Losing our temper in public and having heated altercations seem to have become the Indian norm, as incidents keep showing in the news. Whereas our traditional position was, ‘maintain decorum, no matter what and why’. Consider Queen Kaikeyi, who is furious that Rama, not Bharata, is to be king. How correct her behaviour is, nevertheless. No nasty, vulgar scenes for her. She retreats into the ‘kopagriha’, the anger room. It’s notable how she is so proper even when she’s being horrible. This old Indian dictum on propriety has its merits. Because, while righteous anger cannot be wrong, unrestrained temper damages everybody—the individual, society at large and the entire functioning process.
As a respite from all the name-calling going on in the world, let’s think for a spell of pleasant names and their positive resonances. One of my frequent-flier friends calls it her airport mantra. She finds it exhilarating to see the electronic flight status roll past. “Such amazing city names, that’s the romance of travel, of being part of a great flow,” she says, for all that she’s a canny corporate-type not given to undue sentiment.
I, too, am unable to be blasé on flights. I am unabashedly delighted by the wonder of being airborne, though I pray like anything to Pavanputra Hanuman before take-off and if we hit an air-pocket. East Europeans and Turks applaud when the flight lands, which shows appreciation—for the pilot’s skill, for the grandeur of human invention and for the laws of aerodynamics and gravity. And surely, gratitude to ‘whom it may concern’ is due, whatever name we call ‘that’, for having made it safely back to terra firma one more time?
The Air India morning flight from Bangkok to Delhi offers a unique civilisational sight from the sky, soaring over three great rivers—the Mekong (meaning ‘Ma Ganga’) soon after take-off as the flight heads northwest over the borders between Thailand, Laos and Myanmar; Irrawaddy (Iravati) mid-flight; and the Ganga herself, approaching Delhi.
Bangkok began as a small trading centre on the Chao Phraya, meaning River of Kings. It was called ‘Bang Makok’, meaning ‘the village of wild plum trees’, serving Ayutthaya (Ayodhya), then the capital of Siam, until Ayutthaya fell to the Burmese in 1767. A new capital came up around Bangkok. In 1782, King Rama I named this new city Krung Thep, City of Celestials, ‘thep’ meaning ‘dev’. Thais call it Krung Thep, not Bangkok, like we say “Bharat”, not “India”, among ourselves.
Many may know this, but just to enjoy its flow together, here’s Bangkok’s full name: Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchadhani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit.
Which means: “The city of celestials, the great city, the eternal jewel city, the impregnable city of Lord Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in a grand royal palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the incarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Visnukarn (Viswakarma)”.
Bangkok is also world-famous for spectacular traffic jams. Some of Bangkok’s intersections can turn us, curry-in-a-hurry folks, into gibbering wrecks. One such quasar is where Asoke Montri Road cuts Sukhumvit Road. And yet the Thais do not have road rage. Why? Hailing from rough, impatient Delhi-NCR, I was tormented by this question. I knew about the Buddha’s benign influence on Thailand, but how were Thais so well-behaved in public?
A Russian author offers a clue through his fictitious 19th-century detective, Erast Fandorin. The author is Boris Akunin, who is really Grigory Chkhartishvili, who is compared to Gogol, Tolstoy and Arthur Conan Doyle. He has sold over 20 million Fandorin books in Russia alone. Says the dashing Erast in Murder on the Leviathan, “Christian culture is based on a sense of guilt. The (Eastern) motivation is different. In their society the moral restraints derive from a sense of shame… I can assure you that shame is a far more civilising influence than guilt.”
Whatever be the case, isn’t it mortifying that both westerners and easterners generally behave better at home and abroad than those pushy, quarrelsome Indians immune to both shame and guilt? Perhaps the Union government could produce an adab nama or book of manners, call it whatever, as required reading, since no religious preacher has evidently taught enough people to speak politely, be patient, not litter and behave with dignity.
Concerning Buddhism, many in India may not remember the mannerly young woman who became a turning point in the birth of this great world religion. Sujata, who, seeing a starving ascetic beneath a banyan tree, offered him a reviving drink of the madhu payasam or kheer that she carried. He course-corrected from his excessive austerities after this respectful, kind interaction and thereby attained enlightenment.
There are many charming depictions of Sujata in Thailand, carved over the entrance to a wat or Thai temple, or bending anxiously in a mural or painting at a big shrine. She has to be one of the dearest persons in world history. The Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh retells this and other episodes beautifully in his English translation of the Buddhacharita, ‘Old Path White Clouds’. I go back to it sometimes, for the cleansing pleasure of reading again about the Holy One.
If other filters fail, perhaps we could think of Sakyamuni’s equable temperament the next time we feel triggered in public, and achieve a spot of civilisational shame ourselves?
Renuka Narayanan | FAITHLINE | Senior journalist
(Views are personal)
(shebaba09@gmail.com)