Sajan-re jhoot mat bolo
Khuda-ke paas jaana hai
Na hathi hai na ghoda hai
Waha paidal-hi jaana hai
=========================================================
Khuda-ke paas jaana hai
Na hathi hai na ghoda hai
Waha paidal-hi jaana hai
Those lyrical lines are from a Raj Kapoor - Wahida blockbuster of my youth, Teesri Khasam.
Roughly they mean:
"Stop telling guls...you've got to go meet your Maker...neither elephants nor horses carry you...you've got to walk all the way there".
Easier said than done.
***********************************************************************************************************
And then there was this fratricidal Kurukhetra War. At the beginning of the War when Arjun gets cold feet, his B-i-L Lord Krishna takes a couple of precious hours preaching the entire Gita with Cosmic Delusions, trying to encourage Arjun to commit murder and mayhem regardless. And Gita starts with the words: "Dharmakshetre Kurukshetre", meaning,
"At Kurukshetra, the Land of Just War".
But as everyone knows, what transpires is anything but a just war...all trickery and skulduggery encouraged by Krishna himself who believed apparently in the Maoist Slogan: "The fair end justifies the foul means".
And so even that Personifcation of Dharma (Dharma Raja), Yudhistir, had to utter a deafening lie: "Ashwathama hataha Kunjaraha" meaning: "Aswathama (Drona's son) is dead..I mean the elephant". The italicized last words that it was the elephant so named that died was drowned by the din of so many conspiratorial mind-blowing conchs.
By this childish artifice Yudhistir tried to escape Hell...but the Mills of God grind slowly but they grind fine..and Yudhistir had to by and by pay a small price for his half-truth...gul.
Yudhistir did much worse things like betting on his innocent but fiery wife Draupadi...but he wasn't convicted of it perhaps because like in our friendly neighborhood Saracenic culture, women those days were supposed to be the chattel of men.
Also, as our Autocrat wisely says: "Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all".
Anyway at the end of it all, the five Pandava brothers who survived the Holy War intact decide to walk up Mt Everest where a helicopter was waiting to take them to Heaven (waha paidal-hi jaana hai).
Midway they discover that a black dog was following them tirelessly, just to invigilate that they don't cheat.
One after the other, four of the brothers, in the reverse chronological order (against all Actuary Tables of our LIC) drop dead of exhaustion.
The only survivors were Yudhistir and the doggie.
Indra, the Pilot of the Heaven-bound helicopter congratulates Yudhistir on his feat and invites him to take his seat in the Business Class; but Yudhistir insists that the doggie also should be accommodated in the Economy Class ('Cattle Class' of our kicked-out Central MoS).
This pleases the doggie so immensely that he reveals himself in his true colors as Yama, the Lord of Death, and incidentally the DNA-Father of Yudhistir.
Yama, whose painful duty it is to deliver sentences, pronounces that Yudhistir may be flown to Heaven where he can cool his burning heels, but he should be routed through the Other Place, just to show what he escaped, and also as a mild punishment for his gul about that dead elephant fortuitously named Aswathama.
So goes the happy ending of the unhappy Holy War.
You may wonder why Yama, the Lord of Death, took the shape of a dog and not any other animal or bird. The short answer is: "Why not? You will raise this question whichever shape He takes"...there must be a word for this conundrum in Logic...is it syllogism?
But Yama is rather fond of dogs (like Thurber). He employs two of them called: Syama (the dark) by night and Syabala (the multicolored) by day to go around snooping whose time is up. I am not joking...look up Chandogya Upanishad VIII.13.1 or Rig Veda X.14.10-12 or Kausitaki Upanishad 1.2.2.
*************************************************************************************************************
From our good old Khairatabad Apartment we moved to this Red Fort last Friday.
My son requires 24 / 7 infallible internet connection for his job which is 'Eat your fill and take-away Home'.
At Khairatabad we had BSNL Broadband which was good enough when it didn't rain. Whenever it went phut, my intimate lineman @ BSNL who is a cell-phone call away used to run in to rectify it leaving everything else aside just to win my benign bounteous smile.
The first thing we did on Friday was to locate the Seva-Office to find out if we could transfer our BSNL connection here. They smiled and said: "NO; 3-in-1 service here is leased out exclusively to BB which gives super-efficient 24-hour (wi-fi + Cable TV + Landline Phone) dirt cheap for 20 years".
Unlike the old-maid US, ours is a nascent Baby Market Economy, kicking and thriving like Ishani, unmindful of things like Monopoly & Restrictive Trade Practices Act which are on the books as mere show pieces.
They took Rs 2600 in advance and the Boss of BB (BBB) smilingly assured us that by Saturday Evening, his Boy will come and lo! and behold! with his magic wand give us the 20/365/24/7 connection.
As you can expect, nothing happened on Saturday. On Sunday morning my son rang up BBB and got the irritated reply that we are not the only onion in his sambar and there is a long waiting line. But by repeated phone calls one of his Boys did arrive late in the evening and struggled and gave a temporary wi-fi connection saying that Cable TV and Landline will take a few more days.
But ladies want TV urgently and so on Monday morning my son could get hold of another of BBB's Boys who came and found that Cable TV requires another Device (Router) and so replaced the earlier one.
TV was blaring in all its colorful glory but my son found on Monday morning that wi-fi is gone.
Frantic phone calls elicited no response and my son was getting jittery because his new US Boss would be wondering what happened to his new PM, Shreenath, whom he recruited with such love and affection.
Phone calls by the dozen assured us that the Boy was just 15 minutes away. Several 15 minutes of tap-dancing-boys went past and by 9 PM my son wanted to go and attack whosoever was manning the so-called 24/7 BB Office.
I told my son that the Golden Rule when you are going out in a fractious mood is to take an accomplice as witness and moderator; and I offered my golden services learned the hard way in Marxist Bengal.
When we reached the BB Office it was desolate but for a bag waiting to go home inside a locked door.
My son wanted to give up the whole thing and resign but I told him that the bag was a give-away that some Boy would surely arrive.
And Mr M came duly, smoking and whistling a recent melody.
He saw us and tried to slip away; but bag is a Bag while cigar is mere smoke.
I asked my son to go home and let me handle this thing.
As Mr M opened the door I charged in and grabbed the only chair there and sat down on it saying as if his was the next move.
Mr M said that 1302 in Block 14 was not his Duty Ticket but Mr Y's.
I asked him to produce Mr Y then and there. He said Y has gone home. I then told him that I would wait in the chair and he can lock up and go home and find my dead body or Y next morning whichever is earlier.
M then said he wasn't going home but would lock up and go to 1305 in Block 12 where they were waiting for him.
I got up and said: "Chalo, let us go there".
He just didn't know how to cope with this mad old goon and had to pretend to go to Block 12 lugging his heavy bag and me following him like the Devil. He would stop every half minute and look back and I would do the same. After 6 such vain attempts to throw me off his scent, he led me to our place to my utter surprise.
Dogged Pursuit prevailed.
He then entered our Hall, and cursing me profanely under his breath, took one good hour to rectify both wi-fi and TV, and sweating, he said the Landline will take a couple more days.
I asked my wife to fetch a glass of cool Sprite, made him sit down, and told my son:
"Sonny, compose an eloquent e-mail to the Biggest Boss of BB (BBBB) giving a Glorious Reco and Testimonial for this young chap Mr M under your PM (TR) signature right away, show it to him, and post him a copy".
The glass of Sprite spilled, and as my son quickly composed his Reco and showed it to him, Mr M got up, went to the desk, and in 5 minutes got us the Landline too....
Roughly they mean:
"Stop telling guls...you've got to go meet your Maker...neither elephants nor horses carry you...you've got to walk all the way there".
Easier said than done.
***********************************************************************************************************
And then there was this fratricidal Kurukhetra War. At the beginning of the War when Arjun gets cold feet, his B-i-L Lord Krishna takes a couple of precious hours preaching the entire Gita with Cosmic Delusions, trying to encourage Arjun to commit murder and mayhem regardless. And Gita starts with the words: "Dharmakshetre Kurukshetre", meaning,
"At Kurukshetra, the Land of Just War".
But as everyone knows, what transpires is anything but a just war...all trickery and skulduggery encouraged by Krishna himself who believed apparently in the Maoist Slogan: "The fair end justifies the foul means".
And so even that Personifcation of Dharma (Dharma Raja), Yudhistir, had to utter a deafening lie: "Ashwathama hataha Kunjaraha" meaning: "Aswathama (Drona's son) is dead..I mean the elephant". The italicized last words that it was the elephant so named that died was drowned by the din of so many conspiratorial mind-blowing conchs.
By this childish artifice Yudhistir tried to escape Hell...but the Mills of God grind slowly but they grind fine..and Yudhistir had to by and by pay a small price for his half-truth...gul.
Yudhistir did much worse things like betting on his innocent but fiery wife Draupadi...but he wasn't convicted of it perhaps because like in our friendly neighborhood Saracenic culture, women those days were supposed to be the chattel of men.
Also, as our Autocrat wisely says: "Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all".
Anyway at the end of it all, the five Pandava brothers who survived the Holy War intact decide to walk up Mt Everest where a helicopter was waiting to take them to Heaven (waha paidal-hi jaana hai).
Midway they discover that a black dog was following them tirelessly, just to invigilate that they don't cheat.
One after the other, four of the brothers, in the reverse chronological order (against all Actuary Tables of our LIC) drop dead of exhaustion.
The only survivors were Yudhistir and the doggie.
Indra, the Pilot of the Heaven-bound helicopter congratulates Yudhistir on his feat and invites him to take his seat in the Business Class; but Yudhistir insists that the doggie also should be accommodated in the Economy Class ('Cattle Class' of our kicked-out Central MoS).
This pleases the doggie so immensely that he reveals himself in his true colors as Yama, the Lord of Death, and incidentally the DNA-Father of Yudhistir.
Yama, whose painful duty it is to deliver sentences, pronounces that Yudhistir may be flown to Heaven where he can cool his burning heels, but he should be routed through the Other Place, just to show what he escaped, and also as a mild punishment for his gul about that dead elephant fortuitously named Aswathama.
So goes the happy ending of the unhappy Holy War.
You may wonder why Yama, the Lord of Death, took the shape of a dog and not any other animal or bird. The short answer is: "Why not? You will raise this question whichever shape He takes"...there must be a word for this conundrum in Logic...is it syllogism?
But Yama is rather fond of dogs (like Thurber). He employs two of them called: Syama (the dark) by night and Syabala (the multicolored) by day to go around snooping whose time is up. I am not joking...look up Chandogya Upanishad VIII.13.1 or Rig Veda X.14.10-12 or Kausitaki Upanishad 1.2.2.
*************************************************************************************************************
From our good old Khairatabad Apartment we moved to this Red Fort last Friday.
My son requires 24 / 7 infallible internet connection for his job which is 'Eat your fill and take-away Home'.
At Khairatabad we had BSNL Broadband which was good enough when it didn't rain. Whenever it went phut, my intimate lineman @ BSNL who is a cell-phone call away used to run in to rectify it leaving everything else aside just to win my benign bounteous smile.
The first thing we did on Friday was to locate the Seva-Office to find out if we could transfer our BSNL connection here. They smiled and said: "NO; 3-in-1 service here is leased out exclusively to BB which gives super-efficient 24-hour (wi-fi + Cable TV + Landline Phone) dirt cheap for 20 years".
Unlike the old-maid US, ours is a nascent Baby Market Economy, kicking and thriving like Ishani, unmindful of things like Monopoly & Restrictive Trade Practices Act which are on the books as mere show pieces.
They took Rs 2600 in advance and the Boss of BB (BBB) smilingly assured us that by Saturday Evening, his Boy will come and lo! and behold! with his magic wand give us the 20/365/24/7 connection.
As you can expect, nothing happened on Saturday. On Sunday morning my son rang up BBB and got the irritated reply that we are not the only onion in his sambar and there is a long waiting line. But by repeated phone calls one of his Boys did arrive late in the evening and struggled and gave a temporary wi-fi connection saying that Cable TV and Landline will take a few more days.
But ladies want TV urgently and so on Monday morning my son could get hold of another of BBB's Boys who came and found that Cable TV requires another Device (Router) and so replaced the earlier one.
TV was blaring in all its colorful glory but my son found on Monday morning that wi-fi is gone.
Frantic phone calls elicited no response and my son was getting jittery because his new US Boss would be wondering what happened to his new PM, Shreenath, whom he recruited with such love and affection.
Phone calls by the dozen assured us that the Boy was just 15 minutes away. Several 15 minutes of tap-dancing-boys went past and by 9 PM my son wanted to go and attack whosoever was manning the so-called 24/7 BB Office.
I told my son that the Golden Rule when you are going out in a fractious mood is to take an accomplice as witness and moderator; and I offered my golden services learned the hard way in Marxist Bengal.
When we reached the BB Office it was desolate but for a bag waiting to go home inside a locked door.
My son wanted to give up the whole thing and resign but I told him that the bag was a give-away that some Boy would surely arrive.
And Mr M came duly, smoking and whistling a recent melody.
He saw us and tried to slip away; but bag is a Bag while cigar is mere smoke.
I asked my son to go home and let me handle this thing.
As Mr M opened the door I charged in and grabbed the only chair there and sat down on it saying as if his was the next move.
Mr M said that 1302 in Block 14 was not his Duty Ticket but Mr Y's.
I asked him to produce Mr Y then and there. He said Y has gone home. I then told him that I would wait in the chair and he can lock up and go home and find my dead body or Y next morning whichever is earlier.
M then said he wasn't going home but would lock up and go to 1305 in Block 12 where they were waiting for him.
I got up and said: "Chalo, let us go there".
He just didn't know how to cope with this mad old goon and had to pretend to go to Block 12 lugging his heavy bag and me following him like the Devil. He would stop every half minute and look back and I would do the same. After 6 such vain attempts to throw me off his scent, he led me to our place to my utter surprise.
Dogged Pursuit prevailed.
He then entered our Hall, and cursing me profanely under his breath, took one good hour to rectify both wi-fi and TV, and sweating, he said the Landline will take a couple more days.
I asked my wife to fetch a glass of cool Sprite, made him sit down, and told my son:
"Sonny, compose an eloquent e-mail to the Biggest Boss of BB (BBBB) giving a Glorious Reco and Testimonial for this young chap Mr M under your PM (TR) signature right away, show it to him, and post him a copy".
The glass of Sprite spilled, and as my son quickly composed his Reco and showed it to him, Mr M got up, went to the desk, and in 5 minutes got us the Landline too....
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