Baisakhi of the Khalsa

COMES the great day, Ist of Baisakh (April 13). All roads leading to Anandpur are crammed with pilgrims coming on foot, cars, trucks and tractors converted into double-decker buses. The local administration is prepared to cater for 30 lakh visitors. Thousands of tented colonies, canteens and first-aid clinics have sprouted around the town. The bandobast has to be very pucca: one untoward incident and the situation could turn very ugly. A near stampede situation exists all the time at the entrance of the main shrine. Early this morning an old patriarch going up the steps could not bear the crush of humanity around him and died. "He could not have asked for a better death than on the threshold of the Guru’s darbar", says everyone. "They won’t have to take his ashes too far, Kiratpur is barely four miles from here".

I am lucky. This time I do not have to do the journey by road. My grand-daughter, Naina, and I are accommodated on a chopper ferrying VIPs which include Dr Jaspal Singh, General Jagjit Singh Arora, the Ahluwalias, Montek and his wife Isher. To make sure we are not left out, we are the first to arrive at the airport. We are welcomed by our pilot, Colonel A.P.S. Dhanoya. We are the first to scramble up into the chopper and fasten our seat belts. The journey that took four hours by road yesterday, takes us a bare 15 minutes. But dust-haze makes visibility very poor and we are unable to see anything of the spectacular sight of the marble-white gurdwara township or the temple of Naina Devi on the peak above. In a swirl of dust, we touch down on the grounds of Dashmesh Academy. Dhak (flame of the forest) and neelam (Jacarandas) bloom in the forest. We are given half-an-hour to freshen up before we leave for the pandal where men and women who brought honour to the Khalsa Panth are to be decorated.

The short drive from the Academy Guest House, through the town and to the pandal is a not-to-be-forgotten experience. There were happy crowds of men, women and children draped in saffron and blues going from nowhere to nowhere. Although there is a lot of jostling, no one loses his or her temper. The police are uncharacteristically polite, saying "Behnjee, bhaijee", etc. Nihangs display their outlandish uniforms and periodically raise the war cry ‘Boley so nihaal. Everyone seemed to be well-fed and hearty.

We arrive at the main pandal. It has over 80,000 men and women, a sea of saffron, blue and white. I can spot many celebrities: Yogi Bhajan with a contingent of American Sikhs, Namdharis in flat white turbans and many Hindus with scarves covering their heads. Agriculture Minister Gurdev Singh Badal is holding forth on the microphone. After regailing the audience with self-manufactured dialogues that took place between Guru Gobind Singh and the Panj Piaras, he tells us how Jayalalitha celebrated her foster son’s marriage by having it performed in an airplane and how a Bombay industrialist who wanted to out do her had his son’s (or daughter’s) marriage performed at the bottom of the sea in a submarine. And there was Guru Gobind Singh who let his wife, Mata Sundari, arrange betrothals of all their sons without any fuss and without consulting him. A few times Captain Kanwaljit Singh, Finance Minister, and Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, MP, tap him on the sholuder and ask him to wind up. He goes on and on. He has a captive audience and is enjoying himself hugely. He is said to be the Chief Minister’s favourite and from the same village. At long last, the audience gets restless and he ends his long-winded, pointless oration.

The real business of awarding scrolls of honour and mementos to men and women who did the Khalsa proud begins. It is a long list comprising soldiers, airmen, conquerers of Everest, freedom-fighters, writers, artists and social workers. Most have been recognised posthumously: their widows, descendants come to take the awards on their behalf. Many of the living awardees are decrepit and have to be helped up to the stage. Much the loudest applause (the Khalsa don’t clap, they bolo-jaikaras) goes to Sant Baba Virsa Singh who arrives with his latest 200 disciples, including B.L. Sharma and Prem. Virsa Singh is a mountain of a man who looks more mountainous with his huge white turban and a snowy white, long flowing beard. The pandal resounds with round after round of Boley so Nihal! Sat Sri Akal!

Some Chandigarh pressmen accost me and ask, "How do you react to all this? You admit to being a non-believer".

I answer honestly. "I am overwhelmed by the reception. I know my time to meet my Maker, if there is one, is drawing near. On His own, He is not likely talk to me. I will not need to talk to Him. I will show Him my award and tell Him the Khalsa Panth has given me a passport to paradise signed by Parkash Singh Badal. I do not need a visa from you".

Homosexuality in poetry

A few months ago at a seminar on Urdu poetry, Iftikhar Nasim of Pakistan now settled in Chicago read a paper on the subject of homosexuality referred to in the compositions of many poets, including Meer Taqi Mir, Ghalib and Firaq Gorakhpuri. Scholars attending the seminars were more amused than shocked because allusions of pederasty in Urdu poetry are as common as love for courtesans and prostitutes. This is not surprising in a society where segregation of women was the norm. But bringing it out in the open for discussion was audacious. No English newspaper thought it fit for publication. But Qaumi Awaz of Lucknow published Iftikhar Nasim’s paper in full.

Homosexuality though condemned in Islam as a sin has been openly practised in Islamic societies. There is the classic case of Mahmud of Ghazna’s attachment to his slave Ayyaz. Allama Iqbal alludes to it in his famous poem Shikwa (Complaint) with approval, Emperor Babur made no secret of his liking for young boys with rounded bottoms. Mir Taqi Mir wrote of his passing fancy for Attar Ka Launda — the son of a perfumer — and Memar Ka Larka — son of a mason. Like Mir, Ghalib fancied young boys in their adolescence, before beards sprouted on their chins:

Sabza-e-khat se tara kakul-e-sarkash neh daba Yeh zamurrad bhee hareef-e-dam-afei na huwa

(Though your rosy cheeks are sprouting green grass

Your emerald face does not blind the snake;

You remain as lovable as ever.)

Another couplet is equally specific:

Aamad-e-Khat se hua hay sard jo bazar-e-dost
dood-e-shama-e-kushta tha shaid khat-e-rukhsar-e-dost

(With the sprouting of the beard, demand for my beloved has diminished. Now it appears like the smoke of a dying fire.)

There are many other couplets of Ghalib which are clearly addressed to young boys. He is by no means the only Urdu poet with hetrosexual fancies. Most of these poets were married, had children through their wives and had affairs with women but thought nothing of deviating to homosexuality. They were not gays in the sense of being entirely homosexual as the word means today but took their sex regardless of gender. I have no doubt that poets of other languages also indulged in homosexuality but they rarely admitted it in their compositions. Shakespeare refers to a "dear boy" in his sonnets and Oscar Wilde, despite being married and a father, flauned his affair with Lord Alfred Douglas. They are the only instances I can think of in English literature.

We had a more liberal society than we have today. Though gays and lesbians have fraternities of their own, they are frowned upon by others. Punjabis, on the other hand, even granted sainthood to deviants. The classic instance is of Madho and Lal Hussain who became lovers and composed poetry jointly. They sent some of their compositions to Guru Arjun Dev to be incorporated in the Granth Sahib he was compiling. The Guru conceded that though their compositions in praise of God were of high order, but their lives were scandalous. So, he turned them down. The two were buried alongside. Every Basant Panchmi, Maharaja Ranjit Singh rode to their grave and made offerings. They are now buried alongside in a mausoleum close to Shalimar Garden. It has become a place of pilgrimage for all communities.

All hell

There seems that no word in the English language is more handy than the word ‘hell’. Dr Mario Pei, in his authoritative The Story of Language thus uses of the word:

Negative adverb: ‘The hell you are’.

Super superlative: ‘Hotter than hell’.

General adverb: ‘Fight like hell’.

Intensifier: ‘Who the hell is he’?

Literally used noun: Go to hell.

Synonym for uproar: To raise hell.

Combination word: ‘Hells’ bells’.

‘Hell and high water’.

(Contributed by Shivtar Singh Dalla, Ludhiana)

Note: Since Khushwant Singh is away on holiday, there will be no column next week.