Price 599(got it for 419 from flipkart.com)
Does god exists? If yes, does he care..This book is to anyone who has confronted with this question in life..Its an all personal quest of spiritual exploration of Arun Shourie ...The following excerpt is going to be long but its well done..This book is to all who have confronted with the omnipresence of god and his way of trialing mortal souls like us ...
"Your neighbous have ason.. he is now thirty-five year old..Going by his age you would think of him as a young man , and ,on meeting his mother or father ,would ask,almost out of habit, 'And what does the young man do?' That expression,'young man',doesn't sot well as he is but a child.He cannot walk ,Indeed, he cannot stand. He cannot use his right arm. He can see only his left. His hearing is sharp, as his memory. But he speaks only syllable by syllable...The father shouts at him.. He curses him:'You are the one who brought misery into our home... We know no trouble till you came.Look at you-weak,dependent,drooling ,good for nothing..' Nor does the father stop at shouting at the child, at pouring abuse at him, at cursing the child. He beats him.He thrashes him black and blue..As others in the family try to save the child from the father's rage, he leaps at them.Curses them, hits out at them.What would you think about the damned father? Wouldn't you report him to police or some such authority that can lock him up?Wouldn't you try everything you can to remove the child from the reach of the father? But what if the father is The Father- the 'T' and 'F' capital .both word italicized? That is what is the 'father' in question is 'God'?Why so the reaction and answer change for so many of us?" (Page 1)
I read the above from an exclusive excerpt and ordered my copy right away...
Shourie is stunned beyond horizon when he learns about his son's cerebral palsy as a result of insufficient oxygen in incubator few days after his premature birth.. He is perplexed about his son's suffering and future of the family..Like all he is confronts the cliche question, WHY ME? It's been thirty four years with his son Adit who doesn't have an independent life; worst he can't carry any of his basic chores of life, adding to the anguish, his wife Anita has been diagonised with Parkinson's disease..
This book tears you apart several times through his personal journey fathering a child with cerebral palsy, his heart felt worry of future about his only son as he himself is stepping onto old age..His love for his son is evident in every word that he pens down.. He describes spirit of his son that inspires to be the person he is through many anecdotes,one which readily comes to my mind is when Adit fell off wheelchair as the caretaker forgot to cling the seat belt that left him hurt with two frontal teeth knocked off, at the dentist's inspite of all the pain Adit called him close blowing kiss that leaves the doctor stunned..His wife's courage, is another startling point , her support and love to keep him afloat through all these years of life is beautifully portrayed where in spite of Parkinson's gruesome clutch been able to support him all through taking care of the house letting Shourie all time for work...But unlike other he has been able to set his personal trauma aside in later part of the chapters to reason out things logically and justify his point completely..He describes that his son has taught many things in life, like finding happiness in simple things, non-attachment, living life for the moment, sense of gratitude etc etc...According to him, even with Adit's mental state his son is quite lucky to be surrounded with all love and joy ..
Through all these odyssey he pondered upon all religion's unfailingly teaching that god is merciful and not even a leaf moves without his will. If so why there are so much suffering around the globe..He quotes from bible about Abraham,God tested Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice his son Isaac, but God spared him when Abraham indeed was all set for the sacrifice for a ram instead..bible says that this a Abraham's faith is a perfect example of faith , affirming that the promises God made to Abraham extends to all who believe in him...He questions the discrepancies of all religion's anomaly to sufferings ..In Hindu religion everything is connected to 'karma' one's sins in the past birth.For Shourie "Karma is a convenient fiction" ..There's no credenda of heaven for innocent, but he sees laughter for sinners then asks why so? When Christianity believes that the whole world is the result of bad deeds of adam disobeying him, why all the innocents thereafter are condemned?? Islam promises life for eternity and death is a journey to god if that's the case what about a spastic ???
He says all religion for that matter are self contradictory this time ... Every aspect is thoroughly researched at times, glimpses of personal anguish sparkles throughout...Oddity of religious preaching and theory is questioned through many examples from bible to Quran to Gita ..Shourie has also borrowed many phrases and philosophies of many writers and thinkers to build up his own vantage..In Hindu religion where everything good and bad is attached to karma which Shourie aptly borrows from the quote of PV Kane that "our sense of fairness and justice would be shocked by the inequalities in the world" which implies that linking every deed and it consequences to karma is an intelligent and creative invention..
He quotes Gandhi that a child is subjected to pain so that parents learn about demure and kindness but Shourie questions., to start with why all pain upon the an innocent child ,that too by a God who is supposed to be all merciful..If the child's suffering is by the karma of his past then it was God's plan to make him do all that..Now why blame the boy..He adds ,when a plane crashes,how can God be cruel killing all 300 on board except for a 5year old..He comes with the logical reasoning why to complement good things to his mercy and the bad upon the person himself..
He says borrowing from Buddhist philosophy that sufferings are the basic truth of life which one cannot escape..To overcome this one should conquer his prejudice and the cultural upbringing and the myth about god and world..
I am sure no parent can get used a child's sufferings, it only goes over and over gain, living through this is the most difficult thing a parent live by ...I feel this is what made him write on all this. All the confusions and question, frustrations he was confronted with made him question every thing that included life and fate..This indeed formed the very essence of this book, which would help emotionally any one who is onto such situation every single day of life, or anyone who has compassion in one's heart...His vivacity for religion and spiritual life is based on his own experiences..He says Buddhism doesn't require belief in god but belief in life and that seems to be convincing to Shourie than any other religion... He quotes from Andre comte-Sponville that "The belief in God is so strikingly congruent with our longings that it seems to be invented to fulfill them." Humans created God rather than vice verse..He argues that people should learn to accept what ever circumstances they are onto and react to things in a matured way rather running up and down in haste cursing life,god and fate...And that's exactly what he does in his own life, he takes his son everywhere with full pride and not hiding him away from society and living with hope and love than worrying about the future...
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