E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Now, some governance please!
THE swearing-in of Mr Narendra Modi on Sunday in Ahmedabad was as oversized, rumbustious and chaotic as his campaigning. Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee and Mr L.K. Advani were there, but it was clear to each one of the hundred thousand cheering people who the real hero was.

Pak getting desperate
WHENEVER a human life is lost anywhere in a terrorist attack, the USA should hang its head in shame. After 9\11 the global community had responded enthusiastically to its invitation to launch a collective campaign against all forms of terrorism.

Let-down on Central loan
PUNJAB Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh’s reminder to the Prime Minister at the National Development Council meeting in New Delhi on Saturday that the Centre is yet to waive the Rs 5,800 crore loan taken by the Punjab Government to combat terrorism comes as a rude shock at the way financial affairs are handled both in the state and at the Centre.

OPINION

Surprising development in S. Korea
A challenging scenario for US policy-makers
S. Nihal Singh
IT is ironical that while the European Union and Russia are capitulating to the United States of America on Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, new winds of change inimical to American interests are blowing in unlikely places. After the election of the labour leader Lula da Silva in Brazil and the success of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey, South Korea has sprung a surprise.

MIDDLE

American desi
D.R. Sharma
I’M not focusing on the ABCDs — the American Born Confused Desis — but on a native white American, who rued American food, especially hamburgers and steaks, and rooted for health food and yoghurt. His faculty office being next to ours, he would invariably stop by to say “hi” and bless India for her twin virtues of yoga and vegetarianism.

REALPOLITIK

Moditva’s many roadblocks
P. Raman
A fortnight back Realpolitik had discussed the inherent incompatibility of interests between the moves to extend the Modi-Togadia political model to other states and the very survival of the NDA coalition at the Centre. Signals emanating from different camps within the RSS parivar after the Gujarat success point to a disturbingly confusing picture.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Drink powdered colostrum to avoid colds
IF you want to keep colds and flu at bay, then better start taking a daily dose of cow’s colostrum, the thick liquid secreted in the first milk after giving birth, says a new Australian study.

• $ 1 million damages for lewd outbursts

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

EDITORIALS

Now, some governance please!

THE swearing-in of Mr Narendra Modi on Sunday in Ahmedabad was as oversized, rumbustious and chaotic as his campaigning. Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee and Mr L.K. Advani were there, but it was clear to each one of the hundred thousand cheering people who the real hero was. The man at the centre of adulation was careful about sending conciliatory messages all around and making all the right gestures like touching the Prime Minister’s feet. Even otherwise, his statements after winning the election hands down have a new-found maturity about them. He no longer speaks like a rabble-rouser or the leader of a particular community. One hopes that this is not a cosmetic change. Crossing the dividing line between being a candidate and a Chief Minister can and should transform a politician’s outlook. Mr Modi had the dubious distinction of running perhaps the most communally surcharged campaign in recent history. Now that he has got what he set out to achieve, he will do well to remember that he will be better off carrying along with him members of all communities. Statements made during the heat of the moment should not become the blueprint for action. He has to realise that it is not only his supporters who have grouses. Muslims too have suffered greatly during his first stint. The least he can do is to apply salve to the hurt psyche of everyone without distinction.

Re-establishing the old bonds of communal amity is only the first item on a long list of pending jobs that he has to tackle. Business activity has come to a standstill thanks to the riots. Fiery speeches made by him in the run-up to the elections have further contributed to an atmosphere of uncertainty. The trader community thrives on peace and stability. Investors’ confidence will have to be restored carefully and gradually. Not only that, grinding poverty and lack of development stare many parts of Gujarat in the eye. He can blame “Mian Musharraf” and the ISI for fomenting communal trouble but social and economic progress is the Chief Minister’s responsibility. Now that he has got an enviable majority, he has to get down to the onerous task of setting his house in order. Perhaps he can learn from men like Mr Vajpayee and Mr Advani. Both of them advocated an aggressive brand of Hindutva at some stage of their career, only to tone it down considerably after coming to power. It will be futile to expect Mr Modi to become a secular messiah overnight, but he can surely take some steps in that direction.

Pak getting desperate

WHENEVER a human life is lost anywhere in a terrorist attack, the USA should hang its head in shame. After 9\11 the global community had responded enthusiastically to its invitation to launch a collective campaign against all forms of terrorism. Unhappily, the global coalition could never take shape because of American double standards in dealing with acts of terrorism. And India was the worst sufferer of the irrational policy that was put into place by the super power for eliminating terrorist groups. The recent series of killings in Jammu and Kashmir have taken barbarity to new heights of concern. And it is no secret that Pakistan trained militants are behind the incidents. It began with the killing of the PDP MLA, Abdul Aziz Mir. The militants have become more ruthless and desperate after the people of Jammu and Kashmir gave democracy the thumbs up in the assembly elections. The extent of desperation can be gauged from the fact that the so-called champions of Islam defiled the sanctity of even the Friday prayer for reviving their campaign of death and destruction in Kashmir. The PDP MLA had stepped out of a mosque after the Friday prayer when he was killed. Islam teaches respect for human life and places a premium on the safety and well-being of children and women. But not the militants from across the border. In several gruesome acts of blood-curdling violence they killed innocent women for defying their diktat on wearing the burqa. The beheading of a defiant woman was particularly more revolting. So was the killing of small children.

What does Pakistan expect to achieve by stepping up the scale of brutality of the proxy war against India? President Pervez Musharraf cannot be stopped in his tracks simply because the USA is neither putting pressure on him nor allowing India to send in troops for destroying the terrorist training camps in Pakistani territory across the LoC. The immediate objective of the militants is to force Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed press the panic button and abandon the policy of providing the "healing touch" for putting the state's economy back on the rails. The Centre will have to rise above narrow political concerns in backing the Mufti's approach in spite of grave provocations from across the border. In overall terms the situation is as disturbing as it was when Dr Farooq Abdullah followed the Centre-approved tough line for putting down militancy in the valley. The soft line of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is as successful or unsuccessful as the tough line of the earlier government. Therefore, the need is not to change the present policy before giving it a fair chance to deliver. The need is to strengthen the hands of the Chief Minister. Direct action because of American strategic interests in Pakistan is not possible now in a unipolar world. The next best option is to step up the level of intelligence-gathering and combing operations by Central forces in collaboration with the state agencies. This coupled with focused diplomatic offensive at the global level may yet force Pakistan to abandon its flawed Kashmir policy.

Let-down on Central loan

PUNJAB Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh’s reminder to the Prime Minister at the National Development Council meeting in New Delhi on Saturday that the Centre is yet to waive the Rs 5,800 crore loan taken by the Punjab Government to combat terrorism comes as a rude shock at the way financial affairs are handled both in the state and at the Centre. In September, 1997, the then Prime Minister, Mr Inder Kumar Gujral, had made the announcement waiving the Rs 5,799.92 crore Central loan taken by Punjab to fight Pakistan’s proxy war on behalf of the nation. Unusual as it was even for the Prime Minister to take the bold decision of waiving such a huge loan and announcing it at a public meeting, Mr Gujral’s gesture was given the official stamp of approval by the Union Cabinet later. When subsequently doubts were raised about the Centre’s sincerity on the issue, his successor and the present Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, held out a public assurance that the Gujral government’s decision would be honoured. Accordingly, a sum of Rs 3,600 crore was to be waived after the Ninth Finance Commission’s report and the balance was to be taken care of after the 10th Finance Commission report. However, the 11th Finance Commission slapped a moratorium on the payment of the instalments of the debt and the interest during 2000-05. Ideally, when the Prime Minister of the country makes an announcement, the administrative machinery should be duty-bound to implement it within a reasonable time-frame. If there are any procedural or financial hurdles, these can be removed with mutual consultations.

That Punjab has been going through a financial squeeze for quite some years now is well known. The Central assistance to the state has come down in the Tenth Plan from what was sanctioned in the Ninth Plan. Yet it is surprising that despite its partnership with the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, the SAD-BJP coalition headed by Mr Parkash Singh Badal could not either check the decline in the Central aid or get the loan-waiving decision implemented. Ever since taking over the reigns of power in Punjab, Capt Amarinder Singh has been publicly voicing his concern over the precarious financial position of the state and blaming the Akalis for leaving behind an empty Treasury. Yet the Congress government has made little effort to recover what is due to the state. Any government on the brink of bankruptcy would have accorded top priority to getting such vital financial matters straightened out. After some 10 months the Chief Minister chose to raise the issue and that too at the National Development Council meeting. This is more for headlines. Mr Gujral is not wide of the mark when he says Punjab stands orphaned today. Its leaders, particularly those at the helm of affairs, have failed to protect the interests of the state.

OPINION

Surprising development in S. Korea
A challenging scenario for US policy-makers
S. Nihal Singh

IT is ironical that while the European Union and Russia are capitulating to the United States of America on Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, new winds of change inimical to American interests are blowing in unlikely places. After the election of the labour leader Lula da Silva in Brazil and the success of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey, South Korea has sprung a surprise. In the victory of Roh Moo Hyun, the candidate of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party, over his conservative rival, America faces its greatest challenge on the Korean peninsula in the last 50 years.

The closely fought election took place against the setting of large-scale anti-American demonstrations and the Bush administration’s hardline policy towards North Korea. Two Korean teenage girls were crushed under an armoured carrier in June and the recent acquittal of two US soldiers by an American military court led to much anger and demands for changes in the Status of Forces Agreement that governs the 37,000 American troops stationed in South Korea.

The outrage over the girls’ deaths took on a national character unprecedented in the scale of the protests. Even Roh’s conservative rival Lee Hoi Chang had to make sympathetic noises and sought changes in SOFA, but Roh was more assertive and credible in demanding that it was time Washington conducted a more equal relationship with South Korea. In the eighties, he had demanded the withdrawal of US troops, a stance he has changed since then.

North Korea loomed large in the election campaign because of the Bush administration’s hard line by first including it in its “axis of evil” and then disengaging from it after Pyongyang’s reported acknowledgement last October of continuing with its nuclear weapons programme. Roh’s mentor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, President Kim Dae Jung, had set two goals for his administration: a “sunshine” policy of engaging with North Korea and democratisation at home. His most spectacular achievement was a summit with Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang in June, 2000. But the promise of that meeting remained largely unfulfilled because President George W. Bush, in his first meeting with the South Korean leader, threw cold water over the sunshine policy and the North Korean leader’s return visit never materialised.

Roh is now carrying Kim Dae Jung’s flag, but, unlike his mentor, he is more assertive and has declared that Seoul must have a central role in America’s dispute with North Korea. In fact, he has suggested a mediatory role for himself to defuse the crisis. No wonder, The New York Times quoted an American military official as saying after Roh’s victory: “There is a real sense of mourning here”. South Korea was particularly roiled that during the 1994 crisis former US President Jimmy Carter helped defuse, the Americans hardly consulted Seoul in the initial stages in a situation which had a life and death connotation for the country. South Korea’s capital, for instance, is within the North’s artillery range.

Kim Dae Jung, who gives up office in February after his mandatory one-term presidency, is leaving a mixed legacy for his protégé. His bold sunshine policy opened up a new vista for the peninsula’s eventual peaceful reunification. But the North has been hesitant in reciprocating the South’s gestures until recently, despite the large economic assistance the South, in addition to other nations, has given it. As against the Pyongyang summit, the South Korean President has been hobbled by corruption scandals in his family, with two of his sons serving prison terms for their infractions. In line with Confucian thinking, the sons’ misdemeanours were visited upon the father.

That Kim Dae Jung’s vision lost steam in the last year of his presidency does not negate his place in history and the result of the election is remarkable in the twists and turns it underwent. The conservative Lee of the opposition party was a hot favourite to win the election against Roh and the scion of the Hyundai empire. Chung Mong Joon, who acquired great popularity by co-hosting the World Cup with Japan. Chung then dropped out of the race and gave his support to Roh. But days before polling day, Chung withdrew his support from Roh after the latter had declared at a public meeting, “If the US and North Korea start a war, we will stop it”. This was interpreted as a declaration of neutrality and Lee gained an edge over Roh in the eyes of the cognoscenti, but the latter surprisingly won by two percentage points.

Indeed, Roh’s victory is all the more remarkable in a hierarchical society because he had humble beginnings, studied law after working in a chicken farm, defended labour and student activists in the era of military administrations and then was drawn to the democracy movement and Kim Dae Jung. The turmoil over North Korea and Seoul’s relations with Washington have combined to make this a historic victory. The conservatives and the older generation are still comfortable with a subsidiary relationship with the USA and perhaps feel that Kim Dae Jung has given away too much to the North without receiving enough compensation in return. But for a more confident and prosperous younger generation, subservience to America is not an attractive proposition.

There are, however, a few home truths about South Korea both sides of the divide understand. After the travails of the German reunification, avidly studied by Seoul. a nightmare scenario for the South is to have a sudden reunion of the two halves, with catastrophic consequences on South Korean peace and prosperity. It makes sense, therefore, to aid North Korea and gradually wean it away from its isolation and disastrous economic course. There are doubtless compulsions on the part of the Northern regime in refusing to open up more than at a glacial pace.

Another verity all South Koreans understand is the craving of millions of separated families for reunions with their relations across the border, with the older generation dying out. One such series of reunions took place after the Pyongyang summit and another more recently. But these are highly structured meetings, with the lucky ones determined by lots in South Korea. Regular and more informal meetings would do relations between the South and the North a world of good,

President Bush has invited Roh to meet him in Washington in January and Washington hopes to try to smooth over the differences that have increasingly bedevilled relations. But in Roh, the USA must contend with a feisty leader who will insist on substantive changes in SOFA and in having a substantial say in how America should treat North Korea. How Bush will reconcile the views of the symbol of a new Korea with his desire to make an example of North Korea — the third country in his “axis of evil” — after he has toppled Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein remains to be seen.

MIDDLE

American desi
D.R. Sharma

I’M not focusing on the ABCDs — the American Born Confused Desis — but on a native white American, who rued American food, especially hamburgers and steaks, and rooted for health food and yoghurt. His faculty office being next to ours, he would invariably stop by to say “hi” and bless India for her twin virtues of yoga and vegetarianism. Books on yoga he always enjoyed reading though he hadn’t practised it even once. He found it impossible to sit cross-legged on the floor and try those therapeutic postures. “Everything hurts whenever I try to manoeuvre my knees and sit like the Buddha in those pictures in the books I read,” he said more than once.

A renowned Renaissance scholar he bemoaned the rat race that afflicted most of the academics. What upset him often was the prevailing norm that if one didn’t publish one would eventually fade out and perish. Instead of worrying about that cliche he directed his energies towards what he called a quiet and steady self-contact. It was during this pursuit that he discovered the Indian virtues of yoga and vegetarianism. And since yoga seemed to antagonise his system with all those curls and curves, he took to an intensive study of Indian cuisine. What he liked the most was yoghurt — and yoghurt was something he didn’t known how to make.

He said he tried hard to boil the milk — and boiling the milk in itself was un-American — but he didn’t care for shallow patriotism. He read recipe books, checked with Ruth his line of action and then again tried to culture the pot of hot milk with a dash of yoghurt bought from the parlour. But nothing happened and his passionate attempt would flop time and again. When he heard about us from John Harris, the Chairman of the department, he hoped he would be able to taste one day the home-made yoghurt.

It was just after knowing us for a couple of weeks that he chose one morning to unlock his heart and share his agony with my wife whose reputation as a perfect yoghurt-maker was still a secret. But since Ted could read the minds, through his contact with our scriptures, he spotted the talent and pleaded for a training session at his home. Being a Renaissance man he said he would call it a new awakening if he could learn the mysterious art. That would help him overcome those stomach rumblings that some time clouded his vision of life.

I still recall the glow on his face when Ted came to pick us up from our Wymount Terrace apartment. On the way he shared with us his ardent love for our satvik food and his hope that one day this dietary gospel would finally prevail even in pockets where people didn’t known even the taste of cooked carrots or cabbage. That would silence his colleagues in the department who pitied him for his confused orientalism.

As he turned to his house, after smoothly negotiating a rocky hump, he slowed his Honda Accord and apprised us of his one handicap and one fear. To deepen his appreciation of Indian culture he would like to spend a month or two at one of our ashrams and closely interact with the saints and hermits. Unfortunately he knew no Sanskrit. That was his handicap. His fear about the visit arose from some of the old tales about India in which snakes slithered on the roads and elephants roamed freely on every green patch in the country. “If you guarantee that snakes won’t bite and the elephants won’t smother me,” he remarked, “then next year I can accompany you back home.”

REALPOLITIK

Moditva’s many roadblocks
P. Raman

A fortnight back Realpolitik had discussed the inherent incompatibility of interests between the moves to extend the Modi-Togadia political model to other states and the very survival of the NDA coalition at the Centre. Signals emanating from different camps within the RSS parivar after the Gujarat success point to a disturbingly confusing picture.

The Prime Minister will make a few more statements reassuring the NDA allies at the national executive meeting scheduled for December 23 and 24 or even before it. But the pressures being built within the parivar are so strong that the mask is becoming thinner and pale. He has been steadily losing the hold since the Goa conclave with the control of the entire organisation having slipped into the hands of a new set of young leaders under Mr L.K. Advani. Despite Vajpayee’s repeated caution, the new party set had firmly patronised the Modi-Togadia line in Gujarat right from the dissolution of the assembly to the last day and after.

Those like Arun Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu had camped in Gujarat and coordinated the campaign. Hence the credit for the Gujarat success should equally be shared by the Delhi patrons. Vajpayee cannot be unaware of this crucial aspect which has gone wholly unnoticed outside the BJP. His repeated self-contradictory remarks on Godhra since the elections should be seen as early symptoms of intense pressures building up within the parivar for a more aggressive assertion of ‘Hindu pride’ as a political strategy in the coming months. The BJP MPs now in Delhi for the winter session vouch for this.

What the Prime Minister says or what the national executive officially declares cannot, therefore, be taken as the final word on the BJP’s future political strategy. It can at the most be interpreted as another reassurance to the NDA partners. The real debate is taking place in the parivar in the form of fierce arguments, open taunts and unilateral actions of threat to act Virar and Sariska-type dialogues are not more effective in the RSS in the past four years, unilateral actions and counter threats alone had the upper hand.

Gujarat marks the beginning of a similar kind of unilateral actions within the BJP by the present effective leadership. They did so without any formal decision by any high-level policy making body. Vajpayee’s shifting positions on blaming the Muslims and action-reaction theory on Godhra, etc manifest his reconciliation with the present power equation within the party. This is a clear signal of what Togadia says (and no one so far contradicted) “an upheaval within the BJP for a return to ideology”. And unlike earlier, it is not just the VHP hotheads alone. The effective leadership of the BJP also feels increasingly emboldened to push the line elsewhere.

At Raipur, Venkaiah Nadu warns the “secularists”, including the NDA partners, that “Hindu-bashing won’t pay any more,” Chhatisgarh BJP legislature party leader N.K. Sai asserts that the Modi-Togadia model would be replicated in his state and tells the Christians that Hindutva is very much on his party’s agenda. He has sought Togadia’s expertise well in time for the next year’s election. Significantly, Gujarat has also exploded the myth that the coalition compulsions at the Centre will act as a restraint on the BJP in its bid to create religious hatred-based vote bank in states.

In theory, it is easier for the BJP to replicate the “Hindu pride” in the five states where elections are due next year because the NDA allies have no significant presence there. Apparently, this was what had prompted Advani to put forth the “NDA agenda, BJP “jhanda” analogy. Though both are contradictory, primacy is now for the jhanda. The question now is how this could be done.

A section in the BJP still argues that right projection of incumbency factors is sufficient to win elections in the four Congress-ruled states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh and Delhi. They fear that reckless parallel religious campaigns by Togadias will only distract the main plank. Moreover, in large sprawling states with well-defined regions within, the VHP will find it difficult to inflame disturbances uniformally. Even in Gujarat, the electoral benefit diminished progressively from the Godhra epicentre.

Pramod Mahajan’s advance distribution of five ladoos to each of his MPs apart, the Modi model will encounter formidable geographical resistance and inherent caste dialectics specific to certain regions. For instance, during the past 15 years Indian politics has been getting highly provincialised. Each state has its own leadership econs and regional politics. Mayawati is being stopped at the Bihar borders and despite best efforts Chautala fails to penetrate even a kilometre into UP’s Jat belt.

This means an issue that will have a uniform appeal in all regions of the four states will have to be invested or state-specific religious disturbances engineered. This is not going to be an easy task. Himachal Pradesh, which goes to the polls some time February next, is going to be the first state where the Modi model could have been field-tested. It is one of the surviving BJP states and hence the anti-incumbency plank cannot be tried. But unfortunately, the hill state is also devoid of the necessary minority community to bash with.

Togadias will encounter hurdles of varying types in some other states. In this respect, states can be categorised broadly into four. Keeping aside Himachal Pradesh, the best suited for the Moditva experiment is Maharashtra where the local NDA ally is more than eager to resort to minority bashing. The two parties possess the right kind of cadre for the task and have been beneficiaries of similar tactics in the past. As in Gujarat, the NDA allies outside the state won’t bother to take objection on the plea that the coalition existed only at the centre.

States like Uttaranchal, Rajasthan, Delhi, Chhatisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP has a direct fight with the Congress, belong to a slightly different category. Though they too are free from the NDA nuisance, by and large they have no tradition of endemic riots and religious tension. But the real hurdle in the way of the Modi model is going to be in states like Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Haryana. The DMK had looked the other way when Gujarat continued to burn. But Karunanidhi or Chandrababu Naidu, who have a substantial minority goodwill, cannot afford to lose their own well-cultivated base. Moreover, if allowed a massive communal frenzy could also whipe the TDP in its sweep.

Caste as an antidote to Hindutva vote bank had worked well in Bihar and UP and scattered pockets were the BSP has it support. Laloo Prasad Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati had successfully used it to telling effect even at the peak of the Ayodhya embroglio. Caste loyalties, if played up, can make the pan-Hindu concept meaningless.

This explains the BJP’s decline in these states. In both states — Nitish in Bihar and the new partner Mayawati in UP — will also feel the pinch of a sweeping Hindu buildup at the ground level. These are the real roadblocks in the way of the “Hindu pride” poll plank, not the NDA protests or Vajpayee’s liberal face. Until then, the various RSS arms will continue making conflicting noises, each one seeking a bigger say.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Drink powdered colostrum to avoid colds

IF you want to keep colds and flu at bay, then better start taking a daily dose of cow’s colostrum, the thick liquid secreted in the first milk after giving birth, says a new Australian study.

The colostrum is taken from the cow after its calf has had its first, vital drink of the liquid. It is then converted into powder.

According to researchers from the University of South Australia, people who drank a powdered colostrum concoction were far less likely to contract upper respiratory tract infections.

“The findings were a pleasant surprise. There was a lot of anecdotal evidence that if you took colostrum, it would protect you from every illness under the sun.

While that is unlikely to be true, we did find that taking colostrum decreased the rate of upper respiratory tract infections caused by viruses by about 30 per cent,” Dr Jon Buckley, director of the university’s Centre for Research in Education and Sports Science. ANI

$ 1 million damages for lewd outbursts

A Hong Kong construction worker who can’t stop swearing since being hit on the head by a plank has won 1 million US dollars in compensation.

Wong Sin-lam (42) is subject to “violent, lewd outbursts” since being knocked unconscious by a heavy plank on a building site in 1998, the South China Morning Post has reported.

He relies on a cocktail of drugs to control his condition, which makes him behave like an “egocentric, obstinate and selfish child”, Hong Kong’s High Court heard on Friday.

Wong spent three years in a hospital, and during neurosurgery sessions he began to display “violent and vulgar behaviour”, including constant foul language.

Sin-lam was awarded $ 1.08 million damages by the court after his employers admitted liability for his injuries. DPA

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm; for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it; if a man would give all the substance of his house for love it would utterly be contemned.

— Bibe. Songs of Solomon, 8.6-7

***

— Talmud