This Above all
Worshippers of stars, godmen
KHUSHWANT SINGH

On top of India’s list of people worthy of worship are filmstars. Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan are the presiding deities. There is a whole gamut of lesser gods and goddesses to whom they also light agarbattis. Next to filmstars come cricketers. Tendulkar, Kumble, Ganguly, Dhoni, Harbhajan, Sehwag, Gambhir, Zaheer, Irfan (have I missed anyone?). They don’t make quite as much money as filmstars, but do very handsomely for themselves.

Men and women wept when Kumble and Ganguly announced their retirement from Test cricket. Other sportsmen don’t count for as much. Neither Leander Paes, nor Bhupathi, nor the pretty Sania Mirza, who would have as easily made it in the film world as in tennis. Footballers, wrestlers, boxers are largely ignored.

Tendulkar is worshipped as a cricketing icon

Among filmstars Amitabh is the presiding deity

The third most worshipped are godmen and godwomen, who think they deserve to be worshipped. Many like Sai Baba, Asa Ram Bapu, Amritanand Mayi Ma, Murari Bapu, Kripalji Maharaj and Ram Rahim Singh have followers numbering hundreds of thousands in India and abroad. Though averse to all forms of religiosity, I admit that most of them also run hospitals and schools. They also ignore caste divisions. I admire some of them. That just about all I have on my list of worship-worthy.

I have also noted down professions which are looked down upon with disdain, fear or disgust. The first profession that comes to mind is that of politicians. We make them our leaders; then we start running them down as liars and untrustworthy. We have little right to sit in judgement on them. But we do.

Lawyers come next. In their case, too, we hire them and then grumble that they fleece us. In any case, lawyers have never been loved. Akbar Ilahabadi called them sons of Satan. By general consent, those belonging to the profession of police are the least loved. They have a very difficult job to do. Power of the law of the land in one hand, a danda in the other.

Lower ranks are about the corruptest elements in the country. They inspire fear and loathing. But we cannot do without them. More so now when the number of people who think they are above the law and dare the police to arrest them has grown beyond endurance. It is time the police called their bluff and takes them into custody. If they do so, we may change our minds and put them in the category of the worshipful.

Butterfly bhasha

Moni Mohsin is a Lahori—a Pakistani living in London with her doctor-husband and two children. Some months ago I reviewed her novel, The End of Innocence (Penguin-Viking), in glowing terms. I was then not aware that she wrote a popular column for her brother-in-law Najam Sethi’s Friday Times published from Lahore. A selection of her articles has now been published in India—The Diary of a Social Butterfly (Random House). It is in a khichdee language mixing angrezi and Urdu, hugely popular for its social comment and catty asides on members of her close-knit family, mainly her husband, whom she calls Jaanoo.

It makes a delightful, light-hearted reading which will make your sides split into laughter every few minutes. I give a few instances. This is about her conversion to Gandhism:

"Life is over. The Indians have gone back. The parties have ended. There is no more cricket and no more matches. There is nothing to do and nowhere to go. But I am so inspired by our neighbour’s culture that I have decided to become an Indian also. I am going to get thalis, wear saris, become a vegetarian and put that red stuff in my partition.

"My mission in life is to be just like all my next best friends across the border. I have even started speaking like them. When people ask me why I have started doing all this, I reply because I am like that only. I told Janoo that I am working on a complete transportation.

"Transformation, you mean, he scoffed. Whatever, I said softly, soothingly. I am a peacenik like Bapu. Like him I won’t argue. I won’t shout. Just do quiet, peaceful opposition".

Again, this from her maidservant answering her call while she was in the bathroom. "Mulloo called up yesterday after lunch. Shehnaz picked up the phone, and when Mulloo asked begum sahiba kya kar rahin hain, she replied voh paat par bethi, su-su kar rahi hain. Imagine.

"I heard her with my own ears from the bathroom. I tau nearly had a ceasefire, sorry, I mean seizure. Honestly, these people are so crude. So I charged out of the bathroom like a heat-seeking missile and, grabbing her by the wrist, hissed: ‘How many times have I told you that if someone calls and I am in the bathroom, you are to say that I am taking a shower’. ‘But you were not taking a shower. You were doing su-su. I could hear it through the door,’ she whined. ‘I am never doing su-su or anything else on the pot. I never sit on the pot. I only take a shower or wash my hands. Yes, you can say I am doing vuzoo for namaaz if sahib’s mother calls. But I am never doing su-su. Never, ever’. And then I sacked her".

IPL made to sell

(Contributed by Parth Adhikari, Janakpuri, Delhi).

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