R. Kochhar (2004) S.S. Bhatnagar: Life and Times. (Review essay) In New edition, Life & Work of Sir S.S. Bhatnagar (by Norah Richards). (Delhi: NISTADS) first published 1948
Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (1894-1955) was, in a way, a bridge between two cultures and two eras. He came at a time when science was greeted with a sense of mission, but literature was still valued. Encouragement and recognition were sought from the colonial empire, not as an end in itself, but as a prelude to nation building. An internationally acclaimed chemist, Bhatnagar wrote Urdu poetry under the aptly chosen pen-name of Seemab (meaning mercury) and went on to compose, in Sanskrit, the ceremonial hymn for Benaras Hindu University. Notwithstanding his knighthood and the official position of Director (since renamed Director-General) of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Bhatnagar had the courage to publicly touch the feet of the Congress president on the latter’s release from jail. If the chemical industry, along with its derivative the pharmaceutical, is an important part of Indian economy today, it is in no small measure due to the scientific and managerial efforts of Bhatnagar who half in jest claimed intellectual lineage from the pioneering Indian modern chemist P.C. Ray, Bhatnagar’s teacher having been Ray’s early student. Chemistry was rather a laboured link with Bengal; what exercised great influence on the course of Bhatnagar’s life was the Bengal-born Brahmo Samaj movement.
(xiii)
Shanti’s father, Parameshwari Sahai, became a Brahmo, preferring the idealist vocation of a teacher to the family’s favourite practice of taking well-paying, middling jobs in revenue and judiciary. Leaving college half-way through on his father’s death and estranged from his uncles because of his religious beliefs, Sahai became second master at Anglo-Sanskrit High School, Bhera, district Shahpur, Punjab, from where, in 1893, he went to Lahore to serve as a volunteer at the Indian National Congress. In 1894, on 21 February, Shanti was born; in March Sahai privately sat for his B.A. examination, which he passed with distinction in history and English. Sahai however died when Shanti was barely eight months old. Cut off from the husband’s side and without any means of her own, Sahai’s young widow and her three children (one yet unborn) were received by her father, Munshi Pyare Lal, one of the earliest products of Roorkee engineering college who had now “retired with ample means” to his ancestral house in Sikandarabad, district Bulandshahar, UP. The old house was the repository of a rare collection of Persian books and manuscripts by an ancestor, Mirza Ghalib’s junior contemporary and friend, Munshi Har Gopal Tufta, himself a well-known poet. The collection came down to Bhatnagar who, in 1919, passed it on to the
university library, Lahore. One of the rarities was “a
Persian version of the Mahabharata for which Shanti
Swarup received a small sum from the library
authorities.”
(xiv)
SCHOOL EDUCATION
In the comfortable, albeit sheltered and secluded,
atmosphere of his grandfather’s house, Shanti spent his
first thirteen years. Henceforth he would pay for his
education himself, by winning scholarships and giving
private coaching. In 1908, Rai Sahib Lala Raghu Nath
Sahai, Parameshwari Sahai’s childhood friend and soulmate
and Shanti’s future father-in-law, took the young
lad under his wings. How this happened is an
interesting story. Raghu Nath Sahai accompanied by his
son Bishwa Nath Sahai travelled from Lahore to
Panipat to attend a wedding. “Those were the days
when young children from the groom’s side and from
the bride’s side used to participate just before the
marriage, in a competitive spirit, in a function called
Ghazal-Khwani [Ghazal recital competition]. Young
Shanti Swarup was found quite outstanding in this
competition. Mr Bishwa Nath Sahai, who was a
graduate in psychology, gave an IQ test to young Shanti
Swarup and found him much above average. He
brought this to the notice of [his own father] R.S.
Raghu Nath Sahai, who immediately made enquiries
regarding the boy and found to his great joy and
surprise that Shanti Swarup was the son of his very dear
lamented friend Parmeshari Sahai. Soon R.S. Raghu
Nath Sahai made up his mind to take Shanti Swarup to
Lahore for proper care and better schooling.”1 Here
Shanti joined Dyal Singh High School of which Raghu
Nath was the headmaster. (Dyal Singh was a prominent
(xv)
landowner and a leading light of the Brahmo movement
in Punjab. He also founded the influential English paper
The Tribune.)
At school, Shanti developed an absorbing interest in
science, “delighting in scientific experiment”.
“Whenever boys in senior classes failed to answer
questions in science, he was sent for and invariably
gave the correct answers. As a reward, he was asked to
box the ears of senior boys.”2 He “contrived for
himself a crude laboratory in one of the galleries of the
School Hall and had stocked it with old tubes, broken
flasks, batteries and any useful thing that by hook or by
crook could be got hold of.” “Then, it is said he gave
some chemical preparation as hair tonic to his
mathematics teacher, Mr. Ram Narain Gupta. To the
latter’s shock his hair turned white prematurely. Shanti
Swarup was given a few cane strokes as punishment.
Later on, Mr. Gupta used to proudly say that his cane
can work miracles and can send a student abroad.”3 The
teachers often complained to the headmaster that Shanti
“was a great trouble to them, perpetually plying them
with questions; that he was restless in the class room
and always too ready to retort when admonished.” In
1911, the schoolboy Shanti published a letter to the
editor in The Leader (Allahabad) on how to make a
substitute for carbon electrodes in a battery, by using
molasses and carbonaceous matter under pressure and
heat (Attempts to trace the letter have so far been
unsuccessful). Significantly, 31 years later, Bhatnagar
returned to the problem in his laboratory when material
(xvi)
for making electrodes could not be imported because of
the second world war.
On matriculation in 1911, he moved on to the newly
opened Dyal Singh College on a university scholarship.
A lasting influence on him here was the theatre
personality, Irish-born Norah Richards (1876-1971),
whose husband Philip Ernest Richards came from the
Unitarian Ministry in England as the Professor of
English literature and whose duties included “freethinking
religious discourse.” Having been a successful
stage artiste herself, under her maiden name Norah
Mary Hutman, she encouraged students not only to
perform the plays that were “prescribed for academic
study” but also to write original ones. In the spring of
1912, the Irish play “Spreading the News” by Lady
Gregory “of Abbey Theatre, Dublin fame” was
performed at Dyal Singh College, in which “the deaf
apple-woman was played by S.S. Bhatnagar with much
drollery” (as Norah Richards recalled later). The same
year, Norah Richards initiated an intra-college one-act
play competition in which Bhatngar’s Urdu play
Karamat (pronounced karaamaat, “miracle”) won the
first prize. The play “satirized the clash between
scientific and superstitious methods of healing”. Norah
Richards declared it to be “pure Bhatnagar!” “The play
was however banned by an over-cautious principal lest
it offended local sentiments”. In 1915, Norah Richards
founded an inter-collegiate Saraswati Stage Society
with herself as the president and Sir Rabindra Nath
Tagore as one of the associates. Bhatnagar by then in
(xvii)
Forman Christian College was among the honorary
members. Karamat was enacted by the Saraswati
Society.
Bhatnagar was greatly inspired by his professor,
N.N. Godbole, whose enthusiasm for indigenous
industrial products he imbibed. Bhatnagar in fact
contributed an article on “Fermentation phenomena of
pomegranate juice,” in a magazine aptly called
Raushani (light) brought out by the Society for
Promoting Scientific Knowledge launched by Lahore
Medical College students.
(Bhatnagar remained in touch with Norah Richards
through out his life. She left for Europe in 1920 on the
death of her husband only to return in 1924 for good.
Eventually she settled on a 15-acre property in a small
village Andretta near Palampur in the Kangra valley
(now in Himachal Pradesh), where she remained till her
death. Norah Richards wrote Bhatnagar’s biography
during January and February 1944 while staying in his
house in Delhi. “Originally a commission from a
Biographical Research Society in America, it missed
the last date for sending in… Two abortive attempts at
publication were then made, one with an English firm
in India and one in Britain.” A Lahore publisher
showed interest, but nothing came out of it. Finally the
biography with some additional material was published
from New Delhi in 1948. This affectionate and leisurely
biography written with full cooperation from Bhatnagar
remains our primary source of information on his
personal and family life.)
(xviii)
HIGHER EDUCATION
In 1913, after finishing his intermediate examination in
first division, Bhatnagar joined Forman Christian
College, “where he did not allow any distractions from
his studies in Science”. His unexceptional quest for
knowledge produced rather unexpected results. When
he sat for his B.Sc. examination in 1915, he flunked in
the subject his name is now associated with: chemistry.
One of the questions dealt with the nature of X-rays,
discovered ten years previously. Bhatnagar, on the
authority of the books he had read, wrote that X-rays
could be reflected, refracted and polarized just as
ordinary light. This however went against what was
written in the textbook, the examiner’s touchstone. (Did
the examiner know that Bhatnagar was right but felt
that he himself was duty bound to go by the textbook?
Or did he genuinely believe that the textbook was
right?). Bhatnagar eventually got his degree next year,
with honours in physics.
In retrospect, the incident of Bhatnagar’s flunking
the B.Sc. examination looks mildly amusing. But in its
time it increased his difficulties. The more so, because
he got married, in May 1915, to Raghu Nath Sahai’s
daughter, Lajwanti, who had received her early
education in Dyal Singh High School, “which was
purely a boys’ school” and where her father was the
headmaster. “Kumari Lajwanti would go dressed as a
tomboy with a Salma Sitara [decorated] cap.”
Throughout his college days, Shanti remained in
straitened circumstances. As an undergraduate he had
(xix)
earned his examination fees by making an inventory of
the contents of the Forman Chemical Laboratories.
During this period, financially and professionally
rewarding was the consultancy work he did for a
leading Lahore stationer who could not import gelatin
duplicating pads from Germany because of the war.
The problem was referred to Bhatnagar by his
chemistry professor and the solution fetched him the
welcome sum of Rs.150.
After completing his B.Sc. in 1916, Bhatnagar took
up a job as demonstrator in physics and chemistry in
Forman Christian College, moving on to Dyal Singh
College as a senior demonstrator in chemistry. Youth
and love saw the couple through difficult times. They
lived in a hired two roomed first floor tenement within
the school campus. He took up private coaching to
augment his meager income as a Senior Demonstrator
at Dyal Singh college. “After college duty he would
rush to the hostel of Chief’s College, to tutor his ward.
He had to do nearly 20 miles up and down on bicycle
and would be quite late for his dinner with his newly
married wife. Her pleadings with him to return home
not so late did not cut much ice with him. One night to
his great surprise he found the staircase bolted from
inside. After knocking for some minutes, he could sense
the purpose of his young wife. Nobody could however
outdo this clever young husband. Adjacent to his house
there was a peepŭl [ficus religiosa] tree with a high
platform around it. Shanti Swarup just climbed it and
jumped from its branch over hanging the back yard of
(xx)
his house and very lovingly woke up Lajwanti who had
dozed off.”4 In 1917, he studied for his M.Sc. as a
private student. Then for the next two years he worked
from the Forman College, receiving instruction from
professors of the Government College under the
scheme of inter-collegiate post-graduate teaching. He
obtained his M.Sc. degree in 1919, taking three years as
he had done for the B.Sc. As part of his degree
requirements, he studied the surface tension of water.
The next two years, 1919-1921, Bhatnagar spent at
the University of London earning his D.Sc. degree on
surface tension of oils, under the supervision of Prof.
F.G. Donnan, FRS. This was made possible by the
award of a scholarship by Dyal Singh Trust, thanks to
the efforts of Prof. Ruchi Ram Sahni, a science
professor at the Government College and a member of
the Trust. (Sahni was the father of the well-known
botanist, Birbal Sahni.) “It was during Bhatnagar’s first
years in London that H.R.H the Prince of Wales visited
University College and was shown over the Ramsay
Laboratories by the Director. The Indian students five
in number were at the time busy cooking their mid-day
meal…. H.R.H. looked closely at the preparations and
asked if he might have a taste. The students, thereupon,
invited him and Professor Donnan to share their meal
which they did.”
A travel grant from the British department of
scientific and industrial research enabled Bhatnagar to
visit France and Germany. He was in the group of
fourteen research students from London University that
(xxi)
went to meet Prof. Walther Hermann Nernst (1864-
1941, Chemistry Nobel prize 1920) in his laboratory in
Berlin with a letter of introduction from Donnan, each
name accompanied by nationality and research topic.
Nernst himself came out to say no; he “would not like
any Britishers to go round.” Later on a note came
addressed to Megh Nad Saha saying that Nernst would
allow the Indian students to see the laboratories because
“the last blow to the British empire would come from
India” (Ironically, the same Nernst took shelter in
England in 1935 after fleeing Nazi Germany).
EMPLOYMENT
Bhatnagar returned to India in 1921 to take up a
professorship at Benaras Hindu University on the
invitation of the founder Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya.
Bhatnagar took over from one Prof. Mane, an
undistinguished elderly person of about 55, who broke
down while handing over the keys to the new man,
because he had already held them for 15 years.
Magnanimously, Bhatnagar permitted him to remain
the head. “At the close of the meeting [of the Council]
the professors, pleased at Bhatnagar’s action, gathered
around him while Pt. Malaviya hugged him.” (What
the Council thought of Prof. Mane’s attachment to the
keys does not seem to be on record.) In Benaras
Bhatnagar focused on pure research which stood him in
good stead in his later industrial research. Interestingly,
when he learnt about a fellow professor’s plagiarism,
(xxii)
Bhatnagar “leapt on him and gave him a good
drubbing.” (The plagiarist later resigned.) While
bidding farewell to Bhatnagar, Pandit Madan Mohan
Malviya remarked that “whoever leaves Benaras has a
seat reserved for him in heaven.” Bhatnagar retorted
good-humouredly : “I agree with Malviyaji in the sense
that Benaras town being so dirty that whoever leaves
Benaras feels that he is going to a heavenly place.”
In 1924, 30-year old Bhatnagar took over as the
director of the newly opened University Chemical
Laboratories, Lahore, having been chosen in preference
to his rather ineffectual European competitor who had
been Bhatnagar’s teacher. Bhatnagar remained here till
1940. The laboratories addressed problems in industrial
and applied chemistry brought in by agriculturists and
industrialists, such as Sir Ganga Ram, an engineerturned
neo-agriculturist; Lala Shri Ram of Delhi; J K
Mills Kanpur; and Tata Oil Mills. The most celebrated
consultancy, of course, was the solution of the mud
problem brought in by Messers Steel Brothers & Co.,
London. The company, prospecting for oil in Punjab,
used mud to lubricate its drilling jigs. However as soon
as the mud came into contact with the underground salt
deposits, it coagulated, bringing the operations to a halt.
The other experts from the university, consulted by the
company, suggested several “chemical” and
“mechanical” methods which were all impractical. But
“the theoretical chemist – Dr. Bhatnagar – insisted from
the beginning that it was a simple problem in Colloid
Chemistry”. He added an Indian gum to the mud so that
(xxiii)
it would not harden on contact with salt. The company
was so pleased with the result that it offered Bhatnagar
the substantial sum of Rs.1, 50,000. Consistent with the
spirit of the times and his own idealism, Bhatnagar
converted this personal offer “largely to the benefit of
the University and research”, in the form of six research
scholarships for five years. (Synergy with research has
been the strength of Indian chemical industry ever
since.)
CSIR
The first world war had given a chance to Bhatnagar to
do a bit of consultancy on his own for a Lahore
stationer. The second world war (1939-1945) provided
him with an opportunity to build scientific
infrastructure for the country. So far, India’s industrial
backwardness had been Indians’ concern; war made it
Britain’s handicap. Export of raw material from and
import of finished goods into India stopped. At the
same time, India was called upon to take up the
responsibility of “supplying the technical equipment of
a modern army”. The government decided to tackle the
problem of “shortages and substitutes and war
requirements” in two ways: conducting research under
its own auspices; and more importantly funding
scientific and industrial research in centres outside the
government system. It was a foregone conclusion that
the British would leave India after the war. Indians
were already in important positions in government as
(xxiv)
well as in industry and science. Though still working
under British auspices, the Indians sought to dovetail
their country’s post-independence interests into the
British exigencies of war.
In December 1939 Dewan Bahadur Sir Arcot
Ramaswami Mudaliar, commerce member in the
Viceroy’s executive committee, visited Bhatnagar’s
laboratory in Lahore, was impressed by what he saw,
and advised the Viceroy that Bhatnagar be appointed to
head the government’s war-time science effort.
Bhatnagar stipulated that he should have at his disposal
a laboratory for research and that in addition his
Lahore-based research students, funded by Messers
Steel Brothers, be permitted to come along. This was
accepted and in August 1940 Bhatnagar took over as
Director, Scientific and Industrial Research. He was
based in Alipore, Kolkata, where a pre-existing
laboratory was refurbished for his use. (The laboratory
was shifted to Delhi University campus in December
1942, in view of the threat of Japanese invasion.)
In the meantime, on 1 April 1940, a purely advisory
body; Board of Scientific and Industrial Research
(BSIR), was set up with Mudaliar as ex-officio
chairman and a civil servant as the secretary. The Board
would receive research proposals from research
institutions, universities, industries and trades, and
advise the government “whether these proposals were
approved and if so what funds should be provided for
carrying them out.” A year later, on 14 November 1941,
the government agreed to sanction an annual amount of
(xxv)
Rs. 10 lakhs for five years towards establishing an
Industrial Research Fund for “fostering industrial
development in the country.” What was now needed
was a mechanism for utilizing this fund. Accordingly,
on 12 March 1942 a legal entity called a registered
society was set up in Delhi under the name Council of
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) with
Mudaliar as the ex-officio founder-president. On 26
September 1942, the government transferred the control
of the fund to the Council, at the same time making the
Board an advisory body to it. (26 September is now
celebrated as the CSIR foundation day.) In December
1943, the post of vice-president was created. Sir M.S.
Akbar Hydari, ICS, served as the vice-president till
1946. The first vice-president after independence was
Dr Syama Prasad Mukherjee who held office 1947-
1950.
By virtue of his position in the government,
Bhatnagar was the key figure in the Board and the
Council. It is noteworthy that in the early years,
formation of CSIR hardly made any impact. The setting
up of BSIR was seen as a landmark, because it was the
first time official funding was systematically
forthcoming for research being carried out by
individuals and organizations outside the government
system. CSIR was seen merely as a clearing house. It is
only much later when national laboratories were
established that CSIR came to acquire its distinctive
identity. (Interestingly, Norah Richards’ detailed and
authorized 1948 biography of Bhatnagar does not seem
(xxvi)
to make any mention of CSIR.) From the point of view
of later developments, an important date in the history
of CSIR is 29 February 1944, when the government
declared that “Rs. 1 crore will be forthcoming towards
capital expenditure on a chain of research institutions.”
The chain comprised five laboratories. Their foundation
stone was laid between December 1945 and April 1947:
Central Glass and Ceramics Research Institute, Kolkata
(CGCRI), 24 December 1945; Central Fuel Research
Institute, Dhanbad (CFRI), 17 November 1946;
National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur (NML),
21 November 1946; National Physical Laboratory,
Delhi (NPL), 4 January 1947; and National Chemical
Laboratory, Pune (NCL), 6 April 1947. Significantly
for four of these, support was forthcoming from
industry and trade. The house of Tatas gave a grant of
Rs 8.3 lakhs for NCL, with the reasonable condition
that it be located in Pune, within the Mumbai industrial
zone. (The Tata suggestion that the laboratory be
named after them did not find acceptance.) For NML,
the Tatas donated 30 acres of land in their steel city
Jamshedpur, backing the offer with a grant of Rs 11.7
lakhs. For CFRI located in the central Indian coal-belt,
Raja of Jharia, Babu Shiva Prasad Singha, donated
about 100 acres of land, which lay near the colliery of
the Tatas as well as the Model Town being built by
them. CGCRI received Rs 10,000 each from the Bengal
and the UP glass manufacturers’ associations. CGCRI
was headed by Dr Atma Ram, who began his career in
1936 as a chemical assistant at the much-maligned
(xxvii)
Industrial Research Bureau, and later (1966-1971) rose
to head the CSIR itself. For the futuristic NPL, Delhi
was chosen in preference to Kolkata partly on the
extraneous ground that this would enable the laboratory
“to keep in touch with the government.”
Interestingly the Punjab government was keen to
recall Bhatnagar after the war and make him the vicechancellor
of Punjab University, but the proposal fell
through because of the disinclination of the Union
government to relieve him. CSIR was transformed after
independence by Jawaharlal Nehru, who made the
Prime Minister ex-officio president of CSIR. (In this
respect, CSIR is unique in the country.) The five
laboratories sanctioned in 1944 were all opened
between January and November 1950, led by NCL,
Pune, which was inaugurated by Nehru on 3 January
1950, the occasion being provided by the holding of
Indian Science Congress. Significantly the first
laboratory planned after independence dealt with food,
and, equally significantly, was housed in a palace.
Thanks to the royal gift from government of what is
now Karnataka, Central Food Technological Research
Institute, Mysore (into which was merged the already
existing Indian Institute of Fruit Technology) was
ceremonially opened on 21 October 1950. During
Bhatnagar’s tenure as the Director-General (as the post
was later renamed), more specifically in the fiveyear
span 1950-1954, as many as 14 laboratories
were opened, acquired or had their foundation
stone laid. (These include the five sanctioned before
(xxviii)
independence.) Being the solitary scientific
organization of its time, CSIR nurtured many
initiatives. Thus, as early as 1946, it set up an Atomic
Research Committee under the chairmanship of Dr
Homi Bhabha, a step that culminated in the
establishment of Atomic Energy Commission. It funded
research on “biological aspects of atomic research”, and
extended financial support to “the Research Institute of
the Indian Academy of Sciences”, directed by Sir C.V.
Raman. The building of Physical Research Laboratory,
Ahmedabad, was designed by the Council architects.
As a sidelight it may be noted that the 1000 – capacity
auditorium of the National Physical Laboratory, Delhi,
was a major addition to the capital’s culture life. It was
opened in time (14 February 1952) for a violin concert
by Yehudi Menuhin, visiting India on Nehru’s
invitation. The auditorium also had the distinction of
hosting Indrani Rahman’s first dance performance in
Delhi.
Bhatnagar concurrently held a number of posts in
the Government. In 1948 and 1949 he worked as
Secretary to the ministry of education, and educational
adviser to the Government of India. He was chosen to
become the first secretary to the ministry of natural
resources and scientific research, which was set up in
1951. He was also Secretary of Atomic Energy
Commission and later became the Chairman of the
University Grants Commission. He received a number
of honours. In 1936, the British Government conferred
on him the Order of the British Empire. A disappointed
(xxix)
Bhatnagar was consoled by his friends that in his case
OBE stood for Oil Borer of the Empire. A bigger
honour came his way in 1941, when he was made the
Knight Bachelor. From a scientific point of view, great
recognition of his work came with the 1943 election as
a fellow of the Royal Society of London. Independent
India honoured him with a Padma Vibhushan in 1954.
THE END
A casualty of his hectic life was his health. While still
in Lahore, he “accidentally exposed his eyes to some
harmful radiation. As a result he was in great pain due
to damage to his eye balls… In later year he had to use
refined glycerine and rose water as prophylactic
measure.” Heart was a bigger problem than the eyes.
“Climbing up a stretch of hill, for attending the function
at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute of Tenzing
Norgay, made him gasp for breath. Dr. B.C. Roy, who
was already there, examined him and cautioned him not
to be so indiscreet with his over-strained heart.”
Bhatnagar died on 1 January 1955 after a massive heart
attack. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, whose feet
Bhatnagar had touched in 1942 when the former was
the Congress president and who now was Bhatnagar’s
minister, remarked: “I often felt that the effect of such
hard work might fell upon his health. Inspite of my
repeated requests, he would not, however, refrain from
his hard work. Last year, we sent him out in connection
with the work of scientific research. I extended his
(xxx)
deputation by two weeks and asked him to take
complete rest for a fortnight in Switzerland. I have no
doubt that this passion for work reduced the duration of
his life. Action was the breath of his life and he could
not live without work.”5
Mahendra Nath Sahai, Bhatnagar’s nephew by
marriage (see note 1) recalled on the occasion of
Bhatnagar’s birth centenary, in 1994: “In his personal
library, at his residence he had a large number of books
from leading scientists from all over the world. There
were a few books on other subjects such as psychology,
English literature, Urdu poetry etc. There was a book
on happy married life by Mary Stopes. Also books on
palmistry by Cheiro and Benhem. I used to avail of this
facility quite often. After acquiring some working
knowledge of palmistry, one day I asked him to show
me the palm of his right hand… The only strange thing
about the palm was that his heart and head lines were
completely merged forming a straight line right across
his palm. Sensing that I was a little puzzled, he asked
what was my interpretation? I quickly replied that this
shows that he will put his head and heart together in
whatever field of activity he undertook. He nodded to
agree. Now it was his turn to have a look at my hand.
He at once remarked that I had a girdle of Venus, and
that the goddess of love will influence my life and
advised that I should read Marie Stopes’ book in his
library.”6
“He regarded palmistry and jyotish as empirical
sciences and their followers as pseudo-scientist. I had
(xxxi)
heard from some old and well read persons that “Bhrigu
sanghyata” [should be samhita] written by Bhrighu
Rishi was the last word in jyotish. Though he seemed to
be sceptical about it, his curiosity was certainly
aroused. He mentioned this to his cousin, Mr Keshav
Sarup, who had a good knowledge of the Vedas. “Soon
after, he was put in touch with a Bhrigu Sanghyata
Pandit, who was furnished with the time and date of
Bhatnagar’s birth. The Pandit unrolled a long long [sic]
continuous paper strip. Finding the right text matching
Doctor Bhatnagar’s particulars, he read out that within
the next few months he [Bhatnagar] would be receiving
some big honour from government. Doctor Bhatnagar
told that the only big honour he could expect was a
Knighthood but that would be after a few years rather
than a few months. Keshav Sarup told me after several
years that Dr Bhatnagar had his greatest surprise in the
following month. Lord Linlithgow, on the advice of
Lord Wavell the then commander-in-chief, had
recommended Doctor Bhatnagar’s name for a
Knighthood.”7
Bhatnagar was a romantic at heart. He nursed the
hope that after retirement he and his wife would settle
in a village where he would take to farming and she to
gardening. He imagined he would be working in the
fields when his wife brought his lunch, carrying a pot of
butter milk on her head. Time left over from farming
would be devoted to chemistry and “service of Urdu”.
If chemistry was his passion, poetry was his retreat.
From his childhood, thanks to the literary atmosphere in
(xxxii)
his grandfather’s house, he had enjoyed listening to
poetry in “my own language” Urdu and took to writing
it himself. While travelling on holiday he would
compose verses on scraps of paper and pocket them.
His wife shared his poetic interest. Often on Sundays,
the Bhatnagars played host to poets, inviting them to
recite their poems and actively participating in the
proceedings. On her insistence he prepared his own
anthology for publication, but tragic-comically it was
mistaken for a money wallet and stolen by a petty thief
from the person of poet Faiz Jhanjhaanvi.
On his wife’s death in 1946, Bhatnagar was moved to discover that she had collected many of his poems and carefully preserved them. As a homage to her he got the anthology published, naming it Lajwanti after her, and giving his own name simply as Shanti (She had once expressed the poetic wish that if she were a book she would always remain in his sight). The anthology went into second edition in which some new poems were included (Nothing seems to be known about the original edition.)8 “On the whole, his verses are topical, humorous and reflective. Those written after the loss of his wife bear a tender wistfulness and the stamp of loneliness.”
Notes
Much of the information in this essay is taken from Norah Richards’ biography of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, reprinted
(xxxiii)
in the following. Official documents have been consulted on his CSIR days. This essay is an expanded version of Ref. 2
1. Narrated by Mahendra Nath Sahai, son of Bishwa Nath Sahai, whose sister Lajwanti was married to Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar. See Ref. 1, pp 12-13.
2. Ref. 1, p.13
3. Ref. 1, p.13
4. Ref. 1, pp. 14–15
5. Ref. 1, p.24
6. Ref. 1, pp 21–22
7. Ref. 1, pp 21–22
8. The above information is taken from the preface of Lajwanti;
See Ref. 3.
References
1. Kayastha Bhatnagar Sadar Sabha Hind. Dr. Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Centenary Year Celebrations (A-1, Ring Road, South Extension I, New Delhi 110049)
2. Kochhar, Rajesh (2002) Resonance 7, 82-89
3. Shanti (1946?) Lajwanti (in Urdu), 2nd edition (Lucknow: Naval Kishor Press) (No publication date is given, but forewords to the book are dated 1946)
