ELTWeekly Vol. 4 Issue#40 | October 1, 2012 | ISSN 0975-3036
This book review is submitted by Abraham Panavelil, Professor of English, University of Nizwa, Sultanate of Oman.
Professor Satish C Bhatnagar’s recent book captioned Epsilons and Deltas of Life is a collection of his reflections that he has compiled together in this volume. The title of the book at first arouses a lot of curiosity in the mind of the reader. But as the author himself says in his introduction, they are merely mathematical jargons, which may find a place in the English lexicon in the future. After all, this is how new expressions are coined and later they become part of the language. The subtitle of the book Every Day Stories clears all confusion in the mind of the reader. The book unravels daily, mundane episodes that may happen in the life of a ‘common man’ who is, in fact, the protagonist of this book. Though seemingly common, beneath the surface of the events narrated, the reader can feel a longing for human connection. We can see ourselves in this book.
The chapters are loosely strung, without any order, like some postmodernist texts. After all life too doesn’t have any specific order! Using a strong narrative in a very subtle way, the writer interweaves seemingly different events into a cohesive whole; with the result that a kind of unity emerges that is inexplicable. The beauty of the book is one can read from any page, not necessarily from the beginning. Each Reflection is self contained and illuminating. There are multiple themes- life, death, religion, philosophy, nature, love, sex, pity, brotherhood, sense of belonging, generation gap, enlightenment, re-incarnation, – to list a few. The setting of the book is both India and America. There is a constant moving forward and moving backward. Many a time the author nostalgically goes back to his native place Bathinda in India and then comes back to US, his chosen land of ‘opportunity’. Uprooting and Re rooting is an agonizing experience as one finds in Bhatnagar’s reflections like “Belonging to the Soil” or “Polishing Defines Life” – a sense of ‘double consciousness”. However, one finds peace in accepting the realities of life.
Some of the narratives like Michel’s story in “A Bite of Enlightenment” (p. 41) or “Two Lightning Strikes” (P. 218) are touching and inspiring. Towards the end of the book, the writer is preoccupied with the theme of death –Example: “On a Protocol of Dying” (P. 195) and “The River of Life” (P. 243). These depictions are not done in a morbid manner; on the contrary, it is death as a reality, a relief from the pains and agonies of life. Reflections like these have a more lasting impact on the mind of the readers.
One of the uniqueness of the book is Prof. Bhatnagar’s ability to coin new expressions (some of them mathematical) which have the resemblance of proverbs or great sayings. “Emotional closeness in a society is inversely proportional to its speed in communication (P. 44) “Life is all about a cycle of assembling and dis- assembling” (P. 55) “logistic differential equation” (P. 57), “Principle of conservation of thought speeds” (P. 72) are just a few examples.
Undoubtedly, the writer takes the reader to a new world of experience through his philosophical and mundane musings that are graphically written.