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This piece was written on the spur of the moment late at night when the India, Pak test was on at Mohali and bonhomie was in the air. To someone from outside Punjab, the quote from the novel with which the story begins may seem rather a strange choice since Sital is not a writer too well known to non-Punjabis. But I found the quote appropriate at the time because this novel has been the prescribed text in class X in the PSEB syllabi since 1980. So virtually everyone who has cleared matriculation in Punjab and was born after the 1965 war has read this one novel, if not any other.

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	"Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment." Charles Lamb, 1833 "Frankly, despite my horror of the press, I’d love to rise from the grave every ten years or so and go buy a few newspapers." Luis Buñuel, Spanish filmmaker "I often wonder what future historians will say about us. One sentence will suffice to describe modern man: he fornicated and he read newspapers." Albert Camus, French novelist, dramatist, philosopher, 1956

Mohali Musings: From the land of
Luv-Kush with Moh of Ali

S P Singh

CHANDIGARH:

"Insha Allah, we will meet again if the Almighty so wills." Illumdin to Sajjan Singh in Sohan Singh Sital's Tootan Wala Khooh.

Virtually everyone who has had anything to do with the world of Punjabi letters knows the angst which Illumdin's words carried. And they were all lies. Deep in his heart, Illumdin knew he was lying, so did Sajjan Singh. And Sital’s knew that both knew.

Generations of Punjabis who have experienced, heard or read about the trauma of Partition know Radcliffe's scrawl scorched so deeply on the subcontinental asphalt that Illumdin's was just a cry in the wilderness of pain.

But history has seen walls crumbling before the will of the milling multitudes. Come to Mohali these days to see what the collective will can do. Why? It can even obliterate the distinction between Home and Abroad.

Most of the Pakistanis visiting India for the Mohali Test hail from either Lahore or Kasur, the cities believed to have been founded by Luv and Kush, the two sons of Lord Rama. Now, thanks to a happy twist in the subcontinental politics, these children from the Luv-Kush cities have descended upon the land of Rama.

"We have only come home. We are from the land of the Lord's sons, visiting the land of the father," a Pakistani guest told me in a Sector 17 book shop. Just three days into the Test, and he has turned 'abroad' into 'father's land.' "May be we are in wilderness, as Luv and Kush were forced into. I am also here to see the land of my forefathers," the Pakistani was ruminating.

"Oh, that's a wonderful way to put it. What's your name?" By now, his wife whispered something in his ear, and the man refused to say his name. "Divided families rarely live in peace. I don't want to take the risk," he said, sure that he had got a very convincing argument.

So what should we do? "Pray before Lord Rama," he advised. Insha Allah, that may help.

Let Illumdin's last wail not go in vain. After all, children of Luv-Kush have come because of Moh of Ali. Only, it is spelt MOHALI these days.■

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Bernard Newman’s The New Europe includes a story of a professor at a cosmopolitan university who set his class to writing a thesis on the general subject of “The Elephant.” The Englishman devoted his essay to, “The Elephant and How to Hunt Him.” The Frenchman considered “The Strange Love Life of the Elephant.” The German entitled his tract, “Are Elephants Aryan – and Can they be Eaten?” The Russian produced, “The Elephant – Does it Exist?” The Pole, whose piece was as long as all the others put together, wrote on, “The Elephant and the Polish Question.”

In Fort Smith, Arkansas, the mayor’s wife died and the old ice-house burned on the same day. The local gazette printed a two-column portrait of the deceased lady on page one with a caption that made the issue a rare collector’s item: “Old Eyesore Gone at Last!” The Chicago Journal got a society column and a shipping report all mixed up in the press room with the following results: “Mrs So-and-So of the Chicago Beach Hotel has had a pleasant summer visiting friends in Bar Harbour and Kennebunk. After encountering heavy weather off the Virginia Cape, she put into Hampton Roads to have her bottom scraped.” A novice on the American once asked Casey, “How do you spell pinochle?” Casey told him. The next day his story appeared in print. “Adolph Klepperman,” it began, “has reached the pinochle of success.”

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