Illusive, mocking reality?

ANITA'S LEGACY — AN INQUIRY INTO FIRST CAUSE: Gurpur M. Prabhu; Viresh Publications, P.O. Box 2439, Ames, IA 50010-2439, U.S.A. $.13.95.

THIS IS an unusual novel starting with the death of a young Indian girl, Anita, growing up in the United States. Within another two weeks she would have completed 16. Death, we are told much later in the book, is the greatest uncertainty. Mr. Gurpur Prabhu about whom we are told nothing either by way of a preface or introduction, is trying to tell his readers about the "First Cause", which means the purpose of the lives which awaits every one immediately after he or she is born.

Those who have been making this enquiry range from sages and scientists. "The mystic explores reality through meditation; the scientist investigates reality through scientific laws. The two camps are hopelessly separated." Both the "empirical philosophy" of the scientist and the "religious philosophy" of the mystic fail to achieve this because of their not being sufficiently religious and empirical.

There could be nothing special about the scientists, Einstein, Sagan and Stephen Hawking, one of the characters in the novel tells us, if they could not answer questions about the "First Cause." The Big Bang theory does not answer questions about the "First Cause." Towards the end of the book, a piece of writing italicised obviously to make it look very profound, reveals that "First Cause" is the "lifting of Primeval matter and the Creation of a Relative Void."

The gruesomeness to which the spell of cults holding out promises of liberation of a glittering, everlasting joy of after-life is presented at the beginning of the novel with an account of the mass suicides in Guyana in November 1978. The total enslavement of young minds by the mass hypnosis is brought about by the chilling song, "Suicide is painless."

The message from this collective madness is about the havoc, which a sense of bewilderment over or wrong perceptions of the "uncertainty principle," the author is trying to explore, could play with young lives. If this is what the proliferating cults winning for themselves a frightening following in a country like the U.S., at far higher levels which the likes of Einstein had reached, the randomness of observed phenomena should have filled them both with incomprehension and a sense of helplessness if that is what Mr. Prabhu is trying to tell us.

The strangeness of happenings could be seen even in the seemingly simple but deceptive process of understanding from "one head to another" of the teacher and the thought. Among the questions thrown up by the characters in the book — and there is a good number of them — are what happens when one dies and whether the goal of science is only that of formulating principles and theories which can be confirmed only by experimental observations and validated by mathematical reasoning. If there is a lot more — as Mr. Prabhu is trying to tell us — it must be beyond the reach of minds trapped in their present state of consciousness.

The author tells us about the startling discovery dating back to 1945 of the "Nag Hammad Papyri" containing many ancient writings, one of them being the Gospel of St. Thomas, who was an apostle of Christ. The non-inclusion of his writings, included in the canonised versions of the Bible, could make the Old and New Testaments incomplete. He also draws attention to "academia becoming more marketing than quality oriented" and how this would keep away scientists of the calibre of Einstein in the future.

The Hindus, the Buddhists and ancient American Indians were at levels of consciousness at which there could be a grasp of reality. Einstein who did not like unpredictability and had said that God did not play dice, it appears, was at an earlier state of awareness and perception than those who came later and could reckon with the possibility of the Almighty playing dice. Among the impressive bits thrown at us is: "Science which is lame can move forward by sitting on the shoulders of religion which is blind."

It is difficult to make out what the author is trying to convey while he seems to be trying to grasp illusive, mocking reality. He should not be surprised if readers put aside the book after having struggled half way through it.

CVG

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