Khushwant Singh is away on vacation. His column “This Above All” was not carried in the edition of Saturday Plus dated August 29.
The column given here was published on August 22.

Where was the Buddha born?

MOST of us are brought up in the belief that Gautam the Buddha was born in Lumbini in Nepal terai. The basis of the belief was the discovery of an Ashokan pillar dug out in Lumbini in 1896 recording the august birth of the Master. Thirtytwo years later another pillar was found in Kapileshwar village near Bhubaneswar stating that the Buddha was born there. So was the Buddha born in Nepal or inOrissa? Dr Chakra Mahapatra in his book The Real Birth-Place of Buddha (Granth Prakasan) stoutly maintains that the Orissan pillar is genuine and the one found earlier in Lumbini, merely a replica planted there for the sake of recording the event because there was wide-spread anti-Buddhist violence in Orissa. Unfortunately, the discovery came too late as the Buddhist world accepted the evidence of the Lumbini pillar as authentic. Pilgrims from across the globe visit Lumbini for worship and hardly anyone bothers to pay homage at Kapileshwar. Pilgrim traffic to Lumbini cannot be now diverted towards Bhubaneswar.

However, not all Oriyas have given up the fight to claim Buddha’s birth-place in their state. A few days ago, Dr Bharatendu Sundar Rajguru Mohapatra, son of the Oriya historian, came to call on me with his pretty Naga wife and son (they have nine other children). He gave me a copy of his father’s book and lectured to me for over an hour to persuade me to write that his father was right and all other historians who subscribe to Lumbini as the birth-place completely wrong. I do not want to add another controversy about birth-places of our religious leaders, till after we have amicably settled the controversy over the real birth-place of Sri Rama.

Zohra Sehgal

Zohra is the goddess of beauty and love after which the planet Venus is named. Our Zohra has a beauty uniquely her own and is the most lovable of women. Also, most versatile. No woman on the screen holds you as spell-bound with her acting as she does. Her full name on birth (1912) was the mouth-filling Sahibzadi Zohra Begum Mumtaz-ullah Khan.She was one of the seven children of a land-owning family of Rohilla Pathans settled around Rampur. Like other families of the same class she was brought up in Sunni Muslim traditions — five prayers a day and fasting during Ramadan.

Unlike other children belonging to conformist families, our Zohra was a rebel against tradition. As a girl she was a tomboy fond of climbing trees and playing games. As she attained puberty, she was forced to wear a burqa. She itched to get rid of it, to meet men on equal terms and throw off artificial restrains imposed on her. During a vacation in Dehra Dun she saw Uday Shankar dance. His image stayed in her mind all her life. Early in life she wrote: "I didn’t want money; I was interested in fame, I wanted power." She did not make much money nor acquired any power, but she earned a lot of fame as a dancer and an actress.

With her uncle who was closer to her than her father, she travelled all the way across India, West Asia and Europe by car. On her return she was once again put in a burqa and sent to Queen Mary’s Girls College, Lahore, meant for daughters of aristocratic families. Strict purdah was observed in the institution and the few males invited to speak there (I was one of them) were put behind a screen.

No sooner did Zohra pass out of Queen Mary’s, she shed her burqa — this time for ever — and joined Uday Shankar’s dance troupe. She travelled with him, his group of dancers to Japan, West Asia, Europe and America. It was then that she met Kameshwar Sehgal, a Hindu belonging to the Radha Soami sect, and fell in love with him. He was eight years younger than her. There was initial opposition from her parents but they came round. Although Kameshwar was willing to convert to Islam to marry Zohra, neither she nor her parents insisted on it. The two had a civil marriage in August 1942. Jawaharlal Nehru was to attend the wedding reception, but he was arrested a couple of days earlier for supporting Gandhi’s Quit India Movement.

For a while the couple worked in Uday Shankar’s dance institute at Almora.When it shut down, they migrated toLahore and set up their own Zoresh Dance Institute.

The growing communal tension preceding the Partition of India made them feel unwelcome. They migrated to Bombay.Zohra joined Prithviraj Kapur. From a dancer, she turned into a stage actress. The next 14 years the couple stayed in Bombay and got to know many celebrities. All Kazi, Chetan and Dev Anand, Chetan’s wife Uma who later married Al Kazi, Balraj Sahni and his wife,Damyanti. They had two children. They had the choice of being Hindu or Muslim. For a while they accepted both, then discarded them. Meanwhile,Zohra came to the conclusion that there should be more to religions than dietary prohibitions against pork or beef and opted for atheism. It is not known what her husband felt about religion except that he was a ‘non-religious’ man.He took his own life.

Zohra had been acting on the stage in different parts of India, including putting up plays for jails inmates. In Ferozepore jail after staging a play she stayed on to watch an execution.

After her husband’s death, Zohra first moved to Delhi. And then went to London where she met Ram Gopal.When she did not get roles as a dancer, or an actress, she took on odd jobs like working in the India Tea Centre (she hated tea and much preferred coffee). But it was in London she got her first break in the films and was signed by Arthur Rank and Merchant Ivory productions. She apepared in The Raj Quartet, Jewel in the Crown, Tandoori Nights, My Beautiful Laundrettee and doznes of others. Back in Delhi, she continued her film career.

Last year she played the leading role in Sadia Dahlvi’s TV serial Amma & Family. Though in her mid-eighties and wrinkled, she remains as animated and saucy as ever. Her daughter, Kiran, summed her up in a few words, "Energy, Sun, Sparkling, Shaking and Crazy."

Name shooting

During the war with Pakistan, Banta Singh shot many Pakistani soldiers. He would hide behind the bushes and shout Pakistani names like Imran Khan, Mohammed Gul, Shahbaz etc. Soldiers bearing those would stand up to say I am here: Banta Singh would shoot them down.

The Pakistani commander realised that a Sardarji was killing his soldiers by fooling them. So he decided to use Banta Singh’s own method to kill him and started calling out Sikh names like Banta Singh, Santa Singh,Rajinder Singh etc. Banta Singh realised that the Pakistani was using his trick. When his name was called, he shouted back "who called me?" The Commander got up and replied," I did." Banta shot him.

(Contributed by Jyotica Sikand,Delhi)

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Santa: Now India and Pakistan have exploded five nuclear devices each, it is a deuce, as they say in tennis.

Banta: No, it is not a game. It is set and match to the USA.

(Contributed by Suresh Kumar Jetli, Goraya)

All Indians

We live in a very small town in Midwest, where we are the only Indian family and most of the town people are Anglo-Saxons.We were visiting India a few years ago. After a long flight we were all tired, when we landed at Indira Gandhi Airport in New Delhi. My son who was then five years old was especially tired and sleepy. We went through all the hassle of customs, took a taxi to Kashmiri Gate Interstate Bus Terminal.All this time he was sleeping. At bus terminal the porters took our luggage to an area from where buses for Chandigarh depart. As we were waiting for a bus at the platform, my son woke up. He was surprised to see so many people all around him. He was in a kind of shock until all of sudden he realised that all people around us were Indians. He pulled his mom’s hand and shouted: ‘Look mom, everybody here looks like us!" (Courtesy: Amir Tuteja, USA)