Letter from a Grandfather to a Grandson – A cultural Journey across Generations

 

 

The Context

 

The work below is in the form of a letter which was written by a grandfather to his first grandson aged eight months. At the time of writing the letter which was addressed to the grandson, Priyam was in England along with his parents. Priyam‘s father was studying in UK as British Chevening Scholar at that time. The grandson stayed at the ancestral house for six months before leaving for England along with his parents. In order to provide a perspective, here is a geo-chronous historical map of the family –

 

1920 Mr. Pramod Chandra Bhattacharjee - Came to Silchar, Assam from Sylhet of present Bangladesh and got involved in Nationalist Movement. In 1930, he was one of the founding-teachers of Cachar High School in Silchar. He was a Municipal Commissioner, a passionate musician, a lover of literature in English and Bengali and above all, an educationist. In his character, there was a spirit of restlessness, a spirit which was not very worldly minded as well and hence, he and his family suffered a kind of financial constraint all through his life.

 

1941 – 1990 Mr. Pranab Bhattacharjee, youngest and the only surviving son of Mr. Pramod Chandra Bhattacharjee was born in the ancestral vaastu-vita at Silchar. Before he could reach his early twenties, his parents died, he had the first taste of the harsh reality of life which remained his best and most-effective teacher henceforth. He inherited his ancestral home, a great family reputation but no wealth which in today‘s world is considered fortune. He had to establish himself, provide education to his younger sister. He managed to get a teaching job in the Cachar High School. In addition, he provided private tuition, graduated after studying at night. Later, he got himself the BT (Bachelor of Teaching) degree after supporting the family.  In 1974, his first child Pritam was born, in the same vastu-vita. Later he had a daughter Papri and within ten years, with the exemplary support from his wife, they transformed a dilapidated house into a family home. A decade after his marriage, Mr. Pranab Bhattacharjee went for his Master‘s and succeeded, having gone through a struggle of two years. He retired as a Principal of a Higher Secondary School in 2000.

 

His early struggle with excruciating poverty and lacking the umbrella of guardianship instilled a sense of Copperfieldian insecurity. A kind of bitterness remained and that made him critical about relatives, friends and well-wishers. Students, whom poverty condemns with the hardest lessons occasionally, acquire a speech that is hard, cut-and-dry and cannot be fooled by frills or varnish. Such people always tend to penetrate from the mere surface and the strategies they develop are generally forward-looking. With unmistakable clarity, he could foresee much beyond the ethos of contemporary Silchar and invested his experience, resource and time in the education of his children.  In 1990, his son stood first in the Matriculation examination in the whole state of Assam, also from the same Cachar High School. It was a moment of truth, vindication of the Bhattacharjee family‘s inching towards a dream – of educational excellence, of high discipline, of  harbouring a passion for achieving higher cultural state, a state which cannot be brought or touted but a man has to earn by his every living moment.

 

2004 – 2006 Mr. Priyam Bhattacharjee was born in Calcutta on the fag end of 2004. His grandfather wanted that his grandson be born in the great city of which he was a great admirer. After six months, little Priyam flew to England and returned after another six months, having grown from an infant to a hyper-active toddler.

 

The forthcoming letter was written while Priyam‘s father returned from England and presented his father a copy of The Prince by  Niccolo Machiavelli which was brought by the young father at Waterstones at Trafalgar Square, London in one summer afternoon. It was also the same afternoon while London was mourning the dead of the July bombing as well as bracing up for the successful bid of the London Olympic in 2012. This petite volume triggered off writing the letter reproduced below - a letter written by a grandfather to his grandson with the father perhaps playing the role of a triggering agent.

 

My dearest friend,

 

        Priyam, the Prince of Niccolo Machiavelli but not of Shakespeare. One is set in the medieval age and other is the beginning of the modern. Our prince is of neo-modern age representative of the trio. One is of Denmark; another of Italy and the last but not the least is of Kolkata. The last prince is in flesh and blood as the former two represent creative genius of two prolific writers of different ages.

 

        Shakespeare‘s prince is Hamlet the classic whereas Machiavelli‘s ‘Prince‘is a political thought. Our prince cannot be defined so early as this Prince is a live hero of our family and the whole family has been waiting for his birth since a long time.

        Now Machiavelli‘s outstanding masterpiece is in my hand. The tiny book speaks many things of his time.    Such a single book makes the writer famous throughout the world and assures a place in the caravan of intellectuals. It deserves many awards if it would have been written in our century.   Machiavelli was born in Florence of Italy in 1469. This brilliant Florentine was the child of his time.

 

        Dear, every political book has its own political background. Nothing comes out of vacuum. Every book resembles of its writer‘s ideas and philosophy. The Prince is not an exception.

 

        Machiavelli was the ardent champion of Italian Unification as Bismark, Chancellor of Prussia was the supporter of an Unified Germany. At the time writing of The Prince, Italy was divided into so many states and principalities. Machiavelli wanted to unite Italy under one flag and one state to strengthen Italy so as to make a powerful state in Europe. For this end in view, he wrote the masterpiece, analyzing the political situation of his time.

        The birth of the writer was very important and was the need of the hour. The politics was dominated by the church and the last word most often used to be with the church alone. Religion used to control the politics of the time and the church did not have strong personalities capable of offering new thoughts and ideas regarding nationalism which might bring Italian Unification. So he proposed to divorce religion from politics. From him began the modern age with new thoughts and new ideas, heralding the end of medieval period. At his time, two most important things started in Europe – first Renaissance and Reformation and these two processes helped him to implement his ideas and thought. Machiavelli‘s most marvelous achievement was to weaken the power of the church and empowering the state. He first used the word state in the field of politics. The waves of his ideas touched, initially the land of Europe and later, the entire world.

 

        Machiavelli was a realist. He had seen the political condition of Europe with an open eye and then he had to come to his conclusions. He once remarked – Men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of patrimony. His remark justified the fact that he was a realist in the truest sense of the term. Quite connected with the aphorism quoted above, he remarked in another place that a prudent ruler may kill but will not plunder.

 

        Unlike Gandhi, he was more interested in the end and not in means. According to Gandhi, means make end. Good means bring good end. But according to Machiavelli, to achieve certain end, one has to adopt any means without caring for good or bad. His aim was Italian Unification of Italy and to achieve this goal, he adopted various means without caring for honest or dishonest, kind or cruel paths. He stressed on the recovery of the patient without caring much for the ethics of the patient‘s public action.

 

        Dear, his ideas and actions is local and need and time based. It is not universal in character. Italy wanted these actions for the time being and his ideas and philosophy was confined in that period. Italy was unified and his ideas came true. He made a remark about himself – I am a path-breaker.

 

        Now, dear friend, you may not be the Price of Machiavelli or Prince of Denmark but prince of our family. You are the nucleus of our family and as such you are to perform some duties which each and every member of the family expects. The half-done works of three generations are to be completed by you. Work should not be taken in a narrow sense. Nothing can be achieved without labour, diligence, perseverance, far-sightedness and above all, sacrifice. I think, you will become worthy to preserve our family reputation and also uplift it to the highest degree.

 

[Translated from Original Bengali]

 

I see in my mind‘s eye – in one of the days of twenty-first first century, in a lonely room of Oxford, a thirty-plus young man is studying the manuscript of Einstein‘s theories. In front of the young man is hanging a picture depicting the great Newton with the apple tree. His wrist-watch is lit up by the radium glow, discovered by Madam Curie. The aura from the face of the young scientist seems of have lit up the room. He is excited at the verge of a new discovery. That‘s a wonderful, serene beautiful moment. I would like to say - ‘Oh blessed man of science, of knowledge, we welcome you‘. Looking at that beautiful moment, I cry in joy and shout - ‘Oh young man, are you my Priyam ?‘ The answer comes - ‘Yes‘.

 

I come out of my blissful sleep. I find that my little Priyam is sleeping by my side. I ask myself – This one is certainly the other one seen in the dream. Yes, it must be. Et must sein.