Kumar Mehta, D. Eng., Materials Science and Engineering, (1931-2019) (A recollection by Tom Mahon) The world has lost a mahatma, a great soul, at a time when they are needed more than ever. Povindar Kumar Mehta died last week at the age of 88. He was Emeritus Professor at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC-Berkeley. His professional accomplishment are at www.ce.berkeley.edu/news/2224 In 1986, he wrote the book, "Concrete: Structure, Properties, and Materials," that subsequently became a standard college text on the subject used around the world. He used the proceeds of the book to start an organization at UC-Berkeley called AhimsaBerkeley, dedicated to bringing together some of the senior faculty at the University (in the Humanities, Life Sciences, Physics, Ethics, Theology departments) to talk with each other. A remarkable idea at the time. When Kumar invited me to join the Board in the early 2000s, I figured it was to provide comic relief. I certainly never considered myself entitled to be in such a distinguished group. And I still don’t. But he was serious. The irony of his situation was not lost on anyone: he was one of the world’s foremost authorities on concrete, and he was also one of the most deeply spiritual people I ever knew. He was frail and soft-spoken by the time I met him, but his aura was visible to anyone who looked. I mean that literally, he emanated his serenity such that you absorbed it to your benefit. His was light years beyond stereotypic Berkeley-ish ‘good vibes.’ And I saw the proof of that one night when he offered to be my bodyguard at an event at the Crosses of Lafayette, a hillside monument in the Bay Area to the fallen in the Iraq war. I was invited to speak on Memorial Day in 2007, honoring the 4,000th US soldiers killed in Iraq. (Earlier that week, VP Cheney was informed of that statistic and he replied, “So what!”) Tea Party members showed up on their bikes to shout invectives at the people there honoring the dead, and then began shouting obscenities into the faces of small children. They demanded the Crosses be torn down as a desecration to the memory of the American dead who, by their reckoning, must have enjoyed dying in battle. (The Tea Party could never explain why they felt that honoring the dead was disrespectful and unpatriotic.) As I began to speak, Kumar took a place in front of me as a half-dozen of the angry demonstrators began to close in one me and shout obscenities at me. Then, one of the mob put his hand on Kumar's shoulder as if to push him aside. I was behind Kumar and could barely hear what he said to the bully. But with that, the guy removed his arm, then walked away from the area, back to his bike and left the event. Hollywood would call what Kumar did a "Jedi mind-trick," it was so far beyond anything we think possible. But he did the impossible: with barely an audible breath, he made his opponent stand down using only soul-force. A microcosm of what Gandhi, Mandela, Dr King, Lech Walesa, Karol Wojtyla and others have done against their respective, well-armed adversaries. Tea Party thinking has not diminished since 2007, but rather seems to have grown. And we seem to be entering unknown territory that threatens all humane values, including even the future of life on this planet. Let those with eyes, see. There is a darkness closing in and it has unlimited might, wealth and weaponry at its disposal. And the election will not be the end of, but - whatever the outcome – will probably exacerbate it. Kumar offered a model of how to deal with the darkness. He whispered a sentence or two, and the thug got on his Harley and left. I saw that non-violent resistance really works. What that means for each of us now is something each of us has to begin considering.