In the Service of God

Pawan Verma

God is highly disturbed. He surveys the universe and finds everything to be in order. But as he looks around, he finds his own heaven in trouble. Once again, his arch-rival Satan has raised his ugly head and is trying to create problems.

This is not for the first time that Lucifer has raised his head against God. Ever since he was banished from heaven. Satan has been making sporadic attempts to carve out a niche for himself in heaven with the help of his army of devils.

Although repulsed by God every time, His forgiveness has only encouraged Satan to carry out his evil designs time and again. However, this time, Satan is up to some new misadventures. Afraid to challenge God in a direct conflict, he is playing hide and seek and is trying to gain a foot-hold in heaven by infiltrating his evil angels therein.

The crisis has left God in deep emotional distress. Not that there is any dearth of brave soldiers in heaven to take on the challenge of Satan. The heaven is full of brave warriors from all around the world – martyrs from the Vietnam War, Gulf War, Kosovo Conflict, Afghanistan War, Kashmir War etc. They all had been brave soldiers who had fought for their motherland, sacrificed their lives and got a well-deserved place in heaven.

Trained and experienced in all aspects of modern warfare, these warriors can take on the challenge of Satan any moment and drive the infiltrators out of heaven. But God has a conscience problem. These warriors, who had fought wars, excelled in bravery and valor and vanquished their respective enemies, had not always been on the side of truth and justice. They had often been on the sides of the aggressors, killing God’s innocent followers and committing oppression and atrocities on them.

Hence, even though God has been able to marshal only a few warrior angels to fight the mighty army of Satan, He would simply not deploy these tainted warriors in his war against Satan.

As God is brooding over the problem, he gets a glimpse of the Indian soldiers who have marched to heaven after laying down their lives in the Kargil war in Kashmir. These soldiers have left behind tearful eyes and chocked emotions on the earth. And yet here they are marching with their heads high and with a vision and purpose in their eyes.

As the Indian soldiers present themselves before God one by one, they are garlanded and given a salute by the angels. God has been waiting for them. His face brightens up and he cheers them up as they march past in attention.

Major Sarvanan, Sqdn Ldr. Ajay Ahuja, Capt. Aditya Mishra, Rifleman Subhash Ashurbha Samap, Sepoy Madhukar Nikam, Capt. Amol Kalia, Lt. Col. Vishwanathan, Capt. Vikram Batra...the list is endless. These are the brave soldiers full of guts and grit, determination and dedication, valor and bravery, whom God has specifically chosen to lead the war against Satan. For, in addition to defending the honor of their motherland, these solders have always stood for truth and justice, peace and harmony.

Grieve not, therefore, for the brave Indians who have laid down their lives in Kargil, Drass or Batalik. They have bid us the final farewell as they have been commissioned by God to fight a bigger battle. Victory will be decidedly theirs because they are on the side of truth which is God.

Courtesy on the Road

Pawan Verma

From the quizzical look I received from the girl, I was pretty sure that she had got my signals entirely wrong. Driving through the thick of traffic on the Delhi University campus one fine afternoon, as I found the car coming from the opposite direction, stuck up in the middle of the road, I had slowed down and given it a headlight signal – which meant, please cross over.

But it left the young lady driving the vehicle entirely confused. As I moved past after waiting for a few moments, her angry looks made it clear that the damsel in distress was indeed a damsel in distrust.

Unable to decipher the road signal right, she had doubted my intensions to flash the lights on her. But for my wife Neelima sitting by my side, the lady could have charged me with teasing.

The incident reminded me of a similar experience while driving through the streets of Patna. Being an avid supporter of good road sense, I had stopped my car to allow half a dozen school kids, on their way to school, to cross the road. While I fondly remember the gleam in their eyes on this gesture, I still cannot forget the massive protest honking from behind, which my humane gesture had aroused.

Truly, in a society unused to the finer aspects of driving etiquettes, such consternations are quite understandable. The reverse of it is equally true. I very vividly remember, when during my stay at Mauritius, one particular morning, while driving the car as I blew the horn asking for passage, I was dismayed to find that I had created a minor commotion on the road.

Very soon I was to learn that signaling through the headlight was the more acceptable method on the island roads. The lovely little Mauritius, where I spent nearly four years of my life is often referred to as “Little India”. But the big brother India has quite a few things to learn from its younger sibling, particularly in areas like traffic management, attitudes to life and driving etiquettes.

In the background of my experiences in India, it was so refreshing to find even Cabinet Ministers there, driving around without any security and without causing any dislocation of public traffic. One day when we had invited the Finance Minister, Mr. Lutchmeenaraidoo for a dinner with our top marketing professionals, he surprised us by his simplicity.

As he got down from the car along with his beautiful American wife, he took out a Rs. 200 note from his wallet and gave it to his driver to have buffet dinner, arranged elsewhere in the hotel. While going back he asked the driver to take the rear seat and drove off with his wife by his side.

Similar sportiveness is also reflected in the driving etiquettes in which even the VIPs excel. It is quite common to find someone driving in top gear, slow down and beckon a vehicle on the side road to join the mainstream.

I was once pleasantly surprised to receive such a gesture from no less a person than the Prime Minister Aneerood Jugnauth, whose BMW slowed down to allow me join the main road, leaving in the process his two pilot motorcycles in a bit of momentary confusion.

It is true, in life we tend to give to people what we receive from others. A gesture of grace and courtesy can generate ripples of happiness among others which could multiply and come back to us in some form or the other, sooner or later.

Playing the Game

Pawan Verma

The atmosphere in the room was tense. The minister for sports and youth affairs was in her chair looking pensively at the wall. No, she was not brooding over the rumors surrounding her. Whosoever is in the change of youth is bound to have affairs, she had earlier argued to herself sportingly. Today she had a different agenda. Peeved at the dismal performance of the Indian cricket team in Sri Lanka, she had summoned the chairman and secretary of BCCI for a hard talk.

Minister: I regret to tell you that I am thoroughly disappointed with the performance of the Board. Apart from playing politics, all of you must play some cricket also.

Jaywant Lele: Take it easy, madam. As you try to bring politics in sports, we bring sports in to politics. We are working for common ends.

Minister: Listen gentlemen, I am talking about performance. For all the fortune spent on tours and entertainment, you have not been able to develop a good cricket team. Tell me, why your boys start choking when the time comes to perform. Where are the bottlenecks?

JL: Madam, in most bottles, the neck is at the top.

Minister: You don’t get me. I mean, you haven’t been able to develop a team capable of consistent performance on the field.

A C Muthiah: I can accept any charge except this one. Look at our team’s performance. We have been quite consistent in losing matches. We have been losing them under different captains and coaches. Can you beat it? We go to eight consecutive finals over four years and consistently develop cold feet and weak knees out in the field. The problem is not with our cricket, it is with our knees.

Minister (Musing to herself: The fellow does make sense. The knee problem did surface even during Pervez Musharraf’s visit. Our media developed weak knees before the General). And then says: Knee, knee, I mean, no, no, our players need to develop some team spirit…

J L: Team spirit? I bet, you and me can take a lesson or two from them in this respect. Look at the way they sink or swim together. If one batsman succeeds all others succeed. If one fails, all the rest follow him to the pavilion in quick succession. Win or lose, they all stand united.

Minister: But you must do something to lift their individual spirits…

J L: Madam, You only need to see our players the night before a match. They are all in high spirits. So much so that they all become spiritual on the match day --- just do your duty and leave the results on God.

Minister: That’s it. Keep it up. Further, as minister for sports. I would like to make two suggestions for improving the team’s performance. First, give the boys a regular does of saffron particularly when they are playing in the neighborhood. It will give them strength and stamina to fight weak knees. Secondly, advise the captain to challenge the umpires more often. When the captain gets fired, his boys get fired up and win the match. Thank you, and best of luck.

(First Published in the Times of India, Edit Page, dated Jan, 12, 2002. It was written when Ms. Uma Bharati happened to be the Minister for Sports & Youth Affairs)

Tax Indiana

Pawan Verma


DEAR Finance Minister,

OUR democratic nation’s greatest virtue is that every little boy, no matter how humble his circumstances, can rise in life to become a taxpayer. It is admirable that you recognize this potential, while presenting the Union Budget; and assure citizens that of their earnings during the year, a small portion belongs entirely to them. We are grateful to you, Sir, that in keeping with this noble tradition, this reassurance has been provided to us this year also.

It goes without saying that for the great majority of us, who remain too busy with our mundane work to contribute anything to the nation, taxation provides the ideal opportunity to do something patriotic. It gives us a chance to work and earn for the government without passing the civil services exam. It also serves the cause of social justice as it enables those who work, to pay those who don’t; and those who earn, to pay for those who can’t. In fact, other than death if there is any leveler, it is taxation alone, the only difference being that death does not kill in installments and it does not become worse every time parliament meets.

Of course, there are a few amongst us who like the Americans, resent paying high taxes. As you know, for an American, even the three stripes in their national flag – red, white and blue – have connections with their taxes. They get red when they think about them; white, when they get the bills; and blue, when they fill in the returns. And they see stars when they pay their taxes. Nearer home, in our national flag, saffron teaches us renunciation of all our wealth and possessions; white encourages us to lead a simple life; and green symbolizes our happiness as something is left to us after paying taxes. The only difference is that instead of seeing stars, our head spins like the chakra after paying tax.

But, I can assure you Sir, that this apathy to taxation is true of only a small minority. The majority of us take pride in paying high taxes. So, irrespective of what others might say, I hereby offer a few suggestions to improve our taxation system.

First, every family should be encouraged to have at least three children. On growing up, while the two would pay the taxes, the third could support the family.

Secondly, although you have so generously ensured that our entire gamut of life is adequately covered by taxation, one important area, inadvertently left untaxed so far, needs your urgent attention. Hence, I recommended the introduction of a new tax, namely the Valentine Tax, whereby every married couple, who make love to each other, should be taxed. I am certainly not advocating a case for taxmen prying into our bedrooms. I have a more foolproof system. The couple should be taxed every time they are blessed with a child.

I assure you, dear Finance Minister, no man worth his salt, will evade paying taxes on the pretext that it was not his doing.

(First Published in The Times of India, Edit Page, dated 23.03.2000)