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Minoo Masani
Stories from the life
of the Buddha
Descending dark
stairs
These are good, readable poems that trigger off a wave of images and thoughts. My favourite stanza is from his poem The Portrait of a Successful Man, "`85how he has worked/for a peacock tomorrow/and left/his present/to hungry vultures". Reflective and evocative stuff.
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Believe
it or not there used to be a significant number of politicians in India
who wouldn’t mould their conscience to fit into extant fashions. Minoo
Masani was one such stalwart. A purist, he was upright and honest to a
fault. No wonder he did not have a comfortable place in any political
group. Yet he made a lasting impact on the Indian political ethics.
Starting off as an ardent socialist, he became disenchanted with
communists and turned into their implacable foe. He was instrumental in
establishing of the genteel and high-minded Swatantra Party that could
not survive the rough-and-tumble of unscrupulous Indian politics. His
punctuality, principles, perfectionism and intellect earned him many
admirers, and formidable foes too. He belonged to that rare breed of
Indian politicians who never hankered after power or pelf and readily
sacrificed the comforts of office for their beliefs. Minoo Masani will
be remembered for his writings that had a positive effect upon Indians
belonging to all age groups. His book Our India is considered a
classic while The Growing Human Family and We Indians have
also had an impact. Guess what – all the three actually were meant for
children! Raju has done a signal service in writing this concise
biography of an icon of India.
Born
in the royal family of Kapilvastu’s Sakyas, Siddharth became
motherless soon after his birth. His father Shuddhodhana protected him
from miseries of the world by keeping him involved in the palace’s
sensual pleasures in order to thwart a prediction’s consequences. But
the inevitable happened. Witnessing an old, a sick and a dead man on
three separate occasions he renounced the world in order to seek The
Truth. He subjected his body to severe ascetic rigours, interacted with
several wise men and meditated for long spells of time. Finally, in
about 528 BC, he became Buddha (The Enlightened One) while sitting under
a Bodhi tree in Bihar’s Gaya when he realised the path to salvation
from suffering (Nirvana). Thence started his journey traversing the
Gangetic plains, preaching his doctrines and establishing monastic
communities. Saddhaloka, formerly known by his American name, David
Luce, has narrated stories relating to the life and times of Buddha that
are part history and part mythology – an alluring mix for readers.
Poetry,
a potent mix of imagination and reality, has the power to articulate any
mood, any situation and reactions thereto. Pal too seems to endorse this
view as he gives expression to variegated feelings and frames of mind.
For example, he rather blithely justifies carnal escapades in the very
first poem In Defence but becomes bitterly introspective in It
Hurts. The Sudden Longing should have been titled A Rush
of Infatuation as it articulates the poet’s passion for a girl he
sees for the first time.