E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Beyond the SGPC poll
THE re-election of Prof Kirpal Singh Badungar as President of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee in a tension-free atmosphere in Amritsar on Tuesday comes as a big relief. Looking at the smooth conduct of the whole exercise, the question may be raised whether the high drama seen for days together was justified.

A positive amendment
THE amendment to the Indian Evidence Act that prevents the cross-examination of a woman on her moral character in a rape case is a welcome step which will lessen the misery of the hapless victims somewhat.

Crowd kills cricket
THERE was crowd trouble at Jamshedpur. Why? Because the West Indians were winning. There was similar trouble at Nagpur. Why? Because the West Indians were winning again. At both the venues the visitors successfully chased stiff targets and went on to take a 2-0 lead in the seven-match series.

OPINION

Nehru’s vision and anxieties
The ignored aspects of his personality
V.N. Datta
SO much has been written on Jawaharlal Nehru that it seems hard to say anything startlingly new. A prolific writer, his “Autobiography and Discovery of India” give a graphic picture of the great events with which he was deeply involved. For more than 30 years he wielded a great influence on the affairs of India and remained at the centre of things.

Do you dread the cold days of winter?
John Briffa
NOT many of us relish the shorter days and long nights the winter months bring. However, for sufferers of seasonal affective disorder — Sad — the darkened skies that accompany this time of year are viewed with dread.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Bill Gates’ kids won’t inherit billions
MICROSOFT Corp Chairman Bill Gates, the world’s wealthiest man, said on Tuesday a sizeable portion of his legendary wealth would go to charity and not his three children. “I don’t think it’s constructive to grow up having billions of dollars,” Gates said of his children at a news conference in new Delhi while on a four-day trip to India.

• Derision greets royal rape inquiry

• Eating fish cuts dementia risk

OF LIFE SUBLIME

The range & reach of Guru Nanak’s hymns
Darshan Singh Maini
SINCE Guru Nanak is revered by the Sikhs and other communities as a prophet with a divine message, his poetic powers and his art of articulation have generally received scant attention.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

EDITORIALS

Beyond the SGPC poll

THE re-election of Prof Kirpal Singh Badungar as President of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) in a tension-free atmosphere in Amritsar on Tuesday comes as a big relief. Looking at the smooth conduct of the whole exercise, the question may be raised whether the high drama seen for days together was justified. Each player, directly or indirectly involved in the happenings, may have his own explanation. But certain doubts and apprehensions did, understandably, crop up among the people before the critical vote. They were not sure whether peace and harmony in a highly competitive politico-religious scenario would be disturbed in the Holy City. Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh may have his own justification for the deployment of massive police force for the maintenance of law and order. Still, the show of police force could have been avoided in the face of provocative postures of some SAD leaders and other interested groups.

Three, Prof Badungar conducted Tuesday's proceedings fairly well. We hope he would pursue the path of reconciliation and understanding in the true traditions of the Panth. The SGPC today is at the crossroads. It probably needs a dose of reforms. It is for the Sikh Sangat to seriously ponder over the past and test everything on the touchstone of what is desirable and what is not. Some soul-searching and an honest appraisal of recent events will create the right atmosphere and restore the maryada of the Sikh community.

A positive amendment

THE amendment to the Indian Evidence Act that prevents the cross-examination of a woman on her moral character in a rape case is a welcome step which will lessen the misery of the hapless victims somewhat. A harsh reality so far has been that a rape victim is tortured all the more by insensitive investigating agencies through loaded questions, all the while treating her as a suspect instead of a victim. Sometimes, this is due to sheer insensitivity; sometimes the ploy is used deliberately to break the victim. Either way, it becomes a nightmare for her. That is why there are hundreds of cases which are never reported to the police. Those tormented by a sexual assault prefer to hide it rather than undergo the double humiliation of having aspersions cast on their character. This is despite the fact that study after study has pointed out that there is no reasonable connection between the offence of sexual assault and general moral character of the victim. Any insinuation about the moral fibre of a decent girl is akin to the second assault on her. Even if a girl happens to have questionable character, the use of force is indefensible. It is established law all over the world that nobody has the right to force any woman into submission even if she happens to be a prostitute. Yet, there are numerous instances of sustained questioning of the victims along these lines, unmindful of the fact that it can destroy the reputation and self-respect of the woman.

While the new amendment will help wipe the tears of genuine victims, there is need to be on guard that this well-meaning provision is not misused. While there is no denying the fact that hundreds of victims of man’s lust fail to get justice because of the cruel manner in which the trial moves through police stations and courts, it is also true that some women of easy virtue try to blackmail people by alleging rape. Even where they were willing partners due to monetary considerations, they have tried to wriggle out of trouble on being caught, by alleging rape. Law can surely find ways to plug such loopholes. By and large, the step is laudable. Another woman-oriented decision approved by the Centre is an amendment to the Representation of People’s Act to provide that those convicted in a sati case should be disqualified from contesting elections, irrespective of the length of the punishment given. Till now, those convicted for less than six months in this offence were free to contest elections.

Crowd kills cricket

THERE was crowd trouble at Jamshedpur. Why? Because the West Indians were winning. There was similar trouble at Nagpur. Why? Because the West Indians were winning again. At both the venues the visitors successfully chased stiff targets and went on to take a 2-0 lead in the seven-match series. And on both the occasions the Indian players took the field, after short breaks, even though defeat was staring them in the face. And in this age of high security at most sports stadiums nothing more lethal than soft plastic water bottles can be smuggled in. So the chances of a serious injury to players fielding on the boundary are remote. The crowd behaviour at the two venues also laid to rest the myth that enjoying a good game is more important than seeing your country's team win it. The conduct of the crowd in most cases is dictated by the performance of the country the crowd belongs to. The rare exception to this time tested rule was the standing ovation the Pakistani team received after winning a cricket Test match at Chennai. The response of the cricket fans at Chennai should have served as the model code of crowd conduct at the global level. But no organisation has yet perfected the impossible art of training crowds. The British soccer fans are notorious for creating trouble whenever and wherever England loses. For this reason alone the Rajkot incident falls in a totally new category. No, it was not the rarest of rare, but most probably the only instance in the history of any game of a match being abandoned when the home team was racing towards victory at break-neck speed. And the missiles that hit the West Indian players were the same that were thrown at the Indians in the earlier two games. However, stand-in skipper Ridley Jacobs was well within his right not to take the field again citing players' safety as the reason for exercising the option. That India were robbed of the opportunity of winning the game at Rajkot without the help of the rather complex Duckworth-Lewis formula for deciding the outcome of the abandoned match is to state the obvious. If India was struggling as it was in the 1996 semi-final against Sri Lanka at Kolkata, it is doubtful whether Jacobs would have taken the risk of the match being awarded to Saurav Ganguly's team by refusing to lead his team back to the field. At Rajkot he conceded the game that was already in India's stranglehold.

But what about the strange behaviour of the crowd at Rajkot? Crowd misconduct anywhere should never be condoned. But what happened at Rajkot needs to be understood and explained. Keeping in mind the post-February 27 scale of tension across Gujarat special security arrangements were made for the Rajkot game. The calculated silence of the police and the palpable attempt of the sports channel showing the match and print media not to look beyond what was shown as the reason for abandoning the game provides some clues. A few empty soft plastic bottles hurdled at the West Indian players surely did not constitute grave threat to their safety. The incident may have resulted in a more nasty fracas in the general stands. For this reason alone, the police, the Press and the organisers deserve to be complimented for not letting wild rumours take over before or even after the last spectator had left the stadium. The police authorities evidently chose to err on the side of caution. That is the way it should have been considering the simmering under-current of unrest in certain pockets of Gujarat. The next two games of the on-going one-day series are to be played at Ahmedabad and Baroda — both have witnessed large-scale violence after Godhra. Hopefully, the authorities would have learnt where they went wrong at Rajkot and remove those flaws from the security arrangements for the next two games.

OPINION

Nehru’s vision and anxieties
The ignored aspects of his personality
V.N. Datta

SO much has been written on Jawaharlal Nehru that it seems hard to say anything startlingly new. A prolific writer, his “Autobiography and Discovery of India” give a graphic picture of the great events with which he was deeply involved. For more than 30 years he wielded a great influence on the affairs of India and remained at the centre of things. We meet him at almost every turn in the national movement. He is the harbinger of new trends in Indian politics and thought.

Saying something new about an event or a personality depends on making new findings and offering a new interpretation of the existing source-material. Regrettably, the post-1947 Nehru papers deposited at Teen Murti, New Delhi, are still not open to scholars, and the post-1947 correspondence of Krishna Menon, who wrote intermittently to him, is also sealed. When this writer was editing Dr Syed Mahmud’s correspondence, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi disallowed him to publish a few of her parents’ letters. Nehru had the habit of writing on anything between the stars and the earth. S. Gopal’s publication of Nehru’s correspondence in the “Selected Works” shows striking gaps and raises doubts about his unfettered access to the Nehru collection.

Much of what has been written on Nehru is laudatory. Being self-critical, he maintained an obvious disdain for sycophancy. For understanding him, it is necessary to scrape off the veneer of Nehruvian mythology and place his personality in a broader set of perspective, but no such effort has been undertaken so far. Nehru’s books need a comprehensive analysis as works of politics no less than works of history. Nehru remains still irresistible material for a biographer.

This presentation focuses on some of the issues relating to Nehru’s personality and his political role, which are generally ignored. As a heroic figure of charm and charisma, vision and generosity he caught the imagination of the people, and took the country by storm. Next to Gandhi whom he called his ‘master’ he became the most popular leader in the country. It is easier to analyse the shortcomings and mistakes of men than to convey the idea of their vital magnetism. Nehru’s prisonal diary and journal illuminate his extraordinary temperament, his fertility of mind and his insights into the affairs of men and politics. Much of the material contained in the diary and the journal still remains to be published.

Nehru always felt uneasy with the Congress party until he became the Prime Minister. In the pre-1947 period he operated from a weak party base and seemed an odd man out. This was largely due to his ideological commitments which he cherished and for which he was not willing to forsake for any personal gain. His political art was more theoretical than empirical.

On his return from a Brussels conference and his visit to Russia in 1927, Nehru turned into a firm and convinced Marxist in whose thinking feudalism and capitalism had no place. He regarded socialism as the panacea for all human ills. Such a radical thinking alienated him from the mainstream of the Congress party. It was due to Gandhi’s intervention that he was elected President of the Congress session held in Lahore in December, 1929. In his “Autobiography”, Nehru wrote: ‘I did not come to it (the Congress Presidency) by the main entrance. I suddenly appeared by a trap door and bewildered the audience by acceptance?”

Gandhi wrote on the same issue, “Those who know (our) relations know that his (Jawaharlal’s) being in the (Presidential chair) is as good as my being in it.” In order to prevent Nehru from joining left-wing radicals, Gandhi thought that the Congress Presidency might tame his new-fangled ideas and induce him to work in accord with the “moderate” Congress policy.

In the early 1930s Nehru adopted the socialist ideology of classless society with equal opportunities for all. He was the moving spirit behind the resolution on the Fundamental Rights and Economic Policy at the Karachi Congress session in 1931, which bore the imprint of his social and economic ideas. According to him, the Karachi Congress took a “a short step in a socialist direction by advocating nationalisation of key industries and services and various other measures to lessen the burden of the poor.” The Congress also decided that the state would observe strict neutrality in matters of religion. The Congress laid guidelines for a secular and socialist polity.

I think the Karachi Congress marked a turning point in building up a socialist ideology, which Nehru thought would rally the forces to fight for the independence of India. At the Lucknow Congress on April 12, 1936, Nehru reaffirmed his faith in socialism and brought the social and economic issues before the country. His speeches propagating the gospel of socialism and attacking capitalism irritated his colleagues in the Congress Working Committee, who felt that Nehru’s ideological programme would adversely affect the Assembly election results. So, in protest seven members of the Congress Working Committee, including Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad and C. Rajagopalachari, resigned. Nehru felt completely isolated, and complained to his friend Syed Mahmud. “There was not a single member to support him.” In 1938 he left for England because his own views were increasingly out of tune with those of the Congress.

On the outbreak of World War-II the then Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared on September 3, 1939, that “war had broken out between His Majesty’s government and Germany and that a state of emergency has existed.” This unilateral declaration without consulting the Indian people dismayed the Congress. In protest, by November, 1939, the Congress ministries resigned.

Nehru found himself in a predicament which exasperated him. On the other hand, he was an inveterate foe of Nazism which he was determined to fight, and on the other, he thought it hard to support Britain due to its unwillingness to grant independence to India. Facing such a dilemma, from 1939-1942, along with Maulana Azad and C. Rajagopalachari, he made concerted efforts to offer support to the government for the effective organisation of the defence provided the British made and unequivocal declaration of full independence for India and setting up a provisional Indian government. At the Congress Working Committee in Bardoli on December 30, 1941, Gandhi resigned from the leadership of the Congress because of his strong adherence to non-violence which his colleagues were unwilling to support.

Sir Stafford Cripps was Nehru’s personal friend. He regarded his friendship with Nehru as the greatest privilege of his life. As a member of Churchill’s War Cabinet and Lord Privy Seal, he came to India in March, 1942, to resolve the constitutional problem and enlist India’s support for war when the Japanese were at the gates of India. He brought to India a Draft Declaration on March 22, 1942, which guaranteed complete self-government to India after the war, setting up of a constitution-making body subject only to the right of any province or Indian state not to accede, and signing up a treaty between His Majesty’s government and the constitution-making body covering all matters arising out of responsibility from the British to Indian hands. The Declaration invited the “immediate and effective participation of the principal sections of the Indian people in the counsels of this country, of the Commonwealth, and of the United Nations.”

Nehru and Maulana Azad, the Congress President, were anxious to come to a settlement with Cripps and held close consultations with him mainly on two issues, defence and the Viceroy’s veto, in the Council.

It is clear from Coupland’s unpublished diary that despite his best efforts, Nehru could not carry the Congress Working Committee with him in accepting the Cripps’ proposals. Gandhi’s firm commitment to non-violence stood in the way. Gandhi was convinced that the Japanese would win the war. For the forthcoming AICC meeting in Allahabad on May 1, 1942, he had warned Patel, “If they (Nehru and his supporters) do not adopt an unambiguous resolution on non-violence, your duty will be to resign.” At Allahabad, there were strong ideological differences and it seemed that Gandhi’s Resolution was going to be defeated, but finally a compromise formula was adopted to avoid the split. The Allahabad resolution resisted foreign aggression through non-violence non-cooperation, but still kept the door open for negotiations with the British for a settlement.

Still Nehru did not lose hope and wanted the USA and China to exert a pressure on Britain to yield to India’s demand. At the AICC meeting at Wardha on January 15, 1942, Gandhi declared, “I have always said that not Rajaji, nor Sardar Vallabhbhai, but Jawaharlal will be my successor. He says what is uppermost in his mind, but he always does what I want. When I am gone he will do what I am doing now. Then he will speak my language.” Still the issue of war and non-violence seemed controversial. In protest against Gandhi’s insistence on non-violence C. Rajagopalachari, Bhulpabhai Desai, and K.M. Munshi left the Congress. Nehru and Azad too did not share Gandhi’s views on non-violence. Nehru could not allow himself to be a silent spectator to the threat of Nazism and China’s subjection to Japan. He was also opposed to the launching a civil disobedience movement at this juncture. Now Gandhi took a stern action, and in his letter of July 11, 1942, barely about three weeks before the Quit India movement, he asked Nehru to resign from the Congress Working Committee because of his differences with the Congress. Similarly, he wanted Azad to resign from the Presidency, but due to Patel’s intervention the crisis was averted.

During his incarceration in Ahmednagar fort, while reviewing the Congress policy, Nehru wrote in his journal dated March 30, 1943, that Gandhi neglected the international aspect, and took the narrow view of national interests. He added that Gandhi’s instincts proved wrong. On June 14, 1943, he wrote further about Gandhi that it was sad to see such “a deterioration of a great man, though the greatness remains in many ways but sagacity and initiative about the right things are not in evidence.” He recorded that with all his great qualities, he proved a weak leader. “How many time he has changed during the last few years,” Nehru envisaged the end of the “so-called Gandhian era.”

It is clear from the above account that Nehru was torn between his strong views on national and international affairs and his loyalty to Gandhi and the Congress. Despite the ideological differences, the freedom of India provided a common ground. Nehru knew the fate that befell Subhas Bose. There is no denying that he left a profound impact on the social and economic programme of the Congress. Despite many odds that weighed against him, he weathered storms and remained an individualist in an age that imposed authority. He had a tearing spirit and would not give in. To use the Churchillian phrase, he was the “soul of honour” and the pride of the nation.

The writer is an established historian.

Do you dread the cold days of winter?
John Briffa

NOT many of us relish the shorter days and long nights the winter months bring. However, for sufferers of seasonal affective disorder — Sad — the darkened skies that accompany this time of year are viewed with dread. Sad, a depressive condition triggered by low levels of sunlight, affects many, many people, while a more muted version of the condition, sub-syndromal Sad, or winter blues, afflicts many more. For sufferers, lack of sunlight can go way beyond low mood and melancholy; fatigue, unrefreshing sleep, carbohydrate cravings, weight gain and loss of libido are also common side-effects.

Sad and sub-syndromal Sad are believed to be the result of alterations in brain chemistry related to less than optimal levels of sunlight exposure. No wonder, then, that studies have shown that increasing light exposure is effective in lifting mood. Exposure to light at a brightness of 2,500 lux (lux is the standard unit of measurement for brightness) has the capacity to brighten our outlook within three to four days, and this effect is sustained provided treatment is continued daily. The light intensity in a typical house is 100 lux or less, 300-500 in the workplace. What this means is that getting up and coming home in the dark, as many of us do in the depths of winter, puts us at risk of Sad or sub-syndromal Sad.

Getting out and about in the winter offers a ray of hope for those prone to light-related depression. Even the dullest of days offers about 2,000 lux of light, increasing to 10,000 lux or so when the sun shines. Increasing light exposure has been shown to help not just mood, but other features of Sad and sub-syndromal Sad, too. A recent study found that light treatment significantly decreased depression ratings and improved mood, energy, alertness and productivity scores in a typical workplace setting. Another study found that bright light improved vitality and mood among individuals working indoors in the wintertime, even in those not suffering from Sad.

Another strategy that is useful for uplifting mood in winter is exercise. Research shows that exercise alone is as effective as bright light in relieving depressive symptoms. Other studies have found that exercise is significantly more effective at alleviating other symptoms of Sad and sub-syndromal Sad when combined with bright-light exposure.

As regards diet, sufferers of Sad or sub-syndromal Sad should eat oily fish, such as salmon, trout, and mackerel, as the omega-3 fatty acids present in these fish seems to balance brain chemistry and protect against depression. A natural remedy to consider is the medicinal herb Hypericum perforatum (St John’s Wort), which studies suggest can be effective in combating the symptoms of Sad.

For those prone to the winter blues, the good news is that simple lifestyle adjustments can help bring the sunshine back into their lives. The Guardian

TRENDS & POINTERS

Bill Gates’ kids won’t inherit billions

MICROSOFT Corp Chairman Bill Gates, the world’s wealthiest man, said on Tuesday a sizeable portion of his legendary wealth would go to charity and not his three children. “I don’t think it’s constructive to grow up having billions of dollars,” Gates said of his children at a news conference in new Delhi while on a four-day trip to India.

Gates’ fortune is estimated at $43 billion by Forbes magazine. A Harvard drop-out, Gates built his vast fortune from the Microsoft technology empire he started from scratch. Reuters

Derision greets royal rape inquiry

British papers howled derision on Wednesday at the royal family’s decision to hold an internal inquiry into allegations of homosexual rape and possible tax fraud by members of heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles’ staff.

The allegations came during 10 days of torrid revelations by the prince’s former butler Paul Burrell, dramatically acquitted of stealing hundreds of Charles’ ex-wife Princess Diana’s personal belongings after the intervention of Queen Elizabeth.

Facing mounting calls for an unprecedented independent inquiry into the charges of a royal cover-up, Prince Charles private secretary Sir Michael Peat announced he would head the investigations and promised to publish the results.

But the inquiry by a member of the royal staff fell short of demands, and deepened the crisis facing a royal family only just recovering from a public relations drubbing after Diana’s death in a Paris car crash in August 1997.

The left-leaning Guardian adopted much the same tone. “The announcements yesterday suggest that the palace simply does not realise what it is dealing with,” the newspaper said. “It can be safely predicted today that when the inquiry reports, however objective it may in fact be, it will be greeted by calls for a further, truly independent inquiry,” it added, predicting renewed calls for an end to the monarchy. Reuters

Eating fish cuts dementia risk

Eating fish once a week may help reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, French scientists have said. After studying the diets of more than 1,600 elderly people living in France they have found that, after a follow-up period of up to seven years, people who ate the most fish had the fewest signs of dementia.

Fish is high in polyunsaturated fatty acids which could reduce inflammation in the brain. They may also have an impact on brain development and the regeneration of nerve cells. Other medical studies have shown that eating fish regularly could significantly cut the risk of death from a heart attack.

The scientists, who reported their findings in the British Medical Journal, said they did not find any significant link between eating meat and the risk of dementia. Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of dementia in elderly people. It affects about 12 million people worldwide. It is an incurable, progressive disease that clogs up the brain and robs people of memory and mental ability. Reuters

OF LIFE SUBLIME

The range & reach of Guru Nanak’s hymns
Darshan Singh Maini

SINCE Guru Nanak is revered by the Sikhs and other communities as a prophet with a divine message, his poetic powers and his art of articulation have generally received scant attention. It has not been sufficiently realised that his poetics have the same spiritual base as his ethics and metaphysics, and that to understand the one is to understand the other. In a larger sense, the Guru did not employ his muses to vindicate his poetic skills. His utterances in verse, then, were in reality a vision, an epiphany that ascended like a rose to the bush.

The first thing to notice about Guru Nanak's voluminous and transcedant poetry is the fact that the bardic verse of the saints and seers had a long and rich tradition in India. This poetry had by his time achieved a distinctive character. Kabir, Ravidas, Namdev and other poets of the Bhakti Movement had evolved patterns or moulds of religious verse which because of their use of patic or the vernacular, had a heart-warming immediacy about them. Guru Nanak's poetry, in turn, comprehended all those intensities and affirmations. He had in synthesising the two streams effected his own elan and poetic tenor.

A conjectural classification of Guru Nanak's poetic output has been attempted, and certain periods fixed. In the three phases thus envisaged, the movement of his verse, then, is from the horizontal to the vertical, from the polemical and the rhetorical to the devotional and the mystical, from the didactic and the hortatory to the tangential and the symbolic. On the whole, the poetry remains lyrical, mellifluous and figurative till the end, though it becomes more austere, more controlled and majestic en route.

The first tentative period (1469-98) witnesses a harvest of youthful and revolutionary verse directed chiefly against the ritualistic and hypocritical clergy, and against the temporal powers steeped in sin. Even in these youthful poems of protest, the language, on the whole, remains figurative or metaphorical.

The second period (1498-1521) is roughly the period of his missionary travels, and the hymns composed during these years show Guru Nanak's wide awareness of contemporary reality. His long and frequent sojourns to different parts of India and to the Arab lands suggest the deep desire to acquaint himself with as many peoples, cultures and religions as possible. Once again the themes are barren ritualism, fruitless pilgrimage, misguided renunciation and masochistic asceticism, false splendour and false values, the futility of inhuman intellection and logic-chopping etc.

it’s the poetry of the third or final period (1521-39) which constitutes the crowning glory of his genius. All the major banis such as the Japji, the Vars, the Patti, the Tilhan, the Sidh Ghost, and possibly the Sohla and the Chhants were composed by Guru Nanak in the plenitude of his spiritual and poetic powers. These poems centre round the themes and motifs of God's quest, meditation on the Name, the nature of the ineffable, dukha or suffering and angst, evil and the necessity of action, transmigration, polity, ego, moral reason and social ethics, the public weal, the splendours of nature and the sanctity of the human body.

From the nature of the Godhead Guru Nanak goes on to illustrate the glory of the creation which extends over millions of earths and skies, millions of suns and moons, millions of sentient forms and figures. The human imagination boggles at the immensity and geometry of the universe and is fascinated by the dapple and dazzle of the “many-splendour’d” world. Men’s creatureliness is emphasised again and again as against the Lord's infinite might, tenderness and mercy.

However, the thing that impresses one most in the poetry of the raagas is the skilful and changing use of the archetypal metaphor of the spouse and the Lord. The bridal imagery of these songs, rich and ornate, would indicate, among other things, the importance Guru Nanak attached to the beauty and sanctity of the human body. As against the monks and the Sidds of his day who regarded it as a seat of sins he celebrates the body's rapture or ecstasy of the soul.

It may, however, be recalled that even in this supreme phase in which Sachkhand or the Realm of Truth is the ultimate experience for him. He affirms the supremacy of Truth over all other values and virtues. Thus, Guru Nanak does not turn away from the political world of wars and invasion, terrorism and trauma. For instance, his Babarvani composed after Babar's invasion of India in 1526, shows, as few other poems of the period his boundless feeling of compassion and humanity. As he saw the rapacious and predatory soldiery of the Moghul invader lay waste a beautiful land and a great culture, as he saw the Indian women deflowered and despoiled, and the Indian temples desecrated, a cry of infinite anguish broke out from his lacerated heart.

The unique marriage of the numinous and the secular, or of the ineffable and the concrete, is worked out of a superb humanist vision. Thus, his entire poetic ministry is directed towards making man conscious of his uniqueness in the scheme of things wrought by God. It's an all-embracing, overarching vision which is spell-binding and which holds, compels and abides.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

God is the Reality of all beings.

He is the indweller in all living things.

God is the nearest, the dearest,

the most loving, the most eager companion, comrade and kinsman for man.

God is the friend in whom you can put your thrust.

Hand over to him all that you have and be free and happy.

God is not somewhere away from you, someone distinct from you.

He is in you, before you, behind you.

God is not affected by either praise or blame.

He has neither friends nor foes.

— From the discourses of Sathya Sai Baba

***

Sadhana leads to Truth.

Satkarma leads to dharma.

Bhakti leads to peace.

Upasana leads to love.

Sadhana is essential because the effects of karma have to be removed by karma alone, as a thorn is removable by another thorn. You cannot remove it by knife or a hammer or even a sword.

***

Be steady in sadhana and never hesitate once you have decided on it. When the bus is moving on, the dust will be floating behind as a could. It is only when it stops with a jerk that the dust will envelope the faces of the passengers. So keep moving, keep steadily engaged in sadhana. Then the cloudy dust of the objective world will not cover your face.

— From the discourses of Sathya Sai Baba

***

Age, or book reading

leads not to ‘It’!

Mere ideas, ismic breeding

get not, ‘which is’!

Rituals or fancied actions

reveal not, ‘which is’!

Messiahs, nor other factions

have claim to ‘It’!

To Truth, all ceding

makes ready for ‘It’!

Sufi, of high breeding

demands all, ‘which is’.

— Fakeer Ishavardas (Shah Ghulam Almast), A Sufi’s Fable, 20