Paperbags & Paperbacks

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Supratim lately made two remarks:

1. "He had some Wodehouse books lying around at home and one day when I didn't have anything else to read I took one of those and started reading it and was immediately hooked".

2. "Its so much nicer to read from a book than from a computer screen".

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John Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, heralded a revolution; later came TV and Computer screen.

Still the pamphlet and the paperback seem to thrive.

It is said that the great Debendranath Tagore was very much attached to his grandmother. Upon her death he decided to end his life by drowning in the Ganges (Ramakrishna always called it the Gangamai and not Hooghly, no?).

As he was walking dejected, it seems a loose leaf of a printed sheet that was flying in the wind happened to hit his face and drop at his feet.

He picked it up and found in it the leading verse of the ancient Ishopanishad:

"Ishaavaasyamidam sarvam yatkincha jagatyam jagat
Tena tyaktena bhunjeetha maa gridhah kasyavit dhanam",

which roughly translates to:

"Whatever passes in this world is enveloped (belongs to) by Ishwar So, enjoy after renouncing (ownership), not coveting what belongs to others"

It is said that this touched him so much that he returned home and devoted himself to the study of Upanishads and became Maharshi, leading an active life of renunciation of the ego, raising a large family all of who turned out to be gems, the last being the Tagore; and invigorating the Brahma Samaj that led the Bengal Renaissance after the death of Rammohun Roy.

Whenever I went home on my vacations, the first thing I would do was to go through the English 'Prose Selections' of my younger sisters' school books. One day I found the charming piece from the autobiography of Gandhi: 'Third Class Travel', towards the end of which he concedes that he let his wife take bath in the 'Second Class' Waiting Room instead of the common tap on the Madras Central Platform, out of compassion to his wife.

And then admits that his partiality to his wife overcame his partiality to Truth, and quotes another gem from the same Ishopanishad (the shortest of the major Upanishads):

"Hiranmayena patrena satyasyaapihaitam mukham Tat tvam pooshan apaavrinu satya dharmaaya drashtaye",

which roughly translates to:

"The face of Truth is hidden behind a golden disk Unveil it Pooshan, so I, a lover of Truth can have a peek".

This rather charmed me so much that I not only read Gandhi's: 'My Experiments with Truth", but also browsed Radhakriashnan's: 'The Principal Upanishads' for fun (Hail Central Library, IIT KGP!)

Tom Friedman (whom I used to call Uncle Tom to the desperation of my friend Edwin Taylor), while writing about the importance of imparting literacy somehow to the women of Afghanistan said something like:

"The mother would send his son to the provisions store to fetch wheat flour; maybe in a paper bag; maybe she would empty the contents into her tin; maybe she would glance at the paper before throwing it into the bin; maybe it would have the latest news of man reaching the moon; and maybe that would expand her narrow horizon" (all words are mine).

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa has a further take on this. He says:

"After reading the paper which wrapped the sweets, you can absorb what is in it, throw it away and eat the sweets (implying perhaps you digest the paper's contents and act on them)"

Nice similes all!!!

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