ARE YOU AN ETHICAL PERSON?

A Lecture by Tom Cooper

@

Emerson College, Boston

This October, I attended my first lecture on Ethics. It was Haleema's Family Weekend (Parents Day) and there were mock lectures for parents to attend. I wanted to attend lectures in her course but she encouraged me to attend those I find interesting. This was an interesting topic so I decided to attend.

We, growing up in Pakistan, were never exposed to the subject of ethics in our schooling. Religion was and is considered the ultimate source of ethics and morality. As long as we have learnt the Book and the Tradition, we perhaps do not need anything else. We were encouraged to think that the sole path to ethics and morality is routed though religion. A person without Divine connection is devoid of any morality or ethical element. With time some of us learn that mindset is condescending. Ethics predate organized religion.

 Here in the West, the study of ethics and the development of ethics in the human history is an integral part of learning.

The lecturer, it turned out, is a renowned professor in his field. Tom Cooper. His books include FAST MEDIA / MEDIA FAST, and available at Amazon. It in on my list of next book to read.

The topic was '"Are you an Ethical Person"

He started by giving a few definitions of ethics and how one type of ethics, may conflict with another. for example the ethics learnt from the home or religion/faith system may have a conflict with the ethics of the profession or the workplace; and the art is how to reconcile the conflict.

He showed a clip from the movie MASTER AND COMMANDER based on two Napoleonic War-era adventure novels in author Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series. In the movie the ship’s captain was played by Russell Crowe. It is rated as one of the best Naval movies.

He takes the ship on a rough and dangerous course. This is in search of prize. In this risky adventure, some of the sailors have to be on the rudder and try to steer it in a certain direction in a turbulent and stormy sea. As a result of the rough sea, one of the sailors, who is quite liked by everyone, falls off with a large piece of rudder along with him. The rope attached to the ship is now pulling the whole ship in one direction. There is a real danger that the whole ship may sink if that continues to happen. As all the hopes of rescuing the man are lost, the captain makes a decision to have the rope cut off, thus drowning the sailor in the turbulent sea. The ship is saved and all the worried crew and the slaves on the ship are happy and relieved.

After showing this clip, the professor posed the questions. 

Was it an ethical decision? Saving one man vs the possibility of drowning the whole ship.
What if the life at risk was not one vs 100 but 10 vs 100 or 50 /50?
Where would one draw the line?
Was the Captain right in the first place to take the whole ship in risky waters? etc

Then he enumerated 12 characteristics of ethics and posed which one we identify as the top three important aspects of an ethical question. This he juxtaposed to four persons he has studied as a part of his next book, "Profiles in Moral Courage".  He started by writing about the moral courage and the difficult ethical decisions by Abraham Lincoln. He ended up by comparing him with four persons in the recent history. Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Rachel Carson.

All had to make some tough ethical decisions in their lives. We all face that. The question to ask is:
How you know whether your decision will be an ethical one?

 The history of Ethics development is long. Earliest sources would include Aristotle, who favored a medium path; something between deficiency vs excess. 

Immanuel Kant, simply put, would look at it with a question."What if every one do that, would it be good?" He emphasized to treat everyone as an end and not as a means.

John Stewart can be included in this list. Greater good; utilitarian approach is the way to reach an ethical conclusion in every case. 

And then we have our religious sources, Biblical Golden Rule, Buddhist, Tao etc

 So, in his own words, how you decided if one is making an ethical decision or not.

When you are about to make a decision, what impact it would have in the following areas. Some are overlapping, but still separate ends.

1. Peacefulness. Will the outcome bring peace vs otherwise
2. Equality: Will the outcome promote equality
3. Justice: Will justice be served by the decision
4. Compassion: Is the decision compassionate to people affected by it
5. Forgiveness: Does it promote forgiveness
6. Unconditional Love: self explanatory
7. Non Discrimination:
8. Unity: Will the outcome bring people together in a quest of unification
9. Fairness: Is the decision fair to parties involved
10. Inclusiveness
11. Survival for All: Does the decision assure survival of all including non humans
12. Humanitarianism

In his analysis the four personalities he studied had different priorities.

Gandhi:

1. Perfect Outcome: The Brits were leaving and although Partition was not what he wished, he had to agree to something which has the least risk of worst outcome
2. Equality
3. Justice

Mandela:

1. Non Discrimination: was the top most priority for him
2. Unity: of the country was the second most
3. Fairness: would come next

(Mandela in a dialogue with Gandhi's grandson Arun, was not as much committed to non violence as Gandhi would have been)

Mother Teresa:

1. Compassion: consistent with the religious tradition
2. Forgiveness
3. Unconditional Love

Rachel Carson: The pioneer environmentalist

1. Inclusiveness: environment issues
2. Survival of all: including non humans, and the future generations
3. Humanitarianism 

Chose your one top three and see where you stand.


At the end of the lecture I walked to him and had a little chat. I asked who is an example of ethical standard in today's time one should look up to. 

He responded: Malala

Ah! Cader Cheique

Abdul Qadir Sheikh As I Knew Him

https://www.facebook.com/cadercheique?fref=ts

Abdul Qadir Sheikh is a big name. The saint of Baghdad. Invoking the Divine power of qadr and fortitude, it is not easy to fill the shoes of someone with that name. The Abdul Qadir I knew, was no less than the name his parents chose for him.

I cannot say surely how long ago, but it was around 15 years back when I must have first met him. This was the time most of physicians of my age were settling in. We had a relative level of comfort in our jobs. We all felt the need and had the time to reach out and explore the wider community around us. The NY Chapter of APPNA was already established and had undergone a kind of 'awami' turnover. Skeptics have started to join and eager to explore what was in it for them, socially and politically. A regular process of annually elected slate of officers was in place. Many of us who had done our residencies in NY area knew each other through friends and collegues from different geographic backgrounds and alumni associations. 

It must have been in one of the NY APPNA meetings that I first met him. He was the most shy, humble and private person, until you knew him a bit; and he started to talk. He was one of those where the first impression is the farthest from the final impression. And strangely, you would hardly find anybody who would think of him differently. Everybody liked him, enjoyed his company and nobody harbored any ill will towards him.

Those who stay behind in NY are either tied to a rope of family and personal interest, (with a short leash), or are able to appreciate the richness of life over the life of riches. He perhaps had both the reasons. He had a large family in the NY area and wanted to bring up his family in that network. He also had less than average interest in the worldly markers of success. He was most content with what he had and you could not find a person more satisfied than him.

He had a job in Elmhurst, a city hospital with all the benefits and limitations of a city job, including a predictable time table, fringe benefits and the luxury to do what ever you wanted to do after 5 pm; an option not available to most of us.

I say that because it helped him experience the life, as he had a shorter life sentence than most of us, to the fullest. Perhaps a lot fuller and richer than most of us would wish in a short period of time. At the same time, he was able to help many in the community who could not afford health care. He was right there, a stone throw away from Jackson Heights, and in the middle of a major city hospital. I have asked him innumerable times to help someone get medical care. He was always gracious to take care of that.

NY Chapter of APPNA used to have four or five councilors. Usually the senior most would later graduate to become an officer, a treasurer, and later move up every year, eventually to the top. He and I perhaps served the longest  tenure as a councilor. He was one year ahead of me, and each year we both passed on the offer to move on. Eventually everybody got tired of us and accepted our request to leave us alone. We shared this unusual problem of not willing to take more responsibility while offering abundant supply of free advice.

It was around six years back when he found out what eventually took his life. He came to know the diagnosis just before a major event he had to arrange, and he kept it to himself. He was the chair of the local host committee for the Annual Retreat of DOGANA, the Dow Medical College Alumni Association. He had colonoscopy before and got the results a day before that. He did not let anybody know about it, or anybody guess about anything wrong, and had the show go on.

In fact this was most typical of him, and one would see time after time. As his disease progressed through each subsequent intervention, he was able to have the show of life go on. He did not let the people around him realize the depth of anguish and pain he was going through. I deal with cancer patients everyday as a part of my livelihood. I have not seen someone like him who kept his dignity to the last, and had been most sensitive to the feelings of others around him even in the twilight hours of his life.

He had kept his head high and lived with grace. The prolonged duration of his illness, gave enough time for his kids to grow up much earlier than their age and deal with the final eventuality. It seems to me that some how Qadir kept the fate at bay. He has proven to be a real Abdul Qadir, invoking the divine power of fortitude over adversity. He stuck around long enough to see his family safely take off without him.

In these days of qehtur rejaal, he was one of a few with whom I could have a deep conversation on any aspect of philosophy, social issues, meaning of life, afterlife and beyond. He was truly enlightened who could understand the depth of the issues and communicate at your level, what ever it is. 

On top of that, he had a unique sense of humor. He could make jokes with a straight face. I do not know of anyone hurt by his words or actions. He tried to bring people closer. Even in the last stages of his life, he had tried relentlessly to bring old friends together who had drifted apart. I hope people remember him for that.

(His last Facebook picture)














I was not one of those close to him. Later in his last few years of disease, he got more private regarding his illness, and I was unaware of many of his hospitalizations and details of his course. 

He became a more private person as he did not want people to offer empty empathy. I respected that and moved back two steps. 

In spite of all that, or perhaps because of it, I feel the loss of a dear friend and I really miss him.

Alwida, my friend Abdul Qadir Sheikh

 
 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10203543643404513&set=a.10202073181123875.1073741828.1017490571&type=1&theater

Courtesy Iqbal Jandga



 https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasirgondal/1213165101
With Pervez Qureshi at NY APPNA Picnic 2006, Sept 10th.

APPNA Gives Back

This is one of the videos shown during the APPNA Banquet on August 16th, 2014 at Gaylord National Harbor

The chair of the Local Host Committee had asked me to come up with a slide show of APPNA's work. He thought that many of the banquet attendees may not be aware of the social and charity work of APPNA. It may help people be aware of the projects of APPNA.

When I started to collect pictures, I realized how spread out the pictorial history of APPNA is. There is really no good archival collection in the office. Each year APPNA publishes three to four newsletters/journals with many pictures in them. The record of the pictures are not available in the office. I tried many directly and others through the APPNA blast mail. Many complied and their names are acknowledged at the end of the video. Much more could have been shown, but I did not have the pictures to show that

The basic emphasis is on the giving back by APPNA and its members to Pakistan and the adopted country in the last ten years or so. It starts with some of the cover shots of APPNA journals. That gives the artistic side of APPNA publications and its editorial team. It is followed by the advocacy work, educational projects, services to the young physicians and the disaster relief, both here in the USA and back home. Eye camps, Bone Marrow Registration Drive, Hepatitis Initiative, Cytogenetics lab, Public Health Institute and APPNA Foundation are included.

Much more could have been included but I did not have the pictures. I regret that.
I thank the local host committee to provide me with this opportunity to compile this. I commend Asif Rehman for allowing complete editorial discretion.

The video was compiled and edited on Final Cut Pro. I had no idea that a 'just a simple slide show' could be so complicated. All the technical and editing was done by my daughter Haleema. It could not have been done by me without her participation. I am indebted to her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO-pSiJMWfA

Nasir Gondal

Hard Choices by Hillary Clinton

Hard Choices by Hillary Clinton

A week back I got a text message from Karachi. My father-in-law wanted to be sure that we secure a copy of Hillary Clinton's Hard Choices for him to read on his next trip to NY.

Now that I have a copy, I thought to glance through it. 

I have never read her books before. In fact I have not read Obama's books either, bought by my wife when he was running for President for the first time. I promised to myself to read, if he ever got elected. It is still sitting there and Obama is almost on his way out.

So, Hard Choices covers her time as the Secretary of State. It is a big book. Has more than 600 pages and is divided into six parts. I read Part Three, which deals with Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is aptly called War and Peace, has three chapters, Afpac:Surge, Afghanistan: To End a War and Pakistan: National Honor.

In Afpac, she tells the Afghanistan story more as an observer and a reporter instead of that of an active participant. She tells the team was divided on the surge issue. Gates was in favor, Biden was against. She does not tell us her position. 

She speaks highly of Holbrooke and the AfPac initiative. Holbrooke was not liked by White House staff and many really wanted him out.

Holbrooke was with her in her office when he said, 'something is nor right', He was rushed to the hospital. The surgeon who operated and tried to save Holbrooke's aortic tear was from Lahore. She does not mention his name.

She expressed astonishment that Obama mentioned the eighteen month deadline to leave Afghanistan when he announced the surge. 

Half of chapter on Pakistan is filled with the details of Operation Neptune Spear. After it was over, President called all four living former presidents to personally inform them. When he called Bill Clinton, he assumed that she must have told him. She had not.

She mentions Zardari positively. It was her who had spoken to him after the Abbottabad incident. He took it well.

She again agreed to be the person to offer condolences to Pakistan on the 24-soldiers killings,

Benazir is the only celebrity she has waited on a rope line to see, when she was visiting London in 1987 and saw people lining up to see Benazir arrive at Ritz Hotel.

At least in these three chapters, she does not give much of space to Pakistan's issues with India and her analysis of that. She does mention in detail her trip to Pakistan where she ventured into many talk shows and media events as a punching bag. 

There is no mention of any Pakistani Army General at all. Pervez Mushharaf is briefly mentioned. There is no mention of Pakistan being a nuclear armed state.

So overall, in my review of these three chapters the views of the former Secretary of State, a former First Lady, NY Senator and a potential future US President about Pakistan are expressed through the concerns of security, Pakistan's nuisance value and the War on Terror. If any thing else is mentioned, it is her interest in the women's issues. Strategic partnership and the so called old friends during Cold War is not a drum beaten in this book. 

Left Politics in Pakistan

A Meeting With Farooq Tariq


I got a facebook message from Dr Buttar, of a lecture by Farooq Tariq on the topic of "Left Politics in Pakistan and the building of Awami Workers Party" at NYU Sociology Dept. The topic sounded interesting and I decided to go there. If nothing else, I would meet up with some old faces. Called Bobby Khan and we decided to be there.

It was a decent size gathering round a table. Hashim Bin Rashid, the AWP Lahore GS introduced Farooq Tahir. Farooq Tahir is the General Secretary of the party.

He gave a detailed historical background of the movement for the last decade or so. The following is what I gathered. Words are mine but the thoughts and comments are his.

Society in Pakistan has moved way to the right in the last two decades or so. It is more of a theocratic state than before. In this atmosphere it is increasingly difficult to keep the message going for the progressive ideas and move ahead.

Until recently, Left in Pakistan was as fractured as before. A few years back three parties agreed, after much deliberation, to get together under one roof. His party, Labour Party Pakistan merged with Awami Party and Workers' Party in 2012 to form the Awami Workers Party. Since then it is still going through the pains of an 'arranged marriage' but still pulling through. There are still other parties of the Left, but AWP is the largest of them.

There are a few success stories, he mentioned. The party was the force behind the tenants dispute with the Okara farms, where the tenants refused to be tricked into changing their status into a Leese ( and be easily kicked out). Eventually they prevailed.  Left also claims to be the driving force behind the movement for the restoration of Justice.

Still there are many uphill tasks. When the President of AWP Abid Minto filed a petition against the repeal of Land Reforms (Shairat Court repealed the reforms done under ZA Bhutto in 72 and 77), it was a big question whether an appeal can even be filed against the ruling of Shariat courts. Ultimately the CJ Ifkikhar Chaudhry at least, allowed the petition to be filed. The case is ongoing.

The party has made some inroads in the KPK, the Frontier Province and has contested elections in Swat. It has made alliance with Baluch Nationalists and participated in their long march from Quetta to Sind and to Lahore. The Party supports the right of provinces or self determination and secession. It took its stand against the Kalabagh Dam as the smaller provinces were against it.

The Party has decided not to partner with Right conservatives on any issues as they tend to steal the show and take all the credit. It supports the nationalization of all the religious madrassas and women rights including the right of abortion.

The Right has taken many of the issues which were the broiler plate Left causes ie universal education and anti privatization. Right conservatives quote Faiz and Jalib all the times. They speak in the vocabulary of the Left.

On a personal note, Farooq Tariq was a budding journalist when he had to move into self exile in 1978 during the military dictatorship. He moved to the Netherlands and with fellow expats joined the Trotskyist movement and became a part of the Committee of a Workers' International. It was there that he has worked with Lal Khan. International Marxist Tendency, IMT, an offshoot of CWI, had  Pakistani expats in the leading role.

Later when the situation in Pakistan changed he moved back. At that time there was a split amongst many returning activists. Some decided to make inroads into the mainstream liberal parties while others including him decided to stay the course in a pure left organization.

It was an evening worth the trip into Manhattan during the rush hours. It was a time to reminisce into the past and see what is left of the Left in Pakistan and wonder that the days of our youth, which we used to think were horrible social conditions now seem much better than the days facing the youth of Pakistan these days. It also gave an opportunity to meet old lefties Ahsanullah Khan Bobby, Masood Haider and Shahid Comrade

In such a conservative leaning society, it is a success in itself to keep the light on. Quite appropriately the election symbol of the party is the light bulb. It will be a big contribution if they can keep the light on in this long dark night which has set on Pakistan.

The Concept of Umma(t)h As explained by Tamim Al-Barghouti

For many of us, the word ummah has somewhat negative connotations. It is ofter quoted as the dreamy flight of ideas of a concept which either never existed or is too fantastic.

But tonight, I came across a new understanding/interpretation of the word.

This is the best definition of Ummah I heard and want to commit to writing before I forget it.

The words are mine but the concept is of Tamim Al-Barghouti. This was after a long time that I heard a thought provoking speech at a fundraising banquet.

He is a young poet and political scientist of Palestinian father, a poet and Egyptian mother, an author. His poems had become popular and resonated in the squares, processions and streets and alleys during the Arabian Spring.

He spoke at CAIR NY annual banquet at the picturesque Grand Prospect Hall in Brooklyn.

The theme was Faith in Freedom. CAIR-NY team put up an elegant show. Ryan Mahoney has taken the organization to another level. The board is larger and very representative of the younger urban community.

Haroon Mughal was at his best. Do listen to him of you have a chance. Imam Sirah Wahhaj never disappoints. Tamim was the keynote speaker and I heard him for the first time.

People are divided into two types. One who get together on the basis of an idea, of equality, egalitarianism essentially faith. They may work together and even exist without a figure of authority. 

The other group is what is based on authority and order. It is a disciplined colonial authoritarian system, where the boundaries are fixed, rules are set, and are to be obeyed and followed. Here is only one version of truth and that has to be followed.

What happened in Tahrir Square from Jan to May 2011 is an example of the clash of the two groups. The first one, 20 million strong, stayed in the Square without a central figure but based on a concept, idea, of equality and justice.  They were able to operate a system based on common beliefs. No central authority and were still able to have an understanding of how the system has to run. The decision of not using violence against the government troops and tanks was not made by a select few and passed on to the others, the collective thinking of the whole group was a rational one and based on common sense that violence will only beget violence. The other group, ie the establishment failed despite their authority, order and organization.

This in one of the many examples he quoted in explaining the power of the people brought together based on a concept, ie as an ummat vs the organized hierarchy of Establishment, which is always either colonial or with colonial ethos. 

Colonialism is a form of oppression and its ultimate goal is to eventually transform the ruled into someone like the ruler so that they can be eventually ‘freed’. So, in Cromwell’s words, the ‘liberation’  of the Egyptians was the ultimate goal of the colonization.  So that the Egyptians can be liberated, not in the Mohammedan sense, but in a European sense.  That will ensure that the ‘independent’ states will remain somewhat dependent on the powers who allowed them to be liberated.

Same is true in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

In the concept of the Ummah (ummat) the base can be broadened, outside the folds of Islam, or whatever is the religion one practices. If someone believes in the universal value of justice, mercy or righteousness, that person is a part of the greater ummah as your God is Just, Merciful and Righteous. 

Contrary to what the general concept of one ummah as one nation under one rule of Khilafat, his concept of ummah is more of a shared common theme with several political interpretations and entities. He quotes that except for a short period of initial Muslim history, the Muslims have lived under more than one political establishment. But as the general concept of religion was same, the concept of ummah remained and flourished, as the community at large, was follower of a shared theme of equality, justice and fairness.

That means that the common denominator of ethical humanitarian values will make people 'one' despite different political and religious divisions, even to the extent of including non-Muslims into the folds.  In that sense the concept of Ummah is basically of the Human race at large coming together on universal themes of equality and justice.

To further his point, he gives the example of Quran itself.

Quran claims its evidence of being divine is its beauty of speech ie eloquence.  So if something is beautiful, it has to be good. Quran uses a lot of poetry, and like poetry it relies a lot on metaphor and ‘majaaz’.  In that it allows a lot of room of interpretation and exegesis and that is a quality of eloquence and beauty.

The word Ummah and Imam have the same root and it means basically a guide. It can be a person and it can be a book.  Prophet was an Imam and so is the book and later it was his life in the form of quotations and traditions.  Later it was the life of either his companions (for the Sunnis)  or the descendants ( for the Shias) which became a source or guide. So with time the base keeps on broadening and adjusts with the ethics of time.

So whatever is good, beautiful and has the values of justice and equality, has to be right and in essence within the folds of ummah.

Tamim has written five books but only one of them is in English.
The Umma and The Dawla: The Nation State and the Arab Middle East.

After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey

A Son's Story

My son, Saleem gave this book as a present to me. A graduating dramatic writer, he  thought this would be a good read for me. It tells the journey a son has traveled to know more about his father.
Saleem thought it would be a good read for me as it was for him.  

I am glad I read it. It brings every one closer to their fathers and sons, and their mothers. 

Orphaned at an early age in his life, the author grew up under the shadow of his older brother, single mom and grandparents. Remembering one early morning his uncle and grandparents coming to their house and telling his mother about his father's death, he had to live with this shorthand version of truth; and he always struggled with it.

He was always fascinated with his father's life cut short, and how it would have been different for him. I know a few friends of mine who grew up without their fathers and one could see the similarities in their lives and the author. It is painful, tough and full of imaginations, both wishful and dreadful.

Theirs was a family of journalists and writers. It is a story of immigrants of another generations. How a son of Irish  and a daughter of Polish immigrants meet up in a newspaper room. How his grandfather landed in Nebraska on an orphan train from NY and started a carrier as a rail-man. His sons moved to Chicago and became journalists. How it was growing up Polish in Chicago and their daughter found her way in the news business.

As the author grew older, his quest to find more about his father and the circumstances around his death grew. By the time he developed enough courage to start looking for answers, when he had outlived his father's age,  many characters who would have known more had already passed on.  This journey took him to many places and persons involved in the life of his father. 

He does get hold of a family secret but then gets no headway. He gets stonewalled by everybody. Old guys stick together and protect what they think should be protected. Even those in the profession of seeking and speaking the truth are not exceptions.

Finally the break comes as a result of an act of kindness by someone full of faith and in return of offering a cup of sweet tea, separated in time. That leads him ultimately to the truth. 

Although it is comforting to know the truth, it does not provide closure he was looking for. He has to know more and by doing so touches the lives of many more.

And then he has to face how to tell his mother about what he knows. He started this journey to find more about his father and ends up knowing a lot about his mother. 

Written as an investigative story, the real essence of the book is in the details of what goes in the mind and heart of a growing child. Real and imagined, thoughts about his father and depth of sentiments around that. Feelings of love, abandonment, anger, and in the end a closure. 

You have to be sure what you are getting into. Knowing the truth may be a lot difficult than one can think of. If you have the courage to face the truth, whatever it may be, go for it. Otherwise there are enough distractions in life to keep you occupied.

Michael Hainey is a deputy editor of GQ

Flamenco in New York

FLAMENCO FESTIVAL

AT THE 

MECCA TEMPLE

aka

NEW YORK CITY CENTER

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasirgondal/sets/72157642131701433/

Ever since I had seen the dome from the room in Hilton NY during an APPNA Meeting I had an interest to know about the building and go inside it.

Mecca Temple

It is a fascinating story. Build by the The Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, later simply called Shriners, build it in early 1900. This was an offshoot of Freemasons, who felt inspired by the Middle Eastern and Moorish art and customs.

Two Americans Walter Flemming, a physican, and William Florence, an actor, wanted to create a branch of Masons with more fun and purpose in mind and less of rituals. Florence, on a tour to England was invited to a party arranged by an Arab diplomat. He got inspiration from that and on coming back floated this idea.
Today the most obvious contribution of the Shriners are the Hospitals. They are headquartered in Tempa Florida.

There is a story that they used to have their events in Carnegie Hall but were evicted as they smoked cigars too much. They later bought this piece of land, just south of the Carnegie Hall. The Muslim influence reflected in the Shriner rites and dresses. Fez is their head gear. Similar influence is heavily reflected in the architecture. You see Andalusian horseshoe arches, and various Islamic Motifs in the inside. The auditorium was built to earn extra money for concerts and shows. 

The Center Stage

ES SELAM ELEIKUM

اسلام عیلکم

Later during the Depression, they were unable to pay the mortgage and the Bank foreclosed on them. Later the City took over the building as a lot of back taxes were owed.  

The rumor is that the building was to be demolished but the mayor, F LaGuardia came up with the plan of converting it into NY City Center. Now it is a major venue for dance performances.

Then came the information in the mail for the Flamenco Festival. This is an annual event, held in this center for the last decade or so.

I watched Flamenco for the first time during our trip to Seville in 2012. More on that  at http://ghareebkhana.blogspot.com/2012/10/seville-alshabilah-of-andalucia.html

There I learned about the Roma people. Believed to be originally from Punjab or Rajistan in India they eventually found their way to Spain and rest of Europe. These Gypsies, as they are called, developed this unique form of art which is reminiscent of Indian and Middle Eastern music. 

This was a four day event, and Sunday was the last day. It was good to be out on a nice day after a long wintery and snowy spell.

 

Zoha and I attended the performance by Eva Yerbabuena. 

The show was titled Lluvia ie Rain. It is the story of a person born on a gray day of pure melancholy. She explores isolation, loneliness, heartbreak, ignorance and acceptance. It was a Ballet Flamenco, and had all what flamenco has to offer: the long dirges reminding of either aazan or a lonely song of a desert-man, the dance, the guitar, the drums, the hand clapping, the castanets and the quintessential stomping of the feet. 

A video clip  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn3hzMx_88Y

As mentioned by Barclay.

Created by Yerbabuena, a choreographer as well as the virtuoso dancer most people know, Lluvia, meaning Rain, is a full-evening flamenco drama featuring a cast of five dancers and an ensemble of superb musicians and singers.

Like flamenco itself, the production of Rain traverses an intense range of emotions. It begins with a somber street scene in which Yerbabuena and her dancers thread their way through an unseeing crowd conveying a mood of melancholy and isolation. It concludes with a blindingly passionate signature Soleá and an audience jolted into awareness of the great La Yerbabuena’s magisterial qualities.

I wished I had known the language; it would have added a lot to the experience. Still the rhythm, the movements and the music made my day. I can now understand why many non-Urdu-knowing people can enjoy the music of Nusrat Fateh Ali

------------------------------

References:

• http://www.nycago.org/Organs/NYC/html/MeccaTemple.html
• http://www.shrinersinternational.org/Shriners/History/Beginnings
• http://www.thebarclay.org/events-details.asp?n=explore-events&n1=&n2=&refId=466B6716-3029-4479-A839-08C48A399E68
• http://ghareebkhana.blogspot.com/2012/10/seville-alshabilah-of-andalucia.html

Silsila-i-Jogiyan by Sital Singh Bikhwud

سلسلہ جوگیاں

سیتل سنگھ بےخود

Anglo-Persian Taxonomy of Indian Religions

The Annemarie Schimmel Memorial Lecture

by

Carl Ernst

This is not about the book. I have not read the book. I attended a lecture on the book and this is my take on the information I learned.

Sital Singh Bikhwud was a Munshi for the Raja of Banaras in early 19th century. Later he was asked by an East India Company officer to catalogue the various mystic religious  sects of Banaras.

These Munshis, the learned Hindu secretaries, were well versed in Persian and Arabic and were employed by the Kings and Rajas to document; mostly for tax and revenue purposes but at the same time wrote and experimented in philosophy, art and mysticism.

So he was asked to write a treatise of mystics.  What he did was much more than that. He identified many sects, wrote about their belief systems and practices and commented widely on their lives. 

As the language of his work and higher thoughts was Islamasized Persian, that is the language and terms he used to describe his subject. His nomenclature was Islamic and not Indian. For example, the sects are mentioned as mazahib and firqas. The relationship between master and the disciple is termed as Pir and Mureed and so forth.

It implied that the language of ones choice does influence once outlook. These munshis, many of them had written much about mysticism, where the line between a dervish or faqir (Muslim terms) and a jogi or sadhu (Hindu term) becomes blurred.

Perhaps the origin of the Indian mysticism was older than Islam's advent, but development and progression of various Indian orders were heavily influenced by Muslim mystics. These munshis  themselves became spiritually and intellectually involved in the viewing all this through an Islamic prism.

Of the various sects, firqa's he describes, the more notables are

vanisha, shiva, shakti, akashwasi's, sabwasi, nanakshahi and jain.
They include those mystics who would go out in the wilderness, or worship a certain deity, or exist as couples, or get involved in certain rituals like looking at the skies or having the hands up in the air for extended period of times  (months), or various other ascetic practices.

It was in fact the enormous emphasis of British to put people, their languages and belief systems into boxes, that Indians of today identify themselves as Hindus. In Satal Singh's book for example, there is no mention of the word Hindu at all. And this is as late as early 1800's.

According to Carl Ernst, the lecturer, Satal Singh is not the first one to write such a classification. There has been many attempts in the past to categorize the religions of India before this.

In Arabic, the earliest is by Ibn Khordadbih 820-912 in his kitabe masalik wa malamik in which he explains the different people of Abbasid Caliphate including Indian sub continent.

Later al-Idrisi who born in Muslim Spain under Almoravids and later was at the court of King Roger II in Sicily wrote in 1154. The Book of pleasant journeys in the faraway lands mentions 42 religions of India. He had never been to India but learned about East from Muslim merchants.  He was a famous geographer and , it is known that Columbus had used his maps. The modern integrated integrated geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing software has its acronym IDRISI named after him.

Later in Persian, the first description of Indian religions is by Abu Fazal in Aine Akbari in 1602. He used the criterion of philosophy to separate Indian religious thoughts from one another.  He had a philosophical way of describing the religions, and for example he thought if Islam as a 'sect of Muhammad' and not more than that. He does not mention Sikhs at all, even as they existed at that time.

Then there was a Modeb Shah, who actually was a Zoroastrian but pretended to be a Shia. He wrote in 1656? Dabistan e mazahib and used the criterion of Belief to classify different religions.

And there was a Hindu Rai Chatar Man Kayath in Chahar Gulshan 1759. describing the ascetic practices of various religions. This is the first book of the above which mentions Sikhs. 

Sital Singh seems to be an interesting character. Apart from being a munshi, he had been a mystic philosopher and had written a book Khayal e Bekhudi in 1857, Bekhud being his takh'alus. 
 

 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101076496478;view=1up;seq=4

He was quite close to an Greek Indophile  Dimitros Galanos who lived and died in Benaras in 1833 whose epitaph was penned by Sital Singh stating that :

 Woe, a hundred times! Dimitrios Galanos departed from this world to the eternal nomads. Woe me! Weeping and wailing have I said it. I am out of myself. Ah, he has gone away, the Plato of this century
Written in Persian and Greek. 

Carl Ernst is a professor of Religious Studies at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hills.  He has written much about eastern religions and edited a book on Islamophobia. One interesting book is How to read Quran.http://uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=2202
. http://www.unc.edu/~cernst/index.html

The lecture was a part of series of Metropolitan Museum of Arts lectures, carrying the name of Annemarie Schimmel Memorial Lecture. Hers was a household name during my days in Pakistan.

 

The Alchemist by Paublo Coelho

First edition cover

A dear friend of mine was planning to go to Spain. We exchanged some notes and he wanted me to read this book. In a few days the book arrived in the mail.

I had not heard about the book or the author before. My child had. The book has been sold more than 30 million copies. It has the Guinness World Record of being the most translated book by a living author.

The original book is in Portuguese and the writer is Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian. Traveling through Andalusia, he found his calling to be a writer. He never looked back.

What a book! It is easy and quick to read. It reminded me of the Tales of Alhambra by Washington Irving. http://ghareebkhana.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-legends-of-alhambra.html  Old folklore stories retold by Irving talk about the lives of Andalusians. Long after the Moors were gone, there was still a fascination with them. They were thought to posses secret powers, left hidden secrets and had the power to converse with nature at a different level.

This book, the Al Chemist, takes that fascination to another level. It takes a young ambitious Andalusian shepherd, Santiago across the sea to Tangier, and then ultimately to the Pyramids.

Santiago, a shepherd by choice, wants to see the world. He loves to read books but is full of innate wisdom and learns from the nature and surroundings. He longs to see the girl he saw once and spends the whole year to get back to her. On the way destiny takes him on another path. He stumbles into a fortune teller and a self proclaimed king. He is told that he has to find his personal path and a hidden treasure is waiting for him at the Pyramids. 

Taught to watch for the signs and omens, he embarks on a journey which takes him to far away lands, where he has failures and successes. He experiences closely the realities of life, learns from his own intuitions, masters new trades, helps others find their personal paths, travels across the desert, earns the trust of Arab chieftains, and finds the love of his life in Fatima, a girl of the oasis.

Although being sought by a fellow traveler, it is Santiago who wins the heart of the the Al Chemist, a bicentenarian living in the oasis,  who knows the art of turning lead into gold. The Al Chemist is convinced of the boys earnestness of desire, accompanies him through rest of the turbulent journey, and ultimately helps him reach the Pyramids, where the boy has to find his hidden treasure alone.

It is here, that he finds out the true meaning of treasure. It was always within his possession. He just have to go back and get it.

Highly symbolic, it tells the story of a relatively modern time, just one hundred year old, in a language of early post-Moorish era. 

It is the story of finding one's calling and as it says, when you are about to realizing your Personal Legend, the whole world conspires to help you.

You feel like you are reading a tale out of Arabian Nights, Alif Laila,

The popularity of the book tells me that in this day and age of artificial wisdom, there is still a longing rustic stories told in the simple language of heart.

Reading it took me back to my trip to Spain.

You can read more about that in my series of posts searchable under the heading.
http://ghareebkhana.blogspot.com/search?q=spain