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A LOVER OF LIGHT AMONG LUMINARIES : Dilip Kumar Roy Boswell remarkably succeeded in realising his project and laying the foundation of systematic biography writing. In Advertisement to Life of Samuel Johnson, Boswell notes:
"An honourable and reverend friend speaking of the favourable reception of my volumes, even in the circles of fashion and elegance, said to me, "you have made them all talk Johnson," — Yes, I may add, I have Johnsonised the land;
and I trust they will not only talk, but think, Johnson."134
But the parallel between the two hero-worshippers--Roy and Boswellcannot be stretched much further. The differences between the two may appear to be the differences between the East and the West. You discover Renaissance painters' close attention to every small detail of face, feature, figure and drapery in Boswell's portrait of Johnson. What we see in Roy is portrayals similar to linear paintings of Bodhisattva figures in Ajanta. What is important here is not the physical realism, but an indication of the ideal. Boswell creates flesh and blood human being, who lived and moved on the earth. Roy reduces flesh and blood reality to intensely felt abstractions. Boswell had inherited the tradition of a critical spirit and a clear grasp of reality, evident in historiography and all the other creations of the Western culture. In Roy, we discover a clear lack of both. the critical spirit and the clear grasp of reality. Like the best of Indians, he can pray and worship in sincere emotional response to exceptional moral and spiritual excellences manifested in certain individuals. There is no insincerity and charlatanism in his effusiveness. Yet it must be admitted that Roy is writing in the tradition of panygirists and eulogists. He knows no other technique.
There is one more difference to be noted. The West regards individuals as very important. But, it has also developed what may be called a collective or communal self. Therefore, in the political philosophy of the West, there has been a controversy as to what is more important-individual or collective self. The democrats regard the dignity and freedom of the individual more important than the larger communal self. The totalitarians like Nazis and Fascists and Communists treat total communal self as the only important identity for every indiviudal. The states have often run to this or that extreme in the history of the West. What is important, however, for our purposes, is that each Western man has two selves, individual and communal. That is why, each is careful to realize individual wellbeing and also the total well-being of all in a nation. The anxiety for totality has generated in due course in the West what may be called public spirit, the norms and mores of public behaviour. Instinctively, eveyone feels that what is valuable for him, should be presented before all. And everything is looked upon from individual and communal points of view. That is how, Boswell found the life of Dr. Johnson most instructive to himself. But he was also anxious to keep the
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