No Socrates Must Die!

Lahore, India.

Burak just ate, prayed and read. He had enjoyed it thoroughly. He tried to imagine the characters, and they were there in front of his eyes. He had grown fond of some of them – Shantanu was a righteous king, Devavrata was brave and yet humble, Ganga was true to her words. But then all were wrong – Shantanu had a weakness for the woman, Bheeshma had abducted the three girls of Kashi, Ganga left her husband alone. It was a perplexing story where, till he had read – he could paint all the characters grey. Satyavati was greedy, but a good wife and had a sense of responsibility as the queen, Salva was arrogant and haughty, but honourable – no one was completely right or completely wrong.

He entered Mujeeb’s room next day. Prof. Sujeet Ranjan Kalia, the head of philosophy was there with him.  Without waiting for Burak to be seated comfortably, he began – “What did you last read?”

“Three sons being born to the two princesses and the maid.” Burak answered.

“Who  is your favorite so far?” Kalia asked.

“Devavrata Bheeshma – the son of Ganga.” Burak answered.

Mujeeb smiled, “that is your first lesson in history – never identify yourself with any character in history. 

Everyone is right in his own way and his own circumstance. You are here to see what happened, not judge if what happened was right or wrong. And who’s wrong and who’s right when we are all pawns on a special board – with limited powers and our moves governed by someone who doesn’t know what way the next dice is going to turn.  ”

“That is a part of philosophy.” Kalia smiled and remarked.

“When Wazir Khan first talked to me about your intentions, I knew that your knowledge of history won’t be enough to serve your purpose. You need to read about comparative philosophy as well. Otherwise it would constraint your mind. As they say –a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Mujeeb said. “I think that it would be good if you join a starter’s batch at Prof. Kalia’s department for now. It would help you a lot.”

“I’m going on a sabbatical, Burak.  My students move with me. Be prepared for a journey - we are going south –where a great seer waits for us. We leave in a week’s time” Kalia said.

Burak nodded

Old Story of the East

Lahore, India

Burak sat on his rocking chair in the guest house apartment with visual tool on his wrist and audio device in his ears. As he clicked the play button on his book, he heard the sound, “Please close your eyes for the text. You can open your eyes and the text would be paused to restart at the same point when you play again. In case you want to start from the beginning or another page, just say scroll back or scroll forth. Happy reading.”

As he closed his eyes visual images started forming about the text as his imagination fed the visual tool sensors. It started.

“It is a prehistoric text of the subcontinent of India - A text on its rulers, a text of war and a text of peace.”

Images rose in Burak’s mind about huge buildings, wars, brown kings and cities and villages of old. There was tumult and excitement.  The book continued, as did vivid image in Burak’smind.

“When they first wrote it, writing was an art confined only to the Brahmins- elegant and intellectual caste of the Indians. They wrote it with peacock’s feather. The dark and effulgent Krisna  Dwaipayana ,the one who was born on an island in the dark coloured Yamuna; who is also called Vyasa because he divided the eternal  knowledge into various subjects so that it is intelligible by the human minds; wrote this text. No, they say the elephant headed immortal – Ganesha, who is the son of Shiva –the lord of demigods wrote it as Vyasa narrated it, on a condition that when his pen stops he would write no more – and when he stopped, the epic became the largest poem ever written on the earth. It claims that what is here could be found elsewhere, but what is not here is nowhere to be found. This is the history of Prehistoric India, the story of the line of Bharata. It’s called the Mahabharata – The great scions of Bharata.

Burak opened his eyes. The images vanished. He hadn’t asked for the subcontinental history. He called on Mujeeb. “I think we’ve picked up the wrong book Mr.Mujeeb. Its about prehistoric  India. Looks like fables, where there are strange beings.”

Mujeeb gave a short laugh. “Well, Burak. I told you that this is a conditioning text. You need to read this before anything else Be patient and read as I say. I know  what I have given you to read. We’ll discuss about it tomorrow.”

Burak closed his eyes and started with the text again. He slowly got absorbed in the text as it entered his mind in viid imagination till he heard in his mind the sound of  azaan – the call for prayer.