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| Manisha Bhattacharya |
I remember Manisha as a dear friend.
Not that we met very often or spent a lot of time together
or even shared any deep secrets. Not even because of the series of associations
we had with her family. Indeed, beginning with Gautam-da, Manisha’s brother—who
had learnt the craft of stage-lighting from Snehanshu’s father, Sitansu
Mukherjea (1930-1993)—her entire family appeared so naturally in conversations at home that
one thought of them like part of our family.
But all that association was only a prelude. It was Manisha’s
own qualities that made conventional requirements of being good friends
superfluous. She would give her attention unreservedly to the people who, however
briefly, inhabited the space around her; she would receive with respect suggestions
about her ceramic and pottery work, even from someone like me, who is not a
potter; she would constantly look for ways to extend her gifted engagement with
her craft. This is why her going leaves such a vivid sense of loss to so many,
even beyond her immediate circle.
The manner of her going seems doubly grievous.
Manisha used to have long conversations with friends and
family, stemming from her deep interest and involvement with them.
Increasingly, these conversations were on the cell phone. The repeated radiation
caused cancerous tumours in her brain, which took her life. In the midst of their
family’s grief at losing her, Gautam-da has been tirelessly reiterating his
warning about not using the cell phone indiscriminately; about strictly limiting
its use especially among children and older people, about ensuring basic safety norms
such as using head-phones and speaker modes—so that others do not have to go
through what Manisha did.
How many of us will heed this warning?
Another dear friend, whom I met on the day that I learnt Manisha
had died, had experience in her own family of this disease. When I recounted
the devastating rapidity with which Manisha succumbed to her illness and the
cause of it, she responded by saying that this reasoning was as nebulous as the
belief in karma, in saying that our
fate in this life is the outcome of our actions in a previous life.
I did not know how to answer. But it seems to me, on
reflection, that having a link proved beyond
doubt between the radiation from cell phones and the growth of cancerous
cells, is too horrific to contemplate. Proved beyond doubt, would mean that practically
everybody would be afflicted. Should we wait for such a day, before being more careful
about the frequency with which we use our cell-phones? Wouldn’t it be more
sensible to just be more cautious in ways that we can, especially when it is
something concerning our lives?
It is not easy to shed the weight of the Cartesian mode of
thinking. It seems more rational to refuse to be persuaded by that which is
doubtful—like Rene Descartes (1596-1650), often called the father of modern
philosophy. So, most of us cannot really conceive of taking seriously anything that is not proved absolutely; that
is not precisely quantified and certain beyond any possibility of doubt. But an
alternative way of logical thinking is possible. In A Guide for the Perplexed,
E. F. Schumacher (1911-1977) writes that it occurred to him that ‘the question of what
constitutes proof was a very subtle and difficult one. Would it not be wiser to
turn the principle into its opposite, and say, ‘If in doubt, show it prominently’?’
Whether or not you are convinced or doubtful about the
danger of cell phones, please at least consider such a danger seriously. And
please see the accompanying information and links that Gautam-da has shared, and if you can,
show and share them prominently—even, and especially if you are still in doubt.
