Sardar Arjan Singh, the retired general manager of Coal India who now lives in Chandigarh, and I have been corresponding with each other for quite some time. He writes long letters (sometimes six pages long, replete with Urdu and Persian poetry). I reply to him in English as my written Urdu is even more illegible than my English. Till last month I did not know what he looked like or how old he was. One afternoon, he dropped in on me in Kasauli. Although Arjan Singh is in his seventies, he looks older. His mind is as sharp as ever and he has an incredible repertoire of Persian and Urdu poetry.

He regards Asadullah Khan Ghalib as the greatest poet of all times. He proceeded to recite his couplets at length. But it was not Ghalib, but a few lines of a living poet, Zafar Khayami, who recited a poem in a mushaira held last year in Pinjore gardens, that caught my fancy. My memory being faulty, I ask to be forgiven by the poet and his sardar admirer if I have slipped up somewhere:

Aisee Koee misaal Zamaaney nay payee ho

Bastee kissee Hindu kee Allah nay jalaee ho

Nanak nay Sachhee raah Sikhon ko bataee ho

Masjid kissee kee Ram nay Aa kar

Giraai ho

(Can you think of an instance when

Allah set fire to a Hindu habitation

Or Nanak showed the right path only to the Sikh nation

Or Ram came and destroyed a Muslim Mosque?)

Ram-o-Raheem, Nanak-o-Eesa to naram hain

Chamchoo ko chhoo kay dekho, pateelee say garam hain

(Neither Ram nor Raheem, neither Nanak nor Christ were of temper hot

Touch their followers, the spoons are hotter than the cooking pot.)

Second time lucky

For reasons unknown to me, many of the younger generation look upon me as a man-eating ogre, a cannibal sardarji. They come to see me in droves but keep at a safe distance, as they do when seeing a tiger in a zoo. It takes me quite a while to convince them that I will not bite and am as harmless as a teddy bear. Then they relax and say what they want in rapid machine-gun-fire speed till they have run out of breath. One such couple who paid me a visit in Kasauli will stay in my mind a long time.

I was sitting in the garden under the shade of the massive Toon tree reading the morning papers. I heard the sound of footsteps at some distance from me. I looked up to find a strapping young sardar in his fifties and a buxom, cuddlesome lass in her thirties. “Can we disturb you for a moment?” asked the man. “Come,” I replied, “I am only whiling away my time doing a crossword puzzle.” They approached me gingerly, took their seats and introduced themselves: “I am Major Joginder Singh Aulakh, security officer of the Punjab University, Patiala,” said he, “And I am his wife Ravinder Pal Kaur Bajwa,” she said. Then began a rapid fire of questions from him interspersed with taking my snapshots with a camera. All I was able to gather in the interludes allowed to me was that Joginder had fought in two wars against Pakistan and was proud of his record. He had also taken part in Operation Blue Star under the command of the generals Sunderji and Brar, was witness to the destruction of the Akal Takht and had seen the bodies of Bhindranwale and general Shabeg Singh. He did not want to talk or even think about it. The episode had left deep scars on his psyche. He was an unhappy widower till he ran into Ravi Bajwa, equally unhappy because of her broken marriage and her two children in the custody of their father. They had a whirlwind romance: met for the first time one day, got married on the next ignoring the 20 years’ difference in their ages. They looked happy. I asked them to join me for a drink the next evening before they returned to Patiala.

They were much more relaxed. Though the question-and-answer and picture-taking were resumed, it was not as hectic as the day before. Ravinder gave me a shawl to put over my knees and proceeded to scribble something on a greeting card her husband had given me. After they left, I read what she had written in Gurmukhi: a poem entitled Chitta Dupatta — white headcover. A rough translation would read as follows:

I am not a widow

Nor living in matrimonial bliss;

Nevertheless I drape myself in spot-less white

White is a combination of many colours in display

White also combines other colours

As well as colours that lead one astray,

White is like milk

White the colour of purity

Bright as sunshine

And quiet as silence.

(Many things colourful white can hide)

I wear white because now I am a bride.

The queen’s revenge

I thought a while when Vajpayee said

“May I ask my honourable foes?

Whom will you elect prime minister

If in your favour the verdict goes?”

I was surprised when L.K. Advani said

“After my rath yatra, our position is sound

Under Atalji, India is shining

NDA. will surely win the round.”

I was amused when Venkiah Naidu said

Subjecting SP and BSP to a venomous sting

“We don’t need any king maker.

We have already got our readymade king.”

I laughed when Pramod Mahajan said

Repeating the foreign origin drill

“Sonia stands no comparison to Vajpayee

He is a mountain, She is a hill.”

I was amazed and excited beyond measure

When Sonia pulled all the pillars down

The people made her the popular queen

But she declined to wear the golden crown.

(Courtesy: G. C. Bhandari, Meerut)