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Wednesday, February
13, 2002,
Chandigarh, India  
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It’s voters’ day Assembly poll and NDA govt Now it is steel war |
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A look at the “Axis of Evil”
The Sardarji in the Bulb and his Sardarni: a love story
Kashmir: my lost country
Computer software that can check CVs for accuracy
1997, Physics: CHU, COHEN - TANNOUDJI AND PHILLIPS
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It’s voters’ day THE
election time provides the voter an opportunity for self-introspection as well as for proper assessment of political parties and candidates in totality. His honest appraisal can help improve the quality of democracy. Of course, this is easier said than done in the absence of a uniform literacy level. All the same, it is a fact that there is tremendous awareness among the people. They want good governance, faster growth and good standards of living. Indeed, governments these days are being increasingly tested on the touchstone of performance. The track record of most political parties in this respect is not all that flattering. In the circumstances, it has become imperative for the people to properly evaluate the available options and give their verdict. In Punjab this time the anti-incumbency factor dominates the scene, to the disadvantage of the SAD-BJP ruling alliance. For it, the past five years could be seen as an opportunity half lost, if not fully wasted. This has proved to be a boon for rejuvenating the Congress in the state. A number of factors at play will, however, decide the fate of the contestants. One, people are not quite happy about the working and performance of the SAD-BJP government. They feel the politico-administrative system has not delivered. Of course, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal tried to make up for this gap by his sangat darshan campaign. But that was seen as a highly selective exercise coming rather late in the day. Two, there has been considerable reservation on certain operational aspects of the Badal government. People have often felt frustrated because of rampant corruption in various segments of public life. Three, there has been a common complaint of a slow pace of development and general lethargy in running the affairs of the state. Four, though Mr Badal has made considerable efforts to mitigate the sufferings of farmers, who constitute the backbone of the Shiromani Akali Dal, there has been a strong feeling that the state government has not done enough to prepare them to meet the post-WTO challenges in Punjab. Five, SAD-BJP leaders have not worked as a cohesive team for the good of the people. Their approach was either selective or partisan in nature. Six, though Mr Badal continues to be the most popular leader in the state, he has lacked dynamism to make Punjab economically competitive and socially cohesive. Voters cannot be taken for granted on the basis of caste, religion or community. They want performance as well as accountability for all public acts of omission and commission. This is a happy development which must not be lost sight of. A proper assessment of the working of the SAD-BJP government should provide the right lessons to the next winning combination. If correct lessons are drawn and mistakes are not repeated, the people of Punjab will have reasons to feel happy. After all, the whole idea of elections is to get new promising faces, re-elect the right persons and throw out those who have lost public confidence. Everything now depends on the people's right judgement. |
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Assembly poll and NDA govt NO
sensible person will dispute Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's assertion that the outcome of the Assembly elections in Punjab, UP, Uttaranchal and Manipur cannot be interpreted as a referendum on the performance of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre. What ultimately happens will be broadly a reflection on the achievements, good or bad, of the state governments concerned. But the matter is not as simple as this. The voting pattern will also prove whether or not the people are happy with those who held the reins of power in these state governments. The BJP, the party that leads the ruling coalition at the Centre, has been a significant constituent of the Parkash Singh Badal ministry in Punjab and running the government in UP and Uttaranchal. For record, UP, the Prime Minister's state, has had a coalition government, but the truth is that the BJP has been the only formidable force in Lucknow. The role of the rest was marginal. If the voters decide to express their displeasure against the Rajnath Singh government, the BJP will obviously be a major loser. And that will mean that a large section of voters in the most populous state of the country finds something wrong with the party of the Prime Minister. Of course, in the context of UP alone. But that is from where the leading NDA constituent draws its maximum strength. An erosion of its base in UP can affect not only the behaviour pattern of central coalition partners but also change the political climate throughout the country. Many NDA members may become more demanding. Many may decide to part company with the BJP in subsequent elections. The way the Prime Minister has reacted to the media forecasts on the Assembly polls and the Opposition raising sensitive issues like the purchase of coffins during the Kargil conflict shows that he has already accepted electoral reverses for his party as a fait accompli. He may be foreseeing something more. When the BJP begins a study of its gains and losses after the polls, a number of inconvenient questions are bound to be raised. These have to be seen in proper perspective. In any case, the verdict of the electorate this time is likely to have far-reaching consequences. |
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Now it is steel war INDIA
is engaged in a war with the USA and the issue is import and export of steel. The dollar kingdom often bans import of steel from this country, saying that it is actually dumping. What that means is that the government is highly subsidising export to earn dollars and the producer, SAIL, makes a profit. The US steel industry in Pitsberg, at one time the steel capital of the world next only to pre-war German Thysson-Krupp, has been flattened by cheaper products from first Japan and later South Korea and other developing countries. The two East-Asian countries do not have iron ore but have built up huge manufacturing facilities and produce steel by importing ore, Japan from India. There has always been protest from US steel companies, whose employees enjoyed the highest pay scales at one time and dictated the policies of the Teamsters Union, the most powerful trade union. The truckers too enjoyed an edge but it was the steel men who were a step ahead. The steel-making industry is in dire straits and the Bush administration is under pressure to revive it. There are two ways. One is to make the use of steel in several sectors, giving up the present practice of the cheaper reinforced plastic. The highly profit-minded US industrialists will reject this. The other is to curb import of steel from Third World countries which account for about 10 per cent of the inflow. The US trade laws permit the country to impose a duty higher than the 40 per cent allowed by the WTO if it hurts national interests. India on its part has tried to buy peace by agreeing to purchase 50,000 tonnes of the scrap from the debris of the World Trade Center demolition. Experts are convinced that this scrap is second grade and will create problems in melting it and using it. India and China obviously went for the purchase with a pronounced political motive. The idea seems to be that the scrap purchase will ease some political problem. India, in particular, has to mount pressure on the USA to lean on Pakistan to end cross-border terrorism and help in bringing about normalcy in Kashmir and liquidating ISI units in this country itself. Peace in this subcontinent is vital for the larger American concern of eliminating terrorism from all countries. |
A look at the “Axis of Evil” OCCASIONALLY, White House speechwriters come up with catchy phrases which attract media attention. Thus former President Ronald Reagan’s description of the Soviet Union as an “Empire of Evil” went around fast and furious. Brought up in the same right-wing mould, the current US President George Bush, flush from the success of his “war against global terrorism”, has termed Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an Axis of Evil. President Bush is now certain that these nations, overtly or covertly, had been lending support to international terrorism which targeted the USA and the West, as shown by the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. There is no shred of evidence to support this line of thinking, but then the only Super Power in the world has no use for proof or rational thinking. Always guided by strong personal prejudices, US Presidents were known to “invent” facts while deciding on foreign policy issues. For years, the rulers of Iraq, Iran and North Korea had been the “bad boys” ruling “rouge states” and naturally they are now the Axis of Evil. As was to be expected, America’s allies were not amused and would have no part in rushing to such conclusions. At a recent Brussels meeting of European nations, diplomats strongly disapproved of the US line of thinking, particularly in making Iran a part of the so-called “Axis of Evil”. Spanish Foreign Minister Joseph Pique, whose country is the current head of the European Union, clarified that the 15-nation bloc would seek “maximum cooperation” with Iran on trade and the fights against international terrorism and abuse of human rights. European nations were of the view that the current process of liberalisation in Iran needed encouragement. The Spanish Foreign Minister declared, “We in the European Union think it is very important to support the reform process in Iran.” The Brussels meeting made it clear that the EU was keen to negotiate a Trade and Cooperation Agreement with Iran valued at 24 billion pounds. Most of the diplomats at Brussels did not agree with the US stand that Iran had actively encouraged the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists. The American rhetoric on the issue did not find favour even in Britain which has a “special relationship” with the USA. But critics of the government charged that such relationship had reduced the UK to become a “poodle” of the USA. The British Foreign Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, who was in the USA when President Bush made the “Evil Axis” statement, said that such rhetoric was made with an eye on the approaching Congressional elections. The President wanted to portray his government and the Republican Party as “strong”, ready to take on any challenge on the terrorist front. Mr Straw’s comments were criticised by senior members of the Bush administration, but the mood in Britain made it clear that it was not ready to go all the way with the USA on this issue. Like other European nations, Britain was keen to develop trade relations with Iran and exploit its huge oil and gas resources. France too has expressed its disapproval. Why did Mr Bush bracket Iran, Iraq and North Korea which sponsored and supported terrorism and ignored certain other nations which were more active on this issue? The three nations had not succumbed to American bullying on regional issues. They had stood against America’s will and continued to inflict damages on US political and economic interests. These actions did not make them a menace to the free world, as America viewed them. Of the three nations, Iran the one nation which had links with terrorist like the Lebanese Hezbollah. But unlike the heady days of the “Islamic Revolution” ushered in by Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran was no longer a crusader for Islamic fundamentalism. Iran was also a Shia-majority, non-Arab nation where sympathy for Islamic groups came from the minority Sunni Arabs. The terrorist links were more tenuous in the case of Iraq, the only secular nation in the Arab world. Of course, Iraq had sheltered Palestinian “terrorists” under the pretext that they were freedom fighters, struggling to get back possession of their country, usurped by Israel with the active support of western nations. The USA has a visceral dislike for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein accusing him of manufacturing and possessing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Much to the chagrin of the USA, no traces of these weapons were found in Iraq despite the visits of several UN inspectors and their technical staff. President Hussein may be a maverick, but he is hardly the kind of encourage mullah-run terrorist organisations. Iraq enjoyed remarkable religious freedom and tolerance and, beset by serious economic problems caused by the UN trade sanctions, was hardly in a position to encourage global terrorism. The inclusion of the isolated, mysterious North Korea in the Axis of Evil too is unfair. The only reasons seems to be that Pyongyang reportedly possesses a powerful, long-range missile system. North Korea, whose global interests are purely regional, has no reason to be associated with global terrorism. In fact, the US concept on this is not acceptable even to South Korea whose ultimate aim is union with the North and the creation of a united, single Korea. The Bush statement has not managed to prove any links between members of the “Evil Axis”. In fact, there cannot be any links because the three nations are so different on all major issues — political, economic, cultural and social. Iraq has always been an open society, Iran is lurching towards moderation while North Korea still functions behind some kind of a bamboo curtain. Why is the American leadership so ignorant of the vital fact that today’s terrorism did not need any state sponsorship. It was the brainchild of certain individuals who had captured the imagination of groups of people. Operating from a primitive country like Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden was able to plan and mount a gigantic operation against the most powerful country on earth. The USA has now effectively destroyed the sponsors of terrorism and their infrastructure in Afghanistan but without getting its hands on Bin Laden and his close followers. Who knows what is in store for the world tomorrow? Of course, certain groups from the military and intelligence in Pakistan did support global terrorism. Arms were no problem; there is a flourishing international trade in illegal arms. How did the LTTE become the most powerful terrorist group in the world? Small religious groups spread over several nations in Asia and the Arab world were able to collect funds for their nefarious operations. Most of the governments, however, had learnt that it did not pay, in the long run, to play host to such groups. Blaming certain individual nations as sponsors of terrorism is easy. It only shows that the US administration still has no clue on how to handle the widely spread out groups which carried out acts of international terrorism. Most of the global terrorism emanated from a sense of frustration and wounded dignity, aimed particularly at the US policies in West Asia which were tilted solely in favour of Israel. If the USA adopted a more sensible balanced policy in the region and understood the aspirations of the Palestinians, it could help in defusing the situation in West Asia and put an end to most of global terrorism. So long as the Palestinian problem remains unsolved, all the frustrations and anger against the USA would come in the way of establishing peace in the region and beyond. |
The Sardarji in the Bulb and his Sardarni: a love story IT was in the winter of 1994 that we first met Khushwant Singh and his Sardarni Kaval Malik. A party had been arranged in the Canal Guest House at Amritsar for the “Sardarji in the Bulb”. Due to escort him was the then Director General of Police, Mr Kanwarpal Singh Gill. These were the “ men who commanded huge TRP” much before Ekta Kapoor’s “soaps”. Both men had a larger than life image, a taste for fine scotch and a certain weakness for women. The women invited must have viewed the evening ahead with some trepidation. It was a full house. Everyone invited attended. The security accompanying the Director General of Police (DGP) was intense. The circuit house swarmed with gunmen. Those were the days of bulletproof cars, walkie-talkies and sub-machine-guns ; terrorism cast a long shadow. When the chief guests arrived, KPS Gill did not disappoint. At 6½ feet, clad in formals, he was every inch the DGP in mufti. The famous visage, caricatured in the bulb, identified the nondescript Sardarji dressed in a rumpled Pathani suit, accompanying him as “the Khushwant Singh”. Also accompanying them was a lady, slim, well maintained, dressed in loose salwars. Her grey hair was worn simply but elegantly. She had that indefinable air of breeding and refinement, that clung to her like a fine toosh, sensed even when not felt. She had a calm unpretentious manner. When she spoke she looked you directly in the eye, listening more than talking. She enjoyed her glass of whisky. It was much later that we learnt that she was the lesser known “Kaval Malik, Khushwant Singh’s wife”. As the evening progressed I remember thinking how little truth there was in media reports about Khushwant Singh. He was no womaniser or drunkard. He is in fact a scholar, widely read with a fine repertoire of anecdotes, jokes and urdu poetry. He enjoyed his drinks, he had two that evening and almost took a third, until his wife reminded him that he was over his limit. He politely declined it then. His manners were impeccable, even after he had downed his quota of drinks. He spoke to the women, but with a lively sense of
curiosity. He was like a sponge soaking up nuggets of information, and his memory would have put a man half his age to shame. He shared an easy air of companionship with his Sardarni. Their affection for each other had a tangible identity but there was also a clearly defined independence; each occupied separate space. This was a couple whose marriage had traversed the uneven terrain of life and matrimony and weathered the rocky spots. Amritsariâs are a people with a taste for good food and good life. In the good old days, Lawrence Road did not sleep till way past midnight. But in 1994, bomb blasts and kidnappings were still fresh and there was a virtual curfew after 9 pm. A walk after dark was still not fashionable in those times. Khushwant Singh was, however, determined, security risks notwithstanding, to walk down the Lawrence Road like in the old times. It was a security disaster. My husband Karan Bir Singh Sidhu, then the Deputy
Commissioner at Amritsar, and all the district and police officials walked on eggshells down Lawrence Road, with fingers and toes crossed. But I believe that Khushwant Singh and his Sardarni Kaval extended the curfew deadline that evening for Amritsar. It was the beginning of the end of terrorism. We met with Mr Khushwant Singh and his family again when they visited
Amritsar, on and off, to donate a substantial sum to the energetic Dr Inderjit Kaur’s Pingalwara foundation. We met again, last year, on his trip to Kasauli. He spoke with regret about his Sardarni’s affliction with Alzhiemers. He was deeply disturbed by what had become of his “beautiful tomboy”. She could not speak or remember much. “I am not comfortable leaving her alone or with a nurse, so I don’t travel much now”, said Mr Khushwant Singh. He spoke also about his son and daughter who set aside domestic priorities and willingly took turns to nurse their mother, when he travelled to meet his professional commitments. When the news reports about the Sardarni having left behind her grieving family made it to the newspapers, they also carried a message from the Sardarji. He wanted to be allowed to grieve privately for his wife. While allowing Mr Khushwant Singh the time and space to grieve for his companion, this piece is dedicated to his Sardarni, whom he has described in his writings as his “gawky schoolmate at Modern School Barakhamba”. She blossomed into a beauty, whom the Sardarji fell in love with and wooed and won in a Quaker Hostel in Buckinghamshire. His famous liaisons notwithstanding, Khushwant Singh was a man a little in awe of his fiercely independent wife. He relied on her to bring order into his life. She was ill for quite a while, and did not speak much after her affliction with Alzheimers. But theirs was clearly the classical case of true love “in sickness and in health... till death did them a part”, a companionship of 62 years. They were married in October, 1939. I thank Mr Khushwant Singh for permitting me to share in print my memories of a brief encounter with him and his Sardarni Sahiba. |
Kashmir: my lost country NOT long ago, somebody asked me what kind of stories I wrote. Obituaries came to mind. As a reporter in Kashmir I have been literally writing obituaries for the past 10 years; only the characters and places change, the stories are always the same, full of misery and tears. And when in October last year I got a chance to leave Kashmir, I hoped for a change. Every human being has a threshold for pain and agony. I felt mine had been reached. I wanted to escape. But within days, Kashmir was in the headlines and although I was thousands of miles away, I found myself in the middle of it all again. I was born in Kashmir. I grew up in its apple orchards and lush green meadows, dreamed on the banks of its freshwater streams. I went to school there, sitting on straw mats and memorising tables by heart. After school my friends and I would rush half-way home, tear off our uniforms and dive into the cold water. Then we would quickly dry our hair, so our parents would not find out what we had done. Sometimes, when we felt especially daring, we would skip an entire day of school to play cricket. My village lies in the foothills of the Himalayas. During summer breaks, we would trek to the meadows high in the mountains carrying salt slates for the family cattle, sit around a campfire and play the flute for hours. The chilling winter would turn the boys and girls of our small village into one huge family - huddled together in a big room, we would listen to stories till late into the night. Sipping hot cups of the traditional salt tea, the village elder who had inherited the art of storytelling would transport us to the era of his tales. He had never been to school but he remembered hundreds of beautiful stories by heart. Kashmir was like a big party, full of love and life. Today death and fear dominate everything. I was in Kashmir too when the first bomb exploded in 1988. People first thought it was the outcome of a small political feud, although everybody knew the pot was boiling after
years of political discontent. Then that September a young man, Ajaz Dar, died in a violent encounter with the police. Disgruntled by the farce of decades of ostensible democracy under Indian rule, a group of Kashmiri young men had decided to fight. They had dreamt of an independent Kashmir free from both India and Pakistan. Although this young man was not the first Kashmiri to die fighting for this cause, his death was the beginning of an era of tragedy. Separatist sentiment had been dominant among Kashmiris since 1947, when Kashmir was divided between India and Pakistan during partition, and the two countries fought over it. But it was not until 40 years later that most of the youngsters opted for guns against Indian rule, in reaction to the government-sponsored rigging of the assembly polls, aimed at crushing dissent. I had just completed secondary school then and was enrolled in a college - a perfect potential recruit: the entire militant movement belonged to my generation. The movement was the only topic of discussion on the street, in the classroom and at home. Soon people started coming out onto the streets, thousands would march to the famous Sufi shrines or to the United Nations office, shouting slogans in favour of `Azadi!' (freedom). These mass protests became an everyday affair, frustrating the authorities, who began to use force to counter them. Dozens of protesters were killed by police fire. Many of my close friends and classmates began to join. One day, half of our class was missing. They never returned to school again, and nobody even looked for them, because it was understood. Although the reasons for joining the militant movement varied from person to person, the majority of Kashmiris never felt that they belonged to India. What had been a relatively dormant separatist sentiment was finally exploding into a fully-fledged separatist uprising. I too wanted to join, though I didn't know exactly why or what it would lead to. Most of us were teenagers and had not seriously thought about the consequences. Perhaps the rebel image was subconsciously attracting us all. I also prepared for the dangerous journey from our village in north Kashmir to Pakistan-controlled Kashmir where all the training camps were. One didn't just have to avoid being sighted by the Indian soldiers who guarded the border round the clock, but also defeat the fierce cold and the difficulties of hiking over the snow-clad Himalayan peaks that stood in the way. I acquired the standard militant's gear: I bought the Wellington boots, prepared a polythene jacket and trousers to wear over my warm clothes, and found some woollen cloth to wrap around my calves as protection from frostbite. Fortunately, I failed. Three times a group of us returned from the border. Each time something happened that forced our guide to take us back. The third time, 23 of us had started our journey on foot from Malangam, not far away from my village, only to be abandoned in a dense jungle. It was night, and the group had scattered after hearing gunshots nearby, sensing the presence of Indian army men. In the morning, when we gathered again, our guide was missing. Most of the others decided to continue on their own, but a few of us turned back. We had nothing to eat but leaves for three days. We followed the flight of crows, hoping to reach a human settlement. I was lucky. I reached home and survived. As the days and months passed, and as the routes the militants took to cross the border became known to Indian security forces, the bodies began to arrive. Lines of young men would disappear on a ridge as they tried to cross over or return home. The stadiums where we had played cricket and football, the beautiful green parks where we had gone on school excursions as children, were turned into martyrs' graveyards. One after another, those who had played in those places were buried there, with huge marble epitaphs detailing their sacrifice. Many had never fired a single bullet from their Kalashnikovs. One day, I counted my friends and classmates in the martyrs' graveyards near our village. There were 21 of them. I could feel the smiling face of Mushtaq, whom I had known since our schooldays. He would have been 31 this January, but the ninth anniversary of his death is just two months away. He was killed in April 1993. His mother could not bear the pain and lost her mental balance. For all these years, she has been wandering around the villages carrying the shirt he wore on the day of his death. Whatever attention Kashmir was given was because it was a flashpoint between two nuclear neighbours and not because Kashmiris were suffering. India and Pakistan seem to share one common policy on Kashmir — to force Kashmiris to toe their respective lines. In fact, it seems that both countries want to fight to the last Kashmiri. The Indian government held state elections in 1996 apparently aimed at ensuring a representative government in Kashmir. But actually it was nothing more than a farce. The security forces herded people to polling stations and even conducted `nail parades' to check - by the indelible ink pasted on the nail of the forefinger — that people had voted. The man who represents Kashmir — not only in New Delhi, but across the world as India's junior Foreign Minister — is Omar Abdullah, the son of Kashmir's Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah. He received just 5 per cent of votes in his constituency — after coercion by the police and the security forces — and he won the elections. Who he does actually represent, nobody knows. I have been a witness to all this. I have seen Kashmir change. I still remember my grandmother worrying whenever the sky turned red. `Murder has been committed somewhere,' she would say. Now that suspicion can no longer be reserved for red skies: the daily death toll is 20. Kashmir used to be known as a crime-free state. One of my neighbours was a senior police officer in the mid-Eighties; he once told me that the average yearly murder r in Kashmir was three or four. Today, if three people perish in a day, it is considered peaceful. The Observer |
Computer software that can check CVs for accuracy THE
days of embellishing your curriculum vitae with exaggerated qualifications, impressive job titles and unlikely tales of outlandish foreign adventures could soon be over. British firms are testing sophisticated new computer software that can check employees' CVs for accuracy, including educational qualifications, places of study and the veracity of job references. SAS, an American firm, has developed a program called Text Miner which uses `smart technology' to detect suspicious statements in CVs. It works by examining text patterns and numbers that can change when a lie or exaggeration is inserted. The program will also study the language used when CV writers describe their previous posts, studying the style of the text to see whether it accurately reflects the job description. It can also check to see if academic institutions mentioned in a CV existed and if they offered the courses named at the time the candidate claimed to have taken them. ‘Some things might be an honest mistake, but it will all add up and in the end you may get a degree of uncertainty that will need to be investigated further,’ said Peter Dorrington, SAS business solutions manager. Text Miner will also be able to pick up telltale patterns that show whether or not a candidate used a computer program to draw up many CVs and covering letters at once. Job applicants can now expect the sort of checks on their CVs that are normally used to analyse people's creditworthiness. The British firm Experian has set up a web-based system called CV Verifier that automatically checks any CV submitted to it. The system can consult a database on educational qualifications to ensure that candidates have not been lying about their academic record. It also runs checks to see if someone has a court record, has ever been bankrupt, owes substantial debts or is disqualified from any profession. Such checks are commonplace in the United States, where other even more unusual checks, such as lie detector machines, can be used. But experts believe British businesses are starting to follow the US trend. ‘It is just something that is beginning to become part of the business culture over here,’ said Jo Buckingham, director of pre-employment screening for the consultancy Control Risks Group. The Observer
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To be affectionately detached — that is a power. That is a wisdom. That is a love greater than any emotional love, a love born of understanding, a love that merges you into the river of life and allows actinic force to flow within you so that you realise God. A shade of red very near to crimson is the astral colour of love, but the tint and shade varies greatly according to the nature of this form of emotional feeling. A very high form of love, which seeks the good of the loved one, rather than the satisfaction of oneself, manifests as a beautiful rose tint — one of the most pleasing of the astral tints, by the way. Descending in the scale, we find the crimson shade becoming darker and duller, until we descend to the plane of impure, sensual, coarse passion, which is manifested by an ugly, dull, muddy crimson of a repulsive appearance, suggesting blood mixed with dirty earth or barnyard soil. — Satguru Sivaya
*** Do not put veil on your Face for You can never hide Yourself, And if you light up all the veils all shall die at a glance. When you displayed your loveliness, the charm of all other beauties, Effaced from my heart, and your glamour absorbed my soul for ever. With love He (God) embellished the world of water and clay. with such a lively thing He put life into the hearts of man. —
Ameer Khusrau, Kulliyat-e-Anasir-e-Dawawin *** Oh, brother become cloud, rain a river and flow into sea. As the water in the gutter is of no use. — Moulana Jalalud-din Balakhi (Roomi) |
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