Saturday, February 18, 2006

THIS ABOVE ALL
Matter of belief
KHUSHWANT SINGH

A couple of weeks ago a ship carrying more than 1300 passengers was overtaken by a storm in the Red Sea and sank off the Egyptian Coast. Many of the drowned were Hajis returning from pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. The name of the ship was Al Salaam, which means both peace and safety.

Some days before this tragedy, more than 50 men and women pilgrims were killed in a stampede at Mina, near Mecca. As usual I asked myself: "Have I got the concept of Allah being Almighty as well as just and merciful all wrong? How do believers explain such happenings?"

The same sort of thing happens at Kumbh Mela, pilgrimages to Vaishno Devi, Paonta Sahib, and around temples all over the country on special religious festivals. Without exception, all the victims were devout believers, and came to pay homage to their deities. I ask myself the same question substituting Bhagwan or Wahe Guru for Allah: "Hey Bhagwan, Sarva Shaktimaan (Almighty), Karunamaya (compassionate), etc. Why do you kill devotees who came to worship you?" No answer; neither from Ishwar nor Wahe Guru, nor from any of their disciples.

Most people do not bother to think about such matters. They regard it a waste of time. "What Ishwar-Allah or the Ooperwallah does is beyond our comprehension — take life as it comes and don’t ask to many questions," they say. It creates duvidha in people’s minds.

I hit back: "Then who do you pray to? Why are you constantly singing His praises?" No answers. I drive my point further home by quoting Freud: "When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life."

The argument usually ends with pro-religion people denouncing me as a mischief-maker and order me to stop this buk-buk. I will not. Give me the answers or admit you do not know. Do not quote passages from scriptures or sayings of holy men because I do not subscribe to either of them. Let your answers be in simple language which I and other doubters can understand.

She came to see me 25 years ago when I was the Editor of Hindustan Times. She had just finished college and was looking for a job. Despite her looks, I put her off by saying Ihad nothing to offer. I forgot what she looked like.

Years later she came to see me in Kasauli. She was then teaching English in some college in Chandigarh and writing pieces for the Indian Express. I don’t recall my second meeting. She came a third time with K.P.S. Gill and her husband, who was working for Asian Age. I remember Gill’s visit because he came more than an hour late, was very high. My wife ticked him off, forced him to have his dinner at once and depart. I don’t recall the people he had brought uninvited with him. She came a fourth time with my wife’s nephew Baljit Malik, who had warned her that I had become old and cranky and often told my guests to leave because I was tired. I have no recollection of this visit either.

Then I saw her photograph alongside my review of her novel Patiala Quartet (Saturday Extra, January 14). I could not recognise her face but was infatuated. I had given her a very favourable review and expected a word of thanks from her. As I expected she sent me a short note saying she would like to drop in when she came to Delhi the next time. I was excited by the prospect.

I prepared a long speech to tell her not to waste her time teaching but to take to writing. Her next book should be a definitive novel on resurgent Punjab. It should be based on Ludhiana, Punjab’s largest and most prosperous city. It had more Mercedes Benz than any other city in India: two men had their private aircraft, it was full of parvenu, newly rich with pots of money but little culture, it was a squalid urban waste; it had more shitters along its railway lines than any other city I have visited. It is the birthplace of the Green Revolution: its seeds were sown in its Agricultural University. It had history, Chandigarh had neither a soul nor history. Amritsar has nothing besides the Golden Temple and has been much written about. I continued at a breathless pace about her being a gifted storyteller and the only one who could put Punjab on the literary map of the world through writing a fictional profile of Ludhiana where she was born.

I ended with an oblique reference to my infatuation quoting a Punjabi Sufi poet:

I explained the concept of Pulsarat, the bridge between heaven and hell where souls await their destiny.

(I take the first step of love

On Pulsarat, I await my fate.

Hajis go to Mecca for pilgrimage

I turn my gaze on your face.

O Inayat Qadri, hold me by my hand.)

She listened patiently to my torrent of words with a bemused smile. When I finished gushing, she told me that it was not the first but the fourth time I was seeing her. Her name is Neel Kamal Puri. But I could use her nickname Neeloo as a reward.

Banta: "If you were offered a chicken from the Congress party and one from the American President, which one would you select?"

Santa: "The one from the Congress."

Banta: "Because you are a nationalist?"

Santa: "No, because a bird from the ‘Hand’ is worth two from Bush."

(Contributed by Rajeshwari Singh, Delhi)