Shiva Kant Jha

Unrecorded, unrenown'd,
Men from whom my ways begin,
Here I know you by your ground
But I know you not within -
There is silence, there survives
Not a moment of your lives.

Like the bee that now is blown
Honey-heavy on my hand,
From his toppling tansy-throne
In the green tempestuous land -
I'm in clover now, nor know
Who made honey long ago.

In most of my writings on evolutionary biology, I emphasize the unity of humans with other organisms by debunking the usual, and ultimately harmful, assumptions about our intrinsic self-importance and domination as the most advanced creatures ever evolved by a process predictably leading to our direction. All basic evidence from history of life leads to an opposite interpretation of Homo sapiens as a tiny, effectively accidental, late-arising twig on an enormously arborescent bush of life.”

Sir W.S.Gilbert (1836-1911) said : “I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasm primordial atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable”. In most cases we trace our ancestry not out of desire to assert family pride. It is a process of discovering one's identity .

In many moments of life, full of sound and fury, I reflected upon my great ancestors trying to know whatever I could from persons better placed to know about them. I developed interest in discovering my family's past inspired by the remarkable work done in the field of genealogy by organizations like the New England Historic Genealogical Society, the Augustan Society, the Society of Genealogists of U.K., the International Confederation of Genealogy and Heraldry (in Denmark).The insightful comments by Daniel Webster:

I knew that Sri Kirti Nath Jha (popularly known as Kirtu Babu) of Koilakh had a rich library of old records of all important families of Mithila, and he was a genealogist of great eminence. He assisted me in my pursuits and drew up detailed genealogy, an abstract wherefrom is now put on this website as my family tree till my point. My ancestor Hardutta Jha, who lived during the time of Ala-ud-din Khalji (early 14th Century) is at the apex in the recorded genealogy. In the tenth generation after him came Rudra Jha whose daughter's son was Mahesh Thakur. Akbar the Great appreciated his scholarship and wisdom by granting him vast property with which begins the history of the illustrious family Raj Darbhanga, an impartible estate of which the last holder was the celebrated Maharajadhiraj Dr Sir Kameshwar Singh. I could gather detailed information on account of the system of panjis (registers) maintained so meticulously by certain families known as the panjikars . I must record my gratefulness for Maharaja Harisimhadeva who “ordered detailed genealogies to be scientifically recorded for the first time on panjis (registers) in c. 1310 so that marriages within forbidden degrees of relationship may not take place. He made it obligatory for every person to get a certificate of non-relationship between the two contracting parties from the genealogists.

It is conventional to refer to the earliest ancestors in samkalpa mantra which is recited while resolving to undertake some sacred resolution. It is mentioned by specifying one's gotra. My adi purasha (the earliest person known was Kashyap. Kashyap gotra is the most ancient and the most comprehensive all the gotras. The tradition tells that he was greatly religious and a lot of mysteries got associated with his personality. There is a strange story about him in the Mahabhartha and the Bhagvad Purana. His father was Marichi, one of the six mental sons of Lord Bhrahma. What better example of the art of begetting a son psychic primal psychic power! Those, who burn midnight oil to discover the paternity of Jesus, can get some light from this story. It is said that Kashyap married seventeen daughters of Daksha Prajapati from whom were born gods, demons, monsters, horses, nymphs, trees, heavnly damsels, snakes, cows, buffaloes, dangerous animals, birds including vultures, marine creatures, butterflies and insects. Because of the comprehensiveness of his countless progeny it is generally believed that the entire animate world descended from Kashyap. The gotra after him is so widely inclusive that whosoever is not sure about his gotra is taken to be of the Kashyap gotra ; be they men, birds, beasts, trees: in short, creatures of all sorts. Whether he was their real progenitor or mere teacher is hardly irrelevant. He was the father either way. What is more important is that his story makes me conscious of the umbilical bond that unites us not only with the humans of all colours and all lands, but even birds and beasts, in fact, even with trees and flies. This sense of fraternity ensues from the consciousness of being just part of the whole which should constantly dissolve himself in the whole:

That which is the Supreme Soul of the entire Universe
That is the Soul of all the Creatures
That Immortal Soul Sachhidanand I am.

This world-view promoted a rich and vibrant environmental ethics which has become a subject matter of intensive study world over. I wish the proponents of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change draw inspiration from this, and the USA discovers wisdom to become a party to promote a noble cause for the benefit of man, all other beings, and this earth which we burden through our existence.

The story of Kashyap removed some clinging certain long-lingering doubts about certain points pertaining to ontology. How could Evil originate in God's World ?. The Holy Bible, John Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained assert the triumph of the Good over Evil. They assume their existence, it seems. to wager on us! But this story is a metaphoric way of saying that all the forces for good and bad grow from His majesty, exist in his province and provenance, and end in His realm. In the Bhagavadgita Lord Krishna says: “I am immortality and also death, both Existence and Non Existence” (ix.19). The story of Kashyap deepened my understanding of this cosmic grammar into an existential mystery which I try solving with the zeal of Sisyphus .

It is also believed that persons having a common gotra were the students of the same Rishi or teacher. Kashyap was perhaps most eminent. He figures even in the Rigveda . Under our tradition guru (teacher) has the same status which father has. From this ancient consanguinity or affinity, that existed between the descendants or the disciples (or the herdsmen) of Rishi Kashyap, a practice in later times grew preventing marital relationship amongst the members of the same gotra . There was a time when marriage between persons of the same gotra was considered invalid. Now it is no longer so. Yet this sort of marriage is not appreciated in our society battered though it is now under the western impact.

The genealogical tree of my family shows that we had our roots at Sakradih, a small desolate village not very far off. I have not visited the place though I have heard a lot about it. But one becomes nostalgic when one thinks about one's roots. I wish some day to visit Sakradih wherefrom strides were made by my family in the recorded history. In fact, I wish some day to visit the valley of the river Omo in Ethiopia near Lake Rudolf where man is believed to have evolved first. This nostalgia for the immediate past cannot make me forget the remote past which must have existed as we exist.

It is natural for mind to travel from the family tree (Vamnsa Vriksha) to the Cosmic tree (Samsara Vriksha). The Bhagavadgita in the first three Slokas in chapter 15. describes this Cosmic Tree. The very first Sloka says ;

The idea to represent Samsara as a tree (Vriksha) is wonderful. The etymological meaning of Vriksha is that which can be cut down. There is no way knowing how may of my ancestors could cut and acquire liberation (moksha) and how many of them are still clinging to the Sansar Vriksha. When we reflect over the roots of the Sansar Vrikhsa , spreading with branches and leaves luxuriating down below we are amazed at the sublime creativity of God. Mind goes to the stimulating idea of Prof Gould, with which this Chapter is announced, “ Homo sapiens as a tiny, effectively accidental, late-arising twig on an enormously arborescent bush of life”.

A Vansa Vrikhsa presents rich imagery suggesting the pattern of life itself. Persons come, spend sometime in the Sansarvriksh and than leave for some unknown abode. The birds come, create their nest, and then they desert it without qualms. The idea underlying the process is beautifully stated in the Bhagavadgita (II.28)

avyaktadini bhutani
vyaktamadhayani bharata
avyaktanidhanany eva
tatra ka paridevand

It is interesting to note that whilst writing his Ecclesiastical History Bede said:

Many of my ancestors were great Pandits. Their writings, perhaps, do not survive. Possibly for two reasons. First, the frequent occurrence of fire in their houses made of wattle and daub having thatched roof made of hay. Leaking rain water and prolific colonies of white ants destroyed their work. Secondly, it was unfortunate that the Maithil Pandits did not believe much in disseminating their ideas by circulating the copies of their writings. An illustration to drive my point home: Gangash Upadhyaya, a great Maithil Pandit of the 13th century, wrote the Tattvachintamani. It is said that the Pandit did not allow Pandit Pakshadur of Nawadip to copy it. But the work was so valuable that the great Pandit took it by heart on mere listening the work being read. He taught this magnum opus of Navvyanay to the scholars at Nawadip. The persons who were taught this included Jagadish Tarkalankar and Mathuranath. Bhattacharji . They developed a synthetic logic by integrating ideas from the Vedic, Buddhist, and Jaina sources. Only a few years back Pandit N.S Ramanuja Tatacharya wrote a commentary on it which fetched him high appreciation and reward from the Central Government. I find from my genealogy that that the recorder (P anjikar) recorded the title of tarkapanchanan on Tunni Jha.

I cannot cast the focus of my searchlight beyond Deenbandhu Dukhni Jha. He was the great grandfather of my grandfather Grihinandan Jha. His adjective Deenbandhu suggests that he must have been an acknowledged benefactor of the suffering souls. My deeper research brought out materials to support this inference. The Pangikars add only in rare cases some adjectives to reveal the life and work of persons on their records. His financial resources were meagre. If the family tradition is to be believed he assuaged the suffering souls and was always ready to help others with good advice. He would come to render help even to the lowliest. As he was removing sorrows of others he came to be known as Dukhni (no sorrow). Such persons practice the wisdom of the Vedanta in their lives. In fact, he got a suggestive title which recalls Tunni Jha who too had earned the title of bandhuvardhan (worker for the betterment of all). Dukhni Jha's son was Jayadutta. His mother was a great devotee of Kali. In the village Koilakh (in the district of Madhubani) there is an ancient temple of the Goddess; it is a sidhapeath . Jaya is the name of the Goddess. She believed that her son was on account of the divine grace she got from the goddess .

Those days in the Maithil there was a social system under which certain Brahamins were accorded high social status because of their learning and purity of life style. No worldly pleasures or persuasions could make them depart from the sacred paths of life prescribed in the Shastras. Even amongst the select few further classifications were made keeping in view the steadfastness of the persons in such noble pursuits. The persons of the highest grade were called the Sotreyas. After them there was a segment of the distinguished persons (Bhalmanush) who in turn were further divided into sub-sets named after the most illustrious persons in their families (called Pangi Baddha). Similar select persons were most prominent in the West Benga and Mithilal. They were called the Kaulins. During the Sen Dynasty Kaulinism was greatly prevalent in Bengal. But in Mithila this elitists system continued without degeneration which had set in Bengal to make Kaulinism a hateful institution. As a mode of social climbing, rich people established marital relations with the high class Brahamins.

My great grandfather Bhaiyee Jha was a man of great social distinction in his village. He had an interesting personality. During his youth he was under the spell of the love songs of Vidyapati. He had a mellifluous voice and an astute mastery over the rhythm of Maithili language. He had a rich vocabulary of romantic anecdotes. In the closing years of his life he lived on a different wave length. He continued his interest in Vidhyapati but it was the Vidhyapati of Chaitanya and Chandidas. Same words are enjoyed in different ways in different phases of one's life. This is quite a unique quality of Vidhyapati's poetry that persons as dissimilar as Mahaprabhu Chatanya and the rabid pleasure-seekers develop intense appreciation for the same poetic text. The great Bachhan very aptly sang:

Towards end of his life, Bhaiyee Jha spent all his time reciting with rhythmic variations the names of God as formulated in Kalisantaramupanishad --

Hare Rama Hare Ram Ram Ram Hare Hare
Hare Krishana Hare Krishana Krishana Krishana Hare Hare.

I was told that he was enjoying such ecstatic delight that he could hum this mantra till the end of his life. I was wondering how one could keep on reciting for hours over all the days. My amazement turned boundless when I was an adolescent, I heard Bhuso Baba enjoying peace and beatitude by humming, I felt, at least 18 hours a day:

Narayana Narayana Narayana
Sri Mann Narayana Narayana Narayana
Bhajmann Narayana Narayana Narayana

But I could comprehend the prime-mover when I reflected on the quality of beauty so felicitously described by Vidyapati when, in one of his love songs, he reflected on Love and Beauty which could become fresh and new every passing moment (til til nutan hoi).

My grand father was Grihinandan Jha, the youngest of his father's several sons. When he died in 1943 I was almost six. I have his vivid memory.He was tall and lanky. His bones were so prominent through ebony-coloured skin that as a student of physiology I had no difficulty in understanding the bony system of human body. Had he not been my dear grandfather I would have gone into trance just on observing him during such hours of day or night when we believed the ghosts trod assuming human shapes. The ugliness of his exterior was substantially offset by his heart which was by all standards of 24 carat gold. He was the best friend of children. With a remarkable sense of empathy he could get involved in our world. He helped us in building castles out of mud and sand. He shared with us the shocks which we felt on seeing them crumble down. His zest to rebuild them vied with ours. On the canoes he manufactured from paper and cardboard, I used to transport many ants and insects to hell by putting them afloat in the rainy streams.. There was macabre delight in seeing the tiny creatures struggling for life in the rivulets till most of them were lost in the swirls and whirls of waters. Some survived panting on the straws and twigs floating down the water or resting crouched in the grassy mud.. When I was of five he inducting me into his school to train me in some useful arts. What I liked most was his managing of the bullocks geared to a common rope for moving round and round a bamboo pole facilitating the separation of paddy from hay. It was usual to start the work in the wee hours. Amidst the chiming of the bells of the bullocks I could often recite the Sanskrit Slokas which my grandfather had taught me. He would often show his toothy grin as a mark of appreciation.

We looked up to him for guidance in all arts and in all crafts. But the fact of the matter was that by the present-day standards he was illiterate. Like Kabir Das he had not even touched paper and ink. But like him my grandfather had practical prudence. Now I feel that he was just one of the so many who learned the nuggets of wisdom from traditional lores and from healthy interactions in the village society still maintaining our traditional culture. He could narrate the stories of the Mahabharata and of the Ramayana in charming style. For us he was a colossus of learning. When someone asked him whether he felt embarrassed on account of his illiteracy he said : “ I am illiterate but not without education.” The dichotomy he made between illiteracy and education is remarkably valid now when we tend to consider that knowing alphabet alone is enough.

As was the practice those days my grandfather was married early. The only ostensible wealth that he had was his status as a high class Brahmin. He was sore that his forefathers had made a social climbing down from the highest grade of Brahamins called Sotrya by marrying into the families of persons somewhat lower in scale. He was married early with a daughter of Govind Narayan Coudhary, a scion of a very distinguished feudal family of village Kurson. The Choudharys were very sophisticated people, had plenty of wealth, and commanded a vast aura of social prestige. My grandmother was one of the most beautiful women that God ever created. I can recall her when she was in her eighties. Her face was exquisitely sculptured and immensely vivacious. She was tall and had a wheatish complexion . She had glossy silver hair making her seen as a white cloud in the autumn sky. Often I remembered her on seeing the images of Durga during the Durga Puja. In my assessment she was a masterpiece in God's oeuvre. She had a measured gait; and she spoke chaste Maithili in tone low but mellifluous. She was a past master in the art of story telling. She used her words with extreme parsimony and she never compromised her majestic demeanour outshining the grace and gravity of the Greek ladies immortalized by the Renaissance artists. We flocked to her whenever it was possible to do so to hear the yarn of the never never land. She brought up seven children, five sons and two daughters. She managed well four daughters-in- laws. A remarkable feat.

Everybody felt that the marriage of a beautiful damsel of blue blood was an act of extreme indiscretion of her parents. But the way they spent six decades and odd years of their wedded life convinced everyone around that they were really made for each other. The economic management of a poor man's household is always difficult With very scarce resources of the family she discharged her obligations with a finesse which amazed everyone.

The Choudhries of Kurson were astute and wise much beyond the most. amongst the Brahmins they belonged to the ordinary run. Those days the rich Brahmins of the ordinary run often desired to give there daughters in marriage into the families of high distinction amongst the Brahmins. This fact was widely recognised during the Sen dynasty in Bengal. This led to the natural consequence of the operation of the Law of Demand and Supply. As such distinguished and much sought-after bridegroom were obviously in short supply, many of them had several wives. In Bengal there were persons having more than hundred wives. In ours society persons were perhaps not so enterprising. The line was drawn generally at twelve so that one could spend a month in every in-laws' house. My grandfather's brother showed moderation by having only four wives. The Choudharies did want to go up on the social scale but did not wish to allow the son- in-law to roam about as a gentleman at large.

But the causa proxima of my grandfather's migration from Koilakh to Kurson was something grotesque. My father, who was his third son, wetted the soil in the family courtyard in village Koilakh. This non-event was blown out of proportion. Many elderly ladies had a bee in their bonnet and they raised an uncouth wordy warfare which was painful to my grand mother with refined taste and sophiscated sensibility. Her feudal mentality could not put up with things of that sort. She knew the enormous love that her brother had for her. She sent a massage to him. And Krishna Narayan Choudhary, her brother, came on an elephant to take her and her children to Kurson. She went to Kurson never to return to Koilakh.

My grand father remained in close touch with members of his father's family in Koilakh where he had a petty share in the heriditament which to my grand father's shock was sold by my third uncle.. As my grandfather's family grew the Choudharies provided them with a permanent habitation in the garden of Karmilli in the eastern side of the village surrounded by lush green trees quite adjacent to a water pond, one of the loveliest spots I have ever seen.Eden.

My grandfather did not escape the fate of those who abandon their roots for better pastures. When self-confidence is lost creativity is always at a discount. This is a constant in human affairs as much as in the affairs of nations.. My grandfather simply existed for six decades and odd. He never had to bother for his creature comforts. My grandmother managed the house hold with wisdom (I wish the Finance Minister of our country should have at least a fraction of it ! .)In the waning years of his lives he was often gnawed by the idea that his life was not well spent. The anguish of his innermost heart tinged his devotional songs, mostly by Vidyapati. But he was always at his natural ease. He accepted things as they came to him . I felt that he was always ready to accept divine dispensation without grudge and grumble. He had a attained a state of mind of sarvaswaswikar (a frame of mind that accepts everything that happens) with gratitude towards God (ahobhava).

My grand father had two prime pursuits: (i) singing Kritans and (ii) enjoying bhang. The Kritans were quite popular. The illustrious ancestors of the Choudharies had built the temples of Sri Ram, Sri Krishna, Maa Durga and Mahadeva. The worship of the different deities gave a variety to the content and style of the Kritans . For the Kritans at the Sri Ram temple, I felt, Tulsidas was the guiding force whereas the Kritans in the Radh Krishan temple were under the impact of Vidhyapati and Chaitanya. The Kritans in the Durga Mandir illustrated the best in the Sakta traditions. And the Bhajans of Mahadeva had a wide verity; from supplication for wealth to the heart-felt solicitation for mercy to grant mukti in Shivadham when one casts off one's body. My grandfather had a rich stock of Kritans of all types which he sang to everyone's delight. The rhythm of his body indicated the intensity of his feeling, and he belongs to the Chaitanya tradition.

My grandfather's second pursuit was not his secondary pursuit. In fact, he lived on the co-ordinates of bhakti and bhang. During my adolescence I had only once taken bhang the herb said to be so dear to God Mahadeva. It was a strange experience which left an indelible mark on my mind. One ball of bhang transported me to swim through the waves of all colours for two days. I swam through various patterns of pure colours in their horizontal and vertical rectangles. Now, in retrospect, I feel that I experienced a sort of parody of the impressionist Monet.(this idea has occurred to me on seeing the Parody of the Impressionist Monet ‘Cathedral Number II' by Roy Liechtenstein). My grandfather was a connoisseur par excellence of bhang. He took almost two hours two prepare it. In a bowl of stone he put a fistful of the leaves to soak water for softening. Much skill preceded in selecting the appropriate leaves and in subjecting them to a delicate process of drying in the sun and shade. With the stroke of a thick guava-stick he would carefully crush the leaves stroking them with increasing impact with each effort at the preparation of bhang. He often sang songs while crushing the bhang leaves, turning them into fine paste to shape that as a billiard ball.. Everybody in the village believed that his bhang had some special properties on account of the music that he mixed with it. He would gulp the big ball in one go. And then he drink a plenty of water from a shining copper pot. After some time he was a blessed soul with a valid permit to move from the world of ordinary existence to the world of shifting colours, and super-fine joys. There was something remarkable with him. He can shift from the matters of this terra firma to the gossamer world of wild goose chase on the waves of colours. My grandfather could shuttle between the two worlds with natural ease. If anybody talked to him he found in him a balance and composure not commonly found. He was always ready to advise others. He never realised that generally advice is something which is rarely taken if offered gratis. Because of his amiable nature his counseling was never receiving anybody's indifference. His logic was impeccable as he always supported his views with the stories of the Panchatantra .

He was affable and amiable and could often be cruelly candid. Those days people did not feel offended if their defaults were pointed out. Kabirdas had advised that for self-improvement one must have a critic close by. The villagers were charitable enough. They gladly conceded the role that he often assumed: of a virtual ombudsman for the village. Now things are different everywhere. Nobody tolerates anybody's criticism. Our youngsters believe that their lives are their own affairs of which they are the best judges. The proposition is right when one is free from arrogance and ignorance. These days the youngsters would refuse to listen to their parents and elders but would avidly and uncritically accept what comes out in the press, what is written on the posters, what they see in the movies and what they hear form the persuaders who abound these day in plenty.

My grand-father had an extraordinary capacity to remain composed even in moments in which most of us are swept away in emotions. An instance comes to my mind. My grandmother was suffering from a terminal illness. Arrangement had been made to take her to the bank of the Ganges at Semariya Ghat, at the bank of the Ganges, where she could breathe her last. Those days most persons died without being in hurry to pop off suddenly. Everybody in the family, except him, was in tears, and crying. He quoted the Bhagavad-Gita to tell that a beautiful bird which warbled in prision for a while would be freed to sing to the Lord His glory as seen by her during this sort sojourn. Then he sat on a wooden plank singing:

His end came after a long and lingering illness. All his sons were around except my father who was in the Darbhanga jail undergoing rigorous imprisonment for his participation in the Quite India Movement, the final and most crucial phase in our country's Struggle for Independence. He called my mother and asked her that she should send me to the cremation ground to represent my father. It was the first time that I saw the man dying and then be cremated. While we were in the cremation ground my father joined us as he saw us from a distance on his way home after being released form his imprisonment.

Later I came to know that it was a custom to plant peepal sapling to mark the place of cremation. Didn't s Krishna calls Himself a peepal tree amongst trees?. The Lord said in the Bhagavadgita (X.26: asvatthah sarvavrksanam .The offering of the water to the peepal sapling is done so that it can grow carrying the atoms and molecules of the dead through its system to the leaves constantly devoted in the Lord's prayer. That experience deepened in my mind the pathos of these lines which Shah Jahan wrote to Aurangzeb when the ungrateful son stopped supply of water from the Jamuna:

“ Praised be the Hindus in all cases,
As they ever offer water to their dead
And thou, my son, art a marvellous Mussalman,
As thou causest me in life to lament for (lack of) water. ”

My grandfather had five sons and two daughters. The eldest son, Ramchandra, died while he was a student. The other four sons were: Ramakant, Lakshmikant, Gopikant and Srikant. His daughters were married, and had good life in the families of their in-laws in some nearby villages. Grandfather never expected anything from his children. His needs were so few that he hardly needed anybody's assistance. In every matter he would ask himself : Can I do without it. If he got answer yes he would surely avoid that. Through this process of elimination he kept his needs to the minimum. He always cut his coat according to his cloth. He was never a borrower except of good ideas. He always carried the wisdom of the following lines:

Be it joy or sorrow, dear or not that
Accept whatever comes as prasada,
But always with a heart and mind
Free from the sense of defeat.

My eldest uncle was Ramchandra who died young. I didn't see him nor I heard much about him. Once during my boyhood days I accompanied my father to the Pustak Bhandar at Laheriasarai. Its owner was Acharya Ramlochan Sharan He was one of the rare souls whose personality had so many dimensions. He was a great scholar and had written a number of books of very high standard. He was a distinguished patron for poets and authors. When my father met him he read out some of the Chaupies from his Maithili translation of the Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas. Impressed by my father he asked him about the village to which he belonged. On hearing that he belonged to Kurson, he asked him if he knew Ramakant who had been with him at school but died soon after. Father told him that Ramchandra Babu was his eldest brother. For some time he was trying to conceal his tears in the corners of his impressive broad eyes as the misers concea gold from public gaze. But on hearing that the man before him was a brother of his most intimate friend, his tears trickled down but got arrested on way in the glossy ivory coloured moustache which the Acharya flaunted in the style of Maharana Pratap.

My second maternal uncle, Ramakant, had many things in common with a Shakespearean tragic hero. He had infinite potentialities but had some tragic traits too. He fought for the freedom of the country, and went jail but never made politics his vocation. He was an excellent teacher who could bring to track even those students who had been written off by their parents.. He earned the name of Vishnu Sharma, the famous author of the Panchtantra , who had taught the king's sons when the king had lost all hope that they would ever acquire competence expected from the king's sons. When he sang patriotic songs he could set aflame even sunken souls. One heard a resonance of the Panchjanya in his exposition. Such persons are not seen now. My wife aptly said that God has now permanently retired the mould and frame in which such heroic patriotic persons were once made.

My third uncle, Laxmikant Jha, was an expert in agrarian matters. He looked after his maternal uncle's property and acquired, in the process, a good understanding of the complex agrarian laws. His sense of justice was so perfect that persons of all social strata used to come to him for solving disputes. The heart of the matter was that he had acquired well his skill for proper hearing (samyaka shravan).He divided listeners into three categories (I) those who can catch suggestions as did Janaka when communicating with Ashtavakra (because both were most enlightened) ; (ii) those who can learn after waging a battle of wits as Arjuna did in the Bhagvadgita , and (iii) those who can never learn even if Lord Brahma comes to teach them. He was in the top class.

My youngest uncle, Shrikant, lived a life in its many colours. He had an affluent boyhood in the family of his maternal uncle. He had a comfortable manhood but a difficult old age. He was named Shrikant but Shri (wealth) never smiled on him. I hold him in high admiration, and am indebted to him in more than one ways. Without him birds would have been mere birds and flowers mere flowers. He knew their names and had observed their notes and habits. Dan Lehrman worked on the behaviour of the mating of the ring dove. If my uncle would have recorded his observations on how the birds behaved in moments of distress or of elation or of romance, he would have got a magnum opus to his credit. His observations were precise. He would call flowers and fruits, birds and beasts, by their specific name. He explained their painful gestures and also their romantic gyrations in his lucid vernacular sprinkled with quotations of all sorts.

VII

The Chaudhuries were important Zamindars. They migrated to the village Kurson from some other village. They were Jugmohan Singh Chaudhry, Dular Singh Chaudhry and Mohan Singh Chaudhry, the sons of Nehal Singh Chaudhary. Nehal singh was so eminent that after his name a new panji was recognised called Nahal Singh Choudhary Panji. They founded three deodhis, two in Kurson and one in Dasunt a nearby village. The Chaudharies were liberal people and believed in religious syncretism. Jagmohan founded Radha Krishana Mandir in Dasaut. In Kurson Dular Singh founded Durga Mandir whereas Mohan Singh founded Sita Ram Mandir.

The Sri Ram temple has a massive structure cast in semi-gothic style. Men and women assembled in the temple for Puja and for listening to the sacred discourse by the Pandits. On the back verandah of the temple , there was a huge folded Shamiana, a virtual ravine for children to hide themselves both in the game of hide-and-seek, and also from the eyes of their parents. To get on the top of the mound was really to be at the top of the world. Adjacent to this magnificent temple there is a Mahadeva temple. The temples of Kali and Durga were located at about a kilometre from the Sri Ram temple. This was a mud-built huge building. The story goes that the images of Kali manifested themselves while a tank was being dug in the vicinity. Every year during the Dussehra festival images of Kali and Durga were made out of clay. The images were in the classical mould. The Pujas were performed in a strict conformity with the Tantric tradition. Persons from far and wide were drawn to the Radhkrishnan temple during the Jhula festival. Thus the three great persons of the Chaudhary family struck the syncretic note in the religious pursuits of the village.

My father's maternal uncle was Krishna Narayan Chaudhary, a son of Govind Narayan Chaudhary who was one of the several sons of Mohan Singh Chaudhary. (The short family tree of the Chaudharies has been drawn up in the Annex to this Chapter). He had a colourful personality and varied interests in arts, specially music and dance. He was a patron for artists. He allowed his mundane matters to slip out of his control. He became an easy victim of the chicaneryof his courtiers who multiplied in his declining years to siphon off his wealth.. During his life he traveled from affluence to abject poverty.

My father's maternal uncle was Krishna Narayan Chaudhary, a son of Govind Narayan Chaudhary who was one of the several sons of Mohan Singh Chaudhary. (The short family tree of the Chaudharies has been drawn up in the Annex to this Chapter). He had a colourful personality and varied interests in arts, specially music and dance. He was a patron for artists. He allowed his mundane matters to slip out of his control. He became an easy victim of the chicaneryof his courtiers who multiplied in his declining years to siphon off his wealth. During his life he traveled from affluence to abject poverty.

MY ANCESTORS

VII