chaotic order

The Millennials of India may not know T. N. Seshan. It is possible that many were born just after the cataclysmic changes this daring civil servant brought to the Indian electoral system, the undaunted courage he displayed in encountering and altering the perception of what an Election really means in a democracy, and the seminal role he played in exposing the deeply entrenched arrogance and audacity of unrestrained political power. If the younger generation experienced a much more organized, sane and law-abiding election in 2019, it is so because this strict brahmin took it upon himself to reform and revise the way elections were run in India. Between the years of 1990 - 1996, T. N. Seshan was the rockstar of the Indian bureaucracy. As Election Commissioner, his name was splashed on the front pages of mainstream new papers, and almost every day Seshan's official actions or deliberate straight no-nonsense talk would provoke an angered politician to denounce him on the pulpit, o

( Note to the reader: This is a lengthy essay, easily a twenty-minute read - if not more. I wrote this while waiting for my flight to take off from New Jersey on Thursday night. Will and Ariel Durant passed away within two weeks of each other between October 23rd and November 9th, 1981. I consider myself fortunate to have read Durant's fascinating work early enough, and be transformed by it. In a joint-life spanning nearly seventy years, the Durants wrote and lectured profusely. Many of their initial works are out of print and available only at rare-books stores at high prices. I am again privileged to own and to have read most of them, but few are still eluding my intense search. I owe my intellectual interests and development to the Durants. When I realized it was October 24th, and I had about two hours of time, I quickly wrote this piece condensing the story of my first acquaintance with Durant's work, and the story of their lives as best as I could remember without note