“BANDA–CANTEEN”
BROADCASTS
Reminiscences of
George Reddy - Budding Physicist and Revolutionary
by
Asvini Kumar
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Dedicated to all those,
living or dead, who were inspired, directly or
indirectly, in
however small a measure by George Reddy
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Preface
I am advancing in years (1953 born) and
before I kick the bucket, I decided to put down in writing some impressions and
memories of the remarkable and extraordinary research scholar and activist,
George Reddy (b. 1947 – d. 1972), whom I had the opportunity to meet and
interact with on numerous occasions during my days as a graduate student, 1971-72, in the Osmania University College of Science. It is now 4 decades since
his death and almost 35 years since I moved out of Hyderabad, into quite a
different career trajectory, founding and running a mid-sized business. It is
quite possible that the mists of time have blurred some of these memories, especially
in the case of dates, places, sequences, names etc.; and I would like to be
pardoned in advance for any inaccuracies and any omissions that may have crept
in. I am writing this in the form of a narrative consisting of recollections of
events as they happened and as I remember them. It is best treated as a
personal account, a sort of notes to myself and to some of those who knew him
and liked him for what he was as a person. I am sure that many others would
also have innumerable and interesting and inspiring anecdotes to relate, and so
it should be. I have also consciously tried to avoid any partisan dimensions
and attempted to keep this as “anecdotal“ as possible, with the sole motive of
trying to provide readers a glimpse into the persona and exemplary character of
George Reddy and to recapture some of the flavour of those bygone days.
This narrative is arranged in the following
sequence:
1. How I first met George Reddy
2. Banda-Canteen discussions
3. Books, books, books…
4. A trip to Nellore
5. On cycles to Warangal
6. George Reddy on himself
7. Groups and circles
8. A portrait of George Reddy
9. Death at age 25
10. Epilogue
1. How
I first met George Reddy
It was in the year 1971, at the age of 18
that I landed up at the University College of Science to pursue an academic
course then called “Special B.Sc.
(Physics)". Born and bred in an urban middle class family, after
excelling academically in school, taking a shot at joining the army (which did
not happen for various reasons), severely castigated by extended family and
friends for dropping out in my first year at IIT, happy-go-lucky by nature,
enjoying the company of friends, here I was looking forward to a new phase in
my life. I immediately struck up new friendships especially with Venkatramani (Ramani)
and a few others and we were a jolly good bunch of fellows, enjoying what life had
to offer having a good time. One day as I was walking along with Ramani, he
greeted someone walking past us in the opposite direction and told me that it
was George Reddy who had been his physics lecturer in AV College, and that he
found his classes to be very interesting and informative. Something rang a bell
and I remembered that one George Reddy had manhandled a gatekeeper Yusuf, in
my school (St. Pauls High School) some years ago. Our school principal had
announced that some rowdies had roughed up Yusuf. I had also heard stories from
the campus grapevine that there were two rival student factions who had
violently clashed repeatedly in the recent past. The factions were known to
belong to the youth wings of the two main political parties of the day. A
certain George Reddy, known to be a good pugilist and fighter, and a brilliant
scholar with an M. Sc. Physics Gold Medal, was the charismatic leader of one of
the factions. This was the impression of him I carried at that time; and so
did many others like me. So when it was announced that there was to be a
University level debate organized by George Reddy, on “The Indian People Can Achieve Liberation Only Through An Armed Revolution”,
I decided to go and check it out for myself. Towards the end, George delivered
an informative valedictory talk and then a group of us proceeded to the OUSC
canteen and there was a heated discussion on the topic with George. I also
decided to join the discussion and piped in with my two bits. Then the group
dispersed, but something kept nagging me inside.
2. “Banda-Canteen”
Discussions
Thus it was that I landed up a couple of days
later brandishing a magazine called “The
Plain Truth” to prove my points on the Vietnam War This was dismissed by
George and Kulkarni as Western-backed propaganda and misinformation from the military industrial complex of the West. I was new to all
this and did not have much to say while they were really prepared with a lot of
ammunition. I was advised to read “At War
with Asia“ by Noam Chomsky, which I did. Ramani had also joined in on the
discussions and this was to be the pattern of things for a few months, when we
hotly discussed and debated everything. I call this the “Banda-Canteen
Discussions”. I hope this also serves to explain the title of this narrative
“Banda-Canteen Broadcasts”. Banda-Canteen
was so named because it consisted of granite boulders, adjacent to the canteen
proper, at the base of a huge neem tree and which could accommodate about 12
people all around. Here, I must mention “Khaalu”
or “Khaalajan“ (meaning ‘aunt’), a
name by which we addressed the matronly canteen attendant who would keep
sending hot half-cups of chai and snacks to us on demand. George always ate
very modestly and at fixed times made sure that everyone got an equal share in
the pie.
It is in this fashion that I became exposed
to alternative points of view, especially the socialist ones, and my earlier
opinion of George Reddy as a “student goonda” began to change. I began to see
the makings of a brilliant physicist and an intellectual trying to visualize
and work out his ‘larger than life’ vision and mission, a rebel in transition
to an ideologically committed actor.
It was around this time that there was a
vicious attack with iron rods by hired goons on Vijay Kulkarni and 2 others in
their hostel rooms, in which Kulkarni broke his elbow joint, which then had to
be fixed with a bolt and screw from the inside. After this incident, Ramani and
I decided to take boxing classes from George and we met for many a practice
session at the OU gym. Here is where I learnt about hooks, jabs, uppercuts,
footwork etc. Also, I clearly remember getting many black eyes in the process.
There were some interesting incidents also at the “Banda-Canteen”. Aniruddha, a
guy who used to live in my locality, once landed up and told George and
Kulkarni that he was an absconding student revolutionary from Calcutta, who had
fled the city to escape police capture. When I showed up that day he was
sitting on the Banda with everyone in a posture of deference. Not knowing the
background I just went up and gave Anirudhha a hearty backslap and asked him
jokingly as to what had brought him to OU Science College and why he was
wearing white pajama and kurta with a brown shawl. This really caused some
flutter and confusion and I had to explain the background of the situation, and
Aniruddha never forgave me for it, I guess. Anyway, Aniruddha dropped in at the
Banda more often and we became a little friendlier.
3. Books,
books, books ...
On a regular basis George used to give us
books to encourage us to read and expand our knowledge and deepen our
perspective. I noticed that they were stamped “Socialist Youth Forum-SYF”. I
asked him one day about this and he told me that Raghunath Reddy (then a
central cabinet minister for Labour, if I remember correctly) had encouraged
and funded him to start a library under that aegis. I do not remember where the
library was located but I think some of the regularly circulated books were at
his home itself. The book titles were carefully selected, wrapped in neat
plastic covers, stamped with an ID no. and date of purchase with value. There
was also a note book which kept meticulous accounts of every penny spent and it
was reported regularly. It was thanks to these efforts of his that many of us
got read a number of books. George also took part in fund raising campaign by
SYF called East Bengal Fund to support the Mukti Bahini liberation forces in
what is now Bangladesh. He used to pro-actively put forward many topics for
discussion - the War in Vietnam, the Palestine Problem, events in the Dominican
Republic, Gautemala (United Fruit Co), 1968 French Student Revolt, Black Panthers of America, the Naxalbari, Srikakulam, and Telengana movements, bourgeois
culture and the need for de-classification, foco theory and guerrilla warfare, peoples'
liberation movements in Africa, were some of the constant themes. Che Guevara,
Regis Debray, Cohn Bendit, Sartre, George Habash – these were some of the names
we heard. By what he carried around I judged that he had some favourite books, the chief among them being those by Ernesto Che Guevara (Guerilla Warfare, On Revolution,
Selected Writings, Venceremos, Bolivian Diary). I also saw him seriously poring through the tomes
of Friedrich Hegel (Science of Logic), Sigmund Freud (Complete Psychological Works) and Karl Marx (The Collected Works). Three other large sized volumes were those by
James Joll (The Anarchists), Michael
Bakunin’s Selected Writings and Alex
Haley’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
His light reading consisted of books like Regis Debray’s Revolution in the Revolution?, Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, and Noam Chomsky’s At War with Asia.
4. A
trip to Nellore
One day George said that he was off to
Nellore for a couple of days, to provide campaign support to Raghunatha Reddy,
in the latter’s election campaign, and invited some of us to join him. He said
that we would all go in a jeep and then come back by train. I readily agreed, and five of us set off (George, Sharif, Aniruddha, Ajay Sinha, myself). It was
a long drive and I don’t remember where we halted for the night, nor do I
remember the details of the election campaign. But I remember one incident very
clearly. A local farmer hitched a ride with us for some distance and while
getting off took out some money to pay for it, but Sharif condescendingly told
him to keep it. George intervened and said we should take the money as the guy
didn’t look like a poor peasant but a rich one.
Soon it was time to return and for some
reason we were dropped off at Tirupati somewhere near the Akasha Ganga. We
decided to spend the night in the open on a choupal
under a huge tree near the edge of a what seemed like a forest. In the middle
of the night, Ajay got up on spotting a set of “eyes” moving in towards us from
the direction of the forest. He immediately jumped up and readied himself to
defend against any eventuality, but soon we all burst into laughter on
recognizing a horde of foraging monkeys. But we could not sleep in peace as
they proved to be quite a noisy and unsavoury lot. Next morning, on the way back,
we decided to have a bath at a lake and headed towards it. When we reached its
shore, there was a general hesitation to get into the water as some local who
passed by cautioned us about a crocodile which had made its home in the lake.
George, in his underpants, all of a sudden pulled out a switch blade and rushed
into the water, knife in hand like Tarzan, and started bathing. It was only then
that all of us very cautiously entered the water, had a quick bath and got out
in double-quick time.
We reached Renigunta station and waited to
board a train. Having only unreserved tickets, we jumped into the unreserved
bogie of the next express train towards Kazipet, that arrived in the station.
We found that some para-military jawans were sleeping full lengths in all the
seats, thus forcing other ticket holders to stand all the way. When all
requests failed to elicit any response George suddenly went and jerked up the
nearest person by his collar and asked everyone else to come and occupy the
seats. When the train stopped in the next station the doors opened and we were
suddenly surrounded by dozens of para-military personnel, who evicted us all
from the train. All the passengers who could sit comfortably thanks to our
strong protests, watched silently, without speaking a word in our support.
Then we found that it was almost fully a para-military train bound for the
north.
Anyway, we caught the next train and got off
at Kazipet junction in the morning. After some breakfast on the platform we waited for a train to Hyderabad. During the wait, George called us
over and challenged “Can you go and beg
for money from those passengers over there?“ When asked “What on earth for?“, he replied “It is a test of your ability to overcome
your bourgeois attitude and de-classify yourself“. I think Aniruddha was
the only guy who passed the test.
5. On
cycles to Warangal
Ramani and I were of an adventurous
disposition and one day we announced our plan to go on a cycling trip to Warangal
and back, a distance of about 275 km. While we were asking around for other
interested participants, George said that he would also like to join
in. So it was that one night six of us (George, Sharif, Mazher, Sharma, Ramani
and myself) took off on rented bicycles toward Warangal, starting out from the
OU PG hostel area. We slept the first night, on the Alir railway station
platform, about half way to our destination. It was pretty cold
that night, and all of us, being unprepared for this, were shivering. Finally we
got close to each other for warmth and were glad to see dawn coming. As
normally happens on trips of this kin,d we would burst into song and George also
hummed his favorite Hindi songs. They were Woh
subhah kabhi to aayegi (movie: Phir
subha hogi), Jinhe naaz hai hind par
who kahan hai & Jalaa do ye
duniya (movie: Pyaasa), Rahi tu mat ruk jaana (movie: Door gagan ki chaon mein) and Raat kali ek khwab me aayi (movie: Buddha mil gaya). I must mention that
all of us also sang bawdy songs to boot!! During wayside stops to rest, George
would talk about guerrilla warfare and foco theory as expounded by Che
Guevara and would imagine the mountains around us to be the “Sierra Maestra”.
He would also give us brief lessons in hand to hand combat. During one of these,
I tried a trick on him which I had learnt from a martial arts book and he
tripped and fell. He was so incensed that he lunged at me and pushed me so hard
that I nearly fell into an open irrigation well. In the process I developed a
huge swelling on my forehead and had to endure George playing a para-medic
every few hours.
In this fashion we reached Warangal and
rested in a friend’s room in a college hostel. During this time George excused
himself and disappeared for a few hours saying he had to go and meet some
people. To this day nobody knows who they were.
The very next day we headed back for Hyderabad. I will never forget this – our
buttocks were so sore that we had to put dry hay wrapped in bath towels on the
riding seat and rub our buttocks with Vaseline to be able to keep cycling on
during the return journey.
6. George
on himself
By the time we did the cycling trip, a few of
us became more informal with George and out of curiosity asked him many things
of a personal nature, to which he would sometimes reply and sometimes
diplomatically avoid or shrug. I have narrated below his response to some of my
queries. After completion of his M. Sc. 1st year he was involved in a campus
clash for which he was “rusticated“ (debarred from attending classes) for a
period of 1 year . During this period he set up a study routine for himself in
the OU library. Every single day he would get up at 6 am, finish his 1 hour
exercise routine, have breakfast and read for some time. Then he would go to
the library by 10 am and study Mathematics and Physics from first principles.
He told me that he had completely worked through the Math textbook series by
Markov from cover to cover. Similarly he comprehensively covered the field of
Physics (not sure if it was Berkeley Physics course or Feynman’s lectures) and
took his own detailed notes in the process (his famous “study notes” were
handed over to a junior of his named Shankar, who in turn showed them to me).
As a result, when he sat for the final M.Sc. examinations he effortlessly came
out on top. Such was the quality of his answers that an external evaluator from
Bombay travelled all the way to meet in person the student who could write such
brilliant answers. He never tired of mentioning that if you learn and
understand a subject properly, you will surely be the topper. He recorded 100%
attendance in M. Sc. classes. Though he was invited on an attractive
scholarship to a famous Mumbai institute, he refused the same and instead
preferred to pursue his research at the OU Science College, as he had decided
to divide his time between academic work and revolutionary work. He mentioned
the he had chosen not to do any experimental work and was working on “Unified
Field Theory”. He would now study at the Physics Department library from 10 am
to 1 pm (engaged in reviewing state of the art in Theoretical Physics) and
later at the OU library from 2 pm to 5 pm. He said that his early morning and
the afternoon sessions were to read and study to sharpen his knowledge to aid
his revolutionary work and interests.
Once, in flashback mode, he mentioned
these two incidents relating to his B.Sc. days. He was traveling in a crowded
city bus, when a swarthy person standing next to him started pawing him
deliberately. George said that to teach the bully a lesson he caught hold of
the man’s genitals and squeezed so hard that he screamed horribly in pai . It
was while being told this anecdote that I heard the words ‘gay‘and ‘fairy’ for
the first time in my life. In another incident on a city bus he said that he
was sitting behind a beautiful girl who was wearing thin muslin dupatta or odhni, which was fluttering in the wind. He could not resist the temptation
of gently blowing some air on it to make it fall on the floor of the bus. The
girl had no clue as to how it fell off, and George played Mr. Chivalrous by
picking it up for her.
While returning home one evening, he
was surrounded and attacked with rods and lathis, near his house, by hired goons.
They were out to kill him but George narrowly escaped by jumping over a neighbour’s
wall into safety. From there he managed to reach a hospital and get
admitted with severe lathi wounds. He had also damaged one of his thumbs in
this incident and was nursing it for many weeks afterwards.
When asked why he never mentioned or talked
about women and romantic love , he said that he was wedded to his credo and
such a relationship had no place in his life. A couple of gorgeous-looking
girls did try to pursue him, but to no effect. He once showed me a poem he
wrote while standing at the gate of his house, observing the beauty of a scene
where Lambada women labourers carried loads upon their heads, their swaying
bra-less bosoms matching the rhythmic sound of their anklets. I do not know
what happened to that piece of paper and would love to see it again.
When asked about his heavy duty reading
schedule, George said that it went way back to his high school days when he
would regularly bunk classes and bury himself in the City Central Library
at Himayatnagar, where he devoured all the
classics they had on their bookshelves.
7. Groups
and circles
George had the ability to simultaneously
engage and interact with multiple groups in different contexts and keep them in
separate compartments.
The Engg. College group consisted of his
brother Cyril, Mahipal, Rajiah, Yadagiri and some others. ‘Daya Canteen’ in the
Engg. College main building was the nerve centre for this group. They were a
brazen, well-knit, confident lot. This was the daredevil group that was
involved in supporting and providing the cutting edge to George Reddy in all
the campus clashes and face-offs with the opposing factions and their hired
goon squads. The OU Science & Arts College group regulars consisted of the
likes of Vijay Kulkarni, Sharma and Ajay Sinha, who identified more with the
intellectual side of George. Many of his M.Sc. classmates were working as
Physics faculty in various university affiliated colleges and would come to
look him up, once in a while. Due to his academic honors, some of the junior
post grad students like Salauddin Razi and Shankar, would also keep in touch
with him, though more from the Physics angle.
He was always trying to attract and inspire
new youngsters like Javeed, Ramani, Srikrishnan,Pradeep, Mazher, Aniruddha and
many others, through discussion groups, book reading and study circles. His
approachability, friendly disposition, knowledge and simplicity was a huge plus
point in his favor and gave him the force of magnetic attraction.
We never discussed much about caste,
community and religion as George felt that “Religion
is the opium of the people” and was totally against organized religion of
any kind. However, I felt that he was in the process of engaging with some
students and youth from the Dalit fraternity to help them sharpen their
perspective from caste consciousness to one of class consciousness.
He made regular appearances at a cycle shop
in Himayatnagar in the evenings at a scheduled time and there was a set of
people who would meet him there. The same was true of the Narayanguda Taj Mahal
hotel which was an informal hub for budding mainstream politicians. In Sultan Bazaar he sometimes met with Prakash Chandra, a school and college batch-mate,
S.N. Kabra, an M.Sc. batchmate, Iqbal and Sultan, both local shopkeepers.
I must also mention the loyal “Sharif Bhai“,
a wiry, sneering guy, who mostly swore instead of conversing. He was, during
the last year of George’s life, a constant personal companion and odd job man.
Sharif was holding a clerical job in the science labs of one of the
universities affiliated colleges. He was also a regular at gambling clubs and I
supposed he had other associated activities. Until today I have not figured out
how “the twain happened to meet”.
8. Portrait
of George Reddy
What did George himself look like? He was of
medium height, about 5‘ 6“, athletic, with a strong grip of a wheat complexion.
Most of the time he sported a beard but on occasion would be clean-shaven
sporting only a trim moustache. His hair was normally combed with a left side
parting, but sometimes he reversed this style. While he wore half-sleeved bushshirts, towards the later part he preferred a full sleeved olive green shirt
with wide pockets worn with cotton jeans and rubber slippers. He used reading
glasses.
While he had a very limited set of clothes,
they were always cleanly washed and manually pressed. He shunned alcohol and
tobacco, his food habits were simple, Spartan, and very timely. Towards his last
few months he had started skipping a meal every day in empathy with those who
went hungry to bed every night. Thrifty and frugal, he used everything
carefully, with economy and efficiency. Nowhere was this more evident than when
he put pen to paper. You could see hardly any white space left.
His exercise routine consisted of warming up
followed by push-ups, sit-ups, back bends, abdominal crunches and martial art
steps. Aware of his vulnerability to be set upon by goons, he always carried a
knuckle duster and a 6" switchblade knife. He mostly conversed in English
and the Hyderabadi dialect (with the customary sprinkling of swear words, a
habit which was he consciously trying to overcome). I have never seen him
converse in Telugu, but he was in the process of teaching himself the formal
written and spoken versions of the Hindi and Telugu languages; and given his
voracious capacity to absorb new things, he would have mastered them in no
time.
As far I could remember, he always travelled
by city buses, covering the ‘last mile’ on foot, though he would once in a while ride pillion with some student or colleague, and only on very rare occasions
travel in someone’s car or use a cab. He was an excellent teacher and during
the interval between his M. Sc. and the approval of his Research grant, he taught
Physics at AV College as a lecturer. He bought books with his savings. In the
latter part of 1971 George was featured in a documentary film on student unrest
in Indian campuses in which he appeared in his olive green shirt, beard and
all. I watched this documentary film in the OU Tagore auditorium. If one could
get hold of this film we can see him in flesh and blood again, although only as
an image on the screen.
9. Death
at age 25
On the evening of 14th April 1972, George died
from multiple stab wounds (32, if I recollect right) inflicted in broad
daylight, near the OU Engg. College hostel, by a gang of armed students from an
opposing faction, who had buttressed their forces with hired killers from the
bootlegging underworld. Going there to assist a college student who was being
intimidated, threatened, and roughed up, George was surrounded pounced upon, and
furiously battered by the fully armed gang, and repeatedly stabbed by multiple persons. He died on the spot. Though he fought them off bravely, it would have been a
miracle had he came out of there alive. All this took place in full
view of the police posse posted just outside the college hostel to prevent just
such an incident. If one could pinpoint a weakness in George, ironically, it would
be his utter contempt for danger. It appeared almost as if he had ‘transcended
fear’. It is said that Fidel Castro, while describing Guevara as an
intelligent, daring, and exemplary leader who "had great moral authority over his troops”, further remarked
that Guevara took too many risks, even having a "tendency toward foolhardiness”.
There was immediate and widespread outrage on
the news of this killing. The police released the body after a post mortem and
it was taken to his modest home. The entire family and his large body of
friends, well-wishers and sympathizers were in a state of shock. Students from
all parts of the city came to get a glimpse of the body and there were long
lines building up. Politicians from the ruling party as well as the Left
parties, also came to pay their respects and expressed their outrage and
condemnation. Such was his charisma, that the burial procession was a sea of
humanity and thousands accompanied the cortege to the cemetery, where he was
finally laid to rest – many shouting slogans, some silently grieving, some
tearful, many too angry unable to speak, all with a sense of disbelief at what
had occurred.
The killers went into hiding and finally
surrendered to the police. The murder trial itself turned out be a farce – all
the accused being acquitted on a mere technicality. The concrete testimony of eye
witnesses, who were present, was of course, completely ignored. I do not
recollect the entire details about the case, but on a few occasions when some
of us attended the courtroom proceedings,
hired goons of the accused sought to intimidate and
threaten us. It was widely believed that key
members of the judiciary and police were either bribed or coerced or both.
In
the last few months before his death, George had come into contact with
revolutionary intellectuals of many persuasions, professional trade unionists,
student activists, youth leaders, and representatives of Indian revolutionary
organizations. I think these were at the initiative of the latter, who sought
him out and wanted to win him over to support and join their particular entity.
The discussions centred on the strategy of
how to organize and carry forward the peoples’ liberation struggle in India.
Many disagreed with George’s ‘Guevarista’ approach, terming it unsuitable for
Indian conditions. They advocated the relevance and significance of building
mass movements, of relentless propaganda, agitations on economic issues,
integrating the working class movements, while at the same time funding and
building a revolutionary organization. In particular he seemed to be impressed
with a couple of individuals, saying “if
this is the calibre, commitment and sheer dedication of these persons, I am
convinced that my place is with them”. However, there is not enough known
about this matter to conclude that he had thrown in his lot with one or the
other entity. But it was clear that he had made up his mind to “cross the Rubicon” and give up his much-loved
Physics research in favour full time work 'in the trenches’.
This is particularly important to underscore,
as in the years after his death, the Revolutionary movement in Andhra Pradesh
welled up strongly and many organizations claimed his legacy. It was commonplace
to see him being praised as a hero and martyr, in gatherings of rival
organizations. Anyway, as a result, George Reddy was transformed into a powerful
symbol of the democratic, progressive and radical student protest in the state,
and a memorial debates, anniversaries and related gatherings in his remembrance
continued to be held regularly. Many students, youth, activists and others, who
went on to play key leadership roles, proudly acknowledge the influence George
Reddy had on them.
10. Epilogue
His vision and credo stemmed from Karl Marx’s
historic words “from each according to
his ability, to each according to his need” and he sincerely believed that
he should exert very ounce of energy, every sinew and muscle, till his last
breath to work towards realizing this dream, both for India and the world. He
was a revolutionary in the making and was preparing himself to play a key role
in the liberation struggle of the Indian peasantry and downtrodden classes. He
never tired of quoting one of his favourite passages from Che Guevara’s writings:
“Whenever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has
reached even one receptive ear and another hand reaches out to take up our arms.”
Steven Spielberg produced a movie series
titled “Back to the Future” based on
the modern physics theories about multiple simultaneous universes in action.
Sometimes, in idle moments, I have stretched this concept to indulge in some
wishful thinking about an alternative scenario – had George Reddy lived on, how
would he have responded to the unprecedented historical events that unfolded in
the past 4 decades? Independent Vietnam, Collapse of the Soviet Union, Chinese
Capitalism, Global Terrorism, Islamic Fundamentalism, Middle East Crises,
Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Globalization of Capital, Population
Explosion, Irreversible Environmental Damage, and so on…. Would his
participation have led to a different outcome from India’s own multi-layered
peoples’ movements? Would he have surely been martyred sooner than later or
survived to be 65 years old today? No one is expected to know – it was a
hypothetical universe!! Some of his professors, peers, colleagues, and friends
were of the opinion that had he continued his researches in Theoretical Physics,
he would surely have gone on to win a Nobel Prize. But he chose instead,
another, truly arduous path, stemming from his convictions and sustained by
something akin to ‘missionary zeal’.
Would I have preferred him to see him alive
today as a famous physicist, our own Einstein, or should I rationalize that at
least I caught a whiff of the flower’s scent just in time, before it was nipped
in the bud? I don’t know – it’s a hypothetical question!!
But, to have known such a person who so
completely transformed himself, to live and strive for something immeasurably
larger than his own self is indeed a rare privilege bestowed on me.
I have very often wondered why memories and
impressions of George Reddy are so clearly imprinted in my mind, as if they
happened only very recently. Especially, since, for nearly 35 years
I have been am far removed from any
political, social or public arena. I have developed my own views of the world,
which are far from revolutionary and I judge myself guilty for not being able
to practise even an iota of the values and principles George lived by.
But, somehow, I can never forget the sight of
him, clad in his trademark olive green shirt, top button open, in jeans and
Hawaii slippers, a book by his side, glasses in his shirt pocket, perched on
the rock at ‘Banda’ canteen stunning a group of youngsters with his intellect,
commitment, passion and sincerity.
I cannot end this narrative, in any other
fashion, other than by recalling that George, when quizzed “Aakhir Kyoon? “ (what’s all this for?), would quote Che Guevara’s description of
himself:
”Many will call me an adventurer - and that I
am, only one of a different sort, one of those who risks his skin to prove his
platitudes”.
Author: Asvini Kumar, Alumnus (1973, Spl.
B.Sc. ( Physics), University College of Science, Osmania University , Hyderabad
© Asvini Kumar 2012 - All Rights
reserved
With permission of the author: original at:
karl reddy
