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THIS ABOVE ALL I spent my childhood and youth shirking work by bunking school and college lectures. But for the fear of parents and teachers, I had no problems spending my days playing and loafing about. That attitude to life continued into the years in office. I found an excuse to absent myself, roamed the streets gazing into shop-windows, see the raunaq of bazaars, people going from nowhere to nowhere. I looked forward to week-ends and holidays. If the office closed down in honour of the demise of some national leader or departmental head, I celebrated it as a bonus by taking my family to the pictures or a picnic. My role model was a loafer. Things began to change when I became my own employer and had to live on what I earned by my own efforts. I proved to be a hard task-master. Painful though the transition was, I learnt to rise before dawn, slog all day into the late hours and cut down on my social activities. Slogging became my second nature. I lost the ability to relax, to sit still and stare at nothing without a care in the world. I can't make up my mind whether it is better to be a loafer or a workaholic. Since I am determined not to drive myself hard anymore, I am trying out different techniques to teach myself to do nothing. I sit in my garden basking in the winter sun. I keep my habit of picking up a book or a magazine under check. I succumb to crossword puzzles because they keep my mind from going to sleep. I watch my cats (they've multiplied to six). They spend their day doing nothing besides playing with each other and dozing off. I envy their carefree existence. They can do so because they live on my bounty. Envying cats does not solve my problems. I have eliminated some causes of my restlessness and come to the conclusion that both the impulse to restless activity and the desire to do nothing ultimately depend on one's mind. How can one train the mind? Very reluctantly I turned to meditation. I did my best to keep the outside world from intruding into my solitude. I read the morning papers and watched TV to keep abreast of world events. Then put the world out of my mind. I tried some preliminary exercises like shutting my eyes and focusing my mind on inhaling and exhaling my breath. I found it very soothing. For a few fleeting seconds, I could also still my mind and prevent it from jumping like a monkey from one branch to another. It didn't last too long. The mind is simian: it is its nature to jump about. It continues to do so when I am asleep. I cannot control my dreams because I cannot control my mind except for a few fleeting moments. In any event what does stilling my mind produce? Some maintain it produces peace of mind — which in its turn produces nothing besides peace of mind. I am in a conundrum: should I persist in trying to meditate? Or should I give it up as an exercise in futility? I wish some reader knowledgeable about the subject would advise me. Liquor business
Though I live the life of a recluse in self-imposed sanyas from dawn to dusk, I have quite a mehfil every other evening to join me in my sundowner. I am myself baffled by the variety of people who descend on me. One evening I had Nawab Habib Jung of Paiga. He is a product of Cambridge University who had taken to tableegh — preaching Islam. He has now opted out of worldly pursuits, taken on the title Faqir Baba and spends his days and nights in prayer in his home on Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad. While we were discussing religious topics, in walked Bhola with two prostitutes and two hijdas to inform me of the problems they had to face with the police and getting admissions for their children in schools. Nawab Habib Jung was more baffled than I. "You do get the oddest of visitors, I must say," he said as he left. Another evening I had Bhanumati Fresa (nee Pillai) whose hospitality I enjoyed in Rome many times. She has now taken over the management of her husband Professor Carlo Fresa’s vineyard in Mont Pulchiano, some 70 miles outside Rome. I have also stayed there with the Fresas and their children — son Siddharth, daughter Gaya — and their dogs. I was asking Bhano about the kinds of vines she grows, how long it takes them to bear fruit and how long the fruit lasts. While we were discussing vintage wines, in walked Narinder Sawhney, his wife Jasmine Kaur, their daughter and son-in-law. The Sawhneys are now British citizens but visit India and Pakistan every year on pilgrimage to Sikh shrines in the two countries. Their life story reads like fiction. The family is from Chattwal (now in Pakistan). They migrated to India in 1947. Narinder Singh took a degree in engineering before migrating to England. He could not get a suitable job and joined The Wines and Spirits Academy and picked up the business of liquor from A to Z. He bought a liquor vend The Nest in Hanwell, not far from London’s Heathrow Airport. He expanded it to the largest liquor vend in the country, specialising in rarest of the rare of malt whiskeys, rum, vodka and French wines. He sold The Nest at considerable profit and set up The Whisky Exchange, specialising in marketing rare liquors not commonly available. Bhanu Fresa and
Narinder Sawhney exchanged business cards and invited each other to
their respective homes in Pulchiano and London. The Swahneys are
teetotallers (at least in my home); Bhano took a slug of Scotch neat.
However, the mehfil was devoted to the praise of Bacchus, the
god of wine. May prohibitionists rest in hell!
Judeo plus Jogi "Money is not God, but by God It's not less than God." As he kissed the wads of notes with his forehead And piled them beside him worshipfully He seemed to toll the bells for BJP But like the vice in a black comedy The bard of the wild card, the bachelor of jugglery Pat comes Jogi Biting an overindulgent mother Slighting decency, insulting democracy And thereby delighting the saffron lobby For the apparent equality achieved by the Congress With their party. Judeo is vindicated. Indeed! For the money received on the TV for all to see Is no bribery And whereas Tehalka and all were wrong Sting operation this is justified entirely And there is no double standard, no hypocrisy! But there's nothing to worry If they join together Judeo and Jogi can conquer any country. (Courtesy: Kuldip Salil, Delhi) |
