1500 years old and well described and acknowledged in texts. The character of Javali, a pundit in Ramayana is probabably not that popular as he is seen lecturing Rama about the Carvaka type philosophy. The scientific transaction between ancient Indian mathematicians and scientists with Persian and Arab scholars is another interesting fact. The rational thinking in India was influenced by their work and vice versa. Like Aryabhatta’s calculations about the solar and lunar eclipse were used and acknowledged widely by Arabians.
I wonder Aryabhatta’s discovery of earth rotation and eclipses were done in a period when people strongly believed in what is brushed off as mythology now – the devouring of moon by Raghu or the like. The scenario is like that of Galileo and Socrates in the west. They were outcasted and killed whereas in India Aryabhatta was widely respected. So the reaction to radical thoughts by a society is evident from this incident. The belief that the past of India is overwhelmingly religious or deeply anti scientific or exclusively hierarchical or fundamentally anti sceptical, is wrong according to the author.
Sen goes on to say that Indian literature has more rational writings than any classical language. He talks of Lokayata school which reproaches inference totally. India has a lot to know about her past. We tend to pose ourselves as the sons and daughters of this magnificient country with a rich past, just knowing very little of it, that too not in great detail. With that meek knowledge of ours we tend to look down on “Indian” ways.
More about the book will follow.
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