THE
BRAVEST MAN IN THE WORLD
How do I define bravery in the present day and age? I am not speaking of bravery on the battlefield of war, but bravery in the battlefield of life.
I would easily call my elder brother, Pran Nath Mehta, the br
How do I define bravery in the present day and age? I am not speaking of bravery on the battlefield of war, but bravery in the battlefield of life.
I would easily call my elder brother, Pran Nath Mehta, the br
avest man
in the whole world from what I have witnessed since the days of our childhood.
There was a time when my brother and I were taken to school in a perambulator for the nursery classes. A Sikh attendant Basant Singh would dutifully push the perambulator. Once there was a terrible wind in which even the turban of the Sikh attendant was blown off, and we could hardly breathe. It was one of those gales of wind in the hills which rarely subsided for days once they began.
My brother, as a young child, suddenly stood up in the perambulator, against the wind and said in a loud childish voice: "Havaa band Hojaa! O Wind, Stop just now!"
The Sikh attendant later narrated to my father how the wind stopped just then and there was a hushed silence in the atmosphere!! It was a miracle!
Then there was the time when we, as children, would go for long walks along the Camel's Back Road in Mussoorie which passed over a cemetery on its East end. The hill folk would not venture out on the road in the night and frequently reported seeing terrible ghosts on the road. One night my brother and I, and a friend of ours, went for a walk on the road late in the night. As we passed over the cemetery, and my friend began recounting the horror tales of people on the road, my brother said with some vexation: "There is nothing to be afraid of!"
And then, without warning, he walked down into the cemetery and began walking amongst the graves there in the darkness of the night. The scene was enough to terrify anyone. But not so him. He walked amongst the graves for a long time and then returned saying, "See? There was nothing down there! There is no point in being afraid. It is your own fear that creates ghosts!"
Incidentally while my brother was down there in the cemetery walking amongst the graves, my friend and I had remained squeamishly outside on the road! lol.
But to start the story backwards to only a few years from now. An X -Ray was taken of his chest when he had pain there. The X Rays showed that he had cancer.
The doctor attending upon him was a bald headed man with spectacles, one of the leading specialists of New Delhi. He called us into his office and told us of the grim news.
When we left his office my brother was laughing. He said to me,
"Did you notice the way in which the tube-light in the room was shining on his bald head!?"
I was too shocked with the diagnosis of cancer to laugh with him. When he saw me silent and gloomy he said to me:
"So what if it is cancer? There is a cure for everything these days! Why worry about something that has not yet surfaced!"
Thereafter he continued with his daily routines without even thinking of the subject. He was not consciously ignoring it - he had actually dismissed it from his mind as something trivial and inconsequential!! Even if he had cancer it did not matter to him. He was too engrossed in the world around him.
He never prayed to God for help at any time. In fact he never prayed at all.
He would say: "God is all knowing and everything is happening in accordance to his will, so what is the point in bothering him with prayers?"
His absolute indifference to the gravest of illnesses was a miracle quite unfathomable for me. He seemed to be totally unconcerned about his body and was in a world of his own, a world of his imperishable soul all the time.
In later days the diagnosis of cancer was confirmed to be false!! He had been right in not worrying about it at all!
My brother has only one major worry in his mind - the plight of the poor and those in sorrow and suffering and weeps for them. Whenever anyone goes to meet my brother he tells the person: "Remember! Give regularly to the poor!"
My brother, who was an electronic engineer, has been living in London now for many years . Even the British are surprised at his courage and bravery. There was a time when my brother was at a Post Office in which there was a long queue. Someone at the back of the queue came forward and pushed aside a black lady and took her place.
My brother could not tolerate the insult to the lady, who he did not know at all, and all of a sudden he burst out in a loud voice:
"You British are known for your culture and civilisation! Was this a sample of your culture? Pushing aside this lady just because she was not white like yourselves!! You have a white skin but a black heart!"
As he continued to speak against the British, a Britisher in the crowd at the Post office said to him: "If you dislike Britishers so much, then why do you live in our country?"
My brother said: "Firstly I do not dislike Britishers, I love them! Secondly even if I did, I would still live here! When the British were in India for 200 years did they like the Indians ?- no! They disliked them. So if you can live in a country for 200 years where you disliked its inhabitants -- then why can I not stay in your country for at least 200 years!!"
The people gathered there admired his courage and bravado and said:
"He must belong to some royal family!"
These are just a few of the incidents of his life which mark him out, in my estimation to be the bravest man I have ever seen. His life in the metropolis of London is a life of self imposed seclusion and isolation. He lives in a world of his own thoughts. A bit like the legendary Sherlock Holmes who remained confined to his apartment at 221B Baker Street London lost in the science of deduction.
Incidentally I always thought of myself as a living epitome of Sherlock Holmes and lampooned the character in my comic videos. But then I recalled reading that Sherlock Holmes had an elder brother called Mycroft Holmes, who was smarter than Sherlock Holmes and was everything that Sherlock was not. I would place my elder brother in that category! If I am Sherlock Holmes then he is Mycroft Holmes!! lol.
He is probably the most loving person anyone has ever met in his whole life. People are so overwhelmed by the force of his love that they are in tears when parting from him. He can be happy in any country of the world because there are no strangers for him. He loves everyone. He loves the whole world. And even strangers can feel this radiation of love come from him.
He knows every nook and corner of London like the palm of his hand. He can even stop on a particular street and narrate to you the ancient history of the street or the buildings there. Britishers think he is much more British than they and knows far more about their own country than they do.
The entire knowledge of the world seems to flow out of him. You can hear him discuss with expertness the economy of the world, the governments and politics that rule them, the oil prices, the nuclear reactors, the cosmos, religion and philosophy, just name the subject and he will have it at his finger-tips. He would know of the histories of Al Capone and the Chicago gangsters as much as he would know about Jack the Ripper in London.
You can hear him narrate the life story of Walt Disney to children while having him tell the greatest microbiologists of the latest advancements in their field. You can even listen to him speak of the great fashion designers of the world and the latest trends in fashion. His uncanny photographic memory and mind absorbs everything that he sees or hears around him and retains it for years.
There was a time when at the airport lounge he met a person from some small relatively unknown country in Africa. The man was surprised when my brother began narrating the history and politics of the small country to the man, telling him of the revolutions etc. My brother had never been to the country. The man thought he was a native of his small African country!!
He is living in London like the legendary Maharishis of India would live in the forests, practicing meditation, except for the fact that he never meditates and he is not in a forest but a jungle of cement and steel that is London. My brother is so absorbed in every facet of life and everything in the world around him that it has become his only meditation.
If there is one person in the world who is not affected by worries of any kind, though living in the midst of them, it is my elder brother, Pran Nath Mehta. I might even say that being totally unaffected by worry he can easily be called the happiest man on the planet earth, absolutely content with himself, the world and God.
I have attached a picture of him taken in 1991 since he rarely has himself photographed.
There was a time when my brother and I were taken to school in a perambulator for the nursery classes. A Sikh attendant Basant Singh would dutifully push the perambulator. Once there was a terrible wind in which even the turban of the Sikh attendant was blown off, and we could hardly breathe. It was one of those gales of wind in the hills which rarely subsided for days once they began.
My brother, as a young child, suddenly stood up in the perambulator, against the wind and said in a loud childish voice: "Havaa band Hojaa! O Wind, Stop just now!"
The Sikh attendant later narrated to my father how the wind stopped just then and there was a hushed silence in the atmosphere!! It was a miracle!
Then there was the time when we, as children, would go for long walks along the Camel's Back Road in Mussoorie which passed over a cemetery on its East end. The hill folk would not venture out on the road in the night and frequently reported seeing terrible ghosts on the road. One night my brother and I, and a friend of ours, went for a walk on the road late in the night. As we passed over the cemetery, and my friend began recounting the horror tales of people on the road, my brother said with some vexation: "There is nothing to be afraid of!"
And then, without warning, he walked down into the cemetery and began walking amongst the graves there in the darkness of the night. The scene was enough to terrify anyone. But not so him. He walked amongst the graves for a long time and then returned saying, "See? There was nothing down there! There is no point in being afraid. It is your own fear that creates ghosts!"
Incidentally while my brother was down there in the cemetery walking amongst the graves, my friend and I had remained squeamishly outside on the road! lol.
But to start the story backwards to only a few years from now. An X -Ray was taken of his chest when he had pain there. The X Rays showed that he had cancer.
The doctor attending upon him was a bald headed man with spectacles, one of the leading specialists of New Delhi. He called us into his office and told us of the grim news.
When we left his office my brother was laughing. He said to me,
"Did you notice the way in which the tube-light in the room was shining on his bald head!?"
I was too shocked with the diagnosis of cancer to laugh with him. When he saw me silent and gloomy he said to me:
"So what if it is cancer? There is a cure for everything these days! Why worry about something that has not yet surfaced!"
Thereafter he continued with his daily routines without even thinking of the subject. He was not consciously ignoring it - he had actually dismissed it from his mind as something trivial and inconsequential!! Even if he had cancer it did not matter to him. He was too engrossed in the world around him.
He never prayed to God for help at any time. In fact he never prayed at all.
He would say: "God is all knowing and everything is happening in accordance to his will, so what is the point in bothering him with prayers?"
His absolute indifference to the gravest of illnesses was a miracle quite unfathomable for me. He seemed to be totally unconcerned about his body and was in a world of his own, a world of his imperishable soul all the time.
In later days the diagnosis of cancer was confirmed to be false!! He had been right in not worrying about it at all!
My brother has only one major worry in his mind - the plight of the poor and those in sorrow and suffering and weeps for them. Whenever anyone goes to meet my brother he tells the person: "Remember! Give regularly to the poor!"
My brother, who was an electronic engineer, has been living in London now for many years . Even the British are surprised at his courage and bravery. There was a time when my brother was at a Post Office in which there was a long queue. Someone at the back of the queue came forward and pushed aside a black lady and took her place.
My brother could not tolerate the insult to the lady, who he did not know at all, and all of a sudden he burst out in a loud voice:
"You British are known for your culture and civilisation! Was this a sample of your culture? Pushing aside this lady just because she was not white like yourselves!! You have a white skin but a black heart!"
As he continued to speak against the British, a Britisher in the crowd at the Post office said to him: "If you dislike Britishers so much, then why do you live in our country?"
My brother said: "Firstly I do not dislike Britishers, I love them! Secondly even if I did, I would still live here! When the British were in India for 200 years did they like the Indians ?- no! They disliked them. So if you can live in a country for 200 years where you disliked its inhabitants -- then why can I not stay in your country for at least 200 years!!"
The people gathered there admired his courage and bravado and said:
"He must belong to some royal family!"
These are just a few of the incidents of his life which mark him out, in my estimation to be the bravest man I have ever seen. His life in the metropolis of London is a life of self imposed seclusion and isolation. He lives in a world of his own thoughts. A bit like the legendary Sherlock Holmes who remained confined to his apartment at 221B Baker Street London lost in the science of deduction.
Incidentally I always thought of myself as a living epitome of Sherlock Holmes and lampooned the character in my comic videos. But then I recalled reading that Sherlock Holmes had an elder brother called Mycroft Holmes, who was smarter than Sherlock Holmes and was everything that Sherlock was not. I would place my elder brother in that category! If I am Sherlock Holmes then he is Mycroft Holmes!! lol.
He is probably the most loving person anyone has ever met in his whole life. People are so overwhelmed by the force of his love that they are in tears when parting from him. He can be happy in any country of the world because there are no strangers for him. He loves everyone. He loves the whole world. And even strangers can feel this radiation of love come from him.
He knows every nook and corner of London like the palm of his hand. He can even stop on a particular street and narrate to you the ancient history of the street or the buildings there. Britishers think he is much more British than they and knows far more about their own country than they do.
The entire knowledge of the world seems to flow out of him. You can hear him discuss with expertness the economy of the world, the governments and politics that rule them, the oil prices, the nuclear reactors, the cosmos, religion and philosophy, just name the subject and he will have it at his finger-tips. He would know of the histories of Al Capone and the Chicago gangsters as much as he would know about Jack the Ripper in London.
You can hear him narrate the life story of Walt Disney to children while having him tell the greatest microbiologists of the latest advancements in their field. You can even listen to him speak of the great fashion designers of the world and the latest trends in fashion. His uncanny photographic memory and mind absorbs everything that he sees or hears around him and retains it for years.
There was a time when at the airport lounge he met a person from some small relatively unknown country in Africa. The man was surprised when my brother began narrating the history and politics of the small country to the man, telling him of the revolutions etc. My brother had never been to the country. The man thought he was a native of his small African country!!
He is living in London like the legendary Maharishis of India would live in the forests, practicing meditation, except for the fact that he never meditates and he is not in a forest but a jungle of cement and steel that is London. My brother is so absorbed in every facet of life and everything in the world around him that it has become his only meditation.
If there is one person in the world who is not affected by worries of any kind, though living in the midst of them, it is my elder brother, Pran Nath Mehta. I might even say that being totally unaffected by worry he can easily be called the happiest man on the planet earth, absolutely content with himself, the world and God.
I have attached a picture of him taken in 1991 since he rarely has himself photographed.
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