THIS ABOVE ALL
Over the hill and looking beyond
KHUSHWANT SINGH

I am as eager to get out of Delhi as I am to return to it. This August, I was counting the days when I could escape from the capital for a breather. I had an excess of exposure — one book launch after another and then a huge do to get an award conferred on me by Capt Amarinder Singh, Chief Minister of Punjab.

He likes to do things in Maharaja style; his PRO D.S. Jaspal goes along with his host. So there were almost 400 guests crammed in a Ball room of Imperial Hotel. They included Cabinet Ministers, Chief Ministers, former Chief Ministers, Editors, Pakistan High Commissioner, Senator Aitzaz Ahsan, Ameena Sayid of Oxford University Press, Karachi, my family and a bevy of my women friends.

While Amarinder Singh was the paradigm of princely courtesy, I behaved like a buffoon, telling dirty jokes. It was time to ponder over matters in solitude. Words of Psalm one to one kept ringing in my ears: "I will lift up mind eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help`85." For me, hills are the Shivaliks. So early next morning I got into Nanak Kohli’s fancy Mercedes Benz with his chauffeur David and set off for Kasauli. (I have also become an incorrigible name-dropper).

National Highway No. 1 is in a shambles: chronically being repaired, heavy slow-moving traffic of trucks, buses, tractors, three-wheelers, buffalo-carts. Getting through one mile of Panipat city took more than 40 minutes. My bladder was bursting with no secluded place to pee. We arrived at our half-way eatery Sagar in Karnal. I was in low spirits. A Bengali engineer’s family recognised me — who could it be but Bengalis: Who could spot a non-descript pen-pusher: They came over to shake hands and take snapshots. My spirits lifted: I am a sucker for flattery.

We proceeded on our way to the hills. It was cloudy. It began to drizzle. The drizzle turned to rain, rain into a downpour. By the time we began our ascent, the change in weather resumed its cycle of a few seconds — sunshine, followed by drizzle, rain, downpour. My bladder was again about to burst and spirits ebbed to the lowest. Then mist turned into a fog. My summer abode Raj Villa was blanketed out and the rainpour came down in bucketfull. And there was no sign of billoo, my jet-black, hairy mongerel who usually greets me leaping to my waist, whining, barking, pawing me with doggy enthusiasm. He had tucked himself away in the staff quarters. A very inauspicious beginning to a much-looked forward to holiday. It was 3 pm. We had been on the road for seven hours. There was a time in my younger days when I did the same journey in four and a half hours. I was full of self-loathing and self-pity.

The slugs of Patiala calmed my frayed nerves. I retired to bed early: slept as I have never slept before, nine hours at a stretch. Though the next day was wet, cold and misty. I was in a better frame of mind. In the evening, General Sinha, Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, and his wife dropped in to say a brief hello. With them was Brig Arjun Menon and his wife Sathi. I was back to name-dropping.

The next morning the prophecy of the Psalm came true — "My help cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth." The clouds lifted, the sky an azure blue, the sun shining. But a cold wind blew; so I sat in my verandah wrapped up in shawl waiting for it to get warmer. Billoo sensed my presence. He trotted upto make sure it was his friend and master returned home. He leapt up, patted my knees with his forepaws. Then went berserk. He ran up and down the verandah at breakneck-speed yelping, barking joyfully and jumped up the sofa to nestle in my lap.

Lines of the song from musical drama Oklahoma came floating back to my mind: "O, what a beautiful mornin// o, what a beautiful day:// I got a beautiful feelin// Everything’s goin my way."

Soul-searching

That morning I was up at 3.30 am instead of my usual 4.30-5 am. I had to leave for my summer abode in the Shivaliks. I decided to finish the morning assignment. Diya (Mrignaini) Hazra of Penguin Viking commissioned to compile passages I knew by heart. I promised to put down at least one a day in the register Diya had gifted me. I wrote down a couple of lines from Adi Shankaracharya:

Kushwam? Kohum? Kutah ayaat? Ko mein Janini? No mein taate?

(Who am I? Where have I come from? And why? Who are my real father and mother?)

Would Ibe able to find answers to these questions in the two months I intended to spend in the mountains? Not likely. Thousands of saints had spent years in the Himalayan caves doing tapasya and meditating on these questions and not one came out with any answers. Or perhaps refused to tell anyone thereby indicating that if you want answers find them yourselves.

However, we set off on our journey well before the time schedule. Gulmohars were out in their flamboyant glory of fiery reds and orange. Amaltas could be seen here and there but yet to display themselves in dripping gold. The monarch of flowering trees at the end of April was Neelam (Jacaranda) at intervals along the road through Haryana and Punjab, in clusters along the Kalka-Shimla road in Himachal. I asked myself: Who makes these trees come into flower at set times? Why is their glory so short-lived? I do not have a clue.

The first news that my housekeeper Prem Kumar gives me is sad. S.L. Prasher’s wife Prem died suddenly. He was Commissioner of Income Tax of Himachal Pradesh and is President of the Save Kasauli Society. She had been India’s Badminton Champion and was the life and soul of the Kasauli Club where she spent a couple of hours every morning. Good looking, gracious, lively. Why did she have to go so early? No answer.

Prem Kumar gives me more news. After many years a leopard is again in the prowl at night. It ate up my Billoo’s mother who lived next door. Then he ate up another dog belonging to a retired Army officer who has built himself a nice little bungalow below the club’s tennis courts. It badly mauled yet another dog who just managed to escape with its life. Who had sent this marauder on its murderous mission to Kasauli? I have no idea. I wonder if Adi Shankaracharya could have enlightened me. His claim to having achieved divine status leaves me baffled:

Manobudhi, ahankar, chittaani naham

Chidanand roopah, Shivoham, Shivoham

(I am not the mind, I am neither intellect nor egoism. I am the joy of intelligence, I am Shiva, I am Shiva.)

Baby babble

A man who was away from home was told that his wife had delivered a child. However, the child’s sex was not disclosed to him. Anxious to know whether it was a boy or girl, he sent a telegram from his office to his wife. It read: "Inform whether goods delivered, is transmitter or receiver."

(Contributed by Roshni Johar, Shimla)

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