Recently, i picked up a popular book called “Freedom at midnight” by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre from my grandfather’s huge collection. The pages had already turned yellow but it somehow gave me a more zest to go through the book. Going through the book was quite an eye opener. Most of us think/have been taught at high school that Lord Mountbatten was sent to divide our nation. Though this book says that he was actually sent to put up a solid plan to help India from dividing!!!
Lord Mountbatten also had proposed the day of India’s freedom in a haste and that actually had created huge controversy back home. Although this post throws light on the controversy it created in India.
i surely suggest you to read the book as it covers so much from the Indian politics, Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru and of course a few things we never knew. here is one of them. This happens to be my favourite.
Chapter number 8, “A DAY CURSED BY STARS”.
“Nowhere, however, did his choice of the date of 15th august for India’s independence cause as much surprise and consternation as it did in the ranks of a corporation which ruled the lives of millions of Hindus with a tyranny more oppressive than that of English, congress, and maharajas combined. Mountbatten had commited the unpardonable fault of announcing his choice without first having consulted representatives of the most powerful occult body in India, the jyotishis , the astrologers.”
“As soon as the radio announced Mountbatten’s date, Astrologers all over India began to consult their charts. Those in the holy city of Benaras and several others in the south immediately proclaimed 15 August a date so inauspicious that India ‘would better advised to tolerate the British one day longer than risk eternal damnation’.
in Calcutta, Swami Madananand on listening to the date rushed to his celestial charts and started making calculations
“…….”from midnight, 14th August throughout 15 August, Saturn, Jupiter and Venus would lie in the most accursed site of the heavens, the ninth house of Karamstahn.”
“What have they done? What have they done?” he shouted to the heavens whose machinations were interpreted for man.
“Despite the discipline acquired in years of yoga, meditation and tantric studies in a temple in the hills of Assam the astrologer lost control lost control of himself. Seizing a piece of paper he sat down and wrote an urgent appeal to the man inadvertently responsible for this celestial catastrophe.”
” ‘For the love of God,’ he wrote to Louis Mountbatten, ‘do not give India her independence on 15 August. If floods, drought, famine and massacres follow, it will be because free India was born on a day cursed by the stars.’ “
As i read ahead, it also stated that the Indians were ready to give up freedom for another year just because of a date….
With due respect to the Indian traditions, cultures and astrology, i some how feel weird when i read such things. Just reminded me of the 1st test match between India and south Africa at Chennai. on the second day evening almost every national news channel had astrologers sitting with charts/ cards/ insight… and everyone, yes all of them said Sehwag would go up the next day and hit the world record maximum score ever(some 400 something… don’t even remember).oh you know the result don’t you? We are so much entangled in these things that we actually force our thinking, our action. Last when did your family(or your neighbor’s for name sake) went up to a local pundit with a ‘janampatri’?, or when was it last that some famous astrologer said that the World was coming to an end?.
“Create Life!!!”
Tickle your funny bone:
Just a few of my favourites:
“The maharaja of Alwar was a man of such charm and culture that he had been able to seduce a succession of Viceroys into tolerating his activities. he happened to believe he was a reincarnation of the God Rama. As a result he constantly wore black silk gloves to protect his divine fingers from contaminating touch of mortal flesh…..”
No offences again!!! 
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