Bibek Debroy, an obituary

Bibek Debroy: A Tribute

   
Shri Bibek Debroy, or "Sir" as I called him, passed away on the 1st of November. Truly a darker Amavasya I could not have imagined. 

 An economist, a translator, a writer, a composer of limericks par excellence were achievements that people would be challenged to achieve in even a single field. Yet he had mastered all, and then some. 

 My first introduction to Sir was in 2012. I had been searching for an unabridged translation of the Mahabharata, having despaired of abridged retellings that distorted more than they abridged and hallucinated more than they retold, and while there was Kisari Mohan Ganguli's 1896 translation available on the internet, I stumbled upon an ongoing translation by Bibek Debroy. An equally happy mix-up in an online order on the now defunct IndiaPlaza site saw me ordering the first two books instead of only the first one. It drew a raised eyebrow from my wife, but happily there were no other consequences. Thus began a journey that was rewarding beyond imagination. 

An Intermedial Retrospective-review of “Indian Renaissance: The Modi Decade”

 

Indian Rennaissance: The Modi Decade. Edited by Aishwarya Pandit

Between 1989 and 1998 India saw five General Elections and six Prime Ministers. In the twenty years from 2004 to 2024, India saw two coalitions govern in ten-year stints each. While the UPA coalition was led by the Congress party, but which didn’t have a majority in the Lok Sabha, from 2014 to 2024 the NDA was led by the BJP which commanded an absolute majority in both terms. It was led by Narendra Modi, who was the undisputed leader of the party, unlike the UPA’s Manmohan Singh, who was described by Sanjay Baru as an ‘accidental prime minister’. 

Ten years is a long enough period to take a pause and do a retrospective of sorts. The book, Indian Renaissance: The Modi Decade, edited by Aishwarya Pandit from the Jindal Global Law School, attempts to do just that, with essays from twenty-six people, an Introduction by Aishwarya Pandit, and a Foreword by Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman, the country’s Finance Minister. 

The Hanuman Chalisa, translated by Vikram Seth

The Hanuman Chalisa: Tr. Vikram Seth

Ego gratification or a labour of love?

When Vikram Seth, praised as the ‘best writer of his generation’ by The Times, and author of A Suitable Boy, called ‘the most prodigious work of the latter half of [the twentieth] century’ by, again, The Times, pens a translation of the Hanuman Chalisa, one of the most famous and revered works of 16th century CE Hindu poet, Goswami Tulsidas, one cannot but get a copy. 

 Apart from penning Ramcharitmanas, a retelling of the story of Lord Rama, Tulsidas' other famous work is Hanuman Chalisa, a collection of 40 verses in praise of Hanuman. Hanuman is considered both an avatar of Lord Shiva as well as the son of the wind God, Vayu. He was also a great devotee of Lord Rama. 

Life, Death, and the Ashtavakra Gita, Bibek Debroy and Hindol Sengupta

Life, Death, and the Ashtavakra Gita, Bibek Debroy and Hindol Sengupta

Life, Death and the Ashtavakra Gita” is a combination of a translation of the text by Bibek Debroy, accompanied by an intensely personal reflection by Hindol Sengupta on the Gita and his experiences. 

A Gita means a song. There are some Gitas in Hinduism that are more famous than others. The most well-known Gita is, of course, Krishna’s divine song and discourse, delivered to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra—the Bhagavat Gita. The Mahabharata itself has several Gitas, and Bibek Debroy recently wrote a book with translations of 25 such Gitas (Sacred Songs: The Mahabharata’s Many Gitas, pub. Rupa, 2023). Eighty-six shlokas in three chapters from the Teertha-yatra upa parva (in the Aranyaka Parva) of the Mahabharata tell us the most we know about the sage. The Ashtavakra Gita is a dialogue between Sage Ashtavakra and King Janaka. The Ashtavakra Gita itself is however not a part of the Mahabharata. There is a fleeting mention of the sage in the Valmiki Ramayana, a mention in Adhyatma Ramayana, and a little, much later, in Bhavabhuti’s Uttararamacharita. 

The Ashtavakra Gita itself is short—285 shlokas in 20 chapters, and is much shorter than the Bhagavat Gita, which has 700 shlokas over 18 chapters. Unlike the Bhagavat Gita, the Ashtavakra Gita has seen relatively fewer translations and commentaries. Swami Nityaswarupananda in 1940, John Richards in 1994, Rajiv Kapur in 2011-14, Bart Marshall in 2005, and by Swami Chinmayananda in 2014 are some.

Advaita Vedanta posits that the atman and the Brahman are the same, they are not distinct, they are not two. The Ashtavakra Gita is considered one of the most distilled advocations of Advaita Vedanta. As Bibek Debroy writes in the Introduction, “It is a direct and undiluted exposition of advaita (non-dual) Vedanta." To quote, in 2-2, Ashtavakra says, ‘Just as I alone provide illumination to the body, I do that to the universe too. Therefore, either the entire universe belongs to me, or nothing does.’ In 2-5, the sage says, ‘When one reflects on it, a piece of cloth is nothing but strands of thread. In that way, when one reflects about it, the universe is nothing other than the atman.’ The path to moksha (liberation) lies not in a self-sacrificing pursuit of liberation, or even a surrender to a supreme deity, for that itself is an expression of an embedded desire—‘It is extraordinary that though he desires moksha, he is terrified of moksha.’” (3-9). 

Strange Obsession, Shobha De

Strange Obsession, by Shobha De

As strange confessions go, here is one - I hadn't read a single of Shobha De's books till recently. Not one. Not even leafed, browsed, flipped pages of one. Shobha De, 'Cycnicism in chiffon', as a Bollywood superstar had once described her, the queen of sleaze prose, founding editor of gossip rag, Stardust, the 'Jackie Collins of India', a homegrown bestselling author, female icon, and more. And then, one day, on a whim, I picked up Strange Obsession from Bookworm. If Krishna, the proprietor's, eyebrows went up a smidgen, I didn't notice. 

First published in 1992, it is the story of Amrita Aggarwal, a beautiful girl from Delhi who moves to Bombay (as the city was called in 1992, when the book was published, till it became Mumbai) to become a model. A supermodel, at that. And she does. The young, nubile girl attracts the attention of many. Among the many is a mysterious woman named Minx (Meenakshi, actually). Minx is attracted to Amrita in more ways than one, is infatuated and obsessed with Amrita. Minx is well-connected and powerful; she can make or break careers, with a snap of her fingers. She can even make people disappear, again, with a snap of her fingers. Everyone knows it, and yet no one does anything. Such are the ways of high society in Bombay, evidently.