Khalsa birthday bash

AFTER sounds of battle-drums (nagaaras) and victorious cries Sat Sri Akal have faded away in the Shivalik Hills around Anandpur Sahib, it would be wise to undertake projects of more lasting value. Marches in different parts of the country will be no more than tamashas which people will forget after a few years. We need something that will last for ever. Badal has done his bit by raising a memorial Minar, a picture gallery and much else at Anandpur Sahib. I learn some other organisations are planning to set up technical colleges. I think a splendid idea would be to commission a scholar or team of scholars to write a definitive biography of Guru Gobind Singh within the forthcoming year, to mark the celebrations.

There is as yet no good biography of the last Sikh Guru. Suneet Veer Singh (now Mani Shankar Aiyer’s wife) and I did a Homage To Guru Gobind Singh many years ago, giving an entirely Khalsa version of the Guru’s life. Dr Dharmpal Ashta wrote and published a very learned thesis on the Dasam Granth, an anthology of compilations of his court poets and his own. And very recently Darshan Singh who retired from the Indian Foreign Service, published translations of the Zafarnama and Akal Ustat. Consequently, there is plenty of secondary material on the Guru’s life. But there are many grey areas which need to be researched and a lot of contemporary writing by Muslim historians which needs to be taken in account. We are not even sure of the exact details of what transpired at Anandpur Sahib on Baisakhi (April 13) in the year 1699. I am pretty certain that the requirement of the five ‘Ks’ was not spelt out there: Sikh Gurus before Gobind Singh were wearing their hair and beards unshorn and to this day no one has been able to explain the significance of the kadaa (steel bracelet) to me.

By all accounts Guru Gobind Singh was a most remarkable man who achieved much in the 42 years of his life; he changed the entire course of history of northern India. He was a poet who compiled Braj, Persian and Punjabi, at times mixing all those languages. He was a soldier who turned the pacifist Sikhs into the militant Khalsa. He lost all his four sons — two died fighting and the younger ones were executed — but he refused to bow to tyranny. His most moving poem written in the depth of despair was hal muridan da kahna mittar pyaarey noon (beautifully rendered by the Pakistani singer, the late Tufail Niazi).

"Beloved Friend, beloved God, Thou must hear
Thy servant’s plight when Thou art not near.
The comfort’s clock is as a pall of pest,
The home is like a serpent’s nest.
The wine chokes like the hangman’s noose,
The rim of the goblet is like an assassin’s knife,
But with Thee shall I in adversity dwell
Without Thee life of ease is life in hell."

How Sikhs perceive their hero of all times, I summed up in my History of The Sikhs:

Guru Gobind Singh was the beau ideal of the Punjabis. He was a handsome man, whose feats as a cavalier, swordsman, and archer were enough to endear him to a people who set store by physical prowess. Stories of his prodigious strength and valour multiplied, and he became a legendary figure in his lifetime. The tips of his arrows were said to be mounted with gold to provide for the family of the foe they transfixed, and he was reputed to be able to send his shafts as far as the eye could see. The Punjabis pictured him leading them to battle on his stallion. On one hand fluttered his white hawk; in the other flashed his sabre. Their favourite titles for him were, the rider of the blue horse (nile ghore da asvar), the lord of the white hawks (chitian bajan vala) and the wearer of plumes (kalgi-dhar). While Gobind’s picture was in the minds of the people, his words were on their lips. For the amant, there was the sensuous poetry of the earlier days at Paonta; for the downcast, there was the inspiration and re-affirmation of faith; for the defeated, there was the Epistle of Victory (zafarnama), breathing defiance in every line; for the crusader, there were the heroic ballads full of martial cadence in their staccato lines with a beat like that of a wardrum. Above all, in everything he wrote or spoke or did there was a note of buoyant hope (chardi kala) and the conviction that even if he lost his life, his mission was bound to succeed:

O Lord, these boons of Thee I ask,
Let me never shun a righteous task,
Let me be fearless when I go to battle,
Give me faith that victory will be mine,
Give me power to sing Thy praise,
And when comes the time to end my life,
Let me fall in mighty strife.

Poet-in-residence

Many American and British universities have provision for a poet or a writer-in-residence. This is more to honour up-and-coming poets and writers and provide them sustenance to continue their work in a campus atmosphere than in the hope that they will nurture and guide aspiring students to become poets or writers. Boys and girls may come to them to show what they have written or composed and hear what they have to say about them. No more. Very few people have the gift of writing or versifying in them, others do not. No matter how much a person without such inborn talent strives or is coaxed into striving, he or she will not be able to produce anything readable. Consequently I was surprised to read Dr Fakhruddin, editor of Poets International, published from Bangalore, make a fervent appeal that all Indian universities should provide for poets-in-residence. I could not resist quoting a Haiku composed by the editor himself as an appropriate answer:

Stray thoughts oft creep in,
Like the uninvited guests,
To fit in dustbin.

This may sound somewhat upgracious as I found quite a few pieces in Poets International both witty and perceptive. For instance a Tanka by P.V. Subramaniam of Mumbai:

Outside stands a dog
Yawning’ in my office chair
I sit yawning too—-
A corporate underdog
In the fag end of the day.

I was quite moved by Light at the Window by Frank Oliver of Ettichuvadu:

The night is calm and still. No breeze stirs
Those trees on the far hill-side,
But my soul stirs to hear the nocturne of stars
When this night derides
My life to blindness and curse,
And my soul listens from my window-sill,
As in this silent night
One star and the moon gently meet.
Of this solitude, how it nourishes
Me to be rapt here in stillness,
With no rain, or storm, or lightning!
So this night, though worse
With blindness and curse
Shall not blind me,
Nor bind me in captiveness’
And I’ll accept this gift,
This light most eternal and secret!

The land of Buddha

How can our rulers ever understand
What’s hapening in Lord Buddha’s land
They’re too busy cutting each other down
Scoring brownie points, acting the clown
While widows weep and orphans cry
In killing fields where dozens die
As innocent villagers are regularly shot
The legislators squabble, while corpses rot
Shed your tears for Bihar my countrymen
May God save it from our politicians-Amen.

(Contributed by Rajeshwari Singh, New Delhi)