The worst darn stuff?

What is a public place? Is a panchayat ghar or a chaupal in a village a public place? Then elders of the village who gather round and pull at a hookah in turns would be punished. And the kisan leader, Mohinder Singh Tikait, who flaunts his hookah as he addresses large crowds in towns and cities including Delhi would be promptly slapped with a heavy fine.

People have sung praises of cigarettes and cigars. To Robert Benchley, they signified a stress-free holiday. “Tobacco smells like Saturday and consequently puts me in a chronic holiday mood,” he wrote. Graham Lee Hemminger went lyrical ever it:

Tobacco is a dirty weed; I like it.
It satisfied no normal need; I like it.
It makes you thin, it makes you lean,
It makes the hair right off your bean
It’s the worst darn stuff, I’ve ever
seen; I like it.

There is something that makes those who have kicked the habit of smoking into insufferable bores because they never stop boasting about it. Mark Twain got it right when he said, “To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did; I ought to know because I’ve done it a thousand times.”

I wonder how the ban will effect our cigarette manufacturers like the Imperial Tobacco Company, and cigar importers like Chetan Seth. He always carries a sample or two of his most expensive imports from Havana in his pocket. He never answered my question about how much one costs (over Rs 1,000 each, I am told ) and shrugs me off with the reply: “Why do you want to know when you don’t mean to buy any?”

Sons of Bharat

Not much is written about the Ghadr movement in books about India’s freedom struggle. The principle reasons for glossing over it were that its activities were confined to the west coast of Canada and the United States of America, and it was largely limited to rustic Sikhs, with a sprinkling of educated Hindus and Muslims who initially gave it direction and then disappeared from the scene. Most of the literature on the subject is in Gurmukhi. There is one book in English on the movement by Satinder Singh and myself and a chapter devoted to it in my A History of the Sikhs: Volume II (1849-1988) published by the Oxford University Press. During my research on the subject in Vancouver, Canada, and in San Francisco, I unearthed a lot of valuable material on the Sikh emigrant community that was mostly employed in lumber mills and farms, on the arrival of their ship, Komagata Maru, with over 300 would-be emigrants, all Sikhs. I also made photostat copies of the weekly journal, Ghadr, published initially in Urdu then in other Indian languages, with Gurmukhi enjoying the largest circulation. I did not come across the name of Pandurang Khankhoje. He either used an alias or remained in the background. Now his daughter, Savitri Sawhney, has put together her father’s memoirs, written originally in Marathi, on his return home after 50 years of self-imposed exile in different parts of the world. The Ghadr movement forms a small part of his autobiography, which has been published recently. It is entitled, I shall Never Beg for Pardon.

For good reasons, the Ghadr has been taken little notice of by historians. It was limited to the early years of World War I (1914-1918), its operations were limited to the Pacific Coast of Canada and the US. Of those who returned to India by the Komagata Maru, 18 were shot by the police at Budge Budge harbour, the rest found that there were no takers for a revolt against the British. The rebels meant to kill all English rulers but managed to kill only an Anglo-Indian informer in Vancouver. The one thing that marked out the Ghadr was that it was the first struggle for independence that embraced all communities, including Muslim. One of their songs went as follows:

Though Hindu, Mussalman and
Sikh we be,
Sons of Bharat we are still,
Put aside our arguments for another day
Call of the hour is to kill.

Pandurang Khankhoje left India in 1906 and returned 50 years later. He was not a founder-member of the Ghadr Party, as claimed by his daughter. He spent most of his years in Mexico as an agricultural scientist. One can understand a daughter’s admiration for her father that makes a hero of him. But his own writings, which form less than a quarter of his memoirs, do not support his glorified image as painted by Sawhney.

Merciful god

Manohar prayed to God daily to help him out of his troubles. Finally God took pity and appeared before him.

“What can I do for you?”, asked God.
“Can you grant all my wishes?”, asked Manohar.
“Of course I can, I am God.”
“Then please, God, give me a good job, a bag full of money and several ladies around me,” begged Manohar.

God granted him his wish. He made him a bus conductor on a Ladies’ Special.

(Contributed by Rajeshwari Singh, New Delhi)