Shakespeare may say audaciously, ‘What is there in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ But you try calling marigold as rose and see if you get the smell of a rose. Name matters. Which is why we have many Gandhis in a political  dynasty. Does any of them bear resemblance to the original Mahatma Gandhi in lineage or personal character?

Therefore, it is axiomatic that name matters. That was why I decided to read the book titled “The Twice Born.”  It is written by Aatish Taseer. This book was admired by a member of my WhatsApp Group and I decided to read it.

A race-goer will first study the pedigree of the horse he is going to put his money on. Likewise, I went to the author’s pedigree (background) before getting this book after a week’s waiting from Amazon as it was not available in the local book shops.

Aatish Taseer was born in 1980, two years after Star of Mysore was born. Father Salman Taseer, a Pakistani politician and mother India’s famous journalist-author Tavleen Singh. He was born in London and raised by his mother in Delhi. Since I have read his mother Tavleen Singh, I thought he would be as good and easy to read as an author. I was disappointed. But before I come to the text, let me recall how he made big news in India.

In 2019, during Narendra Modi’s second term in Office he wrote a cover-page article in America’s TIME magazine, “India’s Divider in Chief,” an attempt to malign Modi’s image.

The book is about his foray into our country’s, nay world’s, most ancient living city, city of knowledge (Gyanvapi), Kashi, also known as Varanasi and Benaras (Banaras), to study and write a book. This book is the product of his visits to this eternal city where Hindus wish to die hoping to attain MOKSHA. There is Holy River Ganga to cleanse your sins and the Linga of Kashi Vishwanath to worship and a number of Ghats to consign the body to flames after death.

A hardbound book of 248 pages is priced rather too high at Rs. 1,199. But that is where name matters and Shakespeare is wrong. I am reminded of the Philosopher-Thinker Jiddu Krishnamurti, who rid himself of the spiritual bondage to which Annie Besant of Adyar (Chennai) Theosophical Society, his Godmother, got him in.

When Jiddu Krishnamurti’s first book was to be published in America, he asked his publishers not to print his name as its author for his own reasons; may be as a renunciate, who has dropped ego totally. And printing his name in the book as its author would be an assertion of ego, he must have reasoned. However, the publisher firmly said book publishing is for selling books and the name of the author matters. “Sorry, we will not publish the book.” That settled the dilemma.

The full title of Aatish Taseer’s book is “The Twice Born — Life and Death on the Ganges.” No doubt, it was a commissioned book. In the blurb on the back cover page are many tall names praising the book. Among those at the top, above the Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul, is the name of Aravind Adiga who had won the Booker Prize for his book The White Tiger. (Wonder why no car driver filed a PIL!). However, I was flummoxed when I read what one Karn Mahajan wrote in praise of the book: “The best Indian novel of the last decade.” What novel? Help me.

One cannot imagine Benaras without thinking of Brahmins, the custodians of sacred learning of Sanatana Dharma. They are called Dvijas, twice born, because first they are born into the flesh and then when the Gayatri Mantra is taught to them under a ceremony known as ‘sacred thread ceremony,’ and take a spiritual birth. Therefore ‘twice born’.

Aatish Taseer finds, through his visits to numerous places in Benaras and many meetings with the Brahmins, the past and the present in conflict, struggling to reconcile. The book was first published in India in 2018 when Narendra Modi, his bete noire, was the Prime Minister and as expected, Modi appears in the narrative. It was like the America’s celebrated film director Alfred Hitchcock appearing in all of his films in a cameo role for a fleeting second. It is a book deeply individual and subjective. Crassly generalised, far removed from objectivity. I thought of the book ‘Mother India’ by Katherine Mayo. Mahatma Gandhi called that book as a “report of a  drain inspector.”

India that is Bharat was a country that once stretched from Afghanistan to Indonesia. The lingua franca for the learned was Sanskrit. Local common man’s languages served the people of different regions. In 1781, Warren Hastings, the Governor-General of India, came to see the ruler of Kashi one Chet Singh. But as fate would have it, 15 years later Kashi came under the British. It was also the fate of India.

Three years before Aatish Taseer came to Benaras to collect materials to write this book, his father Salman Taseer was shot and killed by his gunman in 2011. In the wake of the present war-like confrontation between India and Pakistan following April 22 Pahalgam massacre, it would be pertinent here to recall the observations of Aatish Taseer about Pakistan while speaking to the Press following his father’s murder (page 25).

“And if there was one thing I never doubted about him, it was his love of Pakistan. It never allowed him to believe what had become of the country his forefathers had fought for. Today he joins that sad procession of martyrs — everyday a thinner line — standing between Pakistan and its inexorable descent into fear and nihilism.”

‘Nihilism’ means the rejection of all religions and moral principles.

Curiously, Aatish Taseer writes that his agent suggested that he remove “inexorable.” He did not. Probably he had the premonition of the shape of Pakistan to be in the future. That future is NOW. The cold-blooded murder of 26 innocent, unsuspecting human beings on 22nd April 2025 at Pahalgam, Kashmir. Pakistan has indeed sunk into its inexorable descent of fear and nihilism.

I wonder what would be Aatish Taseer’s statement today if he were to meet the Press.

Be that as it may, now let me conclude with one very interesting hitherto not known information about the 1962 China war with India.

Aatish Taseer meets one Urmila Sharma at a lecture hall in Banaras Hindu University (BHU) campus. She was a Brahmin. This was what she told Aatish:

She knew things were going wrong for India in 1962. Nehru had a dream of an Asia united against Europe and America (with the co-operation of China). But China rewarded Nehru’s dream with the 1962 surprise war. “In the end, Nehru, who had disdained American friendship, was begging Kennedy to bomb China.”

This is revealing indeed for we Mysureans. At the time of China war, there was a man called Narayana Swamy. He was a Prince of Mysore and a very brilliant engineer. In his old age, he went to Gangotri (in the Himalayas). And one day as he was gazing into the river at 12,000 feet, he had a clear view into China. There he could see the Chinese army moving towards Indian territory. It was 1958. He wrote a letter to Nehru, warning him about the Chinese plans. But Nehru ignored.

Reading this I remembered how India ignored the information shepherds gave about the presence of Pakistani soldiers moving in Kargil. Luckily George Fernandes, then Defence Minister, took it seriously. Rest, we all know.

In 1960 also Narayana Swamy wrote letters to Nehru but they were ignored, said Urmila and concluded, “I became aware of his (Nehru’s)  total contempt for Indian culture and civilisation.”  Enough about the book.

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