I beseech readers to spare this week’s personal indulgence. Of course, the alibi is that many may feel or reflect this way on their most memorable day and, therefore, I claim to speak for them too: That old, familiar ‘public-interest in self-interest’ gag. So, having thus secured a pre-pardon, let me embark on this ego trip, as it would seem, though I would still call it an Experience trip. And thanks for the B-day greetings.
I am a strong believer in karma. Beyond trying, nothing is in your hands. Of course, free- will champions will differ but even they cannot dispute that the starting point, your birth itself, is something you have no part in. Even here, though it would appear that your biological parents are the collaborators, really, they also cannot claim in all honesty of the certainty and timing of your impending arrival. C-sections are an argument against this logic, but they too only place you into a narrow time band, your safe landing and subsequent survival having been fixed by ‘someone else’, not surely a Gaeno, though another G. The dice of life then rolls on helplessly in the path into which and the power with which a hidden hand had cast it.
So, that I should make my avatar on the precise day, albeit a few hours later that Jawaharlal Nehru died, was neither my, nor my father, TRR’s making. Still, it warmed his golden heart no end, not just at yielding a child ten years after marriage, but at the significance of the date too. He was an unabashed admirer of Nehru and forthwith proceeded to transform his grief into joy by naming me after his idol. He extended his admiration to Indira (which happened to be his wife’s name too) and then to Rajiv. (No one by that name, nor are there Rahuls or Sonias, in my family, I guarantee). TRR had the unique opportunity of interacting very closely and travelling extensively with three generations of Nehrus who were also PMs. In his time, he had rubbed shoulders with all the political bigwigs as also many global luminaries, but never hesitated to take on the high and mighty despite personal affections. He was a vintage English journalist but it was his powerful Tamil writings that earned him lasting fame. His fiery articles in the early seventies were the stuff of media legend and the real herald of investigative journalism.
I truly believe it is the pithru momemtum of that humble, but great, human being that is keeping his legacy alive, notwithstanding my best efforts to finish it off. For, I cannot help wondering at the contrasts despite a shared fateful, rather fatal, attraction to this profession and some idealism. But forget the genetic imprints for which I can claim no credit. In a way, my father and I represent a generational shift in political, historical, ideological, and economic thought that is witnessed across Indian households, nay, society. His death in 1990 after a prolonged and painful cancer (which clinched my faith in prarabdha) was preceded by the disintegration of Communist Russia in 1989, a country he worshipped, and was followed by the killing of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 that cut off another umblical chord. TRR would have probably felt irrelevent in such a milieu, though K, his favourite target was still there to keep him busy just as he has haunted the rest of us till date. TRR took the socialist route in his newspaper too and ended up with nought in material terms. I, a product of globalisation with two professional degrees under the belt and vaulting ambitions in the stride, took the capitalist route in the same vocation only to land a few notches below nought! He was a true, non-pseudo secularist whilst I am deeply suspicious of that very S-word. My Nehru affinity ended with my name. TRR was indifferent to rituals and religion barring his last few days while his comrade friends often accuse me of wearing ‘communal’ colours. Those apart, many of his words that I had since defied now mock at me. I suggest those in their mid-forties take a relook at their fathers and then at themselves. They may see a need to seek his forgiveness even if it is too late to change tack or tracks.
But let dead dads rest in peace. A few observations and questions arise. How about bench marking our actions with our own aspirations? One is one’s own judge and that inner judge rarely hands out an acquittal if the trial is fair. This is not a case for blanket self-condemnation which takes one no where but to stress the need for a mid-life introspection. This is the perfect vantage point in one’s lifetime at which the past and the future are, at least theoretically, equi-distant. If experience is the cumulative of all your mistakes, this is when to take stock. Aah, what a formidable array that is! The follies, foibles, futile fights and all those fruitless fantasies and flights of fancy, just to ward off failure. And yet it haunts, the fear of failure. If only I can start all over again … But it seems beyond me to roll back the dice!
Another key concern is the absolute elusiveness of truth, not the lofty metaphysical idea but in the normal daily life. May be it was so always, but in this infomedia age when knowledge is supposed to be littered all over, that truth is hard to seek seems all the more incongruent. As a mediaman I can vouch that we only purvey versions. And the data-obsessed, if not learned, audience have their own theories. Humanity has never answered the question, ‘Why’. But today, even the elementary ‘what happened’ depends on what channel you are watching or what you are reading! The opposite of truth is not a lie but ignorance and that is liberally on parade. As they say nothing is what it seems.
The sense of right and wrong arises from idealism, which means a fixed set of individual and public values. But with tolerance limits rising, ideals are now like shifting goalposts. What is practical or pragmatic in a particular situation is also deemed ideal, while what is truly good remains in the shade and then fades. In politics, sport and life, winning is paramount, not the means. This was so even with Lord Krishna but at least the battllines between right and wrong were clearer, or so He claimed. Now, only a wrong can right another wrong and only a villain can fell another villain. The trick is to pick the right side out of the two or more wrong sides! If you do not play by these rules you are left out of the game, to rot and recede into oblivion.
In such a context, it is a challenge to remain relevant. Much less heeded, one is lucky to even be heard. But why should anyone listen? I, meaning I and You, never did in our heady days. If now I (& you) still feel the urge, it is sure sign that I and my late-forty ilk are now a generation past. And something else is also clear: With generation gaps becoming generation chasms, we are aging faster than our fathers did. My father for instance never felt the narcissistic need to write such a piece even at sixty!
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