Drown the politics, please, not our young people

The rapid closing down of multiple illegal coaching centres in the basements of New Delhi after students lost their lives in a flooding incident is too little, too late. That so many young people are unknowingly putting their lives at risk because of bad infrastructure in their hopes for a better future should make us sit up and take more notice. Who knows how many great Nachiketas or Ashtavakras we are losing daily to the banalities of corruption, inefficiency and indifference?

You might know of Nachiketa as the brave boy who impressed Yama, the god of death, with his persistence in his pursuit of the truth. So here is the story of Ashtavakra, who, as a young man, impressed scores of scholars with his wisdom and his quest for justice.

Ashtavakra’s father was a learned man, Kahoda, who had plenty of students himself. So, when his prodigious unborn son criticised his reading of the Vedas from the womb, especially in front of all his students, Kahoda was furious and cursed his son’s body to grow crooked in eight places—hence the name, Ashtavakra.

Like most scholars to this day, Kahoda was in much financial hardship, and with a son coming soon and a pregnant wife to take care of, he got tempted by a royal announcement. The announcement said that a great scholar, Bandi, wished to engage in debate. Anyone who won against Bandi in debate would be awarded a huge sum of money and royal honours, but if one were to lose, one must prepare to be drowned. Poor Kahoda went to debate the scholar and lost. He was never heard of again.

Ashtavakra grew up never hearing of his father. One day, as he was sitting in his grandfather Uddalaka’s lap, one of his grandfather’s children, Shvetaketu, about the same age as Ashtavakra, pushed him off, and declared that Uddalaka’s lap was for his own son, and not Ashtavakra, the grandson. This prompted the dejected Ashtavakra to find his mother and ask her about his father. Ashtavakra’s mother narrated the story to him, and Ashtavakra decided to seek justice.

He set off with Shvetaketu to King Janaka’s palace and demanded admission into the court. In turn, he was informed that children were not allowed inside. He responded that grey hair was not a reliable indicator of wisdom. When the discussion went beyond the doorkeeper’s paygrade, the king himself came to test Ashtavakra before allowing him to debate the scholar who had drowned his father. Once Ashtavakra had amazed the king too with his rejoinders, the battle with Bandi began in earnest.

Ashtavakara and the scholar went back and forth, until the scholar became silent because he could not think of anything further to say. And so, Ashtavakra vanquished Bandi, who had won against countless scholars in debates for several years. When asked what Ashtavakra wished Bandi to undergo as a result of the defeat, he sought justice, wanting Bandi to be drowned the way he had been responsible for the drowning of so many other scholars before.

At this point, the Mahabharata gives us a happy ending—Bandi reveals that he is actually the son of the water god Varuna, who was conducting a huge sacrifice that required the presence of many learned scholars. And all those scholars that Bandi had drowned were not actually killed, but participating in Varuna’s sacrifice all those years. And now, the sacrifice was nearing completion, so they would come back. Ashtavakra’s father Kahoda thus returned, very proud of Ashtavakra for his great accomplishments.

Where does this leave us? Unless our netas in the states and at the Centre have Bandi’s power to miraculously return the young people whose lives were lost, they should quit the blame game and focus on improving infrastructure so that we can avoid further meaningless tragedies.