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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  In Athens, sipping Ghalib’s Old Tom
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In Athens, sipping Ghalib’s Old Tom

An unexpected spiritual connection with Ghalib in Athens

A panoramic view of Athens, the capital and largest city of Greece, and home to the Acropolis. Photo: ThinkstockPremium
A panoramic view of Athens, the capital and largest city of Greece, and home to the Acropolis. Photo: Thinkstock

When his ship neared the shores of England, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, who was then in his 70s, wrote that he felt like he was finally coming home. As our plane lands in Athens, I feel no such thing, for me India always being saare jahan se achcha. Muhammad Iqbal has this couplet in that poem: Yunan-o-Misr-o-Roma, sab mitt gaye jahan se, ab tak magar hai baqi naam-o-nishan hamara(ancient Greece, imperial Rome and Pharaonic Egypt are gone, but we’re still around). I’m no longer sure whether he was saying this with pride or regret.

Looking at its map, I realized I am familiar with every street name and square in Athens—Diogenes, Euripides, Socrates, Sophocles, Pericles...on and on. The only street name I recognized in my neighbourhood in Mumbai was that of Chunky Pandey’s father. So I should feel more at home in Athens, wallowing among those of “my own culture" as Chaudhuri felt, but no.

When I first read the Greek stuff, I was influenced by it deeply, and the inclination was towards genuflection rather than just understanding. For instance, the contempt Socrates and Plato had for democracy did not register properly. Greek high philosophy was essentially anti-democratic (the Greek word for common man was idiotes). One book, by the American I.F. Stone, called The Trial Of Socrates, brought much shade and nuance to my understanding. I highly recommend it to those who might benefit from another look at, particularly, Homer and Plato.

Speaking of great philosophy, in Athens, we arrived serendipitously one late evening at a place called The Gin Joint. On the menu I spotted a name I have long sought. Old Tom Gin, the brand that Mirza Ghalib drank (we think of him as an ancient but he died in 1869—the year Mahatma Gandhi was born—and took gin rather than wine). I checked the bottle’s label, and sure enough, it announced that it was an “authentic mark of English heritage and quintessentially English style of gin consumed during 19th century Victorian England."

I was expecting many things while visiting classical Europe, but making a spiritual connection with my old pal Ghalib in Athens was not among them. Having had a few to celebrate, I may ramble a bit more than usual.

Moving along. Greece is dotted with great battlefields which turned history, like Pharsalus, where Julius Caesar defeated Pompey. So is Italy, and as we wander around from city to city in this ancient area, many memories of things read long ago return.

Caesar’s biggest achievement was the conquest of France, defeating and executing Vercingetorix, whom readers will remember from Asterix as the proud, unconquered (untrue) and competent (untrue) Gaul who stood against Roman occupation. The truth is that Caesar crushed him in one brilliant manoeuvre, the siege of Alesia, which he himself describes coldly.

Cicero hated the dictator, yet said of Caesar’s writing that it was unadorned, like classical statues, and this is true. Caesar is an excellent model for writers of non-fiction. This is why he was so respected across the ages by the brighter set, and, in his time, was the beloved of his soldiers, who ensured he destroyed the republic.

It is the Roman legionary who took vines to France as he conquered it, and he gave the barbarian French wine.

Now I can put up a reasonably good show against raki and ouzo and pastis and sake. I have no objection to appeasing the local spirits, and when in Rome one must as the Romans do. But wine fills me with a deep sense of unease. It is unsuited to my temperament. I don’t get the ritual of swirling and sniffing and sampling. It clashes with my style of consumption (quick look to fare it well and down the hatch).

I respect the Italian vinessance but I’m more of a Scottish Enlightenment man myself, if you get my draught. Hume and Boswell and Ardbeg and Laphroaig, ah, such, such were the joys.

I think it’s a writerly thing. A few years ago, at one of the editions of the Times Literary Carnival, the Asia Society threw a dinner party. They were gracious hosts and made fine speeches while wine (the only thing available) was passed around. The writers were troubled and, try as they might, could not get hammered on merlot and malbec. After dinner, the pack descended on the bar at the Trident in Mumbai and emptied its shelves.

Freeloaders to a man (I paid for my Macallans, regretfully) they ran up a tab of a lakh and a half and then, experts all, vanished. One unsuspecting writer was left holding the bill, and in my memoirs I shall reveal all the names.

To return to the subject, you could get across most of Greece and all of Italy speaking only one language, Bengali. This is because of the preponderance of not our bhadralok, but of Bangladeshis, hard-working, little (and they are little) fellows. They are everywhere. Among other desis, the only Pakistani I met was a surly, foul-mouthed and entitled Punjabi fellow demanding that he be legalized. Indians, surprisingly, are liked and respected. Knowledge that one is Indian, it will please readers to know, elicits from the Italian the word “bravo!" like I achieved something. I put it down to the great leader.

And so off to Florence and Venice to catch the Renaissance. Michelangelo began work on the David in 1501 (aged 26!) and knocked it off in a couple of years. The museum’s description under the statue reads that David is in a “meditative pose following his victory over Goliath". This is, of course, totally wrong as most people know. He’s contemplative because he hasn’t yet released the missile (it’s still in his right hand). There’s no triumphalism on his face, the text adds. That’s because he hasn’t triumphed yet. This capturing of the moment before the action, that was Michelangelo’s intent, and there lay his genius. The tautness of David should have alerted the writer of the description to this. I wondered if it was just an error in English, but no—there it was in Italian too. Astonishing.

The statuary of these parts approaches perfection, as might be expected of an idolatrous people. Catholicism and its saints neatly replaced the polytheistic inclination of Romans without disturbing it. Just as saint-worship gives subcontinental Muslims the joys of polytheism under the nominal shelter of a stern Islam. I wonder why our statuary is not as good, and I will leave that for another day while I finish this south European temple run.

I accept that I should not be running from museum to monument like some middle-class tourist. I should instead face the Capitol, and be inspired to write about decline as Edward Gibbon was. Or stand on a soapbox and harangue Europeans for not meeting my standards, as Nirad Chaudhuri did in his Three Horsemen—“how dare you not understand the David!"

Let me have a drink while I decide.

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Published: 22 Nov 2014, 12:18 AM IST
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