THIS ABOVE ALL
A Sikh of substance
Khushwant Singh

I was aware of the existence of Sikh settlements in Woolgoolga in North Australia. They were farmers growing avocados and bananas and were prosperous enough to have aircraft of their own to spray pesticides. They were split into two factions and had two gurdwaras. I spent one evening with them and was charmed to note that after the evening prayers, their ladies served chilled beer to their men folk.

In the last few decades, Sikh presence has spread to other parts of Australia, most notably to Melbourne. The city’s best-known sardar is Dya Singh, a 60-year-old ragi born in Malaysia, where his father was a granthi-cum-ragi of a gurdwara. Dya Singh started singing with his father when he was only three, and continued doing so for the next 15 years.

(Left to right) Aboriginal musician Uncle George, Jamel Kaur, Dya Singh and Afghan Muslim tabla player Rameen Nawa at a recital

Then he proceeded to England to qualify as an accountant. Since 1981 he has been living in Melbourne. He has three daughters, all with Muslim names – Jameel, Harsel and Parveyri. "I learnt the Namaaz before I learnt my nitnem", he says with a laugh. "My daughters sing with me." I asked him if there was racial prejudice in Australia. He conceded that there was, as it is elsewhere in the world. But he has white Australians in his kirtani jatha. "I have always been treated well by the Aussies as well as the British", he says. He continued: "I have faced opposition, and that, too, from my own sect. If Baba Nanak was to appear at Darbar Sahib today, with Bala and Mardana, he would not be allowed to perform kirtan." When Dya Singh came to see me, he was in high spirits. He is a powerfully-built sardar with an iron grip of the sort I have never experienced. I asked him about the Sikhs in Woolgoolga and their two gurdwaras. He replied: "Now they have three gurdwaras because they are split into three factions."

It is true of the Sikh community. Where there is one Sikh, there is one Sikh; where there are two Sikhs, there is Singh Sabha; and where there are three Sikhs, there is raula-rappa (noise and fisticuffs).

Rectal misuse

X-Ray machines, which can show the contents of a suitcase or any other baggage, have enabled Customs officials to detect contraband goods and haul up carriers. Apparently, these machines are unable to pierce the massive flesh of human buttocks and cannot detect what is hidden in the rectum. So addicts push up caches of cocaine in their rectum and escape detection. Those who want to smuggle precious stones or other valuable articles do the same. But there are limits to what they can get away with.

The Funny Old World column of Private Eye has an interesting piece on the subject. "Mobile phones are constantly being smuggled into our prisons", Sorasit Chongcharoen of the Central Correctional Institution for Drug Addicts told a press conference in Bangkok, "and they are usually hidden up someone’s rectal passage. This practice makes it easy for inmates to evade metal detectors, because their body mass prevents our machines from detecting the phones, and prison staff are not allowed to conduct anal searches.

"During cell inspections, some warders order inmates to jump up and down naked, in the hope that their phones will fall out of their backsides. "Last week, one inmate who had lodged his mobile in his anus was only found out when the phone rang while he was being searched." Thanis Sriyaphan, deputy chief of the Corrections Department, added that "mobile phones are valuable to inmates, who use them to conduct drug deals from their cells, but hiding them in the anus can be dangerous. Recently, we became suspicious about one inmate, who could not sit still. Eventually, he admitted to us that he had been pressurised by other inmates into inserting two mobile phones into his anus.

"One was removed by hand, but the other could not be removed, because a piece of wire on the plastic bag in which the phone was wrapped had caught on the inner wall of his intestine. The inmate was rushed to hospital, and only prompt surgery saved his life (Bangkok Post)."

Farewell message

The most appropriate lines as a farewell message I have come across are by the poet Tennyson. I quote from memory: Sunset and even star;

Cartoonist Laxman’s elder brother’s name is RK Narayan, not Narayanan, as was inadvertently published in this column last week