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HARIVANSHRAI BACHCHAN (27 NOV 1907-18 JAN 2003)--2

Features of the horoscope
Some features of the horoscope are striking  here.

i. An excellent Gajakesari yoga in the tenth house with Mercury in lagna being in kendra, and untainted exalted Jupiter and Moon in its own house had to give him literary immortality.

ii. The horoscope becomes more striking if it is seen that from Karakamsha, which is Meena, the fifth house of authorship has exalted Jupiter with Moon aspected by Venus and Sun and Mars and Saturn.

iii. The fifth house with Saturn in his own house with Mars the second lord did show its fullest effects by giving him two multi-millionare sons who seemed to have more than compensated him in his later years after all the tribulations and financial difficulties he had faced till he shifted to Delhi and got a better job with a better salary. Like a good father, he made use of this income to give to his children good education in Sherwood College in Nainital.















It was his Allahabad association with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and his family which benefitted his entire family so immensely. His wife Teji ji was intimate friend of Indira Gandhi, his son Amitabh was a chum of both Rajiv and Sanjay. Teji was given an important post in a film body which is said to have helped her launch Amitabh into his film career after which he rose to his super stardom on merit.


Harivanshrai Bachchan got a government job, got nominated to Rajya Sabha and he was better off compared to many indigent poets. His merit as a poet, as the father of a new genre in Hindi poetry was often overlooked by his rivals and critics. Later, when his famous son recited his poems and added also immensely to the financial prosperity of the family, such jealousy had to grow intenser. Astrologers can see two planets in his second house aspected by Jupiter and Saturn, the fifth lord to see the explanation for all this.

Dasha results
In the Venus dasha (1917 to 1937), the struggling poet came out in the antardasha of Mercury his Madhushala after which his popularity only soared and this book went into innumerable editions.

In the dasha of Mars (1953-1960) the second lord of increased income, he shifted to Delhi and got a governmental job where he got better salary.


In the mahadasha of Rahu (1960-1978) in the ninth house he wrote his autobiography, a rare literary masterpiece in a country where we are notoriously deficient in the writing of biographies and autobiographies. If for lovers of poerty his Madhushala is an immortal piece, the connoisseurs will remember him for his frank autobiography in which he poured out his agonies and ecstacies as has rarely been done in India. His was a phenomenally long writing career starting with 1933 and ending in 1995 when his dasha of Jupiter was ending and his health and old age created problems.

Jupiter in the tenth house gave him rightly the job of a lecturer in the Allahabad University in 1941 where he served till 1952 or 1954, when a helpful Jawaharlal Nehru offered him a cosy job in Delhi solving his domestic and financial problems. His critics have always accused him and his family of exploiting this Nehru contact to the hilt overlooking the innate literary merit of his long career.

It was in the Rahu mahadasha that he wrote his inimitable autobiography giving it a poetic title “ Kya Bhooloon Kya Yaad Karun” meaning what to remember and what to forget translated now in English as 'In the Afternoon of Time', by Dr.Rupert Snell of London University and praised and well received.

But the irony of literary assessment will always be that it was Madhushala with its immense popularity which launched him into the literary world hurting the orthodox sentiments of Hindus as the following stanza, among many show  :
Mere adharo par ho antim,
Vastu na tulasi-dal, pyala,
Meri jivha par ho antim,
Vastu na Gangajal, hala,
Mer shav ke peeche chalne valo,
Yaad ise rakhna,
R“ am nam hai satya” na kahna
Kahna sacchi Madhushala
Meaning that at the time of death instead of the Tulsi leaves and the sacred water of the Ganga (which Hindus) put on the tongue at the time of a man’s death, it should be a cup of wine and those in the funeral procession , instead of remembering Lord Rama and saying R“ am naam satya hai” should say that the truth is Madhushala.

Anyone who has read closely Madhushala of Bachchan and Rubaiyats of Omar Khayyam as translated by Fitzerland can contrast and see the superior philosophical quality in Omar Khayyam who gave to his admirers a question they have not been able to answer themselves: was he a fatalist or a mystic. Bachchan wrote his Madhushala when his life’s experience was not rich enough with all those frustrations which Khayyam seemed to have suffered before he wrote his Rubaiyats. In many places, Madhushala is shallow, many of the verses are artificially contrived, overstretched attempts to evoke a quick response from a callow adult than an expression of some innately felt emotion.

Yet, it is Madhushala on which Harivanshrai Bachchan built his reputation as a poet and his notoriety too as some of his very famous and great contemporaries like Mahadevi Varma dismissed his work as mere Halavad (the cult of the bottle) and some poets of Bihar are said to have threatened to get him beaten if he set foot in Patna. It is said that some of the Kavi Sammelans he attended were disturbed and one in Varanasi had to be held under police protection. Yet, his rising popularity, derided as cheap and vulgar by many, continued for so many decades.

Some of the poems Harivanshrai Bachchan wrote later in life, possibly in the dasha of Rahu and Jupiter raise the same question but more in the tones of existential philosophers, not as an epicure who must disregard the Beyond that lies after death. It is also to this period that his masterpiece, his autobiography belongs. Earlier when writing Madhushala he had constrained his poetic style but sticking to some rigid prosodic style and rhymes and kept himself away totally from free verse. It was after his stay in Cambridge that he chose to write some poems in free verse and produced the most exquisite poetry of his life.

Yet, he is remembered for Madhushala also because the famous singer Manna De sang them to the accompaniment of some light instrumental music beautifully. No Hindi poet, for that matter, no Indian poet ever was so lucky as Harivanshrai Bachchan. He was tremendously popular from 1935 till death because he wrote poetry in the language of the people and wrote on the subject like drinks contemptuously kept out by literary men and poets who dealt with sublime subjects in exquisite poetic style and language. Bachchan broke that tradition and appeared to many to be a poet of a very lower category with immense popularity almost an upstart flaunting his inspiration borrowed from Omar Khayyam with none of the depth of philosophy of Rubaiyats, the encircling pathos of a dying evening,
the frightening inevitability of death, the uncertain knowledge about what lies Beyond, after one’s death. Khayyam wrote his pieces after a life of glorious achievements and suffering the eclipse of all that he was identified with as a genius, a distinguished astronomer, mathematician, courtier with rich patronage and friends some of whom betrayed him to make him ponder on life’s vicissitudes.

Bachchan on the other hand wrote his Madhushala when he was only an inexperienced adult more anxious to distinguish himself with some new ideas, innovations. He made a stormy entry in the Hindi literary world just as decades later his son Amitabh did in Indian films with sex and crime thrillers with the image of an angry young man. Both son and father portrayed, one in his poetry and the other in his cinema roles, defiance of accepted social norms, literary tastes, defiling the middle class values and morality. Those who read both Omar Khayyam in English and Madhushala in Hindi never found anything in Madhushala to even echo the mysticism of stanza like:
Before the phantom of False morning died, 0
Me thought a Voice within the Tavern cried,
W“ hen all the Temple is prepared within,
W“ hy nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?
All the early poems of Bachchan particularly Is Paar Priye series were echoes from Khayyam like:
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted — O“ pen then the Door!
“ You know how little while we have to stay,
A“ nd, once departed, may return no more.” Or see this
Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who
Before us pass’d the door of Darkness through Not
one returns to tell us of the Road, Which to
discover we must travel too.
In later years, when Bhagwati Charan Varma wrote his Chitralekha in Hindi he too gained immense popularity though those who read Thais of Anatole France could see in the much discussed novel no original thought or inspiration but only literary artistry. How many will remember him as a literary giant? Many regard him as a successful literary craftsman of the age of puritanism of 1935. Most will remember him as the father of Amitabh Bachchan. Yet there are many who remember him as a person who was lucky to have had life long contact with India’s most influential family of the Nehrus which benefitted him immensely.

Known Incidents in the life Harivanshrai Bachchan
1934 First Marriage with Shyama (Venus-Mercury)(Kumbha-Tula (DK in Kumbha)

1934-36 Madhushala and his great fame ((Kumbha-Tula)

1936-11-17 Wife Shyama died (Venus-Ketu) (Kumbha-Kumbha with DK in it)

1938 M.A. from Allahabad University (Sun-Mars) (Meena-Mesha)

1940 Lecturer at Allahabad University (Sun- Saturn) (Meena-Karka)

1942 Second Marriage with Teji Sun-Venus) (Meena-Tula) (Teji pregnant with Amitabh.)
1942-10-10 His father died.( Meena-Vrischika with Sun also Gnathikaraka in it.)

1942-10-11 Amitabh Bachchan born (First Son). (Sun-Venus)

Bachchan senior regarded this son of his to be the reincarnation of his father who had died only twenty four hours before.

1966 Rajya Sabha (Rahu-Saturn). (Karka-Mithuna/Vrisha)

1947-5-18 Ajitabh was born (Moon-Jupiter) (Mesha-Mithuna)

1954 to 1956 Ph.D. Cambridge University (Mars-Rahu to Mars-Mercury) (Vrisha-Kumbha)

1973-6-3 Amitabh married Jaya Bhaduri (Rahu-Venus) (Karka-Vrischika)

1973 Dec. Ajitabh married (Rahu-Venus)(Karka-Tula)

1974-3-14 Shweta daughter of Amitabh was born (Rahu-Venus) (Karka-Tula)

1976-2-5 Abhishek son of Amitabh was born (Rahu-Moon) (Karka-Simha)

2003-1-19 death (Saturn-Venus-Jupiter)(Dhanu-Tula)

Awards won
1967 Sahitya Academy Award (Rahu-Saturn) (Karka-Vrisha)
1967 January 23 Padma Bhushan (Rahu-Saturn)(Karka-Vrisha)
1992 Saraswati Samman (Jupiter-Rahu)(Kanya-Mesha)
1994 Yash Bharati Award of the government of Uttar Pradesh (Saturn-Saturn) (Kanya-Mithuna)

Chara Dasha Sequence
Tula 1907-1908
Vrischika 1908-1911
Dhanu 1911-1918
Makara 1918-1929
Kumbha 1929-1937 (See Amatyakaraka
here and his golden period)
Meena 1937-1945
Mesha 1945-1955
Vrisha 1955-1961
Mithuna 1961-1965
Karka 1965-1977 (The tenth house with PK. The father became a member of Rajya Sabha while son Amitabh rose in his career in Bombay films.)
Simha 1977-1986
Kanya 1986-1997
Tula 1997-1998
Vrischika 1998-2001
Dhanu-Tula 2002 June 26 to 26 January 2003 (Dhanu the rashi of accidents and Tula which is eighth from Karakamsha which is Meena)

Died on 19 January 2003

In Sthira dasha it was Tula-Simha when he died one eighth from Karakamsha and the other sixth. Transits on the day of death Saturn and Rahu were in the eighth house from the lagna aspected by Mars and Moon was in Karka causing Janma Chandra.


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