The first part is being cross-posted on all my major blogs while the second part is only being posted on my main blog - Jacob’s Blog.
Tony was my teacher of Mathematics in St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, and my good friend. His book on Hindu astrology is to be shortly released as a paperback and I wanted to give you a look into the facts behind Indophile, Tony, and our relationship pre the release oif the paperback edition.
I was sent the details of this book by the publisher, another dear friend and alumni of St. Stephen’s College, Professor Prabhu Guptara.
Tony was the teacher of Mathematics in St. Stephen’s College in 1962-63, my final year. He took over the duties of Principal S. C. Sircar in the Mathematics Department and joined Professors S.R. Nagpaul, S. B. Mathur, and Ranjit Bhatia (Rhodes Scholar and of Indian Olympic fame) in the college Mathematics Department.
I lost touch with Tony till he turned up on my Kooler Talk Blog in the late 1990s. We established a close relationship. When his wife Bertha was hospitalised and he had a short holiday in 2000, as he was then caring for Bertha, he decided to visit Annikki and me in Oulu, Finland. He stayed with us for a week and we had wonderful reunion, and discussed many of his projects.
He was well versed in Indian culture and he was working on a few projects, one of which was Hindu Astrology.
He was also working on a special area of mathematical research which coincided with the interest of a Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai, friend of mine, Bhupinder Singh Anand (Bhupi).
Bhupi was a couple of years senior to me but stayed on in School to do the 12th standard HSC qualification. He was also from Savage House and in our final year, he was the Head Boy of the school while I was the Savage House Captain.
Bhupi, the School Captain is sitting third from the left, while I am sitting second from the right.
I did keep in touch with Bhupi as he joined my “Seventh Heaven” Cathedralite Heaven Google Group although he was not technically a 59er. I had great respect for dear Bhupi as he was a sincere individual and a true Cathedralite.
The publisher of this book on Hindu astrology is Professor. Prabhu Guptara, from St. Stephen’s College, junior to me but also a good friend now living in Cambridge in the UK.
Prabhu had done an chapter in the book "Malayali Diaspora" several years ago about the oldest Malayali in Continental Europe (not the UK), which was about me.
Frank Raj was the editor of "The International Indian till 2017".
Frank Raj (Picture from LinkedIn)
This was later published in his magazine with pictures of us and our family in the Dubai publication “The Indian International” edited by Frank Raj.
In 2014, when for several reason, I was stranded in New Delhi, which is explained in Annikki and my book “The Titanic Called India”, Prabhu put me in touch with Ivan and Silvia Kostka.
Ivan and Dr.Silvia Kostka (Picture from LinkedIN)
I had the pleasure of dining with them and a couple of friends. Just a couple of months after they were harassed by the Hindutava faction because they were practicing Christians devoting their their life to uplifting the OBC Community. They were raided by the Delhi Police in October 2014 for supposedly saying derogatory statements about Goddess Durga. Their publication FORWARD Press was being targeted by the Hindutava faction of Narendra Modi’s BJP/RSS wing claiming that Ivan and Silvia were converting Indians to Christianity.
Here I must make a point that I went to Christian schools in Mysore, Bangalore and Mumbai. In my class in Mumbai we were just 4 Christian’s while the rest of the students were Hindus, Jews, Muslims Parsi, Sindhis and Sikhs, from all parts of the world, not just India. I did not even know or even care, what religion the students in my class were.
60 years later, I am still the fulcrum of keeping the surviving classmates together and there is not one single student who has changed his/her religion. They all subscribe too a secular education which has broadened their attitude to life and there is no discrimination on any grounds whatsoever.
Christians lead by example of the two principles laid down by Christ. .
There is only one God (different names: Jehovah, Allah, Brahma). Secondly, we must love our neighbour as ourselves.
All the other laws are man-made derivatives of these two fundamental principles.
Thefollowing year, I had the good fortune to get an email from Silvia (a noted plastic surgeon) that she and Ivan were likely to transit through Helsinki and they were likely to be delayed in their return trip to India. She was interested in meeting up with me.
I did offer to put them up in one of the apartments that Annikki and I had in Helsinki during their stay but we lost contact after that.
Ivan was the Founding Editor of FORWARD Press and it was likely to be shut down by the intolerant society which had spread its wings under Narendra Modi. Silvia had told me then that the last edition of FORWARD Press was likely to be in March of that year (2015).
However, FORWARD Press has survived and is thriving even today under Anil Varghese who is the current editor-in-chief.
So that is my personal background to the book on Hindu Astrology penned by Tony.
Until a few years ago, interest in astrology was widespread - but thin.
Now the astrology market is growing by leaps and bounds.
In the US, over the four years to 2019, revenue from the top 10 astrology apps market saw an astonishing compound growth rate of 72.8 percent per year! In India, ten astrology firms in 2021 raised INR 1300 million -300% the combined amount raised by ALL such start-ups over the previous five years!!
No figures for the UK are available, but here is a BBC report:
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210205-why-astrology-is-so-popular-now
Into this burgeoning international demand, Prabhu Guptara’s “Pippa Rann Books” imprint is publishing the paperback version of Tony’s book, Hindu Astrology.
The hardback came out some decades ago, but only in India.
The author, late Tony, was an Oxford PhD in Mathematics who went as a university teacher to India, where he was so intrigued at finding most highly-educated people allowing their lives to be ruled by astrology that he learned Sanskrit for the specific purpose of reading the texts in the original language, and writing an adequate history of Indian astrology as well as evaluation of it.
Brief information on the book is attached below, in form of the full cover the book.
But of course the field is highly contested!
The honourable Supreme Court of India proclaimed in 2004 that astrology is a SCIENCE.
On the other hand, Madhavankutty Pillai argued in OPEN magazine (2011) that astrology is a HOAX -
openthemagazine.com/features/living/the-scientific-case-against-astrology/
In a 2018 article in The Guardian, “I was an astrologer”, Felicity Carter concludes that astrology is a form of ENTERTAINMENT.
And here is a recent article arguing that astrology is a SCAM: Digital ‘Vedic Astrology’: The $40 Billion Scam | Madras Courier
Naturally not with reference to the articles mentioned immediately above but, in general, Tony concludes: “…it is a pity that many critics of astrology argue at a very superficial level. My purpose in this book is to shed some genuine light on the subject. I hope the book will stimulate serious discussion about astrology.”
Do we need to start more knowledgeable debates and discussions on astrology?
Read the book and come to your own conclusions.
