THIS ABOVE ALL
Victory over Pakistan
Khushwant Singh

Having written extensively on the India-Pak istan war for Indian and foreign journals, I overlooked mentioning my meetings with two men who played significant roles in the confrontation between the two neighbours: Maulana Bhashani and General Tikka Khan.

Maulana Bhashani was given asylum in India long before the War broke out. He was flown back to an Independent Bangladesh. He should have been greatful to India. But no sooner was he back that he began saying nasty things about India. I flew to Dhaka and drove to his village, some 40 miles away from the capital. He was sitting on the ground talking to some villagers.

I greeted him: "Salam valaikum, Maulana Sahib". He looked at me and asked: "Barkhurdaar, mujh se baat karne aiye ho?" (Son, have you come to talk to me?). "Ji", I replied. I asked him why he had become critical of India after what India had done to get them freedom. He had accused India of looting Bangladesh. "Saboot mangtey ho?" ("Do you want proof?"), he asked.

Lt-Gen A.A.K Niazi, commander of the Pakistani forces in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) signing the surrender document with Lt-Gen J.S Aurora (left)

"Ji, kuchh saboot to hona chahiye." ("Yes, there should be some evidence"). "You say Pakistan looted Bangladesh", he said.

"Yes, because you told the world Pakistan had looted you".

"And you captured all the Pakistani army deployed in Bangladesh. All 93,000 of them and took them to India!" "So we did", I agreed. "Then where did the loot go?" I was left speechless.

A year or so later I happened to be in Islamabad. I wanted to meet General Tikka Khan. He refused to see me. I asked my friend Manzur Qadir, who was the Foreign Minister, to persuade the General. He did so and I turned up at the General’s residence to talk to him. He was not an impressive person. He looked like a bank clerk or a shopkeeper with medium height; there was nothing martial about him. He was very bitter about India. "You painted me as a butcher", he said. "Let me tell you my soldiers were good Muslims. They did not rape women nor loot any property".

"Why then were they not able to put up a fight against India? You boasted that one Pakistani soldier was equal to 10 Indian sepoys. What happened? Your army crumbled before the Indians".

His orderly, a huge Pathan, butted in "Awaam hamaarey khilaaf ho gaya tha." – ("The common people turned against us").

"There must have been good reasons for their doing so", I said. There was a long period of silence. I then pointed to the tablet on the mantlepiece with a line from the Koran: "What does it say?" I asked. The General read out the Arabic and its English translation: "Allah grants victory to one whose cause is just." "So Allah granted India victory because its cause was just".

Urine therapy

When I first heard of a person drinking his urine for good health from Morarji Desai, I was nauseated. Then I read about a fellow from Hardwar who patented gau mutra (cow urine) as an ayurvedic prescription for keeping healthy. And finally of Uma Bharati, a lover of cows and calves, extolling the virtues of taking regular doses of cow’s urine. I wrote a piece making fun of her. She was very gussa and wrote me a nasty letter with which she sent me a bottle of urine. I was not sure whether it was a cow’s or her own. It smelt awful. I flushed it down the toilet.

From letters I receive, I have come to the conclusion that the practice of drinking one’s own urine is prevalent in many countries. The latest is from an entry in Private Eye’s column Funny Old World in the latest issue. It reads: "The majority of people in this country have at one time or another gone behind a bush to relieve themselves", Kevin Gardener of the New Zealand First party told reporters, "but not everybody has urinated into a glass and drunk it on public television. The majority of New Zealanders were not impressed by Joe Glenn’s behaviour, and that’s why he is no longer a candidate. People might not be impressed with us for dumping him either, but that’s the way we are. Our candidates are checked and double-checked. We don’t want any controversy, we’re staying squeaky clean".

Speaking about the incident, 69-year-old Joe Glenn said, "I was looking forward to standing as a candidate for New Zealand First in the Rimutaka electorate, and I don’t understand why I have been dumped. I’ve been drinking a glass of my own urine every day for years, because it helps cure my arthritis. So when I was invited onto the 20/20 television programme last month, I spoke about my cure, then urinated into a glass and drank it in front of the cameras. I did not discuss politics on the programme, yet now I have been forced out, on a direct order from party leader Winston Peters. I am gutted".

It is high time the medical profession expressed its views on urine as a therapy. Doctors often ask for samples of urine from their patients to find out what is wrong with them. They owe it to tell us if there is any good in drinking it.

Wake-up drink

An American tourist in a hotel near Kaziranga picked up the room service telephone at night and asked for a 7-Up. The attendant answered, "7-Up? Yes sir". The cold drink never arrived, but the next morning the tourist was woken up punctually at 7 am.

(Contributed by Reeten Ganguly, Tezpur)