All starts from India?

The Golden Road - How Ancient India Transformed the World (2024)

Author: William Dalrymple

The author is quite unapologetic that his book would sound like an episode from the famous British desi sitcom, 'Goodness Gracious Me'. In fact, Sanjay Bhaskar, the main character in the above sitcom, was the invited guest to launch Dalrymple's latest book on Indian history.

This book is a joy to read. Packed with information from cover to cover, extensive research must have been conducted into the world of the Indosphere before waves of invaders destroyed it and rewrote its history.

Its cultural influence spread beyond its borders. Indian advanced navigational skills, using the seasonal monsoon winds to bring goods, knowledge, and culture to adjacent regions, were assets for mankind. India was a big brother figure to the Southeast Asian region, as far as the present Indochina region and even to China.

As early as the first century CE, the trade imbalance was so great, favouring India. A third of India's business was with the Romans. They traded pearls, gold, spices, diamonds, incense, eunuch slaves, ivory, perfumes, and even exotic animals like elephants and tigers. Imagine the sheer size of Indian ships that could carry elephants. Proof of these was found in the drawings in the Ajunta Caves. The Buddhists, contrary to the austere life that Buddhists are assumed to be living, encouraged trade and mercantilism. A Roman Emperor in the 1st century was reported to be incensed with his subjects' fixation with Indian spices (which he found distasteful) and almost transparent Indian cloth (that left nothing to the imagination). The image of Buddha in the Kushan Era had Greeco-Roman features.

It is said that British hunters' discovery of the Ajuntha Caves led to the discovery of India's long-forgotten tryst with Buddhism. Ironically, Buddhist monks have been found as far as Libya (sent by Asoka) and Alexandria. The Buddhists, it is said, had an influence on the Christian monastic movements.

It is perplexing that India was looked upon even by the Chinese as a cultured region. Its scholars endured treacherous land journeys to acquire knowledge from renowned universities like Nalanda and Taxila to learn and translate Buddhist scriptures. Sanskrit was viewed as the language of the elite. Travelogues of Xuanzang's 16-year journey against the restrictions imposed by the Sui Dynasty returns tells about a well-developed India with high intellect and culture. Buddhism was no longer popular in India and had moved eastwards.

There was a well-coordinated shipping line from the Bay of Bengal throughout the Straits of Malacca to Indonesia and China. Indonesia was a Sanskrit centre where scholars stopped over to master the language before going off to India. Buddhism soon competed with Confucianism and Taoism as the state's official way of life. The first female Empress of China, Wu Zetian, was instrumental in building innumerable Buddhist shrines in Loyang, China, in the third century CE. This colourful figure ruled for over 50 years. Many sculptures, scholars and astronomers from India were invited to set up offices in China.

By the 7th century CE, the likes of Brahmagupta and Aryabatta brought mathematics and astronomy to a different level. India's competence in architecture and science and its Ayurveda made it the most advanced country in the world at that time. Ujjain, in central India, had a space observatory centre then. They had advanced ideas of keeping time, the meridian, and shipping. 

Sailing sailors from Southern India mastered shipbuilding and navigational techniques. Their seamen brought Indian culture, influence, and civilisation to faraway lands like Indonesia, Cambodia, and beyond. Testimonies of Indian expertise are seen in many mammoth temples there—Angkor Wat, Borobudur, etc.

Observatory in Ujjain,

built by Maharaja Jai Singh II, 1725

When the Muslim invaders started attacking the northern part of India, the wealth of knowledge found here also fascinated Muslim scholars. An influential Buddhist family from northern Afghanistan, the Barmakids, are credited with bringing Hindu knowledge to the Abbasid Empire. They converted to Islam and helped to build the city of Baghdad. The Barmakids' descendants became important advisors to the rulers, but one fell out of favour with Harun al Rashid, and their legacy ended there. 

After falling out of favour of things from India, the Abbasids had sourced knowledge from Greek scriptures. 

Andalusia was a vital region which showcased the golden age of Islamic civilisation. With its serene gardens irrigated with advanced water pumps, it was heaven on Earth. In 1085, the Christian King Alfonso VI conquered Toledo. King Alfonso's attack left the libraries undisturbed, unlike the Muslim and Mongol invaders who destroyed everything in sight. European scholars found the Indian knowledge there profound. The earlier translated Indian wisdom was translated again into Latin and made its way to Oxford. They were erroneously labelled Arabic numbers. Fibonacci, credited for the numbers (of his namesake), apparently learned it from these books. He picked up the wonder of numbers from Algeria. Of course, the discoverers of trigonometry, zero and negative numbers were Indians. 

The New India has woken to the awareness of its glorious past. After being a leading force for thousands of years, it is amazing how it had fallen off the pedestal. With new leaders who vow to return the nation to its past laurels, it is marching towards a new dawn.

(PS. When I was young, I was curious to see Roman coins being part of the ornaments adorning my Amma's thali chain. How did Roman symbols come to be part of Indian jewellery? When we learnt history in school, it was so fragmented and compartmentalized, and the two regions were different like night and day. Of course, there were huge trades between Tamil Nadu and the Roman Empire then. And possessing foreign goods must have been an item to flaunt around. Hence, the desire to thread it into the thali chain and inadvertently let it slip out  occasionally for full view of others to be jealous.)

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“Where We Go One We Go All”

White Squall (1996)

In my teen years, I remember helping an older teenager to organise a religious outing for a group of children. We were to arrange for a bus to get the kids to the other side of town for Sivarathri prayers. As it involved overnight event, somebody thought that verbal consent was not sufficient. Each participant was asked to get their parents to sign a release form. We got the replies promptly from all except one. It seemed his father, an Army man, refused to sign the consent form and wanted to see the organisers. That was the first time I was exposed to an unreasonable person who thought that the whole world out there was just out to kidnap his child. His coveted son did not make it to the prayers as we could not convince his father. Later in life, the calculating father must have miscalculated his drinking habits and succumbed to the effects of the bottle. The obedient son was also devastated much later, in an unrelated event, when he woke up one fine morning to discover that his wife of ten years had absconded with her lover and he was left to care for their three young children.

The motto of Albatross
'where we go one, we go all.'
(inscribed on the bell on JFK's boat)

There must surely be three ways to raise children - the hippie style, the helicopter type and the one in between. The helicopter type of parents would be the ones who put their children in a bubble, trying to protect them for adversities in life, but the offspring end up as a mimosa pudica. The hippie one would want their kids to be in sync with Nature. All the falls and bruises, in their minds, would make them anti-fragile.

This movie depicts the story of 15-year-old boys who went on a character-building expedition aboard an ill-fated sailing vessel, Albatross. This is based on a true story in 1961. Imagine 14 students of different background in 1960 allowed by their parent to make a man of themselves by sailing all the way from the Bahamas through the Caribbean. They were under the tutelage of four experienced crewmen. Unfortunately, the Albatross capsised after encountering a white squall (a sudden and violent windstorm at sea), killing two crew members and four teenagers.

Later investigations suggested that the Albatross probably lost its balance due to the additional fittings that had been affixed on her. Albatross actually is an old vessel. She started her service back in 1920 in the Netherlands as a pilot boat in the North Sea. During the WW2, she served as a radio-station ship for submarines. After the war, she was a trainer for Dutch sea-merchants. In 1954, she was brought to the U.S. and was featured in a few Hollywood blockbusters. Her final stint was preparing college students in sail training. The refitting, over the years by her owners, must have made her' top heavy' which jeopardised her stability when encountering the storm.

This movie is mentioned as one of President Trump's favourite film, even though he was quoted to have said to have enjoyed 'Citizen Kane' and 'Gone with the Wind'. (Definitely, not 'Parasite'). I think the conspiracy theorists would like to believe so. Many of the lines in this movie have been used by Q-Anon as Q-drops for his followers to pick up and draw conclusions. The bell on board had inscriptions which read 'where we go one, we go all'.


Interestingly, this is the recurrent motif that appears in social media post as hashtag #WWG1WGA. Q-Anon and followers promise that Trump, the chosen leader and his team, will expose the evil plan of the Cabal and offset the agenda of the New World Order. A skipper is as good as his crew.

N.B. "Where We Go One We Go All" was inscribed on the bell on JFK's boat. It is a rallying cry for unity, and now headlines an extraordinary set of events.

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Start a revolution from my bed?

Hunt for Red October (1990)

Many keyboard warriors are so convinced by what they see online. They fail to understand why others are so dumb (in their eyes, of course). To them, truth our there is as clear as day. And everyone else just ought to follow, no questions asked. What these modern warriors or influencers, as they are referred to these days, need to know is that sometimes we become too blinded with our beliefs that we fail to practice mindfulness. They should wear another hat and maybe a different colour lens, other than rose, to get a different perspective on things. A revolution cannot be started by an army of one. It begins with the revolution of the collective minds and hearts of the people. This change is difficult, more so in modern times, as we are so divided by ideologies, cultures, faiths and identity.

This film is based on Tom Clancy's 1984 novel which in turn was loosely based on Soviet Union's 1975 attempted mutiny aboard a warship. In the 1975 revolt, a brand-new Russian frigate, Storozhevoy, is hijacked by its Third Rank Captain, Valery Sablin. He was convinced that Leonid Brezhnev's Soviet Union had lost its original Leninist's visions. The system was plagued with corruption and lies. Sablin wanted to use the hijack as a political statement to stir the Russian to engage in its Second Revolution. His plan fell flat, and he and his fellow men were incarcerated.

Storozhevoy

In the book and the film version, the warship was changed to a spanking new state-of-art nuclear-powered radar-escaping submarine. A rogue Russian Captain uses the invincibility of the sub to defect to the USA. The problem is the US Navy does not know of his intention and are wary of the intrusion of a Russian submarine in international waters. At the same time, the Russian authorities realise the rogue Captain's plan. The Russians are at wit's end to stop the Americans from laying their hands on Russia's highly advanced submarine. 

The highly suspenseful drama describes how the US Navy manages to save the day. They help the Russian crew to defect, rescue the submarine and embarrass the Russian at their own game.

It is naive to believe that truth will always prevail in the end. Things in real life are much more convoluted than that. The power brokers, financiers, the leaders, big pharma companies and the media moguls have the final say of how history ought to be written. Poetic justice and honesty are left to pacify the romantics. It is the rule of the majority. Annoyance from the minority can be easily boomeranged back to the senders by the powers that be (spoiler alert). 

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The invention that saved a million ships

The Lighthouse (2019)

When we were young, we were fascinated with the lighthouse. Any sketch of nature would include seas, boats, seagulls, clouds and flashing beacons. As Penang, our hometown is a port city, we had the pleasure of seeing many in our lifetimes. 

Many stories have been written on the heroic deeds of many a keeper or 'wickies' as they were referred to put their lives at stake to provide a continuous beacon of light to the safety of travelling vessels. The job is an unrewarding one with boredom being the most significant and dangerous occupational hazard to beat. Being located far from civilisation and at precarious locations, access to these places may be easily compromised by inclement weather. Hence, the keepers may sometimes be stranded for months altogether. Solitude was thought to be the single most typical reason for the prevalence of madness in the profession. Another possible aetiology of insanity could be mercury poisoning. In the older models of Fresnel Lens that were used in lighthouses, the lens and light were floated on mercury. The job of regularly cleaning the mercury of impurities exposed the 'wickies' to mercury poisoning. One of the symptoms of mercury poisoning can be the onset of mental derangement. 

Fresnel Lens - the invention
that saved a million ships.

Neurological symptoms used to be seen in hat makers. The felt used in their work contained mercury. Thus, came the saying, 'mad as a hatter'.

In this day and age, with the advancements in GPS and navigational technologies, are lighthouses still relevant? These days, they are automated and are there just as a backup just in case all the modern tools crash, fail or run out of power supply.

Edgar Allan Poe's last book that he had hardly started before his death in 1849 was unofficially named 'The Light House'. It was a collection of log entries of a newly appointed lighthouse keeper, and the theme was loneliness. 

©FG
Busan, South Korea.

This 2019 film was written with that idea in mind. A rookie is employed to be in a lighthouse under the supervision of a grumpy elderly keeper. The dynamics of their relationship, their unrelenting efforts to keep the beacon of light alive while maintaining their sanity in that cold, damp and hostile environment forms the basis of this psychological drama. Like 1963 'Birds', viewers will never look at a seagull in the same way again. Those scary birds can peck your eyeballs out!

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Trapped in the long shadow of the past!

Inventing South East Asia (Documentary; 2016)
Written and Presented by Dr Farish Noor

It is always interesting to listen to or read Dr Farish Noor's rendition of history as we were never taught.  In this documentary series, he dons khakis and ventures deep into the heart of South East Asia. He tells us how the colonialist masters carved out boundaries amongst the borderless Malay archipelago to invent race, identity, cause destruction and pillage, all in the name of bringing 'modernisation' to the 'primitive' natives. What they did not realise or refuse to admit is that the area that they thought were doing a great humanity service, already had a stable civilisation and were already cultured in their own way. They created a smokescreen to do their job, to pilfer enormous wealth and precious natural resources.

#1. Conquerors and Merchants
We are seldom told of the British invasion of Indonesia. In fact, they had interfered in Indonesia's affairs twice, albeit a short while, once after the Napoleonic wars and after WW2.
Capt Gillespie and an unknown officer Stamford Raffles invaded Java and destroyed the Jogjakarta Sultanate. Raffles then reinvented himself as a curator of conservation of the traditional Java relics to self-promote himself. His promotion of Java as an entity gives them their identity. Some old Javanese are still sore with the British till this day for their carnage. However, they are also eternally grateful to Raffles and his men for rediscovering Borobudur and the Javanese heritage.
Jambi City, Sumatra, where the Malay language is said to have originated had an illustrious Hindu-Buddhist past. In the 19th century, John Anderson, a British merchant was sent by the East Indian Company to explore Jambi which was fabled to be filled with cannibals and pirates. He was pleasantly surprised with the hive of trades happening there and the hard-working and friendly people selling a myriad of exotic produce. His book which showcased the rich natural resources there lured the Dutch to reap its natural resources and denude the greenery leading to various environmental damage. Commerce which was supposed to improve the general livelihood of people of Indonesia failed to do so. Wealth just changed hands from one master to another. For the poor, it is just business as usual.

#2. Kings and Pirates
In the second episode, Associate Prof Farish Noor travels to Borneo to discuss the shadow-play of the British in the island to justify their actions of gaining power to bring law and order. As is well known, in the 19th Century there was a blurred line between piracy and privateering. When done by the British against their enemies it was privateering, and it was legitimate and rewarded at the highest level. Sir Walter Raleigh was one such character. His actions, in reality, were no different than that of a pirate.
James Brooke was a soldier in the Anglo-Burmese war, but he ventured to the exotic Borneo Island for adventure and excitement. He came here, not as a representative of the East Indian Company or of the British Government but on his own accord. By a twist of fate, when he arrived in Sarawak in 1839, there was a local outbreak between Muda Hashim, a relative of the Brunei royalty, and some rebels. In return for helping Muda Hashim, Brooke was rewarded a piece of land. In the pretext of controlling piracy, he expanded his control over the rest of Sarawak and appointed himself as the White Rajah of Sarawak. He justified his nefarious actions of killing natives indiscriminately by concocting stories of pirates and headhunters as the bogeymen.

He also attacked Kampong Ayer, Brunei's busiest port and centre of commerce, with his comrades, Mundy and Keppel. They pointed a cannon at the Sultan's palace and arm-twisted him to give Labuan to the British. All in the name of combating piracy and to make commerce safe but for whom?
The community in Sabah has always been varied, complex and mobile. The whole landscape was fluid, borderless, porous and people, especially boat people (Bajau Laut) were a nomadic lot. The British conveniently labelled them as pirates to legitimise their treacherous actions.

#3. Shadow of the Guillotine

Louis Delaporte

It all started with the French wanting to compete with the British Raj to find an alternative route to China. Louis Delaporte, an explorer-artist, led an expedition up Mekong River in a failed mission. What he found was gems of ruins of ancient archaeological finds of Angkor Wat. Being the artist that he is, he returned with realistic and colourful drawings of an abandoned but advanced civilisation. 

To be fair, Delaporte had very high regards to the Khmer culture. He viewed the Indo-Chinese as descendants of an advanced race. His country, however, did not want to hear any of that. As far as they were concerned, a race that had forgotten its roots is lost. The ruins denote that the Asian Civilisation is on the decline, and the French took it as their moral duty to educate and bring culture (modernisation) to the natives, correct this fall from grace while looting of its treasures. They created French Indo-China.

Khmer sculpture on display at l'Exposition 
Universelle de 1878, an engraving 
by Louis Delaporte

They brought French culture wholesale into Indochina. Colonisation is not just limited to canons and military might. Colonisation also encompasses control of the mind, thinking and faith. Catholicism crept in. Students were educated in Paris. The advanced culture of the South East Asians went on a decline.

European education also brought in nationalism in the form of Ho Chi Min and Pol Pot. Both of them were members of the French Marxist Party.

Independence did not bring freedom but was fraught with wars, terror and genocide. The Vietnamese and the Cambodians have all got heart-wrenching stories of war, loss of loved ones and torture. Ironically, memories of these atrocities draw visitors to their land to dwell a bit of torture porn in the War Museums, Genocide Museum and Killing Fields.

The narrator ends the series with the message for us to question the myths of the past and live beyond the long shadow of our 19th century colonial past.

The one and only...

Pear ta Ma On Maf (The Land Has Eyes, Fiji; 2004)

Guess what? This film is Fiji's only known own production. It is a simple low budget fare made to look like a Disney family film about the legend of the spirit of a woman warrior who was left to fend for herself marooned on an island by her 7 brothers. Her spirit came to help a local girl whose father was cheated by a rich neighbour. The girl from the remote island of Rotuma Island, Viki, has big plans to further her studies in main Fiji Island. Her endeavour, however, is planned to be sabotaged by the same neighbour. The spirit of the female warrior comes to her rescue and helps to change her fate.

The highlight of the movie is the scenic landscape of the Pacific together with with its clear blue sky, waters and flora. Kudos too to some of the underwater camera shots.

The story otherwise is quite predictable and tame. Maybe because their pioneering effort on a shoestring budget, they were nominated for the 2006 Academy Awards and Sundance festival.

The human spirit again!

Das Boot (The Boat, German; 1981)
Written and Direction: Wolfgang Peterson

Yet again, another movie to highlight to us that the fighting spirit and the will to live of the human being. In this most expensive German movie at that time, the events surrounding the voyage of a German U-boat is depicted in a heart wrenching and suspenseful manner.
It narrates the joy of the crew starting the journey led by a relatively young crew of a captain, chief engineer and war correspondence journalist. They were initially mocked by the older crew who doubt their credibility. They soon discover that their journey is no pleasure cruise, fraud with mishaps and enemy attacks. They had an initial excitement as they shot down a war ship but surprisingly they could not stomach the idea they were actually killing people.
Their gung ho spirit soon dwindled as this lethargic crew is shoved around by the powers that be to go and there.
Once they were hit by the enemy ship and were stranded in the bottom of sea. With sheer willpower and determination, the crew managed to get the machine up and going again. Finally as they dock, the Allied plane came blasting killing almost everyone, save the journalist to tell the story!
A comical incident happened during one of their attack mission. The U-boat crew had badly wounded a battleship but it just to go down. They send a torpedo for the  coup de grace. Only then did they realise that they were men alive and jumping ship. The enemy navy men were burning as they jumped into the sea. Unfortunately, they could not take captives or help them even though they were yelling for help. They just left the scene as if feeling guilty, as if war is only about destroying properties but not killing people!
Man, over the centuries, after being fearful of the elements of nature, the sea, the winds, the quakes, the hurricanes, thought they had somehow conquered them. They thought human has somehow got the upper hand into controlling these forces of nature. Despite all the technologies available at our disposal, we are still getting things wrong. A small glitch and our plane goes nose down. A little technical breakdown there and our ships are stranded in nowhere land, far from detection and what more search, rescue or even salvage activities!
Our knowledge is still a drop in the ocean. Even before we learn all the secrets of the universe, we would probably kill each other off trying to control each other.