The beginning of the battle royale

By Amrita Dhingra

THE party is in full swing, as it should be. You however, sit by the fish aquarium, gazing moodily at the Siamese fighter as it traverses its domain. This of course is not the time for you to sit and gaze moodily at fish aquariums. By all rights you should be amongst the revellers, the life and soul of the party is a role more suited to your position. Still there you sit gazing moodily. The Siamese fighter makes a ferocious dart for a Guppy and you can’t help but sympathise with the fleeing Guppy. Bitterly, you remember just how like a Siamese fighter she is. And were it not for a ragged bit of pride you’ve managed to hold on to you might just have compared yourself with the unfortunate Guppy.

You can see her in the distance, playing the role of the life and soul of the party, smiling, joking, socialising. And suddenly you can remember the first time you saw her — six dreadful months ago. The shining hair, the bright eyes, the quirky, humorous mouth and the slim build make it easy for people to take a shine to one Amanda Spence. You were no exception. When she walked into your world you gestured to her to precede you into the lift with a polite, "Ladies first." Her caustic, "Dogs to follow," stung you all the way to the 25th floor.

You couldn’t help it that you liked her, that your first instinct was to open doors, hold out chairs for her, to spread sweetness and light for her. On the other hand she went out of her way to bang doors in your face, point out the slightest mistakes in your reports and, you are pretty sure, spread a bit of carbon monoxide wherever she expected you to be. The only saving grace in this whole situation was the old man. He could on occasion chew her out as no one else could.

You, as the boss’ senior assistant, enjoyed an advantage albeit a very slim one. Still Amanda Spence resented the fact that you had been hired before her, that the old man relied just that bit more on you. Nothing wrong in healthy competition of course, but Amanda’s soft eyes gleamed with the light of battle whenever they met yours. Frightening, for a chap like you who won’t know how to eliminate competition even if he had a step by step manual to help him.

At this point in time the status quo is something like this: you landed a major contract two weeks ago, predictably Amanda Spence went ahead and bagged an equally impressive one, simultaneously. You came this evening to a party at the boss’ mansion, a party thrown in honour of your achievement and Amanda’s achievement. So naturally you were staggered to see her standing next to the host and the hostess, greeting the guests. The young gumboil is apparently the boss’ daughter. A fact that both father and daughter had conveniently forgotten to mention.

Now you understand the resentment that seethed in her heart all along. Her charming manner betrays no animosity as she greets you, but as always the light of unrelenting battle gleams in her eyes. She may be dressed in a gown and diamonds but guerrilla warfare is never far from her mind.

You run a finger along the inside edge if your collar and all but clutch a fevered brow. You don’t like it one bit, no sir you don’t like it at all! You don’t like the way those grey eyes light on you every once in a while. Steely, unnerving grey eyes — and what was that look just now — gloating grey eyes. Eyes that say they have you where they want. Is that young Jezebel upto something, you ask yourself? What scheme has she cooked up now? Just how is she planning to turn your hair prematurely grey?... then suddenly it strikes you. The Van Gogh!!!

You race towards a small ante-room where you left the priceless painting in the care of a footman. Just as you suspected — it’s gone! Staggered, you pull yourself together and make for the ballroom. Lady Luck has deserted you well and proper because the Boss is clearing his throat and consulting his notes. You’re no stranger to what follows next — he’ll ask for everyone’s attention and begin his speech. It will be a moderately long speech, well written because Amanda wrote it, and at the end of it he will present the award for the greatest contribution to the company for the year.

The award of course is the missing Van Gogh, which was supposed to be in your custody for safekeeping! Now you understand why Amanda was gloating. Purloining the masterpieces is her way of saying Hastalavista Baby!

The situation calls for stringent measures and you dash away from the ballroom, not caring that you are doing a creditable imitation of a man afflicted with ants in the pants. You trace the unsuspecting footman and shake an explanation out of him. How was he supposed to know?, he asks you. Miss Spence asked for it and he gave it to her.

You don’t usually tax your brain too much, being a firm believer in r. and r., but now you cancel its vacation at short notice and set it working like the blazes. The possibilities narrowed down, you realise that the most inaccessible place in the house is the place where you will be able to procure the missing object. Unfortunately that place is also a certain Miss Spence’s private suite. This is no time to be daunted — it’s either do or die, so you assess the location of her rooms and race out of the French windows around the side of the house. The main staircase would have been infinitely easier to ascend but it would undoubtedly have led to longwinded explanations.

There are people who have climbed up to the first floor with ivy-frames and there are those that haven’t. You belong to the latter category. With an aim to remedy this unfortunate gap in your education you now begin the climb. To say that you shinnied up to the terrace with the agility of a leopard or even a cat would be stretching the truth quite a bit, but you do make it after a couple of hair-raising moments. Lady Luck is playing fast and loose with you this evening but on this occasion she obliges for the door is open.

Silently, you creep in. Your mouth is dry, your heart is hammering painfully against your ribcage. What if someone finds you here? Steeling yourself you look around. There’s no one in the room, so you tiptoe out of the sitting room and into the bedroom. Time is ticking by — you look under the bed, inside a couple of drawers. Nothing! Time is ticking by. Flummoxed, you stand in the middle of the room. Having read a fair number of detective novels you have enough tips on how to go about the matter, but will that be enough?

Think like her man, think like her!, you urge yourself. The vision of Amanda Spence rises before your eyes. She is dressed straight out of the pages of Vogue. From the top of her hat to her designer shoes. Wait a minute! What was that? Hat! you race for the walk-in closet. There are thousands of dresses, shoes and accessories, but you have no time for them. You make for the stack of bandboxes. Then suddenly your mind kicks into a higher gear and you reach for the bandbox in the middle of the stack. You permit yourself a triumphant smile as you lift the lid of the box. So much like Amanda to hide it not at the bottom, not at the top of the stack, but right in the middle! You better watch out Miss Spence, you feel like saying, you’re getting predictable!

Replacing the now empty bandbox, you retrace your footsteps. After you clamber down the ivy frame and jump the last few feet to the ground, you have a slight limp. Not daunted you race for the French windows. It seems like a night made for racing through French windows.

Gasping for breath you make for the ballroom. Whew! The boss is just about winding up his speech and you can see he’s looking for you. The Van Gogh is duly presented to him on a salver by a uniformed footman. You wipe your brow and ponder on how soon you can slip away and lower a stiff one down the hatch. The boss’ voice recalls you..."... as a departure from precedence the award for the greatest contributor goes to not one but two people this year. Two people who have shown the rest of us just how much teamwork can achieve! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you..."

And then suddenly you are walking up to the boss with... horror of horrors — Amanda Spence! Perfect poise that’s all the reaction you get from her. She even congratulates you, "Awfully clever of your darling!"

Maybe that poise is not so perfect after all! Meanwhile her father is beaming, the guests are clapping as you jointly accept the award.

"You are a worm, a miserable no good two-timing twerp! A rat, a skunk and a disgrace to humanity!" she hisses in you ear.

"Which is why I think we deserve each other," you smile and give her a kiss on the cheek for good measure. Victory, it may be said, makes you magnanimous.

Restoring lost identity

By Mohan Maitray

THE S.O.S. (Save Our Souls) children village programme is a successful attempt at restoring the lost identity to the abandoned and orphaned children and providing them a ‘home’ with parental care and affection. The children, abandoned due to social prejudices and compulsions and thus deprived of parenthood, get a new identity. The project can rightly be said to be a gesture of duty and sympathetic affection of society towards the forlorn childhood. These villages, in addition to the celestial motherly love and care, provide brotherly and sisterly love relationship to the new-finds.

Dr Harman Miner of Austria was the pioneer and founding father of the S.O.S. village programme. World War II brought such havoc that hundreds of children were rendered orphans. Their pain and cries moved Dr Miner to such an extent that the expression came in the form of this programme.

In India the project came to light through the initiative of the present president of the society, J.N. Kaul, popularly known as ‘Papa’. Kaul, while on a foreign tour in his capacity of Deputy Director, Ministry of social welfare, Government of India, came in contact with this worldwide project. In 1966 after adoption of the constitution of the world body and undertaking of adherence to the manifesto, the first S.O.S. village project "Green fields" was launched under the patronage of Indira Gandhi.

S.O.S. is a worldwide non, government private project aiming at social justice, rehabilitation and furtherance of human values. Switzerland does not have its own project as such but largely contributes to this worldwide humanity-based programme. Italy has its own such projects but still provides financial help to the world body for launching worldwide projects.

In India 33 S.O.S villages and 120 connected projects have been set up. In a S.O.S village there are 10-20 independent dwelling units, keeping in view the available resources and demand of the area concerned. ‘The mother’ is head of each dwelling unit, and the overall development of the unit (each home) depends upon the skill and able stewardship of the mother. At the initial stage each home is provided with the basic, necessities of life — beds, moderate furniture, furnishings, utensils and other kitchen requirements etc —, but the mother with her vision in budgeting has to make T.V, refrigerator and other amenities for recreation available to the inmates.

The mother is paid an honorarium of Rs 3000 per month. In addition she gets Rs 350/- per child per month for household expenses. The inmates are enrolled for education in local institutions, and the entire expenses are borne by the S.O.S village management. The mother is assisted by an aunt’, and in the absence of the mother on leave, the ‘aunt’ takes over the administration of the unit. The ‘aunt’ in routine, is a go-between all the units and serves as a cultural link. Every dwelling unit has 8-10 inmates — both boys and girls.

The mother is not only the nominal head of the unit but a key figure. The mother is free to name a ‘nameless child’ in accordance with her religious belief, and the ceremonies are performed accordingly.

The mother embodies the spirit of duty, devotion, dedication and eternal love and compassion. She shares and bears the joys and sorrows of the inmates. She is a partner in joy and offers the comforts of her lap to an ailing child.

The S.O.S village management is not indifferent towards the laudable performance of the mother. On attaining the adolescence age, the boys are shifted to a separate hostel. After initial schooling boys and girls are put in different trades. The talented boys and girls are also provided opportunity for higher education. The inmates, even when they are in a position to earn, are paid a sum of Rs 900 per month for three years to enable them to settle down in a comfortable way. If an earning inmate offers, out of love and gratitude, to take’ the mother’ with him/her, the offer is accepted.

In Punjab the S.O.S. village has been set up at Rajpura, where a dedicated disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, Ummat Aslam, set up a ‘rural centre’. The S.O.S. village housed in the seven-acre land gifted by the Punjab government is a cluster of 14 dwelling units, built in natural and beautiful surroundings. These 14 dwelling units have 104 inmates — 47 boys and 57 girls.

The mother of the dwelling unit, Gulhans, is a childless widow. After the death of her husband, the cold treatment of her relatives made her decide to dedicate her life and energies to this noble cause of assuaging the sentiments of the deprived ones. She is the ‘mother’ of nine inmate children. An aunt, in the first instance, was maltreated by her husband. Her own married son did not respond to her love, sacrifice and hard labour in bringing him up. She moved to this village to share noments of joy with the tiny tots. Others, too, have similar stories to tell. Taking assignment with the S.O.S. village is not merely a paid job like others. Everybody is not cut out for the same. A sense of dedication, selfless devotion and motherly affection are the special virtues sought after. It is not service but a mission.

A secular messiah
By R.L. Singal

THE great Hindi poet Kabir (A.D. 1399 - 1518) was born at a time when Hindu society was in the grip of a crisis. India had already suffered the misrule of the Slave Kings (Qutb-ud-din, Iltutmish, Nasir-ud-din and Balban who were, according to their chroniclers, either fierce fanatics or worthless debauches. These bigots, in the misplaced enthusiasm to spread Islam, mentally persecuted and physically tortured, the poor defenceless Hindu population of India who, as Vincet Smith puts it, "had no rights in their eyes and deserved no fate better than to be sent to hell".

Kings of the Khilji and Tughlak dynasties were no less foolish and fanatical and there was absolutely no respite for the hapless people. Timur’s invasion, plunder of Tulamba (Multan) and Delhi and the ruthless massacre of the populace of these cities are too well known to be repeated here in detail. Soon the tyrant quit India, leaving behind a trail of death, disease, famine and starvation.

All this happened before Kabir was born. His life of course spanned the reign of the Sayyids and the Lodis (A.D. 1414 to 1517 the year Sikander Lodi passed away) whose bigotry and deprivations further widened the gulf between the Hindus and Muslims. There was no meeting ground, much less cordiality between the two communities, and nobody — poet or patriot — dared expose their follies and hypocrisies.

India at that point of time needed a leader with vision and courage, (nay a prophet) who could rise above the mutual animosities of the two warring communities. Someone could not be accused of being partisan to the persecuted Hindus, speak straight from the heart, reprimand them mercilessly and try to put them on the track of sanity, good will and cordiality. That prophet was Kabir, a revolutionary poet par excellence, an angel in the garb of man.

Kabir was both a Hindu and a Muslim. Born of a Brahmin widow (whom Ramanand had inadvertently blessed to be a putravati), he was brought up in the home of Neeru and Neema, a Muslim weaver couple who had adopted him. Thus he inherited both Hindu and Muslim sanskaras, but grew up to abhor bigotry. He often repeated the name of Rama, but his Rama was not the legendary son of Dashratha, revered only by the Hindus. Rama to him was the Almighty creator himself. He unambiguously declared: Dasarath-sut tihun loke bakhana, Ram nam ka marm hai aana meaning that though Dashratha’s son is widely known in the universe, the real meaning or significance of Ram naam is different.

Kabir was gifted a rational mind and catholicity of outlook. Whereas he castigated the Brahmins for their false sense of superiority by saying Jo tu Bamhan Bamhani jaya, aan baat hvaiy kyon nahin aaya’ (if you are a Brahmin born of a Brahmani and thus superior to others, why didn’t you come into this world by some other route?) He, however, acknowledged the inherent merits of a Brahmin as intended by the framers of the social order, by saying: Poorab janm ham brahman hotey, oachhey karm tapheena, Ram dev ki sewa chooka, pakari julaha keena: (I was a Brahmin in my former birth but must have resorted to mean acts: bereft of all penance. I faltered in the service of Ram; he caught hold of me and made me a weaver). This couplet is very significant, and meaningful. The poet indirectly tells us that a Brahmin is expected to be a repository of goodness and virtue. Unfortunately, he had fallen from that state. Also implicit in Kabir’s statement is his stark simplicity and humility because he calls himself a lowly weaver.

His castigation of Muslims for their hypocrisies is equally stern and merciless: din bhar roza rakhat hain, raati hanat hain gaaya, yah to khoon vah bandagi, kaisey khusi khudaaya (you observe a fast during the day and slaughter a cow at night, this shedding of blood preceded by penance implied in fasting, are too contrary to please God).

No doubt Kabir was unlettered as he himself has asserted: masi kagad chhuo nahin, kalam gahyo nahin haath meaning "I never touched paper and ink, nor ever held a pen in my hand", yet his knowledge of the essence of the shastras and the basic tenets of Hinduism and Islam is amazing. He knew that love, compassion and charity were at the heart of all religions. The real scholar was one who understood this basic fact. He proudly says: ‘pothi padh padh jag muaa, pandit bhaya na koey, ekay akshar prem ka, padhe to pandit hoey (People of the entire world read and re-read books but none became a scholar. If you read just one word — love — you can turn a scholar).

Kabir has time and again reminded the Kazis and mullahs (and through them all his Muslim brethren) that hypocrisy and duplicity won’t pay them; they will only become objects of derision by following that path:

Kabir fearlessly spoke against the deceitful practices of the leaders of his time i.e. the arrogant Brahmins, hypocritical mullahs and kazis and the moneyed classes, sucking the blood of the poor. Those who pile up wealth, build vast estates and erecting tall mansions at the cost of the deprived sections of society, are oblivious of the fact, that death is inevitable. All the space they will occupy in the graveyard will hardly be six or seven feet. How relevant is the dismal warning even in today’s consumerism ridden society: Kaha chunave medhia, laambi bheeti usaari, ghar to sadhe teen haath, ghana to paune chaari.

Kabir has also rendered a yeoman’s service to our caste-ridden society by demolishing, through his words people’s false pride and arrogance born out of distinctions. It is the character and conduct of a person that ensure him a place either near or away from God.

He evoked common-place realities of life through homely symbols to wake up the slumbering mass of humanity, to wean them away from sensual indulgences and other vices and to put them on the path of righteousness. Hindi literature, during the last 500 years of its existence, has not known the likes of him again.