Good Morning Raipur

BRING BACK DHYANCHAND'S HOCKEY

^{BRING BACK DHYANCHAND'S HOCKEY}

^{Khaliqur Rahman}

^{After Independence power gradually gripped the nation, both internationally and intra-nationally. Within India, callousness entered through the back door and slowly gripped power. Outside India, it was cleverness that handled power beautifully to see that India did not rise to its potential at normal speed. Our power holders in India played into their hands. Hockey administration toed the same line.}

^{Hockey was beautiful in the days of Dyanchand until perhaps the late fifties. Not because we used to win but because Hockey was played with a certain level of craft and skill that was beautiful. The bully at the centre, also at the twenty five-line, had an element of chance founded on the capability of ball control. The penalty bully did give some chance to the defenders, if they were better at bullies. The dribbles, the dodges, the moves always had a certain charm about them. Asian Hockey (the Indian and the Pakistani) was at the top. The West didn’t like it. They knew that the superior physical prowess of theirs could do nothing against the Asian artistry in dribbling and dodging and mindboggling moves. They were simply rattled. So what did they do? They decided to change the very fabric of the game. Gradually they succeeded in changing the playing condition, the rules and regulations and the very nature and spirit of Hockey which the Asians were unquestionably good at. Perhaps they were unsurpassable.}

^{They moved the twenty five-line to thirty five-line. The dribbling space thus was reduced. The off-side rule now applied at thirty-five. The bully was removed. One more skill was done away with. If that was not enough, they introduced the astro-turf. They changed the shape of the blade of the stick. The astro-turf required very strong legs and calf muscles. The smaller blade suited robust hitting rather than skillful dribbling. Changes in short corner and penalty rules and replacing pushes with strokes encouraged robust power game and crippled Asian Hockey which found it hard to adapt according to the new demands of the game because of physical unequalness and various socio-politico-economic factors.}

^{Now that when India has a wooden spoon and Pakistan, seventh position, in the Olympiad 2012, it is time we took some strong measures.}

^{We should go back to promote our Asian style of Hockey. We should play on hard surface or grass and bring back the aesthetics of the game and stop playing power Hockey on artificial surface. Dribbling, old fashioned dodges and moves will automatically fall in place and the game will regain its charm and romance. The size of the blade must be restored to its earlier shape.}

^{These measures will reduce the expenses considerably on having to provide astro-turf at the grass root level. This will also take care of the needless and perhaps over ambitious efforts to raise the fitness level of our youth to be able to grapple with the brute force and pace and power of the Western World. This will drastically cut down the expenses on physical training programmes. Physical training should be there only to facilitate acquiring the fitness level suited to our own attainable capabilities. We should play to our strength and not to theirs. We should play Indian Hockey just as they play American Football or Australian Rugby. Wimbledon still has grass courts and has persisted with an indeflectable will to preserve the grace of lawn tennis.}

^{After all the purpose of games and sports is to attain physical health through recreation so that balanced human personalities are developed. Competition is acceptable only amongst like contenders. Unequal competitiveness promotes unhealthy, unfair and self-defeating ambition to win bronze, silver or gold. No wonder sports persons take banned medicines and fail doping tests.}

^{It might be argued that we have travelled a considerable distance in developing power Hockey and it would be naïve at this stage to even think of giving up the challenge. If discretion is the better part of valour it is better to give up the false challenge now than to continue to fail for years and years to come. We should look to the generation next, that is, the ten year old aspirants. They should be trained to treat and nurse Hockey of the old Indian style.}

^{India has acquired a significant place in world economy. We are now able to dictate terms. India and Pakistan should organize their own World Cups and Champions Trophies .Let the West come and play on our grounds, in our style and see who wins!}

<sup>The aim of sports and games is, I repeat, recreation, not crazy unequal competitiveness. Sports and games must be there to create and recreate and develop a sound body for a healthy mind and a healthy soul to take over and progress towards peace and happiness.

#dhyanchandhockey</sup>

FLIGHT WITH EGRETS

FLIGHT WITH EGRETS

Khaliqur Rahman

It is raining outside. I look out of the window. I see the wet green of the tree and many white dabs on the green and the peeping grey-blue spots of the sky through the green as well. It has stopped raining. But life on the tree is still and motionless. Maybe there’s a puff of breeze, now and then, and the green sways a bit to the right then it sways back, again it moves to the right, and again it comes back, now it sways to the left a bit. This little dance to the tune of the breeze is in keeping with the puffs of breeze. With this the blue peeks of the sky also choose to peep through different peep-holes. Some of the white dabs take to wings only to take the shortest of short flights to perch beside another white dab still unmoved. These white dabs are, in fact, egrets which we call bagula. Again I see some of them take a short flight to come back and sit either alone or by the side of another egret.

My mind takes a flight.

How peaceful is the life of birds! Why birds alone, why not the life of all the animals? And trees? The entire animal kingdom and the plant kingdom are peacefully and beautifully organized. And mind you, these kingdoms conduct themselves so well even without kings or governments. They follow the rule of life from Nature so well. And, when they do that they do not need countless support of numberless institutions that the so called superior species, the homo-sapiens, now so helplessly need.

Let’s have a look at the support systems the human beings need. Can they live without medical system? They can’t, because they’ve lost on the way, how to live naturally and die naturally, like the birds and other animals, and of course, the trees and plants.

While the other life-forms live naturally, they don’t need clothes. Their natural clothing: skin, hide, feather, fur for animals and birds and bark for trees, is all they have and all they need to protect their bodies in all weathers. In contrast, Man needs clothing and different clothing for changing seasons and different places. In addition, Man needs clothes not only for just needs but also for luxury and fashion. Perhaps the most basic requirement for Man besides these improved modifications of human-attire, was the primordial fig leaf to hide shame, unlike the other life-forms.

I suspect, when Man found fig leaf to ‘hide’, both Adam and Eve, learnt their primary lessons in hypocrisy.

The wisest among the wise men, then, must have thought of fortifying the grains of honesty by introducing religion and the religious laws. But alas! The clever men (and women) have always found ways and means to dodge these rules.

Like the system of religion, over historical periods of time, different sets of wise men must have come with similar support systems, like education, medicine, judiciary, governance, architecture and so on.

Within the system of religion, they must have thought of the institution of marriage and within the system of education they must have thought of economics and consequently money and property. Thus must have come into existence the concepts of relationships like husband and wife, mother and father and families. Thus must have come into existence the concept of ownership of money and land. Other institutions, in the same way, must have taken shape and thus they must have come to stay.

Man, thus, had, and still has, to follow two sets of rules: the rule of life and the rule of law. The rule of law includes all laws, like religious laws, judicial laws, social and cultural laws, conventions and traditions. Compared to Man, other life-forms are perhaps better off; they have to follow only one set of rules: the rule of life, whereas Man has to live and struggle under the tension between the rule of life and the rule of law. In the process, hasn’t Man denaturalized himself and euphemistically uses the words ‘civilization’ or even ‘sophistication’ for denaturalization?

Man, like a river, needs embankments of strong sets of discipline, to become human and even super human, just as a river does to become ‘sea’.

Stagnated water, on the other hand, struggles to break free and in process, makes a few mischievous let outs, eroding the rocks and leaking through the crevices. Confused human mind, similarly, craves for freedoms that invariably lead to erosion of values set up through rules of law.

When I hit the solid earth after this flight with the egrets, I wholeheartedly adore the egrets: they don’t smoke, they don’t drink, they don’t ‘hide’ and they don’t lie!

Thank you, egrets, for this loose sally of mind!

First published in Daily Times

 (From my recently published book LEARN ENGLISH & FOLLOW UP ESSAYS)

DEMOCRACY DISGRACED

Khaliqur Rahman

A typed text of what Macaulay said in his address to the British Parliament on 2 Feb 1835:“ I have travelled the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief, such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such high caliber (sic), that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.”

When Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister of Great Britain then, introduced the Indian Independence Bill in 1947 and when they debated the Bill in the British Parliament, Sir Winston Churchill, who was the Prime Minister during the War time, had angrily remarked, “Power will go into the hands of rascals, rogues and free-booters. All Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles. Not a bottle of water or loaf of bread shall escape taxation; only the air will be free and the blood of these hungry millions will be on the head of Attlee.”

I’ve often written that whatever had started happening in college classes in the form of indiscipline like General Gol (walk out) or bunking the classes en mass or cat calls, thus not letting the teacher teach or even going on Strikes and picketing those who intended attending classes and above all these the Students’ Union Elections  – all these becoming an accepted routine – and nobody bothering to rectify and reform has resulted in all these happening in Parliament.

Perhaps we’ve touched the lowest level of political values in practice and whatever has happened in the Parliament has disgraced democracy beyond anyone’s imagination and above all has proved the two foresights in the words of Macaulay and Churchill come true.

IN SEARCH OF THEE

IN SEARCH OF THEE

انجمن انجمن تجکو ڈھونڈا کۓ انجمن انجمن انجمن انجمن 

خود کے انوار پر جب نگاہیں پڑیں تجکو پایا رگ جاں میں جلوہ فگن

अंजुमन अंजुमन तुझको ढूँडा किए       अंजुमन अंजुमन अंजुमन अंजुमन

ख़ुद के अनवार पर जब निगाहें पड़ीं तुझको पाया रग-ए-जाँ में जल्वा फ़िगन

In search of thee I went from galaxy to galaxy from galaxy to galaxy

But found you within close to jugular when I looked into myself and the light within

LA ILAHA ILLALLAH (لا الہٰ الا اللہ)

LA ILAHA ILLALLAH

 (لا الہٰ الا اللہ)

Translation: Khaliqur Rahman

The secret of the noble origin of i-ness is nothing is but ONE

I-ness is a dull cutting-edge; its touchstone is nothing is but ONE
This era is looking for its Abraham
This world is a house of idols: nothing is but ONE
You've struck a deal for material and conceit
Deceit fraught with fraud: nothing is but ONE
Attachment to riches and relations
Are just mirages: nothing is but ONE
Intellect worships Time and Space
No Time No Space: nothing is but ONE
This Music doesn't go by flowering seasons
Be it spring, be it autumn: nothing is but ONE
When everyone in the fold hides an idol within
I'm ordained to call for everyone to believe: nothing is but ONE

ہم دیکھینگے، ہم دیکھینگےSee will we, we will see.

See will we, we will see. 

ہم دیکھینگے، ہم دیکھینگے

ہم دیکھینگے، ہم دیکھینگے ٭ لازم ہے کہ ہم بھی دیکھینگے ٭ وہ دن کہ جسکا وعدہ ہے ٭

جو لوہ ازل میں لکھا ہے ٭ جب ظلم و ستم کے کوہ گراں ٭ روئ کی طرح اڑ جائينگے ٭

ہم محکموں کے پاؤں تلے٭ یہ دھرتی دھڑ دھڑ دھڑکیگی ٭ اور اہل حکم کے سر اوپر ٭

جب بجلی کڑ کڑ کڑکیگی ٭ جب ارض خدا کے کعبہ سے ٭ سب بت اٹھواۓ جائینگے ٭

ہم اہل صفا مردود حرم ٭ مسند پہ بٹھاۓ جائینگے ٭ سب تاج اچھالے جائینگے ٭

سب تخت گراۓ جائینگے٭ بس نام رہیگا اللاہ کا ٭ جوغائب بھی ھے حاضر بھی ٭

جو منظر بھی ہے ناظر بھی ٭ اٹھیگا انالحق کا نعرہ ٭ جو میں بھی ہوں اور تم بھی ہو ٭

اور راج کریگی خلق خدا ٭ جو میں بھی ہوں اور تم بھی ہو ٭ ہم دیکھینگے، ہم دیکھینگے٭

FAIZ

Translation: Khaliqur Rahman

See will we, we will see.
Imminent it is that we will see.
We will see.  See will we.

Promised is the day in the tablet of divinity.
That we will see.

When the mountain-peaks of cruel tyranny

Blown away will they be like cotton-wool.
Beneath the oppressed feet, the heart of the

Mother Earth will pit-pat-palpitate.
And above the swollen heads of power
The lightning will clip clap crack and thunder.

We will see.

Will the idols be lifted from God’s own House Ka’bah
And the deprived souls will with honour be
seated.
All crowns will be tossed and thrones,

 Thrown. See that, we will.

See will we.

The imperishable name, GOD, will remain,
The invisibly Omnipresent,
The Seen and the Seer Invisible.
The resounding cry of I AM THE TRUTH
Will touch the skies: which I am a part of
And so are YOU.
The Rule of God will rule: which you are a part of and so am I.

Imminent it is that see we will.
We will see.  See will we.