CHAPTER: 8 India's Great
Scientist,
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"Jagadis Chandra Bose's wireless inventions antedated those
of Marconi." Overhearing this provocative remark, I walked closer to a sidewalk
group of professors engaged in scientific discussion. If my motive in joining them was
racial pride, I regret it. I cannot deny my keen interest in evidence that India can play
a leading part in physics, and not metaphysics alone. "What do you mean, sir?" The professor obligingly explained. "Bose was the first one
to invent a wireless coherer and an instrument for indicating the refraction of electric
waves. But the Indian scientist did not exploit his inventions commercially. He soon
turned his attention from the inorganic to the organic world. His revolutionary
discoveries as a plant physiologist are outpacing even his radical achievements as a
physicist." I politely thanked my mentor. He added, "The great scientist
is one of my brother professors at Presidency College." I paid a visit the next day to the sage at his home, which was
close to mine on Gurpar Road. I had long admired him from a respectful distance. The grave
and retiring botanist greeted me graciously. He was a handsome, robust man in his fifties,
with thick hair, broad forehead, and the abstracted eyes of a dreamer. The precision in
his tones revealed the lifelong scientific habit. "I have recently returned from an
expedition to scientific societies of the West. Their members exhibited intense interest
in delicate instruments of my invention which demonstrate the indivisible unity of all
life. The Bose crescograph has the enormity of ten million magnifications. The microscope
enlarges only a few thousand times; yet it brought vital impetus to biological science.
The crescograph opens incalculable vistas." "You have done much, sir, to hasten the embrace of East and
West in the impersonal arms of science." "I was educated at Cambridge. How
admirable is the Western method of submitting all theory to scrupulous experimental
verification! That empirical procedure has gone hand in hand with the gift for
introspection which is my Eastern heritage. Together they have enabled me to sunder the
silences of natural realms long uncommunicative. The telltale charts of my crescograph are
evidence for the most skeptical that plants have a sensitive nervous system and a varied
emotional life. Love, hate, joy, fear, pleasure, pain, excitability, stupor, and countless
appropriate responses to stimuli are as universal in plants as in animals." "The unique throb of life in all creation could seem only
poetic imagery before your advent, Professor! A saint I once knew would never pluck
flowers. 'Shall I rob the rosebush of its pride in beauty? Shall I cruelly affront its
dignity by my rude divestment?' His sympathetic words are verified literally through your
discoveries!" "The poet is intimate with truth, while the scientist
approaches awkwardly. Come someday to my laboratory and see the unequivocable testimony of
the crescograph." Gratefully I accepted the invitation, and took my departure. I
heard later that the botanist had left Presidency College, and was planning a research
center in Calcutta. When the Bose Institute was opened, I
attended the dedicatory services. Enthusiastic hundreds strolled over the premises. I was
charmed with the artistry and spiritual symbolism of the new home of science. Its front
gate, I noted, was a centuried relic from a distant shrine. Behind the lotus fountain, a
sculptured female figure with a torch conveyed the Indian respect for woman as the
immortal light-bearer. The garden held a small temple consecrated to the Noumenon beyond
phenomena. Thought of the divine incorporeity was suggested by absence of any altar-image. Bose's speech on this great occasion might have issued from the
lips of one of the inspired ancient rishis. "I dedicate today this Institute as not merely a laboratory
but a temple." His reverent solemnity stole like an unseen cloak over the crowded
auditorium. "In the pursuit of my investigations I was unconsciously led into the
border region of physics and physiology. To my amazement, I found boundary lines
vanishing, and points of contact emerging, between the realms of the living and the
non-living. Inorganic matter was perceived as anything but inert; it was athrill under the
action of multitudinous forces. "A universal reaction seemed to bring metal, plant and animal
under a common law. They all exhibited essentially the same phenomena of fatigue and
depression, with possibilities of recovery and of exaltation, as well as the permanent
irresponsiveness associated with death. Filled with awe at this stupendous generalization,
it was with great hope that I announced my results before the Royal Society—results
demonstrated by experiments. But the physiologists present advised me to confine myself to
physical investigations, in which my success had been assured, rather than encroach on
their preserves. I had unwittingly strayed into the domain of an unfamiliar caste system
and so offended its etiquette. "An unconscious theological bias was also present, which
confounds ignorance with faith. It is often forgotten that He who surrounded us with this
ever-evolving mystery of creation has also implanted in us the desire to question and
understand. Through many years of miscomprehension, I came to know that the life of a
devotee of science is inevitably filled with unending struggle. It is for him to cast his
life as an ardent offering—regarding gain and loss, success and failure, as one. "In time the leading scientific
societies of the world accepted my theories and results, and recognized the importance of
the Indian contribution to science. Can anything small or circumscribed ever satisfy the
mind of India? By a continuous living tradition, and a vital power of rejuvenescence, this
land has readjusted itself through unnumbered transformations. Indians have always arisen
who, discarding the immediate and absorbing prize of the hour, have sought for the
realization of the highest ideals in life—not through passive renunciation, but
through active struggle. The weakling who has refused the conflict, acquiring nothing, has
had nothing to renounce. He alone who has striven and won can enrich the world by
bestowing the fruits of his victorious experience. "The work already carried out in the Bose laboratory on the
response of matter, and the unexpected revelations in plant life, have opened out very
extended regions of inquiry in physics, in physiology, in medicine, in agriculture, and
even in psychology. Problems hitherto regarded as insoluble have now been brought within
the sphere of experimental investigation. "But high success is not to be obtained without rigid
exactitude. Hence the long battery of super-sensitive instruments and apparatus of my
design, which stand before you today in their cases in the entrance hall. They tell you of
the protracted efforts to get behind the deceptive seeming into the reality that remains
unseen, of the continuous toil and persistence and resourcefulness called forth to
overcome human limitations. All creative scientists know that the true laboratory is the
mind, where behind illusions they uncover the laws of truth. "The lectures given here will not be mere repetitions of
second-hand knowledge. They will announce new discoveries, demonstrated for the first time
in these halls. Through regular publication of the work of the Institute, these Indian
contributions will reach the whole world. They will become public property. No patents
will ever be taken. The spirit of our national culture demands that we should forever be
free from the desecration of utilizing knowledge only for personal gain.
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"It is my further wish that the facilities of this Institute
be available, so far as possible, to workers from all countries. In this I am attempting
to carry on the traditions of my country. So far back as twenty-five centuries, India
welcomed to its ancient universities, at Nalanda and Taxila, scholars from all parts of
the world. "Although science is neither of the
East nor of the West but rather international in its universality, yet India is specially
fitted to make great contributions. The burning Indian imagination, which can extort new
order out of a mass of apparently contradictory facts, is held in check by the habit of
concentration. This restraint confers the power to hold the mind to the pursuit of truth
with an infinite patience." Tears stood in my eyes at the scientist's concluding words. Is "patience" not indeed a synonym of India, confounding Time and the historians alike? I visited the research center again, soon after the day of
opening. The great botanist, mindful of his promise, took me to his quiet laboratory. "I will attach the crescograph to this fern; the
magnification is tremendous. If a snail's crawl were enlarged in the same proportion, the
creature would appear to be traveling like an express train!" My gaze was fixed eagerly on the screen which reflected the
magnified fern-shadow. Minute life-movements were now clearly perceptible; the plant was
growing very slowly before my fascinated eyes. The scientist touched the tip of the fern
with a small metal bar. The developing pantomime came to an abrupt halt, resuming the
eloquent rhythms as soon as the rod was withdrawn. "You saw how any slight outside interference is detrimental
to the sensitive tissues," Bose remarked. "Watch; I will now administer
chloroform, and then give an antidote." The effect of the chloroform discontinued all growth; the antidote
was revivifying. The evolutionary gestures on the screen held me more raptly than a
"movie" plot. My companion (here in the role of villain) thrust a sharp
instrument through a part of the fern; pain was indicated by spasmodic flutters. When he
passed a razor partially through the stem, the shadow was violently agitated, then stilled
itself with the final punctuation of death. "By first chloroforming a huge tree, I achieved a successful
transplantation. Usually, such monarchs of the forest die very quickly after being
moved." Jagadis smiled happily as he recounted the life-saving maneuver. "Graphs
of my delicate apparatus have proved that trees possess a circulatory system; their sap
movements correspond to the blood pressure of animal bodies. The ascent of sap is not
explicable on the mechanical grounds ordinarily advanced, such as capillary attraction.
The phenomenon has been solved through the crescograph as the activity of living cells.
Peristaltic waves issue from a cylindrical tube which extends down a tree and serves as an
actual heart! The more deeply we perceive, the more striking becomes the evidence that a
uniform plan links every form in manifold nature." The great scientist pointed to another Bose instrument. "I will show you experiments on a piece of tin. The
life-force in metals responds adversely or beneficially to stimuli. Ink markings will
register the various reactions." Deeply engrossed, I watched the graph which recorded the
characteristic waves of atomic structure. When the professor applied chloroform to the
tin, the vibratory writings stopped. They recommenced as the metal slowly regained its
normal state. My companion dispensed a poisonous chemical. Simultaneous with the quivering
end of the tin, the needle dramatically wrote on the chart a death-notice. "Bose instruments have demonstrated that metals, such as the
steel used in scissors and machinery, are subject to fatigue, and regain efficiency by
periodic rest. The life-pulse in metals is seriously harmed or even extinguished through
the application of electric currents or heavy pressure." I looked around the room at the numerous inventions, eloquent
testimony of a tireless ingenuity. "Sir, it is lamentable that mass agricultural development is
not speeded by fuller use of your marvelous mechanisms. Would it not be easily possible to
employ some of them in quick laboratory experiments to indicate the influence of various
types of fertilizers on plant growth?" "You are right. Countless uses of Bose instruments will be
made by future generations. The scientist seldom knows contemporaneous reward; it is
enough to possess the joy of creative service." With expressions of unreserved gratitude to the indefatigable
sage, I took my leave. "Can the astonishing fertility of his genius ever be
exhausted?" I thought. No diminution came with the years. Inventing an intricate
instrument, the "Resonant Cardiograph," Bose then pursued extensive researches
on innumerable Indian plants. An enormous unsuspected pharmacopoeia of useful drugs was
revealed. The cardiograph is constructed with an unerring accuracy by which a
one-hundredth part of a second is indicated on a graph. Resonant records measure
infinitesimal pulsations in plant, animal and human structure. The great botanist
predicted that use of his cardiograph will lead to vivisection on plants instead of
animals. "Side by side recordings of the effects of a medicine given
simultaneously to a plant and an animal have shown astounding unanimity in result,"
he pointed out. "Everything in man has been foreshadowed in the plant.
Experimentation on vegetation will contribute to lessening of human suffering." Years later Bose's pioneer plant findings were substantiated by
other scientists. Work done in 1938 at Columbia University was reported by The New York Times as follows: It has been determined within the past few years that when the
nerves transmit messages between the brain and other parts of the body, tiny electrical
impulses are being generated. These impulses have been measured by delicate galvanometers
and magnified millions of times by modern amplifying apparatus. Until now no satisfactory
method had been found to study the passages of the impulses along the nerve fibers in
living animals or man because of the great speed with which these impulses travel. Drs. K. S. Cole and H. J. Curtis reported having discovered that
the long single cells of the fresh-water plant nitella, used frequently in goldfish bowls,
are virtually identical with those of single nerve fibers. Furthermore, they found that
nitella fibers, on being excited, propagate electrical waves that are similar in every
way, except velocity, to those of the nerve fibers in animals and man. The electrical
nerve impulses in the plant were found to be much slower than those in animals. This
discovery was therefore seized upon by the Columbia workers as a means for taking slow
motion pictures of the passage of the electrical impulses in nerves. The nitella plant thus may become a sort of Rosetta stone for
deciphering the closely guarded secrets close to the very borderland of mind and matter. The poet Rabindranath Tagore was a stalwart friend of India's
idealistic scientist. To him, the sweet Bengali singer addressed the following lines. O Hermit, call thou in the authentic words
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