WALK WITH TIME

WALK WITH TIME

Khaliqur Rahman

Walk with Time and Time walks with you. Time most often passes those who don’t know how to pass time in positive and useful ways. If you choose to have a fight and quarrel against Time, you have already chosen to lose and lose badly. Failing to plan is in fact planning to fail. Haven’t you heard this in an ad on the tv? If you choose to kill time, Time is quicker to kill you first.

Everyone says Time is all powerful, yet most of us take on time to fight against, as if to win. Those, who’ve realised Time is all powerful, choose to walk with Time. It is always advantageous to walk with power.

Nowadays, students are taking examinations. No wonder, most of them are burning the midnight oil. They’re turning their nights into days. They don’t know, and God forbid, Time can change their days into nights as Time did in the case of Milton. Time can be mercilessly cruel and revengeful.

Twenty four hours in a cycle are more than enough. It is better to strike a balance between work and rest. Balanced people sleep and rest for eight hours so that they can work for eight hours with freshness and intensity. They still have eight hours. They call these eight hours their private and personal time and use it for maintenance and enhancement. They need to wash and take bath before they eat and drink. They need to go to the club and recreate themselves and they do keep in their schedule enough time for prayers and spiritual practices to energise themselves. They watch telly and gossip, too. Balanced and wise people do have a fitness programme. They have time for everything and do everything in time.

Thus the healthy slots for sleep and rest and for personal time bring them fully charged for work and an ideal cycle goes round and round and they go a long way in the marathon of life.

Disciplined people keep an honest account of time as they do of money. They know that money goes and comes back. But Time goes and doesn’t ever come back! Life has no second innings!

It sounds simple. But most people find it very difficult. We take a late and lazy start on Sunday. Hi-hello goes on till late in the night and soon it is the proverbial Monday Morning! Nature is regular and periodic. We are irregular and aperiodic. That starts the trouble.

Jo saath na dey waqt ka wo band gharee hai (a watch,not running, doesn’t keep time), said an Urdu poet. Our watches have either stopped or run shamelessly late, particularly when we have to ‘give’. The chief guests and the borrowers come late to ‘give’ a lecture or money. We go late to ‘give’ our duties but arrive early to ‘take’ salaries. Most students are neither ‘takers’ nor ‘givers’. They blindly follow the fashion of the day in getting late. At least here they follow their elders.

The trains are late. The flights are delayed, even cancelled. The passengers for a change are at the receiver’s end. Most clerks, officers and teachers are either most often late or shirk work. The academic sessions are late. The examinations are late. The results are late. The wedding parties are late. The mail posts are late. Even speed posts are late. It seems we have lost the very sense of time and its value.

It is ironic, isn’t it, that most of us, particularly our Hindu brethren, go to an astrologer to ask for the auspicious time, the muhurta, say, for solemnization of a marriage, but the band and the dance on the street send everyone in such dodgy enthrallment that the barat is inordinately and shamelessly late, to the stunning astonishment and discomfiture of the gharatis and the pundit who found out the muhurta, if he is present. Here, I must mention my uncle. It was because of him that we reached the ‘gharatis’ good 15 minutes early! That was my wedding and that had ‘some’ effect on my son’s wedding. Good 30 years thence, I succeeded in getting everything on time! But I believe it is sheer Grace of God that men and women are able to keep time.

I find animals are far better. They follow time and Nature’s cycle naturally. For men it is anytime! We are SOPHISTICATED!

We’ve taken leave of time rather conveniently. But Time just won’t leave us. And, that would be really inconvenient.

THE IMPORTANCE OF VACATIONS IN EDUCATION

THE IMPORTANCE OF VACATIONS IN EDUCATION

Khaliqur Rahman

I was in Edinburgh University in 1987-88 to do M Sc in Applied Linguistics. I was on British Council scholarship. During this period, apart from doing my course work I was able to observe the education system there from close quarters.

School education there is free. The government bears the cost. If I had taken my children with me they too would have got free education. The parents, therefore, don't spend a penny on their children's school education. At 18, one finishes school and becomes an educated responsible citizen. He or she is ready to either enter life and take a vocation or go for university education. They are deemed fit to take their decisions on their own. For example, before 18, they cannot smoke, they cannot drink.  After 18, they can, if they wish to. Nobody can stop them.

If they choose to go for university education, they can do so. But they have to be on their own. They don't depend on their parents. This means that those who do go for higher education have proper motivation to pursue education and thus improve and enhance the quality of life for themselves and, if possible, contribute to society, country and humanity. They go for higher studies because they want to and not because they have to (which undesirably and unfortunately is the case, particularly in India, in the sub-continent and, perhaps, in other developing countries).

In an academic session there, there are three semesters of 10 weeks each. Each semester is followed by a four week vacation. At the end of the third semester the undergraduates go for a 14 week summer vacation. The postgraduates who have qualified themselves through project works and written exams are allowed to write dissertation. Generally, they have to write 3 projects, 2 portfolios (equal to 1 project) and take two written examinations.

During the vacations, the students (both boys and girls) go out to seek work to earn enough money to be able to pursue studies on their own. They work part time/full time in restaurants, shops, airports, petrol pumps...anywhichwhere...that gives them money. The girls don't hesitate to work in pubs, the boys, too, do hard work like gardening or baby-sitting.

Thus, the ratio of 30 week work and 22 week vacation is very constructively utilized.

Here, it should be appropriate to relate that during semesters the classes are held 5 days a week. On Mondays and Tuesdays, a one hour lecture is followed by an hour of pre-tutorial and that is followed by an hour of tutorial. The tutors, too, listen to the lectures and are thus prepared for the tutorials. In the pre-tutorials the students in their tutorial groups select the problem areas in the lecture and prepare for the tutorials. In the tutorials, the tutors guide them to sort out specific problems, if any. On Wednesdays, there are no classes. The students go to the library to finish off with the inputs of the lectures that were truly followed by pre-tutorials and tutorials. Thursdays and Fridays are like Mondays and Tuesdays, except that on Fridays, they have lectures by visiting professors instead of tutorials. On Saturdays, the students can go to the library. What is noticeable, here, is the fact that the follow up of the lecture input is more than three times in respect of time duration.

The evaluation of the students' work during the year is done internally. Two teachers in the department evaluate the projects and the portfolios and the written examination scripts. They cannot fail a student but can recommend failure. There is one external examiner appointed for all the universities for a subject every year. This external examiner checks the cases of recommendation for failure. The external examiner can call the candidate for interview to make sure that no injustice is being done to the candidate.

In 87-88 only two candidates failed in the department, one in Applied Linguistics and one in English Language Teaching.

After the external examiner's report, a committee investigates why the candidate failed. The committee's report is sent to the sections concerned like Materials Production (related to curriculum/syllabus design, testing and evaluation, teaching, accommodation, etc) to get to know the cause of failure so that it can be rectified in the next session.

They understand the importance of education and work culture that accommodates work and leisure. The students, too, understand how to convert leisure into resource to pursue higher education.

Their syllabuses change every year according to the needs of the students. The students record their wants and expert educationists analyse their wants to find out what, in fact, they need. This is known as want-need analysis.

They have small and honest syllabuses to follow. Therefore, they get honest and big results!

IN MEMORIAM

IN MEMORIAM

Khaliqur Rahman

1959

I saw a young bud bloom

And fall to dust

And meet its doom.

It could not stand

Even to the breeze

That blew to caress!

The fellow buds

Redden in grief.

The flowers with dew-drops

Weep at the sudden death.

The drops fall

Over the petals fallen.

But the breeze soon soaks it.

Many a rose falls

And the Spring

With fresh flowers

Coaxes to forget

What is but past.

Still there remains

A feeling of

Old grief and past gloom.

The bloom has met its doom.

Swapan Kumar Sur , my classmate, first year college, 1959, died of Leukaemia.

YOU MEAN LUNCH?

YOU MEAN LUNCH?

Khaliqur Rahman

“What’s for launch?” he inquired. Asking a counter question, I mumbled rather mischievously, “You mean, you are asking what there is for lunch. Were you expecting Ilish? “No! I have books in mind” he clarified. ‘I’m sorry’ I apologized, ‘Bongobhasha is like that only, no?’ Then, I told him how I misunderstood a Bengali office assistant who said Mera boss aagayee, me’n jaayegi when it, in fact, was HIS bus!

Yes, Jug, nowadays everyone either speaks or writes, just as I’m doing right now and just as you always have and, in fact, just as you’ve been doing all along and/but doing so well and for so long. I say that because for every write-up of yours, you have so many comments. I don’t know if they comment because they have ‘something’ to comment or having just got the infection from you, have the itch to ‘comment’ something which I’m doing now because of the itch, overcoming, of course, the hitch to scratch in public. But who cares for public norms these days which even Kapil Sibbal cannot properly define (Will he sue me under 66a?).

But coming back to public speaking, public writing and public launching (of books, I mean), shall I tell you, I, too, had my books – four of them – launched on 09-09-’12 (on the counsel of a numerologist), not by a Neta or a Jam Aadmi (my own coinage to contrast, compare with or cancel Aam Aadmi) but by human beings?

I have an honest desire to send these books to you. For a change, just choose to be a reader of small things. I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading them because –aside- (they weren’t, I mean, published in toi, but…) quite a lot of them have been published in newspapers like Morocco World News, Daily Times (Pak), Kashmir Monitor, State Observer and Central Chronicle (has published all of them). The titles, Navel Ideas and Out in the Middle, may activate your taste buds, if you’re still thinking of lunch! The other two, printed in devnagri, Huwee Takheer and Ek She’r Sunata hoo’n are a compilation of my weekly column Ek She’r that ran for five years in a local Hindi Daily Deshbandhu.

I must assure you, I’m not fishing for anything in return from you. On the facebook and twitter my profile intro says I am a kid of 70 and I love kidding, seriously, which I think I’m doing now because I think I’m a nobody. | If you’re a nobody, too, | come along, let me know your postal address, I send you the books and you, hopefully, have a nice time. Otherwise, I’ll think, like Dushyant Kumar, I had thrown a stone into the sky… it didn’t pierce!

Why do you need to be a no-body to be able to respond to me? Because some-bodies don’t normally respond or reply to a no-body like me! And, I’ve made it almost a habit to write to one of the some-bodies  to find out if they’re really some-bodies, because real Some-Bodies, like, our former President, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, have responded and / or replied to me!

RELIGION GUIDE AND SPIRITUALITY

RELIGION GUIDE AND SPIRITUALITY

Khaliqur Rahman

There are bulbs: Philips bulbs, Crompton bulbs, Bajaj bulbs and bulbs of various other manufacturing companies, of various different wattages. Those that are there in electrical appliances stores, waiting to be sold out, do not, in fact, cannot, give out light, can they? Those that have been bought and put into a circuit, can they give out light? Yes, they can. But that depends on a few conditions. They should be switched on, the main switch should be switched on and the power supply from the power station should be on. In the event of failure of one of the three, the bulb will not be able to give out light. There is one more possibility when the bulb stops giving out light. That is when the bulb is fused. Then, there are minor factors, too, that can come in the way, and the bulb fails to give out light. That is when there is a loose connection somewhere or the switch needs a repair or the main switch needs a repair or some other component, like the holder of the bulb needs a repair or needs to be changed.

The brand names of the bulbs can be easily read or identified as long as the bulbs don’t give out light. When they are switched on and when they are giving out light, you can’t easily read or identify the brand. In fact, then, it hardly matters which brand names they bear.

And, a bulb of any brand has undergone a certain meticulously tough process of manufacturing and of quality control before it is branded and sent into the market for sale.

What will follow if a pumpkin, somewhere, somehow, manipulates and manages to carry the brand name of Philips, or a cucumber that of Crompton, or a snake-gourd that of Bajaj? That exactly is what is happening in the dreadful present day world.

Hazarat Nizauddin initiated Amir Khusro’s father first, then, Amir Khusro. But it was Khusro who said: Chhaap tilak sab chheeni re mo se naina milaake.

Can you see electricity? Can you touch it? No. But you can see a bulb, hold it, fix it in a holder, switch it on and get light from it. You can get fresh air from an electric fan, cool air from an air- conditioner, heat from an electric heater and …

It is the same electricity in the bulb, in the fan, in the air-conditioner and the heater and… The bulb, the fan, the air-conditioner and the heater can get changed or can be replaced but can you change electricity? Can you get light directly from electricity without the bulb and air without the fan…?

Every religion has a code of conduct. By strictly following the code of conduct an astute follower reaches the threshold of spirituality. The bulb has reached the shop and it needs to be sold out. Maulana Rumi has been an illustrious example of an astute follower who had dedicated eighty years of life to the code of conduct and who had attained knowledge of the books so much that he was able to speak for three nights on just one letter of The Quran. But all this was ilm-e-safina that had enkindled in his heart the strong urge to attain ilm-e-seena. It was then that Shams-e-Tabrez entered his life and initiated him into spirituality. The high wattage bulb was sold and bought.

People say they can get all the guidance from the books. So, there is no need for a human guide. But even in formal education you need a teacher and a guide even at the level of Ph D. Then how can one attain spiritual knowledge without a guide? The fact is: they don’t want to be sold out. But what about the buyers nowadays? Most of them want to buy on credit! That’s also true. What is the solution, then? Maulana Rumi has already offered one. He has said:

 The guide need not be perfect; the disciple has to develop into one with devotion.

What the disciples need is devotion, dedication and complete surrender. It is quite likely that the unflinching devotion of the disciple may tacitly work and the guide is enlightened!

The power house of electricity is very powerful indeed, but it needs wires for power supply. The Supreme Power House works mysteriously and can turn a bulb into a power house!

INDIAN MUSLIMS TODAY

THE INDIAN MUSLIMS TODAY

Khaliqur Rahman

Muslims, in India, are either Sunnis or non-Sunnis. Amongst non-Sunnis are Shias, Bohras, Khojas and Bahais. Amongst Sunnis, some are Wahabis. A smaller percentage amongst Sunnis has embraced one or the other Silsila while the rest have refrained from doing so but go to Durgahs.

Historically speaking, amongst the Sunnis, there are four Silsilas: Naqshbandiya, Shurwardiya, Qadariya and Chishtiya. Add to these the later-on off-shoots like Chishtiya-Nizamiya, Nizamiya, A’bul U’lai, Warsi, Suhagan and perhaps finally, Deobandis and Barelvis.

All the Muslims think that they are lucky to be born of parents who follow Islam. Most of them believe that non-followers of Islam are Kafirs. They have their eyes set on Jannat because they are assured of celestial wine and women (sharab-t’ahoor and hoor).

The question is: if a child born of medical doctors is not a doctor unless it grows and takes a degree in Medicine, how come, a Musalman’s son is Musalman and a Brahmin’s son, a Brahmin? And, is it not funnily astounding for a Muslim who has had a full share of life in this world to still crave for t’ahoor and hoor in Jannat?

If all of them claim to live life in pursuit of God and believe in truth and love (which are the two basic tenets of religions of the world, anyway) why should they choose to quarrel?

After Independence in India, many Muslims thought their place was in Pakistan. Those who could not go because of various constraints had their hearts in Pakistan because their near and dear had crossed over. Some of them chose not to leave the Mother Earth of Birth. Come, what may! I think now, that these people, knowingly or unknowingly, had the heart and mind of Amir Khusro who is the example at the top of those who are faithful to the land, the language of the land and the ruler of the land.

Let’s now look at the lifestyles of Muslims in India these days. Some are very astute and pray five times a day, recite Quran regularly and observe fast during Ramadan. Some of them do it quietly and some demonstrate it. Sunnis, who think they are not Wahabis, go to durgahs. Some durgah-goers have become mureeds, therefore, have a Peer or Murshid. Most Muslims are not properly educated to understand mundane things of life, let alone the basics of religion they follow. It is, therefore, understandable they follow religion only socially and ritualistically. The educated Muslims are either led into blind faith or rigid dogmas because of the literature they’ve read or the company they keep. Some of them do go to durgahs but keep themselves away from Peeri-Mureedi. But they do go to astrologers and/or Alims with mundane problems of life; some of them openly, others, otherwise.

In a situation like this, it is prime time for half-baked, semi-learned Imams, priest heads, peer sahibs and qadims, of mosques, madrasas, halqas and durgahs to exploit the illiterate and semi-literate masses to their own advantage.

In my view there is nothing wrong with any religion but everything seems to be wrong with not all but some of the followers in every religion who represent it to be rigid and dogmatic and thus denying it its very basic value: love. This trend, call it religious activism, is noticed to be very unfortunately growing amongst the youth of all religions. Here, I’ll try to look at the Muslim youth. They are taught to believe that:

Christians are ‘wrong’ because they claim Christ to be the Son of God.

Hindus are Kafirs because they are idol-worshippers.

Most Muslims who go to Durgahs and follow a Peer are Mushriks.

Let’s take Son of God and compare it with similar expressions like the son of the soil or the son of the Mother Earth. If soil or earth is Mother, do you think of the Father? It’s a way of saying, isn’t it? It is certainly not an issue.

And, who is a Kafir? A Kafir is a non-believer, not of Islam but of God. In Quran, in my view, only Firaun(Phaeroah) is a Kafir because he claimed himself to be God.

Who is an idol-worshipper? Don’t we all worship a moving idol in the form of our own body much more than, we think, we worship God, if at all, we worship God? Khudparasti hi butparasti hai, says Hazarat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti.

Aren’t we, then, Kafirs and also Mushriks, ourselves? As long as the combination of the animal, the Satan and the Ego is alive in us, aren’t we guilty of Kufr and Shirk?

O God, the most Merciful, forgive us our sins and our ignorance. ASTAGHFIRULLAH! Taubah Taubah Taubah!!!

SAJDAH

SAJDAH

Khaliqur Rahman

Qayaam, Rukuu’, Sajdah and Qa’dah are the four postures in a namaaz corresponding to Standing, Bending down, Touching the ground with forehead and Sitting down, all, as if before God.

While I was in CIEFL (Central Institute of English & Foreign Languages) Hyderabad, I’d go for Friday Prayers, if I was able to, without affecting my work. On the way to the mosque is a mazaar of two Muslim Saints. After the prayers, I’d stop to offer my homage to these saints. My way of doing this is to bend down at the ‘feet’ of the grave and kiss. Since these graves were low set, I had to kneel down and then bend.This posture would resemble that of a Sajdah and because this mazaar is just by the side of the road and without walls and roof, all this was in clear view of the passers-by.

That Friday, as I was going to my room after lunch, the Arabic Department scholars were standing in front of their rooms, waiting…

I understood. They wanted to teach me a lesson after what they must have seen me doing at the mazaar. I had a lot of work to do, so I didn’t want to waste time on the forthcoming discussion that I knew would be of no avail. But adamant as they were, they asked me to refrain from offering a Sajdah ‘to the Mazaar for a sajdah must be “done” to “One and only One”, and that is God’. They told me that what I did was shirk – an unpardonable sin.

Squeezed and cornered thus, I didn’t know what to do. I closed my eyes and ‘remembered’ (assumed ‘tasavvur’ of) my peer-o-murshid (whose mazaar is in Ratlam). I can’t say how the thoughts came and found words through my mouth. I asked one of them if he was married and wrote letters to his wife. The dialogue went something like this:

‘Are you married, Rasheed Sa’b?’ “Yes” ‘Do you write letters to your wife?’ “Yes” ‘How do you send the letter to your wife?’ “I put it in an envelope, write the address on it and drop it in the mailbox” ‘Does the mailbox keep it?’ “Silly question” ‘No, it is NOT’ I went on…

According to Quran the Wali-Allahs are alive. The Quran warns us against taking them for dead. If they are alive, will they ‘keep’ my Sajdah, if it was a Sajdah? Even if it was a Sajdah that I ‘did’ to the saint which I should have ‘done’ to God, will he keep it or get angry at the ‘deed’? I think he will look to God and say: this ignorant person who is ‘blind, deaf and dumb’(Quran) has ‘put’ the Sajdah here…O God You are all Merciful, forgive him…I’m ‘redirecting’ the Sajdah to you…Please accept…Rasheed Sa’b, my Sajdah, thus reaches God…Where does yours go?...Next time you write a letter to your wife, don’t put it in the mailbox…just throw it in the air…DIRECT…!

They rejected it as a specious argument

After more than 25 years when I look back, I find that my sense of gratitude towards my ‘murshid’ is simply beyond measure. Those thoughts had come to me very first time after ‘remembering’ him.

Now, to make things clearer still, I can say, a sajdah cannot be performed in a vacuum. It has to be here on this solid earth with a wall or an Imam or another namazi in front. Do we then, in any of these situations, ‘send’ our sajdah to the earth, to the wall in front, to the Imam or a namazi in front?

A sajdah is like a crossed cheque. No one else can cash it.

The other thing that needs to be understood is: God asked Satan to ‘bow down’ before Adam. Satan didn’t because he thought he was made of Fire and Adam was made of Earth…Satan did not realise that God was everywhere including within Adam.

The other thing that we don’t very clearly understand is: Man is a queer ‘mix’ of shaitaniyat, haiwaniyat, admiyat, insaniyat and lillahiyat. To wash off Shirk, a person needs to get rid of everything except lillahiyat. In other words one should ‘die’ before death (Quran).

To ‘kill’ the Shaitan, the ‘shaitan’ in ‘me’ must ‘bow down’ before the ‘god’ in my murshid !