The Solitude of Emperors (30 page)

The great ones were not afraid of solitude. All leaders of men know that loneliness is a condition of their existence, but only the greatest of them are able to transcend mere isolation to find the solitude in which the worlds of the Gods and men intersect. It was here that the emperors discovered their most potent ideas, ideas that helped shape the moral imagination of nations in hitherto unheard-of ways, it was here that they encountered their destiny. But it wasn’t easy, even for them, to go beyond the ordinary, to find that place where, though men, they became the equal of God. Nobody will ever know the true nature of the solitude of emperors and that is understandable for if it were easy to comprehend then it would no longer be extraordinary. But as the lives of the emperors have been endlessly fascinating to those who would know them, attempts have been made to probe the source of their genius, some more successful than others. I have drawn on all the accounts I have been able to find to present my own view of where and how the three men I have brought together in this narrative found the ideas that enabled them to transform the world they lived in.

With hindsight we can see that they were always destined to become supreme rulers of men, but even for them the greatness that lay within took long years of preparation to access. They filled their lives with study, struggle and dogged endeavour. They consulted with wise men, consorted with the great cultural experts of their time, immersed themselves in timeless scriptures and works of philosophy. They went to war, they dealt in peace. And even as they engaged with the affairs of men, deep inside they were preparing to walk with the Gods. And, one day, often without warning, they were ready to take the greatest decision of their lives.

Accounts of the life of the Emperor Ashoka, as well as his own edicts, tell us about the anguish he felt as he walked the battlefield in Kalinga, alone among the dead, the wounded and the vanquished. His exultation gave way to deep sorrow and it was in this state that he was granted the vision of what he must do next. All those years of war and anger, all those years of dipping into Buddhism, and now, in an instant, he was sure about the future.

Emperor Akbar’s epiphany came during a great hunt that had been organized for him on the banks of the Jhelum River. A crack marksman, the thirty-six-year-old ruler and his party waited at a strategic point as the animals were driven towards them. At the point when the carnage should have begun, not a shot was fired, the emperor seemed to have fallen into a trance. When he finally came out of it, he ordered the hunt to be abandoned.

Some historians think he might have suffered an epileptic fit, but whatever the nature of the seizure, from that point onwards his interest in religion deepened and expanded. Hitherto his deliberations about God and faith had been largely limited to Islam, but now he opened up his meditations to include the ideas of holy men of all faiths. And in due course he took the ultimate step—of founding a faith that included them all. His journey to this moment of transformation had been long, and so when the time was right, he was ready.

The Mahatma’s preparation for his moment of transformation was equally intense. Indeed, Gandhiji says himself that he had several moments of revelation, and all of these have been extensively discussed and documented so we shall only examine the most famous of them—when he was thrown out of his first-class railway carriage at Pietermaritzburg railway station on the way to Pretoria. By his own admission, Gandhi was a timid man up until that point. However he was gradually evolving, for every time he was faced with a crisis, either moral, spiritual or physical, it toughened him and imperceptibly helped change him into the man he would become.

Every one of these incidents in his early life—his visit to a brothel with a school friend in Gujarat, his unavailability when his father was dying, his refusal to copy at school, a small act of dissimulation that he confessed to his father about, his attempt to use his connections to the Raj’s political agent in Kathiawad to obtain a favour for his brother that resulted in him being thrown out of the agent’s office—all these along with his abiding interest in religion, including his interaction with various esoteric sects while still a student in England, prepared him for the day his thinking would irrevocably change course and he would experience the ‘tremendous convulsion of the human spirit’ (in the words of C.F. Andrews) that would reorder his priorities for ever.

Our examination of the turning point in his life need not detain us too long. He was travelling from Durban to Pretoria to represent a client in an important legal matter. At Pietermaritzburg he was thrown out of his compartment by a white railway official although he held a first-class ticket. The train left without him and Gandhi spent the night at the station, cold and miserable, wondering whether he should take the next ship to India or whether he should stand and fight. He decided to make a stand, and this is where in his deepest solitude he found the inspiration to do what he had to do. From that moment onward, in his words, ‘The only tyrant I [would] accept in this world [was] the still voice within.’

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The new emperor we await will need to combine the renunciation of Ashoka, the syncretic abilities of Akbar and the truth of Gandhi, but these qualities alone will not be enough. He will need to add something more to the mix, something that is uniquely his own, for the problems of our time are more complex than anything the world has seen before. I wish I could tell you, my young friends, what it is that you should be looking for in this new leader, what traits will set him apart from the pygmies who masquerade as our leaders today but in truth I do not know. All I know is that when he arrives in our midst he will have a vision so breathtakingly clear and innovative that it may not even be recognized immediately, something every genius ahead of his time has had to contend with.

The new emperor will come, just as surely as his predecessors walked the earth, but I did not set out to write this tract merely to suggest that we passively wait for his (or her) advent. No, a thousand times no. It is the duty of each one of us, the young and the young at heart, to find a way to make a difference even as we keep an eye out for the great one who will inevitably rise up among us to sweep away the forces of darkness.

I began this chapter by saying that most of us, especially the young, wilfully squander our most precious resource, solitude. But it doesn’t need to be that way. There will always be those who are doomed to live their lives with about as much wisdom and meaning as dull-witted bandicoots, but I have no doubt that there are also many of you who would like to be different. And you can raise yourselves up by looking into the solitude that dwells within each of you to discover strength and direction just as the great ones did. Don’t assume it will be easy to find—it will require discipline, courage and fortitude—but I am not suggesting you engage in years of penance and monastic rigour as the mighty sages and rishis did, your place is in the world and not out of it. Indeed, if anything, you will need to live more fully than most so that the space within your hearts and souls is enriched and vibrant.

I exhort you therefore to go out and mingle and learn. Inhale the genius of this country. Do not discount anything, the transcendent poetry of the Sufi and Bhakti poets, the architecture of Hampi and Fatehpur Sikri and Mount Abu, the teachings of Ramana Maharshi and the Shirdi Sai Baba. Let the plaintive wail of the shehnai fill your senses, the plangent notes of the sarod and the sitar slice through the dullness of your waking life. Watch rhododendrons moult on a Himalayan slope, surf the breakers at the point where three seas mingle in Kanyakumari, hunt in the Western Ghats with the hamadryad, the only snake on the planet that is fast and deadly enough to prey on other snakes, walk the shadowy forests of Arunachal with the clouded leopard, the least known great cat in the world. Celebrate the colours of Holi, the lights of Deepavali, the food of Ramzan and the gifts of Christmas. Eat meen moily in Cochin, kebabs in Lucknow, dhansak in Cumballa Hill and dhokla in Ahmedabad. No other place in the world can boast the width and depth of history, art, spirituality, food and music that this country has to offer, and it is all yours for the taking. And there is no call to limit yourself to this country; there is nothing to stop you from roaming more widely through the literature and music and art and philosophy and scripture of the West and the East to feed the wellsprings of your creativity and quietude.

At the same time, do not neglect to absorb the poverty and violence and savagery and injustice of this country of extremes. Experience the despair of the coalminer in Dhanbad, where the very land is on fire, understand the hopelessness of the marginal cotton farmer in Andhra Pradesh, mourn with the widow of the Sikh garage owner who witnessed her husband being burnt alive in the Delhi riots of 1984. Let their pain become yours.

You might wonder why you should listen to this old Bombayite hectoring you so let me tell you a story, about how and why I decided to give up my comfortable life to dedicate myself to the work I have done for over twenty years now. In 1969 I had gone to Ahmedabad on a business trip when riots broke out, and I was stranded in my hotel. On the evening of the day after the riots had been ‘brought under control’ I was walking through one of the shopping districts when I came upon a narrow street where over a dozen people had been killed. The bodies had been taken away and policemen were lounging around, but something I saw that day led me to abandon my plans of a quiet retirement and start the magazine I edit to this day. At the far end of the lane was a heap of discarded footwear: cheap plastic chappals, rope sandals, badly torn and mended shoes. At first I didn’t comprehend what I was looking at, and then it struck me—this pile of rubbish had belonged to the victims, who had discarded them in the hope that they would gain some extra speed and agility to save themselves. As I stood looking at the poignant memorial to those who had lost their lives, I saw with pitiless clarity that I could never hope to spend my remaining years sipping Blue Riband gin and tonic on the lawns of the Bombay Gym as I waited for the day I would make my last journey to the Towers of Silence. I had at some level always been concerned about sectarian violence and the direction the country was taking, but as I hadn’t been affected by it personally I had seen no need to do anything about it beyond sending the occasional cheque to some rehabilitation effort or other. That day everything came together, and I knew exactly what I should do. I started
The Indian Secularist
a year later, and only wish I’d had my epiphany a few decades earlier.

And so, my young friends, I say to you: immerse yourself in the beauty and terror of this great country, enrich and deepen your hearts and your minds. Let every disappointment instruct you, let every triumph strengthen you. And all the while, even as you are part of the world, learn to walk alone. If you keep at it long enough, the day will come when you are able to look within yourself to find out what you need to do to answer those who seek to diminish our nation.

What we might be called upon to do might not change the lives of millions of people as the great emperors did, and as we hope our emperor in waiting will do, but we should do it anyway—every little bit helps. I’m sure all of you know the story of the squirrels that helped Rama cross the sea to do battle with Ravana; all you need to propel you forward is the courage, conviction, passion and energy that only people of your age and innocence are abundantly gifted with. In the battle you will need to fight, your religion does not matter; your caste does not matter; your position in society does not matter; do not worry if you are a misfit, or haven’t been applauded as a ‘winner’—some of the greatest heroes of all time were written off as no-hopers, charlatans and discards by myopic arbiters of society.

You should know that big decisions are hard to take. You will be tempted to do nothing when the time comes, or to pass the responsibility to someone else or to take advantage of the situation for your own benefit, but stepping up to do the right thing no matter how difficult is always the most rewarding course of action. It is something that you will remember with pride for the rest of your life.

There are a thousand causes you can potentially commit to in this country, but as the subject of this book is the misuse of religion I will limit my appeal to this area. I cannot tell you what you should do, you will find that out for yourself, but I can tell you that the only qualification you need is an unwavering commitment to tolerance, and the only commandment worth keeping is the one that maintains that men and women of every faith are equal in the eyes of God and this nation. An ancient commandment, a fundamental right and perhaps a naive and overly idealistic sentiment, but no less powerful for all that. You have no time to lose—the forces arrayed against you and yours are arming at a furious pace—and as you wait for your own champion to arrive, you must continue to fight in whatever way you can to restore sanity and decency to our nation, you emperors of the everyday.

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This was extraordinary, I remember thinking; it was almost as though Mr Sorabjee was personally urging me to get involved, to do my best to help stop the impending tragedy. Feeling vindicated, I went to the study where the telephone was to call my employer. I wanted more than anything else to hear his calm, measured voice. I wanted to describe everything that had taken place until now and see if he had any advice for me, but to my chagrin the telephone was dead. The butler had warned me that this was a fairly regular occurrence, the phone lines often went down and it could take days for them to be fixed. Cursing my luck, I slammed the useless phone down on its receiver, went back to my bedroom and reread the last chapter. Its power was undiminished; it served to strengthen my resolve.