harivanshrai bachchan

I finally finished reading the 4th part of Harivansh Rai Bachchans Autobiography Dashdwaar Se Sopaan Tak. I first came across his autobiography in an exhibition when I was looking for something to read in Hindi. I had read his Madhushala but I was not aware of the autobiography. When I saw that it was in four volumes, I was not sure whether i am going to read it completely, but still decided to take the first volume Kya Bhooloon Kya Yaad Karoon. That was many years ago. After that I had been reading it and once I finished one book, I bought the next one and so on and finally I finished reading the last volume recently.

This last book was of particular interest to me for many reasons. In this book he has written a lot about his son Amitabh Bachchans movie career and I wanted to read about it from the only authentic source possible since Amitabh himself has not written any book on himself. This book also has a lot of information about Bachchans closeness with Nehru Gandhi family and how the two families were together in good and bad times. But most important of all, this book is about the courage of a man who at that age was so candid and truthful about his life and events that it ends up shocking you.

There are just too many things which remain with you after you have read the book but I will try to give a few examples. He is very fond of his family but does not mind passing a curt remark if he feels like it. He has written about the obsession of his female fans or his ruined friendships with his poet friends. When we read the complete book, you just feel very respectful for his courage and honesty. The fact of the matter is that the one who does not have anything to hide is probably the most honest person on earth and that part comes out very well through this book.Now coming to the language of the book. It is written in very good literary hindi which is sometimes difficult for me as well despite having Hindi as my mother tongue. It also highlights his literary journey. I did not know that he wrote Gita in the poem form of Ramcharitmanas. He was truly the master of Hindi Literature and to think that he used to teach English and did his PHd in English poetry on Yeats. Probably, that is why Amitabh has such a beautiful dual language fluency. Overall, a great book by a great man.

One of his inspirational poems, Agneepath (Path of fire), was used as the theme (and its title as the title) for the 1991 blockbuster movie featuring his actor son Amitabh Bachchan, as a ruthless mafia don. This movie was a failure commercially but earned Amitabh Bachchan a National Award for his performance. You can see Amitabh narrating the poem through out the movie.The poem describes the entire gamut of sufferings that the human race had gone through and is going through.

When interpreting a natal chart, the best method is to start gradually from general features to specific ones. Thus, there is usually a plan to be followed, from the overall analysis of the chart and its structure, to the description of its different character traits.In the first part, an overall analysis of the chart enables us to figure out the personalitys main features and to emphasize several points that are confirmed or not in the detailed analysis in any case, those general traits are taken into account. Human personality is an infinitely intricate entity and describing it is a complex task. Claiming to rapidly summarize it is illusory, although it does not mean that it is an impossible challenge. It is essential to read a natal chart several times in order to absorb all its different meanings and to grasp all this complexity. But the exercise is worthwhile.

In brief, a natal chart is composed of ten planets two luminaries, the Sun and the Moon, three fast moving or individual planets, Mercury, Venus and Mars, two slow moving planets, Jupiter and Saturn, and three very slow moving planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Additional secondary elements are the Lunar Nodes, the Dark Moon or Lilith, Chiron and other minor objects. They are all posited on the Zodiac wheel consisting of twelve signs, from Aries to Pisces, and divided into twelve astrological houses.The first step is to evaluate the importance of each planet. This is what we call identifying the dominant planets. This process obeys rules that depend on the astrologers sensitivity and experience but it also has precise and steady bases thus, we can take into account the parameters of a planets activity (the number of active aspects a planet forms, the importance of each aspect according to its nature and its exactness), angularity parameters; (proximity to the four angles, Ascendant, Midheaven, Descendant and Imum Coeli or Nadir, all of them being evaluated numerically, according to the kind of angle and the planet angle distance) and quality parameters (rulership, exaltation, exile and fall). Finally, other criteria such as the rulership of the Ascendant and the Midheaven etc. are important.

These different criteria allow a planet to be highlighted and lead to useful conclusions when interpreting the chart.The overall chart analysis begins with the observation of three sorts of planetary distributions in the chart Eastern or Western hemisphere, Northern or Southern hemisphere, and quadrants (North eastern, North western, South eastern and South western). These three distributions give a general tone in terms of introversion and extraversion, willpower, sociability, and behavioural predispositions.Then, there are three additional distributions elements (called triplicity since there are three groups of signs for each one) Fire, Air, Earth and Water corresponding to a character typology, modality (or quadruplicity with four groups of signs for each one) Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable and polarity (Yin and Yang).

There are three types of dominants dominant planets, dominant signs and dominant houses. The novice thinks astrology means only to be Aries or sometimes, for example, to be Aries Ascendant Virgo. It is actually far more complex. Although the Sun and the Ascendant alone may reveal a large part of the character approximately a third or a half of your psychological signature, a person is neither just the Sun (called the sign) nor just the first house (the Ascendant). Thus, a particular planets influence may be significantly increased; a particular sign or house may contain a group of planets that will bring nuances and sometimes weaken the role of the Ascendant, of the Sun sign etc.Lastly, there are two other criteria accentuations (angular, succedent and cadent) which are a classification of astrological houses and types of decanates that are occupied (each sign is divided into three decanates of ten degrees each). They provide some additional informations.

These general character traits must not be taken literally; they are, somehow, preparing for the chart reading. They allow to understand the second part of the analysis, which is more detailed and precise. It focuses on every area of the personality and provides a synthesis of all the above mentioned parameters according to sound hierarchical rules.Warning when the birth time is unknown, which is the case for Harivansh Rai Bachchan, a few paragraphs become irrelevant; distributions in hemispheres and quadrants are meaningless, so are dominant houses and houses accentuations. Therefore, some chapters are removed from this part.For all paragraphs, the criteria for valuation are calculated without taking into account angles and rulerships of the Ascendant and of the Midheaven. The methodology retains its validity, but it is less precise without a time of birth.

You seek other peoples attention and approval, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, you need to exteriorize your emotions, to interpret them, and even to dramatically enact them because it is essential for you to shine at the front of the stage. You always try to achieve more and better than anyone else and, whatever the situation may be, you strive to remain warm, generous, loyal, honest, straightforward and courageous. You are always available when your assistance or your advice is needed and you are glad and proud to help. However, you must be wary not to overdo, as you may be domineering! You are not indispensable and people might think that you are self centered and authoritarian when you handle things with no regard for your entourages views. It would be regrettable that you project such an image because it may only reveal a lack of self confidence and you are only trying to reassure yourself.

You are the very type of the researcher endowed with great intellectual and imaginative capacities, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and your curiosity is very deep. Researches, riddles and mysteries appeal to you and with a remarkable sixth sense and intuition, you endlessly try to unearth the truth, in all areas, like a psychoanalyst or a detective. You are a very secretive and introverted person, you find it difficult to open up and you rather prefer psychoanalysis. In spite of your clear sightedness, you find it hard to deal with people your critical mind, tinted with irony and causticity, may be destructive, especially since your determination and your stubbornness do not incline you to giving up. You are fond of provocations and you handle contradictions skilfully even though you may come across as dishonest.

At the age of 95, in 2003, Harivansh Rai Bachchan breathed his last. He was suffering from respiratory ailments. Four years later his wife passed away at the age of 93.