An artist presented me with a beautiful portrait he had made of Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708). I hung it in my red room.
I tried to recollect appropriate lines by him to put under the painting. I had translated a few of his verses but was too lazy to search for them in my four room library. Every time I sat in my cushioned arm chairs, I tried to recall the lines and ask Harjeet Charanjit Singh to get them reproduced on a slab of wood which could be attached to the painting.
Before she could do it, the current issue of The Sikh Review, edited by Saran Singh and published from Kolkata had them on its first page with my translation as well as that of Professor Harnam Singh Shan, who died a few months ago. The coincidence has baffled me. How on earth could Saran Singh get to know what was in my mind?
Mitr pyaarey noon haal mureedan da kahna
Tudh bin rog rajaayan tha odhan, naag nivaasan da rehna
Sool, surahi, khanjar pyala, bing kasaavaan da sahna
Yaar rag da sanoo satthar changs, bhatt khereyan da rehna
Beloved friend, beloved God,
You must hear Thy servant’s plight
When thou are not near,
The comforts cloak is a pall of pest;
The home is like a serpent’s nest;
The wine chokes like a hangman’s noose
The rim of the goblet is an assassins knife
With Thee shall I in adversity dwell
Without Thee, life of ease is life in hell.
Can anyone explain how such miracles happen?
Thanedar poet
For some weeks a collection of poems by Fayyaz Farooqui, DIG Police, Punjab has been on my working desk beside me entitled Thora Sa Main (Little bit of me) published by the Faiz Ahmed Faiz Literary Foundation. His picture on the jacket makes him out like a handsome, powerfully built man. I used it, put my glass of Scotch on it every evening. And every evening read the couplet composed by him.
Ghar jo bharna hai to rishvat say bhee bhar jaata hai
Haan magar iss sey duaaon ka asarjeata hai
If you wish to fill your house, you can do so by corrupt means, but by doing so deprive it of all blessings.
Every time I took a sip of my Single Malt, I asked him “Thanedar Sahib, kis duniya mein rahtey ho — What world do you live in?” Then one evening I thought I was being very unfair to him. There must be a few homes built by honest people. So I dipped into his collection. It reads well. I wish he had a version in Devnagri alongside the Urdu.
Iranian gift
We depend heavily on Iran to sell us enough oil for our industries, trains and road transport. Apparently, Iranians have more than oil to sell. I take the liberty for quoting this from the latest issue of Private Eye of London:
“We do not recommend penile tattooing,” doctors from the University of Medical Sciences in Karmanshah (Iran) told a press conference, “and his case clearly demonstrates why not. On arrival, the twenty-one-year old patient told us that he had wanted to impress his girlfriend, so he had asked a tattoo artist to tattoo the phrase ‘borow be salaamat’ (good luck with your journeys) onto his penis, along with his girlfriend’s initial, M. Unfortunately, the hand held needle penetrated the penis too deeply, creating an arteriovenous fistula between an artery and a vein, and for eight days the penis was painful and there were no erections. But after that the patient noticed longer-than usual sleep-related erections, which progressed within a week to a constantly half-rigid penis, day and night. At that point he came to us.
“We diagnosed a nonischemic priapism, with blood filling the penis faster than it could leave, meaning that the pressure remained constant and the penis permanently erect. In 62 per cent of cases, the problem resolves itself naturally after a few days, but when it doesn’t we recommend selective arterial embolism to block the offending artery. However, the patient instead chose to have a shunt implanted, to drain excess blood.
“Predictably this procedure was unsuccessful, but because of the painless nature of erections, and good preservation of erectile function during intercourse, the patient has since declined to undergo further treatment, and says he has no regrets about the tattooing, despite his permanent erection.”