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Absent in the Spring
#232

Dear HP,

Whatever happened to that ``meaningful literary critique`` of the present work that you promised to these chowk folks?!!

I mean, it has been TWO WHOLE DAYS, for crying out loud!!!

How long DOES it take you to come up with one?!!

All this bhashan...

But where is that ration, my dear?!!!

Absent in the Spring
I hereby retract every little statement I ever made on chowk that referred to the inevitability of a lowly status for the women of Pakistan.

There is absolutely no way that the women of a country that produces the likes of Zeena can be kept suppressed or subdued too long!!

Absent in the Spring
Zeena,

I am still reading the interacts from this evening. Just a couple of comments:

(1) Again, thanks for fighting like a tigress!

(2) I recommend not responding to Zee and HP, I think they just wish to drag you into a prolonged conversation and make you upset.

Absent in the Spring
#various Zeena

Zeena, I am speechless with gratitude!

Bravo, my dear! You, you the brave tigress from the other side of the border!

Zeena, I love you, my little sis!

Bhagwan tumhara bhala karein!

May the Good Lord shower you with all the blessings of life that your heart desires or may ever desire!!

Absent in the Spring
#205 yellowbelly

[Your posts and your articles do not connect.]

Dear yellowbelly,

Clearly, you have not read Goswami Tulsidas’ Ramcharitmanas. I recently translated a short portion from it which I named “Of the Saints and the Wicked”. It was published on another web-site. I will not quote the whole thing to you, but here are the closing stanzas (from Lord Rama`s narrative):

….For those who do – that pain inflict
In human life – that precious gift
On others, then they must – too bear
The pangs of pain – of birth, death, fear
The selfish ones – who passions rule
Do motley sins – and ruin, like fool

Their value in next world undone
Then I, to them as Yama come
And fruits they get – from actions had
Be evil those – be good, be bad
And wise ones know – and so they do
Place love in Me – not want they who

That pain of birth – of death, in turn
And skip acts good – or bad, they learn
For just in Me – refuse they gain
Be priest, be heads – be gods, be men
When grasp this they – they cycle leave
And kin, maya – it makes one grieve

As life and death – turn round and round
So signs of saints – of wicked ones, found
True virtue – see not just one, true
As vice – and as those virtues, too
In body same – do both survive
Ignorant ones – see just one thrive.

Pay particular attention to the last paragraph. The idea is that in the SAME person, there are elements of BOTH evil and good.

Human beings have muti-faceted lives. The killers who killed the innocent Sikhs were also human. Many of them probably had families, children, caring parents, etc.

As you see in the last line, only the ignorant individuals see just ONE set of qualities in ANY human being!

Absent in the Spring
Excerpted from a speech by Rajya Sabha member Sardar Tarlochan Singh on August 11, 2005, while debating the Nanavati Commission Report on Sikh Carnage, 1984

“….Sir, the Sikhs have been praised and appreciated profusely. This is quite good. But I would like to remind you that during 1947, Sikhs had an option whether to live in Pakistan or to migrate to India. M.A. Jinah gave a blank choice to Master Tara Singh to write anything he liked but Sikhs should stay in Pakistan. This is on record and published in all British documents. But Sikhs decided to move to India. Pakistan was our birthplace and Nankana Sihib, the birth place of our Guru Nanak is also there. We came to India in a pitiable condition, wounded and bleeding all over.

It was only because of Master Tara Singh who was the leader of the Sikhs that Punjab was divided otherwise the border of Pakistan would have touched Gurgaon. But Sikhs sided with this country got Punjab divided into two and gave one half to you. Without boasting of any favors on this, I would say that we sacrificed our lives for this country. We were and still we are with the people of India. We never retreated. But we are extremely aggrieved that miseries and the atrocities done on us are being politicized. People talk in different voices.

The Sikh psyche is still hurt and it will remain so despite all lectures and debates on the issue. This cannot be forgotten for centuries together. This was a great tragedy happened at such a large scale and this is a blot on the face of the country. This has brought infamy to India through out the world as the tragedy had happed in Delhi, the capital of India. Therefore, the ifs & buts and whats & whys are irrelevant and meaningless. The issue before the Parliament is what the Commission has done? Personally I am not in favour of any Commissions. Commissions are set up to buy time and avoid public fury. Commissions’ reports are meant to be consigned to archives. There are 40 to 50 reports of various Commissions gathering dust in our offices……”

Absent in the Spring
#200 Sadna

Thanks, ma’m.

I started work on it approximately couple of months ago. As I started reading more, I several times developed cold feet – feeling in my bones that perhaps it was beyond my abilities to do justice to the enormity of what had taken place. Needless to say, I became very passionate about the subject matter.

Events and people described here are composites – but every one of those events and people has a real counterpart somewhere.

The interact entitled “The Mysterious Mr. Quin” is an eye-witness account.

The interact entitled “4:50 from Paddington” is based on a narrated account from the partition days.

Absent in the Spring
#196 sadna

As you please, ma`m! What to read is a very personal decision.

Yes, stuff from Mr. Khushwant Singh, and stuff from several other sources (mostly from websites maintained by Sikh organizations) was among the material used in constructing it. In fact, somewhere in one of my interacts below, I quoted him, too.

But I assure you ma`m, I am no Khushwant Singh! :)

Nor is he the writer of this piece! That person is I. :)

Absent in the Spring
#192 Zeemax

Yaar, I thought I already apologized for calling you by that derogatory term - a lapdog!

Let me repeat:

``You are NOT a lapdog.``

Done.

Absent in the Spring
#191Zeena

Thanks, again.

Absent in the Spring
#183 Yellowbelly

Dear yellowbelly,

As we see in this trivial write-up (``Absent in the Spring``), there is too much hatred, hurting, hitting, high-handedness, and haughtiness around.

Please reconsider your attitude to life and your way of addressing your problems – it is highlighted by hate.

Open your heart. Learn to love the adversary. Like the Mahatma did!

This advice is especially pertinent, what with St. Valentine’s day just around the corner!

I wrote a little i-log last year around that time, and am reproducing it below in its entirety for your reading pleasure. Come Valentine’s day, feel free to share it with your very own valentine.

---

Sparkling Cyanide

It crystallizes – then rarely changes.

The light saturates it and emanates from it and reflects from its many surfaces – just plain, ordinary daylight – but the light that emanates is no ordinary light – for it has kissed what is inside and is colored permanently. It takes many a tint and each of the tints can be devastatingly beautiful and yet can be simply devastating – some parts of its spectrum are visible, most are not and – just like x-ray, the invisible part can be the most penetrating part and also the most damaging part.

It is subtle as a twinkle and it is overwhelming as a flood. It contains the tenderness of the touch of cupid and it embodies the heat of the wrath of demons. It is soothing as moonlight and it is scorching as the hot sun. It is the most basic of the base, it is wilder than the wildest of animals and it is the caresser that touches with the tenderness of sweet angels.

It wastes in its delight and it starves in its abundance. It thrives on its misery and it is miserly in what it provides – yet what it provides is what nothing else can and what saturates the soul through and through and is what is incomparable for there are no standards to measure it for it is not finite at its source – yet it can be so limited and it can be so limiting – it can be virtually paralyzing.

And when it is the real thing, it permanently corrodes whoever touches it and it leaves its scars forever.

It is invariably, incurably, and unavoidably lethal – it’s a form of virtual instant death.

It crystallizes.

Absent in the Spring
#187 Sadna

Hello ma’m, welcome to my little board.

It has been a long time – eighteen long months since you last came here!

Alas those good old days when this website showed a bit of openness to the Goswami Tulsidas! :(

Hope you liked the story.

Absent in the Spring
#185

Dear Zeena,

Don’t worry about my yellow friend here. The more I consider it, the more I come to the conclusion that he/she is a plant from chowk.com, trying to make me stronger by being able to deal with his kind of interact, which is simply a fact of life.

I welcome and appreciate the well-intentioned gesture.

Zeena, what part of this present story did you like the most?

BJ Kumar

Absent in the Spring
From a Times-of-India archive:

---

Sikhs - winning, not whining
Setting aside their personal tragedies, they are now a robust part of the mainstream, writes Sandeep Pal Singh.
FROM the ashes of a terrible tragedy has risen a more positive generation. As a success story, there are few that can match up. There are scars, nightmares, justice denied, but at the end of two decades, a moral victory.

It is now exactly 20 years since what is commonly called the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. An unemotional term swathed in red-tape and apathy. Because behind the terse description is an event that shook the roots of a community.

In all these years, have the Sikhs asked for more than their share of justice? The men who assassinated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi have been hanged long since. Has anyone been hung for the gruesome murders of Sikhs that began on the night she died? Who does a father go to seek sanity for his son, who has grown retarded because of what happened in November 1984?

These are unanswered questions and will perhaps remain unanswered for some time. So the Sikh community has found some answers on its own, drawn from centuries of struggle and the simple realisation that they live in a civilised world. And that in such a world, no violence is justifiable.

So while the struggle for justice continues, the community has refused to be overcome by one event. It has moved on to find its peace.

It is a fact that people of their religion were attacked and killed. In another era, weapons would have been used to get justice. This time, even before the embers of 1984 died out, the community had chosen to use logic as its main weapon. They realised that to be a successful member of society you need to adapt. They found that and it has stood them in good stead these difficult two decades.

It`s all about what you chose to build. When a community starts building up a defence mechanism it automatically creates known and unknown enemies. But when it arms itself with a positive attitude and rebuilds itself from and beyond the debris, it creates a space for itself. A bigger and better space than ever existed. That is the Sikh community then. Not a ghetto that an injured minority huddles into usually, but a robust part of the mainstream again.

This lesson was learnt by not only an individual, but an entire community together. Each Sikh has contributed to this positive attitude. And that is why they are winning, not whining.

Absent in the Spring
#179

[For the record, I am not HP]

Thank God for small favors - I think one HP is plenty.

So, which one ARE you?

And why do you take such an affront at my ``insulting`` words to Arjun_m?

And where IS that Arjun?!

Don`t tell me...

No, no, no, it could not be....

Arjun, come out wherever you are hiding.

And let everyone know that you are NOT yellow-belly!

Absent in the Spring
#179 Old Yellow

I love you, old yellow!

Do you also have anything to say about the subject matter and the write-up?

Hopefully positive? ;)

Come on, yaar! It is not so difficult.

Give it a try.

Be upbeat.

Be positive.

Don`t just whine, whine, whine....

That kind of stuff ain`t no good for your looks, either!

Give us that ``literary critique`` that you promised a while ago.

A LONG while ago, in fact.