Years ago in 1909, Jatindra Mohan Sengupta married an English woman called Nellie. Nellie Sengupta was one of the leading lights of the Indian National Congress in its early days. Almost as interesting as the fact that a British woman was such an important member of the Indian National Congress is, — for me — the parallel fact that Nellie Sengupta’s great grandchildren’s’ spouses include a Syrian Christian from Kerala in South India, a Tamilian Brahmin, and a Zoroastrian Parsi (i.e. an Iranian, who emigrated to India circa 630 A.D.) Not exactly a league of nations, but very nearly one — would you not agree? In 1924, when Rabindranath Tagore met Argentinean Victoria O’Campo in Buenos Aires, they were tremendously attracted to each other. When Tagore fell ill in Buenos Aires, O’Campo nursed him back to health. Tagore returned to India and the two did not meet again; but their ‘affair’ continued in a correspondence that has recently become the subject of a book by Ketaki Kushari Dyson.
Victoria is the feminine of “Victor”, and Victor in Bengali is Vijoy/ Bijoy, while Vijaya/ Bijoya is the Bengali equivalent of Victoria. Tagore called O’ Campo by the Bengali translation of Victoria, i.e. Vijaya. In volume 9 of his book Rabijibani, Prasanto Pal records that Vijaya sent a radio telegraph to Tagore, saying, “ I love you.”
Tagore died in 1941, O’Campo in the 1980s; she had bequeathed her house in Buenos Aires to Unesco. Tagore’s mementos are still conspicuous in this house.
Not as interesting as Nellie Sengupta’s marriage, or the love affair between Tagore and O’Campo, there were several Indo-foreign marriages up to the 1950s. More Indo-Brit, I think, than there were Franco-Brit, or Franco-German, or other inter-European or American-European marriages.
However, when my Tamilian father married my Bengali mother in 1926, the number of such “inter-provincial” Indian marriages could not have numbered more than five or six in Toto. Today, inter-caste and inter-state marriages in India, and international marriages, are becoming more and more common. Anyhow, perhaps because I grew up in (pre-Independence) Lahore and also in what was then Ceylon, (now Sri Lanka) and in Chennai (at that time, Madras), my friends have always been, and continue to be from all over the world; including Lesotho, Mauritius, Australia, and Japan; and my daughter and son met most of these friends.
So, it was no surprise to her parents, when, in the mid-1970’s, our daughter — an Indian — married a Brazilian economist of German descent. My daughter is an anthropologist, and she and her husband met and married when they were both doing their Ph. Ds at the University of Chicago. My son is now an Australian.
In late August 2009, I was delighted when the daughter of Bengali friends of mine, married a Frenchman in Paris. A few weeks later, the daughter of a Jewish friend married the son of a Bengali family — now British — in London, My Jewish friend is not Bene Israeli, — i.e. a ‘native’ Indian Jew, but belongs to the Jewish community in Calcutta, which came to India via Baghdad.
All these mixed marriages, international heroes like Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, international religions like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and even Communism, may perhaps make a Martian traveller to the planet, think that Earth is the most neighbourly and friendly place in the solar system, or even the universe.
Looking at Earth more closely however, the Martian will realise that “closeness”, neighbourliness and friendship, on this planet are often superficial; and that “self-interest” is what separates or brings together communities and people and nations. The Martian will soon understand that market-place competition, disputed international boundaries and the nuclear bomb, have made internecine rivalry and hardly-veiled enmity, the actual facts of life on Earth.
Before the days of passports and visas, when voyages and journeys took not hours or days but many months, and sometimes even a year or two, peoples and nations were far apart in space but had, (I think), more empathy, basic understanding and goodwill towards each other, Yes, there is much mixing and matching of colour, and language and information today, but apart from individual cases, is there understanding and goodwill and a genuine reaching out to others, or only a semblance of all this, based on being street-smart and familiar with the market-place?
Of course, there have always been travellers like Marco Polo, who went from Italy to China and missionaries like David Livingstone, who have tried to help peoples in distant continents. And one cannot forget Dr Shweitzer, who gave his time and skill and life to help leprosy patients in the Congo.
However, can today’s pilgrims and missionaries be compared, for instance, to Fa Hien, who visited India from 401 to 410, and Huen Tsang, who came to this country in 630? Both came from China on a route that was more than 3000 miles long, through difficult terrain — the Gobi desert, the Pamir Mountains, and passed through Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan, Lop Nor and Afghanistan.
They visited all places associated with Gautama Buddha on this sub-continent — Kapilavastu in Nepal, where he was born, Bodhgaya, where he meditated under the Bodhi tree and received enlightenment; Sarnath, where he preached his first sermon, Tamralipta and other places in India, where Buddhism was the prevalent religion, and Kusinagar, where he died.
Ironically, today, China and India are in competition to become Asia’s foremost superpower. This is what I meant when I said empathy and understanding and genuine goodwill have degenerated with the space between peoples diminishing with modern speed travel, not to mention space travel.
So, perhaps I can conclude that love for men and woman, empathy, the desire to help those less fortunate than ourselves, the need to learn about others as a means to self-enrichment, and above all, peace and goodwill towards all, are what have taken us forward as human beings even when space separated us. And what separates human beings from animals or robots is the ability and the need to dream and love.
So now, just before Christmas, the season of peace and goodwill, towards all, perhaps our dreams and the desire for peace and goodwill will take us forward to a heaven on earth.
