In Quest of a Dream

In Quest of a Dream

1988 7 July 28-32 In Quest of a Dream (2063) Man wants a world free

of defects and limitations in

which he can fulfill his

most cherished dreams.

But the present world is not

one in which such desires

can ever be satisfied.

Dr. C.V. Raman (1888-1970), one of India’s most famous scientists, passed his M.A. at the age of 18, and in 1930 received the Noble prize in science. The result of one piece of scientific research (1928), subsequently called the Raman Effect, earned him international fame, and the institute of science in Bangalore was named after him. Throughout his life his scientific studies remained his major preoccupation, and so engrossed did he remain in them that he could ill-abide visitors coming to disturb him. Once when he was handed someone’s visiting card, he exclaimed, “These visitors do not even understand the common courtesy of leaving one alone.” When the telephone rang, he would just say, “Yes,” or “No,” and replace the receiver. He received vast quantities of mail, but after barely glancing at his letters, he would throw them in the dustbin. Of politicians, he once remarked, “To be successful in India nowadays, all you require is a Gandhi cap on your head and nothing underneath it!”

Dr. Raman’s self-confidence so increased that he even denied religion. Once, talking to a news reporter, he said, “There is neither a heaven nor a hell, nor is there any existence of man after death.” In the last years of his life, he fell a prey to severe depression, and little before his death in 1970, he said, “My life has been an utter failure.”(Times of India, 21 January, 1979)

After achieving international stature as a scientist, why did Dr. Raman succumb to the feeling that he was a total failure? Perhaps the best explanation is that he could not find the world of his dreams. His greatest desire was to establish True Science in the country, but he learned by experience that those Indian scientists with whom he wanted to interact were so bent on aping the west that they had rendered themselves incapable of original thinking. As the Director of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, he wanted renowned German scientists who had been driven out by the Nazi regime, to be invited to India by the government, in the hopes of furthering the cause of science, but his request was turned down on the grounds of political inexpediency. Then he decided to invest all his savings in the establishment of an independent scientific institute, but again his intentions were frustrated, for he lost all his money when the private bank in which he deposited his savings went bankrupt. How sad that a man who had entered the arena of life with such high hopes and ambitions, and who had known the joys of personal success, should finally depart from it in a state of extreme depression.

This was the story of a “successful man”. Now let us take the story of a “successful woman”.

Our world is not perfect, Why?

The answer eludes man unless

he has knowledge of the Hereafter.

16-year-old Nandini was standing before a mirror in her home in Vijaynagar. She could see that her slender neck was beginning to bulge with a tumour. “Why couldn’t life have been without these blemishes?” she asked herself. She and her sisters Padma and Jayshree had become famous as professional dancers – the ‘Vijaynagar sisters’ – veterans with 150 dance performances to their credit in various cities of the country, and now, after returning from a colourful trip to Kashmir, they were due to give yet another performance in Vijaynagar. Nandini had come back from her trip having formed the private resolution that she must work even harder at perfecting her dancing so that she could become one of the top dancers of the country. But now with her neck in this ugly condition, she decided that she could not participate in the concert the following day.

As bad luck would have it, the tumour went on increasing in size, and the family, in a great state of anxiety, rushed her to hospital only to learn that their Nandini was suffering from an incurable disease –cancer. Only nine days after she had been admitted to hospital, the end came. As her body lay there motionless on the bed, her relatives were left to gaze upon her and wonder over the departure of that smiling soul.

This all happened in 1969. Subsequently, Nandini’s two sisters opened a school of dance in the name of their deceased sister. They called it Nandini Dance School. Since life had to go on, they began to accept other engagements, and made professional tours of London and European cities such as Geneva, Frankfurt, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, etc. They achieved such great success in their profession that one of the newspapers commented. “The gods of India can smile when the bells on the Vijaynagar sisters tinkle.”

Both the sisters, now queens of Indian dancing, got married in February, 1973. Only two days after the wedding, the mirror revealed to Jayshree that a tumour was beginning to protrude near her chin. She was given prompt medical treatment, was operated upon, and the family thought that she had been cured. But the persistence of pain at that point made her feel extremely worried. Her doctor tried to reassure her by saying, “Don’t be foolish, Jayshree. How can a person so young and healthy as you be suffering from cancer?” But, inevitably, there had to be further investigations, and when a piece of the tumor was sent to the Tata Memorial hospital in Bombay for examination, their report confirmed that Jayshree, like Nandini before her, was suffering from cancer. The disease spread throughout her body and, in spite of the best of treatment, the pain went on increasing. Her condition steadily worsened until, on March 18, 1974, Jayshree’s soul bade farewell to a body made horrible by cancer.

The glittering home of the Vijaynagar sisters now wears a sad look. The parents, after losing two young daughters, now find life meaningless. The feeling of gloom is all-pervasive. It means little to them that the Nritya (Dance) School was re-named the Jayshree Arts International in November, 1975. And as for Padma, in spite of all her obvious success, she feels that she is already treading the same path as her departed sisters. She too is asking the same question that her sisters asked: “Why could not life have been more perfect?” The life of anguish that she leads is summed up by S. Ganguly in Eve’s Weekly (2.6.1978): “A psychological amputation is not less real than a physical one.”

This is not a stray example. Our society is full of such instances. We see many happy, smiling faces around us, but if we delve into the lives of many of the people who put up such a cheerful front, we shall come upon a great deal of sadness, dejection and despair.

Sometimes people feel cast down because life falls so far short of their expectations. Just as the parents of the Vijaynagar sisters expected that their daughters would go from success to success and would live for many years to savour the joys of that success, so are there many others in this world whose expectations are nipped in the bud, and they are left wondering what meaning there is in life.

But even those whose expectations are fulfilled sometimes do not succeed in leading any more positive an existence than those who are left in a state of deprivation or bereavement. Take the man who thinks that the greatest thing would be to have the bare necessities of life. He makes great efforts to acquire these things, but once they are in his possession, they no longer satisfy him. Now he wants comforts and luxuaries. Again he strives to have these things, but since his desires know no limits, he takes no pleasure in their possession once he has them. His thoughts now turn to the acquisition of honour and glory. He dearly wishes to raise himself in status above all others. But the higher he rises, the more he realizes that there will always be others above him, and to him they become objects of jealousy and hatred. His life is no better than a series of gropings in the dark after one material objective or the other, and even this is brought to an end by death, which takes him away to the world of the hereafter – a world which for him will be even darker and more bitter – without his ever having attained his goal of happiness. Too late, he will discover that the successes of this world are as meaningless as the failures. Too late, he will discover that all his aims and ambitions were just so much wishful thinking.

The majority of the people in this world suffer form feelings of failure and frustration throughout their lives. Even those who have managed to avail of the best opportunities that life has to offer, and who have felt that they had the world’s pleasures within their grasp, have often ultimately suffered from the acute depression resulting from accidents, illness, or the failure of their plans, and have seen their lives draw meaninglessly to a close. There are the happy few who go throughout life without experiencing adversity or even unpleasant incidents, but they too must eventually die. No one can escape death. How many are the individuals who go on life’s journey towards success, only to have death come and raze the whole edifice of their hopes and ambitions to the ground.

Is man fated to bring his precious talents to the world only to end as the worst kind of failure? If we dispense with the idea of there being a Hereafter, life takes on the hues of darkness and tragedy, our limitations loom large and the world assumes the shape of a place in which we can never even realise our dreams. It has to be accepted that it is only the concept of the Hereafter which renders human life meaningful. If we make the Hereafter our destination, we can direct our steps towards it with courage and conviction, for one who believes in the Hereafter sees a boundless future of hope stretch out before him. Life without the Hereafter appears meaningless. But the moment we accept that another life awaits us beyond the grave, life takes on a whole new complexion; every thought, word and deed becomes so significant that human language can hardly express the wonder of it all.

People who concern themselves only with the worldly luxuries of here and now consider the greatest earthly paradise to be Hollywood, America’s film land capital, often ironically referred to as ‘Tinsel town.’ The less fortunate in this world envy from afar the denizens of this supposed heaven on earth. But little do they realize that the citizens of Hollywood, far from living in a superlative and permanent state of bliss, are often a prey to discontent, boredom and depression. A recent survey of Hollywood has, in fact, revealed that many of its inhabitants lead quite pitiable lives. Imagine a man who owns a whole fleet of cars becoming irritable and depressed because it takes him so long to chose which one he will use on any given day. Sheer boredom drives people to such extremes that they exchange houses with each other, and even their wives, so that they may have the variety which is traditionally thought to be the ‘spice of life.’ In actual fact, what these people need to look for is peace of mind, but they are so bedazzled by the material things of life that they never come to the point of understanding this. They continue, quite mindlessly, to seek satisfaction in mere things. In the last analysis, it is only God who can provide the eternal answer to man’s desires. It is only in remembering God that man’s heart can be set at rest.

Rememberance of God means filling our hearts with the only Being who is real and eternal. One who finds God finds everything. Even if, on the path towards his Maker, the seeker has to undergo all kinds of suffering, he remains content, because he knows that he is on the right path to the right destination.