I AM WHAT I AM AND SO SHALL REMAIN FOR DEAR LOVE OF THE DUO

Criticisms are welcome for they keep the discussion alive, and endearing too, for they are proof that you are reading my posts, even if, to my mind, you are often ascribing intentions to me which I wholly reject but do not sufficiently denounce, for that will tantamount to altering the character of the group, diverse in deliberation, and which is so much indebted to your lively participation, dear erudite friend of mine and a brother in service to our common motherland.

So far as revolutionary fervour and the zeal to free the motherland goes, I hold Netaji supreme in the annals of the freedom struggle of India, far above Aurobindo Ghosh and well above Mahatma Gandhi, and so far as spirituality goes, I hold Ramakrishna-Vivekananda to be the embodiment of Purna Brahma Sanatan (the infinite, eternal, absolute existence), and I have not found a higher ideal manifest in a human personality till this very moment despite reading about grandiloquent self-proclamations of superior divinity in diverse quarters, for true enough, India is not only a diversity in dreams but a diversity in desperation too, when it was originally read by the rishis (seers of transcendental truth), perhaps, as a diversity of directions in the progressive phase of human evolution along the radial lines of individual unfoldment followed by a diversity of homecoming to the core consciousness along the selfsame path in the reverse mode during the phase of spiritual involution. However, this is merely a personal preference based on my own reading of history and the psychology of revolutionaries in our protracted struggle for independence from the British, and my own veneration of the sublime elements of our national resurgence does not limit itself thereby only to these heroes I hold dearest to my heart but extends in humility and gratitude to all those who even now thrill the very fibre of my being, those leading men of light and learning, those souls suffused with the spirit of service and sacrifice and sheer dear love for the motherland, those martyrs who surrendered their selves to none other than the Mother who they beheld in bondage to the foreign usurper and struggled to free her off her fetters, even at the cost of the ruddy drops spilled from their ruptured arteries, and the flight of their supernal souls at the scaffold.

This I openly say and have no need for camouflaging in craftily constructed words, for temperamentally I am incapable of such designs, although, my use of language may give to some the reverse impression of me. If so, it is purely on account of my love for being lyrical in the slow unravelling, the gradual unfolding of the content of my essay and the absolute necessity of adherence to rational rigour in my presentation on paper. This leads at times to undue lengthening of the discussion I enter upon and requires of my readers great patience and a prolonged concentration to go through them without losing the links that thread my thoughts as manifest in my essays. I try to be analytic to the best of my ability, synthetic to the soulfulness of a message delivered, despite its incongruities and impulsion to flee the field of action when expressly the Lord prohibits his protege in Kurukshtetra from doing a like act, and I try to be not so balanced in my articulation of viewpoint as to make a hypocrite of myself and compromise on the very essence of my being. Where I differ with people, I choose to be loving in return for injury given, for whosoever slights me knows not that I am consonant with his soul as well, being of the essence of the inexpressible bliss of Brahman.

And I choose in especial to love all our heroes of the freedom movement and our spiritual stalwarts as well in proportion to the graces I have received from them and in this, I stand in veneration before the fountain of bliss issuing from the unearthly representations they all are in their earthly embodiment, and I bathe in the fragrant flow of their ethereal essence to be reborn each moment, a vivified being intent on service to hapless humanity wherever they be and not a stranded soul seeking a selfish security in this world of phenomenal dreams.

A word more and I end this long deliberation, futile though the entire exercise may seem to be to many. My language is the outflow of my rustic, untrained emotions, my lack of erudition and expertise in whatever intellectual exercises I embark upon, foolishly you might say, and is the gift of the Goddess I hold dearest to my heart, the One that has put in the sole syllable on my tongue even as She cast it out of Her transcendent being to fashion all that there is, the alpha and the omega of existence. As I grow, I learn. And at the very source of such efflorescence stands my divine Master, rustic, perhaps, even more than me, but the flautist free who guides my steps even as the notes issue from his inner instrument in the meandering flow of a myriad minds. And then the Lord of creatures, Pashupati, aparokshapurush Vivekananda Swami, but for whom, where would I have been today floundering in follies and foibles all my foolish fanciful existence on this error-ridden earthly habitat? Ramakrishna, Sarada Devi and Vivekananda --- the Holy Trinity hold me in their graces, and I subsist here thereby to add on my heartfelt veneration for that supreme emblem of service and sacrifice, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, who stands preeminent in my mind as the true liberator of colonised India, over and above all other venerable souls I prostrate in humility to and in gratitude for all the sacrifices they made for freeing our beloved motherland.

The fire of early revolutionary Aurobindo, the daring of the Bengal revolutionaries at the turn of the twentieth century, the attempt towards armed insurrection by Bagha Jatin and his comrades during World War I, the workings of the Anushilan Samity, the Jugantar, and the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association of Chandrasekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar and the rest, the Chittagong Armoury Raid by Masterda Surya Sen and his young brigade and the Battle of Jalalabad thereafter, and last but who dares to say the least, that titanic movement by the Mahatma with his novel method of humane hindrance to the functioning of British Indian imperialism, all these are the sum and substance of my being and I pay my reverential homage to them daily. But Netaji and his INA's contribution to the final act of dislodging the dastardly British from our soil is so deeply embedded in my soul --- as being the resolver and the resolution of the factional forces fighting for preferential gains out of freedom which would have perpetuated our slavery to the British for God knows how long --- that I cannot but hold the hero supreme in the annals of human history in so far as patriotic fervour and love for one's motherland, manifest in revolutionary activity, are concerned. In this you may duly or unduly hold me bigoted but I must plead blissfully guilty to the charge of committing this perfidy of patriotism myself at a time when marginalisation of our hero and reconstruction of the narrative of the freedom struggle to almost exclusive reference to Gandhian non-violence seem to be gaining primacy.

Let this then be my articulation in self-defence to the charges levelled against me which are wholly welcome though, for, as I have said earlier, they keep the discussion alive and throbbing in the hearts of our forgetful selves and keep us from wallowing in the mire of material misery adrift on the sea of cosmic delusion. May the blessings of the motherland be on all my countrymen and may the austerities of our early aspirants for human emancipation inspire us to do justice to the liberty gained and, thus, pay our highest homage to our heroes who hurled themselves into the cauldron of colonial conspiracy to salvage for us the fire of freedom! Vande Mataram! Jai Hind!