Oh! Such a sad tale, full of pathos and foreboding. I was so moved that I went into active depression for a couple of days.

This is a supposed narrative that Sultana gave of his life to a white Sahib the night before he was supposed to be hung.

It makes for great reading because it seems that Robin Hood has come alive again. Sultana is a charismatic bhantu outcaste who has no other choice but to rob and thieve, such is the abject poverty that he is born into. This book is set in the backdrop of the non-cooperation 20's, probably just after the Chauri-Chaura incident.

The author narrates the events in Sultana's life and his love for his Phoolkanwar(a nautanki girl) so well that one is moved to will him to survive this night! At the end, we can sense the despair of Sultana and the distrust of the white Sahib towards all Indians. The climax is quite gripping. This book is a must read for all those who think on how Dakus have arisen in India.

To get more from Mr. Saraf, please visit his website

...and our memories hear that man in parliament on that midnight hour when India fulfilled its tryst with destiny. O what a long hard march this has been! We have broken away from the passion of the founding years and the hatred of partition to finally found a nation; a binding pact with each other. Let my countrymen rejoice, for a moment that does come but rarely in history has come again! The shackles of caste and creed; of differences among cultures and classes have finally been cleansed away, not wholly but in substantial measure.
This country, my brethren! This country that makes one cry in ecstasy and in pain, all at once! This country!
Alive is my heart again with the hope of tomorrows when we will awaken with our hopes untrammeled and dreams almost realized.
We will hear ditties written about how the common man voted for secularism and decent democracy and some of us will believe them. Bully for them!
I know why we voted the government back into power. It has to do with that “vision thing”; the one the Republicans in the USA completely forgot about after Mr. Bush the elder. What vision does Ms. Mayawati bring to the table other than good old caste politics? What does the left bring other than old beat-up tomes by Lenin and, even worse, by Stalin? What does the saffron brigade bring other than the desire for a Ram Rajya that Lord Ram would recoil from?
There is another little thing; it’s the idea once again gaining currency that we need to provide for all of us to be able to “India Shining”. A few millionaires do not a nation make! The particular devotion of the Congress to at least attempt to address the folks in the rapidly diminishing subsistence agriculture industry is heartening.
In these perilous times, we need stable slightly-soiled-dhoti based governance. Mr. Singh is a man of great decency and dignity apart from being one of the greatest economists of our age. We also have another man of destiny showing us that the genes of Nehru are rather potent and will skip a generation here and there but will come good eventually. The young bucks, the starry-eyed idealists, are in the Congress, not in any of the new regional parties. I can’t believe that this has happened. Not in our wildest had we imagined this tantalizing a state of affairs.
We should have known that this would happen when we braced ourselves for the usual communal violence after 26/11 and our world did not erupt in blood. We should have known when we saw the “squaring of the shoulders-get back to work” attitude when the economy was in some disarray. After hundreds of years and many tyrants, we have got our mojo back!

Why is it that collateral damage is so heavy in times of war? Has no one, not even the great Sun Tzu ever pondered about the horrors visited on the non-combatants in battles not of their choosing or making?

In fact, many thinkers, military strategists and humanists have thought just such dark thoughts and come up with ideas that seem to be so inapplicable today. I was perusing a lovely book that came quite close to what I feel war should be confined to. Mr. Ramo, in his new book, The Age of the Unthinkable, writes quite well and really puts out interesting and bold ideas. He does seem to be a rather serious fan of Sun Tzu and sometimes seems to elaborate on themes a little less than we want him to. However, his idea of using war as a nudging device to get people to understand your point of view or else....
is not that bad an idea.
Think of Afghanistan now for a moment. There is no need to set drones onto the population in the hopes that the Taliban will be cowed by them. If we were to engage them in other ways like stopping the supply of milk to certain parts of the country until certain demands were met, we would have a better and less deadly weapon. The harvest of poppy is very useful to them. I cannot believe that we can't do a deal with Iran and stop that supply chain or significantly hinder it so that these boys don't get their toys(guns and hashish).
Instead we go on bombing in an act of wanton stupidity....

How did this utensil come to be? One can understand a knife since human beings rarely have the teeth to slice through meat. One could also understand a fork; it’s just a knife with another blade really. If you are a hunter-gatherer, why would you think of scooping anything? Further, even if you were so inclined, what is there to scoop? Precious little, except for a few gourds here and there!!!

They say spoons are as old as civilization itself. They were probably made using shells in olden times and then gradually came to be made of wood chips and other material later. They also say that this evolution is rather innocuous and those who question it are unsound of brain and belong in an asylum.

That is what they say!

However, I think this spoon is the devil’s work!
I will present a few unassailable truths quite confirming this hypothesis and putting paid to this shell-wood chip nonsense!
1. Notice how beautiful is the curvature of the lever. Everything beautiful has some of the devil’s work in it since there is a desire for it in the minds of the populace. Desire, as we know leads to all sorts of grief.

2. We know that the spoon rapidly became a much used tool at that cradle of civilization; Mesopotamia. That is because grain farming became popular after the sons of Cain killed Abel and his progeny. There is no other good way to eat rice and porridge without a spoon. So you see, the spoon started our road to hell. I bet the devil came by a farmer’s house; gave him this device and told him to kill until the earth bleeds! Bleeds other people’s gold that is.

3. All empires have started out when the Gods (or was it the devil in disguise) demanded offering of oatmeal and rice. Someone has to feed them and the Egyptians were quite adept at it. We are still digging up all kinds of propitiatory spoons from the valley of kings.

4. The embrace of Christianity did not end the dreaded reign of the spoon. People started giving away christening spoons as opposed to keeping this demon’s spawn at bay. Th charlatan doctors would prescribe medicinal syrup to be taken out of a silver spoon since silver is antibacterial.

5. The silver spoons that were quite the rage in the Middle Ages had their silver mined in Potosí, the horrible mine that killed many native Quechua while mining for the Spaniards.

Now we use plastic spoons which are fashioned out of oil products…and the imperium of the spoon chugs smoothly on.

What sad times we live in that we have to look to genius alone for inspiration. The misery of all those who live around the Durand Line is hard to see.

On the one hand are the murderous warlords who force people to grow poppy in some cases and sell it on at atrocious prices. On the other is the military might of the most powerful empire the world has known pushing them to stop such cultivation.

Add into the mix those thugs that pose as men of God, come to think of it, many so-called men of God have turned out to be thugs in disguise.

When will this end!! When will the Badshah come again, is the plaintive cry.

It is hard to understand that Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan actually lived in much rougher times in a very rough area of the world. This man fought the Brits as only a true "Mard" can; a battle of wills that left them pondering the hypocrisy of their empire.
This man used no guns, no virulent abuse, all he did as a Khudai Khidmatgar was help people. How can such men exist? If it is adversity that produces them, there should be 10 Badshah Khan's now.

My heart cries out for such great souls who by their mere being, make us all look good; even though they be tucked away in the musty pages of history.

Outliers: The Story of Success

by Malcolm Gladwell

So now we have another book by Mr. Gladwell that gently reminds us that a lot of what we do in life depends on our hard work and some completely random opportunities.

He goes on to internalize this concept to include how his family enjoyed certain privileges as a result of chance and some very enlightened hard work.

This book really tells you that you need to put in 10,000 hours at something that you have already exhibited considerable amateurish skills. There go my chances of making billions!!!

Playing the enemy

by John Carlin

This is a book that truly inspires. I think the author wants to deliberately focus on the Rugby World Cup of 1995 and the rapprochement that it wrought between ordinary black and white South Africans. He chooses to completely disregard the Inkatha-ANC violence in the context of a power shift and focuses on how Mandela won the white South Africans over to the idea of a "rainbow nation". Reading these books makes you want to cry out for the same sensibility in other societies torn by violence and hatred.

I think this group of folks who formed the first government of post-apartheid South Africa were an absolutely exceptional group. Walter Sisulu, Bishop Tutu, Cyril Ramaphosa, Uncle Thabo et al are very good folks compared to the surrounding statesmen of Africa. Of course, Mandiba Mandela's role was the key to the thaw in relations between the various white and black communities.

Back to the book at hand. It is a truly inspiring work that seeks to look at various personalities at all levels of society in South Africa and explains their transformation in their own words.

Read this and go to sleep dreaming better dreams. Tomorrow will look rosier...

When times are tough most of us would yield to visceral fears,rather than move to dispel them by sensible and compassionate behavior. I was just perusing my Facebook connections and I found that several of my friends had changed their middle names to Hussein, just to chide some of us who find significance in such baseless and tribal identities.

I admire such people and feel that by such a small act, they have made a significant gesture towards denting the "us" and "them" game that is being played in some Republican circles. I have read some ghastly, stupid, and downright racist viral mail coming out of that camp.

It is a reminder to us all of how much decency exists even in such troubled times. To talk of such decency, please see this endorsement of Mr. Obama by Gen. Colin Powell.

It is quite ironic that the word "Hussein" is derived from "husn" meaning beauty. This word literally means "beautiful little one".

We have often heard the refrain that goes like this "let them come to power and then they will become more lenient/tolerant/inclusive....". It is mostly true on past evidence, however the baying of hounds can never be really quelled. Please read this article.

I do understand that the NY times is a leftie rag but the point is well made. The fact that black supremacists took over the civil rights agenda has hurt this society very much. Perhaps not as much as the KKK but the difference is merely of degree, not of kind.

If Maharashtra and Mumbai in particular, lets Messrs. Thackeray and other divisive groups continue to set the agenda, the 1000 point drop in the market today will seem pleasant in comparison to the loss of social structure and camaraderie among the various different folk that make Mumbai tick. As Indians, all we have really is the "idea" that is India. Sing the national anthem to yourself and you will get a similar perspective. Yes, we belong to an ancient and very powerful( in terms of moulding us together) Hindu culture, but it takes but a few bombs, a dozen epithets, a few lynchings to destroy decades of civility and decency.

Some would even argue that we first need to build up some acceptable organic social fabric before we talk of the damage to the same. We have been too taken with the idea of mutual "tolerance". I hate this word with a passion because today's tolerance is tomorrow's genocide. We need to build among us, pockets of affection, slowly, sometimes painfully, one person at a time.

This Diwali, I feel scared that some would seek to disrupt the festive spirit by sowing more discord and dissent among us. I pray that we can all dedicate ourselves to the ultimate triumph of Good over evil. I do not mean in a violent way. Look upon it as the forming of a pearl in an oyster. It takes decades but the intruding piece of garbage is moulded to a beautiful and precious thing. Let us hope that our disagreements are like that and that we like each other for our values rather than in spite of them.

Have a Blessed Diwali!!

It is amazing how we can trace the history of this bird through the myths of various religions and ideologies. It catches the fancy in mysterious ways for such an unassuming bird.

It is considered to be the bird that was the special messenger from King Solomon to the Queen of Sheba in Jewish/Muslim folklore. Ustad Fariduddin Attar in his famous "Conference of the Birds" , names it the wisest of birds and all the other birds regard it as the carrier of Solomon's wisdom.

This little creature with just a crest to its name has lots of fame. It is revered in Chinese poetry as a celestial messenger often bearing news of the spring and features in Aristophanes work too.

One could argue that Aristophanes work and Ustad Attar works draws from similiar sources as both regard the Hoopoe as the King of Birds. How did these legends and fables from far away sources get so mixed together?

This little bird has a connection to ancient Egypt too. It is depicted as a spectre of Horus that indicates joy and affection. There are friezes of the bird in delightful color in some of the ancient tombs too.

What is the story of Oz but a stylized description in the modern literary way, an adaptation of both these works. I do doubt that the Wizard of Oz was ever penned in the knowledge of this tale of a group of radically different but very similar characters searching for a King's/Wizard's healing touch.

All this about a little innocuous bird....

Urdu Poetry Archive

Without its poetry, Urdu struggles to survive. Its poetry, be it Ghalib,Iqbal, Faiz or Majaaz makes it a transcendental means of communication.

Enjoy the link above.

Vintage Tea Leaf

This is a great place to have tea in the afternoon. We usually go on any empty stomach so we can enjoy their scruptious sandwiches and lovely tea.

Tomorrow we are going again with friends and hope to have fun.

Right near by in Long Beach is Acre of Books, on 240 Long Beach Blvd. What a lovely bookstore this is.

Have a great weekend!

There is so much fighting going on about renting or buying one's home in Los Angeles that one can take very extreme positions either way.

However this wonderful article in NY times explains things rather well and dispassionately.

A very worthy read, I think

We went and got a Philips HDTV and now are in the process of getting DishNetwork to give us a good deal on the pricing. This whole duopoly that the satellite providers providers enjoy is one of those wonderful problems inherent in an economy where certain costs, though inherently variable, are actually fixed by the "standard of living" principle.

For our ease, we need


Microwave Oven
Conventional Oven
Dishwasher
Laundromat
Cable TV
Fan or A/C depending on the climate
Cell Phone
Massive Beds
DSL connection

All these costs are inherent in any living condition in California. Curiously, one finds that some of these have become so much of a part of life that they are not even included in this list. Central heating, for example.

For every few years,we add to this list. One could argue that a digital video recorder is part of this list now. I mean, I love mine and cannot abide by ads on TV anymore.

So, the more we buy and consume and don't save, such duopoly's can charge whatever they can get away with. What a great business to be in!

Today we start to talk about Hajj and the best books that will lead you to ponder over this absolutely cataclysmic event in your life. Please prepare your mind for an immersion in something that you have an idea about but no clear view of, if it is your first Hajj.

Please also be aware that all reading and looking up terms and prayers stands meaningless when you stand at Arafat or make your Tawaf around the Kaaba. No Dua matters, only your heart beats to a rhythm that you can not identify later. Faith, takes over...and for those like I, who question their faith repeatedly it is a watershed event where doubts do not strangle your mind and, thoughts though they do stray, are more often focussed on the Talbiyah than on anything else. Even the delirium of fever can be a blessing in disguise.

So dear prospective Hajji, read but reflect more..

1. HAJJ: Reflection on Its Rituals by Ali Shariati

Dr. Shariati presents a very esoteric but practical explanation of Hajj and its rituals and how they are grounded in the myths of our Deen. Almost a Sufi style of writing.

2. One Thousand Roads to Mecca: Ten Centuries of Travelers Writing About the Muslim Pilgrimage by Michael Wolfe

You will find yourself very much in tune with other Hajjis of ages gone by. Some went in good times and others in times that were bad for the Ummah. All underwent considerable hardships quite akin to your own.