|
|
To understand the contemporary
framework of reference, it is necessary to know about people
from all parts of the world and about scientists and engineers
as much as about writers and politicians. What is happening has
to be placed in its context in space and time.
History is
concerned not only with facts but with speculations of this kind
and the debates surrounding them. There is still room for new
interpretations of Darwin, new discoveries about Dickens, new
assessments of Montgomery, remould the World War I, so we can
breathe new life into the personalities of the past. Famous
people may be quickly forgotten, but people who worked away from
the limelight may become far more significant to other people
after they are dead than when they were alive.
This book under
review, "A Touch of Greatness Encounters with The
Eminent" by R.M. Lala, former editor of Himmat and an
author of international repute, is for the general reader. At
the same time it poses a basic question for historians. For the
most part modern history books are not like newspapers or
television programmes. They deal less in personalities than in
"themes", "tendencies" and
"trends". Some of the complex changes of the 20th
century seem curiously impersonal; others carry with them a
sense of inevitability.
When people are
brought in, they are often people of the masses. The famous
writer of science fiction, Isaac Asimov, has even suggested that
in future we may have what he calls "psycho-history",
history that assumes that "the human conglomerate"
being dealt with is sufficiently large or valid statistical
treatment. Individual decisions become part of a pattern.
It is never
easy for the historian to separate individual biography from the
social and cultural history in which it is enmeshed or to say
confidently what would have happened if a particular individual
had not appeared in the world at a particular time. The 26 lives
described in this volume have all changed history in different,
often ambiguous and contradictory, ways. If they had not
existed, we could not have invented them. Once they did exist,
their influence moves in many different directions. Historians
cannot escape the task of assessing individual motives and
achievements. There is no other subject which is concerned in
quite the same way with "judgements". Each brief
biography in this volume, therefore, will best be appreciated if
it is thought of not only as a work of reference but as an
invitation to further reading and study.
If we perceive
with an open mind, every human being has some good quality which
we can emulate with benefit. Over the past five decades, the
author had the privilege of meeting or getting to know a number
of distinguished men and women. There is a touch of greatness in
these personalities and this compels one to search for the
secret of their distinction in the context of their lives and
times. For example, when Rajaji was urged, then in his late
eighties, with his years as Chief Minister of Madras and
Governor-General of India, to write his autobiography, he said
with modesty, "When the saints of India have not written
their lives, who am I to write mine?" When M. S.
Subbulakshmi’s husband, Sadasivam, the most faithful of his
disciples, urged him to write about his life, he gave the same
reply, but added movingly, "Sadasivam, our job is to do our
duty and to go." In that one sentence Rajaji summed up what
he thought was a man’s purpose in life.
In aprofile of
Field Marshal Manekshaw, the author records that when the
Japanese were advancing in Burma in early 1942 defending the
Sittand Bridge was a 28-year-old captain. Facing a hail of
machine-gun bullets, the captain fell to the ground and was left
for dead by the retreating forces. His orderly, who had
effectively hidden himself during the engagement, came out after
the Japanese left. He picked up his unconscious master and
carried him on his shoulder the whole day, heading for the town
of Prome. He hid the captain in ditches during air raids. When
Captain Sam Manekshaw regained consciousness, he told his
orderly, "Leave me now and go, for I am finished. You
should think of your wife and children and save your life."
"So long
as there is life in you, I shall not leave you, Sir," said
Mehar Singh. For most of the next night he carried Manekshaw,
bringing him to a field hospital. In a tent by candle light at 4
am, an Australian surgeon operated on Manekshaw and removed six
bullets from his stomach, lungs and liver. Manekshaw was wrapped
up in a blanket and sent off to Rangoon, towards which the
Japanese were advancing.
At Rangoon,
Manekshaw was told his case was hopeless. There was a ship
leaving for Madras. "If you asked to be put on the ship at
your own risk, they might take you," the officer advised.
Manekshaw told the authorities, "I am going to die in any
case. I would rather die in India." It was dangerous
journey across the Bay of Bengal but the ship was one of the
last to arrive safely to Madras harbour.
Manekshaw was
taken to general hospital where surgery saved his life. He was
awarded the Military Cross, and spent rest of the war as staff
officer at Quetta. It is a wonder that Manekshaw lived. Destiny
had a role reserved for him.
The book is
full of such narrations. The author records his impressions
about luminaries from a wide variety of fields, politics, social
activism, industry, religion and the arts — whose life
demonstrate "what one can live for — and what one can
live byy". Apart from giants like Vinoba Bhave, J.P,.Rajaji,
Kripalani, Lal Bhadur Shastri and Morarji Desai who played a
prominent role in shaping modern India. R.M. Lal also writes of
renowned men and women who have had long and fruitful carriers
and still continue to have an impact on our consciousness, among
them few are Nani Palkhiwalla, M. S. Subbulakshmi, M. S.
Swaminathan and the Dalai Lama.
Among the
contemporasry, younger achievers profiled here are Azim Premji
who, forced by circumstances to abandon his studies midway, now
heads a vast business empire and is rated as the world’s
richest Indian, Narayana Murthy who, despite his stellar role in
India’s information technology, retains his middle class
values. The collection ends with a short autobiographical piece
which forms part of the epilogue and is a touching cameo of the
author’s father who influenced him immeasurably.
The lesser
known facts, the idiosyncrasies and the foibles, the book
explores them all, making the people profiled that much more
human.
Written with a wealth of detail
and a deep sense of empathy and containing 26 illustrations, the
book is a must buy for the discerning reader.
|
