I love old forts & buildings. Their architecture & their scale of construction attracts me. So does the history & stories, traditions & myths associated with them.
Golkonda fort in Hyderabad fascinates me.
For several centuries this fort has a played a very crucial role in the evolving history of Hyderabad. The walls, edifices & chambers of the fort, or what remain of them, are privy to the tales of rise & fall of many empires, sultanates, grandeur, deceit & valour of people which had an impact, not only in the southern part of India but also bore close relation to the happenings during the period of Mughal Empire & thereafter. A keen observer can feel the sounds of laughter, merriment, of dance & music, sounds of the hoofs of horses & occasional clash of swords, wails & cries of those injured & dying as well as the deafening roar of artillery guns of the Mughals that the walls of the fort must have withstood.
On one of my early visits to Golkonda my guide took me to a huge chamber within the walls of the fort where I was shown figures of Shri Ram, Sita, Lakshaman & Hanuman engraved on a wall of a huge chamber. This portion of the wall is accessible, within the chamber, through a staircase. I was told that the figures were etched by Bhakt Ramadas, using his finger nails. He was imprisoned here by Thana Shah, the reigning Sultan of the time. Bhakt Ramadas spent 12 years of his life in imprisonment in this chamber. A paste of vermilion covers these figures & hence they are prominently visible.
And here starts my story about those times. You may call it history, story, tradition, faith, myth, circumstances or whatever for there is a very thin line dividing all these when it comes to rise & fall of Sultan Thana Shah, the last Sultan of Qutub Shahi dynasty who ruled from Golkonda.
Shah Raju Qattal or Shah Raju, a Sufi saint, had set up his abode near the Fateh Darwaza of Golkonda. He had many disciples in the city & usually in the evenings they would gather in his hospice for listening to his wise words on the matters of religion in particular & society in general. Shah Raju had a young boy staying in his abode, who was his ‘mureed’ & would run small errands for him. The boy was shy, thin & lanky. He had a good voice & could sing prayers in praise of Allah, attracting many people to the hospice. It was also rumoured about him that he belonged to the family of the Sultan but because of some indiscretion on his part was thrown out from the fort. The name of the boy was Abdul Hassan.
Shah Raju had another important ‘mureed’, the Sultan Abdullah of Hyderabad. The Sultan would visit the Saint off & on in search of spiritual peace. Sultan Abdullah was ruling Hyderabad during a period when Aurangzeb was the viceroy of Deccan, initially & later became the King of the Mughal empire. Aurangzeb did not have much love or respect for Sultan Abdullah for he thought Abdullah was a wayward & fun loving person. Sultan Abdullah belonged to the Shia order of Islam & Aurangzeb felt that the Sultan was not a Muslim enough.
Even during his tenure as Viceroy of Deccan Aurangzeb had laid siege to the Golkonda fort & lifted it only after the Queen Mother, Hayat Bakshi Begum, personally visited him outside the fort. The terms of lifting the siege were fixed & the most important of them were the marriage of the eldest daughter of Sultan Abdullah to Mohammad Sultan, the son of Aurangzeb. It was also concluded that Mohammad Sultan would eventually take over the reins of power from the Sultan Abdullah. Additionally, Golkonda would pay Rs. 4.5 million to the Mughals as an indemnity in three instalments. First payment was to be made immediately.
Sultan Abdullah had three daughters. The eldest one was married to the son of Aurangzeb, as per the agreement regarding lifting of siege of Golkonda, second one to Nizamudin, a noble from Mecca & the third was engaged to the Syed Sultan of Najaf, who was a protégé of Nizamudin, initially. The Sultan of Golkonda had no male heirs to the throne.
But circumstances change. They changed for Prince Mohammad Sultan too – to begin with.
Emperor Shahjehan of Mughal empire fell sick & war broke out between his four sons for the throne of Delhi. Prince Mohammad Sultan sided with Dara Shikoh against his own father & when Aurangzeb took over the Mughal throne in Delhi he summoned Mohammad Sultan & imprisoned him. The prince died in captivity.
This aroused the ambitions of Nizamudin to corner the throne of Golkonda. Meanwhile Syed Sultan of Najaf turned his back on Nizamudin & stopped doing his bidding. Nizamudin, who had become important after the exit of Prince Mohammad Sultan from Golkonds, started manipulating the situation so that the engagement between the youngest daughter of Sultan Abdullah with Syed Sultan of Najaf is called off.
Sultan Abdullah was unnerved. One day he went to the hospice of Shah Raju for guidance so that he could resolve this riddle. Shah Raju asked him to come after some days & when the courtiers from the Sultan reached the hospice once again some days later they were advised to bring bridegroom’s dress & jewellery to him along with spare horses etc. for the groom to be taken to the fort. Meanwhile Abdul Hassan, the lanky ‘mureed’ of the saint – his errand boy – was given a thorough bath, henna pasted on his hands by the Sufi Saint himself, was properly dressed for the marriage ceremony & despatched to the fort along with the courtiers. At the same time Syed Sultan of Najaf, unaware of the developments in the fort was also preparing for the marriage ceremony in another part of the fort. He was tipped off by some of his friends that his marriage had not to be as the youngest daughter of Sultan Abdullah was already in the process of getting married to Abdul Hassan & there was no need for him to get ready for the event. Syed Sultan of Najaf sensed danger to his life & made good his escape from the fort & took shelter with Aurangzeb.
Over time Abdul Hassan outwitted Nizamudin, took control of the army & the administration & after the death of Sultan Abdullah took over the throne of Golkonda with the help of the Army Chief & the Royal Chamberlain.
While he was still at the hospice of Shah Raju Abdul Hassan was nicknamed Thana Shah by him & when he took over the reins of Golkonda in April 1672 he became famous by the name of Abdul Hassan Thana Shah.
One of the reasons why Thana Shah was able to outsmart Nizamudin & get him arrested was that Thana Shah was a very down to earth person & approachable while as Nizamudin was arrogant & misbehaved with the nobles, military, administration & everyone else who came in his contact. Thana Shah on the other hand was benevolent & generous. He also ensured equal rights to the subjects of his dominion which eventually brought him in conflict with the policies of Mughal King Aurangzeb resulting in his downfall.
The benevolent policies of Thana Shah, political & palace intrigues between the existing army chief, governors & Nobles paved the way for Thana Shah to appoint Madanna as Mir Jumla (Prime Minister) & his younger brother Akkanna was promoted as Revenue Minister. It is said that it was for the first time since the arrival of Alla-u-Din Khilji on Indian scene that a local Hindu was appointed as a Prime Minister. Madanna immediately set out to work & brought about many reforms in the Revenue administration including abolition of the custom to auction villages to collectors for revenue collection. Instead Government officers were deputed for this purpose. The strength of the standing army was raised to 6 lakhs. This action of Thana Shah & not adhering to some of the ‘firmans’ of the Mughal emperor by the Sultan brought him under direct conflict with the Mughal Empire to which Golkonda had become a vasal state in 1636.
Other than this the politics of the Region was very fluid & under a state of flux. During this period the Marathas, under Shivaji Maharaj, were on the rise & the British & the French were looking for a foothold along the sea shores of India.
But this is not the intention of my story. My interest is in Bhakt Ramadas of Bhadrachalam who had etched figures of Ram, Lakshaman & Sita on the wall of his cell in Golkonda during his imprisonment. Aforementioned is actually a backdrop to this.
Gopanna, who later became famous as Bhakta Ramadas was a nephew of Maddana & Akkana. From the childhood he was a devotee of Lord Ram. He was appointed Revenue officer of Husnabad Revenue area, by Sultan Thana Shah, under which fell Bhadrachalam too.

A tribal woman of Bhadrachalam named Pokala Dommakka was a devotee of Lord Rama & she considered herself to be an Avtar of Shabri in the present life. Shabri, during the Avtar of Lord Ram had been so much infatuated by their ‘darshan’ that she did not realize that she was offering berries to Ram, Sita & Lakshaman after first tasting them herself for their sweetness. At the same time all the three were also enjoying the berries without any hesitation. Shabri realized later what she was doing. However, she was so much infatuated by her love & affection for Ram, Sita & Lakshaman & reached a state of bliss beyond which nothing mattered to her.

One day Pokala dreamt that there were ‘murtis’ of Ram, Sita & Lakshaman on a hillock, called Bhadra, nearby. She went there & actually found them. The villagers joined together & put up a shed for the ‘murtis’ that started functioning as a temple.
When Gopanna saw the condition of the temple, which was no more than a shed, & the dedication of the tribal lady & the villagers to the lord he organized to construct it so that the ‘murtis’ could have a reasonable place to be in. He mobilized his own resources & also took help from the villagers for construction of the temple. He organized ornaments & jewellery for the ‘murtis’.
While the work of construction of the temple was in full swing the Sultan was informed by some of his courtiers that Gopanna was misusing the Government funds for construction of the temple. They actually wanted to target Madanna & Akanna as their appointment to higher office was not liked by many of the courtiers of the Sultan. The Mughals, who did not like Thana Shah also drumed up the sentiment against Gopanna, Madanna & Akanna. Gopanna became an easy tool for the courtiers to damage the position of Madanna & Akanna.
Gopanna was arrested & placed in one of the chambers in the Golkonda fort. A distraught Gopanna reverted to his ‘aradhaya’ Lord Ram, Sita & Lakshaman & started writing bhajans, kirtans. He would continuously sing them aloud from his prison chamber. It is said that no sentries were required to be placed outside his prison chamber as he would regularly sing bhajans & his presence in the cell continued to be known.
Bhakt Ramadas had a unique distinction of writing, singing & also composing bhajans to music. His bhajans were very simple & common village folks took to them very easily as they could understand & relate to them. It is during the period of imprisonment in Golkonda fort that Bhakt Ramadas engraved the images of Ram, Sita, Lakshaman & Hanuman using his finger nails.
His bhajans expressed his pain. He would constantly ask the Lord as to what had he done so as to get this punishment. In some of the bhajans he would complain to Lord Rama & sometime beseech Sitaji to request Lord Rama on his behalf to let him go off this prison cell. At times he would be very angry with the Lord & ask him through his bhajans as to whether the ornaments he had put around his neck were provided by Raja Dashrath or Janak & at the same time look for pardon for using such a language.
It is said that Tyagaraja, the great poet, singer & composer of Karnatak music, who was born 200 years after Bhakt Ramadas took inspiration from him. However, the bhajans of Ramadas, being very simple & understandable, are popular even today.
Finding that His Bhakt is not going to get out of this situation any day soon, it is said that Lord Rama & Lakshaman appeared to him in his prison chamber with their bows & arrows. Ramadas was busy in his recitation & he did not notice them till his name was called. Lord Ram told him that they had come to the prison cell on his summons & his problems will be over soon. Both the brothers disappeared from the prison cell. The same night Lord Ram & Lakshaman appeared to Thana Shah in his sleeping chambers. He was told to release the Bhakt. Lord Ram placed a bag full of gold ‘ashrafies’ with the seal of the Lord on them, near the bed of the Sultan & told him that this is what Ramdas owed him & he should release him immediately.
Next day, in the morning, Thana Shah himself went to the prison cell & released the prisoner. He was told that he could go back to his old job but the Bhakt refused & devoted later part of his life in the service of Lord Ram at Bhadrachalam temple.
The temple is located on a hill near River Godavari. The outer walls on the back side of the temple are very high giving it the look of a fort. However, the atmosphere around the sanctum sanctorum is very serene & ‘satvik’. My feeling is that this is normally the case whenever you visit a Ram temple.
In the sanctum are the ‘murties’ of Shri Ram, Sita & Lakshaman which were found by Pokala Dommakka. The devotees are made to rush through for ‘darshan’. This is the case in every temple now. However there is a reasonably big space around the sanctum & sitting here is a great experience.
There is a very small museum too where the gold jewellery donated by the Bhakt is also displayed. It is the same jewellery that brought misery to the Bhakt as it was rumoured that this jewellery had been procured from funds stolen from the government exchequer. There is also a painting of Thana Shah in the museum.

Bhadrachalam is located 350 km (approximately) from Hyderabad. Banks of River are only 500 m from here.

Finally, the fort of Golkonda was surrounded by the Mughal army for around eight months. Aurangzeb also participated in the siege. All kinds of methods were used to break into the fort, but nothing worked. Mines were laid to blow up the walls but chivalry & understanding of the Golkonda forces ensured that the walls wouldn’t crumble by secretly flooding the mines with water through secret tunnels thus rendering them useless. These activities further extended the siege.

Once an archer of Golkonda forces saw Aurangzeb praying at a shooting distance from him & wanted to kill him but Thana Shah did not permit him for he did not want to kill anyone while he or she was  in prayers.
Finally, treachery & bribes worked. Practically all the nobles & military commanders of Thana Shah defected to the Mughal forces except General Abdul Razzak Lari who continued to be on the side of the Sultan till the end of the siege. One of the other commanders, Abdul Khan Panni opened the gates of the fort on 21.09.1687. The Mughal troops rushed in & took over the fort & Thana Shah was arrested. Even in his arrest he was dignified. He went for prayers & offered the victors breakfast. He comforted the ladies in the fort & finally departed. He was locked up in Daulatabad fort where he died after 14 years of imprisonment.
Thana Shah had an unusual life. For first 14 years of his life he lived in Golkonda, another 14 years in the service of his peer, 14 years thereafter with Sultan Abdullah. After the death of the Sultan Thana Shah ruled for 14 years & there after lived a prison life of another 14 years.
He rose from the position of a pauper to become a Sultan. He ruled justly but some would say extravagantly over one of the biggest kingdoms of the time & was finally imprisoned after giving Aurangzeb a stiff resistance. It is no small matter that Aurangzeb had to lead the siege & intervene in the battle himself. The siege lasted 8 months.
Thana Shah was  just &  God fearing too. That is the reason why he did not allow his shooter to kill Aurangzeb while he was in prayers.
The episode of Bhakt Ramadas is another interesting matter of his time.
These days there is usually a lot of noise about history, story, tradition, myth & matters of scientific. Depending upon which side of the political divide the people are they tend to score brownie points accordingly. The life of Thana Shah gives an appropriate insight into all these aspects of life.

‘PRALAYA – THE DELUGE’

It was a boat on the rough seas with angry waves lapping it up, down & sideways. It seemed as if all hell had broken loose. The entire planet earth seemed to have been sucked in by a vast ocean.

This boat had no mechanical equipment to row it with, no diesel motors no engines, no pumps to drain water out of it. Huge unruly waves of the sea had almost filled it up with water & it seemed to engulf it at any moment. It had neither GPS nor any modern navigational gadgets. Heavy winds were blowing from all directions & the dark clouds overhead were pouring sheets of water as if they would not get a second chance. Intermittent lightening & thunder of the clouds was frightening.

The occupants could see hundreds of dead bodies of humans, animals & birds afloat on the horrifying sea. Houses had been washed away, trees uprooted & there seemed to be nothing left on this earth. They saw no life anywhere except on this boat. Frightened & exhausted men, animals & birds were keeping company on this boat. Some of the occupants were emptying the boat of water with whatever they could lay their hand on.

The occupants of the boat were exhausted & tired. Still they were trying hard to keep it on course with whatever means they had at their disposal, but on course to which place for there was water everywhere. In fact they were trying just to keep it afloat. They did not know where to look for land that could provide them relief & shelter. There were around nine people on board with a large number of animals & birds of all kinds. They were also carrying with them seeds of different type of plants & grains which they had painstakingly stacked in a safe section of the boat for use if they could ever find a patch of land somewhere. You could see fatigue & stress on the faces of the occupants. Stress & worry was visible on the faces of the animals & the birds too. They too had not eaten or drunk anything for days on end. Their stocks of eatables had almost finished on the boat. The men & probably the animals & birds too were praying to God for end of this misery & for their redemption.

One of the occupants of the boat, through the smoggy environment & eyes blinded by the pouring rain, saw a silhouette of something big moving in their direction in the unruly sea. He brushed his wet long hair aside & cleared his eyes to have a closer look at what it was that was coming on to them but was not able to comprehend it. He had never seen a fish or an animal of this size in his life though he too had lived on sea side all his life in the “Dravid” Kingdom. This kingdom was once flourishing in all walks of life but over a period of time had become victim of vice & treachery. Subjects of this kingdom had forgotten the values of life & were ever ready to fleece the poor & sing paeans to the rich & the powerful. The poor were becoming poorer & the rich were becoming richer. Social system of the society had almost collapsed. This calamity, people in the boat thought, was the nature’s way of correcting the wrongdoings.

In fact one of the persons on board this boat was foretold about the calamity that was going to befall on this kingdom. It was on the basis of this information that they constructed this boat & made a promise to each other that they shall stay together & if given a chance shall continue to follow the path of righteousness. These were the righteous people of the kingdom they had left behind.

On seeing this big beast swimming in the direction of their boat at a ferocious speed & create huge water waves, further endangering the lives of the occupants, this person alerted the other occupants. Through the pouring rain & hazy eyes they could see a big fish with a horn on its forehead dashing on to their boat with a ferocious speed. Occupants of the boat were horrified. Some of them started murmuring & others started praying to Him at the top of their voice for His mercy. Excepting for the prayers & the name of God they had nothing with them with which they could have defended themselves. However, to their amazement, when the fish started nearing the boat it reduced its speed & turned parallel to the boat. Its overtures were friendly. It seemed to understand the distress of the occupants of the boat. Slowly but surely it came nearer to the boat as if conveying some message to the occupants. On seeing the friendly overtures of the giant fish the occupants became very cautious & started watching its movements with great concern. This was the first sign of life witnessed by the occupants of the boat since the rain started pouring ferociously drowning everything on this earth.  There was a large snake coiled to the horn of the fish as if unaware of the deluge. As soon as the fish positioned itself parallel to the boat the snake hurled its tail on to the hull of the boat & tied itself up on to whatever came its way. The occupants of the boat were horrified. Till now they were controlling the boat, so to say, but now they were being towed at merciless speed through the rough turbulent seas, lightening & thunder & pouring rain to an unknown destination. They tried to break their boat loose of the grip of the huge snake but it would not let the boat go of its vice like grip. In desperation they again started praying to God & ultimately left their fate to His mercy.

They did not know when they had dozed off but when they woke up they found themselves anchored on to the side of a large island amidst the huge sea. The island was full of tall & majestic green trees the kind of which they had never seen in their lives. The ground underneath the trees was full of green grass & wild flowers. The big fish & the snake had vanished. They looked around but there was no life around. The rain also was slowing down & there was a glimmer of hope that the weather may open up & things might change.

The people aboard the boat, Manu, his wife & “Saptrishis” were mesmerized by the happenings over last few weeks. With an effort they brought the boat nearer to the island & one by one got down from it & stepped on to the island, hungry & thirsty. From the shore of the huge unruly ocean they could see nothing alive. It was water & water all over. Not a bird or an animal could be seen. It was “Pralaya”.

Far away they could see some beautiful snow-capped mountains.

The Manu who got down from the boat was Vaivasvata Manu (also called Shraddhadeva or Satyavrata), the seventh one & who was to begin a new eon. Human race got its name ‘manav’ after the sage Manu. After him seven more Manu’s are slated to come. On disembarking on to the island all the occupants of the boat prayed to God. They prayed to Him for mercy. They touched the land on which they had stepped on with their forehead & anchored their boat. Manu was back to work along with his companions after some rest. One by one they brought down all the animals & birds from the boat & set them free in the forest. Surprisingly for them the seeds of plants & vegetables that they had brought with them had also survived the journey.

Manu & his wife, their companions the ‘Saptrishis’, birds, animals & the seeds they had brought with them had to start a life, anew, once again.

And a new life did start.

Water of the ‘pralaya’ started receding. Land started appearing once again & there was hope all around, hope of a new future. With the passage of time the ‘people of the boat’ built their huts, started tilling the fields, sowed seed for producing grains, pulses & vegetables. Manu had ten children. Amongst them were Ikshwaku & Ila who became progenitors of Surya & Chandra ‘vansh’ respectively. Into ‘Surya vansh’ was born Shri Ram at a very later stage & into ‘Chandra Vansha’ was born Shri Krishan.

Slowly but steadily evolution of a new society started. The society that evolved over the years & centuries started gathering knowledge through experiments, observations & discourses that resulted in enrichment of its philosophy & culture. It enriched individuals too. Strides were made in the fields of agriculture, science (as of those times), astrology & astronomy. There was no distinction between men & women nor between people on the basis of work did they perform. People were free to choose their profession & all professions were given equal respect & people were honoured. They had ‘gurukuls’ where children & adolescents were taught various aspects of life. With the passage of time they had kings & village councils that would take decisions at local levels. The basic concept of decision making was welfare of the people at large. Slowly populations started growing & people started dispersing. Villages & small towns started coming up. The further these people went they started inventing new ways of life based upon the general environments of these places.

As long as the society was homogeneous, the issues were negligible. As the population & dissimilarities started growing issues of bread & butter started cropping up.

ADVENT OF KAUN(SI)HAYA KUMAR:

One day Manu was having siesta after ‘falahar – lunch comprising of fruits’ when he heard some commotion. Being half asleep he could not make out the cause of the noise. Shouting, clapping & cheering continued & seemed to be coming closer. Manu got up & tried to see through the vegetation surrounding his nicely laid out hut but he could not see anything. He called the ‘Saptrishis’ but they too were not sure about what was the noise about. He called some of his companions & asked them to find out as to what was happening. This sort of noise was unusual for the community that had sprung up in this area after the great deluge. The noise was continuous & seemed to be coming closer to where Manu, ‘Saptrishis’ & others were seated.

Meanwhile one of the associates of Manu brought the news that a large group of young boys & girls wanted to meet him. These youngsters were shouting slogans against Manu.

Manu had seen the worst of times in this world & was modest in nature. He said he had no hesitation in meeting them. When the group started coming closer, Manu could hear the slogans distinctly….’hum ko kya chahiye .. aazadi, Cheen ke lenge … aazadi …’. Manu … murdabad, Manuvad …. murdabad.

Manu was shocked at the sight of this unruly mob pouring into his compound. The crowd of the youngsters continued to shout slogans, clapping, cheering & jeering. Manu was surprised at tenacity & lung power of these boys & girls. Some people of the commune tried to reason with the slogan shouting mob but they were in no mood to listen. Security people came in but they too could not control them. Manu was told that the young, short, stout & loud mouthed person was the leader of the group & his name was Kaun(si)haya Kumar. He was also informed that he was from the JNU, a famous ‘gurukul’ & had been continuing his studies there for quite some time.

After a while the slogan shouting stopped & Manu, finding a chance to speak addressed this gathering & asked them to explain as to what their problem was.

Kaun(si)haya Kumar rose up to speak amidst loud cheers & slogan shouting. He addressed Manu contemptuously & held him responsible for the continuing ills of the country that is India. He accused him of being responsible for the ‘varanashram dharam’ because of which the high castes of the society were sucking the blood of the lower castes & those living on the fringes of the society, like leeches. He also told him that because of his philosophy the country was going to the dogs & is destined to remain a poor country.

He added that with the new Government in place in the country since 2014 the problems had increased manifold. He told him that the ‘Brahmanical’ order was destroying the nation as they always refer to his book called ‘Manu Smriti’ & impose its tenets on the religion they call Hinduism.

As soon as ‘Manu Smriti’ was mentioned by Kaun(si)haya Kumar all hell broke loose &  members of the team took out copies of the book & amidst high pitched slogan shouting, clapping & jeering made a bonfire of them. They started dancing, clapping, shouting & singing songs against Manu while dancing around the bonfire. Manu saw that a large group of other people had also surrounded this unruly group of youngsters & holding some equipment in their hands & were directing it on to them. Some were also operating equipment from tripod stands & speaking into some equipment that he later was informed was microphone. Other equipment held by them, Manu was told, were the mobiles into which the members of the new group would speak almost continuously.  He wondered how far the world had come after the ‘pralaya’. He also noticed that the group under Kaun(si)haya Kumar had become more unruly, vociferous & loud after the arrival of this new team. A prominent face in the new arrivals was said to be that of ‘BD’. Manu noticed that ‘BD’ was very well known to the unruly crowd & was giving orders to her group of new arrivals. He noted that she was boisterous too.  Manu was told that the new arrivals were in fact TV journalists & their technical staff who were beaming all this ‘tamasha’ to their viewers in India.

Manu could not understand the words ‘TV’ & ‘beaming’ etc. but soon realized that this was 2016 & thought that science might have invented something similar to what ‘Sanjay’ used for narrating running commentary on the war between ‘Kauravas’ & ‘Pandvas’ at ‘Kurukheshtra’ to  ‘Dhratrashtra’ while sitting in the palace at ‘Indraprasth’.

It became unbearable for Manu. He was not prone to lose patience, though; he thought whether it was for this that he & his colleagues had taken so much pain & trouble after ‘pralaya’ so that the earth could become inhabitable once again. His mind raced through those devastating times, thousands of years back. The efforts, they had to put in to ensure survival also passed through his mind like a flash of light. The big fish that set them ashore a completely unknown place that was full of forests. Forests so dense that even rays of the sun would not penetrate their foliage. There was nothing to eat or drink & he & his companions had to go through unimaginable suffering to create even basic facilities required by humans. They had to shudder through intense cold during the winter months.

He also remembered the young boy, Kanhaya Kumar, similar to the one in front of him now & almost of the same age, very humble & polite & his colleagues, boys & girls, who had come visiting him. They discussed various issues facing the communities that were under the process of evolution & the herculean task these young boys & girls were undertaking to come out successful. They spoke about the way they would get under the skin of the problems of the society in order to resolve them. Constructing huts, putting their efforts in improving agriculture were other areas of their work. Education was under a very nascent stage of development. Resolution of social issues was another area of importance. Overall things were moving in a planned, orderly & efficient manner.

Kanhaya Kumar raised the issue of unemployment amongst the youth of the society that was evolving. He said that because of undefined job description tensions would sometimes flare up between individuals & also amongst groups. Manu thought over the issue & after some time said that there were only four types of jobs that he could think of for the society & as such the inhabitants of the communities could take up any of these jobs as per their choice, liking & aptitude. He defined the jobs very precisely & said that it was defence of the communities from aggressors, quality education for children & teenagers, agriculture, business & trade & finally the services for the community. Kanhaya Kumar & his colleagues tried to understand what Manu had said. After deliberations over the subject over a few months they came to the conclusion that under the circumstances this was the best option.

Soon the word spread. There was a complex & total churning in the society. Men & women started looking for new avenues for themselves. It was important for them to fit into any one of the cultural divisions & obviously the jobs defined by Manu so that they could live a life of recognition in the society. They would also crave, later, for recognition in the field of their expertise. The going was good, as they thought, for everyone & there was respect for whatever each one of them was doing. Everyone was contributing to the advancement & welfare of the fast developing society. Unknown to them these ‘MANAVS’ of ‘MANU’ had started a process the impact of which would continue to last for thousands of years. Manu had never thought that  condition & social status of the ‘MANAVS’ would start getting defined & limited, over a period of time, initially, by the work they would perform & eventually the work chosen by them would also define their caste. He wouldn’t have visualised that this division of society, which essentially was division of labour, would make water & airtight compartments which, over the centuries, would define status of people & their social & economic order. He had never thought that the order that he was creating, at that point in time, will become so much contentious that even after thousands of years he will be cursed for it.

Manu was pulled out of his thoughts by the resumption of sloganeering by Kaun(si)haya Kumar & his team. Manu asked them to calm down & tell him about their problems. Kaun(si)haya Kumar told him that they were distressed by the rules framed by him that later on came to be called Manu Smriti & its impact on the Indian society. He told him that he will continue to burn copies of his books as long as the discrimination in the society was not rooted out. Manu asked Kaun(si)haya Kumar to calm down & listen. He told him that thousands of years ago he had devised this method to mitigate the problems of that particular ‘kaal’ – time & he had no intention of dividing the society permanently on the lines of the work people performed. He said that every work was important for the society & there was nothing like respectable or unrespectable job as long as it was for the benefit of the ‘Manavs’. Manu also told him that the people came to be called ‘manavs’ only after his name. He told Kaun(si)haya Kumar that individuals were always respected, during the old times of his, irrespective of what work they did. He said that he only propagated ‘Manav Dharam’ & this ‘Dharama’ was always non-discriminatory. Over a period of time this ‘Dharma’ came to be called Hinduism.

He asked Kaun(si)haya Kumar as to what was he achieving by burning of books? He told him that burning of books might give him space in prime time of TV channels of ‘BD’ & TRP to those who cover it but it changes nothing. The change has to come from within. It is for the leadership of Hindu religion to sit down & discuss the issues arising out of the caste system that has been a drag on it over hundreds of centuries, has impacted it negatively & they should come up with a solution. Manu also told ‘Kaun(si)haya Kumar that the situation was changing slowly & was visible to a discerning eye. He told him that inter-caste marriages, for example, were taking place during Ramayana, Mahabharata & Vedic times & same is happening with more frequency even now & such changes are going to break down the barriers that existed earlier. He also told him that during the present times most of the Hindus are performing jobs that do not conform to the division of work enunciated earlier & it does not make them higher or lower caste. Today a large number of Hindus are working in service sector & does that make them any different from those working in other sectors. He asked Kaun(si)haya Kumar & his friends as to what locus-standi did they have in such matters when they are basically communists & as such issues of Hinduism should be left to Hindus to resolve. He asked his Muslim friends in the team to clarify first as to whether they were Muslims or Communists. Manu told them that they better take care of their own Religion first before talking of Hinduism. He enquired of them as to how can a Muslim be a Muslim & a Communist too. A Muslim who is also a Communist has basically gone ‘astray’ which is against the first chapter of the Holy Book of the Muslims.

He also asked him that since caste divisions were a bane then why they have also percolated & seeped into other religions, functionally, that propagate that they have more equality & fraternity within their ranks. For example why do you have Dalit Christians & Dalit Muslims too?  They certainly are not my creation, he said, as these religions came on earth much later than ‘Manav Dharam’ or Hinduism as it is being now called. He looked out for ‘BD’, the TV journalist, & asked her, as to why the issues arising out of caste divisions within Islam & Christianity, which are peculiar to India alone, are not discussed on her TV channel. She was also asked as to why she does not write columns in newspapers about the caste practices being followed in these religions. ‘BD’ tried to argue agitatedly but Manu stopped her. He told her bluntly that she was discriminatory in targeting Hindus on her TV channel. He asked her that when she takes ‘wazwan’ in a Kashmiri Muslim marriage party does she allow her driver, ‘safai walla’ & her cook to partake food in the same ‘trami’. If she doesn’t then is she also not discriminating with them on the basis of their profession or may be ‘caste’.

He gave her another example of her one sided reporting. He asked her as to if she has ever entered the sanctum sanctorum of ‘Dargah, Hazratbal’ in Srinagar, where she is a regular visitor. She said that that area is traditionally out of bounds for women & tried to brazen it out with Manu, but he had already been worked up because of her attitude.  He asked her if traditionally that place is out of bound for women then why she tries to pick holes in such traditions of Hinduism alone & make them issues of individual & women freedom. Entry of women to all Hindu temples should be allowed, of course, but why discriminatory reporting. Why she considers tradition of one religion ‘good’ & similar tradition of other religion ‘bad’. Of course Hinduism needs to reform on such issues.

Meanwhile Kaun(si)haya Kumar was feeling isolated as the discourse had shifted between Manu & ‘BD’. He & his cohorts restarted shouting ‘hum ko kya chahiye aazadi…….’. Manu stopped them & asked them as to what they meant by aazadi? He asked them as to what more ‘aazadi’ they were aspiring or looking for? He told them that they already had more ‘aazadi’ than it is available in any other part of the world. Here they could shout, abuse, cast aspersions on individuals & groups without any proof or reason & still could get scot free. Kaun(si)haya Kumar tried to wriggle out of the situation & said that it was not him but some Kashmiri outsiders who had raised these slogans. Manu sternly asked him not to hide behind a smoke screen. He told him to be a man & admit what had actually transpired. He reminded him that such nefarious designs had already resulted in mayhem & bloodshed in 1947 & Kaun(si)haya Kumar should desist from siding with such elements.

Manu told Kaun(si)haya Kumar that reform of Hinduism, which is 80% of India’s population is possible only from within & not by burning books & raising slogans that harm the interests of the Indian nation. He told him that by raising slogans & resorting to other gimmicks he might become a political leader with a certain shelf life, but not a reformer & as time passes the fate of the down trodden will still remain unchanged even if he becomes the Prime Minister of the country.

To ‘BD’ he had a message. He told her that unbiased reporting is good for the Nation & the society, but when you are biased you lose your credibility & this is what has already happened with her.

He narrated an example from one of her interviews with Shri Jaggi Vasudev where she said that ‘Dalits have no Devtas’. Manu told her that though he does not subscribe to today’s idiom of ‘Dalits & Mahadalits’ & upper castes or ‘swarans’ as they were Manavs that he created & not today’s subdivisions based on one’s pedigree & divisiveness brought about by politics, but the ‘Devtas’ in Hinduism were created by none other than ‘Dalits’ like Saint Valmiki. Rama & Ramayan was a creation of Saint Valmiki. Ved Vyas, one of the most important pillars of Hinduism was born of Prashar Rishi & ‘Matasyagandha’- a fisherwoman. He systemized the four Vedas & authored Mahabharata. Ved Vyas wrote 18 ‘Puranas’ & ‘Brahama Sutras’ which are important texts of Hindu Religion. The holy book of Hindus, the Bhagwad Gita is a part of the Mahabharata written by Ved Vyasa. As such the ‘Devtas & Devis’ created by him are revered every Hindu & not just by one section. So how can one say that there are no ‘Devtas’ for ‘Shudras’? Rishi Kamban, Matang & Vidur had pedigree that was not ‘swaran’, but they were the shining stars of Hinduism & contributed to its rich literature & religious traditions. The ‘Bhakti’ movement produced such saints like Chokhamela, Nandanar, Harichand Thakur, Guru Ravi Das, & many others who were revered & followed by every Hindu irrespective of his or her caste. He asked ‘BD’ that if the ‘Devtas & Devis’ of Hinduism were creation of ‘Dalits’ than where is the question of them having separate ‘Devtas or Devis’. ‘Devtas & Devis’ in Hinduism are ‘Devtas & Devis’ for everyone in this creed. Manu asked ‘BD’ whether this question was as a result of her ignorance or a deliberate mischief to show Hinduism in bad light.

Manu’s message was clear: this country will attain greater heights only if Hinduism, that constitutes 80% of its population, is reformed & the cowebs that have chocked its interiors & blurred its exteriors are thoroughly dusted. Hinduism, otherwise, is a Religion that preaches pluralism, inclusiveness & has unmatched treasure of philosophy, culture & tradition to its credit. It is a religion that teaches ‘karuna & daya’ & does not preach conquests for spreading or imposing its thoughts over others. In the words of Shri Jaggi Vasudev, India has been a Nation of seekers & not followers through the ages & it is for this reason that they have not been conquerors. Hinduism has to & must reinvent itself for the 21^st century & beyond.

Dear Ms. Barkha,

Sub: Barkha Dutt – Arnab Goswami & the stuff in between.

It was interesting to read your post regarding your recent standoff with Arnab Goswami.  I am not as good an ‘English man’ as ‘English women’ you are for my English is poor but I am taking this liberty of writing an open letter to you under the ‘right to write freely’ . However there is one point from your post that struck me.

This one I quote directly from your post:

“This is about our fundamental right to report freely and honestly without being conveniently misrepresented as terror sympathizers or enemies of the Indian Army”.

And herein lies the rub.

What is it, Barkha, that today you & many more of your ilk are not considered to be a group of unbiased reporters / commentators / anchors of the media by a vast number of Indians?

Keep Arnab Goswami aside for a moment.

It is because your stories on militancy, militants & the role of security forces operating under the most difficult & trying circumstances is seen to be laced with an ideology & narrative that brinks on anti-Indianism & pro subversion. This is because you are seen & heard narrating only one side of the story. And when you talk of the ‘other side’ you again interpret the ‘others’ point of view conveniently to fan your own perceptions, agenda & ideology. Here you take up the role of a judge, lawyer & litigant & close the programme accordingly. Many a times keen watchers of your shows have noticed that you brusquely cut out a person who tries to narrate a story that is not in line with your own line of thinking or out of sync with ‘editorial policy’ of your TV channel. No problems on that either!!

The other part is about your narrative when it comes to atrocities on members of different communities in the country. I for one am against atrocities against anyone irrespective of his or her religion, caste, culture, sex, nationality or belief. I am against atrocities of every kind be they by the state / non-state actors, individuals or communities. Sight of children with pellets in their face & bodies in Kashmir are very uncomfortable for any human & especially for me as I lived substantial part of my life among them & these pictures make my soul churn for them. I can’t figure out as how to reach out to them or to their kith & kin & console them.  This is the tragedy of Kashmir & such things happen in cycles & quite often, unfortunately.

I do not even know how to reach out to the security forces either whose personnel brave it day in & day out to keep this country safe. These people who are posted in Kashmir could be from “Punjab, Sindh, Gujrat, Marathwada, Dravid, Utkal, Banga, Vindhya ranges, Himachal & from the villages & cities on the banks of Yamuna & Ganga & from states that are located on the shores of the ocean”. They could be natives of J&K  & North East too. They are there for no fault of theirs. They, their families & friends & all of us are suffering today because of non-foresighted decisions of the Indian leadership in 1947. Jinnah knew his mind & his goal & he achieved it without any major hiccups.

Though I did not have the ‘good fortune’ of studying at the Saint Stephens College, Delhi but I studied in one of the equally prestigious Christian Missionary Schools in Srinagar where I picked up the fundamental principles of equality & fraternity & imbibed the values of honesty, fair play & forthrightness. The foundation that was laid in this school turned me to be an “IN ALL THINGS BE MEN” individual & my basic tenet was & shall always remain to respect all humans irrespective of what denomination of the society they came from & who they were.

But even for a person like me who watched you & heard you on TV over so many years a feeling creeps in that your reporting of events is largely one sided & not fair.

My take, Barkha, is that  whenever there are atrocities on Muslims or women or whosoever, report it honestly by all means but do not close your eyes when atrocities are committed on Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis & all other denominations who do not have the tact & wherewithal to handle you & the media you promote. When atrocities are committed in BJP ruled states on Muslims or ‘free thinkers’, liberals, believers or non-believers or anyone else of the like, report them honestly & without fear & hold as many ‘Buck Stops Here’ as possible but do the same when such acts are committed in states that are not ruled by BJP & its allies. If atrocities are committed against Muslims in any part of the country report them with whatever force that is available with you, but do not turn your eyes & TV cameras other way when same is happening with others. Atrocities on minority community or on majority community are abhor-able irrespective of their political or religious beliefs. To say that atrocities are not committed on majority community by people who matter is the biggest lie perpetuated by the media. Majority also suffers at the hands of the minority many a times & it goes unreported or not adequately reported. Not reporting of these issues is not fair play on the part of media

These are the honest feelings of a person who is a ‘common man’ & who has grown old seeing you on TV since the day you started your career in the media & at times watched you with a lot of admiration.

Smriti Irani was not off the mark when she asked of you in her interview to you in Amethi that why was the case of the rape victim of Kerala  not raised with same intensity by you as you normally would have done had this incident happened in a BJP ruled state. And remember this young woman who died after the atrocious incident was from the most down trodden background & lived on the poorest of the poor conditions on the fringes of the society. Was she forgotten because reporting & orchestrating of the incident was not politically expedient & correct to you or your ‘well-wishers’ at that point in time.

Staying with Smiriti Irani. You did not answer her question directly when she asked you why the chopping off of the hands of the RSS worker in Kerala was not taken up seriously by media. RSS workers are Indians too though they may be thinking differently from you on many issues that relate to the philosophy & idea of India. How do you justify spending hours of your prime time deliberating on thugs & thieves of India & about lost buffaloes, that too repeatedly, but you do not have time  to mention atrocities committed on an Indian with the ideology of whom you are not comfortable.

Recently Daya Shankar Singh abused Ms. Mayawati in the filthiest of languages for which he should of course be punished severely & brought to book. As a human being I felt ashamed of what he said. There was outcry & commotion & rightly so in the media & otherwise. In the Parliament Arun Jaitly had to ask Ms. Mayawati for pardon & forgiveness. However when the BSP leaders abused the wife & daughter of Daya Shankar Singh in the most inappropriate & shameful language did you stand up for the aggrieved women? Neither you (who calls herself a champion of women liberties, their rights & feminist) nor your media took any notice of such a shameful outburst by the BSP representative. Do you remember how you were questioning Smiriti Irani about her ‘failure’ to stand up for women when they were in distress or were being trolled? Where was your activism for these two hapless women. What was their fault if Daya Shankar Singh used filthy language?

You have covered Kashmir all your professional life & Kashmir has bestowed you with name, fame & prestige. May God bless you with more of name, fame & prestige. But have you never come across clusters of dilapidated houses, many of them turning into a heap, in village after village & town after town that were abandoned by Kashmiri Pandits during those tumults times of 1989/90 & thereafter.  Have you never noticed their crumbling façade & pulled out doors & windows through which have grown trees & plants of various varieties & hues. Have you never thought of the fact that once upon a time they must have been inhabited by happy, merry & content living human beings? Have you never imagined that once upon a time they must have been throbbing households inhabited by families, elderly people, men & women & laughing & giggling children? Have you never come across crumbling door frames of these houses on the sidewalls of which are prints of faded palm marks of the bride & the bridegroom with flowery sketches, usually in white colour, gaily announcing ‘Ramesh weds Nancy’ or ‘Ashok weds Sarla’ with a WELCOME sign on top.

Did you ever ask yourself a question as to where these people have gone? Did you ever care to listen to the footsteps of the people on the crumbling & stinking staircases of these damaged & sometimes half burnt houses who must have enjoyed their springs, summers, autumn & winters in these places. People who must have shared their joys & sorrows together in these houses.

Did you ever ‘honestly & fearlessly’ prepare a TV programme exploring as to what happened to this proud & ancient ethnic community that vanished from the tracts of the Valley so suddenly. You certainly did some programmes on these unfortunate people but they were so shabbily made that it was clearly evident that they carried your biased mindset. You also tried to put Muslims against Kashmiri Pandits subtly but surely through your twisted & skewed narration & logic. The programmes were made shabbily, not because of your incompetence, but because you did not put in your heart & soul in them as you do for other programmes where you use intensely flamboyant part of your personality to make them real life experiences. These programmes were, to say the least, lip service / fill in the blanks & nothing else.

Having lived in Delhi for last few years I tried to make sure that I should witness the rallies that are so frequently held in Delhi on one issue or the other.This was my way of understanding India more closely. I attended AAP rallies (where my purse was pick pocketed), Anna Hazare rallies, earlier on, from which were born Kejriwal, Sisodia, Gen. V.K.Singh & Kiran Bedi (later two in their political ‘avtar’). I also witnessed the rally by Anupam Kher against people who thought that tolerance was their copy right. The experience about the media in this rally was startling. It seemed that the main stream English media had already made up their mind that they would prick holes in the sails of Anupam Kher’s rally. They had no intention of covering the rally but were engaged in infuriating the participants by their irrelevant & out of place & sometimes out of mind questions. When some of the participants complained about the migration from the Valley they were told that there was nothing so dangerous happening in the Valley (in 1989/90) that could have prompted them to flee. When the participants persisted with their narration they were told that we know it better than you do. The participants protested & tried to reason with the reporters that it is they who had lost their home & hearth & how come these 20 some age reporters are telling them that they know more than what the sufferers do. Instead of listening to them (forget sympathizing) the journalists were in fact negating what these people had gone through. Here the problem started & turned to full blown discussion with tempers rising on both the sides. By the time I reached home there was a fully blown up debate on TV channels about how the participants of Anupam Kher’s rally had abused & harassed the journalists.  Come on guys & then you say you are holy cows!!!

So what Arnab Goswami is saying today is basically the voice of so many. Why do you feel surprised? It is not about gagging the media but about who is playing in whose hands & whose reportage is helping whom. It is also about knowing & trying to understand what actually the endgame is. And do not tell me that media & media men & women are all pious saints. They also are commercial entities after all.

You must remember that you have the unfettered freedom of reporting on anything, saying anything you like & are able to do so in this country of ours. At the cost of repeating I am again saying that this is our country, our country of close to 1.3 billion people. You are also free to report the way you want & practice what you like because of this country, called India & that too as it exists today. This freedom also comes to you naturally, as well as to all its inhabitants, because Hindus, whom you so much detest because of their ‘fault lines’, are in a majority. And in saying so I have no hesitation. Barkha, kindly think of a situation if this was not the case. Under those conditions you would have ended up like Tasleema Nasreen.

PS: And by the way Barkha you have still not forgiven Arnab Goswami for snatching the ‘exclusive’ interview of Rahul Gandhi from you & your channel way back in 2014 that was promised to you ‘voluntarily’ by Priyanka Nehru Gandhi Vadra!!!

You are pretty shrewd & intelligent; Madam & you need not be reminded that Nehru also promised plebiscite to Kashmiris ‘voluntarily’ as they were not actually looking for it at that moment in history. Plebiscite was never held*.

Hilarious, isn’t it Barkha!!! These are called the ‘fault lines’ of Indian Media. Only the names change: Nehru to Priyanka Nehru Gandhi Vadra.

JAI HIND

*Obviously how do you hold it now?!

 

It was Oct 2006 when Shafat Ahmed copied to my computer a composition sung by Ustad Nusarat Fateh Ali Khan titled ‘Gorakhdhanda’. While doing so he cautioned me that this rendition could work either way. Turn me into an atheist or anchor me further in the belief of God.

This was half an hour of mystic romance. Subsequent charm and sense of exhilaration, surrender to the Almighty, which follows such renditions makes you feel closer to Him. The situation was ecstatic as the feeling of His overpowering presence was there but you could neither see Him nor touch Him. As has been very aptly described in the rendition, God is what He is only till the time there is feeling of His presence & He is beyond anyone’s reach for if you succeed in touching Him, He is no longer God but an idol. His Holiness & Greatness lies in our yearning for Him, more you yearn to come closer to Him further you are inclined to stay away from Him.

The words of Nusarat Fateh Ali Khan, their rendition, the magic of a smooth and seamless transition from one stratum of understanding and perception to another and references from where he has drawn his logic for making his point, very eloquently, left me and my family enthralled and consolidated our belief in God, thankfully.

It also brought me closer to the same old paradox as to how close we people are to each other in thought and in belief and yet how vehemently we deny this closeness. After all the Power that created this universe is One and absolute. This universe is one. The planets revolve around the same sun and in the same orbit. Our belief and point of view does not change the orbit of the moon on which it revolves around the earth. We are the inheritors of the same flora and fauna, rivers, lakes and oceans, mountains and forests and deserts, bequeathed to us by the same Universal Power, the God. We may name the Power differently but the Universal facts do not change. In our quest for the natural we normally resort to an uncharted un-natural path. And that is why the turmoil, dissatisfaction, trauma, rivalry and one-up- man ship comes to the fore.

Those who were able to understand the Universal Truth were normally men of peace and satisfaction was the natural outcome. They carried no material burden, neither for themselves nor for their ‘generation next’ but ultimately left an indelible mark on the society and the world at large. They were the saviours whom the world granted recognition subsequently and belatedly.

Isn’t it a paradox, referring to a couplet from ‘Gorakhdhanda’ that Messiah, who granted life to innumerable people had to die on a cross with God looking on the executioners without any immediate retribution? Grandchildren of the Prophet had to die in Karbala while God showed no signs of immediate mercy. And Lord Ram had to forgo coronation at Ayodhya and traverse the jungles of Bharat for fourteen long years facing insurmountable hardships and retribution. All these individuals are revered because they sought no material gains but stood by a philosophy and a principle. ‘Good’ was unqualified ‘good’ for them and ‘bad’ was an equally unqualified ‘bad’ for them.

As mentioned earlier, the ‘copying’ of ‘Gorakhdhanda’ on my computer by Shafat forced me to a quest of my own. A very miniscule step, but a step nonetheless.

I came across a composition called ‘Shiv Tandav Astotram’ written by none other than Ravana. Mention of Ravna does not arouse any feeling of surrender to God for he was the one who was considered to be the embodiment of all that was nefarious and evil. Ravana was highly educated and an intellectual in his own right knew all the four Vedas and was a staunch devotee of lord Mahadev. Shiv Tandav Astotram is a very valuable window into the mind of the person that he was.

Umpteen number of times, throughout the ‘astotra’, he has invoked the name of Lord Mahadev for providing him the material benefits of life. He implores Him to multiply his holdings and give stability to the possessions obtained by him – through means foul or fair. He ends the ‘astotram’ with the qualification that whoever recites this ‘astotram’ in the evening every day, he will be replenished with all worldly possessions of his time. Since chariots, horses, elephants and the like were the symbols of the elite of the time of Ravana he concluded that their number would increase manifold as well as his fixed assets will not only be protected but also enhanced with the blessings of Lord Mahadev.

However two stanzas stand apart from the rest. In these two stanzas a demon like Ravana also puts his hands up and surrenders to the Lord and wants to attain oneness with Him. Their translation, from Sanskrit – to the best of my ability, is reproduced here:

O’ Lord Mahadev, Give me strength and the insight:

Enabling me not to discriminate:

Between a rock on which I may have to sleep; or the royal bedding of my palace;

Between friends and foes; between kings and paupers;

Between valuable pearls and a pack of mud;

Between a snake and a necklace of precious stones;

(They should all be same to me;)

O’ Lord, my mind should stop these worldly discriminations while I am on my path to seek You.

O’ Lord Mahadev,

How I wish to forsake my perverted and negative thoughts; and come to a ‘nikunj’ (beautifully laid out & maintained gardens) on the banks of River Ganga;

With my hands folded over my head; with tearful & infatuated eyes seeking your ‘darshan’;

And pray Shiv Mantra so that I am able to achieve Bliss.

In the final analysis even Ravana was looking for peace and bliss. A paradox, considering that he had all bounties of life at his disposal, power to conquer people and nations at will as also a Palace, made up of gold, in Sri Lanka. Peace still evaded him.

Compare this with translation of a stanza from ‘Devya-Apradh-Khyamapan Astotram’ by Shankracharya:

O’ Mother; Graceful as the Moon;

Neither am I interested in Salvation, nor in the materialism of this world;

Science does not interest me; nor do I desire comfort;

Only request I have, and that may please be granted, is;

My life should pass with thy name on my lips – always.

Shankracharya did seek for anything for himself but was still at peace with himself. In fact he continued to propagate the new doctrine enunciated by Adi Shankracharya.

As already mentioned Ravana was a mighty king and had all comforts of his life but peace eluded him & on the other hand Shankracharya was a sanyasi, with no material possessions but even in his prayers he did not seek any material gains for himself. He was comfortable & satisfied with whatever he had.

This world is a mystery and more one tries to unravel it the more complicated it gets. It also brings us to the same initial point as to how this universe maintains its equilibrium and what is the Power that keeps it going day in and day out. How are we judged by the Power that is in our entire daily chore? How are we judged throughout 24x365xlife span days? There are no easy answers.

However, Mahatama Vashisth has summarized it very aptly. He summarized it to Bharat, the younger brother of Lord Rama, when he returned to Ayodhya from his maternal grandparent’s house to find that King Dashrath was no more and Sita, Ram & Lakshaman had already left for the jungles for fourteen years exile. Bharat and Shatrughan were inconsolable.

What Vashisth told Bharat, translated from Goswami Tulsi Das’s Ramayana is something like this:

“Listen O’ Bharat; Destiny has the final say and I am saying this with a very heavy heart; (very heavy heart because Ayodhya was in mourning after the death of King Dashrath & exile to Lord Ram, his wife Sita & Lakhshman);

Loss, Gain, life or death: fame or infamy is one’s own destiny – all in the hands God.”

These words from a saint, who only some time earlier had finalized an auspicious day for the coronation of Rama to the throne of Ayodhaya, laid bare the facts about the realm of the unknown.

Though lord Krishana, subsequently, modified it further and laid emphasis on the need and culture of good work for the betterment of ourselves as individuals and the society in general. He said that result of such work should be left to God for individuals don’t have any control on the outcome of an effort. For example: who would have been the victor if it had not rained at Waterloo during that famous battle?

Qawalli by Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan emphasizes this paradox time and again. He refers to quest for the Ultimate Truth by people who gave up everything earthly for this quest and yet were not able to access the Reality or realize it. They found Him to be omnipresent but available only to those who could fine tune their body and soul. He is benevolent and is so large that He occupies all the space in the universe, yet is available in the smallest corner of the heart of the poor, meek and the downtrodden. He is also available in the corners of the dwellings of the people who have been rejected and persecuted by the materialistic world. He is there in your own heart if you are capable of listening to Him carefully.

It is again a paradox that this universe with forests, mountains and skies as also oceans, deserts and rivers as also flora and fauna, fruits, vegetables and corn as also herbs, shrubs and multitude of people has been created by Him to make His presence felt but He is still invisible and remains shrouded in mystery and stays aloof. Human being has been created by Him as a deputy of His own, in his own image, but when it comes to matters of execution of decisions of us the humans; it is His Will that ultimately prevails.

Hence a ‘Gorakhdhanda’

Shri Shankracharya in his composition ‘Shiv Panchakhsharya Astotram’ refers to Lord Shiva as a ‘Digambar’ meaning thereby that He is shrouded by the infinite limits of the universe. These are the limits that cannot be accessed or reached. I find this definition to be very interesting. This is such a unique shroud that can be stretched further & further based upon enlightenment one achieves. The boundaries are infinite. The closer one comes to the boundary, the further it extends.

These boundaries pose a challenge to the humans to understanding the Truth. We look at the earth, sky and the sun and the planets & galaxies and try to make an effort to understand the omnipresence of God & it is again a paradox that though we are looking for Him elsewhere He is available always with you – in your very heart.

However, ultimate surrender to Him and His will is the best and the only way to realize Him. That is the solution to the problems of this world as well as individuals. That is why I am bent on my knees with folded hands and eyes cleansed with tears & am pleading to Him to remove this thin veil that is keeping us apart. I beseech Him to remove this veil for not too long but only for an infinitesimal fraction of a second so that ‘Darshan’ / ‘Didar’ is possible and minuscule possible communication is established.

Thanks, Shafat, for providing ‘Gorakhdhanda’ to me.

We lived in Srinagar.

For us the Bund, Polo ground & Emporium gardens were like our own back yard. I learnt walking in Polo Ground & the Emporium Gardens. So did our daughter. Emporium gardens, with the backdrop of Shankracharya hill, especially during the spring time would be fascinating, with Chinar trees providing cover from the skies above. Natural growth of innumerable white daisy flowers on the grounds of this garden would always overawe me, as they do even today.

My parents, brother & sister, neighbours & guests would often visit these parks whenever the weather in Kashmir would get hot, by Kashmir standards, in summer. Cool breeze of these magnificent & open places would provide the much needed relief. Today all these places are cramped.

As I grew up, one of my fascinating hobbies was to walk on the bund from Abi Guzar to the Zero Bridge & back. River Jehlum provided an exhilarating backdrop to my walks. Bund was much more spacious & well maintained then. The small Shia mosque on the bund was always fascinating which during those days was an open wooden platform under a canopy of Chinar trees protruding onto the river side. Ahdoos Hotel, Pestonji Building (now a huge mall) along with the white wooden horse & the Lloyd’s bank (now J&K Bank) were the other remarkable land marks. The forecourt of Capt. Prakash’s dental clinic (behind Lala Sheikh & sons, on the bund side, though it does not exist now) & the Srinagar Club, which again had a wooden jetty extending on to the river side, were other fascinating places.

From the Lloyd’s bank you could take a ‘shikara’ ride & cross the river Jehlum to reach the other side right in front of the Convent School.
During my lonely walks or walks with friends & later with my wife & subsequently with our daughter too (in a pram of course) we came across a poor ‘Gujjar’ gentleman, who would make his living by asking alms in the name of Allah from the passers-by. He had very sharp & distinct feature. He would sit in front of the Lloyd’s bank on a worn out jute mat looking for alms. This person was not a Kashmiri & to my understanding was either from Rajouri or Poonch. Every time we passed by him he would ask for one rupee as ‘bakshish’ from us. We too got habitual of him & would normally give him one rupee whenever we passed by. He was a pleasing personality with longish beard & trimmed moustaches in Muslim Gujjar style & would wear a white “pugri (turban)” tied in a circular shape on to his head. As time passed he also started keeping an account of our absence from walks, which was not very often & on subsequent dates he would ask us for the ‘arrears too’ saying that he had not received one rupee on a particular Thursday or Saturday or may be a Sunday. We also thought it better to keep him happy & would dispense with whatever calculations & amount he would ask for. So, our world on the bund was happy & mesmerizing & his world too seemed to be happy as he would always greet us with a very broad smile, ask us about our welfare, and then extend out his hand expecting a rupee. Occasionally, the convent school going girls, passers-by or shikarawallas would also drop a few coins into his extended hand.

And then the things started changing. Unknown to anyone, Kashmir was changing and tragically was not going to be the same again. Militancy started raising its head & knocking on the doors of the Kashmiris. Rapidly it became a movement, right or wrong, I leave it for the future historians to judge. Till date, however, it has caused mayhem & much of the blood has been shed of poor & innocent people. At the same time a lot many people have made it a thriving ‘business’. The death, the tragedy, the mayhem & the ‘business’ are all visible to a discerning eye, an eye that has seen various phases of Kashmir politics, the happy ones & the tragic ones too . Innumerable people have died & many more have lost their home & hearth. So many people have been crippled.

Kashmir is a unique place in the world where scars of militancy & economic development have more or less kept pace with each other.

Soon things started getting scary. Large scale violence, killings, firing, blasts, massive protests, shut downs & curfews became an everyday affair. Nights became scarier with loudspeakers from practically all mosques in the Valley simultaneously exhorting people to rise & join in the ‘struggle’. For them their ‘deliverance’ was expected to be the ‘very next day’. Every section of Kashmiri society was impacted. Our walks on the bund became infrequent. We preferred to stay home & that too in some corner where ‘nobody’ would ‘find us’. And one particular day, when I did venture out alone, I found that our acquaintance of such a long time had vanished from the bund, leaving his torn out jute mat behind. I was worried & not sure as to what had happened to him. This was early 1990.

Time passed, unprecedented things happened in Kashmir over a period of time & we found ourselves in Jammu.

This was 1992.

Summer had started making its presence felt. Me, my brother in law & one of our friends got down from matador bus near Vivekananda Chowk in Jammu on our way to Residency Road. We walked past the bifurcation point of the road that leads to Raghu Nath Temple & another in the direction of Kum Kum Sharma’s pathological lab. There was heavy rush of traffic. ‘Durbar’ was still in Jammu & there was a huge rush of people. People from every ethnicity of J&K together with ‘migrants’, those had arrived from Kashmir, could be seen on this stretch of the road. Some ‘migrants’ from Kashmir could be heard bemoaning their plight & others drying their forehead with handkerchiefs & towels. And mind you summer had not actually arrived in Jammu yet. One of the common discourse of the ‘migrants’ those days was that they owned multi-storeyed houses in Kashmir with orchards or beautifully laid out lawns where as in Jammu they were living like beggars in torn out tents provided by the Government. They would talk about it, which actually was true, without bothering if anyone was listening to them or not. You could hear this talk while travelling in buses, while shopping in market place or where ever you would find a group of people discussing something.  I thought this was their way of telling people that they were from well to do backgrounds & were not always like this. This was their way of asserting their identity. This was something like a child, who got admission to a new school, telling his classmates that he was a brilliant & friendly person with so many credentials to his credit.

We too were feeling uncomfortable with the heat & dust of Jammu & that too walking up the slope of this road.

From a distance, sitting under the shade of one of the buildings I saw a familiar figure. I tried to figure out who this was. He saw me too. He got up, came running towards me, stretched his hand out to shake mine & flung his arms to embrace me. It was unbelievable, we were in total embrace. My friend & brother-in-law were bewildered at the sight of a beggar embracing me & me responding too in an equal measure. For them it was an unkempt & untidy beggar embracing me but for two of us we were long lost friends of the Bund Srinagar. They could neither understand it , comprehend it, or believe it. Some passers-by also gathered around us for some moments as if trying to be a witness to the scene.

The same ‘Gujjar’ gentleman, with whom we had developed some sort of friendship while taking walks on the Bund, Srinagar was in total embrace with me & we were hugging each other. Tears swelled in his eyes. He was wearing the same ‘pugri’, wearing the same beard & moustaches & had similar worn out jute mat under his feet. He had same twinkle in his eyes. He enquired about the welfare of my wife & daughter & all other family members. He was pleased to know that all was fine with us & praised Allah several times for his mercy. I asked about him & his family. He had no family.

He told me that during one of the very violent demonstrations in the Srinagar city, during the month of January, he was lucky to have escaped from his perch on the Bund. There was firing somewhere & all hell broke loose. He had to run for his life. He had to walk several kilometres to reach the other side of Jawahar Tunnel to safety. From Banihal he could find a bus that brought him to Jammu. While escaping the Valley he had to pass through or sometimes alongside the demonstrators & many a times walk on the roads that were completely empty because of curfew restrictions. He was thoroughly frisked by security forces at several places & non availability of an identity card did not make things easy for him. He also heard sound of gun shots & blasts at several places during his journey to Banihal. In some places he was able to get a lift in auto or pickup van from some kind hearted people for short distances. Some policemen too gave him a lift in their jeep for short hauls.

After narrating his story he squatted on to his torn out jute mat once again, extended his hand out & once again started asking for ‘bakshish’ in the name of Allah!!! How could have I disappointed him. How could I have disappointed him, this ‘Gujjar’ friend of mine, my old acquaintance & well-wisher from the Bund, Srinagar.