By Madhusree Chatterjee,IANS,
New Delhi : He is a Sufi spiritualist, an editor, columnist and a writer with eight books to his credit. And Ruzbeh N. Bharucha believes in the power of free will and that there are two parallel worlds — the body and the spirit.
“Everything cannot be restrained. Heavens do not appreciate puppets,” the 43-year-old Mumbai-based writer of “Fakir: The Journey Continues”, who was in the capital to promote his book, told IANS.
“The Fakir…” reflects the writer’s spiritual ideology. It narrates the story of an itinerant, Rudra, and a ‘fakir or baba’ (seer) who guides him through levels of existence into the realm of afterlife. Rudra, a seeker, transforms into the lover and begins to comprehend the ancient philosophy of “free will”.
It is the sequel to his 2007 best-seller “The Fakir”.
“I always knew that this was going on all my life – there were two parallel worlds, the body and the spirit,” the writer said.
Bharucha, whose career as a writer began with the “The Last Marathon” – a journey into the world of paranormal – has explored both the spiritual and real world in his books.
Four of his books, “The Fakir”, “The Last Marathon”, “Devi’s Emerald” and “Rest in Pieces” probe the esoteric psychological and metaphysical spaces while his non-fiction works are “Shadows in Cages” about mother and child in Indian prisons and “Yamuna Gently Weeps”, a chronicle of the journey into the Yamuna Pushta slum demolition.
A documentary, “Sehat…Wings of Freedom”, is the story of the HIV/AIDS awareness programme in the Tihar prison.
“The Last Marathon”, Bharucha’s debut book, began on an unusual note – a cross wire.
“I was editing a travel, holistic healing and liquor magazine before I took on ‘The Last Marathon’. I was fired by the publisher after a tiff,” Bharucha said.
“I met the publisher of Jaico (a Mumbai-based publishing house), who said ‘why don’t you write a non-fiction about spirits. I thought he was talking about spirits – but he meant liquor. He wanted me to write a chapter on hangover. But later, he changed his mind and said my idea was better,” Bharucha recalled.
He started researching for the book. “I read Adam Brady’s ‘Warriors of Light’. And started meeting ‘sadhus’ (Hindu seers) and mediums who channel spirits, though I have practised Sufism all my life. They said once you are on this road, you have to take this path. That was the beginning of ‘The Last Marathon’,” he said.
Gradually after a year, the predictions of the seers began to bear fruit, Bharucha said. “I became a seance channelling spirits. Whatever you read in ‘Fakir’ revolves around my experiences in the field for the last 13 years,” he said.
The “Devi’s Emerald” is based on the “experiences of a seer, Ma Mookambika Devi, and her medium Swamiji Nayak who taught her to channel the energy inside one’s own self”.
“After that, I wrote two social books and made a documentary on juvenile delinquency. ‘Fakir’ came about in a restless state of mind. I was nursing a restlessness – and it just flowed through. I did not plan it,” Bharucha said.
According to the author, the “book was a gift from the Sai Baba of Shirdi”.
“I wrote the first part of ‘Fakir’ in 2007 and the second just before the Diwali of 2010. The first part of the book is about journey and the second part is about well-being,” Bharucha said.
“Ninety percent of our actions are pre-ordained and 10 percent of it is free will. But the 10 percent is as important as the 90 percent – because the 10 percent creates the future ‘karma’,” he added.
A votary of free will, the author believes “we are all spirits encased in a box”.
Bharucha is busy conceiving a book on “home schooling”. It has been inspired by his three-and-a-half-year-old daughter.
“Each one of us has inherent strength, weaknesses, capabilities and hardships. When you let a child use its free will and don’t confine it in a packaged programme of school, you give the child a platform to discover his or her inherent being. From thereon, it is the parents’ job to encourage and motivate the child,” he said.