Choice in Chaos: A Wikipedian’S Autobiography

By Gangadhar Bhadani

Author Gangadhar Bhadani was once described by Jimmy Wales, cofounder of Wikipedia, as the most prolific Indian Wikipedian. He was in the top ten worldwide contributors for months.

In Choice in Chaos, Bhadani shares his life story, a tale spanning the six decades of his life so far. It features several streams that flow concurrently: autobiographical accounts and anecdotes, along with a number of select books that passed through his life with a golden streakhis activities, his contributions, and his experience as a Wikipedian. In colorful and candid language, Bhadani describes his childhood, adolescence, and multidimensional adulthood, painting a vivid picture of India along the way. At the age of fifty-five, he began to engage seriously with the English version of Wikipedia, and that connection has profoundly changed his life.

This unusual memoir presents the personal narrative of an Indian bank officer who has made extensive contributions to Wikipedia since 2005.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Mar 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781482888911

Gangadhar Bhadani

Gangadhar Bhadani is a retired bank officer and a prolific Wikipedian. Since his birth in 1951, he has lived in seventeen places in twenty-three different dwellings in many parts of India. He currently lives in Harmu Housing Colony, Ranchi (Jharkhand State), India.

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Copyright © 2017 by Gangadhar Bhadani.

ISBN:      Softcover        978-1-4828-8892-8

                eBook            978-1-4828-8891-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/india

Contents

An Ode

Preface & Acknowledgements

1 Arrah Zila Ghar Ba

2 Kalimati To Tatanagar

3 Tirhut – Vaishali And Mithila

4 Shadow Of Vikramshila

5 Summer Capital

6 Patna University

7 Indraprastha To Mayanagri

8 Land Of Five Rivers

9 The Grand Chord

10 Nine Months Of Madhuyamini

11 A Village Is Everything

12 Karharbari Coal Veins

13 Be Bold But Not Overbold

14 Big, Bright And Beautiful

15 Parkinsonnites Playing Pranks

16 Champanagar And The Anga

17 A Mahuri In Magadha

18 All Roads Lead To The Silk Road

19 Better Than The Best Blockhead

20 Across The Vindhyas

21 Armenian Street To Mount Road

22 The Indian French Reverie

23 Not Exactly Rural

24 Johar Jharkhand

Appendix I - Wiki Conference India

Appendix II - Glossary

To my parents

Hari Ram and Panna Devi

AN ODE

When sitting still and moving deep within

In the ashram playground I, had a vision indeed

Two beams of light – white and blue – glowing from the earth

Reaching to the sky infinite made my being shine and ignite

My being passed through Europe, Eurasia, Australia, and Americas,

It passed thorough Asia, Africa and the Antarctica

My physical existence of last several millennia probably passed within minutes

When sitting still and moving deep within

Ultimately my physical being reached the celestial sand of the Ashram playground

There it melted and settled prostrate at the feet of the glowing divine beams of light

I lost my physical presence, felt nothing but a void within

The void was then filled with the divine grace – and,

At this moment light drizzles commenced

The water drops cooled the melted me

But the glowing beams of light gave warmth within

The vision unfolded and the mist rolled over

Yes, indeed – the beams of light were the Aditi and the Avatar

The infinite presence and the bountiful Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

My eyes opened at that moment and I saw Sri Aurobindo

Walking across the room in front – the divine graceful walk

The divine sight before me made me mesmerized and hypnotized

The drops of Varsha from the sky soaked me externally

While the divine in front of me filled my being with Ish-krupa internally

At that moment, I knew that my prayers have been accepted

Dusky light surrounding the environment around was gone

When the lights were switched on one after another

I could see the divine Avatar was still walking across the room

The time has now come for me to return to the world

And, I left the Ashram playground with a celestial sensation within

The definite feel of the divine krupa all around me and enveloping my being

By Gangadhar Bhadani

PREFACE & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

India is not only Thekkady (a National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary) or Taj Mahal, or just a Kashmir valley or a Kovalam beach. India is a living organism. At times it mutates but it always regenerates itself. The spirit of India is indivisible.

Apart from having archaeological and historical destinations, a rich cultural legacy in great diversity, India is home to 1.25 billion human beings constituting around 18% of the humanity living across the globe. Each of them, like any other person on the surface of the globe, has his or her own story. Everyone encounters biographies, autobiographies, memoirs and reminiscences of the rich and the famous. We always find a Julius Caesar writing his Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic Wars). Pyramids of books and papers are available on pharaohs and their pyramids, but even a microscopic search may not result into a small story about those who really designed and built the pyramids. Nevertheless, human civilization is the result of common man and woman living across the street, in many unknown destinations, unheard nooks and corners of the planet called earth. I am among them and I have created this content to share my story with the world, with my fellow human beings. This is my story, a person who was born 65 years before, lived in 17 places and 24 dwellings across India – it is the story of a child playing in the neighbourhood playground, a boy bicycling to his school, an adolescence studying and preparing for his university degree, a person working as a bank officer. At the age of around 55, I picked up a live-in relationship with English Wikipedia, turned myself almost upside down and became a Wikipedian, and thus a true citizen of the world, striving along with countless other Wikipedians across all the time zones to create free knowledge for all.

My story is simple but it has many dimensions. It is definitely different from other autobiographies. CHOICE IN CHAOS: A Wikipedian’s Autobiography is probably the first attempt by an English Wikipedian to share his life story. It is a collection of my memoirs and reminiscences from my early years till almost five years after my retirement from my bank job – a life story spanning more than six decades (1951 till 2016) which I have endevoured to encapsulate using a distinct narrative technique. Three streams concurrently flow, autobiographical accounts and anecdotes along with a number of select reads – books, magazines and periodicals – which passed through my life with a golden streak – my activities, my contributions, and my experience as an English Wikipedian. All these three streams, at times mingle and sometimes flow distinctly, and form the content of the autobiography.

My younger siblings, and their spouses always desired to know the past and the content also belongs to them: my brothers, Ajay and his wife, Sunita and their children, Harsh and Priyesh; Kamlesh and his wife, Bharati and their children, Gyan (and his wife, Shivangi) and Madhur; as also to my sisters, Usha (Munni), Pushpa, Asha and their husbands, Bharat, Binay, and Dr. Deepak.

I convey my thanks to all well wishers and friends (including my Facebook friends) for their encouragement and suggestions. I also convey my thanks to Rashmi, my wife for bearing with me happily for the months when the content was in formative stage; my love and best wishes to my daughters, Jayashree and Rajshree for transcribing a large volume of recorded transcripts. I also thank my younger brother, Ajay Kumar Bhadani for having a glance at the manuscripts despite his busy academic life. My experience with Partridge India is awesome, and I sincerely thank everyone for their support and guidance through the publishing process, particularly to Farrina Gailey, Senior Publishing Consultant and Pohar Baruah, Publishing Service Associate.

Basant Panchami

1

ARRAH ZILA GHAR BA

Heaven lies about us in our infancy. – William Wordsworth

I ndependent India is probably a misnomer. India has always remained independent but the rulers, kings, emperors and dynasties that ruled India had changed over millennia. Just a couple of years before my birth in Arrah in August 1951, colonial rulers of India had left India, entrusting its destiny to a political outfit that they believed would protect their legacy, interests and the system which they had created during their indirect and direct rule of around 200 years. Within years a new India was presented to its citizens in the form of a republic, the Republic of India wrapped around an aura of a constitution, the Constitution of India. A sense of having arrived and reached a milestone pervaded the nation; a sense of euphoria gripped the land. During our childhood, during our school years and many years thereafter, I thought that India had own ‘independence’ on account of a non-violent movement. In a sense, like the former USSR, China and many countries of the communist bloc of the east Europe, India was also ruled initially after its ‘independence’ by a single party with negligible presence of opposition elements, and this created a monopoly over state apparatus including educational set up.

It was after many years when I was almost past 30 that I could understand that though India’s independence movement looked non-violent, India’s freedom was soaked in blood, and it had taken its own toll, albeit in a different way. The partition of India on religious line has resulted into large scale human misery and violation of human rights. Redcliff Line drawn by Sir Cyrill Radcliffe was an artificial partition of the aspirations of the Indians and the Indian nation. It was natural that such artificial partition resulted into negative consequences: the partition was followed by one of the largest population transfer in human history, around 15 millions, with all the attendant miseries and misfortunes; religious violence took its own toll of men, women and children believed to be between 2 lakhs to 20 lakhs. This was the cost of ‘independence’ which many still believe to be the result of non-violent means. At the age of around 65, I still find myself in a strange land, panting for independence and its 1.25 billion people still shackled by unfathomable divide of religion, caste, creed, dogma, hypocrisy, bigotry, regional and sub-regional and linguistic squabbles.

At the time of my birth, my father was posted as a Commercial Taxes Superintendent (at that time designation for a district head of indirect taxes collected by the state of Bihar) of Shahabad district, Bihar state, India.

Arrah is located on the confluence of the Ganges and Sone rivers and is about 58 km from Patna, Bihar, India. Arrah was the headquarters of Shahabad district. Shahabad is one of the oldest districts of Bihar, and once upon a time, hardly 50 years before my birth, it was part of the province of Bengal of British India which consisted of thirty-three districts, namely, Burdwan, Birbhum, Bankura, Midnapore, Hugli, Howrah, Twenty-four Parganas, Calcutta, Nadia, Murshidabad, Jessore, Khulna, Patna, Gaya, Shahabad, Saran, Champaran, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Monghyr, Bhagalpur, Purnea, Santal Parganas, Cuttack, Balasore, Angul and Khondmals, Puri, Hazaribagh, Ranchi, Palamau, Manbhum, Singhbum and Sambalpur, and the native states of Sikkim and the tributary states of Orissa and Chota Nagpur. While growing up I learnt that as my father had already completed three years of posting as a Superintendent of Commercial Taxes, he was required to do a stint of three years as a Treasury Officer, and hence was transferred to Hazaribagh as a Treasury Officer of Hazaribagh district. The family was shifted to Hazaribagh during the peak of winter when I was just four months old.

Original Shahabad district has since been bifurcated into four districts, namely, Bhojpur, Rohtas, Kaimur, and Buxar. When I became a Wikipedian, almost fifty-five years after my birth, I added on 8 August 2005, a new stub to English Wikipedia about Battle of Buxar: Battle of Buxar (October 1764) was a significant battle fought between the forces under the command of the East India Company on the one side, and the combined armies of Mir Kasim, the Nawab of Bengal; Nawab of Oudh; and Shah Alam II, the Mughal Emperor. The battle fought at Buxar, a town (currently in Bihar state, India) located on the bank of the Ganges river, was a decisive battle won by the forces of the East India Company. The battle resulted into securing of Diwani rights to administer the collection and management of revenues of large areas which currently form parts of Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh. The Battle of Buxar heralded the establishment of the rule of the East India Company in East India. The page continues to grow by contributions from many editors.

CIC%201.jpg

My parents, Hari Ram and Panna Devi (1978)

For me Shahabad district has always remained Shahabad, and its headquarters Arrah probably derives its name from the Sanskrit word, Aranay, meaning forests. Raja Bhoj was a legendary ruler of these lands and the local language of the area, Bhojpuri is based on his name and is spoken in the regions once ruled by him. One of the famous Bhojpuri proverbs, Arrah Zila Ghar Ba, Kaun Baat Ke Dar Ba, eulogizes the great spirit of Bhojpuri people and articulates the confidence which they have based on their mental, material, and spiritual attainments. These regions have remained a prosperous parcel of land. The proverb literally conveys that when you belong to Arrah you need not fear anything. I heard this proverb many time during my childhood uttered in many contexts, and these words are ingrained in my psyche that kept me afloat despite encountering a variety of negative swings during the course of my life.

These lands also find mention is in many ancient Hindu texts and scriptures. Annihilation of Tarka, a Yakshi princess turned demoness, is one of the best known stories. She was beautiful but had certain grievances against the sages as they had cursed her father. She along with her son Subahu used to disturb Yajnas performed by ancient sages. Vishwamitra asked Rama and Lakshmana to kill Tarka which they did as their martial duties to protect the sages. Though not connected with Tarka in anyway, this reminds me of Didarganj Yakshi about which I had added a new 81-word stub to English Wikipedia on 15 January 2006 reading as, Didarganj Yakshi is a fine example of Indian art. The sculpture is currently housed in Patna Museum, Patna, India, and is India’s most famous piece of art. This piece of art has been specially displayed in several museums across the world, including the Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA. It is estimated to be at least 2000 years old; and is carved out of a single piece of stone. It looks life like, and has exquisite carvings. The stub has grown beautifully like the subject it tells about.

In nearer term, the story of Babu Kunwar Singh’s legendary fight with the British is well documented. Sometimes in Wikipedia, two similar articles are not merged properly. This mostly happens inadvertently and due to absence of appropriate skills and experience. At times, there is deletion of an existing article to replace it with another one with same topic with a variation of article name. In some instances, original article is completely deleted and new article is created on the same topic with exactly the same name or almost same name. However, such things are rare and a corollary of an encyclopaedia that runs on common sense (which is actually an uncommon commodity) and ‘consensus’. Babu Kunwar Singh was deleted though I had created it long back on 11 July 2005, and the original page has these words, Babu Kunwar Singh (b. 1777 – d. 1857) belonged to a Rajput royal house of Jagdishpur, currently a part of Sasaram district, Bihar state, India. At the age of 90 years, during India’s First War of Independence (1857-1858), he actively led a select band of armed soldiers against the troops under the command of the British Raj, and also recorded victories in many battles. In his last battle, fought on 23 April, 1858, near Jagdishpur, the troops under the control of the British Raj were completely routed. To honour his memory and his contribution to India’s freedom movement, the Republic of India issued a commemorative stamp on 23rd April, 1966. It is interesting to note that another article by another user (Wikipedia) was created with the same name on 2 December 2008!

I do have some of the earliest reminiscences of my childhood in Hazaribagh. These reminiscences have remained ingrained in my mind and surface from time to time. A human being is a creature encapsulated in his past. Despite all attempts one does not forget many things and probably every incident, every word, every scene, sight and smell continue to reside, consciously and sub-consciously, like granite granules inside one’s psyche not to be destroyed despite all efforts.

I have a very sketchy memory of a flag hoisting ceremony. It may be of the Republic Day 1955. I see bright sunshine and find myself along with my elder brother, Uday Shankar. We are dressed in white shirts and pants, with matching shocks and shoes. Some flower beds are there, and I see many persons surrounding my father. I see our national flag, our pride flirting fantastically. I do also remember fishermen catching fishes from a pond near our house. When I grew up I heard from my grandmother and mother that I liked milk. I insisted that the glass should be full to the brim, and then balancing the glass with both hands, squatting on the floor, would drink the milk. I also liked fresh milk cream with sugar or honey. Apart from consuming milk in the morning and evening, I had developed a fancy for milk and roti and that constituted my dinner. When I was a grown up boy of around fifteen, once I went to Shushila chachi’s house and she served me dinner of milk and roti. To her disappointment, I told her, ‘Chachi, I have stopped taking this regularly as a dinner, but take it only occasionally." Shushila chachi was wife of one of my father’s brothers, Ram Sharan Ram.

I also recollect a big tree near our house. It sheltered many birds and during mornings I listened to their chirpings. On late afternoons, a teacher taught children sitting under the tree but everything was Greek to me. But I picked up a fancy to recite multiplication table (in Hindi) along with children older than me. It was fun and I was able to learn multiplication table almost up to twenty in this manner without even recognizing numbers and learning counting. Once my schooling was started in Tatanagar, I was able to learn addition, subtraction, multiplication and division very fast.

I heard from my elder brother, Uday Shankar that sometimes, my father would take us to Officers’ Club, Hazaribagh. I do not recollect anything except a vague remembrance of going there. Later on I came to know from my father that in the administrative set up of British India, Deputy Commissioner (District Magistrate), Superintendent of Police (SP) and District Judge formed the highest echelon of power, all of them mostly being British. This triumvirate was followed by Additional District Magistrate, hardly one or may be two in a district, and other functionaries like Deputy Superintendent of Police, Sub-Divisional Magistrates, Deputy Collectors, sub-Deputy Collectors and other lower functionaries. Treasury Officer was a district level officer and he also enjoyed a little privilege as custodian of government’s money. The administrative net work intentionally remained away from the masses. The Officers’ Club was a closed gathering of these officers though some prominent local persons were also allowed. After two decades, when I was working in Hazaribagh in 1975, this club was still functional and once or twice I went there along with some local friends.

The chubbiest books in our home, when I was growing up at Hazaribagh, were War Speeches of Winston Churchill (a three-volume set). This set never interested me as I did not find any picture. However, during my school and college days, I read some speeches to improve my English at the promptings of my father. The book consolidates War Speeches of Churchill, delivered by him mostly during the currency of the Second World War 1939-45. However, the first speech included in the volume was delivered at the Free Trade Hall on 9 May 1938 about the revival of German militarism and the rise of Hitler – a warning which few heeded and many ridiculed. The Second World War started on 1 September, 1939, hardly within 15 months of that historical speech. Some of the best speeches, which are now easily searchable on Google, are part of about 1,700 pages comprising the set, and include: 1) Blood, toil, tears and sweat, 2) We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and 3) This was their finest hour. Two decades after while working as Branch head of Bank of India, Thakurgaon branch (Ranchi district, Jharkhand, India) during 1970s, this set was also part of my ‘reading fodder’ along with scores of other books.

It is interesting to share the story about ‘acquisition’ of this book by my father. When I grew up a little, I heard, in titbits, many things from my parents including about this set. My parents had gone to Jhumri Telaiya (Koderma) to attend marriage of my mother’s brother, Doman Ram Tarway. I was almost a toddler at that time. My parents stayed in the residence of another Bhadani family of Jhumri Telaiya who were known as Mica Kings. Mica Kings refer to a business house, which took shape in the early twentieth century, in Koderma, Jharkhand state, India. During early years of the twentieth century, two enterprising young men, not directly related to each other, but having a common surname, Bhadani – one, Chhattu Ram Bhadani and the other, Horil Ram Bhadani - joined hands and commenced building a mica mining and exporting venture. This business venture within a short span of hardly two decades, from the period of the First World War (1914–1919), and the intervening period, till the Second World War (1939–1945) had emerged as a business empire, which, at a point of time, controlled the largest share of mica mining and exporting activity in the World.

My mama married a beautiful girl, Shakti, daughter of Shyama Kant Lall, an erstwhile progressive zamindar. Another marriage of a girl from the family of Mica Kings was also solemnized probably on the same day. My parents attended both the marriages. However, this story has two more interesting dimensions. While staying in the palatial mansion of Mica Kings, my father started reading the War Speeches of Winston Churchill (then comprising a set of seven volumes), and the speeches fascinated him, as he reminisced many years later. During the course of the Second World War, he was a student of Patna Science College. He requested one ‘Mr. Someone’ from the family of Mica Kings to get a copy of the set. During his next trip to England ‘Mr. Someone’ brought the set but it had become consolidated in a three-volume set. In the meanwhile, my father had moved to Tatanagar on his transfer. The set was delivered to him by a munshi of ‘Mr. Someone’. The second dimension is more interesting. The ‘girl’ from the family of Mica Kings was Saroj. She was married to Vijay Kant Lall of erstwhile Hasua estate of Gaya district. After around twenty-one years, the eldest daughter of that ‘girl’, Rashmi, was married to me in June 1975. Life is really unpredictable in many ways and no one knows how it shall unfold over a period of time!

2

KALIMATI TO TATANAGAR

I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing, when they who are so fresh from God, love us. – Dickens.

I t was summer of 1955, when my father was transferred from Hazaribagh to Tatanagar as Superintendent of Commercial Taxes. By 1955 Tatanagar had acquired all the characteristics of a mini cosmopolitan city populated from people from different parts of the Indian subcontinent, from diverse cultures, religious traditions and speaking different languages – but forming a distinct fusion, Tatanagar culture. Tatanagar was a dream city conceptualized by Jamshetji Nusserwanji Tata (1839-1904), a visionary, who had said in 1904, " Be sure to lay wide streets planted with shady trees, every other of a quick growing variety. Be sure that there is plenty of space for lawns and gardens; reserve large areas for football, hockey and parks; earmark areas for Hindu temples, Mohammedan mosques and Christian