Indulgence and conscience
THERE was a time when English manuscripts regarded as likely to land the author and publisher in the net of the law on charges of obscenity were published in France. The most famous of these publishing houses was the Olympia Press, founded in Paris in 1953. Among its many publications were Nabokov’s Lollita, William Burrough’s Naked Lunch, Samuel Bechett’s Watt and all the works of Henry Miller. As censorship laws in England and the USA were relaxed, these books became available and one branch of Olympia Press became defunct. At one time I had all Olympia Press Publications; I make it a point of reading books banned by governments. I lent them to friends; they never came back.
Last week a pleasant surprise awaited me. As I was dusting books on a shelf, I found an Olympia Press Publication Under the Hill by Beardsley. I had not read it. It was a revelation.
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872-98) was best known as an illustrator of books. Amongst others he illustrated Oscar Wilde’s Salome and Pope’s Rape of the Lock. For a while he edited The Yellow Book and Savoy in London. I don’t much care for his drawings. He draped his women billowing flouncy clothes and all you could see of them were their faces and arms. There was nothing erotic about them. Under The Hill is an altogether different story. It is about a gutsy, young German officer Tannhauser who is invited by Venus, the goddess of love, to the underworld to savour pleasures of the flesh and the palate. He indulges in all forms of sexual perversions, eats the tastiest of foods, drinks vintage wines, hears the best of music and watches nubile girls and young men dancing in the nude.
When satiated he returns to the earth. He is conscience-stricken. He goes to church to confess his guilt and seek absolution. The priest is horrified to hear what he has been up to and advises him to go to Rome and seek absolution from the Pope. Tannhauser makes the pilgrimage to the Vatican and unburdens his soul of sins he has committed. His Holiness, the Pope, tells him that he is damned for ever. “Not till fresh buds appear on my polished olive stick will your sins be pardoned,” pronounces the Pontiff. A crestfallen Tannhauser returns to the domain of the goddess of love. Meanwhile, a miracle does take place in the Vatican: The Pope’s polished olive-wood walking stick sprouts with fresh buds.
If there is a moral to this tale, it can only be that a person should indulge in all the vices he can without feeling guilty and tell upholders of social morality to go to hell. It is pertinent to remember that having been a friend of Oscar Wilde’s, Beardsley lampooned him Under The Hill and joined the Catholic church. He dedicated his book to a cardinal in a tone of self-righteousness. “In the present age, alas, our pens are ravished by unlettered authors and unmannered critics, that make a havoc rather than a building, a wilderness rather a garden”.
Beardsley’s Frenchified English may not be to the liking of people who do not know French. But one has to concede that he was able to portray scenes with his pen as well as he did with his brush. This is how he depicts the coming of night: “It was taper-time; when the tired earth puts in its cloak of mills and shadows, when the enchanted woods are stirred with light foot-falls and slender voices of the fairies, when all the air is full of delicate influence, and even the bearer, seated at their dressing tables, dreams a little”.

Service as religion
I had heard about this sampradaya (organisation) from my mother. Her parental home was Mitha Tiwana (Shahpur district, now Pakistan). She often spoke of a Mahant Jawahar Singh who was then head of the sewa-panthis. She did not tell me about what they did but she held them in high esteem. What became of them after partition, was also not known to me. I looked up Hew McLeod’s Sikhism. He dismisses them in one short paragraph as being largely Sindhi and of no consequence whatsoever. For the first time I can fault McLeod: they are not largely Sindhi and are doing a lot of voluntary work in 150 centres spread over across towns and cities of northern India.
A few weeks ago S.S. Katari, who runs a prosperous firm of consultant engineers in Delhi, came to see me. With him were four sewa-panthis, led by Ajit Singh, who is their spokesman and editor of sewa-panthi literature in Gurumukhi. The organisation began with Bhai Ghanaya, celebrated water carrier of Guru Gobind Singh’s army. He served water to thirsty soldiers, Sikhs and Mughals, without discriminating between friend and foe. And was blessed by the Guru as the true embodiment of selfless service. Mahant Jawahar Singh made it into an institution, named Dera Hari Bhagalpura at Mitha Tiwana. He came to be revered by Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims of western Punjab. He was known khoondeywallah — because of the wooden staff (khoonda) he carried in his hand. On partition, the dera at Mitha Tiwana was shifted to Hoshiarpur. Mahant Jawahar Singh’s closest disciple Tara Singh took over as the head. And on Mahant Tara Singh’s death a few months ago, Mahant Pritpal Singh succeeded him and is the present head.
Sewa-panthis are committed to poverty, celibacy, prayer and service. They wear plain white khadi, acquire no personal property and spend their days looking after orphans who are given board and lodging in the dera and feeding the poor at the guru-ka-langar. Attached to their headquarters in Hoshiarpur is a school and a hospital where education and medicines are given by the sangat.
The derewallas keep a punishing schedule of prayer and sewa (service). They are up at 3.30 A.M. After morning ablutions it is prayer and kirtan. The first thing the children are taught are daily prayers (nitnem) and how to recite the Gurbani. Other subjects come later. The concept of service remains traditional — dusting shoes of pilgrims, and rinsing utensils in guru-ka-langar. In the afternoon there is more prayer and kirtan. I have no business to criticise people who dedicate their lives to serving humanity while all I do is to scribble, but I do feel the sewa-panthis should spend less time on prayer and kirtan and more on educating the illiterate and healing the sick. Also, the traditional concept of service jodey jharna (dusting footwear) and bhaandy manjna (rinsing utensils) could be enlarged to helping the handicapped — blind, mute, spastic etc — in their homes
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Ode to Benazir
Like for Cleopatra, Helen and Heer
I have a soft corner for Benazir.
After her father was murdered in a cell
Fightingly she went through hell.
Like a tornado then she rode to power
And started her own country to devour,
Treasure upon treasure she stashed away
And bought herself a palace in Surrey.
Surrounded by sycophants, cut off from reality
The queen led merrily the People’s Party
Besieged, embattled, bruised and toiled
In thousand of crores is she now embroiled,
If proof is needed, this proves conclusively
How absolute power corrupts absolutely.
(Contributed by Kuldip Sahil, Delhi)