|
|
| Divine touch |
I don’t think there is another country in the world where so many men and women claim divine status and are accepted as such by men and women with high degrees, who worship them. I go out of my way to meet them and their followers to find out why this is so. I came to the conclusion that however successful in life, most Indians suffer from a sense of insecurity and look for godmen or godwomen to give them assurance. For these people, the only one who spelt out his views was Osho Rajnish, who conveyed his ideas in light, humorous, highly readable prose and had a large following, consisting of Indians and foreigners. But by far, the most successful of them is Shri Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi, who was taken seriously ill earlier this month. I was eager to meet him but went about it in the wrong way. An American disciple of his — who had been in Puttaparthi some years ago and taught in one of the schools or colleges — was disillusioned by what happened in Sai Baba’s campus and published his memoirs titled Lord of the Air: Tales of a Modern Antichrist. He mentioned the prevalence of homosexuality and extreme violence there. I reviewed the book in one of my columns and earned the disapproval of his followers. One of his Sikh disciples, a retired colonel who lived in Puttaparthi for some years, often wrote to persuade me to join him in the worship of my long-dead parents in a jungle in Kerala. Apparently, my parents had pleaded with him to get me to worship Sai Baba. I wondered why my parents did not come to Delhi and talk to me directly.
Sai Baba’s worshippers include several men of high calibre. One was Nani Palkhivala. He had the Sai’s photograph on his working desk. My friend, the retired air marshal and later governor of two states, O.P. Mehra, is an ardent follower.
Some years ago, a sadhu who lived on a tree, not far from Delhi, was in the news. People went to be blessed by him. He would lower his right leg and touch their foreheads with his right toe. Amongst those who sought his blessings were Buta Singh, Balram Jakhar and Rajiv Gandhi. His blessings did not do anything good to any of them.
Best friend
Some years ago, the news got round the block of flats in which I live that I ran a guru ka langar for cats. Within a few months, there were almost a dozen cats living off me. Then they discovered that I had a solitary spot in my enclosed verandah. They decided that it was a good place to deliver their litter of kittens. So, for many years, I had kittens playing and sleeping in my lap. All they gave me in return were purrings, as if those were enough compensation for giving them a home and feeding them. Cats are matlabi (selfish) creatures. I cooled off towards them and turned to dogs. Reeta Devi Varma, who lives in the neighbouring block, has a flat full of stray dogs. She introduced me to two of them. Both belong to good pedigrees. One is meek and reserved. She calls him Sultan. At first, he neither responded to me nor ate anything I offered. I called him a snob. After some time, he became friendly. Now I call him Boy. He sits by my legs and enjoys being stroked. His vision is poor as he has cataract in his eyes. He likes being stroked, asking for nothing more.
The other is a black bitch. We call her Chanchala. She has black eyes, which sparkle like stars. She runs up to me, licks my hand, and says “bhou”, which means, “Can I have some of what you are eating?” So she has pâté cooked in French wine, canapés from Le Meridien, cashew nuts from Goa. When I tell her, “You’ve had enough, you are getting fat”, she runs to the kitchen and says “bhou, bhou” to my cook, Chandan, and bearer, Bahadur. This means, “Your Sahib wants some more to be shared with me.” So they bring some more till Reeta ticks her off and drags her home. The dogs make my evenings pleasant.
Easy to learn
Ninety years ago, when I started learning English, we had quite a lot of nonsense verses to help us in our task. One went as follows:
ABC too kithey geyee see
Edward mar gaya
Pittan gayee see
ABC where did you go?
Edward died, I went to beat my
breast,
To express my sorrow.
We also had a Punjabi version of RSVP: Ruqqa sanoo vapas paayo. And for post-script: pichhon sujjhi.
I wonder if any of these are still in use today.
All in a name
Why is Afghanistan so poor? It must be because the very name of the country’s president is Karzai and qarzai in Urdu means, ‘always in debt’. To remove poverty, Pashtuns should either change their president or, at least, change his name from Karzai to Amir-zai.
