#7: Satyen Bose: A Luminous Mind and Rays of Delight

Satyen Bose: A Luminous Mind and Rays of Delight

Once again I am late and for that I am sorry. Even from the spot where my tugboat remains secure and in my view there’s only a tranquil lotus pond, I watch travelers who stop by and bring me bad tidings. I have to close my eyes and mourn the death of Dilip Bose—my friend from Kolkata and then California where we shared some wayward times in the 1960s. Someone else stops and wonders what is going on in the political world—a world subsumed by hate and derision—qualities that become fodder for entertainment. From Primary elections across America, where voter suppression and the incredible play of money are commonplace, all the way to West Bengal and JNU, where too voices of people are silenced, by money spent and also by thuggery—the travelogues are frightening. So I did take some time to write a few things about this political season in the U.S. Some of the persistent problems I had addressed here the last time around, and will do so again.

Meanwhile, I have brought to these writings some of my thoughts on Satyen Bose. But the more I try to talk about him, the more the vista expands, and with that some thoughts get entangled with others, boundaries get formed and then vanish, and what I had thought would be some simply storytelling, becomes a complex fabric of many shapes and colors. In the end there is incompleteness and hesitation, and at first that bothered me. Then I thought all that is good because there will always be more to say. Here we are then.

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Just before the 2015 Nobel Prize in physics was announced, I happened to re-read an article by Gabriel Popkin whose recurring yearning for years has been, “perhaps this time a woman will get it.”

Of course, that didn’t happen, and the fact remains that there was Marie Curie in 1903 and then Maria Mayer in 1963. The only two women Nobel Laureates in physics. So I wrote back to Gabriel telling him that when I was Maria Mayer’s assistant for her nuclear physics class in 1965, we did talk about this incomprehensible lack. I also added that outside people working the Western/Northern Hemisphere, those Nobel awards have been startlingly absent as well, using the example of Satyen Bose.  

Gabriel wrote back, “…Too bad I didn't know of your connection with [Maria] Goeppert-Mayer when I was writing the piece; it would have been nice to speak to someone who knew her. I'm also shocked to learn that S.N. Bose didn't win a Nobel—I would have thought surely he did!” [my emphasis]

          Knowing that it had not been possible for Satyen Bose’s students and admirers to persuade the Indian government to award India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, posthumously—to the Great One, I thought for a moment I should tell Gabriel that this Nobel thing or its absence is far reaching. That unlike the Nobel Prize, India’s Bharat Ratna may be awarded posthumously. Perhaps if Satyen Bose had got the Nobel, he would have been exalted via every available Indian accolade, perhaps he would have sainthood bestowed on him. Then I thought that Gabriel may not get the dominance of this colonial and neo-colonial logic based on an historical asymmetry. So I desisted. I might have been a bit complacent though, because apparently the Indian State’s refusal had come one day after the director-general of CERN, Rolf-Dieter Heuer, said Satyen Bose deserved the Nobel Prize—following the discovery of the Higgs boson. But then, SNB never actually possessed that medal, the “jeweled necklace” as Rabindranath had humbly called his.

          There are others too who know what they know. In 2009, the annual Satyen Bose memorial lecture was given by Wolfgang Ketterle, professor at MIT and Nobel Laureate. As usual, following the strange trajectory of my life, I happened to be in Kolkata at the time and went to that presentation in the Gol Park Ramkrishna Mission auditorium. I remember Ketterle’s masterful explanation of the Bose statistics along with other topics—with a great deal of goodwill and humor too. Then about a month ago, I learned from Aparna, my very good friend and SNB’s youngest daughter, that Ketterle had gone to visit their house in Goabagan (North Kolkata neighborhood) when he was in Kolkata, to pay his respect to the Great One and to assure the family that awards aside, the world will always remember Satyen Bose because physics cannot circumvent his work. True, and others too have pointed out to me the truth of Bose condensation and the reality of games that bosons play. Okay, but who is this Bose? Certainly not the rich guy who developed superior speaker systems in America, and is best known here for that. And why should a science writer like Popkin be “shocked” to know the truth? In fact, in the U.S. I have come across several people (non-scientists) who had assumed Satyen Bose was a Nobel Laureate. Yes, he should have got the award back when, after he tackled the enigma of light in the 1920s, is my standard answer.

          In the end, my truth—not at all a wishful reverie—has to be the foundation of this story. That for a few short years in my youth, I had spent some time in the company of a person with an immense intellect combined with unmatched affection. That, he was never my instructor in any academic area, but had taught me how to think about things and to use my imagination. That, he was my friend too: I called him “Jethu” [uncle—strictly, father’s older brother] and could ask him whatever was on my mind—most of the time. That, had he not placed a challenge before me when I went to ask for his advice, reluctant to go for studies in the U.S. even with a scholarship in hand, I wouldn’t have left Kolkata, or physics.

          “What do you think I should do Jethu?”

          “I’ll tell you what I think. Theory you can do sitting at home. But we have no equipment or imagination for experimental physics today. You may want to get into that and bring some ideas back—start something new here.”

          “I understand your point, but…” Of course no one I know can do theory sitting at home, except you, I said to myself.

          “It is your decision after all—to go or not to go. Just think it through. I’m sure you’ll find a way. Let me know what you decide. I’ll be happy either way.”

          I told my friends about this conversation as soon as I went back to Rajabajar—to our Science College. What could they add, except much laughter in the wake of “theory you can do sitting at home.”? Even today, we joke about those words. I also knew, and Jethu writes about this himself, that his journey to Europe took him first to Marie Curie’s laboratory, where he thought he could learn things to bring back home. In Germany, he visited Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner’s lab regularly. So what he told me that day about bringing home new ideas in experimental physics had always been in his heart.

Well, I made my decision soon after that, albeit with much hesitation. After that my life changed completely, but not in the way anyone had anticipated. Certainly not me.

          To get back to the other point. Yes, we know that by and large awards and prizes—especially at the international level—have strangeness (a bit like the quantum number) and political entanglement (not like any quantum phenomenon) attached to them. I mean, nothing shows this better than how prizes are awarded for literary excellence. And yet, awards in the domain of physics, where discoveries are not meant to criticize physical nature, should follow a different path. I feel a sudden loss of breath, an emptiness inside me even today, whenever I remember that man with silver hair, peering into his notes, or a book, or the daily newspaper, through those thick lenses, capturing, I am certain, bursts of light from the entire universe. That too is my truth. And I find myself calling him SNB, Satyen Bose, simply Jethu all at once—but mostly I think of him as the Great One.

Omniscient Gurus versus Mindful Teachers  

          As most young Bengalis have known growing up, the word “guru” features in different ways in our conversation—far beyond adolescence. I have entered a coffee house adda or the corner paan-cigarette gathering often enough with something like, “How goes it, guru?” A question for anyone and everyone, like— “Wassup?”, or “How you doin’?” in American English. Alongside “guru” there is the similar but not the same attribute, “gurudeb”. This is not as much a term of endearment as an expression of respect, at least some admiration. We applied the title “gurudeb” equally to friends who may have been brilliant mathematicians, superior artists, or seasoned womanizers. All of them a class above the rest, but none of them infallible.

          Now let us capitalize the words. With “Gurudeb” (or Gurudev) most of us think immediately of Rabindranath Tagore. There's no way out of that. There may be other Gurudebs, but the point is there is a sudden exaltation of the term defined by the quality of being of a unique individual. With “Guru” we enter a different world where the entities are not only unique, but also the ultimate truth-givers to their respective flocks—often mediated by their higher-order followers. (Somewhat like a CEO and company employees with middle-management figures in between.) We might argue that there is a long-standing tradition exemplified by such individuals in human history. I mean, the likes of Dronacharya, Gautam Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammad et al formed a smaller coterie of followers first who in turn helped spread their teachings. We could imagine their modern equivalents to be like Ramkrishna Paramhansa and Sri Arobindo, Sai Baba and Ravi Shankar (the other one)—even various “Guru-Matas” and “Sri Sri Mas”. (Note that the tradition of Gurus has been predominantly patriarchal, although the mother figure, like goddesses, has remained powerful in various ways. I'll not delve into that here.)

          In spite of the difference between their time on this earth, their teachings, their histories, what binds “Gurus” together is not just their knowledge or enlightenment, but their infallibility, and the absolute, uncritical devotion as well as gifts and payments from followers.

          A teacher is of a completely different breed to me. The way I envision a teacher like the Great One is that his/her greatness contains, integrally, seeds of uncertainty. It is a greatness flawed here and there, but also transcendent within the measure of human beings, perhaps imagining the mystery of our universe, the phylogeny of our species, the birth of tragedy, or the complete eradication of genocide. This greatness does not ask for any tribute to sustain itself, and includes contradictions, incompleteness and rebellion. Like Goedel's theorem or Picasso's Guernica. And in this instance, as I recall my time with Jethu, I remember a teacher's humility (not characteristic of all teachers of course) that accompanies great leaps. Jethu always seemed to be implying without saying, “You cannot learn without questioning. And I am happiest when you go beyond anything I have taught you, or thought about.”

          To tell my truth then, the way I remember the Great One is not at all as Einstein's student and collaborator and Marie Curie's apprentice before that. Not as our National Professor at his desk in that dingy room in the Rajabajar Science College, or as the unhappy Vice-Chancellor of Vishwabharati, under attack by hoodlums pretending to be keepers of Rabindranath's legacy. As I said earlier, I remember him mostly as a wise storyteller—sitting on a bed surrounded by piles of books and papers and notebooks—musing about being human in a hundred different ways. In his precious little room facing the front door of 22 Ishwar Mill Lane, Goabagan. So that's where I must return.

Apprehension and Deliverance: The Last Time Around

          I have noticed that I have got into the practice of “working backwards” with my stories, and here again I'll begin with my last conversation with Jethu, in the summer of 1970. That was the first time I was able to get back to Kolkata/India since I came to the U.S. The simple reason was the lack of funds—even for one plane ticket and related expenses. (I marvel at graduate students from India who today are able to travel back and forth at will. My scholarship paid barely enough for room and board and incidentals.)

          I arrived at Ishwar Mill Lane with a great deal of apprehension. I had done nothing to bring back any skill or knowledge that could help experimental physics in Kolkata. In fact, I had left the company of physicists altogether and was studying, researching, writing about philosophers, anthropologists, linguists, semiologists and such people.  So what would he say when he heard all this? Did he even know about the changes in my life?

          As I went close to Jethu to touch his feet, he looked at me with his inimitable big smile and said, “So, the prodigal returns at last!” I think the Bengali was something like, “কি? বাউন্ডুলের ঘরে ফেরা হোল?”

Even before I could form an answer, I looked quickly at the piles of books around him. Just to get a measure of what he was reading at that time. To my complete astonishment I noticed that one of the piles included several of the authors whose works were part of my daily toil: Claude Levi-Strauss the anthropologist, Roman Jakobson the linguist, Roland Barthes the philosopher-critic and semiologist, were well represented.

          “Are you reading these guys?” I blurted out without any introduction. Unsure about what to say next, I uttered “You must know I am not doing any physics anymore.”

          “Yes, everyone knows that.” He was quite matter of fact about it, without the slightest hint of criticism.

          “But surely you cannot know that these are the people I have been studying for the last couple of years. Or have you got interested in things like structural anthropology?”

          “Yes, a little bit. But only after I found out what you were up to.”

          “But who told you about me and these authors?” I had notions of my own about his sources, but didn’t go there.

          “Your life is not all that secret you know.” The Great One laughed. “I was curious. Were you just whiling away your time out there, or studying anything worthwhile after physics?”

          “And... And what do you think?” My initial surprise had become complete wonderment by them. How did he get a hold of books like Lévi-Strauss's Anthropologie structurale, Le Cru et le cuit, or Barthes's Le degré zéro de l'écriture and Éléments de sémiologie? I knew that he always had a French connection so I thought I shouldn't be too surprised.

          “Well, some of these ideas have been around forever, but there's much more these writers say about the way humans associate and communicate—in a structured discourse and with empirical evidence. Specially this Lévi-Strauss guy.”

          “So you don't think I’m whiling away my time?” Now my wonderment had turned into that old devotion for the quintessential teacher.

          “No, no... I think you could do something interesting with all this if you want.”

          So the Great One didn’t appear disappointed at all. Rather, he was encouraging me to try something new once again, to take on a field of study which seemed to intrigue him and about which I knew next to nothing when I had left India. But that didn’t matter. It was as though nothing had changed between us. Somewhere along the line we began talking about the language of poetry and the poetic function of language. About kinship nomenclature in Bengal as opposed to confusing attributes in the West. That subject has always remained amusing to me, so a little detour is in order.

          I mean, in Bengali families, however extended or not they may be, and among friends too, naming of specific members is marked in specific ways. To simplify: first by generational and gender markers, then by matrilineal and patrilineal connections with patriarchal signatures, and then by seniority. Thus, everyone in our grandparents’ generation is a grandparent, in our parents’ generation, an aunt or uncle, in our own generation a cousin, in our children's generation a niece or nephew. After that, other distinguishing factors (like actual names) may enter the picture.

On the other hand, at least in America, everyone outside the immediate family somehow becomes a “cousin”—who in turn becomes first, second, third, or “twice removed” depending on the actual relationship. Generational equivalences go out the window after “the first ballot” so to speak. An example from a few weeks ago. The grandson of one of my mother's sisters (the seventh one), my cousin's son Shivalik had come to town for a musical performance. Shivalik is a very accomplished Tabla player and I had mentioned to various people that he was my nephew. Well, that caused some confusion because the young man wasn’t my sister's kid and would have to be a cousin of sorts. In any event, I don't remember where exactly my chat with Jethu had gone in 1970, but it was both enlightening and exhilarating to talk to him, about anything in the world, just as it had always been in the previous decade.   

          He asked about personal things too. I told him that in the weeks before starting back from California after so many years, and with a family at that, I had been overwhelmed by varying emotions, with some anxiety about the time passed and the changed character of Kolkata I knew I was going to encounter. So my packing wasn’t all too diligent, I said, and I forgot to bring a number of things with me.

          “One of the things was a copy of the paper I had written for my departmental exams,” I said shaking my head. “If I had the slightest notion that you could be interested in my work now, believe me I wouldn't have forgotten to bring you a copy.”

          “So what is this paper about?”

          “It has a clever title, so don't laugh. From Barthes to Lévi-Strauss: A Problem of Signs and Science,” I said with some hesitation.

          “No, that actually sounds quite intriguing. Should get readers interested. Send it to me if you can—after you get back.” 

            I don’t remember where the conversation went from there. Most likely that’s when other people came into the room, from inside the house and also from the street. I remember having tea and sweets and someone brought up my sister’s wedding, which happened while I was still trapped in the U.S. The wedding had taken place quite close to Ishwar Mill Lane. Right off Beadon Street at the house and courtyard of a friend of my father. And Jethu had gone there as a guest.

          (That part of my visit I remember now because recently a friend here told me an amusing story about an incident at that wedding. Another guest there was my friend the actor Soumitra Chatterjee. At some point that evening Satyen and Soumitra were sitting near one another in the courtyard, talking with various people. Guests and neighbors had discovered the celebrity actor soon enough and there was a crowd of people trying to get Soumitra's autograph and picture. And the Great One sat quietly nearby watching the show. There came a time when the actor realized that no one recognized Satyen Bose, or didn't particularly care to get near him even if they did know who he was. So Soumitra addressed the crowd seeking his autograph and said, “Listen people, your attention is really embarrassing to me because you have no idea about this great man who is sitting near us. Go ask him for his signature—that will be a much greater prize for you than anything I sign.” These may not have been Soumitra's exact words, but we know what he meant. And of course, I have no idea whether the human chain moved toward the humble teacher, but I doubt it.)

          I never did send my Barthes-Lévi-Strauss paper to Jethu by mail. As I was planning my next visit to Kolkata with my son Kinjal, I had gathered together an assortment of writings and other things to give to Jethu. Then came the news, a few months before our planned trip, that he had left us for good—died suddenly, I was told in a letter. A sudden gasp for breath, a little dizziness, and then what was there to say? A luminous mind had merged with its source, with our dazzling universe that is never at rest. So here I am, restless, but outside shadows, sharing a glimpse of that light. And he did say to me during the last meeting, “Your life is not all that secret, you know...” As I have confessed, this is a much needed saunter beside the lotus pond. The tugboat is docked.

Music and Mathematics: As Stories Are Told

          Whenever I open Satyen Bose’s collected essays in Bengali, I wonder why none of his admirers and devotees in Kolkata or Dhaka saw it fit, let alone necessary, to translate the Bengali originals into English. And whenever I have raised the issue to friends, the usual reply has been, “Why don’t you do it then?” I’ll welcome a discussion of this sort of neglect (one among several) of SNB’s legacy another time. Here I want to note, especially for those who cannot or do not want to read Bengali, that those essays have an enormous range, including pieces he chose to translate from other languages—French, German, English. In his commemoration of Marie Curie, SNB took two very different tracks. On a serious note, he wrote about Madame Curie the scientist, her work and her contribution to modern physics and chemistry. As a storyteller, he spoke of Marie Curie the person, the impoverished Polish immigrant whose struggle to survive in Paris was enormous and I believe nothing like anyone else had to wage to become a pioneer in the advancement of physics and chemistry—even in that era. But there was a lighter side to stories Jethu actually recalled for me and perhaps for others too.

          In the short tribute “In the Presence of Madame Curie” Satyen Bose wrote in 1967 (Collected Essays, p. 239), he describes his first encounter with her in October, 1924. On leave from Dhaka University for two years, he arrives in Paris and it his hope that he “can learn something new” so that his students back home can benefit from his knowledge. With a letter of introduction from Paul Langevin (Pierre Curie’s student and Marie’s friend) SNB goes to Madame Curie’s lab, wishing he could stay with her institute and learn firsthand about working with radioactivity. Well, Madame greets him with much warmth and assures him of a place in her institute, but adds that’ll be in a few months, after he has learned some decent French. Otherwise it’ll be hard to work with everyone else in the lab. Jethu doesn’t get a chance to say that he had been working on his French for some ten odd years and accepts “Madame’s command”. He spends altogether “4 to 5 months in Paris, eventually getting a chance to work at the Radium Institute.”

          My music story begins with an overlap with this encounter, when Jethu was in the mood to talk about that October morning in Paris.

“There I was waiting in her office, not knowing what to expect as she walked in—reverend and graceful in black clothing.”

‘So you’re Bose? I have heard good things about you.’

‘Yes Madame. Thank you for seeing me’, I answered.

‘You can join the institute, but do you know any French?’

       ‘A little bit, and I will…’ I was going to add that I would continue get better at it.

          ‘That won’t do. You have to know French to work in the lab. So first and foremost learn the language and we’ll have a place for you when you’re ready.’

          “And off she went, after speaking to me in perfect English!”

          “You did go back, right?” I knew that much.

          “Yes, after a while, and the time in between I spent doing different things. I started learning French—seriously of course, but I also explored Paris and European culture with my friends.” Jethu smiled.

          “You had friends in Paris already?”

          “Yes. As it turned out, there were quite a few guys from Bengal out there and we went to museums and galleries and concerts. Everyone from back home was a music lover.”

          “What kind of music did they love?” I was curious about musical taste of Jethu’s generation.

          “Mostly Indian classical—and Bengali songs too, so we said we need to make an effort to learn about the European tradition… You know, Bach and Mozart and Beethoven. So let me tell you about this one evening.” The Great One chuckled as he remembered that occasion.

          “A group of us went to a Bach concert. This was advertised as an evening with Johann Sebastian Bach, or something like that. And there was everything—from toccata and fugue to piano concerto on the bill.”

          “Must have been awesome.” I was trying to imagine the setting.

          “Yes. We thought Bach used melodic streams that were easy to follow… I mean, for our ears. A couple of us thought we recognized bits and pieces of Bengali tunes. After we back to the flat where we usually gathered, we couldn’t stop talking about the music we had been privileged to hear that evening. We were truly uplifted by Johann Sebastian you know.” Jethu showed a big smile as he recalled that occasion.

          “That sort of elation we… I mean my friends and I felt too when we first started listening to Bach. There’s something about him…” I added.

          “You would think so, right? Perhaps because of how we perceive our own music. So here’s what happened then. As we were chatting excitedly about the pluses and minuses of Bach’s music, I noticed that our friend Sitesh was sitting silently in one corner, looking gloomy, but we couldn’t figure out why.”

          “Who was your friend Sitesh? I don’t remember hearing his name before.” 

          “Oh, that was Sitesh Kar, a mathematician… He too was in Paris at the time.” Then Jethu paused a second and spoke with a sense of recognition and connection—because that kind of perception was so integral to his way of thinking. He said, “You may know his younger brother Kulesh from physics… Doesn’t he teach some classes still?”

          “Yes, of course—Professor Kulesh Kar. He taught us this class on the theory of vibrating strings. The mathematics of music.”

          (I still remember Kulesh-Babu deriving final results via many steps on the chalk-board as he talked about strings yearning to make music. He used to say we have three categories here—strings that are struck, like the piano, strings that are plucked, like the sitar or sarod, and strings that are bowed, like the violin or the esraj. He said, we would be considering equations pertinent to only struck and plucked strings, because equations for bowed strings were more complicated and weren’t a part of the syllabus—which meant to us that vibrations of the viola would not be on any exam we would ever take. There was no visual aid for all this except a book with pictures that went around the classroom, possibly circulated by the professor himself. I remember being fascinated by the symmetry in all the Lissajous figures/patterns on the printed page—far from oscilloscopes, so to speak. And I remember that some of us backbenchers thought it was more fun to sing songs than watch differential equations emerge from our mouths! Again, the merging of one bit of memory with another. And again, a refreshing discovery.)

          “That’s well put,” Jethu said. “But I don’t know whether most universities teach such things anymore. Anyhow, back to Paris and Bach.”

          “Yes, why was your friend depressed after listening to Bach?”

          “Just wait a minute... We went and gathered around Sitesh, and someone asked him precisely that question.”

          ‘What’s the matter Sitesh, didn’t you like the Bach recital?’

        ‘No, no, that’s not it at all. I think Bach is wonderful,’ replied Sitesh.

        ‘What is it then? Why do you look so troubled?’

        ‘I can’t quite fathom why Bach does what he does. Playing games with our sensibility.’

          ‘What do you mean? Can you please elaborate?’ We were impatient.

        ‘Yes, I’ll tell you what got me upset. In that one piece, the melody started beautifully—sounding like Bhairavi, and then without any warning to the audience, the orchestra started playing Khambaj! Now why would Bach do that?’  

          Jethu laughed as he recalled his friend’s tribulation. I was laughing too.  

          “But you know, Sitesh had a point and we were not unsympathetic to his musical sorrow at all. So well into late night, our gang delved into the music of Bach in light of Hindustani classical music… And naturally that led to the difference between our music and theirs.”

          “Did your discussion satisfy Sitesh Kar?” I was curious about how the transition from Bhairavi to Khambaj was handled. And was Bach finally redeemed?

          “I can’t answer that because you know how students tend to argue about things. As far as I remember we lost track of the real question—how does music really stir the soul? All the way from a mother’s lullaby. We talked about things more technically I believe. You know—we have melodic patterns and they have chords and scales. Our sounds flow sequentially, theirs combine simultaneously…and all those things. I don’t remember what happened in the end. We went to sleep I suppose, including Sitesh.”

          Once again, I don’t remember what came next. But I suppose the Great One probably asked me to stay for lunch, or other visitors entered with their questions and requests, as was the case most mornings and evenings if Jethu was home. I do remember that we talked about those bowed strings outside our syllabus and instruments that produced their vibrations on other occasions. I mean, about Jethu’s esraj and his Guruji Einstein’s violin. These are episodes to which I must return, along with other stories that remain to be told, and I’ll do that in a future segment. 

          To be honest, although I promised to tell my truth as I remember Satyen Bose, naturally, it has been necessary for me to be as accurate as my memory allows to speak that truth—and that has not been an easy task. That is why I’ll return to the lotus pond later for other stories, perhaps after navigating through floods and near waterfalls for a while, even journeying past my life in our Sadananda Road house with the other Satyendranath.

© Copyright, Ranadhir Mitra, 2016