High and dry the beloved country What an unholy mess we have made of our country. It is no use casting all the blame on politicians; we have to share the blame because we elected them. If they succeeded in fooling us, we were foolish enough to be taken in by their words. So we go in for yet another general election, the third in three years and blow up another Rs 10 billion. Will the outcome be any different than the hodgepodge khichree of parties that we looked up for the last parliament? The post-election scenario may be much the same as it is today unless we analyze the weaknesses of the past coalition governments and eliminate elements that brought down their downfall. It is clear that the Atal Behari Vajpayee government was brought down by J. Jayalalitha?s All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam?s withdrawing its support. We also know that there are many cases pending against Jayalalitha and she indulged in armtwisting the government to prevent them being brought to a conclusion. Sonia Gandhi is in the same predicament. In the Bofors case the accusing finger points towards her family. Like Jayalalitha she does her best to avoid the truth of the kickbacks taken over the gun deal being fully exposed. Any government which prosecutes the case with zeal had to be toppled. So Sitaram Kesri brought down the I.K. Gujral government. Before that H.D. Deve Gowda, Chandra Shekhar and V.P. Singh met the same fate. If charges of corruption pending against senior politicians including Laloo Prasad Yadav, Sukh Ram and a few others are speedily disposed of, their mischief potential will be vastly reduced. This should be our top priority. The task of cleansing up the mess rests squarely in the hands of the electorate. Whatever its regional loyalties, it must look at national interests from a different perspective. The issues are fairly clear. It is Hindutva versus secularism; it is giving high priority to family planning, preserving the environment, eradicating illiteracy, increasing agricultural and industrial output, reducing unemployment, controlling crime and corruption, avoiding wasteful expenditure on celebrations, cutting down on holidays. If we, the electorate, do not address ourselves to these national issues, we will end up by electing yet another parliament without giving a single party or a combination of likeminded parties a clear mandate to take the country forward. Ponder over this before you make up your mind who to vote for. Death keeps no calendar My youngest brother who owned among other things a restaurant keeps late hours because he made it a point to stay on till closing time. He would often tell me, ?K. Singh, of two things you can never be sure: one, when a person may drop in to have a meal, and two when death will come to you.?? A vaidji whom I often visited in his shop while taking an after dinner stroll disagreed. He said death gives you many signals before it arrives to take away. He quoted an anecdote about a wealthy man who became a friend of Yama, the messenger of death. One day he made a request to Yama, ?You and I have been close friends for many years. I ask you for just one favour: please give me timely warning that my time on earth will soon be over so that I can arrange my worldly affairs before I go.? Yama agreed to do so. However, one day the wealthy man suddenly died leaving his business in a mess. When he met Yama, he complained bitterly about having been let down by his friend. ?Not at all,? protested Yama, ?instead of one warning I gave you several. First I made your hair turn grey. Then I deprived you of your teeth; then I made you hard of hearing and vision. Finally I made you feeble of mind. If you still chose to ignore these warning signals, you can only blame yourself.? It is true that an enfeebled mind is, as it were, the final alarm bell for the start of the long march to the unknown. Other things you may learn to live with but a mindless existence is like being dead while continuing to breathe. Alec Douglas Home summed it up in a doggerel: To my deafness I?m accustomed,/ To my dentures I?m resigned,/ I can manage my bifocals,/ But oh how I miss my mind. This view is confirmed by a physiotherapist: Man is not old when his hair turns grey/ Man is not old when his teeth decay/ But man is approaching his long last sleep/ When his mind makes appointments/ His body cannot keep. The trouble with us humans is that we begin to think of death only in our old age. In our young years time hangs heavy and we delude ourselves into believing it will go on for ever and ever. Time picks up speed as we grow old: When as a child I laughed and wept/ Time crept/ When as a youth I dreamt and talked/ Time talked/ When I became a full grown man/ Time ran/ And later as older I grew/ Time flew/ Soon shall I find when travelling on/ Time gone/ Will Christ have saved my soul by then? Amen! Moving heaven and earth It was not like a J. Jayalalitha bash for her foster son in law. Nor anything like Badhana?s for his two daughters when he outdid Jayalalitha in opulent vulgarity. There were no more than a dozen men and women invited. What made it the mother of all parties was the hostess and her three guests. The hostess was Uma Vasudev. In her younger days she was the toast of upper class society in Simla and Delhi: behind her back she was known as three-nought-three (303 was the calibre of the rifle used in World War I) or the oomph girl. Uma grew up to be a political analyst, editor and novelist. Close to 60 she retains much of her her oomph and keeps a salon where celebrities like to be invited. That evening she had Sitara Devi, Yamini Krishnamurthy and Uma Sharma. Sitara was the reigning queen of Kathak for many years. When I first met her in Bombay over 20 years ago, she had already taken to teaching. It was the same with Yamini. I saw her dance in the prime of her youth and lost a night?s sleep because I had never seen Bharatnatyam executed with such perfection. I remain devoted to her and have a near lifesize photograph of her on a wall facing me. Then there was Uma Sharma, the youngest of the trio, back that morning from a successful performance in Athens. Without having told them earlier, Uma Vasudev asked them to dance. No music. No ghungroos. A bare marble floor and a very small audience. The years have taken their toll of Sitara and Yamini. Both have put on weight and wrinkles show on Sitara?s face. Nevertheless, dancing on the Radha-Krishna theme ? Radha?s impression on seeing Krishna for the first time was a superb display of uncertainty mixed with desire. She followed it up with Holi Brindavan. Yamini was at a disadvantage, as her song accompaniment was in Sanskrit, which none of us understood. Uma Sharma came to her aid by picking up the refrain. Her comparative youth and shedding some weight brought back memories of her at her coquettish best. Her forte was flirting with the audience with her eyes, making every man feel he was her chosen one. It was a memorable evening. I concluded that like old soldiers, old dancers never die; they only fade away very gracefully. BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE HINDUSTAN TIMES