Behind the stars that shine

It has been an exciting week, what with Chandrayaan-3 successfully landing on the moon, and Indian Chess Grandmaster Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa defeating stalwarts to place second in the FIDE World Cup. But the picture that really captured my heart was the one of Praggnanandhaa’s mother, Nagalakshmi, watching him from a distance, pride shining in her eyes, perfectly content to stay in the background. She couldn’t avoid the spotlight anymore though, when everyone from Garry Kasparov to Vishwanathan Anand congratulated her on her efforts behind her son’s win, recollecting the contributions of their own parents to their achievements.

I often think that this is how achievement happens, with quiet people (not incidentally, many of whom are women), willing to work in the shadows so that others may succeed. Unfortunately, they often remain unacknowledged. Given that there are no records of these less dramatic acts of service, we are often left trying to reconstruct their stories from the silence of the written page, or to hear of them from legend.

Even as we are introduced to Draupadi in the Mahabharata, we are told that she was an accomplished scholar. This becomes obvious throughout the Mahabharata, even though she chooses to use her intelligence mostly to counsel her husbands on the right course of action rather than engage in independent scholarly endeavours. Nevertheless, her learning shines forth as when she advises Yudhishthira to overcome his passivity, and when she openly protests for her rights in the Kaurava court even as they attempt to disrobe her.

Well, at least we know of Draupadi, even if it is not for her scholarship. But did you know the legend of Bhamati? Vachaspati Mishra was a scholar in the 9th century who inaugurated a school of Advaita Vedanta through his work on Shankaracharya’s Brahmasutra commentary. It is said that Vachaspati Mishra wrote his commentary for seven long years, pausing daily only to eat just enough to sustain himself and sleep for a few precious hours before resuming his work again. Finally, as he dotted the final i-s and crossed the final t-s, he looked up and saw a woman beside him, handing him his dinner. “Who are you?”, he asked her, addressing her for the first time. Turns out, she was his wife.

Through all his hard work of many years, he had not paused to wonder how fresh food appeared before him at every meal, or how the lamps under which he worked never ran out of oil. He had not even realised he was married! He only vaguely recognised her hands calloused from work, that he had glimpsed and not quite registered everyday as she patiently waited on him. Touched by her invisible labour of so many years, he paid her the tribute of naming his magnum opus after her—Bhamati. Then, they say, he renounced the world, while Bhamati stayed behind, content in her service.

The story of Bhamati tells us -- as we applaud the stars, let us not forget those who quietly fuel their ascent. And when groups of annoying politicians put up their pictures on every piece of paper and every television report that they can lay their hands on, fighting each other on who should give and take credit for what scientists and engineers at ISRO did with great drive and limited resources, let us remind them to take a leaf out of Bhamati’s book.