The Firefly’s Consolation

Speaker: Ramchandra Gandhi
Moderator: Prabodh Parikh

March 22, 2004 | 6.30 pm
Little Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai

Born in Chennai, in 1937, Ramchandra Gandhi studied philosophy in India and England, receiving doctoral degrees in philosophy from Delhi (1966) and Oxford (1971) Universities.

He has been Professor of Comparative Philosophy and Religion at various Universities in India and abroad. He is currently engaged in a number of writing projects and is teaching a workshop on the ‘Bhagvadgita’ in Delhi.

A subcontinental Indian, and a devotee of Sri Ramana Maharshi, Ramchandra Gandhi believes that a philosophically open-ended reconciliation between all traditions of spirituality and secularism in the Indian subcontinent is a call of destiny which we can ignore only at great peril to the future of life and civilization on earth.

The Firefly’s Consolation and two other stories are drawn from the discources of Sri Ramkrishna Paramahansa, Sri Ramana Maharshi, and Svami Vivekananda.

A firefly forgetful of its own light, clusters of stars comically aloof in their arrogance, a full moon inebriated with its power to make waves, and a harmonising, playful, sun, are the principal motifs in the first story, a Paramahamsa Sri Ramakrishna parable of pointed relevance to our times.

And in the second and third stories, equally urgently, Sri Ramana Maharshi and Svami Vivekananda show us how to befriend our shadows, and honour even the frog in the well.

Ramachandra Gandhi will narrate these stories and explore their meanings in their philosophical contexts. All three stories are of profound significance to critical issues of our times: marginalisation, violence, vengefulness, and faith.

The discussion will be moderated by philosopher and academician Prabodh Parikh.