This Above all
No beauty in this beast
KHUSHWANT SINGH

We have beauty contests and pet exhibitions and award prizes for the most beautiful women, dogs and cats. No one has yet bothered to award prizes for the ugliest of the living creatures in the world. This thought came to me after many years of watching films on nature on different TV channels. I prefer seeing them rather than wasting time on news, commentaries, debates, bhajans, bhangra or soap operas. I decided to draw my own list of the ugliest.

First, I eliminated creatures which do not qualify for consideration. I deleted birds from my list. Not one of their kind is ugly; most are easy on the eye, many beautiful, a few like peacocks,golden aureoles and pheasants are spectacular.

Next, I eliminated insects. They, too, include some very colourful species like butterflies, moths, beetles, lady bugs, fireflies and glow-worms which are worth seeing. I have no allergy towards different species of spiders and watch the eight-legged creatures off and on.

Serpents give me the creeps but I have to concede that seen from a safe distance, they are not ugly. On the contrary, a few varieties are brightly coloured and many terrifying in their murderous splendour, for example king cobras.

When they raise their spreadout hoods and hiss venom, they are awesome. Turtles, which are also reptiles, have ugly faces but often have attractive carapaces. The same can be said about crocodiles and alligators — ugly faces, not-so-ugly bodies. Included in the genus reptiles are lizards. Some like chameleons can change colours of their heads. I don’t find house lizards difficult to live with; I have a family breeding behind framed pictures and bookshelves.They emerge when they spot a fly or a mosquito on the wall.

I don’t like rats or mice and scream like a woman when I see one. I set traps for them. When one is foolish enough to get caught, like a typical Indian I have it deposited in my neighbour’s garden. I don’t like taking life. The only species I really consider among the ugliest of the ugly are bandicoots. They are repulsive creatures. Their coats are greyish black; they slither on their bellies, make ugly sounds and leave their droppings everywhere.

I come to creatures of the ocean. Fish are of many colours, some iridescent. The only ones I find revolting are octopuses and squibs. Octopi with their bulbous eyes and serpentine limbs certainly qualify as ugly. Japs love their dried, salted flesh.I tried it when I was living in Japan. It tasted like salted rubber.

Of many species of cats like lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, panthers and pumas,all are graceful. See their cubs at play and you will be charmed. The same goes for members of the dog family like wolves, hyenas, jackals and foxes. Then there are herbivores like elephants, giraffes, rhinos, deer, wild buffaloes and bisons. Elephants and rhinos are good to look at, as are other ruminants and, are, thus eliminated from the contest. I am left with few options. I find the hippopotamus very ugly, without a single redeeming feature — a huge mouth, with enormous ugly teeth, tiny ears which don’t go with its massive body, large, expressionless eyes and call like a pig’s grunt. I give it the gold medal for being champion of ugliness. The silver I give to the Tasmanian Devil, a disgrace to the dog family. It looks a hybrid of hyena and pariah dog. Its screams match its name; they are mixtures of howling and barking. The bronze I give to the bandicoot.

Memories

Seventyfive years ago I got to know Rashid Ahmed, who was a year senior to me at Government College, Lahore. He was a handsome young fellow, good at his studies and the best speaker in the college. He was a great favourite of Ahmed Shah Bokhari, professor of English. Both men were much sought after among the student fraternity.

I lost track of them for five years I was studying abroad. When I returned to Lahore in 1939, Professor Bokhari had moved from the academic world to become Director-General of All India Radio. He had taken quite a few of his favourite students with him —Iqbal Singh, Ramesh Chandra and Rashid.

While Bokhari went to Delhi, Rashid was posted in Lahore.

We resumed our acquaintance. Amongst our new friends my newly married wife and I made was a young girl, Zeenat who, after getting a degree from a British university, had taken up a teaching job in a local college. It was my wife’s idea that the two might make a nice couple. We asked them over for dinner. That was their first meeting. They clicked and soon became man and wife.

Once again we lost contact with the Partition of the country in 1947. Professor Bokhari first became head of Radio Pakistan and then joined the UN in New York to become head of its Press and Public Relations Department. Rashid rose to become Director General of Radio Pakistan.

After retiring he settled down in Karachi. The last time I was there some eight years ago, I spent a morning with him. Zeenat was out of town. Two years ago their daughter Rana, better known by her nickname Beo, and her husband Zafar came to visit me in Delhi. A few months later both Rashid and Zeenat died within a couple of months. I thought my association with the family was over.

Not so. Last month Beo sent me a beautifully produced coffee-table book of her poems illustrated by Tabinda Chinoy. As with the best of Pakistani writing in English,this collection entitled The Dreamer Awakes is published in India—-in this case by Ashok Butani, a bibliophile,associated with Promilla Publications. Beo’s poems are in the mystic Sufi tradition and, hence, at times somewhat obscure and need to be read over and over again to be understood. Others are straightforward and very moving like the tribute to her late mother. She uses alliterations to create music out of words which make them pleasant recitation for the ears.

Where is she?

A young man in his enthusiasm changed his name from Devinder to Dharmendra. And soon he reverted back to his original name. On being questioned for the quick reversal, he quipped: "I was fed up with everyone all the time asking where is Hema Malini ?

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