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Tuesday,
March 5, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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The bigger the better Return of the old guard Supreme Court stops NCERT |
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Communal killings in Gujarat
Inter-community well
BJP: waning space, narrow options
New way of match-making
Mimicking mother’s milk
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The bigger the better Globalisation and increased competition have led to a series of mergers and acquisitions worldwide. The $80 billion Exxon-Mobil and the 48 billion BP-Amoco mega mergers are the recent examples. The Indian corporate sector too is witnessing a similar realignment, a synergy of strengths and strategic repositioning with a view to meeting competition and accessing global markets. The merger of Reliance Petroleum with Reliance Industries, the biggest ever in India’s corporate history, should be seen in this context. It benefits both the Ambanis and the RIL shareholders, and there are hardly any losers. There will be no staff layoffs that usually spoil such mega corporate marriages. It is heartening to see a one-time small garment trader achieve such dizzy heights, that too in his life time, occasional allegations of rule-twisting, political manipulation and financial foul play notwithstanding. The ambitious elder Ambani, Dhirubhai, has finally realised his long-standing dream of going global. Reliance now has the
financial ability, structure and strength to buy international firms. With sales in excess of Rs 58,000 crore, Reliance Industries will be the only private Indian company to enter the elite group of Fortune 500 companies. In terms of net profit, RIL will be among the 225 top global companies. There will be significant benefits of scale, integration, depreciation, cost efficiency and
productivity. The shareholders benefit as RIL will acquire a state-of-the-art refinery with an equity rise of only 32 per cent, thanks to the Ambanis’ reputed skills for
innovative financial engineering. The merger timing is significant as RIL has lined up major acquisition and expansion plans, and it badly needs cash inflows. Reliance’s forays into telecommunications and information technology require finances as also the company’s plans to bid for IPCL, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum, the PSUs which are on the government’s disinvestment agenda. Time was when “small” was considered “beautiful”. Companies diversified into related or unrelated fields, sometimes to spread risks, but often to avoid taxes. aIt has raised huge amounts of money from the public through various group companies and then merged them into the flagship. But it has rarely let down its investors. With global investors coming in, it has become more transparent and responsive to the demands of foreign financial investors. The FIIs and rating agencies require strict adherence to internationally recognised audit standards and corporate practices. The recent collapse of Enron should serve as an eye-opener to corporates which, blinded by unbridled ambition, do not play by the rule book. Although Reliance’s respectably placed and less-fluctuating share price indicates investor confidence in the management, the company has to move with the times, ensure greater accountability and bury forever its earlier ends-justify-means corporate philosophy.
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Return of the old guard Mr N.D. Tiwari has been handed over the reins of Uttaranchal at a particularly trying time. No, the reference is not to the precarious economic condition of the fledgling state, but to the political situation prevailing there. There has been a sharp reaction to the induction of Mr Tiwari from the state unit of the party and seeds of dissension have been sown good and proper. The firmness shown by Mrs Sonia Gandhi has made dissidents like Mr Harish Rawat fall in line for now, but it will be wrong to think that they have reconciled themselves to the imposition. Intense squabbling that had broken out after the election results were announced has only gone underground and can erupt at a later date if the Chief Minister flounders in his tight-rope walk. Elections were fought and won in Uttaranchal under the leadership of Pradesh Congress Committee chief Rawat who has now been sidelined. On the other hand, Mr Tiwari had kept away from active politics ever since the new state came into existence on November 9, 2000. That is not all. Traditional Congressmen have two more serious grouses against him. One, that he had stoutly opposed the formation of Uttaranchal, and two, that he is not even a pucca Congressman, having left the Congress to float his own party. His rehabilitation and elevation to the post has irked many. This anger also has a lot to do with the traditional rivalry between the Garhwal and Kumaon regions. The Congress has tried to assuage the feelings of hurt by offering a Rajya Sabha seat to Mr Rawat and also making him head of a panel to monitor the performance of the Tiwari government in fulfilling various election promises. Political bickering apart, Mr Tiwari is a good choice for the job. He has the necessary stature and his credentials are immaculate. The four-time Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh has the reputation of being a good administrator. Besides, he is also a shrewd politician. As was expected of him, he has made a good start by accommodating men of all factions in his Cabinet. It already has 14 Cabinet Ministers and three Ministers of State. That means that every other Congress MLA now occupies a ministerial berth. Among them are not only Rawat men but also followers of the other two powerful groups headed by Mr Satpal Maharaj and Mr Vijay Bahuguna. To keep other powerful challengers in good humour, he has announced that his government will soon set up a legislative council. That will put considerable financial burden on the poor State, but who is counting! Being a son of the soil, he knows first-hand the problems of the people of the area. The development blueprint that he has unfolded is please-all. He has promised rapid development by exploring new vistas, has issued a stern warning to officials that "ho jaiga" (will be done) culture will not be tolerated and has offered to generate new employment avenues. If he acts on it and manages to develop direct rapport with the masses, the dissidence against him can die down soon enough. |
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Supreme Court stops NCERT The Supreme Court has delivered a gentle reprimand to the Union Human Resource Development Ministry by staying the introduction of the revised school syllabus prepared by the National Council for Educational Research and Training
[NCERT]. Academic bodies across the country had raised serious objections over some of the changes introduced in the school textbooks without following the prescribed procedure. However, the NCERT evidently had no choice but to try and force the revised syllabus under pressure from Union HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi. It is not just the NCERT textbooks that have caused eyebrows to be raised in informed circles. Dr Joshi’s passion for introducing astrology as a subject of study at the university level too was questioned by the members of the scientific community. Recently he appointed a non-historian as a member of the prestigious Indian Council for Historical Research on the basis of his writings in which he had put all non-Indian religions in the dock. Some of the remarks about revered entities were unwarranted and hurtful. Mercifully, the gentleman in question has had the good sense to turn down the membership on grounds of “pre-occupation”. The HRD Ministry under Dr Joshi has done more than ever before to turn educational institutions into pocket boroughs of those who believe in the saffron view of India and Indian culture. But it may be asked: what is wrong with giving educational institutions a shade of saffron? After all, there is evidence of left historians and academicians having tried, when they had control over educational bodies, to make students see developments in India through red tinted glasses. Two wrongs do not make a right. Besides, a red slant in school textbooks, at best, would have created an anti-rich bias among the under-privileged section of students. But saffronisation seeks to divide society on communal lines. Which is likely to cause more damage to the health of the nation — a society divided on class lines or the one split on communal lines? Be that as it may, the point to note is that there are still public-spirited individuals who consider it their national duty to challenge in courts of law the introduction of patently questionable measures by the State. The other redeeming feature is that at least the apex court continues to be responsive and fair in dealing with public interest litigation. Had the NCERT decision not been challenged certain other shortcomings may never have seen the light of day. Among other reasons for seeking the stay on the implementation of the revised curriculum was one that stated that the NCERT had not followed the prescribed procedure. The NCERT did not deem it necessary to place the set of proposals seeking drastic changes in the curriculum before the Central Advisory Board of Education as is required by law. That is not all, the
CABE, that is expected to clear revision of textbooks, has not been reconstituted since 1992. The period between 1992 and the present covers all shades of political parties that were in power at the Centre. No one can blame the other for the neglect of school education in India.
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Communal killings in Gujarat Two questions flow from the horror of Hindu pilgrims burnt alive by Muslim mobs in railway coaches and the counter horror of the retaliatory strikes in Gujarat leading to the killing of Muslims several times that number. Why did the authorities in Ahmedabad take, as did the Congress government in Delhi in the anti-Sikh riots in 1984, more than a day before acting to bring the conflagration under control? Second, why do incidents lead to Hindu-Muslim riots with such frequency and rapidity? The authorities in Gujarat and at the Centre have much to answer for because they are both of them controlled by the BJP and the party’s dramatic rise to power in Delhi can be traced to the rath yatra in 1990 still vivid in people’s minds. The present Home Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, had led a Toyota van dressed as a chariot across the country making blood-curdling formulations. Merely years later, this rhetoric culminated in the demolition of the Babri mosque in the presence of Mr Advani and other leaders. The distinction between the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi then and the Gujarat carnage now is that the former was a one off gruesome exercise, not the culmination of a propagated line of thinking. The coming to power of the BJP-led coalition at the Centre imposed restrictions on the party’s ability to preach its gospel. The country being a mosaic of different religions demanded a broader philosophy and the coalition constituents grouped in the National Democratic Alliance were more secular than the party was. The BJP thus hit upon the idea of leaving more extremist formulations to the Sangh Parivar, the close relationship, if not the symbiosis, between the party and the RSS or the Vishwa Hindu Parishad is no secret. Even as elections to four state assemblies, particularly UP, proceeded apace, the VHP was acting upon its carefully calibrated plan to start building the temple at Ayodhya by the March 15 deadline. Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s promise to try to resolve the problem by then was a sleight of hand and he was to announce his failure in the election campaign. All indications suggested that the Ayodhya card had lost its magical properties in winning elections because in the state’s chequered religious mix, the BJP and other parties needed more than Hindu votes to come to power. If Ayodhya had once been the BJP’s trump card, the caste factor reasserted itself because divided as Hindu society is, caste affiliations often play a bigger role. The BJP thus had to broaden its appeal by trying to take votes away from the two caste-based parties in an attempt to sub-divide the castes. The caste-based Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party on their part were broadening their own appeal to win votes outside their caste strongholds. In the end, the BJP was truly humiliated in UP, as it was in the other three states in other equations. The VHP’s juggernaut was, meanwhile, trundling along and opposition spokesmen were crying themselves hoarse in urging the Centre to act before it was too late. Government spokesmen made promises but when the time came to act, after the dreadful carnage of Hindu pilgrims — a carefully planned operation meant to incite riots and killings — it was found totally lacking. It had been proved in Delhi in 1984, as it was proved recently in Gujarat, that the police, often communalised, is inadequate in rendering non-partisan policing when communal passions are aroused. The nagging question remains: why then the delay in calling in the Army? The propensity of Hindu-Muslim clashes is the legacy of the subcontinent’s Partition. It is, indeed, a tragic irony that the home of the Mahatma who opposed the Partition on religious lines should see such communal carnage. And there is a message somewhere in the fact that the only major state the BJP rules should be the most communal in the country. We must also remember that Mr Advani’s infamous rath yatra began in Gujarat. To an extent, the appeal of the BJP, particularly among North Indian middle classes, was a swing of the pendulum from the holy cows of the Congress party’s secular orthodoxy. Besides, an Islamic resurgence in Iran and its translation into a version of a theocratic state in Pakistan by General Zia-ul-Haq were bound to have an impact on an India largely divided on communal lines. And the BJP was waiting to tap it for partisan profit with an aggressive form of Hinduism advocated by the RSS. The BJP’s, and the country’s, dilemma is that the quilt of India does not lend itself to a narrow definition of religion and governance. The very practice of parliamentary democracy — India’s pride — does not allow it. Although the BJP has been happy to leave the more extremist formulations to the other constituents of the Sangh Parivar, the periodic nods the ideology receives from Prime Minister Vajpayee and other BJP leaders are unsettling. The temple-building plan, in Mr Vajpayee’s formulation, is an expression of national sentiments and his boast of the BJP winning elections in UP without the Muslim vote sat ill with the country, despite the clarification that failed to clarify. The Gujarat carnage then must give the BJP and other Sangh Parivar ideologues an incentive to reformulate their theories and goals. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has been a former functionary of the RSS. The impending Ayodhya crisis must be tackled wisely and well but the results of the assembly elections have brought the BJP its moment of truth. The temple card is not winning the party elections; rather, it has placed the BJP in the losing box. It must be a sobering thought for the BJP that the Congress party rules in 13, if not 14, states while the BJP’s writ runs in a mere three. While some RSS ideologues might believe that the propagation of the Hindutva ideology is more important than the longevity of the BJP-led government, nothing concentrates politicians’ mind as well as the imminent loss of power. And judging by the party’s performance in the states it has governed and in Delhi, the BJP political class has become as corrupted as the Congress and has the distinction of reaching levels of corruption and nepotism in a few years the Congress took decades to acquire. However, the BJP, if it wishes to remain a major player in India, must do some soul searching. Not only is the communal card divisive and harmful to the country but it is, in the long run, not a vote-puller. The great contribution of Jawaharlal Nehru and the Congress party has been their legacy of secularism and the nurturing of parliamentary democracy. These are valuable legacies, given the nature of the Indian state, and must not be discarded by the BJP or any other party. |
Inter-community well The overall demographic characteristics of my village must have remained identical for many many generations, before the abrupt changes which took place at the time of partition. During the pre-partition days the population was of a couple of thousands. It was predominantly a Sikh village, as were most of the other villages in Tarn Taran tehsil. The Sikhs constituted more than three-fourths of the populace and they were overwhelmingly the farmland owning Jats, with a fair proportion of mazhbis and some artisans. The rest of the villagers were largely Muslims; there being only two or three Hindu families. Spread over the three communities all the major castes as enumerated in the 1881 Ibbetson’s report on the Punjab census were represented. The village was self supporting. The staple foods produced in the village were in plenty. The grains were mostly ground with hand-operated (chakkis or bullock driven (kharases) mills. The cotton produced by the village farmers was processed to make garments and several other utilitarian articles. Almost every home had a spinning wheel to spin yarn. The weaving helps were there. The mustard seeds were pressed to provide the oil. The hides of the animals dying in the village were tanned and the leather thus prepared was used to stitch the shoes. All these and other facilities were available in the village, every caste doing its share of work. In short, the items of daily use or consumption were produced or made in the village. If I recall it correct, there were only two of the main consumable items which were obtained from outside; these were common salt and kerosene oil. The latter was not a necessity, since the earthen mustard oil lamps were used to illuminate the houses. I remember, we the school boys doing our studies in late evenings around such diyas. Almost all the villagers, well-to-do or poor, lived in big or small single storeyed mud houses. These were built by the village artisans. There were divisions at the social level. The mazhbis had a separate sector for habitation on a side of the village, with only one opening for entry and exit. There was a well which was exclusive for water supply to them. Their place of worship, gurdwara, was also separate. There was hardly any social interaction with them by the others. That was the reality at the time. The Muslims also had separate living quarters. But the location of such abodes was much less defined. At places they had common walls with the houses of Jat and/or artisan Sikhs. There was no social intermingling, however, Sikhs and Hindus did not eat stuff prepared by a Muslim, and not even accept a glass of water from his hands. With this kind of limits to sociability, the existence of a well accessible to all the communities used to baffle my young mind. Out of the several wells in the village, there was one in close proximity to the houses of Jat Sikhs and Muslims. On one side, the former climbed the platform to draw out water from the well using a galvanised iron sheet bucket (balti/dole) tied to a jute string. On the opposite position the water was drawn by Muslims with the help of a leather bucket (boqa). The water drawn from Muslim side was used by them and was not acceptable to others. Metaphorically speaking, deep below in water of the well, the balti and boqa must have been caressing each other and laughing at the fickly human thinking inventing prejudicialness for a natural commodity once it came out of a common supply source. This inter-community well was there ever since I or even my parents could remember. |
BJP: waning space, narrow options The BJP has a long tradition of honest introspection. Now the party finds itself in its worst-ever crisis following the repeated defeats in state after state and the pathetic dilemma forced on it by a confrontationist VHP. The whole inter-relationship of the RSS parivar remains in shambles. The tragedy of the crisis-ridden parivar has been that it has lost even the minimum political will to honestly sort out this most serious challenge. An old veteran, still active at the top, summarises the BJP’s present plight: “Everyone of us knows the coalition politics has been rapidly shaking our very foundation. Yet no one wants to admit the truth. It’s like the economic reform — the more it hurts us, the deeper we are forced into it.” No one in the RSS parivar any more hopes that a Virar or Sariska could help find a breakthrough. The issue is much beyond a patchup with the VHP — which, like the Taliban for the USA, has emerged as the BJP’s bhasmasura. The resignation threat by an angry Prime Minister or a subsequent temporary ceasefire by the VHP may have helped prevent further communal carnage. To this extent it is a major consolation for the nation. The patchup will also avert a major internal challenge to the BJP’s ruling establishment. For record, Vajpayee has already won many such crucial battles with the RSS parivar. He could easily silence the once noisy Swadeshi Jagran Manch group and those veterans like Datopant Thengdi. He was even able to shunt the too vocal RSS chief Sudarshan to Nagpur as part of another patchup. This did put a stop to the unwelcome internal challenges to his government. But none of this amounted to a healthy debate leading to a smooth consensus — something hitherto the hallmark of the old style conflict resolution within the parivar. At the most, they marked the ministerialists’ supremacy over the
traditional Hindutva brigade. What should really worry the BJP is the growing dichotomy between the compulsions of maintaining a coalition and a steady erosion of its support base. An increasing section within the parivar strongly feel that the BJP government at the Centre has become the stumbling block in the party’s growth. In every state, the BJP voters are deserting the party. Terrorism, Pakistani threat, patriotism, reform measures — none of this impresses the voters. More and more have begun asking: “where will be the BJP after NDA rule?” No one really seems to have an answer. On the other, the number of those among the BJP leaders who think that the Vajpayee government could one day help it improve its public rating, is fast dwindling. Sections of BJP functionaries in states where the party has been losing elections in the past couple of years, squarely blame the leadership’s obsession with coalition-based power for their misfortune. But the BJP’s ruling establishment has such overawing sway that few dare to raise such unpleasant questions. The
responses this writer got from those in the inner circles of the BJP establishment seemed more disheartening. Their survival hopes rest entirely on some questionable postulates. The first is a decade-old Pranab Mukherjee thesis. (It is doubtful whether its author himself now subscribes to it). On the basis of the voting pattern of the Lok Sabha and assembly elections during a specified period, Mukherjee had come to the conclusion that people voted differently when it came to choosing representatives for the two legislatures. He had done it so to prove that even if the Congress had suffered reverses in assembly elections in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh etc, the same voters had soon after returned Congressmen to the Lok Sabha. For the Centre, he had argued, the main public concern was stability, and in states it was good governance and development. The BJP’s ruling establishment, therefore, argues that the same voters who have opted for opposition candidates in the assembly elections would happily prefer the NDA parties in Parliament elections. This proposition has some serious flaws. For about a decade, the provincial parties have tightened their hold on the electorate in their respective states. This has been established again and again by those like Laloo Prasad Yadav and Chandrababu Naidu. Even if stability at the Centre is the main issue for parliamentary elections, the Congress can certainly be a better choice. It has a longer record at the Centre. Narasimha Rao, who was sworn in as a minority government, completed the full term — through fair or foul means. The other postulate cited pertains to the inevitability of the incumbency factor that would favour the BJP coalition by the time the next Lok Sabha elections take place. The BJP establishment concludes that the main reason for its debacles in states has been their governments’ failure to perform. To an extent, this is inevitable because of the wide gap between the rising popular expectations and the reduced availability of resources. The dissatisfaction that had led to the fall of the BJP governments can also eventually pull down the opposition governments. It is felt that two years are enough to build up such popular resentment against the existing opposition governments. However, this strategy tends to refute both the Pranab thesis and the BJP’s own anti-incumbency theory. If voters do behave differently in assembly and Lok Sabha elections, anti-incumbency with regard to the opposition state governments may not have any relevance to parliamentary elections. On the contrary, the successive governments at the Centre had in the past often used such parallel voting to impose their power on the states. When the Janata Party swept to power in 1977, its leaders, including those who are now in the BJP, had dismissed the Congress state governments for what was then claimed as “political correction” to reflect the people’s opinion. This had enabled the Janata government to replace the Congress in most north Indian states. Later when Indira Gandhi romped back to power, she too had resorted to similar “political correction” in the opposition-ruled states. Now we have a reverse position. Watch the rather anomalous situation where the main ruling party at the Centre does not enjoy majority popular support in any major states except Gujarat. The other BJP-ruled states are Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Jharkhand. The Congress, on other, has chief ministers in 14 states — Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Kerala, Chhatisgarh, Uttaranchal, Delhi, Pondicherry, Nagaland, Arunachal and Manipur. While one has to watch how long this parallel movement of political power at the Centre and in states will last, the steady
ascendancy of the Congress should cause concern to the NDA parties. It is naive to view the steady erosion of the BJP support base and the cruel confrontation forced by the VHP on it as two separate issues. Both simultaneously warn against the inherent contradictions in seeking votes on the basis of Hindu separatism even while trying to suppress the same movement when it hurts the interests of the ruling elite. Recently L.K. Advani has been frank enough to admit that the BJP’s phenomenal growth in the past decade has been due to the Ayodhya movement. The present confrontation has been the result of using it again as a concealed poll plank in UP. You can either hunt the hare or run with it. Both the party’s sad decline and its confrontation with its political sadhus are the consequences of this contradiction. |
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New way of match-making Forget matrimonial columns in newspapers, “engagement fairs” are the latest option. The fair, first of its kind, was held on Kolkata on Sunday which brought face-to-face more than 100 eligible bachelors and 164 girls thereby providing them an opportunity to choose their life partners. Flutes and “shehnais” set the tune for the proceedings at a hall decked with marigold garlands, rangoli and traditional wedding decor. Two organisers of the programme Modhmonti Moitra and Satinath Mukherjee introduced their potential brides and grooms as their faces were flashed on a giant screen with their respective details, including
academic qualification, height, job and salary. The idea was to simplify the protracted procedure of negotiated marriages. However, the limitation was that the fair was exclusively for high income group families as the average monthly income of the families present on the occasion was Rs 20,000 per month. Gender bias was visible openly as men were supposed to pay Rs 5,000 each to enroll their names while women were charged Rs 7,500 each. The fair gave much relief to some girls who recalled their horrifying experience they had to undergo like measuring their height, showing their feet before the groom’s family. Sudakshina
Chakraborty, one of the participants, said, “it actually saved girls like me from embarrassment. Many proposals came for my marriage and when the boy’s family rejected it, it really brought inferiority complex to me”. But, this was an ideal opportunity as it provided a platform where a girl could informally interact with their to-be-husband without any hesitation. Rajiv Roy, a prospective groom, said this is a new concept of match-making. Besides giving a large number of choices, it also provided a cordial atmosphere and an ideal ambience for both, girls and boys to interact with each other, he added.
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Mimicking mother’s milk While breast milk is still the best milk for babies, the newest addition to the infant formula family is trying to bridge that gap. Mead Johnson Pharmaceuticals is now marketing a new line of formula called Enfamil Lipil that contains two fatty acids, decosahexaenoic acid or DHA and arachidonic acid or ARA, reports ABC News. These are naturally occurring elements of breast milk and are believed to play an important role in the development of the brain and the eye. Says Dr Steven Zeisel, Chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, “What the formula companies are trying to do is get more and more like breast milk, because they realise that it is the gold standard. There is no advantage of this formula over breast milk, but there might be an advantage over other formulas”. Formula makers, who have made the nutrients available in formulas overseas for several years, have been shifting their focus to products that improve more subtle measures of health, such as mental development. According to experts, the period when an infant is being nursed is an important time for brain development. “Babie’s brains develop for months and years after birth,” Zeisel said, adding “Especially for premature infants, but certainly for regular infants, there is still a lot of brain development going on at the time the mother is breast-feeding the baby”. Making sure that nursing infants receive vital nutrients could help their brains develop better. But some experts are not quite convinced that adding DHA and ARA to formula is necessary. They maintain babies can make these fatty acids on their own even if they are fed other formulas.
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I have no desire of my own either for death or for life, but like the servant I wait for my Master’s command. I practise dying everyday when I lie down to sleep. I say, do today, do at once, what you have to do when you die. Every night I experiment with death before it comes. I say to God: “If you take me away tonight I shall not be leaving any special work undone; I shall come to you filled with love. If tomorrow you give me birth once more, then whatever service I can do I will do especially by the spoken word”. When death comes it comes not to me but to my body. My real self will be immortal, because I have given up the illusions which caused me to don the garment of the body. When I hear that someone has died I regard it as good news. What else can it be, the news that someone has gone home? For in truth it is that world which is our home; in this world we are strangers... I should surely go laughing and singing — laughing and playing, as the Gita also suggests. Only God and the universe remain. We come and we go, like the waves of the sea, some smaller, some bigger, some rising high and others not, but all of them merely waves. So now as I wait for my life to reach its destined end, I try to follow the advice of the poet who says: “What every breath take the name of Rama; Let no breath go waste”. If God were to punish men for their wrong-doing, He would not leave on the earth a single living creature; but respites them until a stated time; and when their time comes they cannot delay it an hour or can they hasten it. — From Moved by Love: As a man casting off worn-out garments puts on new ones, |
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