The Influence Of Some Famous Indians On My Life

by Benjamin Parker

Now I am no stranger to Indians or their influence in my life on the personal level. I have known Indians from my earliest years. And they are to be found in all aspects of my life: as friends, family, colleagues. But leaving aside the common man (being a common man myself, the Indians I know tend to be of this variety) what about the other Indians – the famous Indians? The Indians that you, being Indians, know and cherish as national treasures? You, of course, know the importance of famous Indians from your own nationalistic perspective. But how important are famous Indians to other people? How much have these treasures found their way into the lives of non-Indians? That’s another question altogether. Well (in case you have ever wondered) I’m going to tell you – at least from my personal perspective.

So I have chosen a few examples of famous Indians who have made some difference to my life. One of them, a scientist, another a political figure, and (how could it be any other way) two others, Bollywood actors.

The Scientist – Satyendra Nath Bose

I suppose it’s only natural for me to begin with someone who made a difference for me the early days of my education. Back in elementary and high school I found tremendous facination in science – particulary physics and chemistry. And when it came time for me to be introduced to relativity and quantum mechanics, I felt as though I was moving beyond the realm of mere science and into the fundamental workings of nature and truth itself. Indeed, this is what prompted me to major in physics when I entered university – the desire to look into the most basic principles at work in nature.

And somewhere along the way in my studies, I encountered the work of Satyendra Nath Bose and a group of fundamental particles, called bosons, that had been named after him and lie at the heart of quantum mechanics. But before we go on, perhaps a little science lesson is in order.

So let’s start by looking at the particles that bear his name. In brief, all of the observable matter and energy in the universe is found in two types: fermions (named after the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi) and bosons (named after you-knowwho). Fermions have an interesting property: two fermions cannot be in the same place at the same time. If one fermion meets another, they ‘bump’ into each other. So fermions make up what we call ‘matter’ – the hard stuff in the universe: electrons, protons, etc. On the other side of the coin are those particles that make up the energy of the universe – that carry the forces that hold together (or drive apart) the fermions. These particles – bosons – have (perhaps) an even more interesting property. Two bosons can be in the same place at the same time. When one boson meets another, they pass right through each other (or even merge together, as the case may be) without the slightest bother.

Now it’s an interesting fact of history that it was the European scientist who had the particles with a strong sense of personal space named after him, whereas the Indian scientist had the ‘go ahead, crowd me, I don’t mind’ particles named after him. The cultural implications of such an occurrance may well be worth examining – as may also be an examination of Sonia Gandhi’s Italian-Indian synergy with respect to these very two cultures. But perhaps now is not the time.

So let’s return to Bose. The early 20th century in which he lived was an exciting time for Physics – but also a confusing one. The same could be said for my late teens in which I found Bose’s science putting its imprint on my life. But you may be asking yourself: What makes his contribution so signifcant? Well, because not only are bosons the particles that can be crowded together in the same place at the same time, but they also govern the way fermions interact with one another. And so every time we open our eyes to look upon a new day or a sunset. Every time we push open a door. Every time we call someone on a mobile phone, we should think of Satyendra Nath Bose, who gave his name to the elementary particles that lie beneath all of those phenomena.

And not only this. Bose also appealed to my sense of how things ought to work in life, how all things – whether science or art, youth or age – ought to be connected in some way. For it was Bose who worked on science of those things that made the connections in nature. Indeed, one particular boson is called a gluon because it ‘glues’ the parts of protons and neutrons together. Another boson is the photon – the particle of light – which, of course, allows
us to look at the world around us and connect to it. This, to a teenager, in all the idealism and impatience for answers of those years, reveals that there is something more to live than just facts and figures. And that even facts and figures had something of the artistic within them.

For though a brilliant scientist, Bose’s conclusions resulted more from a musician’s or artist’s intuition than from scientific rigour. Or perhaps a better way to put it would be to say that his scientific rigour was at such a high level that it transcended rigid boundaries and began to speak in the language of art. Indeed, in his day, being at the cutting edge of scientific discovery, this may have been a necessity. Bose was not always able to make himself understood in purely scientific language – not as it existed in those days, anyway. Quantum physics was coming into being with his work and that of others. Words to describe this new field of science did not yet exist. And the minds that were needed to grasp the strange properties of the strange particles (if that is what they were – no one really knew) had to be, well, if not as strange as the particles they were trying to understand, at least as beautiful and as unpredictable in their workings. Some of his early (and most significant) work went unheeded simply because it didn’t seem to fit within the rules of known science. He finally had to write to Albert Einstein, who immediately saw the value of Bose’s work and then acted as midwife to help bring Bose’s theories into the world of science.

Though Bose himself was never awarded a Nobel Prize, no fewer than eleven such prizes have been awarded to others for work done based upon his theories, five of which were awaeded during his lifetime. But there is no indication that he ever resented the lack of recognition with regard to this particular honour. Indeed, just one month before his death in 1974, while at a function celebrating his 80th birthday, Bose said, “Well, after all, if one has lived through so many years of struggle, and if at the end he finds that his work has been appreciated, he feels that he does not need to live long. I think this is the faithful end to a long career.”

The Political Figure – Rani Lakshmibai (Jhansi Ki Rani)

Whenever I’m asked in conversation about the places I’ve visited in India, I rattle through a longish, though by no means exhaustive, list of cities. Invariably when I get to Jhansi the response is “Jhansi? I would not have expected anyone to go to Jhansi.” Jhansi was, in fact, the second place (after Delhi) that I visited in India. And among the facinations of the place – in addition to watching a family of six who were riding on a single scooter on the road to our hotel – was visiting Jhansi fort and hearing about Jhansi ki Rani.

The interest she has for me is partly do to the fact that she was among those who introduced me to the story of India. Being, as I said, only the second city I found myself in, Jhansi, and its rani, stand out in my mind clearly among all the faces of India.

I say ‘clearly’ but the story of the rani is anything but. Conflicting reports of her life abound. But to continue with my theme. In what way did she leave her mark on my life? Well, she was, for me, a significant introduction to India – she represents much of what India is as a country. As I said, conflicting reports of her life abound. And it is this, in part, that is representative of India both of her times as well as now. For me, on my first trip to India, I had already had quite a number of confusing and seemingly contradictory experiences. And that is the nature of India – a multicloured jigsaw puzzle whose pieces do not quite seem to fit together, yet somehow do. But not without conflict. And that is how it was for the rani. For just as there is not only one India, so there was not just one Jhansi ki rani. She was queen, then dispossed of her throne and lands by the greed of the British, then military leader – defending herself against both Indian and British armies. Her methods were not just military, but also diplomatic and legal. In fact, it seems that she always worked for peaceful solutions – even when pressed against the wall by both Indian mutineers and British – her preparations for and involvement in violent conflict being a last resort. She was surrounded by the selfishness and competing interests – foreign and domestic – that we see again and again in human history. And in the end, she was swept away by those very forces.

So it is with all the world – but particulary for India. This one country has perhaps every element found in the rest of the world. The spectrum of human society, whether race or religion or language, seems to have been squeezed into this one place. And so Indians find themselves constantly challenged by the choice to seek either their own selfish interests and those of a particular community or class, or to seek the welfare of all Indians and therefore that of their
country as a whole. Lakshmibai’s India had too many who sought their own interests.

Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol (Kutch Kutch Hota Hai)

I suppose that no comment on encounters with famous Indians could ignore Bollywood – not for me anyway. So as a final note on the influence of famous Indians in my life I will mention Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol. The significance here is not just an introduction to Bollywood movies (I had, in fact already seen a part of an Amitabh movie some years before, though never a movie in its entirety), but Kutch Kutch Hota Hai also played a role in my marriage.

It was the third or fourth date that my girlfriend – now wife (but still my girfriend) – went on. Since she’s Indian, I decided to take her to a Hindi movie. So I looked up the timings at a Hindi cinema close to my house and off we went. She already knew the names of the actors – I did not.

She was quite pleased to find that I, though a Westerner, not only knew of an Indian cinema, but was also willing to go see a movie in Indian food for some time and was quite familiar with several restaurants in Vancouver already – both Indian and Indian/East African. As for the spiciness of the food – well, my dad was from Texas so I grew up eating spicy food. I can, in fact, eat spicier food than many Indians I have met. She would find out later that I would also wear Indian clothing. But let us return to the movie, which posed a rather unexpected challenge.

Upon entering the cinema, we were met by a middle-aged gentleman (the manager, I think) who greeted me with a “Hi, how are you? I haven’t seen you for a while! Too bad your favourite actress, Tabu, isn’t in this movie.” I was somewhat surprised – but not as much as my date, who was thinking, “He told me he’d never seen a Hindi movie before! How many other Indian girls has this guy taken out?!” (She still harbours doubts about this event, even after eleven years of marriage.) I gave him a puzzled look. She (beside me) was giving me a shocked look. The man, looking perhaps more at her expression than mine, decided to say “Oh, I thought you were someone else.” (I still harbour doubts about whether he really thought I wasn’t the other guy.)

I said something (I can’t remember what) and we walked on, she was still looking at me, wondering about the whole thing. “Taboo?” I said. The word didn’t seem to bode well for me. “Tabu,” she answered. “The name of another Indian actress.” We then proceeded to watch the movie, which we thoroughly enjoyed. A good choice of first movies – no really, it was the first one I saw!

In the years that have followed, I have avoided mention of the awkward incident. But I have always used Kutch Kutch Hota Hai as the benchmark for other movies that my wife and I have seen together. If someone recommends a Hindi movie they have seen, I will often ask them how it compares to Kutch Kutch Hota Hai. It is one of the best, I have to say, of Bollywood – even if Tabu wasn’t in it.

Benjamin Parker is contributing editor of D&D