THIS ABOVE ALL
God and faith
Khushwant Singh
A couple of weeks
ago, I got a call from Rajmohan Gandhi, saying he and his wife
Usha would like to call on me any time that suited me. As any
Indian would, I felt very flattered that Bapu Gandhi’s
grandson, also a descendant of C. Rajagopalachari, should want
to see me. I invited both of them to come the next evening at 7
pm and have a drink with me.
They arrived at
the exact time but refused my offer of a drink as both were
strict teetotalers. I gave them sharbat. Rajmohan is a
strapping six-footer; she, very beautiful. I opened the dialogue
by asking him if he had decided to return to India for good. He
shook his head and said: "No, I would like to stay in my
job in Illinois University. I have retained my flat in Delhi so
that we can visit our second home once a year."
I was
disappointed as I think he could play an important role in our
efforts to eradicate corruption rampant in our society.
![Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Rajmohan Gandhi is also a descendant of C. Rajagopalachari](ab1.jpg)
Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Rajmohan Gandhi is also a descendant of C. Rajagopalachari
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I came to know
of Rajmohan Gandhi when he was leading the Moral Rearmament
Movement in India and editing the magazine, Himmat.
Rajmohan has written several definitive biographies of Indian
leaders, including those of his grandfather, Bapu Gandhi, and
Rajagopalachari. He has also written biographies of Ghaffar Khan
and Vallabhbhai Patel. He fought an election of the Lok Sabha,
which he lost. I was in close touch with him when he was editing
Indian Express from Madras. I was in Washington on a
three-month grant from the Wilson Centre of the Smithsonian to
update my two-volume History of the Sikhs. He asked me
to write an article on my faith. I complied and spelt out why I
was agnostic and did not believe in the existence of God.
A few days
later, I received a letter, which went somewhat as follows:
"Dear Uncle, I read in Daddy’s paper that you think God
does not exist. You are wrong. God visits us everyday. He talks
to my daddy and mummy. He also talks to my brother and me. So
there...! Yours `85Supriya." I wrote back to her:
"Dear Supriya, I am glad to hear that God visits you every
day and talks to your parents, your brother and you. But He does
not visit or talk to me. Please send me His telephone
number."
Then I put
Rajmohan two questions, which are imprinted in my mind. I asked:
"Is there a God?"`A0 He replied: "I believe there
is one. He has brought us together this evening." I was
baffled. They wanted to see me. I welcomed their visit. God has
nothing to do with it. I put my second question: "Where
does a person go when he or she dies?" "I don’t know
for sure but I know we all go to a nice place."
Food for life
A bumper wheat
and rice crop is a curse;
And Food
Security Act makes it worse;
Because our
great country doesn’t have the capacity to store;
So piles of
foodgrains must lie outdoor;
Relaxing under
the soothing sun, hail and rain;
And witness the
spectacle of food for life going down the drain;
And if storage
capacity is not built;
Nobody is to
blame for it;
Because for us,
holding Commonwealth Games has a higher priority;
Over building
adequate storage capacity;
And foodgrains
are not the only thing to be stored;
We must rent
out godowns to hoard bottles of liquor;
And provide
succour to the blackmarketeers of pulses and sugar;
O, in the
season of scams and inflation;
Let the hungry
of the nation die of starvation.
(Courtesy: Kuldip
Salil, Delhi)
Travel by bus
While
travelling in a crowded Kolkata bus many years ago, a friend and
I stood so that two elderly women could sit down. There were
several men seated, and one said to my friend: "Madam, you
are standing on my foot."
"If you
were a gentleman," she shot back, "you would be
standing on your own."
(Contributed
by Reeten Ganguly, Tezpur)
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