Saraswati, the goddess of learning

 
Yesterday was Saraswati Poojai. I do not believe in poojas and gods. I am an atheist, typical of the generation which was influenced and shaped by the Dravidian social reformist movements in Tamilnadu. 
 
Beyond my atheistic mindset, there is a secret image of Saraswati in my heart.  I remember fondly the Saraswati Poojas in my childhood. The image of Saraswati  as the goddess of learning, wisdom and arts had fascinated and inspired me as a child and has been etched strongly in my memory. I liked the picture of the goddess sitting on the white lotus flower with a book in the hand. 

 
As a kid, I was fond of books and tried to read whatever I could get hold of and whenever I could. But my illiterate uncle, who brought me up did not believe in Saraswati. He worshipped Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. He believed that pursuit of agriculture was the best way to invite Lakshmi into the home. Unknowingly my illiterate uncle believed in the Thirukkural..  
 
உழுதுண்டு வாழ்வாரே வாழ்வார்மற் றெல்லாம்
தொழுதுண்டு பின்செல் பவர்.
 
(Life with a plow is the real life
The rest are those who follow behind)
 
My uncle would scold me if he saw me with a book in hand outside the school days. So I would hide the book behind my back while walking around the fields. 
 
I had access only to the school text books. No one bought non-text books in the village. There were no books at home in the house of my illiterate uncle and aunt. Neither my elementary school in Raramuthiraikottai nor my high school in Mariammankovil had libraries. Fortunately the village Panchayat Board building had some books including epics such as Ponniyin Selvan and Sivakamiyin Sabadam. But they had only some parts of the several volumes. So I would go to other village panchayat boards to get the missing parts. Poondi Pushpam college where I went after school had a large library. I was thrilled to read so many books and magazines outside my chemistry subject. I read so many Tamil poems... And I got carried away..I wanted to become a poet. In fact, I had applied for MA Tamil Literature in Pachaiyappa’s College, Madras. But my Tamil professor in Poondi college advised me against that and persuaded me to study MSc chemistry which would have more job opportunities. 
 
While working as a junior lecturer in Pachaiyappas College, I used to carry non-chemistry books to the staff room for reading to prepare for the civil service examination. Some of my senior colleagues would laugh behind my back and thought that I was delusional. So I had to hide the general knowledge books from the colleagues.
 
I was lucky that my reading resulted in the selection to the Indian Foreign Service. During the whole career of thirty five years I had to constantly keep up reading every day to update my knowledge of international affairs. Posting in different countries every three years meant that I had to study and learn about different cultures, markets and political systems. 
 
Since my retirement in 2012, I follow the advice of Bharathiar… 
 
காலை எழுந்தவுடன் படிப்பு - பின்பு
கனிவு கொடுக்கும் நல்ல பாட்டு
மாலை முழுதும் விளையாட்டு - என்று
வழக்கப் படுத்திக்கொள்ளு பாப்பா.
 
(Reading in the morning 
Listening to music later
Playing in the evening
Make this as the habit)
 
I read in the morning, play golf in the afternoon and listen to music in the evening with a drink, which Bharathi missed out mentioning..
 
I keep a little bronze idol of Saraswati on my desk which reminds me every day the importance and joy of reading and learning. But the more I read, the more I realise the wisdom of the Tamil poet Avvaiyar.. 
 
கற்றது கை மண் அளவு.  கல்லாதது உலகளவு.
 
(what one has learnt is just handful of sand..what is more to learn is vast like the earth)
 

Ved Mehta: From a blind child to a celebrity writer

Indians go to US for higher education, jobs and some of them to settle down in the Promised Land.  But Ved Mehta who became blind at the age of three went to US for a different reason in 1949 when he was fifteen. In his own words, “I constantly dreamed of and worked on getting out of India and making my way to the West, where my disability would not be perceived as a barrier to education”. He got admission in a school for the blind in Little Rock, Arkansas. He went to Harvard and Oxford universities for higher studies. He settled in New York and became an American citizen in 1975. He was a staff writer for New Yorker from 1960 to 1993. Besides writing, he taught in Yale and New York universities.

He started writing for New Yorker magazine, when was a college student. He published his first book, an autobiography, when he was 23. He says that he wrote it out of a feeling that he could partly alleviate a life of deprivation, by writing about it. He was proud that he had earned his livelihood with his pen, since his 20s. His chosen method for improvement of his writing was to read and reread works of masters such as Shakespeare and Milton.

Mehta is the author of 27 books of fiction and non-fiction covering a variety of themes such as  Indian politics, Oxford Dons and American education. He has written a monumental autobiography “Continents of Exile”, in twelve installments between 1972 and 2004. He calls it as a cross- cultural story of India, England and US.  

Mehta became blind at the age of four due to meningitis. Since then, his life was about overcoming the disability. He says,” I had to prove every day to everyone that I was able to do things that they thought I could not do. Whenever people tried to help or protect me, they jarred my self- confidence and dulled my senses”.  To prove to others, he drove cycle in his childhood and car in his youth to impress his date, much to the consternation of others.

Every day of his life was struggle for him, as he admits, “ There was hardly a day that I did not feel defeated, condenscended to and humiliated- when I did not long to be spared the incessant indignities that assailed me”. Reliance on his own will to overcome his disability made him feel lonely and the pain of loneliness was unrelenting.

 

He compares himself to those blessed with eye sight saying,  “I was in the grip of the fantasy that I could see. Even then I maintained the habit of checking external reality. I never accidentally walked off a cliff, for instance. Without such continual checking, I could not have survived in the sighted world. But the sighted can think what they like about the blind without feeling the need to check the reality of the blind. Every moment, I instinctively translated into images any and all information received by my sharpened senses. I was creating my own reality, seeing things in my own way- only imagining that what I saw was identical to what other people saw”.

 

He sought romantic relationship during his college years but found that girls were prepared to be friends with him but generally spurned any romantic overtures. It was only after he started writing and publishing that girls took romantic interest in him. He has written about his romance and muses in the book “ All for love”. 

 

Mehta died on 9 January 2021. 

In his website, he says, " Deprivation often makes a writer". 

I am inspired by his life story and achievements. As I struggle with my own amateurish occasional writings, I am encouraged by his statement,"Some forty years after I published my first book I am struggling with words and sentences, drafts and alterations. I was constantly tempted to put off writing, a process which is turbulent and involves a lot of angst."