Animals, humans and gods can all be brought under control through mantra. The root of the word mantra is manaor mind. This root denotes thought. Another connotation of mana is protection of the seeker from the hindrances and obstacles that may be encountered on the path to realizing this secret power. Using the power of the great tantrik mantra, the ancient dwellers of Kamakhya in Kamrup, Assam, performed extraordinary magical and divine miracles. When a man could not be brought under their control merely through their affected behaviour, they took control of him through their powers of mantra. If a man had to be brought under control, a specific mantra was chanted and a flower was endowed with the mantra's power, and if this was cast on the man without his knowledge, it brought success. Om Kali, Mahakali, sacred offerings of alcohol and meat, invoking Brahma the Creator, and with unwavering faith in the guru's powers – as the mantra was recited and the flower was cast, the boy standing in the verandah was transformed into a billy goat.
The billy goat was tethered in the verandah, it chewed grass and bleated, maenh-maenh. Sushma caressed it every day, she stroked its neck at night: oh dear goat, stay with me all my life. As girls her age walked down the street spitting paan juice, they saw the billy goat and said, What a wonderful goat Sushma-di has. Sushma would flash a smile, but sometimes she displayed great gravity. One day, as the goat was tethered in the verandah, it saw a large procession of people advancing, chanting slogans. There had been endless processions all morning, and slogans upon slogans, as if there were a festival in the city. The goat's mind was on edge. If he was released he too could march along with them, he'd shout out the slogans: This battle is for survival, this battle must be won!But who would release him? Sushma had become a matron, she watched over him with a serious face; people were becoming more militant by the day, movements advanced rapidly, the fat matron saw all this yet did not notice anything. The furore everywhere increased by the day, the billy goat became restless, surely the great uprising had commenced, he must go. Sushma watched, she said: Oh, cut out the act; she said: Isn't there a term, goat-brained – Billy goat goes to see the colourful dinner party, and Ram, Shyam, Jodu, Madhu catch and eat him, nasty!He didn't even know what an uprising was. No matter how complicated the social system, how organized state power and how perfect the military weapons, it was even more unpardonable to mouth slogans like this without proper thought. After delivering her speech, Sushma went away, her hips swaying, but before she left she kissed him. What would the billy goat do now? Tethered for a long time, he began to chew grass, he watched the people on the street, but not once did it occur to him to snap the rope and escape. And as he stood thus, he saw a group of people looking very agitated, and as they marched, chanting slogans, they inadvertently dropped a red flag. He picked up the flag with his mouth and began to chew. But as he tried to chew, his mouth filled with blood and the blood trickled down and flowed for two miles. The billy goat stopped chewing and wondered, amazed, where so much blood had come from. Where?
Sir H.H. Johnson wrote in his book, British Central Africa, that the people of Central Africa rarely made obscene gestures consciously or indulged in licentiousness. He had spent seven years in this land of naked people and not once had he encountered a man or woman making an obscene bodily gesture. Their folk dances would most certainly be viewed as indecent in modern civilized society, but if one considered their significance, they could almost be placed at the level of religious ceremonies. The single indigenous folk dance of Central Africa was initially an expression of sexual activity, but thereafter it was changed and transformed into a rite that could not be understood unless the local folk explained it. But it can be said with surety that compared to the Europeans, the race of people in Central Africa was far more modest and shy, and far more liberated from natural sin. Except for the children of kings, no pre-pubescent boy or girl used clothing of any kind. The Wankonda males wore a kind of short brass skirt tied at the belly – that was their only garment. The women of this race were almost entirely naked and wore only a small piece of bead-work like a loincloth. The Angoni males wore a penis sheath made of wood or dried fruit skins. A traveller who spent a long time in the Ejimba region of Central Africa said of his experience that although the people of this region appeared to the civilized world to be naked and indecent in their behaviour, in matters of sex they possessed propriety and conformed to clear codes of conduct. The traveller describes the investiture ceremony for boys and girls organized at the onset of their youth. There was song and dance and festivity and frolic for several days, through which all the deep secrets of marriage were conferred upon the girl. The whole thing took place according to specific rituals and in the public ceremonies nothing whatsoever was hidden, nor was anything considered shameful. The writer believes that this is why the womenfolk of this race are extremely wise. What needs to be known is known to them from the beginning and they find no reason to conceal natural laws and experiences. In this context, one may refer to a traveller in Congo. He asked a village chief about female nudity and got an answer that is possibly the last word on this matter: it is the tendency to hide and conceal that feeds curiosity.
Madame de Barney, forty-five years old, mother of nine, bent to feed some grass to the billy goat, and as she stared fixedly at him, she asked –
What's your name?
Balzac.
How old are you, sonny?
Oh, about twenty-three or twenty-four.
What do you see?
The forty-year-old woman was so forthcoming but the young woman of twenty gave nothing.
The billy goat thought about a lot of strange things, and as he was lost in thought, Sushma, well-advanced in years, gave him some more grass. In a flash she became a little girl who raced up a flight of stairs and heard: girls really become girls for the first time when they are about thirty-five. After that she reached the top. But the boy asked, Have we actually reached the top? He still had doubts. If we've reached why do we keep circling around the same lamp post all the time? Whenever he looked, no matter which direction he looked, there was the same mist before them, the same darkness, around the same lamp post. Beneath them, a great distance below, if one looked one could see the river, the sound of a boat lapped by water, the crematorium, chanting of the Lord's name, a bier, bereaved people weeping, and the sound of a motor launch somewhere nearby – they didn't know exactly where the motor launches came from or where they were going. Or he saw the overbridge at the station, and even on the stairs there were a number of tired, sleeping faces. The desolate, flood-lit rail tracks at one in the morning. Tired, downcast, they lifted their heads to see the same mist, the same lamp post and the same darkness. We kept circling the same lamp post all the time. All day, all night. They were unable to get away from the lamp post, couldn't get near it either. As they circled the lamp post, they became tired and downcast. It's been so long since we went somewhere, we don't think differently – they talked, the lamp post, the mist and the darkness had become akin to death for them. Had they really raced up the stairs one day to go somewhere? They couldn't say for sure. If they looked down, could they see the river, the crematorium, the motor launches on the river, or the heap of tired faces on the steps of the overbridge and the brightly lit rail tracks below? Perhaps they could see, perhaps they couldn't, they couldn't say for sure. Why are we unable to tell everyone what's real? We feel ashamed, and yet, every day, so many people come out on the streets in protest. They talked some more; as they climbed up the stairs they saw how worn out it was, it made them sleepy. The stairs could have crumbled at any moment – that's what they thought. We did not do anything unjust or commit any act of infidelity, so why would we thump our chests about this lamp post, this mist and this darkness? They, Ajoy and Sushma, thought about all this, they kept thinking, and as they thought, they heard a procession advancing somewhere nearby, the fervour of protest floated by. They were unperturbed, their ears attuned, they listened to the sounds, they just kept listening.
This
body of ours, the living body, is a collection of many cells, and the cells are of various types. Every cell is a living entity. The basic functions of a living thing – consumption, respiration, excretion and reproduction – are coordinated beautifully by the cells. Consumption by a living creature means consumption by its cells. A full-grown man's body has about ten thousand trillion cells. Each individual cell works continuously and in cooperation with the others, thereby fulfilling all their requirements.
Each cell is broadly made up of plasmalemma or cell membrane, protoplasm and a nucleus. There is a kind of transparent semi-liquid substance within the cell, called protoplasm. The living transparent permeable sheath encircling the protoplasm is the plasmalemma, and the relatively viscous roundish element within the cell is the cell's nucleus, which directs all the activity within the cell. In fact, the nucleus' place is at the very centre of the cell, its role like that of the brain in a creature's body. The appearance of the nucleus varies across cells, they are sometimes round, sometimes long and egg-shaped, and sometimes thin and cylindrical. If the nucleus was taken away from the protoplasm, what remains is the cytoplasm and the nucleus cannot survive without the cytoplasm, and without the nucleus the cytoplasm too would die. The transparent viscous liquid substance that exists inside the nucleus is the nucleoplasm. Inside the nucleoplasm there are many thin thread-like elements, like capillaries, which are the chromatin reticulum. At the time of cell division, these chromatin threads are divided into thread-like parts which are called chromosomes. And it is this chromosome and its central 'gene' that carries hereditary properties.
When the male spermatozoon and the female ovum come together, fertilization takes place and a new cell is born. This is how life is accomplished, this is the origin of life. There is a specific number of chromosomes in the male sperm and a specific number in the ovum; consequently, the new cell created through the union of sperm and ovum has an equal number of chromosomes from both parents, because of which every living thing can develop its own unique characteristics.
Before falling asleep, Ajoy sought complete clarity on a few things.
First, he did not love Sushma-di, although he had laid a baby in her belly.
Second, in the process of revealing her magic, Sushma-di, Sushma, had laid her body on his bed.
Third, he had stared long and hard at the luminous darkness.
Fourth, the body, towards which there was all this great love, was only a collection of ten thousand trillion cells.
Fifth, whenever any procession went by near them, Sushma-di tried to sing lullabies to him.
Sixth, he wasn't at all curious about the new cell being created with his cell and Sushma's cell.
Seventh, the idea of leaving Sushma appeared unethical to him, and yet it was also impossible for him to swallow his pride and tell his brother and sister-in-law about Sushma.
As he reflected on all this, Ajoy entered his room, and in no time at all he fell asleep.
How a human being made up of a collection of millions of cells develops from just one cell, which is called an egg cell, preserving hereditary features in the process, and then goes about his life activities, remains a major question for scientists even today. According to microbiologists, at the root of this event lie the DNA, RNA and protein. DNA, or dioxyribonucleic acid, is that vital part of the living cell that helps determine the structure of the cell, hereditary traits and so on. With each DNA there are different types of nucleotides. It is said that nucleotides are the building blocks of the DNA. In the language of microbiologists, a DNA is like a word made up of four unique genetic alphabets or letters relating to reproduction, each one like a piece of glass of a different hue. Just as a few letters can make up several words with several meanings, similarly DNAs combine in different numerical sequences to form genes. The gene is the key component of the chromosome in the cell of a living creature. Different animals have different chromosomes, and it is these that determine which living being will be human, which one demon or even earthworm. The second function of the DNA is like that of a casting mould; and just as many things of an identical nature can be produced by using a mould, in exactly the same way, from one kind of DNA mould, through an admixture of different chemical elements, the same kind of cell, or component of life, is formed.
If you carry on walking like this, in a few days you will reach the high mountain peak where you can hear the flapping wings of the golden eagle. But it is not advisable to go there for the mother eagle can take away your arm; when she flies to the mountain top in search of food, the two tiny delicate chicks are left all alone. As difficult as it is to search for gull eggs, clambering over huge, razor-sharp rocks scattered in somersaults over the seashore cliff, this is far more challenging. The piercing sun burns down on your head, bruises form all over the body from grazing against the rocks, bleeding, a burning sensation, and you must place every step carefully, never forgetting to keep your balance, because even a momentary lapse of concentration could be fatal. With all this effort, some accomplish it and some don't. Because the golden eagle's chicks live very close to what terrifies many men.
What can be called a living thing?
When a living cell creates another cell of its own kind by itself, it is called a living thing.
What is the difference between animals and humans?
Animals use only the external world and bring about a transformation in that world merely through their presence, but man, while changing the world, compels it to satisfy his own objectives and rules over it.
How did the ape turn into man?
At first through labour, and later, together with labour, speech – the pronunciation of a sentence – the stimuli of these two factors were most significant in influencing the progressive metamorphosis of the monkey brain into the human brain.
Three sick children held hands and advanced towards the sea.
Written on the advertisement: 'You don't know what you are missing.' At that moment the boy, Ajoy, could not quite figure out what he was missing. He could hear country bombs outside, fighting had broken out again in the neighbourhood. He yawned, and just as he wondered whether he should get up and go, the door swung wide open and someone entered the room.
You can get anything if you just stretch out your hand – a gulab-jamun or fat Sushma or a gene created in a test-tube. A commotion could be heard in the street outside. Suddenly, the arrival of a police van with screeching brakes put a stop to everything. No, you cannot get everything merely by stretching out your hand, everything does not stop simply by pressing the brake. A bomb exploded again, the commotion grew. Ajoy wondered why his name was not Ram or Shyam or Jodu or Madhu, or for that matter, Karna-bell or Nucleus – or at least one of the names of those who were in the street now. From today I shall adopt a name like that – Ram, Shyam, Jodu or Madhu, or Karna-bell or Nucleus – Ajoy thought. Someone entered the room and looked for Ajoy, and everything in the room was in an orderly fashion, the bed to lie on with pillows in their correct place, and interestingly, the corpse of the horse-faced ogre was there too, hung from the rafter, but he, Ajoy, wasn't there. Only three sick children, holding hands, advancing towards the sea.
It is possible to create a gene artificially, and all the genes necessary to produce the human body can be produced in just a test-tube. Experts know all about the cells needed to make a human, and in future, through such means, humans can be created at will. At the core of human cells are forty-six chromosomes. These are obtained from the twenty-three in the father's body and the twenty-three in the mother's body. And together with these forty-six chromosomes there are at least one hundred and fifty thousand genes of various kinds. These genes determine the exact time within which, and how, a tiny human cell is transformed into a complete human being. Almost a hundred thousand proteins, including principal ones like haemoglobin, insulin and so on, constitute our bodies and each protein makes twenty types of genes. Therefore, one could say that our body is made up of 100,000 x 20 = 2 million
genes.
Letting down her hair and spreading it across her back, the girl, Sushma, moved away from the mirror, she took off her blouse, there was a light burning on the second floor of the house in front, a body, its shadow. Sushma stepped away from the window, she did not recall it, although this happened every night. The gentleman peeped into the room through the window. At first she did not realize it, now she could, she had found proof too. Men stare so crazily, seven years ago Amal–Kamal–Bimal–Sukhamoy used to stare. What did they see? One hundred thousand multiplied by twenty, that is, two million genes? Or did they see more than that? At the bottom of the door, where the winter's desolate mist showered down beneath the light of the lamp post, there they were, Amal– Kamal–Bimal–Sukhamoy, waiting for seven years. Now Sushma removed all her undergarments and loosened herself up, she kept looking at the clock.
What is the significance of all these discoveries by man? Who takes the responsibility of determining the main goal or objective behind producing a human artificially? Everything in the human world depends upon man's self-interest and need, hence man's exact goal or objective is often unclear. Besides, if there is some extraneous influence on man, what could be the means to keep that at bay? The DNA is made up of four nucleotides and in every nucleotide there are some fundamental elements, composed of a combination of electrons, protons and neutrons. Many believe that radiation from the sun and stars affects the atoms of elements. Scientists like Dr Bedley say that radiation can lead to changes within the DNA. Soviet scientists had shown that there is a relation between magnetic energy and the human mental condition. The explosion that takes place in the sun every eleven years because of excessive storms affects the earth's magnetic field, albeit temporarily. There can be some influence of planets and stars on the fundamental composition of living beings, because a change in the magnetic field can lead to a change in the atomic structure of the fundamental elements. And at some stage, this may change the electrical properties of the DNA. At this juncture, nothing can be said with exactitude about the influence of the external world on biological evolution. However, preventing mutation by regulating the domain of research institutes is definitely not the last word on the subject. Perhaps man will succeed in creating life artificially, but in the natural way.
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