By M K Bhadrakumar
Source: http://www.atimes.com

Be it a baseball struck in a neighborhood sandlot game or in high-wire diplomacy, an elementary principle of physics holds good - what goes up must come down. In a way, the sheer dynamics of the nosedive of the United States' AfPak diplomacy in the four weeks since the London conference on Afghanistan on January 28 can be attributed to gravitational pulls.

sanyasis exemplify the purpose of human birth as Hindus - to understand the nature of the self. This knowledge or this understanding reveals to the individual the boundaries and the boundlessness of the self. sanyasis know the limits of not only the body but also the mind. Paradoxically, it is the limited mind which gives us the sense of limitlessness too and the sanyasi in saffron robes best represents this stunning paradox.

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of the book Eclipse of the Hindu Nation: Gandhi and his Freedom Struggle by Radha Rajan, New Age Publishers (P) Ltd., 2009

As retribution for the sentence of Transportation meted out to Ganesh Damodar (Babarao) Savarkar, Veer Savarkar’s elder brother and Dhingra’s martyrdom, the revolutionaries in Nashik, Anant Kanhere, Karve and Deshpande conspired and assassinated A.M.T. Jackson, the Collector of Nashik on 21 December 1909. Savarkar, in London at that time, developed double-pneumonia and was shifted to Dr. Muthu’s hospital in Wales to recuperate. In hospital Savarkar received a telegram from Shyamji Krishnavarma informing him of Jackson’s assassination. Following Dhingra’s assassination of Sir Curzon Wyllie, Savarkar was arrested at Victoria Station, London on 13 March 1910 when arriving from Paris on an Indian warrant, charging him with sedition and inciting to murder in India.