Hunt for a baby

Helen Hunt with her baby

When I read about Helen Hunt getting a baby due to an ‘uplifting experience’, I adduced it must have been close to Immaculate Conception. 

What transpired, instead, was a combination of superstition and auto-suggestion.  The uplifting experience was a ‘lift’.  On the David Letterman show, Hunt shared her experience with Indian guru Sri Chinmoy, who has been described as a “United Nations-recognised master”.  The UN has a questionable record on political issues; therefore, one wonders on what basis it might have certified a spiritual guru as a master.  In form of address ‘master’ is quite the norm, but it is by believers. Did the UN test spiritual powers and, if so, how did it measure these?

Bollywood films used to have a standard cure for infertility – a visit to a godman or guru. Often, the person would be a villain with beady eyes, smacking his lips and while showering blessings on the woman giving her a once-over. Depending on how the characters were to develop in the script, the woman would either be forced to succumb or escape. Art-house cinema too explored the misuse of tantric practices. This, unfortunately, is not relegated to cinema.

A scene from the recent Bollywood film 'Oh My God - OMG'

Even today, one reads about charlatans from different cults and faiths using their ‘powers’ to offer women more than spiritual guidance. The better-known gurus have an ostensibly clean image and a celebrity flock. They cater to bruised egos, including their own, and in India while their role in politics was earlier mainly on the sidelines, these days they pontificate on major national issues. This camouflages the exploitative nature of the smaller players.

Hollywood has been a good place for those who managed to charm an international clientele. Everyone seems to have been in some form of rehab, and needs succour. Scientology has already asserted itself. Tibetan Buddhism too has done so, for those with political sympathies for the Dalai Lama.  Beverly Hills easily alternates between the good life and the god life, one feeding the other.  People do feel the need to rejuvenate and/or seek a higher purpose.

However, when someone certifies that an important bodily activity has been performed due to such intervention, one needs to look more closely.

Here is the extract from a report:

The guru, who passed away in 2007, was famous for showing off mind-over-matter feats of strength, and he celebrates the achievements of people he admires by lifting them above his head.

Hunt explains, “He lifted people that he felt had achieved something, that had contributed something to the world… (Archbishop) Desmond Tutu, Muhammad Ali and me.

“I went with my goddaughter… and we pull into this place and women open the car door and they’re dressed in, like, floral gowns, and they walk me into this garden. Then I get on this contraption, walk up four steps and he lifted me up.”

It is obvious that Sri Chinmoy understood achievement. It does call for a celebration, although this is a most unusual way to express it. Why did this single experience convince her that she could become a mother? It coincided with her conceiving. “I wanted to have a baby and he was encouraging me to pray and not give up and I did have a beautiful daughter, so he was right.”

There is place for coincidence and serendipity in our lives, and some of us have had what are known as ‘out-of-body’ experiences. These, if we try and understand rationally, are part intuitive and part strong desire. The mind is an extremely powerful tool. Ask those who suffer from psychosomatic disorders. One needn’t go that far. It is possible to experience a state of suspension merely due to a fever.

But making babies does require some amount of hard work and it is far from being a meditative state. One cannot merely wish to conceive or be so uplifted as to create out of nothing. The concept of Immaculate Conception has fascinated me for long and it is a profound spiritual metaphor for creation. Taking it out of the realm of its religious context, it is symbolic of the purest birth of what could change the world – it could be a piece of art or an ideology.

Helen Hunt’s encounter with the guru lacks this sublimity. It appears to have been at best a spiritual transaction; it was also two famous people meeting as a trade-off. Why could she not pray on her own? How much did merely sharing her deep need for a child have to do with it? Is it not possible that the seed had to be sown in her mind for her body to accept it?

She is fortunate that she is who she is. But, the legitimacy she gives to such errant experiences conveys that although thoughts are potent, she could not even think them on her own.

© Farzana Versey

Mind It

Still from 'Life of Pi'

"He wants to see the actor's mind in a shot." Actress Tabu said this about Ang Lee who has directed her in 'Life of Pi'.

It was so beautifully put, but what does it really mean? Is the actor's mind reflecting the character or her/himself? Or, is one superimposed on the other? 

Can one see a thought? If so, then the actor contemplating the motives and behaviour of the character would be methodical rather than spontaneous. Is thought not instinct?

You might suggest that premeditated thought cannot be instinctual. But, is there no lapse between thought and action?

Say, we play several roles in life; some we 'perform' because we are directed to - by precedent, norms, or for specific reasons. Is our failure to do so adequately a failure of thought or of action?

Think about some disabilities where the mind is hampered by lack of motor movement. These are unfortunate natural or accident-induced circumstances. However, even those of us who are not so restricted find that we cannot always act out our thoughts. Our thoughts are dependent as much on the manner in which they are received as on how they are conveyed. So, do they remain our thoughts anymore?

If the other person could see our 'mind in the shot', going by Ang Lee's expectation, then would we necessarily be understood? How often do we tear our hair in frustration that what we seek to convey has either been misinterpreted or whooshed past without even a moment of being acknowledged?

Can you read my thoughts? Routine question. But are you reading your own thoughts while trying to decipher another's?

Recently, someone sent a message in response to a call I made. It said, "I wanted to thank the thought." Was my act removed from my thought? Or, does the thought hold greater validity? Had I not acted upon the thought, would a person know? Can there be more than one thought for our actions and many ways to act based on one thought? 

If you can see a mind, then you are probably seeing not just what is but what might have been and can be. Mind or minds?

(c)Farzana Versey

There's a Mughal in your drink

How many of you give your children the health drink Complan? If you are Hindu then you are an insult to your religion. You are glorifying Mughals. The ad for the product is under fire by the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) for this depiction:

In a class-room, a (Hindu) teacher asks a boy the name of father of King Jehangir. The student shows as if he is unable to recollect the name and the teacher asks the same question to another student when he answers the question immediately telling the name of Jehangir’s father. The credit of the boy answering the question correctly is given to ‘Complan’.

The organisation wants the company to withdraw the ad and all TV channels to stop airing it. I was surprised by the Hindutva droppings in my inbox were so darned serious. I took a look at the whole letter. Here's one bit:

“Why do you remember only the history of Mughals who oppressed Indians? We are living in Bharat; therefore, we should teach glorifying history of Indians. Teach children history of great kings like Vikramaditya, Harshavardhan, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj etc. else an agitation would be staged in protest. Devout Hindus and Indians will boycott your products. Advertisements of companies like Cadbury and Amul which made mockery of history have been earlier stopped.”

I think all Hindu actors and models should be boycotted too if they wear clothes that are remotely reminiscent of the Mughal era. Why was the film Jodha Akbar not banned? What about Hritik Roshan and Aishwariya Rai? Designers creating Anarkali kurtas and angarkhas should be punished. No cuisine that has any connection with the Mughals should be cooked; those restaurants should be shut down.

Come to think of it, shut down all of Delhi; it has too many monuments. Rashtrapati Bhavan has the Mughal Gardens. The President of India should vacate that little house and apologise to Hindus for walking on those lawns and smelling the outsized flowers.

That leaves the Taj Mahal. All Hindu lovers posing before the monument on that ubiquitous bench are insulting their faith. I think Arnold Schwarzenegger who could not take a look inside since he visited on a Friday should be allowed to take over. He’ll manage it as well as he managed his housekeeper. Given that Complan is manufactured by a multinational it is only fitting that we hand over all things that remind us of the Mughals to the west. I really look forward to a ranch in Humayun’s tomb and Taco Bell at the Taj.

We are living in an age of the ridiculous. Someone really believes that because ‘Complan’ denotes brainpower in the ad and a Mughal king was mentioned, it would immediately suggest that only such knowledge is considered important. There is an ad for Taj Mahal tea where just a sip of it makes the Eiffel Tower disappear, such is the impact. Why not withdraw that as well? Or the soap ad where the mother teaches her child during a bath with a song that goes, “Babar ka beta Humayun, Humayun ka Akbar”?

I know she could have said, “Shahaji Rao ka beta Shivaji, aur Shivaji ka Sambhaji”? Look at it this way. The Mughals were obsessed with the good life – baths, scents, food, milk. The Hindu kings were spartan in their habits, and this is the message of what is unstated. The Mughals were good only for soap suds.

Anyhow, there are many ayurvedic products with rishi-munis telling us what to do with different parts of the body, and Baba Ramdev makes up for it by huffing and puffing. Our children are quite safe. Unless, of course, there comes an ad for male deodorant that would talk about the “Aurangzeb effect” or a hair salon that calls itself Babar’s Barber.