VT’s blog

Actually, this stuff has been nagging me for quite some time now and I wanted to write something about it. In the meanwhile, this week's issue of the Outlook magazine carries a very good piece about the ritualism that surrounds the Bachchan household these days.

Here is my take on the new-found love for ritualism in the Bachchan household.


What does it take to figure out if someone has a serious mental screw up? A lot of things, really. A fetish for mindless rituals is one of them.

Ritualism is something people resort to when they begin to believe that their life isn't going anywhere worth going. Then, a whole lot of mumbo jumbo passes off as 'faith' in their attempt to fix their supposedly screwed up lives.

I have a theory, an equation, if you like. It goes like this:

                            Religion ' Spirituality = Ritualism

Ritualism is what the Bachchans have started to specialise in, probably superstition too.

To being with, here's an honest confession. I have been an Amitabh Bachchan Die Hard all my life. I have seen all his movies. I repeat, all his movies - quite of a few of them more than once. You know, I am one of those 'First Day, First Show' types. Heck, I even saw those horror shows which went by the names of 'Ganga Jamuna Saraswati' and 'Toofan'. No matter who says what, AB remains my favourite Star. Such charisma is a rarity in India. I admire him just like a lot of my country folks do.

Amitabh Bachchan's father was the great Hindi poet Harivanshrai 'Bachchan'.  He is my favourite Hindi poet/writer. He was my dad's favourite too. I have read quite a few of his books.

As an aside, here is an interesting factoid for non-Hindi readers: notice that I wrote Bachchan within quotes while mentioning Harivashrai. A lot of people think that Bachchan is the surname. Actually, it is not. It is one of those pseudonyms that Hindi poets often adopt as a suffix to their real names (e.g. Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala'). Similarly, 'Bachchan' is probability a kind of pet-name that Harivashrai adopted and appended to his poetic name. 'Bachchan' is a playful word which means 'a child'. In reality the so-called 'Bachchans' are Kayasthas of UP and should have a surname like Srivastava. It is understandable why Amitabh decided to carry on with Bachchan as a surname. He is a film star and Bachchan certainly sounds more enigmatic and cooler than Srivastava.

Harivashrai 'Bachchan' was not just another poet; he was a teacher too. He taught English at Allahabad University. He was a doctorate in English Literature from Cambridge. And he wrote great Hindi Literature. He was one of the most widely read and respected Hindi poets of his time.

'Madhushala' is his most celebrated work. It is an amazingly beautiful 'long' poem, which takes the readers from one level to the other with effortless ease. To the beginner, it seems like a poem praising the Drink. You read further and it takes you to another, philosophical level. It has several other deeply philosophical, spiritual connotations.

In Hindi, Madhu can mean honey, sweetness, nectar, 'elixir of life' or alcohol ' depending on the context. And 'shala' means a house. So, a madhushala is a house where wine is served (a bar, a wine-shop or a Tavern). I'll use the more commonly used word 'bar' here.

The poet compares 'Madhu' to 'Life' and 'Madhushala' (bar) to 'his own World'. This is a poem extolling 'celebration of Life'.

To give you a sample, I quote a stanza from Madhushala, it says:

Madiralaya ko jaane ghar se

Chalta hai peenewala

“Kis path se Jaun?”

Asmanjas mein hai wo bhola-bhala

Alag-alag path batlate sub

Par main yeh batlaata hun

“Raah pakad tu ek chala chal

Pa jayega madhushaala”

A purely functional, non-poetic translation is:

The Drunkard goes around looking for the Bar

He is confused, for he does not know the way (that will lead him to the Bar)

Everyone shows him a different way

I tell him, it's very simple

Follow any way, take any road

Keep walking

You'll find the Bar

Replace 'Bar' with 'Life' and the 'drunkard' with yourself, you'll get an idea what the poet talks about. Fantastic!

Harivanshrai was a rebel, a prominent intellectual in his days. He was an agnostic and was totally opposed to organized religion. In his autobiography (he had written two of them), he pointed how the conservatives in Allahabad reacted to his marriage to Teji Suri (because she was a Sikh, and not a Kayastha). But Harivanshrai went on with the business of life with courage and convictions, the after-effects are for everyone to see.

He was a freethinker, an iconoclast who dared. He wrote:

Dharm granth sab jalaa chuki hai,

Jiske bheetar ki jwaala

Mandir, masjid, girje sab kuchh

Tod chuka jo matwala

Pandit, momin, padariyon ke

Phandon ko jo kaat chuka

Kar sakti hai aaj usi ka,

Swaagat meri Madhushala.

A loose translation:

Someone whose inner fire has burnt all the Holy Books

Someone who has shattered all places of worship?temple, mosque, church

Someone who has freed himself from the Pundit, Imam, the Priest

He alone is welcome in my Madhushala.

Mindless ritualism is was what Harivanshrai Bachchan opposed all his life. He mocked at everything superstitious which tried to pass off as spiritual.

Contrast this to the Bachchans today. What a sharp contrast!

Thanks to the media hype, the Abhishek-Ashwarya wedding has become a public spectacle. The pundits, astrologers and other curious creatures are having a gala time directing the Bachchans the correct date and time to visit temples, full security and all, causing much public incontinence.

Ash baby was asked to wed certain trees to get rid of certain doshas and dashas. Wedding trees? Precisely.

Of course a whole lot of mumbo jumbo related to mangalik doshas and the evil effects of planets. Quite a few yagyas and havans were performed to please umpteen gods.

Take a closer look at Amitabh's fingers; I think all his fingers carry some rings studded with good luck gems. Funny, when he was the Silver Screen ruling 'Angry Young Man' in the late 70s and early 80s, he never wore any such good-luck rings, and he still did very well.

One may ask, who are we to comment on his personal life? Valid argument.

In a perfect world this would perhaps be right, but unfortunately we do not live in a perfect world. True blue celebrities and the media have a love-hate relationship. There is hardly anything private in a Celebrity's life and almost everything is open to public.

Think carefully, India is a country quite devoid of real life Heros and Icons. Amitabh is surely an icon, probably the biggest one in India. People follow icons, sometimes blindly. Can we see the effect on the society?

Harivanshrai dreamt of a society free of superstition - a forward looking one which celebrates life. But those were the crazy dreams of a poet. Ironically, Amitabh recites his dad's poems beautifully.

I don't know what Harivanshrai would think of this had he been alive. Which legacy is being carried forward and to what effect?

"My dream is to become hopeless. When you’re hopeless you don’t care. And when you don’t care, that indifference makes you attractive." - said George Costanza.

George Costanza is a fictional character (television sitcom Seinfeld).  George is a bit of a neurotic, self-loathing too. He is totally dominated by parents. He is a short, overweight, slow-witted, bald man in his 30s.  

He has several other qualities. He is cheap, insecure and insincere. He is a pessimist to boot and a habitual liar. George says, “It’s not a lie, if you believe it”. 

George thinks of himself as two distinct people- “Independent George” and “Relationship George.” He is not too fond of Relationship George, whom he finds dull and boring. He sucks on Independent George and he believes that is the true George.

He is a man of little or no ethics and is an escapist to the core. What people call a "loser" these days. George says, "I’m a great quitter. It’s one of the few things I do well. I come from a long line of quitters. My father was a quitter, my grandfather was a quitter… I was raised to give up."

He has a few words of wisdom to share too. These words are an absolute kill all. George says,

The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death! What’s that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards.

You should die first; get it out of the way. Then you go live in an old age home. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, then, you start work. You get a gold watch on your first day. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy retirement. You drink alcohol, you party, and you get ready for High School. You go to a primary school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last 9 months floating with luxuries like central heating, spa, room service on tap, then you finish off as an orgasm!

Words of wisdom, indeed.

I have never been much of a believer. I am basically an agnostic who doesn't really care too much about the supernatural and the paranormal.

It is often said that people start “believing” once they are in trouble. I have been into major troubles several times and have been through many screw-ups but never really needed to run to any supernatural healer and pain reliever. The walking-talking ones are better help in most cases.

Convinced and cajoled by family and friends, I did visit an astrologer once; when I was going through a bad phase. In those days, nothing seemed to go right with me.

The astrologer told me that I was going through a sadhe-saati, a bad phase caused by the influence of planet Saturn. He recommended me to offer water (jal) to a Peepal tree every Saturday for eleven weeks and donate some black lentils to someone needy. That was supposed to be the cure to all my current and future problems.

I agreed to do so. The charity part was okay with me, but watering a perfectly healthy and grown up tree to get rid of my troubles sounded a bit selfish. I thought there must be a better way of doing the tree ritual. Like having a few new trees. 

So, I went on to plant eleven Peepal trees in eleven weeks. Every Saturday, I would find a suitable place near my house and plant a new Peepal tree there. I regularly watered them and encouraged a few neighborhood kids to take care of the trees.  I planted each one of them on a Saturday, partly because of the astrological advice and partly because it was convenient, Saturdays being a non-working day for me.

Those trees have grown up nice and strong and are about 10 feet tall now. I look at them and feel happy I followed the astrologer's advice, albeit in my own way.

As for my bad phase, it must have ended long back; I am not sure about the saadhe-saati, though. 

It seems some people have eventually started reading my posts. I just got my first hate mail (well, not exactly hate ' that's too strong a word).  The mail took exception to my being anti spiritual; in reference to earlier post "Agree/Don't Agree".

Anti spiritual, I am not; but yes, I don't believe in Organized Religion and I have a problem with many of those spiritual gurus and their writings. There are some things which are really beyond me. (Organized?) Spirituality is one of them.

I have some basic questions, can someone please enlighten me on them.

1)     Do people really understand what all these Babas and Matas in the morning TV shows talk about? I know, they make a lot of money, my housing society secretary wanted to invite one of them and everyone seemed to be willing to shell out Rs. 200,000 for one hour of religious/spiritual harangue.

2)     At the end of any one of these gyan sessions, can anyone summarize what they exactly said (and we already don't know). Great oratory, hardly any substance.

2)     These babas or gurus are not unique to any particular religion. There are Hindu, Muslim and Christian babas. Some of the stuff they say is so common sense. Some of which is real crap and medieval. Like recently I heard one of  the more popular ones saying that kids should not blow off the candles on birthday cakes because we are polluting the cake with million of germs. Very wise, indeed.

4)     If meditation gives us so much brain power that we can do amazing stuff, why don't these people actually use their mental faculties to do something worthwhile? How about applying all your so called mind power and becoming a world famous physicist? Our country could do with a few more Nobel prizes.

5)     Any of the enlightened people who have got their Kundlaini on their head, have not done anything substantial which they could not have done otherwise ' with or without the kundalini (if at all such a thing exists, no medical evidence so far). They would probably be better off physically and mentally if they spent those long (meditation session) hours in the sports club. If not anything else, they would learn something called team spirit. Who knows we might as well end up winning a couple of Olympic medals!

6)     All such books create such a complicated hyperbole, one wonders if even the writer has any clue what he wants to say. None of the sentences are less than a paragraph long.

7)     Whatever has been written in religious books is brilliant. Given the period when these books were written, their writers surely had immense intellect. Does that really mean they need to be read and re-read till the time you have memorized them?

     Many of the things written in these books have been proved wrong scientifically. I don't want to list them ' The World is NOT flat; thank you.

Still I agree to disagee with the "followers"; but I do get pissed off of when my friendly neighbour Sharmaji tries to teach his 3 year old son how to meditate and forces him to bow down to one bearded celebrity guru.