HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1993-03-24, Page 5Arthur Black
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 1993. PAGE 5.
Maharajah
a splendid
title !
I'm dead sure there's not a drop of blue
blood in these plebeian veins of mine, but if
there was ... if somehow I had a chance to
stake a claim to royal genes, I wouldn't
choose to be a king.
I'd pass on Emperor and Czar and Fuhrer
and Chief and Caesar and Lord.
And I certainly wouldn't settle for
anything as cheesy as Duke or Prince or
Earl.
Nope, I'd hold out for the title of
Maharajah.
Maharajah! What a splendid thunderclap
of a title! It comes from ancient Sanskrit and
it means "great king". Once upon a time
India boasted 265 royal families, each
headed up by a maharajah.
It was a comfy gig. Some beancounter
once calculated that the average maharajah
had 11 titles, 5.8 wives, 12.6 children, 9.2
elephants, 2.8 private rail cars, 3.4 Rolls
Royces and 22.9 notches on his royal
blunderbuss, representing the tigers he had
personally shot.
Oh, yes and land as well. Maharajahs got
to preside over some pretty impressive
chunks of real estate. These personal
Not time for
drastic
disarmament
I am totally aware that Kim Campbell, the
current Minister of National Defense and
likely candidate for the leadership of the
Conservative party after the departure of
Brian Mulroney, has been taking a
considerable amount of heat for the multi-
billion dollar contract to supply the anned
forces with a new helicopter. The usual
argument is that we can't afford it and that.,
after all, the cold war is over and it is time to
reduce our armed forces to something
approaching rock bottom.
My answer to the second assertion is that
our armed forces have been at something
approaching rock bottom ever since they
were put very low on the government's list
of essentials by Pierre Trudeau. It is a good
question just how many billions his short-
sightedness has cost the country, but
needless to say it has been considerable. To
use the same argument over again that we
don't need such equipment is specious to say
the least.
The cold war may be over and again it
may not be. To be sure, Gorbachev and his
successor Boris Yeltsin have succeeded in
getting the Soviet Union out of an arms race
with the United States; they have not had too
much success in restoring political stability
to their country. The last time I looked there
was a good question as to how long Yeltsin
might last and, if he goes, can any reader
name a reliable successor. Frankly I
wouldn't know where to begin. I might even
go so far as to point out that, even in peace-
loving Lithuania which was among the first
in line to get independence from the Soviet
Union, the nation's voters have just elected a
Communist leader, no less. Not that the
Lithuanians are a great threat to anybody's
sovereignty but, if it could happen there,
kingdoms covered the Indian sub-continent
and they varied in size. The Maharajah of
Vejananess had dominion over a mere 22
acres, whereas the Nizam of Hyderabad was
just a little larger than France.
Most Maharajahs found themselves
somewhere between the two extremes. The
Maharajah of Jaipur, for instance,
commanded a state that was only as big as
Wales.
Mind you, he did have a castle to kick his
shoes off and stroll around in. A castle with
1500 rooms in it.
In their heyday, the maharajahs controlled
nearly half of the India sub-continent. They
had more than 75 million subjects at their
beck and call.
And what did they do with all that power?
Pretty much anything they wanted. Not
surprisingly, Wretched Excess became the
Maharajah Party Game of choice.
They say the Maharajah of Junagadh once
laid out the equivalent of $44,000 Canadian
on a wedding.
For two of his favourite hunting dogs.
And a maharani, which is to say the wife
of a maharajah, once had two attendants
whose sole assignment was to help her stand
up.
The diamonds, rubies and sapphires she
wore weighed more than she did.
The royal families of India treated
precious jewels about the way you and I
rn
why couldn't it happen elsewhere in the
region.
Let's take the best case scenario and
assume that peace remains in Russia and all
the other former members of the Soviet
Union. That still doesn't say much for the
rest of the world. We have that horrible mess
in what used to be Yugoslavia and history
buffs will tell you the shot that started World
War II was fired, after all, in such a well
known place as Sarajevo. Thousands of
shots are being fired there, and elsewhere,
every day and diplomacy has been
something short of a roaring success in
getting the warring factions to sit down and
iron out their differences in a way which will
make a cease-fire last more than a day or
two.
Much as we might like to think the Gulf
War settled things in the Middle East,
Saddam Hussein, unlike Hitler, to which he
was often compared, is still around and how
much of a threat he is problematical.
Nevertheless, right next door to him is Iran,
once more flexing its muscle with military
equipment obtained from "peace-loving"
Russia. At the same time the Iranians
continue to issue death threats against
Salomon Rushdie, hardly something that
would be done by any government bent on
promoting world peace. We could well find
ourselves back in the Middle East and, who
knows, maybe Saddam Hussein or his
successor could be on our side. You think I
am jesting? Much stranger things than that
have happened in history.
Meanwhile in Africa the Angolans are
demonstrating that, even after the U.N. has
carried out a peaceful election, that is,
peaceful for that part of the world, there was
nothing forcing the participants to abide by
the result. Thus the fighting is going on there
just as if nothing had happened. On the other
side of the continent, the Somalians are
demonstrating that fighting can be carried
out on a large scale even while the U.N.
forces, including Canadians, are in place.
What is going to happen after they make a
treat budgie gravel. Remember the famous
Jacob Diamcnd? It belonged to the son of
the Maharajah of Hyderabad for many years.
He kept it on his desk. As a paperweight.
Such ostentation must have seemed
particularly obscene in a country of such
grinding poverty as India. Obviously
something had to give. And since 'the poor
are always with us' it was the maharajahs,
the maharanis, the nawabs and the jem
sahebs who finally had to go.
With independence in 1947, democracy
came to India and the royalty lost much of
their near god-like powers overnight. In
1971, Prime Minister Indira Ghandi fulfilled
a populist campaign pledge by, in effect,
putting the Maharajahs out of business. An
endangered species became extinct by the
stroke of a pen.
Well, not quite. There are still Maharajahs
in India, but no one worships them and they
have no powers of life and death. Those who
still own royal palaces have converted them
into hotels. Less fortunate ex-princes have
been reduced to working for a living.
Just as if they were ordinary human beings
or something. It was a long and opulent ride,
but the centuries-long voyage of the
Maharajah gravy train is over.
What was it Shakespeare said?
Golden lads and girls all must
As Chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Maharajahs too.
move to leave?
You may think all this is far away from
Canada so you would be making the same
mistake as we did in the 1930s. The world is
much smaller now than it was then and,
since we are the No. 1 nation when it comes
to peace-keeping missions under the UN., it
stands to reason we should at least give our
troops some decent equipment to help them
do their job efficiently. When I hear that
false OHIP cards may be ripping off our
system to the tune of 2 million dollars, if we
really want to save money, we can do it in
much better ways than in depriving our
armed forces of the replacement they need
for helicopters that are better off in some
museum that in front line duties.
I hope Kim Campbell sticks to her guns, er
helicopters. She will certainly get my
support.
Letter to
the editor
THE EDITOR,
Excuse me, Mr. Trollope (regarding Mr.
Trollope's letter to the editor last week) but
where, upon viewing pornography that
degrades and humiliates women, does it
bring greater equality between the sexes
when every day women are sexually
harassed, beaten, raped, mutilated and
murdered by a male friend, neighbour or
spouse?
Pornography is pretty obvious in definite
inequality. What scares me is the subtle
messages being ingrained in all of us
everyday by society's portrayal of women in
movies, magazines, commercials, jokes, etc.
You don't have to respond to this letter
Mr. Trollope. I believe anyone who reads
The Citizen already knows your views.
I just feel sorry for you for whatever hang-
up you have with Christianity and the
church. You'll feel better if you don't dwell
on it, but let it go.
Believe me, it will give us all a break!
Brenda J. Burkholder.
The
short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
Let's quit
nit-picking
Nit-pick is defined in the Oxford
Dictionary of Current English as petty fault
finding. Webster's wording is a little
different though the message is the same.
nit-pick — to criticize extremely minor
details.
Nit-picking could also, I suppose, be
another term for the monthly head checks at
local schools. While both are somewhat
tedious habits, and neither is especially
entertaining, the one I last mentioned at least
serves a worthwhile purpose. Conversely,
the aforementioned act is one we tend to do
without thinking. If we did we might realize
that too often we belabour details which are
basically trivialities in a world where there is
so much heartache and confusion. Looking
at the big picture, is it really important how
big a person's feet are as long as they don't
stomp on you?
What is it about human nature that we fmd
it so easy to criticize the work of others?
Though some may be more guilty than
others, I don't know too many who can claim
complete innocence. We have all done our
share of nit-picking.
The family environment, I have
discovered, is a great place for this popular,
though virtually useless, pastime. While I
am not the only participant in my household,
for the sake of family peace I shall cite
examples when I have been the petty
offender. Like many other parents I enjoy
having help around the house with day-to-
day chores. Also, like many other parents I
have this nasty habit of noticing the tiniest
little detail missed, or worse yet, mentioning
the way they performed the task was not the
best way to do it. Fortunately, I have a
family who likes to hold a mirror up to me.
As my son teased the other day, "Mom
wants us to help with the work, as long as
we do it her way!"
It would be nice when we get the urge to
nit-pick if someone was always there to
make us step back and see whether or not
what we are concerning ourselves with is
really important. In a course I took some
years ago, it was suggested that before you
criticize, take a second to see if the world
would continue in the same way if the
problem were left as it was. After distancing
yourself for a time, it's amazing how often
you find that what seemed like a big deal in
the beginning really wasn't worth the
thought. After all, the sky didn't fall because
my daughter didn't get her room cleaned to
my standards.
Sometimes I think we get so carried away
by our own self-importance we sense some
transgression, oversight or slur in the most
inconsequential situation. Usually, the worst
offenders are the ones who criticize how a
job is done, when they don't really
understand what the job is.
We are all just human and being human
means being imperfect. We are fallible; we
make mistakes. But, mistakes are stepping
stones to learn by, particularly if guided by
constructive reasoning, not harsh criticism,
which will usually produce negative — not
positive — effects. The adage has been
proven true many times — you do get more
flies with honey.
There is nothing sweet about berating and
belittling another, especially if that person
has done what they believe to be their best.
As humans we also possess the qualities of
forgiveness of transgressions, both real and
imagined and tolerance of others' failings.
When you think about it wouldn't our time
be better spent practising these worthwhile
attributes? Maybe we would have less time
for nit-picking.
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