Reflections

In Bertolt Brecht’s famous play Life of Galileo, there is a famous scene where Andrea laments “ a land is unhappy that breeds no heroes”. In reply Brecht has Galileo riposte “No, Andrea: unhappy is the land that needs a hero .” I have had many heroes in my younger days. Rammohan Roy, Gokhale, Rabindranath(of course) , Netaji and Fidel Castro were and still are my heroes. There have been some more, of course. But as I grow older and I reflect on the ways of heroes and the implications of needing heroes, I am in more and more agreement with Galileo (or Brecht) that it is an unhappy country that has need of heroes at every turn of history . This probably makes India one of the unhappiest countries on record. This is because we are the past masters of heroes and heroines. In recent times, the cults (which is the only word one can use) of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv, and now Modi and the smaller but no less intense cults of Jayalalithaaaaa (or however she is writing it nowadays) , Ma