IN ANSWERING MY FRIEND, SUBHRAJYOTI BHOWMICK, AS TO HOW I, IN HIS OPINION, SHIFTED GEAR FROM BEING DEAR DEVOTEE OF GANDHIJI TO TERRIBLE ADVERSARY

IN ANSWERING MY FRIEND, SUBHRAJYOTI BHOWMICK, AS TO HOW I, IN HIS OPINION, SHIFTED GEAR FROM BEING DEAR DEVOTEE OF GANDHIJI TO TERRIBLE ADVERSARY 

The answer is right there in the post. And I was never a hard-core follower of Gandhiji but have often in the past posited my views in that manner just to combat the fanaticism of ignoramuses on that count. 

You see, I am responsive to a fault, being moved this way or that afresh by my readings. Being naturally articulate, I tend to express my opinions on the spur to record my instant impressions of the hour, often of the very moment. As such my views may seem to vacillate between the extremes of the pendulum's swing and I may appear inconsistent in my convictions and outlook on issues. But I am a recorder of moods, thoughts as they come in and am in no way a seasoned politician of preset views or a person of determined ideas, unchanging and unevolving. I change from moment to moment like moving sunbeams across the meadow green where I reap my momentary harvests and sow my seeds afresh with every passing pulse.

"A foolish consistency is the philosopher's hobgoblin," said Emerson. I am not kindred to it and I while away my hour picking up gravel like Newton on the seashore of life while the vast sea of knowledge lies unexplored. And it is good that I am so, uncertain, exploring, unsure, discovering, eager to learn and outgrow the older 'me'. Thus, it seems to you that I have taken on a new stance and you are right about it save for the fact that I am intrinsically this way, the shifting sunbeam of spectral splendour, now propagated rectilineally, now in dispersion breaking hues on the spotless screen of life.

Written by Sugata Bose