The Buddha, Karl Marx and My Father
Despite the joyful environment of my family and neighborhood, I became a depressed kid at the age of 7. The thought of death, especially the fear of losing my beloved grandfather started to haunt me. I couldn’t help but ask what’s after death, like so many others. The lack of an answer with this repeated thought resulted into butterflies in my stomach. The feeling was not nice then, not now and eventually, I became low enough to stop going to school. My family members were concerned. But their attempts to help me, even with the concept of reincarnation failed. I found the possibility of reincarnation troublesome because it meant endless lives for one, which is just as difficult to grasp as death being the absolute end. Before going back to the rescue story, I like to mention that over the next 30+ years, the question evolved to what’s the meaning of life or the reason of existence. The other day, I had a late night discussion with my father on the topic. My father was a teacher of the English language in a high school in India. A little more background is needed I guess to create a picture of the man. My grandparents raised their own children along with my grandfather’s nephews and nieces. Born and brought up in such a huge family, my father did exactly what was expected of him. He studied hard, joined the university and soon became a popular student. His singing ability coupled with his careless-romantic avatar earned him many fan-girls. However, at his prime age, my father left these illusions behind and joined the far-left radical communist movement in Bengal. In the next five years, he traveled to remote rural areas to raise political awareness and consolidate common people against social and financial injustice. It was a tough time. The rebels, most of them in their teens like my father, didn’t have much financial support or enough food and they had to go underground constantly because the police and the then Bengal government were capturing, torturing and killing them mercilessly. The movement was a part success, but swayed away from the original ideology and my father returned home. Like many, it took my father years and a lot of effort to fit himself into the society. As a teacher, he often shared anecdotes and excerpts from literatures all across the world; he had been a voracious reader. That’s my father in a nutshell. I can talk about other aspects of his character such as rage, singing and literary talent, teaching skills, but not here.
I rebel; therefore I exist.
Let’s get back to the late night discussion I had with my father before I forget about that. I asked my father, “Baba, with all your life experiences, what do you think is the meaning of our existence? Keep performing certain mechanical tasks and then decaying to non-existence?” My father took a long breath and closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, a familiar sign saying that he’s in the mood to discuss. He said that, “let me tell you about two people first, the Gautam Buddha and Karl Marx.” He explained that both of them searched for the meaning of life as well as ways to change things for betterment. He selected them because of their undiminishing relevance. We talked about how both of them started on their quests at an early age and remained focused on that problem for the rest of their lives. For others, like most of us, devoting the entire life to a single cause seems unattainable. As usual, the discussion followed by many narratives from history and anthropology. In conclusion, my father pointed out that the meaning of existence must be different for great minds and the rest. However, what connects us all is that “we can do things that please us with devotion and without knowingly harming anyone.”
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.
Coming back to the depressed kid, things were not looking good. My father usually remains aloof about a problem until it becomes really problematic. In this case, he noticed when I missed school several times a week and sat near a big window with a vacant look for way to long on a bright Sunday morning. My father’s usual routine on Sunday was to wake up very early in the morning, practice singing and then read the newspaper as slowly as possible. That Sunday, he skipped the newspaper and asked me if I would like to join him for a walk. I agreed instantly because he wasn’t available to me most of the time in a week. We went out and started walking slowly through our neighborhood. Those days, my neighborhood was a highly distorted circle of 100-meter radius. I became a little suspicious when we silently wander beyond that territory. But I also felt happy, leaving the house after some time and understanding that this will last for a while. As we kept walking, the brick road turned to muddy alleys and sometimes vanished within uncontrolled bushes approaching from both sides. I was doubtful that my father ever traveled this far. We built this house at Santoshpur about 8 years ago. My father grew up in a nearby town called Batanagar and his school was located there as well. So, his connection to Santoshpur had always been many fold weaker than that of Batanagar. We reached a place where there was a shallow pond on our left, filled with water hyacinth and on the right side, there was a large area, which to me was “jungle”. I heard birds chirping, saw tons of butterflies over a bouquet of wildflowers and the light rays cutting through the trees in the jungle. I felt a rush of joy and happiness. My father seemed to read my mind like a magician and whispered into my ear, “feeling happy? This moment, this feeling is life, nothing else matters.” Even at the age of 7, it struck me so deep that I didn’t even know that such a depth exists. That mantra stayed with me since then. So when my father was talking about the Buddha and Marx’s, it reminded me of this childhood memory. I heard many interesting stories of my father from his ex-students. I dare say that at moments like the one I told, my father shared the same wisdom as any other great human being. And at this moment, I strongly believe that such sparks of wisdom relay through generations, evolve and guide people when they feel lost, utterly confused or stuck.