Born Again

Tania Gagarin Sharma had become an orphan after the demise of her parents in a car accident. It was a head-on collision, and they had died in an instant. As her parents had belonged to two different cultures, two different religions, two different languages and two different eating habits they had been boycotted by their respective parents.

An only child of her parents, Tania's life was not easy. It has been a struggle since her parents left her alone in this world to fend for herself.

Her father was an Indian and her mother was Russian. They had met when her father and mother were studying medicine at the First Moscow State University. He was in the final year of his studies and her mother was in her 3rd year. It was love at first sight. They got married as soon as they completed their studies. Her father stayed behind and did not go back to India. They both started working in the medical college and hospital.

Their marriage was held in secret and within a year of their marriage, her mother gave birth to a little girl they named Tania. Tania was a cute little Russian girl with sharp Indian features. As is usual, in inter-religious and international type marriages, neither of her grandparents accepted their marriage nor their grandchild. Her father was a Hindu and her mother was an Orthodox Christian.

Neither side was willing to accept such a marriage nor a progeny from such a marriage. But for her parents, their love was all that mattered. They both believed in spirituality which is beyond religion. Something like live and let others live too. Not to interfere in another's space. Your space ends where the space of another begins. They did not even try to reconcile with their respective parents even after Tania was born.

The name of Tania's father was Mahesh Sharma and the name of her mother was Svetlana Gagarin. Both were made for each other and could not live apart. They understood each other perfectly just by reading each other's facial expressions. She, being their only child, was pampered and provided with whatever she desired. All the toys and clothes were bought for her, no matter how expensive they were.

Her entire childhood was spent in Moscow, the capital of Russia. She wanted to visit India with all of her heart. It was a burning desire. She would sometimes see many temples and forts in her dreams. The dreams were so vivid so vibrant that it seemed as if she had lived in those temples and forts at some time.

Since her name was too long, she had shortened it to Tania G. Sharma.

Ever since she had decided to keep her name long, there had been regular arguments with her parents which went like this."

"Why do you want to have such a long name?" her mother would ask her.

"Just to let everyone know who my mother is and who my father is." She had replied.

"I am sure that when you fill up your application forms for any job, you will not be able to fit in your surname in the blank boxes," added her father.

"Well...! In that situation I will just add the first letter G between my name and my surname."

When she had filled up her application papers for University education, this situation had arisen. She had thus, truncated her name to Tania G. Sharma.

Soon she entered higher studies and went on to study Ancient Indian History. She was an avid reader of Friedrich Max Müller, a German-born philologist and Orientalist, who lived and studied in Britain for most of his life. He was one of the founders of the western academic field of Indian studies and the discipline of study of religions. Müller wrote both scholarly and popular works on the subject of Indology.

Max Müller was educated in Sanskrit, the classical language of India, and other languages in Leipzig, Berlin, and Paris. He moved to England in 1846 and settled in Oxford in 1848, where he became a deputy professor of modern languages in 1850. He was appointed a professor of comparative philology in 1868, and he retired in 1875.

Some of the most ancient and revered religious and philosophical texts of Asia have been translated by Max Müller. Among these, especially noteworthy, was his edition of the great collection of Sanskrit hymns called the Rigveda, He edited about 51-volume series of translations called The Sacred Books of the East. He initially edited the series of Sacred Books of the Buddhists. His most important writings were the Essays on the Science of Religion (1869), vol. 1 of Chips from a German Workshop; Introduction to the Science of Religion (1873); and Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion (1878).

However, Tania was more interested in the prehistory period that is the Indus Valley Civilization which was a Bronze Age civilization in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Harappa and the city of Mohenjo-Daro, Lothal, Kalibangan, Dolivera etc, were the greatest achievements of the Indus valley civilization. These cities are well known for their impressive, organized and regular layout. They had well laid out plumbing and drainage system, including indoor toilets.

Harappa and Mohenjodaro are now in Pakistan. These were great cities known for the huge number of residents, the burnt bricks used in construction, the drainage system, their guilds, their merchants who visited many countries on basis of their seals found in other countries.

Harappa was discovered by Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni, an officer of the Archaeological Survey of India. Then structural remains include those of a citadel/fortress, a massive monumental building once called the granary, and at least three cemeteries. Mohenjo-Daro was discovered in 1922 by R. D. Banerji, an officer of the Archaeological Survey of India. The city had a Citadel and the Lower City. The Citadel supported public baths, a large residential structure designed to house about 5,000 citizens, and two large assembly halls. The lower city had a central marketplace, with a large central well. Individual households or groups of households obtained their water from smaller wells. Wastewater was channelled to covered drains that lined the major streets. Some houses, presumably those of more prestigious inhabitants, include rooms that appear to have been set aside for bathing, and one building had an underground furnace (known as a hypocaust), possibly for heated bathing. Most houses had inner courtyards, with doors that opened onto side-lanes. Some buildings had two stories. Something like how the present city of Chandigarh has been built.

Lothal was the port city of Indus Valley Civilization and had the world's earliest known dry dock, which connected the city to an ancient course of the Sabarmati river on the trade route between Harappan cities in Sindh and the peninsula of Saurashtra when the surrounding Kutch desert of today was a part of the Arabian Sea. It was situated in Gujarat, India and was excavated by S.R.Rao in the year 1957. It is said that the dockyard was located away from the main current to avoid deposition of silt. It is speculated that Lothal engineers studied tidal movements, and their effects on brick-built structures since the walls are of kiln-burnt bricks.

Kalibangan, in present-day Rajasthan, India, was a major provincial capital of the Indus Valley Civilization. Kalibangan is distinguished by its unique fire altars and "world's earliest attested ploughed field". The citadel and the lower city was in evidence here too. The excavations were carried out under the leadership of B. B. Lal (then Director-General, ASI), Balkrishna (B.K.) Thapar, M. D. Khare, K. M. Shrivastava and S. P. Jain for 9 years (1960-9). Things found here were small blades of chalcedony and agate, sometimes serrated or backed; beads of steatite, shell, carnelian, terracotta and copper; bangles of copper, shell and terracotta; terracotta objects like a toy-cart, wheel and a broken bull; quem with mullers, a bone point, and copper celts, including an unusual axe, etc. Toy carts suggest carts were used for transportation in Kalibangan.

At the age of 24 years tragedy struck her small family. Her parents were involved in a car accident. Her father was driving and it was a head-on collision. As per the hospital records where they were rushed too, it was instant death for both of them. They lived together and left together for their abode in heaven.