In the year 2011, during Ganesh festival, there will be more clay Ganeshas in the city of Hyderabad - than there were last year. Last year itself, because the comrades in Pragati Nagar arranged for the delivery of clay Ganeshas in the entire village, at least those many toxic Ganeshas did not get made; the brothers convinced people, with a convenience to boot, to use clay Ganeshas. May their tribe grow (Let us have more clay Ganeshas and more sociable subalterns.
In fact I never visited Pragati Nagar. But I said revisiting in the sense of going back to what one has written earlier. At that time, I mentioned the ban on plastic ordained by the communist regime in Pragati Nagar; I did not know then that what Pragati Nagar does today, the rest of Hyderabad does tomorrow. We already know that plastic is banned in Hyderabad. The good work of the comrades running the gram panchayat deserves to be commended. And bottomline never begrudges the devil its due. In the previous blog on Pragati Nagar, I did not say Lal Salaam, though I do remember saying the brothers are doing good work. But I meant to; well, now, I say it: Salud, komarads!
Salahuddin (henceforth, Dr Tak) was a jolly soul from the valley of Kashmir. He was at once childish (almost riotous on occasion) and imperious. Witness this: on a certain Holi morning, he was playing with colors at CIEFL. He throws a good measure of color at a bloke (a student of Arabic and Muslim in appearance) and the young fellow says: Bhai saab. Stop it. I am a muslim. Dr Tak (at that time pursuing his doctoral degree) says: Main kaun hoon? [Whoami?]. The boy says I don’t know.
This is where Dr Tak’s aristocratic background comes to play: “Have you heard of Salahuddin?” The boy definitely heard the name, though he never met the most dashing foreign-languages scholar of the CIEFL campus of that timeframe. So he says Yes, I heard the name. Dr Tak, in a most urbane tone says: I am he.
Salute, Salah! Give me ten Dr Tak’s and I will show you harmony in the face of fury in the valley.
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Everybody started living hand to mouth [and so on and so forth....]
She believed in the Gods of America; she believed in the land of the free
Someone told me [and so on...] that the gods believe in nothing
And the Gods believe in nothing
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Does Shiv-ji live on mount kailash
The answer to that question is two-fold:
- Wherever Shiv-ji lives, is Mount Kailash
- Whoever lives on Mt Kailash is Shiv-ji
So there, I got you into a catch 22 situation: Shiv-ji is the Yeti we read about; the snowman. Very few people have seen him. But we have geographical evidence in the form of Parvati river. The moon shining over the valley through which Parvati flows is real. As real as the hot springs in which people cook rice bundled in rumaals.
As real as the myth of Parvati, enamoured of Shiv-ji, going into deep meditation. And as real as the heat that engulfed the three worlds because of the intensity of her desire for Shiv-ji. For months and years she did not eat even a leaf: a-parna (no-leaf; she did not even eat a leaf).
Parting shot
In Hindu texts, there is a mention of the ‘ideal wife’, who has six qualities:
- A slave, in daily action (karyeshu daasi)
- A counsellor, when consulting (Karaneshu mantri [mandarin])
- A mother when serving food; and an Houri in bed
- Lakshmi to look at and patient as mother earth
The last two (roopecha lakshmi, kshamaya dharitri) are not very popular: and the poem closes with – Shatkarma yukta kula dharma patni. “The one with these six qualities be thine common-law wife!”
My sister chimed in: What are the qualities in a man, then? Indeed there are no lines that specify what qualities make a man an able “man”. I threw a random guess: Someone, a girl with these qualities, let us say, is choosing a man for herself. What can we say what all she looks for: dress sense, cash in bank, vintage of car, whatever it takes. Some girls I believe look for a sense of humor
I don’t know what good that does. As Yeats said, we would never know why beautiful women choose crazy salad.
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