Eight Clues to Happiness - KHUSHWANT SINGH

Having lived a reasonably contented life, I was musing over what a person should strive for to achieve happiness. I drew up a list of a few essentials which I put forward for the readers’ appraisal.

First and foremost is good health. If you do not enjoy good health you can never be happy. Any ailment, however trivial, will deduct from your happiness.

Second, a healthy bank balance. It need not run into crores but should be enough to provide for creature comforts and something to spare for recreation, like eating out, going to the pictures, travelling or going on holidays on the hills or by the sea. Shortage of money can be only demoralizing. Living on credit or borrowing is demeaning and lowers one in one’s own eyes.

Third, a home of your own. Rented premises can never give you the snug feeling of a nest which is yours for keeps that a home provides: if it has a garden space, all the better. Plant your own trees and flowers, see them grow and blossom, cultivate a sense of kinship with them.

Fourth, an understanding companion, be it your spouse or a friend. If there are too many misunderstandings, they will rob you of your peace of mind. It is better to be divorced than to bicker all the time.

Fifth, lack of envy towards those who have done better than you in life — risen higher, made more money, or earned more fame. Envy can be very corroding; avoid comparing yourself with others.

Sixth, do not allow other people to descend on you for gup-shup. By the time you get rid of them, you will feel exhausted and poisoned by their gossip-mongering.

Seventh, cultivate some hobbies which can bring you a sense of fulfilment, such as gardening, reading, writing, painting, playing or listening to music. Going to clubs or parties to get free drinks or to meet celebrities is criminal waste of time.

Eighth, every morning and evening, devote 15 minutes to introspection. In the morning, 10 minutes should be spent on stilling the mind and then five in listing things you have to do that day. In the evening, five minutes to still the mind again, and ten to go over what you had undertaken to do........

Gayatri Devi and Khushwant Singh - ENCOUNTER

Khushwant Singh

Royal standards In my long life, I have had the good fortune of meeting many beautiful women, ranging from film stars such as Ingrid Bergman to a few Bollywood celebrities, including Nargis, Parveen Babi and a host of others whose names now escape me. However, if asked whom I thought to be the most beautiful of the lot, without hesitation I would reply Gayatri Devi of Cooch Behar, Rajmata of Jaipur. ............... Besides having been a stunner in her younger days, I found her most unassuming, totally free of arrogance and unusual in her behaviour. ...... Following prolonged illness, she died at the age of 90. She was listed among the world’s ten most beautiful women. I first set my eyes on her at a lunch party in my father’s home, given in honour of her husband. She was then newly married. I kept gaping at her from a distance and wondering what made her agree to become the third wife of a man with a family of his own. I never understood the code of immorality of our princely order. She killed her quota of tigers, played Polo, married an already-married man, who was also a Polo player. Next, I ran into her in the home of Minoo Masani, the leader of the Swatantra Party. Jayaprakash Narayan was the chief guest. Gayatri Devi had recently been elected a Swatantra Party member of the Lok Sabha. She came in late and promptly sat down on the carpet beside Jayaprakash Narayan’s feet. He remarked in Hindi, “Dekho zamana kaisey badal gaya hai — see how times have changed — a maharani sits at the feet of a commoner.” She invited me to Jaipur to address the students of the Maharani Gayatri Devi High School on Parents’ Day. I went. I told the students, “Don’t let your fathers choose your professions, choose what you like the best; don’t let your mothers choose your wives or husbands, choose your own. If it does not work out, get a divorce and try again. Learn to make your own mistakes. Don’t waste your time on prayer; it’s a lot of mumbo-jumbo. Instead, read, work, have a good time.” And so on. Needless to say, it went down very well with the boys and girls. Parents were appalled and protested to Gayatri Devi. She was amused. Later that evening, she had hosted a dinner party for me in the hotel she owned. She was a little late. I asked her why. She replied with a smile, “I was doing my mumbo jumbo.”

DONKEYS, STARS - ASTROLOGY

Khushwant Singh

I don’t mean the silly asses of Bollywood who are hired at fancy prices by political parties to draw crowds during elections: they do draw crowds but not votes. What I am talking about are stars in their galaxies, millions of miles away from us, which, most Indians believe, have mysterious powers over our destinies. No sane person could possibly think it can be so but we Indians stick to our faith in the irrational. I often gnash my teeth and say to myself: “We are a nation of donkeys, forever hee-haw bullshit. I too am an ass but I bray out of tune.” After denouncing everyone, I turn to see what psephologists, learned analysts of voting pattern, opinion polls, exit polls, etc. say. They contradict each other and leave me no wiser than before. I also turn to astrological forecasts: Venus, Mercury, rahu, ketu, Saturn, Uranus, Sagittarius, sun, moon etc. I don’t know anything about their movements, but our learned jyotishis keep a vigilant eye on them and get messages from them. They have different interpretations of these astral sparklers. They are masters of double-speak and couch their forecasts in a language that can be read in different ways. Our newspapers used to give them wide coverage. Now most of them have stopped making guesses about election results because they have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to know what is in the minds of electors when they go to polling booths. The recent elections in six of our states were good examples of how hazardous it is to make electoral forecasts. However, a newly launched magazine which claims to be “the only magazine on earth in 14 languages”, in its issue of November 24, had four renowned astrologers make guesses about the elections to be held in six states. (I don’t know why it left out that podgy Parsi, Bejan Daruwala, who begins his prognostications with Sri Ganeshyae Namah and gets everything delightfully wrong, but nevertheless continues unabashedly.) Let’s start with Laxmandas Madan, the editor ofBabaji, and a book on how to forecaste earthquakes. We have crossed swords before. He is very gussa with me. He got the ouster of Vasundhara Raje as chief minister of Rajasthan right, but his forecast about Ashok Gehlot (“Gehlot not next Rajasthan CM”) was wrong. Now Gehlot is the Congress chief minister of Rajasthan. He got the Congress victory in Delhi right, but side by side, he also forecast that if the Congress lost, Sheila Dikshit will be made governor of a state. Sheila won and is chief minister for the third time. He got Uma Bharati’s becoming chief minister of Madhya Pradesh woefully wrong. Poor Uma even lost her own seat. Yogesh Aillawadi got every forecast wrong, including Sheila Dikshit. Ajai Bhambhi and Sunita Chabra were marginally closer to the ultimate outcome. Reading these forecasts after the results were out was great fun. I came to the conclusion that most forecasts are wishful fantasies of forecastors. I had to keep my finger crossed till the morning the results started coming in. I relaxed when I heard of the Congress victories in Delhi and Rajasthan. Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are a long way away and Kashmir a case apart. I had an extra celebratory drink in the evening. And slept soundly.

NUMBERED TO PERFECTION - Numerology

Khushwant Singh

At times, I marvel at my naïveté. I read the morning papers carefully but find nothing very amusing in the news items. But no sooner the same item is reproduced in the Funny Old World column of the Private Eye magazine, coming out of London, I see its funny side. This one was on the prevalence of belief in numerology in India. Numerology is one of those hocus pocus superstitions like astrology, Vastu, Feng Shui, gemology and many others, which have many takers even among the highly educated. They believe that if you change the number of your house, or add an extra letter or two to your name, your fortunes will take an upward swing. I have two names in mind: Jayalalitha added an extra ‘a’ to her name to become Jayalalithaa; so did Shobha De, to become Shobhaa. There is no evidence of their benefiting by the additional a’s. Perhaps it improved their digestion and reduced gas in their bellies; only they can tell. But this news item, which appeared in The Hindustan Times on September 18 this year, is about belief in numerology in Bollywood, which is singularly asinine in its belief in the occult. It reads: ‘“It’s true there is no scientific proof whatsoever that numerology actually works”, film producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah admitted to reporters at a studio in Mumbai. “But it is a vital science here in Bollywood. Every studio now-a-days employs numerologists to add, subtract, or rearrange the letters in film titles, and in the names of actors, so that they are astrologically sound, because this is a high-risk business with millions of dollars at stake. That’s why I support plans for Bollywood to open an official school of numerology to train practitioners, just as we train our directors, actors and film-makers.”.......

Vegetarianism and story of a rationalist

Khushwant Singh

No vegetarian fare The practice of killing an animal or a bird just because its flesh tastes better than vegetables is morally inexcusable. You have to see goats being slaughtered in Calcutta’s Kali temple or the throat of birds being slit at Kamakhya temple in Guwahati and your stomach will churn in disgust. You will swear never to eat meat again. Whether it is halal or jhatka: taking life is butchery, not sacrifice. Nevertheless, the vast majority of peoples round the globe are meat-eaters. Vegetarians and vegans (those who refuse to consume animal products like egg, milk, butter, cream and honey) are eloquent about the harmful effects of having a non-vegetarian diet. But they have to face a few awkward facts. Let me spell them out. Vegetarianism is not in the order of nature. Apart from ruminants like cattle, sheep, goats, deer, horses or donkeys, which eat grass and elephants, which eat leaves, all other species of animals, whether they be canines (of the dog family, such as wolves, foxes, jackals and the like) or felines, (like cats, tigers, lions or leopards) live by eating ruminants. Every other creature in the food chain, such as birds, reptiles, insects and fish, lives off eating each other. This is the ‘tooth and claw’ pattern of survival ordained by nature. It is nature’s way of controlling over-breeding among animals. About 90 per cent of the human population are flesh-eaters. There are regions where no vegetables can be grown and people live entirely on meat or fish. Humankind eats a baffling variety of life: cattle, birds, pigs, deer, rats, dogs, monkeys, snakes, fish, frogs and insects. Some religious communities are selective non-vegetarians. For instance, Muslims would not eat pig flesh, Hindus and Sikhs do not eat beef. It is often maintained by vegetarians that their diet is healthier than the non-vegetarians’. The argument is not sustainable. Meat and fish are easier to digest than many vegetables. The ideal balanced diet is a mixture of meat and fish, with vegetables like beans, tomatoes, peas or potatoes. Meat-eaters are sturdier than vegetarians. They manage to live longer. Vegetarians often say that the strongest creature in the animal kingdom is not the lion, the designated king of beasts, and a notorious non-vegetarian, but the elephant, which lives on foliage. Perhaps a fitting answer to this asinine argument would be that even the mighty pachyderm is tamed to obey a mahout, who sits on its head and prods it with a stick to make it kneel, stand up or raise its trunk. But no man has yet sat on a lion and ordered it to do his bidding. If he tried, he would soon find himself in the lion’s belly. Hocus pocus On February 16, 1980 there was a total solar eclipse over Bombay. The Bhattys happened to be living in one of the suburbs. As the day darkened into night, Margaret Bhatty went out to do her daily shopping. Her neighbours shouted at her from their windows, warning her of the dire consequences that might follow her venturing out while the eclipse was on. They asked her to stay indoors and observe a fast, as they were doing. Margaret ignored their warnings but could not buy anything, as all shops were closed. Life in the metroplis had come to a standstill. But she ate a hearty meal. Nothing happened to her. Solar eclipses occur at different places all over the globe at different times of the year. People usually treat them as an astronomic phenomenon without fussing about them. Only Indians succumb to irrational superstitions. Margaret Bhatty now lives in a village close to Nagpur. She has made it her life’s mission to debunk belief in the occult and so-called miracles. She has analysed them scientifically and put her findings together in a slender book, Fraud, Fakery and Flim-flam. How Sai Baba produces bibhuti or sacred ash by simply rubbing his fingers is explained. There is an acid preparation; if put on the fingers and rubbed, it produces ash. I have seen magicians do it. How did Maharishi Mahesh Yogi levitate himself or fly in the air? There was a hidden prop under his bottom that escaped the eyes and cameras. He claimed to be able to fly but actually flew by plane like everybody else. When a Christian priest claimed he could light candles by prayer and a sadhu claimed that he could kindle a fire by meditating on a heap of firewood, she analysed the chemicals in the candles and the firewood and found them combustible. Bhatty has also helped to de-publicize vaastu. Every modern architect takes care of natural phenomenon, like the movements of the sun and winds, while designing a building. But there is nothing scientific about vaastu. Some years ago, the entrance to the BJP headquarters in Delhi was changed as per advice tendered by a vaastu pandit. The party lost in the next election. Bhatty’s book is not as well-produced or marketed as it should be but it deserves the attention of our superstition-ridden masses.

Islam - different angle - Khushwant Singh

Prejudice is like poison. Unless purged out of one’s mind in early stages, it can spread like cancer and make one incapable of differentiating between right and wrong. Of the many kinds of prejudice, the worst is to believe that one’s own religion is superior to all others, which may be tolerated but never taken seriously or accepted as equally valid as one’s own.

The most misunderstood of the major religions today is Islam, which, after Christianity, is the second most widely practised religion in the world. It also gains more converts than any of the other religions. Prejudice against Islam was spread in Christendom from the time Muslims gained dominance in the Middle East, North Africa and Spain. Christian crusaders failed in their missions to crush Islam in its homeland but continued to vilify its founder, Mohammed. The emergence of militant Islamic groups like al-Qaida and taliban gave them reasons to do so. The attack on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11, 2001 provided fresh ammunition to vilifiers of Islam. Since then Islamophobia has been deliberately spread throughout the non-Muslim world. The two principle contentions of the anti-Islamists are that Islam was spread by the sword and that its founder-prophet was not the paragon of virtue that Muslims make him out to be.

It can be proved by historical evidence that Islam was not forced upon the people; it was readily accepted by millions because it offered them new values, principally equality of mankind and rights to women that were unheard of in those times. In countries like Indonesia and Malayasia, Islam was not forced on the population by Muslim invaders but by Muslim missionaries.

Muslims are extremely sensitive to criticism of their Prophet. A popular adage in Persian is: ba khuda diwaana basho, ba Mohammed hoshiar! — “say what you like about God, but beware of what you say about Mohammed.” They regard him as the most perfect man who ever trod upon the earth, a successor of Adam, Moses, Noah, Abraham and Christ. He was the last of the prophets.

If you honestly want to know how Muslims see him, you ought to take a good look at his life and teachings, which he claimed had been revealed to him by God. It would be as wrong to judge him by the doings of al-Qaida and taliban or by the fatwas periodically pronounced by Ayatollahs and half-baked mullahs.

You do not judge Hinduism of the Vedas and Upanishads by the doings of Hindus who, in the name of Hindutva, destroy mosques, murder missionaries and nuns, vandalize libraries and works of art. You do not judge the teachings of the Sikh gurus by the utterances of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and by the murder of innocents by his hooligans.

Likewise, judge Mohammed by what he taught and stood for and not by what his so-called followers do in his name.

Mohammed was born in Mecca in 570 AD. He lost both his parents while still a child and was brought up by his grandfather and uncle. He managed the business of a widow, whom he later married. She bore him six children. He took no other wife until she died. He was 40 years old when he started having revelations while in trance. They proclaimed Mohammed as the new messiah. Such revelation kept coming at random, sometimes dealing with problems at hand, at other times with matters spiritual. They were memorized or written down by his admirers and became the Quran, which means recitation. It should be kept in mind that Mohammed was not preaching ideas of his own but only reiterating most of what was already in the Judaic creed. Allah was the Arabic name for God before him.

Similarly, Islam was ‘surrender’ and salman was ‘peace’. Mecca was the main market city of the Bedouin tribes. They gathered at the Kaaba, the huge courtyard with the black meteorite embedded in it during two pilgrimages — the bigger Haj and the lesser Umrah. Mohammed accepted Judaic traditions regarding food which is halaal (lawful) or haraam (forbidden, such as pig meat), names of the five daily prayers and circumcision of male children.

Mohammed only asserted the oneness of God that did not accept of any equal such as the stone goddesses worshiped by different tribes. Mohammed never forced people to accept his faith and indeed quoted Allah’s message of freedom of faith. “There must be no coercion in matters of faith — la ikra f’il deen.” Further: “And if God had so willed, He would have made you all one single command; but He willed otherwise in order to test you by means of what He has vouchsafed unto you. Vie, then with one another in doing good works!”

As might have been expected, Mohammed’s mission roused fierce hostility. Many attempts were made to assassinate him but he had miraculously escaped. Ultimately, in 622 AD he was advised to flee from Mecca to Medina. This is know as the Hijra(emigration) and recognized as the beginning of the Muslim calendar. Meccans made a few attempts to capture Medina but were ousted. Muslim armies led by Mohammed triumphed and returned to Mecca as conquerors. By the time Mohammed died in Medina in 632 AD, the Arabian peninsula was united as a confederacy of different tribes under the banner of Islam.

Most of the ill-founded criticism against Mohammed is directed towards the number of women he married after the death of his first wife, Khadijah. This has to be seen in the perspective of Arabian society of the time. Tribes lived by warring against each other and looting caravans. There were heavy casualties of men, creating serious gender imbalance. Widows and orphans of men killed had to be provided with homes and sustenance. Otherwise they took to prostitution or begging. So they were given protection by being taken in marriages. Also, matrimonial alliances were a good way of creating bonds between different tribes. Mohammed did nothing not acceptable to his people.

He went further: he was the first teacher to proclaim that the best union was a monogamous marriage and fixed the maximum limit to four, provided a man could keep all of his wives equally happy — which was most unlikely. The pertinent verse in the Quran reads: “And if you have reason to fear you might not act equitably towards orphans, then marry from among other women who are lawful to you, even two or three or four; but if you have reason to fear you might not be able to treat them with equal fairness, then only one.” Bear in mind that at that time polygamy was the norm in patriarchal societies all over the world.

To make a beginning in clearing your mind of anti-Muslim prejudices, I suggest you read Karen Armstrong’s Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time. Armstrong is the leading writer on comparative religions today. She is not Muslim.

Vedic Astrology

KHUSHWANT SINGH

J. N. Srivastava of Ghaziabad has collected data on predictions made by our leading astrologers which turned out to be false. Some of it makes amusing reading. In January 2004, it was predicted that Aishwarya Rai would marry Vivek Oberoi by the end of the year. She is still unmarried and is engaged to marry, not Oberoi but Abhishek Bachchan, some time this year. When Karisma Kapoor married, Bejan Daruwala predicted she would make an ideal wife: “She got Raja Hindustani and he got Biwi Number One,” he pronounced. A month later, Karisma hauled up her husband to court and gave him a tongue-lashing before the judge. Both are back in happy matrimony. But you have to give it to Daruwala, he lends religious sanction to his predictions by chanting “Sri Ganeshaya Namah”. He is a Parsi. Not to be forgotten are prophecies made about the end of Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government before the last elections. It was predicted it would be back in power before the end of 2004. There are as yet no signs of it doing so. Such false prophecies are on the menus of star-gazers’ restaurants every day, but have failed to fill the bellies of our multitudes which continue to hunger for them. Their champion, Murli Manohar Joshi, remains unfazed. When asked, after losing in the election, if he still believed in astrology, he replied emphatically, “Certainly” (pronounced, in Almora accent, ‘suttonly’). The same is true of T.N. Seshan, ex-chief of the Election Commission who failed in his bid to become Rashtrapati, but remains unshaken in his belief in the divine messages sent down by the stars. So all kinds of irrationality thrives: changes of spellings of names (Jayalalitha to Jayalalithaa, Shobha Dé to Shobhaa Dé) altering ingresses to homes and offices and turning around furniture according to vaastu. Unreason manifests itself in numerous ways. Even reminding people that most of our great leaders — Dayanand Saraswati, Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru — disdained astrology as superstition makes no difference. When A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was to be sworn in as president and was asked to suggest an auspicious day, he replied in his gentle manner: “Days and nights are formed by rotation of the earth on its axis. So long as the earth rotates, each day and every moment is auspicious for filing nominations for the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army.” J.V. Narliker, equally eminent Indian scientist in the realm of astronomy, blasted astrological forecasts based on eclipse of the sun. He said, “Eclipses are mere shadows and don’t affect human life in any way. The grounds on which the original beliefs were based have long been debunked.” It might be worth remembering that on August 15, 2001, while M.M. Joshi was still lauding Vedic astrology and mathematics, 128 scientists signed a declaration in Delhi to the effect that “Vedic maths is neither Vedic nor Maths. As such it would be fraud on children to introduce it in their syllabus”. Has the kind of debunking made any difference to astrologers and people who have horoscopes cast on birth to guide them in choosing careers, life-partners or gauging their life-spans? Reason and logic cannot pierce the skulls of the thick-headed; they remain thick-headed to the last even if they manage to live longer than predicted in their horoscopes.

Sermons on the idiot box - Zakir Naik on Borkha

Khushwant Singh

Body politics The learned Dr Zakir Naik (Quran TV) was holding forth on the importance of sporting beards and moustaches. He quoted the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) to the effect that men should grow beards as long as they wanted, but clip their moustaches. Dr Naik wears a short goatee, clips his moustache above his upper lip and sports a white, perforated skull-cap. He believes everyone should carry their community identification on their person. Though he declares English to be his mother tongue (he is Konkanese), he pronounces the word label in Lucknawi andaaz as "lay bill". He tells us of the many advantages of wearing community labels. For instance, you are looking for a mosque in a crowded bazaar. You can't ask any aira gaira the way to it; but as soon as you spot a man with a skull-cap and a beard, you know he is a fellow Muslim and ask him, "Bhai sahib, which is the way to the nearest masjid?". He?ll tell you. You may be hungry and looking for eateries where they serve only halaal (kosher) food. Whom do you ask? Obviously a man with a skull-cap and a beard. There are good chances that the man may invite you: "Bhai sahib, why spend money in a restaurant? You are a fellow Muslim, come and eat with me in my home." He also recommends that Muslim homes should be identifiable. If your name does not clearly indicate your community, eg Patel, Shah, Naik, Malik etc, etc can be Hindu, Christian as well as Muslim, have something like Bismillah or Rehman, Rahim on your door. You can even get a bell which rings Salam Valaikum. Muslim women are advised to be in hijab (veil) when stepping out of their homes, to save them from being ogled at by lecherous males. Both men and women must abstain from wearing emblems of other communities like crosses, teekas or bindis on their foreheads or sindoor in the parting of their hair. He quotes "scholars" who hold different opinions on such subjects. Have they nothing better to think of? My grievance against Muslims like Zakir Naik and those who listen to him with rapt attention is that they are trivializing Islam. Muslims have many hurdles to cross before they catch up with other communities: beards, moustaches or how to greet others are not of the slightest importance. Most advanced Muslims will agree with me that the abolition of the hijab (burqa) should be their top priority. Muslim women of most advanced countries, including Pakistan, do not veil themselves and work in offices, shops, police and defence services. Besides Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, the hijab is on the way out in the Muslim world. In not one family of my innumerable Muslim friends do women observe purdah. Dr Zakir Naik and his ilk do their best to put the clock back. They should not be allowed to do so. Being and nothingness Some readers have written to me saying that of late I have been writing too much about dying and death. It should not surprise them since I am in my 91st year and well aware that my day of reckoning is not far away. I have also recently published a book on the subject, Death at my Doorstep. Being a rationalist I do not accept the views of different religions on the subject. I have also no reason to believe in the Day of Judgment, heaven and hell as spelt out by Christianity and Islam, or in the unending cycle of births, deaths and re-births as enunciated by Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism and Sikhism. There are many people who agree with me; amongst them is J.M. Rishi, an industrialist from Jalandhar. He writes: "Regarding your question ,Why does God make the person's exit from life so painful?" I wouldn't relate such a question to God, which is a matter of faith and speculation. To me, painful or painless death is all a matter of chance. The philosophy of Punar Janmaor present life as the result of good or bad past "karma" should have been initiated by some wise men ages back to motivate an average person, not so enlightened, to good actions to be rewarded of a good life here or hereafter. Practically, a number of saintly persons have died a painful death and evil-doers have had a quiet departure. So, God or Luck has nothing to do with it. It is all a matter of just chance, whether the exit is peaceful or painful.? With his letter Rishi attached an excerpt from a letter by the Roman stoic philosopher Seneca (4 BC to 65 AD), who was adviser to Emperor Nero, fell out of favour with him and was forced to commit suicide. Seneca suffered from asthma and often had to gasp for breath, not knowing which would be his last; he described it as "rehearsing death". He also described death as "just not being". He wrote to his friend Lucilius: "Even as I fought for breath, though, I never ceased to find comfort in cheerful and courageous reflections. What's this? I said. So death is having all these tries at me, is he? Let him, then! I had a try at him a long while ago myself." "When was this?" You?ll say. Before I was born. Death is just not being what...I know already. It will be the same after me as it was before me. If there is any torment in the later state, there must also have been torment in the period before we saw the light of day: yet we never felt conscious of any distress then. I ask you, wouldn't you say that anyone who took the view that a lamp was worse off when it was put out than it was before it was lit was an utter idiot? We, too, are lit and put out. We suffer somewhat in the intervening period, but at either end of it there is a deep tranquillity. For, unless I'm mistaken, we are wrong, my dear Lucilius, in holding that death follows after, when in fact it precedes as well as succeeds. Death is all that was before us. What does it matter, after all, whether you cease to be or never begin, when the result of either is that you do not exist?" I admit I was taken in by Seneca's line of argument about death meaning the same thing as not being. But on second thoughts, I regarded it as a spurious play on words. Agreed that before you are born you are not in being; but the problem is how to face the prospect of death (not being) when you are actually in being?

THE STARS KNOW NOTHING - ASTROLOGERS

Khushwant Singh

Beyond logic I hate to hit at people who are down and out. However, I make exceptions in the case of people who wield power and influence, and impose their views on others. I was not at all sorry to hear that Murli Manohar Joshi lost in the elections and J. Jayalalithaa got a drubbing at the hands of her arch-enemy, M. Karunanidhi. Both are highly intelligent people: they are also irrational in subscribing to astrology. One may be permitted to ask Joshi and Jayalalithaa: “Did not their stars tell them that they would lose the elections?” I know neither of them will deign to answer a question put to them by a nonentity like me. But certainly the people have a right to ask Joshi: Was it fair on your part as minister of human development to introduce a subject like Vedic astrology in the curricula of universities? I hope your successor in office will cancel the grant you made and divert the funds to the study of some science like astronomy or physics of which you were once a professor. As for amma, the revolutionary leader, she is incorrigible and not amenable to reason. But she is loved and adored by many of her people who worship her as a living deity. She could have done much more for Tamil Nadu than she has as its chief minister. Perhaps that is also written in her stars. And lastly, Lachhman Das Madan, editor-proprietor of the astrological magazine, Babaji. Ever since Vajpayee announced the elections before they were due, you have been predicting that he will return as prime minister and Sonia Gandhi would never become one. Sonia could have become one if she had chosen to do so. That was not what you wrote. Madanji, you owe it to your readers to answer the question: “Were the stars lying to you or were you lying to your readers?”

Holy cow in India

KHUSHWANT SINGH

Cow for votes No one can deny that killing cows to eat rouses very strong passions among Hindus and Sikhs. This is not shared by Muslims, Christians, tribals and lower caste Hindus of certain regions. Consequently, we have to approach the proposed total ban on cow-slaughter with caution. A good case can be made out to ban killing of all animals, birds and fish. No one has the right to take life in order to feed himself. When Emperor Akbar turned vegetarian, he said, “I do not want to make my body a tomb for beasts. ” However, in large parts of the world, notably near the Arctic zones, no fresh vegetables are available, and people rely on fish and meat to sustain themselves. Almost every beast in the world kills others to survive. Once you admit that eating animals, birds or fish is justified, there is no logic in supporting selective non-vegetarianism. Hindus and Sikhs don’t eat beef; Jews and Muslims don’t eat pork; some even forbid eating crustaceans like oysters, prawns, lobsters and crayfish. Yet, the vast majority of the world’s population eat beef, pork, crustaceans and fish without suffering any mental or physical harm. When it comes to eating, the human race, extending from the far east of India across Myanmaar, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, China to the two Koreas eat about everything they regard edible: rats, monkeys, frogs, dogs and snakes included. Has anyone the moral right to forbid another what he likes to eat? The answer is no. The question whether eating beef is forbidden in Hinduism is of academic importance. Professor D.N. Jha, in his seminal work, The Mythology of the Holy Cow, cites passages from the Rig Veda, quoting instances of cow and bull sacrifices. However, later (my guess would be beginning with invasions of Muslims), a sense of revulsion grew against beef-eaters. In territories ruled by Hindus and Sikhs rulers, cow-slaughter was banned. In Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s Punjab, it was punishable with death, as it was in Kashmir under the Dogras. Even after annexation of the Punjab, Hindus and Sikhs strongly resented cattle-slaughter. The Namdhari movement got a fillip when some of its members murdered Muslim butchers and were blown up by canons. Theirguru, Ram Singh, was exiled to Burma. The cow has become a sacred symbol and is worshipped as gaumata, or the cow mother. However, in actual fact, the cow is treated very shabbily. Cows which do not yield milk are let loose to fend for themselves. They survive on garbage or die of hunger and neglect. They roam about our city streets, blocking traffic and are often hit by fast-moving vehicles to be maimed or killed. If we cannot look after our gaumata, what right do we have to punish those who eat them?