24

Dear Readers,

                    Happy Eid! I am always waiting for the Bakr Eid. It is one of my most sought after festivals and no marks for guessing why! the sumptuous food that it brings along with the celebrations whets my spiritual appetite. The kebabs, haleems, siris, payas, shorbas and the paka goshts all send me to a transcendental abode .

               Unfortunately, today was a dismal Eid for me. Had it been Delhi, Jaipur or Jodhpur, I would have certainly clinched an invitation from any of my friends to visit their dastarkhwans and gorge on the delicacies prepared with much care and diligence. In Bikaner, however, things were a bit challenging. Of the few acquaintances I have developed here during the course of my stay , only three were generous enough to accept  anything close to an invitation to feast.

               None the less, I set out on my task meticulously. I jotted down their numbers on a sheet of paper and cleared my throat before wishing them in a charming voice. The first call was attended by the contact's wife who informed me that my prospective host is out of town. The second number was switched off and I persistently kept on calling him for the next 18 minutes lest he would be awakened from his slumber. Actually, I wanted to avoid a hat-trick in quick succession. 

                The third call got connected and I could sense the tension in my mind soaring. A thin line hung between a satiate stomach and a craving belly. The time had come to know what Allah had ordained. This gentleman gave an exquisite excuse of being unable to invite me over. He informed that his entire family was in turn invited by some affluent relations staying at Fatehpur. 

                 Due to the near absence of any decent non-veg restaurant in this town, I was left with no hope. In the end, I had to contend with some dal-roti. How I wish there could be a third Eid called the Ghas-phus Eid so that vermicelli and lamb never got so over-rated!!

23

Dear Readers, 

                   I came across an interesting article in today's newspaper supplement of Dainik Bhaskar. It carried the story of Babur's( the first Mughal Emperor) death. What enticed me the most was an account of how the Mughals took possession of the world famous Koh-i-Noor diamond before it fell into the hands of Persian invader Nadir Shah in AD 1739.

                        It so happened that on the eve of Babur's invasion of India, Raja Vikramaditya was ruling over Gwalior. This Rajput ruler had amassed a lot of wealth which included the prized diamond. After the first battle of  Panipat, Mughal forces under Humayun succeeded in defeating Vikramaditya who was killed and his family, consisting of his wife, son and two daughters, was put under house arrest. 

                        Bais Beg, a Mughal commander, was in charge of security of the vanquished. Overpowered by lust, he made an advance at one of the beautiful princesses in response to which he was slain by her brother. A characteristically benevolent Humayun upheld this act of chivalry and ensured the further safety and honor of the Rajputs by meting out adequate punishment to the complicit others. Such a magnanimous gesture was acknowledged with full elegance by gifting the Mughal prince that jewel of jewels. The article did not mention the source of this information. 

                             Again, we see that throughout the medieval times, there were many cases when religion was relegated to the background in face of preserving honor and grace. 

22 Thaker Seedhayo!

Dear Readers,
             In remembrance of Thakur Shri Vijay Karan As Karan Arha, Thikana Panchetiya, R.H.J.S.(retd.), Former Legal Secretary to Legislative Assembly of Rajasthan.

                    To loose a dear one is one of the most bitter experiences this ruthless life teaches you. Such a grave personal loss is often indescribable. Leave alone a coherent expression of words, one cannot even put together his/her thoughts in a cogent form. I lost my revered and beloved grandfather yesterday. I could muster up the courage to write a few words about this loss only because of having already gone through the trauma of facing two untimely deaths in my family recently. 

                     I do not wish to write about how much I loved my grandfather. The currency of the word "love" is grossly undervalued in my economy. I would like to tell you how he inspired me to be a great man like all grandfathers do viz. a viz. their grandchildren. My grandfather was a Hakim in the service of the state of Marwar before Independence and later on became a judge in the state of Rajasthan. When in his finest mood, he would narrate stories from his legal career regarding curious cases. 

                     A fabian Socialist and a Gandhivadi, he was a man of principles and a practitioner of upright honesty like many of his generation who had suffered a few blows of British Raj lathis in their student days before witnessing the epic scene of the tiranga being unfurled from over the Red fort in Delhi. He was one of the few scholars from the state of Marwar to have obtained a prestigious legal education from Agra College. Back in my village, Panchetiya, I became his die-hard fan when he would ask dalits and non-Thakurs to have a seat on a chair and not sit on the floor as was the custom. He used to say, " The worst of  democracies is better than the best of monarchies".

                      I owe my passion for history to him. I had dedicated my M.Phil dissertation to him and he had tears rolling down his eyes when I showed it to him. He made me aware about the glorious past of my family  along with its pitfalls and tragedies. He introduced me to Dickens, Keats, Shelly, Tagore, Marx, Gandhi, Durso, Carl Popper, Russell, Hegel and then his greatest gift to me ever, two volumes of short stories by Chekhov. Data, as I call him, you will remain with me till my dying day as I will lie in my death bed remembering the vision of your nimble fingers turning another page of the text called life.....   . 

21

Dear Readers,

                    Such a pleasure it is to hang out with junior members of your alma mater. Today, I met two of mine and enjoyed an unwinding dinner with them atop the terrace restaurant at Harasar Havelli. We talked at length about the changes that have creeped into our adorable campuses that make life so different from what it used to be. Then we surveyed each other's travel extravagances and future itineraries only to feel more jealous of one another.

                     It was startling to learn from one of my friends that she had to face a lot of problems while using the archives at Jodhpur and Bikaner. She held the stark cultural differences between urbane Delhi and rustic small towns of western Rajasthan responsible for much of her mental harassment( This has got absolutely nothing to do with the name of the restaurant I mentioned above).  Well! All I could do was to give her a glimpse into the psyche of Rajasthani men.

                      On later deliberation,  I realised that in any culture where women are suppressed and subdued and where patriarchy is the driving principle of the society, men would naturally exhibit double standards regarding their orientaion towards the opposite sex. They would want women to 'cover' themselves up failing which they would have to become targets of uncouth aggression. The remedy lies in making the menfolk more aware by means of sensitising education. 

                      

20

Dear Readers, 

                   I just returned from Goa after a fulfilling holiday. The tranquil effect of watching the Sun go down across the horizon while swimming deep into the intimidating ocean is beyond expression. And on the way back while swimming ashore, one is beckoned with a gorgeous view of dark land lit up here and there with electricity against the background of a sky painted in various tinctures.  

                 I am utterly surprised by the question that what is it in there that makes each visit a fresh excursion and leaves an everlasting impression that is unique in its own capacity? I have been fortunate enough to visit Goa several times. After the exuberance of Dil Chahta Hai (a huge hit flick of Amir Khan) showed us the way to the fountain of youth for the first time in 2001, me and my friends have explored Goa time and again. The familiarity has grown so much that most of the roads and ways are embedded deep into the layers of my mind alike the format of a digital 3-D map. Quite often I dream about incidents happening to me at fixed spots enroute from , may be say Baga beach to Anjuna or from Panjim to Palolem beach!

                       Once again as always, I would make a recourse to history. Maybe the serendipity of Goa lies in its chequered past. If you look up for the history of Goa , you would realise what a patch of land it has been on the western coast of the Indian sub-continent since the last 10,000 years? Whereas the Vedic literature testifies to the spiritual effect of Govapuri, the life of Goan Buddist monk Purna( who happened to be a direct disciple of the Buddha) proves how promising this land has been to the seeker. Goa has been the home of a range of communities - Konkanis, Sumerians, Aryans, Dravidians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Portuguese etc whereas people from different regions around the world have visited it since millennia- Gujarat, Bengal, Kerala, Malaysia, Indonesia, Africa, China to name a few. My dear land of promise, untill we meet next, let me soak myself in your radiance....