Andre Gide rightly said “Man
cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
One of the best books I have read
on travelling was “The Journey Home” – By Radhanath Swami. The book captivated
me with the belief that everyone has to undertake a Journey.
An article “The Scotsman who
knows India better than many of us“in Rediff.com was an excellent one. To be
honest I have email account with Rediff and I believed that Rediff is dying slowly.
Rediff is the last place I thought I will get a fine article to read. This is
an interview by Archana Masih.
The Scotsman is Bill Aitken who
took Indian Citizenship and believed that “India has a much superior civilization
and a brilliant religious tradition”.
Bill (85 years old) is a travel
writer and has written more than a dozen books on India. The list is given below:
- · Seven Sacred Rivers, 1992 (Penguin Books India), ISBN 0-14-015473-6
- · Divining the Deccan - A Motorbike to the Heart of India, (Oxford, 1999), ISBN 0-19-564-7114
- · Footloose in the Himalaya, (Delhi, Permanent Black, 2003), ISBN 81-7824-052-1
- The Nanda Devi Affair, 1994 (Penguin Books India), ISBN 0-14-024045-4
- · Touching Upon the Himalaya: Excursions and Enquiries, 2004 (Indus Books, New Delhi, 2004), ISBN 81-7387-169-8
- · Exploring Indian Railways, (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1994), ISBN 0-19-563109-9
- · Branch Line to Eternity, 2001 (Penguin Books India), ISBN 0-14-100537-8
- · Sri Sathya Sai Baba - A Life,2004 (Viking/Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd.), ISBN 0-670-05807-6
- · Literary Trails (1996), Harper Collins (ISBN 81-7223-240-3)
- · Riding the Ranges - Travels on my Motorcycle (1997), Penguin Books India, (ISBN 0-14-026804-9)
- · Mountain Delight, English Book Depot, Dehradun, (1994) (ISBN 81-85567-16-6)
- · Tavels By a Lesser Line, Harper Collins, (1993) (ISBN 81-7223-086-9)
- · Zanskar, 1999, Rupa Classic India, (ISBN 81-7167-199-3)
- · 1000 Himalayan Quiz, 1995, Rupa (ISBN 81-7167-290-6)
Source for the list of books written: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McKay_Aitken
Now back to article. I wish to reproduce here some golden
nuggets of Bill from his interview which appeared in Rediff.com.
About India and how Indian thinking complemented his:
"It was mind
blowing. I stayed on because of Goddess Saraswati. That really decided that
India complements my thinking. The psychic -- this more than the body dimension
-- was totally lacking in the West."
"You have to
separate the concept of India as a nation State which is very young and the
Upanishadic wisdom which is timeless," he says, "You can't kill
ideas, faith or devotion."
On Religion:
"We are not born
with religion; we are born to find our religion,"
On Worship:
"India finds
worship as a natural thing to do. In Shakespeare's England there was still a
psychic dimension, but with the Age of Reason in the 17th-18th century, the
psychic reality -- like the credence to dreams and premonition -- was cut out.
It all became cerebral."
"Men of the
calibre of Shri Ramana Maharishi, Satya Sai Baba, Shri Aurobindo -- you don't
get that level of excellence in the West. The quality of Indian saints is
unmatched."
About Britain:
"I love India.
Britain has no appeal, I like the people, but it is a strange place. I feel it
is an unenlightened well meaning nation. They gave me a good education and I
can never thank them enough."
Learning from Typhoid Illness:
"The scales from
my eyes fell off."
"From that moment I suddenly saw how life is one huge
joke. We are all guaranteed to be well meaning idiots because no one questions
what is told. It has nothing to do with ideologies. Most ideologies are mostly
mental crap."
"The world is not yesterday or tomorrow, but only now.
Every person has the capacity to find within the reason why s/he was born and
the reason of life."
The way forward:
"There has been a
colonial transposing of university culture, but India has its own ancient
gurukul tradition. By all means fly a flag on national occasions, but don't
demean knowledge by assuming it is confined to one nation which is what a
national flag connotes."
"If you want to have a flag, then have a flag to the
goddess of learning (Saraswati)."
Caution:
"India has slipped
3 places in freedom of expression. It is now on the level of Zimbabwe, Pakistan
-- so there ought to be some reason for soul searching."
Wonderful interview. Worth Reading.
Source:
Interview:
Main: http://alphaideas.in/
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