"Aurobindo Ghose writes somewhere of the present as the pure and virgin moment',htat razor's edge of time and existence which divides the past from the future,and is, and yet, instantaneously is not.The phrase is attractive and yet what does it mean?The virgin moment emerging from the veil of the future in all its naked purity, coming into contact with us, and immediately becoming the soiled and stale past.Is it we that soil it and violate it? Or is the moment not so virgin after all, for it is bound up with all of the harlotry of the past? "
Taken from The Discovery of India, Jawaharlal Nehru.
Nehru has expressed his thoughts quite well, and though the book is well written, I cannot help thinking of him as a hypocrite because he talks of sitting in jail as some great act whereas there were thousands who spent many more years in jail and were even tortured to death. He also talks of hindu-muslim divide as if he were against it whereas whole of India knows that he and many others very much wanted it because of power.
Sometimes I pity such hypocrites; They might do such a good job of faking that they might never be able to admit the truth to anyone, not even themselves.
1 comment:
I would disagree with you on both criticisms.
Consider time to be a series of canvas fabrics. It is the "untouched" Canvas on which we artists draw the present moment which soon becomes the "spoiled" past.
Sitting in jail is not in itself a great act but consider the mental state of freedom fighters whose brains in the spirit of the times are stimulated by the act of the great things going around them. Remember that it was his unique mix of experiences which made him what he was.
As Proust has been described somewhere - "French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. he gets down to the end of his life... and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered- Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing." (I am not romanticizing pain & suffering but there is certain degree of truth in there)
For all his failings (if they can be called that) it certainly is a big deal to have 350 million people follow you.
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