Skip to main content

Two kinds of Paradises

A view of Sawan's library


Libraries are archives of longings. Both the writers whose books are stored on the racks and the readers whose souls delve into those racks are dreamers of sorts. Books belong to people with infinite longings.

The death of a library is very painful to those who love books. One of my beloved libraries was killed in 2015. Who would want to kill a library that was pulsating with life and that too young life? Such questions have become redundant in India, especially after 2014.   

One religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] killed the library I’m speaking about here. It was Sawan Public School’s library in Delhi. The entire school was killed by a godman and his followers just because they wanted to create parking spaces for devotees. I have narrated that story in detail in two of my books: Autumn Shadows and Black Hole.

Writer Borges was of the opinion that Paradise would be a kind of library. What else can Paradise be for those whose hearts are restless until they rest in wisdom? The irony about the death of Sawan Library was that those who promised Paradise to devotees killed it.


There are two kinds of Paradises. One belongs to genuine questers, those who read, meditate, and dream. The other belongs to those who follow some guru blindly. These blind followers are the most dangerous people on the earth. They have committed the most gruesome crimes like burning heretics, hunting witches, crusading against god’s enemies, gassing helpless people in concentration camps, lynching perceived enemies on roads…

The devotees of the RSSB godman killed a school and its library with some vengeance. They had already encroached upon acres and acres of reserved forests in the same region earlier. The Hindustan Times dated 30 Apr 2014 reported that RSSB had occupied no less than 123 acres of forest land in Asola-Bhatti region (where Sawan Public School also existed). There were reports earlier about similar landgrabs in other regions too by this same cult. This cult has an entire township of its own in Beas, Punjab where the government is utterly powerless because they have their own rules and regulations there including a meticulous traffic system. A few months back, the Times of India reported RSSB’s landgrab in the eco-sensitive Aravali forest in Haryana.

It’s no surprise then that they get an entire school demolished. Landgrabbers can never enter the real Paradise.

In May 2015, Sawan Public School’s library was razed to ground by mammoth bulldozers. Shakespeare and Shelley, Ramchandra Guha and Salman Rushdie all lay tied together by jute threads and were eventually carried away by scrap dealers.

I am told that the entire place where the school stood is now mere wasteland used as parking area for the godman’s devotees who come to listen to his sermons once or twice a year. These devotees must be entering their own versions of Paradise on such occasions.

I have retired to my village, to the land bequeathed by my forefathers where no godman will ever have entry. I can listen to the sobs that underlie Hamlet’s soliloquies in peace now. I can feel Shelley’s West Wind on my cheeks. I can contemplate on Zorba’s rustic wisdom with the music of cicadas among my crotons. My own Paradise.

Sawan Library

xZx

 

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanFebruary 7, 2022 at 10:52 PM

    Hari OM
    ...and the final paragraph reveals that you have dreamed, searched, and found your own particular paradise on earth. That is all that is needed! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 8, 2022 at 4:50 AM

      But I do worry occasionally about these religious organizations that keep deluding people as well as government and even the environment. And the way they pretend to be custodians of public morality.

      Delete
  2. Rodrick Rajive LalFebruary 8, 2022 at 2:33 PM

    This is a most touching writeup indeed. Was touched by the manner in which you have described the anguish of losing the library. The school, unfortunately is more and the dreams of children snuffed out rather rudely.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 8, 2022 at 2:59 PM

      It was catastrophic. The cult also manhandled staff who questioned them. It was impossible to believe that religious people were doing it all.

      Delete
  3. G.PFebruary 9, 2022 at 11:43 AM

    I cry everytime my mind comes across the name; Sawan. There destruction is inevitable. I just hope I have the greatest role in it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mohammad JunaidFebruary 9, 2022 at 6:26 PM

    Dear sir each and every word in your blog is true and heart touching. We have seen all this with our own eyes how a great institute was razed. Can never forget the brutalities of those people.

    ReplyDelete
  5. ArtiFebruary 10, 2022 at 2:31 PM

    In the end, like the final paragraph of your post, each one of us has to sift through mountains of lies piled onto us by society, religion and politicians to find our truth, our paradise. Therein lies hope.
    I assume (based on my limited knowledge) that throughout human history seekers of paradise (such as the cult mentioned here) have bulldozed wisdom, poetry, philosophy and literature to make way for their needs. And yet, words, books, lovers of books survive to heal and inspire a new generation.
    I feel sorry for the lost library. And can't believe this sort of behaviour is not only tolerated but encouraged in modern India.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 10, 2022 at 4:14 PM

      Even the ruling AAP MLA and minister for education refused to help us fight the case. Votes matter to them.

      Delete
  6. StudionafayFebruary 11, 2022 at 6:02 AM

    Find out the Top Fashion Trends Browse & Shop The Latest Essentials Ready-to-wear, bags, luggage Shipping worldwide.

    STUDIONAFAY
    STUDIONAFAY Facebook
    STUDIONAFAY Instagram
    STUDIONAFAY Pinterest
    STUDIONAFAY Twitter

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let
18 comments
Read more

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the
12 comments
Read more

Thomas the Saint

AI-generated image His full name was Thomas Augustine. He was a Catholic priest. I knew him for a rather short period of my life. When I lived one whole year in the same institution with him, I was just 15 years old. I was a trainee for priesthood and he was many years my senior. We both lived in Don Bosco school and seminary at a place called Tirupattur in Tamil Nadu. He was in charge of a group of boys like me. Thomas had little to do with me directly as I was under the care of another in-charge. But his self-effacing ways and angelic smile drew me to him. He was a living saint all the years I knew him later. When he became a priest and was in charge of a section of a Don Bosco institution in Kochi, I met him again and his ways hadn’t changed an iota. You’d think he was a reincarnation of Jesus if you met him personally. You won’t be able to meet him anymore. He passed away a few years ago. One of the persons whom I won’t ever forget, can’t forget as long as the neurons continu
16 comments
Read more

William and the autumn of life

William and I were together only for one year, but our friendship has grown stronger year after year. The duration of that friendship is going to hit half a century. In the meanwhile both he and I changed many places. William was in Kerala when I was in Shillong. He was in Ireland when I was in Delhi. Now I am in Kerala where William is planning to migrate back. We were both novices of a religious congregation for one year at Kotagiri in Tamil Nadu. He was older than me by a few years and far more mature too. But we shared a cordial rapport which kept us in touch though we went in unexpected directions later. William’s conversations had the same pattern back then and now too. I’d call it Socratic. He questions a lot of things that you say with the intention of getting to the depth of the matter. The last conversation I had with him was when I decided to stop teaching. I mention this as an example of my conversations with William. “You are a good teacher. Why do you want to stop
15 comments
Read more