‘How many teeth have you left in your mouth?’ (Meaning: Do you wear dentures?)
‘Do you have to get up at night to urinate?’ (Meaning: Do you have an enlarged prostrate?)
Then there are similar queries about blood pressure, diabetes, heart etc., all related to the question of how much longer have we, to go.
These meleancholy thoughts come to my mind as I go in for cataract surgery. A week before my tryst with Dr Naushar Shroff, I had a few sessions with my dentist Dr Arun Kumar. I do my best to avoid Kumar as he is for ever finding fault with my teeth and warning me against chewing too much paan. Then one of my lower teeth began to hurt badly and I had to subsist on a liquid diet for two days. On the first session Arun Kumar took an X-ray of the affected tooth. At the next session he showed me that the rot had spread and he yanked out two of them. Of the original 32, I have only 26 left. I am still a lot better than most people of my age. We don’t await our birthdays to remind us of our age: bills of doctors, dentists and opticians keep us informed.
The Tribune, 18 November 1995
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A Nation of Sycophants
Are we Indians more prone to sycophancy than other prople? I think we are but I have never been able to fathom why it is so pervasive. Everyone of any consequence has his or her coterie of chamchas. The chamchas explain their attachment to their heroes as devotion or loyalty. So in any organization we have a pecking order.
The top person is treated like a devta (deity) or ann-data (provider). He has a small circle of chamchas who will do anything at his bidding, suffer being treated like doormats, snubbed and humiliated in public, but never waiver in their single-minded devotion to their boss: they will serve him, his family, cultivate his friends, hate his enemies and do their utmost to identify themselves with the person they adore.
Though sycophancy flourishes in all societies, it has deeper, emotional and spiritual roots in India. Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar, the chief drafter of our Constitution, made a perceptive analysis of sycophancy in Indian life in a speech in the Constituent Assembly. He said:
‘For in India, Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship. Bhakti has certainly led to unjust attitudes towards a leader other than the current hero.’
I think Dr Ambedkar was right. It was the general acceptance of Bhakti as the best path to salvation throughout India with corresponding acceptance of Islamic Sufism which likewise emphasized the need of total surrender to the spiritual guide which turned into sycophancy in secular life. The Guru or the Murshid who required dedication of tan, man, dhan—body, mind and wordly wealth—the chelas gave it to them in pursuit of spiritual salvation. Today they give it to their bosses with the same spirit of dedication to attain wordly success.
The Tribune, 8 June 1996
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Problems of Old Age
You have to be old to know what the real problems of ageing are. As an old English proverb goes: ‘Only the toad beneath the harrow knows where each point of the harrow goes.’
I am not talking of physical or mental infirmities which come with the years and need special medical treatment. Nor of the indifference of sons, daughters and grandchildren who find their grandparents’ growing senility and anecdotage a nuisance and would like them to depart from the world to make life easier for them.
I am not even talking of the shortage of old people’s homes where the aged could spend their last days in reasonable comfort and die in peace. What I am talking about is the callous indifference and lack of consideration of the common people towards those who can no longer keep pace with them. Let me give you a few examples from personal life.
For as long as I can remember we have been spending at least one evening of the week with our friend of over 60 years, Prem Kirpal. He lives less than 50 yards from us across the road. Till five years ago we used to simply walk over taking the road divider in our strides. Then the divider became a hurdle: stepping on it became as hard a feat as scaling the Everest; stepping down from it on the other side became even more hazardous. We circumvented the hurdle and found a break in the road divider. The next problem was to wait for a suitable gap in the speeding traffic to get to the middle of the road and wait for a similar break in the stream of cars, buses and scooters coming from the other direction and hobble across as fast as our legs could carry us. Now, Prem Kirpal sends us his car to take us across the 50-yard divide. I am reminded of the Urdu couplet:
Javaani jaatee rahee
Aur hamein pataa bhee na laga;
Isee ko dhoond rahey hain
Kamar jhukaae hooey
(You faded away
And we did not as much as
notice it going.)
We are up against another problem, more serious than dining with a friend. In the summer months we go to Kasauli two or three times. I used to drive all the way. Then the traffic on the Grand Trunk Road and the 22 miles from Kalka to Kasauli became too heavy for comfort.
We took to going by train: the Himalayan Queen to Chandigarh, then by car to Kasauli. Then we had to give up the Himalayan Queen for the simple reason that this train left from and came to different platforms of New Delhi Railway station which entailed going up and down steps of overbridges.
We could not negotiate coming down because of the danger of being knocked down by people running down in a hurry. Now, even though as an ex-MP we could travel free, we go by the Shatabdi Express and pay Rs 1,300 each way for the simple reason that the train leaves and arrives on Platform Number One and there are no overbridges to cross. Even so, boarding and getting off trains has become a nightmarish experience. Stations and platforms are crowded. Everyone seems to be in desperate hurry to get in or get off the train. The dhakkam dhakka (shoving and pushing) can knock down old people and fracture their brittle bones. Travelling by air is only marginally easier. I have to request the staff or some able-bodied fellow-passengers to help me with hand baggage. I realize my days of travel are fast coming to a close.
What are old people to do? Vaanprastha—retirement to the jungles—is the prescription suggested by our sacred texts. I am beginning to come to the conclusion that they had the right answer.
The Tribune, 19 July 1997
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Greening of Dharma
My grievance against religion as practised in our country today is that it does not serve any social purpose. More often than not it is antisocial and the cause of contention between adherents of different faiths. It should and can be a positive force in solving many problems that plague our country but continues to play a negative role by keeping us backward and steeped in irrational superstitions. At its best it has become a time-wasting pastime of bhajan singing, pravachans (sermons), yagnas, meditation, pilgrimages, processions and rituals like all-night jagrans and akhand paaths. Do they improve social conditions? Do they make persons better human beings? Answers to both questions are ‘no’.
By my way of reckoning, one Ela Bhatt, founder of SEWA, has done more for the women of India than all the Jagadgurus, Godmen and Godwomen who spout learned sermons on TV channels put together. One Mother Teresa was worth more than all the archbishops of the Catholic church in India because she brought hope in the lives of millions who had lost it. And one Bhagat Pooran Singh, founder of the Pingalwara, did more for destitutes and the mentally retarded than the jathedars of the five takhts. We need more doers like Ela Bhatt, Mother Teresa and Pooran Singh than men and women in saffron who do nothing except talk, talk, talk.
At long last, religious sentiment has begun to be exploited for the country’s good. The beginning was made at the Baisakhi festival in Anandpur. Besides the persad (halwa), worshippers were given seedlings of their choice to plant in their courtyards and gar
dens. This innovation has been followed in Delhi. An organization, Sarav Sanjha Khalsa, under the patronage of retired Justice R.S. Narula, Rajbir Singh (chairman) and Pushpinder Singh (secretary), has set up three nurseries in the compounds of three gurudwaras from where anyone can get saplings free to plant during the current monsoon season. This is something that people like Sunderlal Bahuguna of the Chipko movement, the Bishnois and other environmentalists could take up immediately. This year’s Vana Mahotsava should not be a sarkari affair to give politicians publicity, but a people’s movement towards the greening of India.
The Hindustan Times, 3 July 1999
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Profiles and Personalities
Maker of Modern India
Tributes paid by the Indian Press to Raja Rammohun Roy added very little to our existent textbook information summed up in the cliche, ‘Maker of Modern India’. I was lucky to learn a little more about him from Justice Das, M.R.A. Baig and Air Chief Marshal Lal. It was the airman who drew attention to many facets of the Raja’s life. Did you realize he lived closer to the time of Emperor Aurangzeb than to ours? And while his contemporaries, the Peshwas and Maharajah Ranjit Singh, were still fighting with matchlock, musket and sabre, Rammohun was addressing memoranda in impeccable prose on subjects like the freedom of the press, the right of Indians to sit on Grand Juries, the need to abolish passports, property rights for Hindu women, etc? Did you know he could read and write eleven languages: Sanskrit, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Persian (he edited a journal in Farsi), Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, English, French? And wrote 38 books? That though he started learning English at the age of 24, in five years he was able to handle it well enough to merit praise from Jeremy Bentham, who said that the Raja’s letters were the work of an ‘Englishman of superior education’.
Surely this man must have had the touch of genius! I can’t think of any Indian, living or dead, who could match his achievements. This is all the more remarkable because Rammohun Roy had an indifferent education and an unhappy life. He was in constant argument with his father (his favourite word in dialogue was kintu—but), his mother took him to court, his wives (he was married to three women while he was a child) lived away from him, the fanatic Dharma Sabha made many attempts to have him killed.
None of this shook Rammohun Roy’s faith in his mission. In the Brahmo Samaj he formulated a religion for the thinking Indian shorn of idolatry, ritual and belief in the supernatural. So reminiscent of poet Browning’s statement: ‘There is a new tribunal now, higher than God’s, the educated man’s.’ The Raja’s letter to Prince Talleyrand set out his faith in more precise terms: ‘Not religion only but unbiased common sense as well as accurate scientific research leads us to the conclusion that all mankind is one great family of which numerous nations and tribes are only various branches.’ This is exactly what Tom Paine said later: ‘The world is my country, mankind my brethren, to do good, my religion.
Rammohun despite his iconoclasm and flirtations with Islam and Christianity never wavered in his loyalty to Hinduism. When he went to England he took his brahmin cooks with him (also two Indian cows). The last words he spoke before sinking into a coma were: Hari Om. He was buried with his sacred thread on him.
On every aspect of life—political, social, economic religious, literary or cultural—he left the impact of his personality. What made Mahatma Gandhi call him a ‘pigmy’? It would be apparent to any student of history that Rammohun Roy was one of the greatest sons of India. Poet Tagore’s riposte to Gandhiji was right; he described the Raja as ‘a great-hearted man of gigantic intelligence’.
The Illustrated Weekly, 11 June 1972
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Clean But Confused
Rajiv Gandhi’s image as ‘Mr Clean’ has been assiduously built up by the media. It has stuck because there is a strong element of truth in it. As politicians go, he is cleaner than the cleanest political whistle. His transparent honesty carries conviction. He has also a very good presence. He is courteous and a thorough gentleman. However, a few ugly warts have begun to show on his handsome face. The darkest is his habit of making statements which, on advice, he is later forced to deny. He does it in the traditionally accepted politicians’ formula: ‘I have been misquoted.’
I have not compiled a list of his faux pas, but mean to do so in the future. Some that I recall have already gone on record and will be difficult to erase from the pages of history. Did he or did he not describe Bhindranwale while he was alive, as a purely religious leader, and after his death denied having said so? Did he or did he not say that over 700 jawans had been killed in ‘Operation Bluestar’ whereas the government’s White Paper had the figure of army casualties as 92? Did he not commit himself to M.J. Akbar that he would make an announcement about setting up some kind of judicial inquiry into the violence in Punjab and the post-assassination pogrom of Sikhs in northern India? In the Rajya Sabha when I tried to pin him down to this commitment and flourished a copy of Sunday carrying the interview, he simply replied, ‘I have not read the printed version of the interview but that was not exactly what I said.’ When I reminded him that he had promised to make the announcement before the 10 March 1985, he replied, ‘Anyhow, today is the 14th.’ An answer like that would have raised guffaws of laughter in a meeting of rustics in any panchayat. In the Rajya Sabha, members of the Congress(I) applauded it, presumably as a witty retort. And now we have his statement to the Congress Parliamentary Party to the effect that the army would soon be withdrawn from Punjab, elections held and an elected government installed. The statement was repeated to the press by the very ebullient secretary of the party in the Rajya Sabha, J.K. Jain, and within a few minutes vehemently contradicted by Srikant Verma, general secretary of the party. At first it appeared that J.K. Jain had boobed. Then it appeared that Srikant Verma who, in his enthusiasm to put down a possible rival had told the press what he had got from the royal horse’s mouth. It is quite clear now that J.K. Jain had faithfully reported what Rajiv Gandhi had said but since it amounted to a commitment, Srikant Verma was asked to contradict it. If he is not more cautious with his words, Mr Clean may soon earn for himself a second sobriquet: Mr Confused.
Sunday, 6 April 1985
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Lady of Kasur
Not many of the present generation are likely to be familiar with the name of Flora Annie Steel, much less have read anything written by her. Till Rudyard Kipling swamped her reputation, she was regarded as the leading fiction writer on India. However, her novel, On the Face of the Waters, survived the Kipling flood and is regarded as the definitive work of fiction on the Mutiny. It became a bestseller and made Flora a literary lioness in Victorian England. Flora Webster was born in Harrow in 1847 and died in 1929 at the age of 82. The first fortnight of April marks both her birth and death anniversaries.
Flora spent over 20 years of her married life (her husband Henry Steel was in the ICS) in northern India, mainly in Punjab. She was not yet 20 when she accepted his proposal for marriage sent to her by letter. Later she admitted that she had never been in love with him and disdained sex as something she had to suffer as a wife. ‘Many, many women of my ignorantly-kept generation have told me that their honeymoon was spent in tears and fears,’ she wrote. ‘Mine was not. I simply stared. I accepted everything as a strange part of the great mystery of humanity and the world, though no child could have been ignorant of natural happenings than I was…my distaste of realities was overborne by a desire to understand.’
The Steels arrived at Madras in the summer of 1868 and proceeded by train to Delhi which was then the rail terminal. Thereafter they travelled by horse and palanquin to Ludhiana which was her husband’s first posting. She spent a few months at Kasauli before going on to Kasur which was to be her home for many years and her real contact with India and Indians. Kasur gave her material for her innumerable collections of short stories and novels.
The little I have read of Flora’s works (including her Mutiny novel which I could not read to the end) did
not impress me. Her plots are complicated and contrived, her characters do not come alive, her style is laboured. More than her writing it was her work amongst small-town women told in her biography by Violet Powell that impressed me. It illustrates how much a person with antiquated ideas (she shared Kipling’s notions of the master race) could do to alleviate the suffering of people with whom she had little in common. She was closer to her pet squirrels and dogs than to the Indians amongst whom she lived. She was self-taught, picked up the rudiments of medicine and ended up as an inspectress of schools. She ruled her little empire with an iron hand, would thrash anyone who made disparaging remarks about memsahibs with her riding crop, storm into the government secretariats and give a tongue-lashing to senior officials. At the same time, she opened girls’ schools wherever she went and tried to persuade women to discard their burkhas. When she left Kasur, the women of the town presented her with a brooch made of pearls and stones out of their own necklaces and bangles as a farewell present. Flora was unable to make her speech of thanks: she burst into tears of gratitude.
Most of Flora Annie Steel’s books on India were written in England after she had returned. She came back to India twice to collect material for One the Face of the Waters and a novel on Lucknow, Voices In the Night. She spent a few months in Kasur to meet with townsfolk she had befriended in her earlier days. She thoroughly enjoyed the acclaim she received after the success of her Mutiny novel (it had been rejected by her first publisher) and continued to take interest in Indian affairs raising money to help impoverished Indian women she had known. Though eighty, she attended classes at Oxford University and consulted reference books in the Bodleian. She expressed the wish that her body should be cremated in a shroud spun for her by the schoolgirls she had taught in Lahore. She died 56 years ago this week on 12 April 1929.
Notes On the Great Indian Circus Page 10