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Book Reviews
"My Life" and
"The Message of Mahabharata"
Today the
review table has two significant publications on hand. Both of them are
sumptuous. One quickens our interest by the author’s name, Bill Clinton;
the other, by the never-flagging subject of the Pandava-Kaurava conflict,
the Mahabharata. Since Clinton’s autobiography has much to say
about the Republican-Democrat feud being as virulent as the Kaurava-Pandava
confrontation, and the Mahabharata itself has plenty of Clinton-like
characters, I guess I am right in taking them together.
American Presidency has always been in the news but then Bill Clinton as
President was a sizzler. Towards the end of his garrulous memoirs titled
My Life, Clinton says that he had enjoyed every part of his life
and was always “absorbed, interested, and found something useful to do.”
He continues to do so and has certainly done a useful job of letting us
know how the American President goes on amid a million pressures of
governance. The talented Clinton added to the problems by his own lack of
discipline. But then, he admitted his idiocy though it was no easy job to
face the baying opposition, the headline-hunting Press and the
Congressional hearings. Clinton escaped impeachment and his wife Hillary
saved their marriage. Not yet sixty, we can safely assert that Clinton is
no spent force in American life.
Born a posthumous child, Clinton was brought up with love by his mother
and her family. When she married again, the stepfather also loved him.
Indeed, we will not find anyone hating Clinton in this narrative, except
his political foes. They had reason to, for Clinton had a way of zooming
beyond them even through disasters. He confesses that “I was both a
political animal and a policy wonk, always eager to meet new people and
explore new ideas.” An eager student, he wished to enter politics, and
consciously prepared himself for it by competing for a Rhodes Scholarship.
He wrote to the committee that he wished “to prepare for the life of a
practicing politician” and that with the help of the two year-study in the
Oxford University he could “mould an intellect that can stand the
pressures of political life.”
Clinton’s political career began as a worker in Senator Fullbright’s
reelection campaign in Arkansas. He even acted as the Senator’s driver for
a few days. After Yale Law School, the irrepressible Clinton began his
political innings by becoming the Governor of Arkansas. There was no
looking back for him as he fought election after election to remain in the
saddle for five terms, and finally became the President of America for two
terms that ended in 2000.
The record of these eventful years has few dull moments. With his mother
marrying four times and father thrice, and a large extended family,
Clinton has no dearth of material that can help him indulge in verbalizing
a whirl of events, bring to order a lot of criss-cross relationships and
life-long friendships. And there is the presence of wife Hillary and
daughter Chelsea to act as icing to the cake. For Clinton is capable of
making even a botched-up television appearance interesting by quoting the
Washington Post which dubbed his speech as Windy Clinty’s Classic Clinker.
One could almost exclaim: Unsinkable Clinton! His reserves of
self-assurance can be almost disconcerting. As when his first Presidential
speech was brushed aside by commentators. But he couldn’t care less and
records:
“I felt good about it. It had flashes of eloquence, it was clear, it said
we were going to reduce the deficit while increasing critical investments
in our future, and it challenged the American people to do more to help
those in need and to heal our divisions. Mind it was short, the
third-shortest inaugural address in history, after Lincoln/s second
inaugural, the greatest of them all, and Washington’s second speech, which
lasted less than two minutes.”
So characteristic of Clinton, getting himself in focus with Washington and
Lincoln. As he had brushed through his way as a student to be photographed
with President Kennedy by putting his hand out at the right time. As we
see him again and again through the autobiography.
The power of the media in the democratic process is almost frightening
when we read the book. Investigative reporting has its importance for
getting at truth but it can succumb to the weakness of blowing up the
trivial. One has to be alert all the time as for instance when Clinton’s
last minute return shot at Sheffield Nelson gave him a fifth term as the
Governor of Arkansas. There is then the enormous money-power that is
needed for a Presidential campaign. An election-bird who knows about all
the slithery movements within the body politic, still Clinton finds the
democratic process an inexplicable mystery:
“For me, election days have always embodied the great mystery of
democracy. No matter how hard pollsters and pundits try to demystify it,
the mystery remains. It is the one day when the ordinary citizen has as
much power as the millionaire and the President. Some people use it and
some don’t. Those who do, choose candidates for all kinds of reasons, some
rational, some intuitive, some with certainty, others skeptically.
Somehow, they usually pick the right leader for the times; that’s why
America is still around and doing well after more than 228 years.”
American Presidency today means world news for it is involved in almost
every part of the globe. All of it is here, and in this sense, Clinton’s
autobiography is strikingly educative: The Middle-East, the Bosnian
Conflict, the global monetary crisis of 1997, Haiti, Afghanistan, Mexico,
Korea, Iraq, to name but a few. Al Quaida and Osama Bin Laden are also
present. There is then the domestic front with serious charges and court
cases like the Whitewater scandal. And a whole band of issues, serious and
trivial. Can the Army admit gays? Did the President get an expensive
haircut while travelling? How to curb gun-toting violence in schools?
Should America train Pakistani troops as commandos to get bin Laden in
Afghanistan? All this to be managed while contending against Whitehouse
leakages to the press. And, of course Clinton had the additional problem
of facing sexual exploitation charges. Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones and
the high-visibility Monica Lewinsky. Perhaps it was an orchestrated
right-wing conspiracy, perhaps not. Clinton’s conclusion is
characteristic: “I almost wound up being grateful to my tormentors: they
were probably the only people who could have made me look good to Hillary
again.” Oh yes, nothing succeeds like success and nothing fails like
excess either! Clinton’s self-searchings and absorption in Christian
literature during this period make compulsive reading.
Can there be a richer tapestry than an American President’s life in the
closing years of the twentieth century? For that we go back by several
millennia with the help of Justice Kodandaramayya to The Message of
Mahabharata. What have we done of our great heritage in the so called
secular state of India? Justice Kodandaramayya says: “We know in the
United States of America the President takes oath on Bible and benediction
follows …Now, having given fundamental rights to the minority community,
we have reached a state that we cannot make a prayer in Parliament.” This
kind of turning away from the strengthening spiritual sources of India’s
past and the wisdom of religious scriptures gifted by the Vedic stream,
Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam has brought pain to the Justice
who is certain that a reading of the epic Mahabharata will actually
promote mutual understanding and national harmony.
The volume has been planned as a series of critical essays on various
aspects of the epic. The first part deals with the accumulated knowledge
of the race regarding cosmology, geography, science, mythology and
philosophy. The second part describes the concepts that regulate civilized
life (Pravritti Dharma) like rules of good conduct, statecraft,
varnasrama dharma, pilgrimages, punya and paapa. The
third and last part teaches us about the spiritual values fostered in this
land from ancient times. These include Nivritti Dharma like
Viveka and Vairagya, concepts such as Atma and Moksha,
the highly evolved image worship in religion, and the final message of
Veda Vyasa, known as Bharata Savitri: “With uplifted arms I am crying
aloud, but nobody hears me. From Dharma originate profit and pleasure. Why
should not Dharma, therefore, be sought?” All these subjects are brought
to us in easily assimilable quantities by Justice Kodandaramayya.
Time-tested wisdom stares at us all the time. The verse satyam bhruyat,
priyam bhruyat, for instance:
“Not to speak at all is better than speaking. Secondly, if you have to
speak, tell the truth. Thirdly, if you have to speak the truth, speak what
is agreeable; and, fourthly, if you have to speak what is agreeable, speak
what is conducive to morality.”
Then there is the Vyasan way of giving a lesson to the King directing his
Finance Minister: “The king should be careful in collecting taxes. A
person who wants milk should not cut the udder of the cow. As the bee
gathers honey from flowers gradually, the king should follow the rule of a
flower vendor and not that of a charcoal maker.”
A gist of the eighteen Parvas is given as also essays on the main
characters. Justice Kodandaramayya does not fail to note the shortcomings
of the saintly Yudhistira well known as Punya Sloka, who had a weakness
for gambling and was prone to anger. Almost at every turn we are
confronted with the problem of right and wrong in the Mahabharata; and
hence, as Sri Aurobindo said, Veda Vyasa’s subject is one of practical
ethics. Not merely an imagined legend, but a lesson to the common man in
leading a life of dharma. The stress is on action, the bold confrontation
of moral problems, the avoidance of moral turpitude, the need for a
generosity of understanding. Speaking of the essence of the epic, the
author says:
Maryadayam sthito dharmah: Keeping oneself within bounds is Dharma
Samaschaivasya Lakshanam – self-control is its essence. Secondly,
he (Veda Vyasa) summed up the theory of dharma in practice thus: That
which is antagonistic to one’s own self should never be done in respect of
another. Briefly this is dharma.”
Such is the universal lesson of Veda Vyasa’s Itihasa.
–
Prema Nandakumar
August 8, 2004
MY LIFE Bill Clinton (Alfred A. Knopf, New
York. 2004. 957 pages $ 35)
THE MESSAGE OF MAHABHARATA: The Nation’s Magnum Opus Justice P.
Kodandaramayya (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay. 2004. 562 pages. Rs. 300)
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