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Monday, September 9, 2002,
Chandigarh, India
  
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ICC backs out Making PSEB powerful |
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Universities and the state
Salt, saffron and Suzette
Bipin Chandra Pal and The Tribune
Nirmal Mukarji: a quiet, self-effacing civil servant
Successful pregnancies after transplants
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ICC backs out THE
crisis is over. The Indian cricket team will go to Sri Lanka for the Champions Trophy tournament beginning on September 12. The “ultimatum” to senior players by the Board of Control for Cricket in India has been issued to protect its own financial interests in the event of a dispute at a later date with the games governing body. The International Cricket Council was responsible for the controversy that threatened to reduce the 12-nation mini world cup in Sri Lanka into a farce. Without India’s participation the sponsors may have backed out. That is why the ICC tested the waters by spreading the word that the BCCI may be made to pay damages amounting to a whopping Rs 130 crore as a result of providing concessions to the Indian players. When the BCCI growled the international body changed its stand. The fact of the matter is that the ICC tied itself in knots by agreeing to unfair terms dictated to it by the sponsors of the Champions Trophy. The terms of the contract were finalised in 2000 and yet the ICC did not have the basic courtesy to at least circulate copies of the terms of agreement it had entered into with the sponsors. The players from India and other countries would have had sufficient time to study the small print and get back to the ICC after checking out with their sponsors. They may have come back with the terms that would have protected the financial interests of players as also of the ICC. Instead, the international body virtually sprung the contract on the players. Other countries, after initial reservations, signed on the dotted line because their players do not depend much on individual sponsors for their livelihood. But in the case of Indian players their sponsors would have sued them for damages had they been browbeaten into signing the grossly unfair ICC terms of participation. Every cricket administrator cannot be a Jagmohan Dalmiya. The 1996 World Cup was awarded to India because of the combined efforts of Mr Dalmiya and Mr I. S. Bindra in roping in sponsors that outbid all others out of reckoning. As ICC President the wily businessman from Kolkata introduced new and innovative concepts for marketing cricket in a world dominated by football. The present team that heads the ICC had clearly no idea what kind of deal it was being made to sign by the sponsors. After Kerry Packer made international cricketers realise their true market value the game saw the formal entry of sponsors. However, their contribution was modest. They provided crumbs to the England Cricket Board and some even to the ICC. Mr Dalmiya was responsible for making the game of cricket commercially attractive for both the players and the boards. The BCCI is among the richest boards because of the efficient marketing of the game in India. The moral of the story is simple. If the ICC is willing to listen rather than play the blaming game it can avoid getting into trouble. It should stop negotiating tricky business deals with tough-talking sponsors without expert help. It should swallow its pride and appoint a skilful negotiator like Mr Dalmiya as a permanent financial consultant to avoid getting into situations that almost wrecked the Champions Trophy. International cricket cannot survive without the money that Indian sponsors put in the game. They do it not to make the ICC rich but to ensure the participation of a galaxy of super stars, including Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, V.V.S. Laxman, Virendra Sehwag, Mohammad Kaif, Yuvraj Singh, Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh in international tournaments. Tendulkar is, of course, in a class all his own. But the other big names in Indian cricket have given their sponsors many reasons to smile. Without their participation the Champions Trophy would be a non-event. The ICC has done itself a favour by working out a compromise deal with the players. It should sort out the other contentious issues before next year’s World Cup in South Africa. It should do it well in time rather than allow last-minute controversies to damage the image of the game. |
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Making PSEB powerful THE inevitable has happened. The Punjab farmer will no longer get free power. Introduced by Ms Rajinder Kaur Bhattal as the Chief Minister of Punjab on a limited level and extended to the entire farming sector by Mr Parkash Singh Badal, the issue of free power to farmers has become highly political. Mr Badal had also included the Scheduled Castes in the category of free power beneficiaries before handing over the reins of government to his successor. The Badal government had promised to compensate the Punjab State Electricity Board for the loss it would suffer on this account. However, the promised money never reached the PSEB, which landed in a financially precarious situation. As the Congress leader in Punjab, Capt Amarinder Singh must have been aware of the ground realities. Yet during the run-up to the Assembly elections, he also got carried away by political considerations and promised to continue this facility to the farmers. He had to contend with Mr Badal on the one hand, and Mrs Bhattal, on the other. But on assuming power the Captain realised the gravity of the situation. He started preparing the ground for harsh decisions, saying the state government was nearly bankrupt. The previous Badal administration must bear the responsibility for part of the pain now being inflicted on the electricity consumer in general and the farmer in particular. Because of free power supply, Punjab was denied cheaper aid by global institutions like the World Bank. The consumer in the agriculture sector got unmetered supply and he made a reckless use of it. This cost the PSEB dearly. Besides, the board had to bear an additional cost when it was told to ensure 24-hour power supply to villages. The combined result of all this was: highly irregular and undependable supply and a near bankrupt board unable to replace defective equipment. The Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission has now restored a semblance of order to the power sector. Its tariff order effecting an 8 to 11 per cent across-the-board hike for all consumers and withdrawing free power to tubewells in the state will lend a Rs 1,460 crore support to the board. This may not be enough, given the magnitude of the board’s problems. For not clearing its dues, the board has been denied its regular quota of coal. But the board will have to give the habit of looking for crutches. It has to learn to stand on its own feet. The regulatory commission has told the PSEB clearly and bluntly to mend its ways by reducing its costs and increasing productivity. The tariff increase should not be a goal before the board in the next few years. It has also been noticed that the number of PSEB employees, in terms of per million units sold and 1,000 consumers served, is the highest in the country. This calls for an urgent loadshedding. Pilferage of power is another known malady afflicting the PSEB and the involvement of its employees is widely suspected. The PSEB must realise that the consumer cannot be made to bear the cost of its own inefficiencies. A higher tariff must translate into some visible improvements in the power supply system. The ball is now in the PSEB court and the management is under watch from various quarters. |
Universities and the state TO say about anyone in a position of authority that he has disdain for education would be an act of insolence. Those who exercise authority may neglect education. In fact, this is what generally happens. But to even suggest that they have disdain for education cannot be right. Why is the issue being put so provocatively then? The answer is that something odd happened in one of the smaller states less than a year ago and is worth re-telling even though it happened some time back. The idea is not to dig up things which have been buried and forgotten, but because what happened then has wider implications. The present Chief Minister of the state was the Chief Minister even then. He was the chief guest at a university function. Among other things, he lashed out at some of the things that had gone wrong in the university. Most of what he said was in order. Some of the things were going wrong and those needed to be exposed. The real embarrassment was over the fact that the Vice-Chancellor and others who were present received a severe tongue-lashing without having had an opportunity to explain their point of view. To some extent, there was no explanation for some of the lapses which were being criticised publicly. But then the forum for that should have been a closed door discussion rather than a public meeting. That apart, something else happened a little later. The grant of the university was reduced by the government. Nowadays, when prices are rising all the time and expenses are going up, it is a real setback to have the university grant reduced. Was it in order to reduce the grant? Perhaps not. Even that mishap could have been left at that. Those being held responsible for the lapses had already moved on and a new team had taken over. The Vice-Chancellor was answerable to the extent that his predecessors had done certain things and it was not open to him to disavow them. It should not be necessary to go any further with a description of what happened except that the general belief in that state is that, having been trained as an engineer, the Chief Minister is strongly for the promotion of technical education though not for the general kind of education. It is difficult to say whether this is the exact truth, but knowledgeable people maintain that his lack of sympathy for what is being done in that state university stems from his unusual commitment to technical education. Whether this is so or not, two things stand out. One, everyone cannot go in for technical education as, among other things, it involves the question of aptitude. Only those who have the right kind of aptitude can opt for technical education. At the same time, it should not be forgotten that technical education is expensive. In other words, it is not possible to replace the general kind of education with technical education just like that. In any case, there are people who want the general kind of education. Their requirements have also to be met. If a state government has set up university a certain measure of support to it is called for. This is the second point to be taken into account. The relevant question to ask, therefore, would be: is the university performing as well as it was expected to? Or to put it another way: is the investment made in the university yielding the right kind of return? That those connected with education and the general public should have some negative feelings is understandable. That the Chief Minister should not be sympathetic to the cause of higher education, however, is not the kind of feeling that should generally prevail. The point of referring to some of these details is that the state can ill afford this kind of controversy. The Chief Minister is not likely to modify his thinking in any significant way. He is the Chief Minister and things will happen more or less as he wishes them to happen. Hardly anybody in that state would have the courage to correct him. There is a saying in North India which goes like this: Who shall tell the queen that her front needs to be covered? There is one little story, however, which may be brought in here to illustrate the point which is sought to be made. It has a direct bearing on the issue of how a state government should deal with the universities. The state being referred to here has only one state university. In most other states, the number of universities is larger. How do Chief Ministers deal with the Vice-Chancellors of so many universities? On the whole, the situation is far from flattering. But there is one little story which I heard from someone who functioned as the Vice-Chancellor of Panjab University, Chandigarh, for eight long years. The man with whom he had to deal with in that office was none other than the then Chief Minister of the state, Pratap Singh Kairon. Kairon, if it may be recalled, spent about 15 years in the USA. He was a young man hardly out of school when, somehow, in the mid-twenties of the last century he made his way to that country. Like hundreds of others who have gone from India to that country, he earned his keep and educated himself. Towards the end of his stay there, he spent several years at the University of Michigan. He did his Masters in Political Science from that university. A few years after his death, I had an opportunity to meet one of Kairon’s old teachers at that university when the former was a student there. He recalled his association with him and told me something about the dreams that Kairon had about the future of India as he visualised it then. Even, as a student, Kairon was planning to enter political life which he eventually did. In course of time, he rose to be the Chief Minister of the state. Several decades after his death, he is still remembered as the man who rebuilt the state of Punjab after the sad setback caused by the Partition of 1947. In several ways, he is regarded as the progenitor of the Green Revolution which followed after a few years. Once I asked A.C. Joshi who had worked with Kairon as a Vice-Chancellor about his dealings with the Chief Minister. He told me that during his half a decade of association with Kairon, it was only on one occasion that he had to go to the Secretariat. On all other occasions, whenever a problem was posed to Kairon, he would volunteer to visit him, make a note of the problems and sort them out in no time. In plain words, he did not wish the Vice-Chancellor to visit the Secretariat as a supplicant. Not many Vice-Chancellors today are aware of the fact that, for the first seven-eight decades after the establishment of the university system in India in 1857, most Vice-Chancellors — and they were not even a dozen at that time — generally worked on a
part-time basis. They were eminent persons in their own right, mostly in the government but sometimes outside the government also, and the universities were small in size and there was not much to do. As a matter of fact, government grants too were nominal at that time. It was the universities which generally conducted the matriculation examination and raised money from that source; that paid for the maintenance of the university office. After the thirties of the last century, things began to change. In 1947, when there were something like 20 universities in the country, not even half of them had full-time Vice-Chancellors. It is difficult to vouch for every single university. But as far as Kolkata is concerned, I have it on the authority of the late S.N. Sen, who retired in the mid-seventies that he had never visited Writers’ Building in connection with university work. That job was done by the Registrar. Since then things have changed radically. Vice-Chancellors visit the Secretariat, as also the UGC, ever so frequently. Budgets have gone up considerably and there is always a chronic shortage of funds. This kind of shortage had set in even in Punjab when A.C. Joshi was the Vice-Chancellor. But Kairon saw to it that he himself acted as the bridge between the university and the state rather than oblige the Vice-Chancellor to go and ask for money. On one occasion when some other ministers were unavoidably involved, what Kairon did was to fix up a meeting, summon the other ministers to his room and wait for the arrival of the Vice-Chancellor. At Kairon’s bidding, the Chief Secretary was asked to receive him at the entrance and usher him into the Chief Minister’s room. The business was over in 10 minutes and the Chief Secretary accompanied him to the entrance once again and saw him off. This little story has a point. It is not suggested that the Chief Minister under reference is discourteous or anything of that kind. He seems to have an odd idea, however, that what is worth having is technical education and not the general kind of education. A university by definition has to cover the whole universe of knowledge. In any case, regardless of what kind of a university it is, Vice-Chancellors need to be treated as fellow helpers in a common cause. Hopefully, things will change one of these days. The quality of both the Chief Ministers and the Vice-Chancellors will have to undergo a change. When will that happen? It is difficult to answer this question. One thing is definite, however. Education is something delicate and precious. It cannot be treated as something which is in the nature of a favour which the government has to grant. The stance of a patron-client relationship is hurting the universities beyond measure. In today’s situation, the government becomes the patron and the university is looked upon as a client. Is that right? Is that the way to promote education? Is that the way to help the country to grow? There is a whole host of questions which need to be examined closely and with an open mind. The writer is a former Vice-Chancellor of Punjabi University, Patiala. |
Salt, saffron and Suzette HAVE you ever wondered why you are worth your salt? The answer is that salt, in addition to being an essential seasoning, was once so costly that the ancient Roman soldiers were given a salarium, special money for the sole purpose of buying salt. Since the English word “salary” comes from salarium, you see why you are worth your salt. Salt can help a hunter find his quarry because animals are found around natural salt beds for licks. That probably explains the ancient hunters who thought salt had magic properties, but there is no scientific reason at all for the superstition of putting salt in a newborn baby’s clothes to ward off evil spirits. Salt and bad luck. Spill salt, and watch out. So they say. One explanation of why they say so is the Last Supper. Judas was supposed to have spilled salt before betraying Christ. There is the link between salt and tears. Spill salt and you spill tears. Folklore says that as many tears will fall as are necessary to dissolve the salt. One explanation for unhappiness after spilling salt is the betrayal at the Last Supper. Another is that tears are salty, and people may have had associated salt with the salty taste of tears. The origins of most superstitions are obscure, yet it is odd that the same beliefs are often found around the world. On to saffron. More expensive than gold, in medieval Italy, it was so precious that anyone caught smuggling the seeds out of the country was given the death penalty. Barbeque has a mysterious history. Alexander Pope made the first literary reference to it in the 1700’s in a poem calling for a whole hog barbequed. Since the British cooked whole pigs this way, the word could come from barbe au queue or barba a cola, which mean beard to tail. Edward VII of England took a girl to dinner at a famous restaurant. As the chef was preparing thin pancakes or crepes for dessert, his young assistant dropped some brandy into the pan which caught fire. Albert was enthralled. The chef wanted to name the dish after the prince, but the prince gallantry gave the honour to his companion, Suzette. The dish became crepes Suzette. To make sure that family is happy, never place a loaf of bread upside down on the table or the family will quarrel. Take a loaf of bread and some salt to a new home and the family will never go hungry. Breaking bread, however, is a sign of friendship. Passing bread around is a way to wish friends long life and good health. It is bad luck to cut a loaf at both ends, even worse luck to leave the knife in the bread. Giving the heel of the bread to a stranger means you are giving away the luck of the family, so the heel must always be saved for a relative. Taking the last piece of bread means bad luck, too, especially if you are unmarried because then you will remain a spinster or a bachelor all life. Magical qualities of onions and garlic have a logical smell. A piece of onion on a shelf absorbs germs and wards off evil. A necklace of garlic repells vampires — and just about anyone else, too! Marco Polo was watching a cook make bread. The dough rose and rose slopping over the pot in strings. The cook scooped up the strings and dumped them into a pan of boiling water. Marco Polo fell so in love with the result that he fell for the idea and called it spaghetti meaning little strings. |
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Bipin Chandra Pal and The Tribune NOT many people know that Bipin Chandra Pal (1858-1932) of the “Lal-Bal-Pal” trio — along with Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai — was at one time associated with The Tribune. The paper had been founded in 1881 by the many-splendoured Dyal Singh Majithia who, according to Annie Besant, was among the fathers of the Indian National Congress. He was also the first Chairman of the Board of Directors of Punjab National Bank and left a huge fortune for a college and library named after him. An ardent Brahmo Samajist (he was a trustee of the Brahmo Samaj Mandir, Kolkata), he was helped in his activities by the Brahmo Samaj leaders of Kolkata, e.g., Surendranath Banerjea, the father of Indian nationalism, and Anand Mohan Bose, as well as the Bengali Brahmo lawyers, Praful Chandra Chatterjee, Kali Prasanna Roy and J.C. Bose, of the Lahore Chief Court. It was Surendranath Banerjea who fixed up a press for The Tribune and also helped select an Editor, for no Punjabi journalist was then available. Education had not yet taken firm roots in the region. The British, who had brought Bengali lawyers, teachers and administrators from Bengal, had wanted Punjab to be isolated from the rest of India, and one way to do so was to impart education in the oriental languages and the vernacular only, not using English as the medium, as was the case in Calcutta and Bombay. In fact, one of the earliest campaigns launched by The Tribune was for the establishment of Punjab University on the model of the Universities of Bombay and Calcutta. Brahmos in Bengal and Punjab advocated this vigorously. The nominated landholder Senators of the “University College” Senate objected to member Dyal Singh’s association with the agitation, and he resigned his membership of the Senate. The Tribune carried more than 20 articles and, finally, the Punjab University came up in 1882, a victory for the progressive forces led by Dyal Singh’s The Tribune. The first Editor of The Tribune was a well known journalist, S.C. Mukherjee who, incidentally, lived in Allahabad and had his own paper, The People. He had an assistant Seetalakanta Chatterjee, selected by, Banerjea and A.M. Bose. Chatterjee, an ardent Brahmo, belonged to the high society of Bengal and was married to a niece of Rabindranath Tagore. Chatterjee stayed and ran the paper from Lahore, Mukherjee sending his lead articles from Allahabad. The Tribune, a 12-page weekly, had made a mark and in October 1886, it was decided to make it a biweekly. As it was not possible to run a biweekly from a distant town, a staff reorganisation was called for. Although Mukherjee continued to send in leading articles, he ceased to be the editor, and S.K. Chatterjee now became the Editor. As part of the reorganisation, an extra hand was required. It had to be an active Brahmo journalist. Bipin Chandra Pal, an eminent Bengali litterateur, was selected. He had been associated with the Bengal Public Opinion, which had since ceased publication. He wanted an opportunity to return to English journalism. And, “by the grace of God”, said B.C. Pal, “I was able to secure an engagement at Lahore as Sub-Editor of The Tribune”. In October, 1887, Pal, with his family, went to Lahore. S.K. Chatterjee, known to him earlier, offered hospitality till he found a house, which he soon did, opposite Praful C. Chatterjee’s, and close to the Government College. Within a few days of Pal’s joining The Tribune, S.K. Chatterjee proceeded on leave, and B.C. Pal was put in editorial charge of the paper. The Tribune, like other Indian-owned papers at the time, was more of a “views-paper”. Two pages were devoted to economic and political, national and international events, condensed mostly from other papers under the heading “The Week”. Nearly one-third of the total space was set apart for editorial comments on administrative, educational and social issues. The Editor and his assistants were to write about 2000 words everyday to fill the biweekly. There were no date-lines, nor any headlines. It was all monotonous running matter. His passion for writing, said B.C. Pal, made him write practically the whole paper, leaving only the news columns in the charge of the sub-editors who naturally did not like Pal’s doing the entire original writing, leaving little scope for the satisfaction of their own literary or journalistic ambitions! When, on his return from leave, Chatterjee reallocated the work of the paper, placing Pal in charge of the final proofs and the supervision of the day’s collection, Pal refused to accept these non-journalistic duties, and resigned. The news of his resignation spread quickly. Praful Chandra Chatterjee went to see Pal on behalf of his friends, to persuade him to continue. He asked whether Pal had told Sardar Dyal Singh the reasons for his resignation. Pal said no, adding that he had “no desire to pick up a quarrel with the Editor, nor to create a misunderstanding between him and his employer.” Chatterjee apparently went straight to Sardar Dyal Singh and spoke to him. The next morning, says Pal, “I received a letter from the Sardar Saheb, asking me to see him, which I did. He urged me to withdraw my resignation, assuring me that he would see to it that my grievances were at once removed”. Pal told the Sardar that his interference in a matter like this would surely be resented by his Editor, who would refuse to continue in the service of The Tribune, and that he could not be a party to the severance of Seetalakanta’s connection with the paper. |
Nirmal Mukarji: a quiet, self-effacing civil servant NIRMAL Mukarji who died last week was from the last pre-Second World War entrants to the Indian Civil Service, known for his transparent integrity and dedication. He held various important charges in Punjab before coming over to the Government of India as Development Commissioner, Small Sale Industries in 1963. The very next year he was picked up for appointment as Joint Secretary, Administrative Reforms where he contributed in great measure to the detailed studies made for the Morarji Desai Administrative Reforms Commission as its Member Secretary. The reports on various areas of administrative reforms that he prepared are still very important documents of reference, but unfortunately not now available except in some libraries. He completed the report of the Commission after Morarji Desai became Deputy Prime Minister and S. Nijalingappa took over as Chairman. The report itself was a great contribution to administrative thought but it was, like all such reports, generally ignored by the bureaucracy and ministers. After a short stint as Chief Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir during the Bangladesh crisis and Pakistani incursions into Jammu and Kashmir during the Bangladesh crisis and Pakistani incursions into Jammu and Kashmir of 1970-71, he came back to the Government of India as Home Secretary in 1973. He remained Home Secretary in 1973. He remained Home Secretary for two years and in June 1975 on the eve of the declaration of the Emergency by Indira Gandhi, he was shifted as Civil Aviation Secretary. More a tribute to his tenacious integrity than a dismissal! It was as Cabinet Secretary in the Janata Government in 1979-80, that he made his most singular contribution to the organisation of the Central Government. As a far-seeing leader of the civil services, he was a pro-active coordinator of ministries and departments. he had a fixed-time call on Prime Minister Morarji Desai at 1:30 p.m. everyday for getting approvals on files and discussing problems of government. He restored to the Cabinet Secretary, the pre-eminence of civilian control and was Chairman of the Committee on Defence Planning of which Chiefs of Staff of Army, Navy and Air Force and the heads of security agencies were members. He also introduced a tenure of three years for the Cabinet Secretary without possibility of further extension, as recommended by the Administrative Reforms Commission. This, however, was given up by Mrs Indira Gandhi and her successors, all of whom thought that the Cabinet Secretary must known that he is there at their pleasure! After completing his tenure as Cabinet Secretary in March, 1980, he engaged himself for many years in administrative and social studies as a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. He wrote and researched extensively on federalism and democratic decentralisation. His abiding interest was grassroots democracy, for which he considered the West Bengal model the best so far. He also went to the elections in Sri Lanka as a member of an international team of observers. In between, he was recalled as Governor of Punjab in 1989, but relinquished that post in 1990. Nirmal Mukarji was a quiet, self-effacing civil servant who worked for improvement of governance with dedication and courage. For this he will be long remembered. The writers are former IAS officers. |
Successful pregnancies after transplants US researchers have found that women who have received a heart, heart-lung or lung transplant are now having successful pregnancies after transplantation, though such pregnancies are considered to be “high risk.” Vincent Armenti, professor of surgery at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia said, “While such pregnancies are considered `high risk,’ the results are encouraging.” The researchers compiled information through the National Pregnancy Transplantation Registry, which is based at Jefferson, from 25 transplant centers nationwide on the pregnancy outcomes of 42 female organ recipients, including 27 heart, 3 heart-lung and 12 lung transplants. They found that there were 64 pregnancies and 43 births. Though there were no newborn deaths, Dr. Armenti notes that two children inherited a heart problem — mitochondrial cardiomyopathy — from the mother. Of the three groups, lung transplant patients seemed to be at the highest risk for complications during pregnancy. According to Dr. Armenti, in the last 11 years of studying solid organ transplant groups, women have consistently had mostly successful pregnancies with no particular pattern of birth defects. He notes, however, that higher percentages of such babies are premature or at low birth weight. He adds that mothers who have health problems going into a pregnancy generally are at greater risk to have some deterioration in health. “Some transplant centres have advocated waiting at least two years to become pregnant until the organ graft function is stable and the recipient can be better counseled and plan for the pregnancy,” says surgery resident Scott. Cowan, M.D., of Jefferson Medical College, who presented the findings at the 19 International Congress of the Transplantation Society in Miami.
ANI |
Every soul shall taste of death; and for trial will we prove you with evil and with good. — The Quran
*** Every soul shall taste of death; and ye shall only receive your recompenses on the day of resurrection.... and the life of this world is but a cheating fruition. — The Quran
*** Verily whom can any protect in the honour of death? When the rope breaks who can hold the pitcher? It is the same law for men and trees; now they grow, and anon they are cut down. — Bhasa’s Svapna-Vasavadatta
*** Live so as to be claimed after death to be burned by the Hindus and to be buried by the Muslims. — Hindi proverb
*** After death some enter the womb in order to have a body as organic beings, others go into inorganic matter, according to their work and according to their knowledge. — Katha Upanishad
*** The dead is the pilot of the living. — Tamil proverb
*** Length of days is in the hands of Him who gave prosperity. — Tamil proverb
*** Death and life have their determined appointment; riches and honours depend upon heaven. — Analects
*** The world’s affairs are but a dream in spring; death is but a going home. — Chinese proverb
*** Who did not escape birth cannot escape death. — Finnish proverb
*** Death is the harbinger of heaven. — English proverb
*** The real dead one must seek in graves. — German proverb |
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