Occasionally this columnist delves into the personal, and records experiences he had. Among the most fascinating is the fact that birth inevitably begets death. There is a lot of literature about “Out of Body” experiences in situations where an individual was at the precipice dividing life from death. When a young lad in his early teens, there was much talk about the health benefits of castor oil. So clearly consuming a few castor seeds would promote health. Having munched on one, the taste was found execrable, and the other seeds in the palm meant for eating were thrown away. That lack of appetite for castor seeds probably saved the life of this columnist, for he felt himself floating high in the air with a clear view of a prone early teen being attended to by a doctor with his teen friends anxiously ringing the bed. Suddenly he swooshed back into his body, for the doctor had managed to save his life. However, near death experiences do not necessarily result in an out of body experience. A few years after the castor seed episode, this columnist was headed back home by electric tram from his Khidirpur school to his Alipur home. This columnist stood paralysed with the sound of the warning bell of an approaching tram ringing into his ears. In the nick of time, he was pulled out of the path of the tram. Who was that individual who saved his life by his quick reflex? Who knows, but he is owed a ton of thanks. Fast forward a decade and the crossing past the car into the home of a prominent newspaper baron with a very talented young son. The entire short process of crossing the car seemed to be in slow motion. Had the driver of the automobile not shown the presence of mind to immediately brake a few inches from collision, what would have happened is clear. Once the brakes were applied and life spared, off went the slow motion and the actual speed was felt. A few years later, in a bazar in Delhi, this columnist watched in the lane dividing the shops a man coming in as a man in apparent slow motion was heading towards him with a knife in his hands. There had evidently been a clash and the man was fleeing for his life. My wife Lakshmi and one of our closest friends, Shirley, shouted out to me to move to the roadside rather than remain in the path of the knife wielder. I did so and immediately, now that I was safe, the speed of the man seemed much faster, and the panic on his face at the mob accompanying him was marked. They caught up with him minutes later and a knife fight ensued, but by then our car was out of the shopping arcade.
Change cassettes and move on to the lawns of a prominent Pune club. While walking on the lawn, it appeared as though a young couple was holding hands and talking. Later, at the reception, the club attendant said that the grounds were known for being “spiritual”. He meant for their spirits. The difference between life and death is a skein of gossamer and every day getting crossed.
Come to Tehran and the side of the road of Imam Khomeini International Airport to the hotel. A huge graveyard was seen, where the martyrs of the Iraq-Iran war waged by Saddam Hussein against the Khomeini regime lay in serried rows. Relatives would sometimes visit a grave and pay homage to the brave soul who was interred there. The graveyard of the martyrs of the war with Iraq is always well tended, as indeed it should be. Interestingly, the US helped Saddam in that war, but soured on him after he invaded and occupied Kuwait. It was reported then that April Glaspie, US Ambassador to Iraq, had named a batch of countries in the region where the US had a security interest but omitted to include Kuwait. Saddam took that non-inclusion to mean a “go ahead” signal for him to fulfil his long cherished dream of taking control of Kuwait. That rash act destroyed the regime, for Saddam had to leave Kuwait after being defeated by US forces. In 2003, the son of the President under whose watch Kuwait was freed from Saddam, George H.W. Bush, occupied a now defenceless Iraq and soon captured and had Saddam executed. That US President was George W. Bush, who sought to rule over Iraq by sending a de facto Viceroy, Paul Bremer, as Administrator of Iraq. The people of Iraq may have hated Saddam, but liked even less being ruled from Washington rather than Baghdad. There is a lesson in this for President Trump, who has been saying he would like to be in control of Iran after the clerical regime falls. Leave Iran to the Iranians, the age of colonialism is over. As, for example, President Macron of France discovered, when country after country in Africa ruled by puppets of Paris were freed of the puppets and the links with France and the predatory ways of some French companies. There is a song from World War II days, sung in German by Marlene Dietricht. The song was “Where have all the flowers (youths) gone?” The flowers were young people in Germany killed by the war. They died fighting for a psychotic dictator who sought to “exterminate” (his words) the Jewish people. When will the lesson be learnt that peace is better than war? That people across the world seek the solace of peace rather than the horrors of war. Despite all the talk about wars being bad, conflicts are multiplying and so are those killed in such wars. The implicit question Marlene Dietrich asked has yet to be answered. The loss of lives in wars is a tragedy repeated all too often across the millennia of history, so clearly the lesson that peace is superior to war has yet to be accepted.
