Monsters And Brothers - Thoughts on the Death of Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden is dead.

A simple statement.  The new reality. 

Osama bin Laden is dead.  The boogie man is no more. 

Who was Osama bin Laden and how can I react?  Was he a monster as so many believe?

There are several sorts of monsters.  Some live in the dark.  You know the type.  They hide in the closet or under your bed – or in the deepest recesses of your mind – until the lights are turned off.  Then you must protect yourself by pulling the covers up over your head and lying very, very still.  These monsters disappear you pull the covers away and confront them directly and you find they were nothing more than creations of your own mind.

Not all monsters are imaginary, though.  They are there, obvious, unavoidable, all too visible.  They have names like Aurangzeb, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot.   They do their deeds openly, for all to see, apparently without conscience or caring.  These are the ones who run roughshod over the values that we as humans treasure, lacking compassion, seemingly finding pleasure tormenting those with whom they share they earth.  On a smaller scale, we call them bullies.  They torment those who are weaker than they, unable to defend themseves. Their deeds are malicious, finding joy in the suffering of others.  They are murderers of the spirits of others and sometimes murderers of the body, as well.    

Then there are the monsters who are invisible, living among us, unseen.  Child molesters and rapists not yet caught, undiscovered  serial murderers, corrupt and dangerous politicians and cops, more that you can add to the list.  These monsters, unlike the first type are real and they know who they are.  I do not know whether they choose to be monsters or are forced by some inner compulsion  to do their evil deeds.

There is another type of monster, the kind that has no idea that s/he is a monster at all.  The next door neighbour who hates Hindus or Christians or Muslims or Sikhs or Jews is a very naive sort of monster. Perhaps the hatred is directed at black people or  brown people or yellow people or pink (white) people.  (Those called “red” are really brown.)  Maybe the prejudice is aimed at girl children and women, or at men.  Then, of course, there are the xenophobes, those who hate foreigners or indeed strangers of any sort.    For my readers specifically of Indian background, I would include caste prejudice in this unsavoury list.  I suspect that more of us are this sort of monster than would care to admit it.  Perhaps, even I sometimes am a naive monster. 

It is possible for the naive monster to act on her/his prejudices and become a full-blown bigot and a genuine, visible monster.

Then there is the monster who so deeply believes in a cause that s/he will do whatever is necessary to realise that cause.  No matter if civilians are killed by accidents (collateral damage) or on purpose (terrorism).   No matter the damage done because the cause is all.  The end justifies the means.  Was Osama bin Laden this sort of monster?

Or was he the worst sort, the most evil who cynically leads others in a cause – perhaps for power and glory – that he himself had ceased to believe in or had never believed in?

I have no way of knowing which of these monsters he was.

Or perhaps he wasn’t a monster at all.  Perhaps he was a soul who got lost in the swirling changing mass of stuff around us that we call the World or Maya. 

Whatever he was I am not sorry he is dead.  He was a scumbag and I think the world is better off without him.  My entire being, however, is repelled at public celebrations of his death.  I understand them.  I myself felt like celebrating when Indira Gandhi was killed.  I did not celebrate, but that might have been simply because circumstances prevented it.   I was wrong then, as people celebrating now are wrong now. 

However evil and vile his deeds, are we just mouthing platitudes when we say all people are children of the same Parent, whatever name you personally use for the Creator?   I have lost a brother.  A brother who did evil deeds, a brother I am glad to be rid of, a brother I did not love, but a brother nevertheless.   It is at times like this that I find it necessary to deeply examine my own beliefs and I find myself not without hypocrisy.  I know that Indira Gandhi is my sister, but I am not yet ready to feel it. 

John Donne’s immortal lines, which I have heard no one quote at this time, come to my mind.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

I must ask myself how does the death of this man, Osama bin Laden, diminish me.  I am not yet able to answer this.

OSAMA BIN LADEN in 1998

Repoublished from The Road To Khalistan

A Conversation Between Twins

Going out of the Womb

"In the belly of a pregnant woman, two babies have a conversation. One of them is a believer and the other is an atheist. (*)


The atheist: Do you believe in life after birth?


The believer: Sure. Everyone knows that there is life after birth. We are here to grow and be strong enough and prepared for what awaits us after.


The atheist: Nonsense! There cannot be any life after birth! Can you imagine how this life would be?


The believer: I do not know all the details, but I think there is more light, and maybe we'll walk around and we’ll eat there.


The atheist: Nonsense! It is impossible to walk and eat! Ridiculous! We have the umbilical cord that feeds us. I just want to point out to you that life after birth cannot exist because our life, the cord, is too short.


The believer: I'm sure it's possible. It will just be a bit different. I can imagine how it will be.


The atheist: But nobody ever came back from there! Life simply ends due to birth. And frankly, life is a great suffering in the darkness.


The believer: No, no! I do not know exactly how our life will be after birth, but in any case, we will meet our mother and she will take care of us!


The atheist: A mother? Do you really think we have a mother? So where is she then? "

Courtesy Marina Griva & Otilia Torres Brizuela, by way of Harry Rakhraj on Facebook. 

Squirrel Appreciation Day

I did not make this up. Don't get me wrong, I like squirrels. I am not one of those Nazi-types that considers them rats with pretty tails. Where we used to live they actually came into our apartment, climbed up my lrgs and ate peanuts from my hand. Fortunately, none ever bit me because then I would have had to get rabies shots. Anyway, here's the article.

I suggest you NOT celebrate by eating Brunswick stew,  although I suppose that is a somewhat perverted way of appreciating these delightful rodents. 

Go Nuts for Squirrel Appreciation Day

posted by: alicia graef

Squirrels are adventurous and bold, smart, adorable in their antics, adapt to wide ranges of fragmented habitat, drive bird feeders crazy with their raids, play a crucial role in balancing insect populations, spread seeds in forests and fields and now, with the changes of global climate, they are helping scientists understand how nature is adapting.
For all this and more, January 21 has been designated Squirrel Appreciation Day, an idea created by wildlife rehabilitator Christy Hargrove in Asheville, North Carolina.
Hargrove points out that you probably won't find any events to attend, but you can celebrate by putting food out, or learning something new about squirrels.
There are more than 300 species of squirrel. In the boreal forests of Canada’s Yukon Territory the red squirrel females are giving their secrets to scientists who are studying females endowing their offspring with genetic changes that may help their species adapt to global warming.
In 2003, a 10-year study found that female red squirrels were giving birth 18 days earlier than their great-grandmothers did, an average of six days earlier in each generation as temperatures in the region have risen about 4 degrees F during the past three decades. The increase has also lead to an abundance of pine cones that prefer drier climate.
Researchers monitored 664 females, including 325 followed throughout their lifetimes and found that natural selection is at work. Babies born earlier, some in the dead of winter as February ends in the Yukon, will be stronger and there will be less competition for territory adults left vacant the previous winter.
The discovery marked the first documentation of genetic changes in a mammal to climate change.
Red squirrels, about half the size of their plump gray squirrel relatives in the east, living in a vast empire from the northern tree line of Alaska and Canada south through the Rocky Mountains and into mountain peaks of Arizona and Midwest and Appalachian forests, squirrels have been given different names such as piney, barking squirrel, mountain boomer and chickaree for their scolding alarm.
When they’re not busy doing their job in nature, they seem to have a mischievous streak when it comes to human beings. Twice, in 1987 and in 1994, squirrels brought down the NASDAQ stock market, a nationwide network of telephones and computers where some 300 million shares are traded each day. In 1987 a playful squirrel in Trumbull, Conn, shut down the national Association of Securities dealers’ automatic quotation service for 82 minutes, keeping about 20 million shares from being traded. Seven years later, in 1994, a squirrel interrupted trading for 34 minutes by chewing through an electric company’s power line and the stock exchange’s backup power system in Trumbull.
Visit the National Wildlife Federation for a list of ways you can celebrate squirrels or become a citizen scientist by participating in Project Squirrel. You can also visit Squirrels.org for a handful of information from building squirrel friendly feeders and rescue to humane squirrel control.

RODENT SANDWICH

Actually, this was from Buzz earlier today, but I can't find it now.

Rodent Sammich, Animated

Well, if you found yourself as the meat portion of a sandwich, wouldn't you try to get out, too?

Mai? Mai. Mai!

Another post for my Buzz friends.

This one is a break from blood and gore.  It also introduces my parents and my seven brothers.
**********************************

A very dear friend of mine is impatiently waiting for me to explain how I came up with this strange, unSikh sounding name of Mai Laya. Since I haven't told this story online before, I decided to put it here, in case anyone has ever wondered. Actually, it ties together two of the great events in my life, my birth and my marriage.

First I'll dispose of 'Laya.' Blame that on Google. I was always Mai, just Mai, but when I registered for an account, they wanted, no, they insisted on a second name. I could have - probably should have - used Kaur, but at that time, I had not yet returned to the Sangat and all things Sikh and I felt I had no right to use that name. I almost randomly chose Laya from Himalaya. It does sound euphonious with Mai, eh?

"Mai", however, has a real story.

Chapter One
I Am Born
(That reminds me of Melanie reading David Copperfield from the movie Gone With The Wind.)

When it was time for my birth, my mother went to stay with her family. I'm not sure why. I think that she and Dad were not getting along and she didn't want him around. She waited and waited, getting angrier and more impatient by the day. It seems I was in no hurry to get into this world and arrived two weeks after the projected due date.

In being born, though, I made up for lost time. There was no time to call the doctor, much less get her to the hospital. It must have been the shortest labour in history.

After all that, I was a girl.

No, not that silly Punjabi prejudice against the girlchild. Dad had enough sons anyway. In his family, there is a genetic condition that affects all the girls born. Usually, they die as babies or very young children. My mother said, "They live just long enough to break your heart." She had three girls, all of whom died, before me and was not at all willing to go through that heartbreak again. She hadn't wanted another child to begin with and now she had as little to do with me as was possible. Beyond feeding me, she paid little attention to me.

Of course, Dad was called and he and my brothers, all seven of them, came running, along with a friend of the youngest. He arrived in a few minutes, bellowing "Waheguru!" partly from joy and partly he wanted that to be the first word I ever heard. (It wasn't, of course, my mother was cursing in furious anger the whole time.)

In those days, doctors were more willing to make housecalls and her ob/gyn came to the house. I don't know all the details, but she stayed home and didn't go to the hospital until going to be checked up a few days later. I guess there weren't as many malpractice suits then as now. After a time, all the medical details were taken care of - it was not true that Dad cut my umbilical cord with his kirpan, I'm not sure who started that story - I was cleaned up, wrapped up in a baby blanket and my mother gave me my first meal and then went to sleep.

Dad and eight boys were left in charge of a tiny baby girl. (My mother's family never accepted our father and brothers. They were/are not nice people. They didn't like me either.) According to my Dad, I was the most beautiful baby ever born, with a full head of hair - after all, they had an extra two weeks to grow - and huge blue eyes and I gurgled nicely.

He whispered "Waheguru" in my ears a few more times and slipped a tiny kara on my wrist.

So what to do with me? Dad was very comfortable with young babies, but my brothers weren't. Dad teased them all a bit and I was passed from brother to brother until I came to my brother's ten year old friend. He was terrified to hold this new, little life, but finally Dad shamed him into taking me. I was laid in his waiting arms - and promptly threw up all over him! The boy and the new-born baby just stared into each other's eyes.

Dad threw back his head and laughed and laughed and laughed. Finally he bellowed, "This one won't put up with cowards. I see we have another Mai Bhago on our hands!" I have been Mai ever since.

So, you see, I was actually Mai before I was Harinder.

Mai is, after all, a Sikh name. At least my Mai is. I was always brought with that lady as my ideal, a true warrior princess and servant of Guru Gobind Singh Ji.

In Punjabi, Mai also means a very old woman, which certainly gave a comical air to using it for a newborn baby.

How does the marriage come in?

That ten year old boy was Mani. We were married 18 years later to the day.

None of these pictures are actually of me. I chose that particular painting of Mai Bhago (Mata Bhag Kaur) because I used to ride a white horse, as well. Not that I am much like this great Singhni!).
--
WHY TRY TO FIT IN? YOU WERE BORN TO STAND OUT!

TURNING POINTS #1 - MANI

This is for my Buzz friends who cannot access blogs.  Next will come my description of the battle, left out here.

My next topic, having disposed of the BB and Dad, would have to be Mani (Mandeep) Singh Khalsa, 42 in 1984, my husband. How can I write about him, knowing some other man will read it? He was, possibly, the only perfect human being of our generation. I married him in 1970, lived our whole life together, every single day, until he achieved shaheedi in November 1984. I have absolutely no complaints about him as a person or as a husband. I knew him literally from the day I was born, when I threw up on him, until that day. I had never had any interest in any other man. I knew him to be intelligent, self-disciplined and a bit fastidious. I knew he would never be interested in any woman who didn't live up to the standard he held himself to. Dad was always afraid I'd get involved with some idiot boy at school. He had nothing to worry about. How could a boy interest me, when I had always intended to marry this man? He was ten years older than me, so he was settled and grown up by the time I was expected to start to notice boys. One day, when I was 17, I went to Dad, and said, 'I want to get married.' He looked at me a minute and said, 'Aren't you a little young?'

No, I know what I want. After all, you taught me.'

'When a young lady comes to her father and says she wants to get married, I would assume she has someone in mind.'

I nodded.

He looked at me for a minute. I said nothing.

'Not one of those little boy fools you go to school with, I hope.'

I shook my head. 'I don't want to marry a child, damn it. I have a little more sense than that.'

'Anyone I know?'

I felt suddenly shy. I nodded again.

"Dare I ask who?'

A third time, I nodded.

'Princess, you're driving me mad. Who?'

In an uncharacteristically tiny voice. 'Mani.'

Booming, 'MANI??? You've got to be kidding. Why him?'

'I never thought of anyone else. I always wanted to marry him.'

Dad gave me the strangest look. 'Really?'

'Didn't you notice I never wanted to date or anything?'

'I just counted my blessings. I'm an old traditional Punjabi Sikh. I wouldn't have any idea how to handle a dating daughter.'

I giggled at the thought. 'You'd scare the poor boy half to death.'

'I'd try, I'm sure.' He kept looking at me with that weird look.

'Why are you looking at me like that. Is he secretly my brother or something?'

Laughing, 'No, no, no. Nothing like that. Are you 100% sure?'

'Yes.'

'I have absolutely no objections. In fact, if you'd let me find you a husband which is, after all, my responsibility, I would have chosen him.' In an uncharacteristically small voice, a bit sheepishly, 'In fact, his parents and I did choose him. We've been trying to figure out how to get you two stubborn, modern kids together for years.'

'Daddy!' I was appalled.

'Are you still serious? Do you really want to marry him?' He was staring at me.

'Yes.'

'OK, I'll call his parents. How much have you discussed with him?'

'Not a word, but he's always wanted to marry me, too. I know you think I'm young and inexperienced, but I have always known. Especially after he sang at my sixteenth birthday party.' I mimicked him singing. 'Since you've grown up your future is sewn up. From now on you're gonna be mine.'

By that night we were informally engaged.

His family and ours had always been close. Dad had been the business partner of Mani's grandfather and of his dad. He was his parents' only child and also my youngest brother's best friend, so he had always been around. In fact, he was the first nonfamily member to meet me when I was born. The way the ten-year-old boy and new-born baby looked into each others' eyes and then she threw up on him had become a favourite family legend.

By the time we got engaged, he had been to medical school and was a fully certified oncologist. He was also a devout Khalsa, which he would put before being a doctor or a husband or a father. It was the only thing, in fact, that he put ahead of me, which was fine. That came before everything, even wife, even child, even country, everything.

I think I can describe him in that one word: Khalsa. Pure. A true son of Guru Gobind Singh ji, if I can sound a bit cheesy, from the moment we woke up before dawn and took those horrible cold showers to when he fell asleep at night. He never tried to force me to do as he did, like those pre-dawn cold showers but in a true marriage, it's natural to stand together. He admitted to me after some years, that he didn't like those cold showers any more than I did, but the Guru asked it of us, and he did it out of love and also as self-discipline.

I would like to say something about him that doesn't involve being Sikh, but that is so much of him that there is nothing to say. Maybe a physical description. Tall, athletic, kind of light brown skin in winter, darker, of course, in summer, as we spent a lot of time outdoors, rather bushy eyebrows, thick, curly black eyelashes (why do the men always have those?), steel grey eyes, courtesy of his Kashmiri mother, and all that hair. He wouldn't even let me see it until after we were married. I told him he was as bad as a Muslim virgin, but he just laughed at me. It was thick and straight and longer than waist length and was as black and shiny as obsidian. I felt almost naked with my dark brown, rather thin hair. At least I could match him for length in those days. His beard did have just a touch of red in it, maybe again from his Kashmiri side. I enjoyed looking at him, and he could hardly take his eyes off me. We were the most perfectly matched couple I could ever imagine. We had fourteen incredible years together, and would have had many more, if he hadn't been killed.

I don't feel like describing that day again, so let me jump to immediately after the mob had left and I had regained consciousness. As it turned out, at that time he was also still alive.

Whatever kind forces exist in the universe, whether Waheguru or Guru Nanak Dev or some other benevolent being or just the universe itself, we had a few peaceful minutes talking together before he died. Most of that conversation was so intensely personal that I can't write it down. I will only mention three things.

First, I pulled lightly on his beard and asked him, 'Has it all really been worth it?'

He said softly,'Yeah.' Then he breathed in deeply, and said in his strongest voice, 'Yes. Hell, yes! People don't even dream of living the kind of life we've lived because they could never believe it's possible. Too short, I guess, but better too short and too good, than longer in the hell most people seem to live in. And, you know, for me there's really no better way to die.'

Then he insisted on a promise from me that I would remarry, so as not to spend the rest of my life in useless grieving for him. As if marrying another man would end my grief! But I have done as I promised, and my current husband treats me like a queen, and I have come to love him deeply, too.

Then he asked me to sing the last verse of How Can I keep from Singing?, an old Quaker song. My singing voice is between a crow and a foghorn, and I can't carry a tune, but I complied.

When tyrants tremble, sick with fear,

And hear their death knells ringing,
When friends rejoice, both far and near,

How can I keep from singing?

On gallows high or dungeons vile,

Our thoughts to them go winging.
When friends by shame are undefiled,

How can I keep from singing?

As Mani lay in my lap dying, he looked into my eyes and said, 'Good-bye for now, love.' Then he closed his eyes and, holding onto my hand said his final pronouncement, in a loud, clear voice, slowly, syllable by syllable, a battle cry and an affirmation:

'Wa...he...gu...ru...Ji...Ka...Khal...sa!!...Wa...he...gu...ru...Ji......Ki...Fa...teh!!

I have never known who he was greeting.  As the final sounds came out of his mouth, he opened his eyes and looked, first at me, then beyond me. An expression of astonishment and pure joy (ananda?) came over his features. 'A glimpse of gold in the steel, the proof of all you never dared to believe.' His hand went limp in mine, but I held it for I don't have any idea how long, until I dropped it, closed his eyes and gave him a last kiss. It all sounds so romantic now, the fallen martyr soldier-saint, the grieving, loving pregnant widow, herself nearly fatally injured, the lull in the battle. At the time, with the signs of violence all around us, I, paradoxially, felt a peace I had never felt before and have never felt since. I lay down beside his body and passed out/went to sleep. That is the end of his story.

Do not seek Death. Death will find you. But rather seek the road that makes Death a fulfillment. Dag Hammarskjold