The Book of Life

On the morning of 19 February 1990, I stood near the Oberoi Hotel flyover in New Delhi, looking at the writing on its walls. On the wide road below, traffic rushed past on both sides. No one had the time to stop and read the words painted on the bridge. The writing remained there merely as a meaningless mark, waiting for rain and wind to erase it—before anyone even read it or absorbed any impression from it. Any “provocation” so empty of substance, yet responded to with anger and violence, shows beyond doubt that those who react in this way are the most foolish of all fools. THE IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE T homas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the third President of the USA from 1801 to 1809. A man of great erudition, he had a knowledge of English, Latin, Greek, French, Spanish and Anglo Saxon. Historians have rightly called him an “extraordinarily learned man.” He studied all the disciplines from philosophy and science to religion and, in his later days, attempted an analysis of the New Testament to discover what Jesus had really said, as opposed to what he is reported to have said. In his will, Jefferson expressed the desire to have on his gravestone (Monticello), not an inscription to say that he had been president of America, but simply the words: