This Above all
The dark truth cannot be wished away
KHUSHWANT SINGH

Did you know your Muslim lady friend is in love with Saddam Hussein? She told me so herself," he said. Later I confronted my lady friend and asked bluntly: "I am told you are in love with Saddam Hussein. Is it true?" She blushed a deep red and replied, "See the way his American jailors treated him! Running their fingers in his hair and beard as if looking for lice. Is this the way to treat a fallen foe, the President of a country?"

"Americans are not known for their good manners," I replied. "They stripped our Defence Minister George Fernandes on arrival at the airport. We are still on talking terms with them. Saddam is a different matter." I recounted the crimes he had committed as Head of State: ten years of an unprovoked war against Iran, annexation of Kuwait, ethnic cleansing of Kurds, persecution and killing of Shias. I went on to repeat what I have been saying many times before: no one in the history of the world shed more blood than Saddam Hussein. He is worse than that monster Idi Amin of Uganda who fled his country and was allowed to die in peace in Saudi Arabia. How can anyone, Muslim or non-Muslim, forgive Saddam? He even murdered his daughters’ husbands and many other relations.

The sentence of death passed by the panel of five judges, none of whom was nominated by the Americans, took the lid off the historic divide between Muslims. The Shias are happy; Sunnis resent it; the Hezbullah of Lebanon, till recently heroes of the Muslim world for their resistance to Israeli incursions, approve of the sentence; so also Shias of Iran. The other Muslims who are Sunnis and in vast majority do not approve. Communists have a simple formula: if the Americans are on one side, they must be on the other.

Prakash Karat, General Secretary of the CPM, and his fiery spouse Brinda Karat must per force condemn an imperialist, capitalist conspiracy of the Anglo-Americans. They have a good precedent to follow which requires neither much thinking nor moral compunctions. Non-Muslims are indifferent or react as expected; the most naive of them are Indians. You might recall the time when Saddam annexed Kuwait, our then Foreign (later Prime) Minister I.K. Gujral flew over to Kuwait, and gave Saddam a friendly hug of approval, when thousands of Indians living in the country were assured safe survival. The Kuwaitis never forgave them for their betrayal.

It came to be known as the Gujral doctrine: Wherever you meet anyone you have to deal with, give him a bear hug and recite an Urdu couplet.

In the still night

The first thing I do on getting up after a night’s sleep is to put down the time in my diary. Its been getting earlier and earlier by the day. It used to be 5 am, then 4.30 am, 4 am and now it is usually 3 am. I am no longer sure if it can be described as day or night. I draw my window curtain to see. At times it is pitch dark and dead silence. At others, it is bathed in moonlight and still. However, it is a daily reminder that I am running short of time; so I better do what I intend to before it is too late.

Unfortunately at that hour I am in no mood to do anything except brood over the past. I try to empty my mind and make it still. I rarely manage to do this for more than a few seconds. Silently I go over my version of the Gayatri Mantra: "I marvel at the earth and the cosmos; I imagine the sun rising and giving light and life to everything. I wish my mind was more enlightened than it is".

I am unable to get down to work. So switch on my satellite radio’s Maestro Channel. I try to guess whether it is Mozart, Bach, Beethoven or Hagden. I am never certain. I am sure Zubin Mehta would know at once. Even through the melodious harmony of orchestral music, my mind goes back to days past: to the village lost in the sand dunes where I spent my earlier years with my grandmother. She’s been gone over 70 years but I ask her "Where are you?" She answers with a smile.

Lines of Thomas Moore’s The Light of Other Days steal into my thoughts:

Oft in the stilly night

Ere Slumbered chain has bound me

Fond memory brings me
the light

Of other days around me:

The smiles, the tears

Of boyhood’s years

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone,

Now dimmed and gone,

The cheerful hearts now

broken!

Thus in the stilly night

Ere slumber’s chain has bound me.

Sad memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

Moore was talking about post-dinner thoughts as he sat by a dying fire overcome with sleep. Why should similar thoughts beset me after having had a full night’s sleep? Nevertheless, the past haunts me. I think of my grandmother, then my grandfather who called me pharooah (pimp), my parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, brother and sister. Where are they?

More than my kind, I recall my friend Manzur Qadir who died in a London hospital, having Allama Iqbal read out the Koran to him. Krishen Shinglo who was going to come out with a bestseller entitled "Woman with golden breasts". He did not get beyond the title. His wife Sarojini who coyly looked down when the novel was mentioned to see if it referred to her. Prem Kirpal who churned out reams of blank verses which no one wanted to read and painted pictures no one wanted in their homes. Where are they?

I see a huge wall with the words "The End" painted on it. I shout, "Where are you?" The echo comes back to me, "Where are you?"

And Moore’s conclusion:

When I remember all

All the friends so linked together

I’ve seen around me fail like sick leaves in wintry weather.

I feel like one

Who treads alone

Some banquet hall deserted

Whose lights are fled

When garlands dead,

And all but he departed.

Age of consent

Mahesh: I love you, Will you marry me?

Roma: I will only marry a man who is either older than me, or at least the same age as me. And you are two months younger than me.

Mahesh: Not really. You see, I was a premature baby born in the seventh month.

Courtesy: Rajeshwari Singh,
New Delhi

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