Holy cure

In spite of having written extensively on the Indo-Pak war for Indian and foreign journals, I realize I have not mentioned 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 grateful to India. But as soon as he was back, he began saying nasty things about India. I flew to Dhaka and drove to his village, some 40 miles from the capital. He was sitting on the ground talking to some villagers. I greeted him: “As-Salamu Alaykum, Maulana Sahib.”

He looked upon me and asked: “Barkhurdar, mujhse baat karney aiye ho? — Son, have you come to talk to me?”

“Ji,” I replied. I asked him why he had become critical of India after all that India had done for Bangladesh’s freedom. He had accused India of looting Bangladesh. “Saboot mangtey ho? — you want proof?” he asked.

“Ji, kuchh saboot to hone chahiye — Yes sir, there should be some evidence.”

“You say Pakistan looted Bangladesh,” he said.

“Yes, because you told the world that Pakistan had looted you.”

“And you captured all of 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 of 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 or loot any property.”

“Then why 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 khilaf ho gaya thha — 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 a tablet on the mantelpiece with a line from the Quran. “What does it say?” I asked.

The General read out the Arabic and its English translation: “Allah grants victory to the one whose cause is just.”

“So Allah granted India victory because its cause was just.”

First flush

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 gow mutra (cow’s urine) as an ayurvedic prescription for keeping healthy. And finally of Uma Bharti, a lover of cows and calves, who extolled 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 the letters I receive, I have come to the conclusion that drinking one’s own urine is prevalent in many countries. The latest is from an entry in the latest issue of the Private Eye’s column, “Funny Old World”. 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, sixty-nine-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 duped. 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 the party leader, Winston Peters. I am gutted.’’’

It is high time medical professionals expressed their 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 us to tell us if there is any good in drinking urine.