Regular man on street talks uncannily like Amartya Sen

Monday, 10 August 2009 18:11

Written by onionuttapam news network

Raj Purohit, 49, a lower division clerk working with Indian Railways, doesn't give a strong impression as he walks into the Railway Booking Office. A non-descript, regular sort of man, he quickly settles down in his chair. But according to his friends and colleagus, Raj is an undiscovered genius, a scholar and an intellectual on par with leading economist and Nobel Prize winner, Amartya Sen, who has recently published his first book on philosophy - The Idea of Justice, wherein the famed economist laments the lack of justice and fairness in our cruel world.

Whenever he gets too emotional watching a tearjerker movie or some atrociously stupid saas-bahu-damad-nanad-bhabhi-jethani-devar-devrani soap, Purohit tends to get a bit philosophical and makes pithy, philosophic remarks, his friends say. Sometimes during tea breaks at his desk in the Railway Booking Office, he gets into a sombre mood and offers his pearls of wisdom to anyone who would care to listen to him.

amartya-sen "Bahut nainsaafi hai is duniya mein!" (there is too much injustice in this world), he had remarked recently to his co-worker in the booking office during tea-break while reading about hunger deaths in a tribal-dominated district of Orissa, recalls co-worker Aditya Bannerjee. When Bannerjee tried to cheer him up by saying that India is growing at a healthy rate of 8-9% every year and that within a few decades starvation deaths will be a thing of past, Purohit replied sententiously, "Aditya babu, bhookh aur berozgari mit jayegi tab bhi is duniya mein nainsaafi rahegi." (Adidya babu, even if we get rid of hunger and unemployment, the world will remain unjust). Some people will still be filthy rich, while others will struggle to make ends meet. Some people will be born with talent, confidence and skills to make a mark in the world, while most others will take birth, live a pointless existence and die without leaving their footprints on the sands of time, he had lamented.

Bannerjee, who read Amartya Sen's recent interview in newspapers was astonished to find the Nobel laureate's comments on the minor and major injustices in our country eerily similar to the remarks made by Purohit a couple of weeks ago. "Purohit babu had even remarked on the impossibility of achieving the utopian ideal of perfect justice since we lack even a proper definition of the concept of 'perfect justice'. I remember him saying - 'Insaaf to sirf Ishwar hi kar sakta hai, Aditya babu. Ek aam aadmi jiska ek pair hamesha kabar me hohi hai, jo yeh bhi nahin jaanta woh kahan se aaya hai aur usse kahan jana hai, woh kaise samajh sakta hai sacha insaaf kya hota hai" (Only god can provide justice. A common man on the street, with one foot in his grave, who isn't aware of his true origins or his final destination - how can such a person understand what constitutes perfect justice?)

Maheshwari Joshi, his friend of over two decades, also recollects several instances when Purohit had waxed eloquent on the topic of poverty and starvation in our country. He remembers that long before people of the country became aware of Amartya Sen's theory on man-made famines, Raj had made observations about how famines are result of poverty, not lack of food. "I remember him saying - 'Garibi hi insaan ki sabse badi dushman hai, uski sabse badi kamjori hai jo usse laachar aur majboor bana deti hai. Paisewale kabhi aakal ya sookhe se nahin marte" (Poverty is man's biggest enemy, his biggest weakness that makes him handicapped and helpless. The wealthy never die from famines or droughts.)

Some of his colleagues say that they have a new-found respect for Purohit after learning about the similarity of his views with that of Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen. "Often when we used to sit together laughing, joking and having fun over a cup of tea, Purohitji would out of the blue make a dry, highly philosophical observation, which would create an awkward silence as no one would know how to respond to it jocularly. This abrupt end to our camaraderie used to terribly irritate us and we often used to make fun of his philosophical bent of mind. But now I realize, we were not up to his level of intellectual sharpness" He added, "Purohitji might not have said anything that we haven't heard before umpteen times. His observations on life may sound very filmy or seem to have been inspired from dialogues of television melodramas. But nevertheless it is very remarkable that he said all the things he said much before a brilliant scholar like Amartya Sen elucidated these ideas in public" said Rakesh Gupta, a senior manager with Central Railway.

Gupta jokingly said that the office staff would jointly file his nomination for Nobel Prize, but a modest Purohit refused to take any credit for his observations. He sheepishly admitted that his insightful remark about the rich never becoming victims of famines may have been inspired by a 1965 released Balraj Sahni starrer whose name he was unable to recollect wherein Balraj Sahni on his death-bed, suffering from exhaustion and malnutrition, had quiveringly said a few seconds before his death "yeh sookha bhagwan ne hum jaise garibon ke mukti ke liye banaya hai. Paisewale kabhi sookhe se naheeen marte"