All Zero

Swami Vivekanand in his book says, ‘All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind, the infinite library of the universe is in your own mind. The external world is simply the suggestion, the occasion which sets you to study your own mind, but the object of study is always your mind.’

But what if a person, such that he doesn’t need these suggestions and occasions to study his mind, were to walk Earth? One that has all the answers. As I write this, amazed as ever, I feel jealous and dispirited to be the one who is not him. And then maybe this is also an occasion, a suggestion to study our own minds.

This might not sound like a news story published in a daily. It can be read as the first page of a diary entry. The diary holds a definite life in the coming pages, but it stays blank. Like how Mr. Swanand Tiwari of Motihari district has always seen the world. Mr. Tiwari was a professor of Digital Humanities and Cultural Informatics at Jadavpur University. Prior to that, he was a lesser-known scholar, artist, lawyer, and philanthropist, felicitated by the National Teachers Award, Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar, and Lalit Kala Akademi Puraskar. Guessing why you never heard of him? He never talks about it unless asked specifically. His degrees and awards can only be seen on his office wall, but nowhere mentioned with his name or otherwise. He says, ‘All of it is a layer of dust. People can only know me when there is no dust.’

After his 7th year being a professor, on 7th September 2019, he resigned from the University and went on to open a school in Bokaro, a township of Jharkhand. The school is as unique as Mr. Tiwari. The school boasts of teaching life to students that makes them ‘aware’ instead of ‘educated’. Bramhabhaas Shoonya is a unique school where students, irrespective of age and gender receive the same education. Might sound uncanny, but Mr. Tiwari has a unique perspective to it. ‘Education exists to make us a part of this world, whereas awareness enables you to live. Awareness is the only way to “LIVE” in the “WORLD”.’ To an educated person Brahma Abhaas Shoonya can crudely mean ‘Lack of Enlightenment’ but the tagline reads - ‘Centre of Awakening’. The school believes that education is a subset of awareness. With limited students and teachers, each student has a different development cycle and graduation time. Of course, there is a curriculum that has to be completed. But interestingly, after the curriculum is over, the graduation is solely decided by the teachers when they conclude that they have taught everything necessary, and the student is ready to be educated by the ultimate teacher - Life.

A fascinating story makes it more so by its true existence.

Mr. Swanand Tiwari is a fascinating person himself, as described by the people close to him. Stories or legends around him state that he was born on the day of Dussehra, and was visited by Neelkanth, the Indian rollerbird. Neelkanth bird is considered auspicious in Hindu mythology. It is said that on the day of Dussehra, Ram prayed to Lord Shiv who appeared in the form of a Neelkanth bird to bless Rama. When Ram defeated Ravan, Lord Shiv, in the beautiful voice of the Neelkanth bird said - ‘Sada Evam Ev Bhav’, meaning ‘Always Be Like this’. As it goes, people since then in their most prosperous versions, seek the Neelkanth bird, so that when the bird is sighted, it blesses them to always be like this.

There may be only a few people who have read Swami Vivekanand, and even fewer from the community that Mr. Tiwari was born in. So it’s safe to assume that Mr. Tiwari’s fascinating character led to the logic - ‘when a child is born, it has all the knowledge of the world. But as he begins his life in this world, all this knowledge sleeps. It awakens with each and every experience. And that is how we start becoming aware of this world.’ Mr. Tiwari was born with all the knowledge and retained it because he was blessed by the Neelkanth bird on Dussehra.

We all can choose to accept or deny this story, even Mr. Tiwari is unsure of how and when this story became the truth, and if there was an alternate, more comprehensible version to this. But his acquaintances definitely believe him to be the one who knows all. The complexity of space-time or the reason a baby is crying. The disease, the cause, and the cure or a code to develop a data analytics tool. He knew it all. A lot comes to him because of his brilliant academic past. But that’s only confined to, in his words, ‘every label, nomenclature, and rule created for this world’. He knows everything other than that right from his birth. He would answer every time, provided - ‘the right question is asked’.

The school just completed its 3 years in April 2023. On 23rd August 2023, Mr. Tiwari was celebrating the inauguration of a new digital lab. He does not have a decorated guest list. Very few people even talk about his school in the region, and he does not advertise. So the guests were a few parents, school principals from the region, his ex-students and of course me. After the inauguration and lunch, Mr. Tiwari invited the audience to take a seat in the courtyard. Bramhabhaas has a tech-enabled campus and Mr. Tiwari has installed a big screen in the courtyard of the school. He wanted everyone to witness the historical moment of Chandrayaan 3 landing on the moon.

One of the parents asked him if he knew about space too. Mr. Tiwari, as humble as always, smiled with a nod. In his words, which many modern scientists would not approve of, - ‘Universe is made of black matter and objects. Which is basically the presence and absence of matter. But that is just our universe. There are universes made of light with pockets of dark bodies. And there is never any end to the permutations.’ Prajapati Dubey had decided to leave it at that. But Mrs. Dubey’s lack of knowledge superseded her awareness of the energy around Mr. Tiwari and she prodded Mr. Dubey to ask him about Chandrayaan 2. Guests reported that they heard Mr. Dubey ask - “What happened to Chandrayaan 2”. But none of the guests had any idea what led to Mr. Swanand pouncing on Mr. Prajapati, pinning him to the ground and dishing out severe blows to his face and body. Onlookers reported it to be a rare sight. Not because they did not expect Mr. Tiwari to be jolted by any question after all these years, but because there was no anger, no frustration, or for that matter any emotion displayed by Mr. Tiwari during the act.

Prajapati Dubey survived because Chandrayaan 3 made a successful landing and Mr. Swanand Tiwari chose to celebrate it with a smile and the words - ‘Chaitanya Viparya Yitun Na Shakyate’. It means - ‘Awareness cannot be reversed’ or maybe he meant ‘now there is no going back’. His PA reported that Mr. Swanand asked him to inform the police about the incident and that is the last reported conversation with Mr. Swanand Tiwari. He has been charged with Sections 319, 320, 334, 335, 351, and 307. The law enforcement agencies tried interrogating him but he has not spoken a word. The guests reported their first-hand speculations about it all being related to Mr. Tiwari’s resignation from Jadavpur University, exactly a day after the failure of Chandrayan-2.

I could not let the idea of ‘not asking him something myself’ bother me for the rest of my life. On 24 August 2023, I visited him at the police station. There was no crowd, he was sitting in a chair, and no one bothering him. I smiled at him and he smiled back as I pulled a chair to sit next to him. The police in charge expressed his disappointment at my futile attempt to inquire about the incident. So next, I decided to ask the ‘Right Question’. ‘Who should enroll in your school?’. No Answers. I stopped the recorder and decided to pack. I was satisfied that I made an attempt. And then he spoke. ‘Everyone. Now more than ever.’

Mr. Dubey later dropped the charges and Mr. Tiwari is back to Bramhabhas making students aware. But we are left with a cliffhanger. What triggered Mr. Tiwari, what does he know about Chandrayan or the moon, what do we need to be aware of, and why now more than ever? One may enroll in Brahma Abhaas to get some answers. Alternatively, one can do the usual. Wait for whatever this historical moment and this man have triggered, good or bad, to happen. And then be educated about it.