There was a time in the distant past when i was cynical about everything that hinted of idealism in nature. In the Lake District (also in a distant past) three friends went for a bike ride and one of them (me) constantly talked about the verses of Wordsworth. How can one not talk Wordsworth in Grasmere? We were there, right there, in the lap of the exact places where he had walked, slept and been in rapture. Then, at the very end of the day, Daniel (now a famous Prof. at Cambridge) got irritated and said, 'But look around you, nature is not kind, there are insects eating insects, a great battle rages which you cannot see'. He continued, 'stop your stupid idealism, it leads us to nowwhere land, it`s just bourgeois day dream'. Hurts..eh.
Then as i moved on in life i sort of decided to keep my idealism shut inside myself. The dream that the ultimate goal of the human condition is to not be bogged down by crass materialism but to nurture this natural link and deep love of nature we all possess, was something secretive to be hidden from the world. A word of it to anyone and people will think you are a crack-pot. Note that i obviously do not reside in the hip parts of San Francisco or suburds of London where such thoughts are nurtured, cultivated, celebrated. No, i am from a small island in the Indian Ocean, and hail from a lower middle class Indian background. Life`s goal for us coming from this end is to get a degree, find a profession (doctor, engineer etc), get married and make money. Anything else is crackpot country. Did i forget to say produce kids ?
There you go, i have thrown the context at you. Now as i walked into Sunnyvale Library a few weeks ago, and after absentmindedly browsing through their catalog my eyes fell on Satish Kumar`s path without destination. I did not bother to read the who and what, but was touched by his striking ressemblance (really flabbergasting almost a reincarnation) to a friend`s father (also a Jain incidentally). So i decided to go in search of the book, which was traced in no time, and from what i understand from the librarian not the most popular on demand writings in Sunnyvale library at the present time. In no time, i got hooked on it. So i ask you dear reader,
who is Satish Kumar?
Who is Satish Kumar? One thing i know let us not forget to start from the very beginning. He is someone who can initiate an army of post-modern haters at the drop of a hat. There is enough fodder in this book to raise the eyebrows of an army of post-modernists. I can almost see them talking. Let me summarize what they might have to say: a) oh he`s just a crackpot who because he was told by a fake Guru that he will always be someone on an eternal search, thinks he has no responsibility in life and keeps quitting and moving on as he pleases, without any concern for (his first wife for example) others, b) A bourgeois who uses the same system he criticizes. By this i mean, he is a jet-setter, he lives in a quiet nice neighbourhood, enjoys the good life, and all these are products of capitalism. The same darn thing he constantly bashes to bits in his book, c) He suffers from a huge ego problem and has an unhealthy amount of self-importance, for example, that walk he made, i.e 8000 miles, was a gargantuan and sisyphus-like general waste of time. Did it actually stop the nuclear arms race?. Give me a break. And they will have many more arguments, some more elaborate and complex than the ones i listed. I respectfully by-pass most of them at this point. I must move on Reader, i can`t wait to say what i desperately need to say.
No i am not one of those earlier fictional critics i mentioned. I am simply stunned by the immense humanity of this person. I did spend a few hours after reading the book, stunned, and depressed. Stunned and depressed by my own insipid ordinariness and self-oriented and selfish world view. This is a man who reminds me of the Gurus of the bygone days. The Gurus Vashishta and Dronacharya, who have a totally different agenda from all the others. They were born with an innate need to answer the ultimate question and this moulds their lives around this quest, at any costs. Even if this entails dropping everything to be come a monk at the age of 9. Walking around India, in search of truth and solace. Walking around the world aiming to bring compassion in the minds and hearts of man. No this is serious stuff. Satish is not a fake. He is an oak tree. As a young man, i take off my hat and salute him. As a Kabir lookalike would say:
O Friend,
You are my Guru, my peer,
Your journey is suffused with truth
I would have followed in your path
But you see
I am blind !
