RUDYARD KIPLING (2/2)

One basic we would like to broach as we embark upon the journey into a unique mind: every writer cannot write for children, and as one from the tribe, Kipling deserves some respect, grudging as it may be. Sai Paranjpye, a major Children’s Writer elaborated this point in an interview aired by Doordarshan a few centuries back- nobody has to strain himself or herself to prove that she writes well for kids- the insincere works will be summarily thrown out by the child, without referring to the Literary Critic, she says. Compassion, a sense of wonderment, and a knack of rising to the level of the child without talking down, are some of the requisites of a good contributor to this genre…

As we saw, Kipling’s views were ‘politically and racially incorrect’, and that is putting it mildly. Was he not the inventor of the obnoxious term ‘White Man’s Burden’? The burden business goes further.

We do not know what God attends, the Unloved Race in every place,

Where they amass their dividends, from Riga to Jerusalem.

This is taken from “Burden of Jerusalem” by Kipling where we find him, darkly jealous, whining to the Almighty, about the fabulous Fortune of the Jews, The American anti-anti-Semitic and Conservative institution counter-currents.com goes further in ferreting out skeletons from Kipling’s cupboard:

“In a letter written from Jerusalem to his only surviving child Elsie, Kipling reportedly observed that many races are vile but the Jew in bulk on his native heath is the vilest of all..”

The anti-Semitic verse Burden of Jerusalem remained unpublished during Kipling’s life-time, and found way into a limited elite white circle through the hands of Dr. Webb-Johnson, death-bed physician of Kipling. The two greatest world leaders of the day, who were fighting the Nazis and were ostensibly on the side of the Jews, reacted enthusiastically to this anti-Semitic tissue , and President Roosevelt is quoted thus by Counter-currents: “I could understand why Mrs. Kipling thought it would be best not to publish it. Nevertheless, it remains a gem”. Churchill’s reaction was no less rave.

In writing the said passage to his daughter, not only has Kipling been shockingly anti-Semitic, but worse, he has poisoned the mind of an impressionable daughter, who a sensible father should leave to form her own opinion. But what about the sneaking admirers, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Kipling’s literary backer T.S.Eliot? Whatever we accuse Kipling of: hypocrisy is one vice that cannot be held against him! Twice was he approached for Knighthood by the British establishment, but he shied away from accepting the greatest honour that his chosen Kingdom had to offer, just to protect his ‘independence of thought’…

Best leave this bundle of contradiction, unquestionably a bold gentleman and a literary genius untouched, without passing a normative judgment. These thoughts are now but spent bullets, posing no threat whatsoever to mankind….

Whew! What delicious contradictions..! At 42, Kipling remains the youngest recipient of the Literature Nobel. The first Englishman to be blessed with the Prize. He is buried next to Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, in the Poet’s Corner at the Westminster Abbey. The universal acclaim for ‘IF’ was where we started…

By the by, here is a quotation from Charles Dickens after the British had put down the 'Sepoy Mutiny' aka 'First War of Indian Independence' (obviously anguished over the Lucknow killings):

“I wish I were Commander-in-Chief in India ... I should proclaim to them that I considered my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the race.”

In a long forgotten post we had listed people we admired for their ‘turn of phrase’ skills- Dr. Ashok Mitra, H. W. Fowler, Tukaram, Nehru. Kipling too has to his credit innumerable expressions that are ‘staple’ in the English language:  “White Man’s Burden”, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Mowgli and memorable quotations like “God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made Mothers”.

While applauding IF, the disclosure must be made that the poem was written in a personal context. The hero in the poem is Kipling’s friend, the swashbuckling renegade Colonialist Leander Starr Jameson, In 1895, Jameson assembled a private army outside the Transvaal in preparation for the violent overthrow of the Boer government. The idea was to foment unrest among foreign workers (Uitlanders) in the territory, now in Mozambique, and use the outbreak of open revolt as an excuse to invade and annexe the territory on behalf of the Empire. Jameson launched the famous ‘Jameson Raid’ in December 1895, and managed to push within twenty miles of Johannesburg before superior Boer forces compelled him and his men to surrender.(ahem…Wikipedia)  The wrong done to Jameson consisted in the treacherous retreat beaten by the British Government, after initially encouraging the launch of the raid. John Chamberlain, British Colonial Secretary ditched Jameson awkwardly, inspiring the creation of the sublime work, as Jameson bore the pain in silence. The Bhagvada Gita was also reputably created by God in the context of a personal matter!

But one can only marvel at the universal appeal of Kipling’s work, which possibly results from the feverish and outlandish imagination that marks his works, the manly vigour in his writing, and some atavistic chords he strikes in our minds. As regards the element which we find ‘misguided’, that is the racist inclination, it in fact buttresses the writer’s appeal in the eyes of the western audiences, rather than retracting from it. It’s sort of garnishing on an excellent meal

.

A major reason for his universal appeal is of course his major genre- Children’s Literature. The child’s way of thinking knows no territorial limits. The emotional appeal a tiger or a forest or a jungle kid arouses in an Indian child will not differ much from the awe or sense of bubbling anticipation they raise in the mind of an Argentine kid…

Some thoughts  penned by Michael Cohen, Child Laureate, for The Guardian:

I think of children's books as not so much for children, but as the filling that goes between the child world and the adult world.                  and

The world of children's books is a very friendly, decent place to be. It's full of people who are desperate to enlighten, interest and excite children in ideas, imaginary worlds and contemporary issues.

Writing well for the child is to an extent an unfathomable, for you and I may lack the wherewithal for reliving our childhood. It calls for a natural empathy which cannot be cultivated, but can come in combination with various traits like the resumption of racial superiority…ha, ha…Carl von Bailiff...

Imagine the sheer evocative-ness of Kipling’s words enshrined in Jungle Book::

‘Shere Khan, the Big One, has shifted his hunting grounds. He will hunt among these hills for the next moon, so he has told me.’              and

It was seven o’clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day’s rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. ‘Augrh!’ said Father Wolf. ‘It is time to hunt again.’ He was going to spring down hill when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined: ‘Good luck go with you, O Chief of the Wolves. And good luck and strong white teeth go with noble children that they may never forget the hungry in this world.’

Imagine a Wolf being associated with a noble feeling of empathy for the hungry of the world!

Coming back to the universality of Kiplingiana, just look at what President Vladimir Putin said about Western funded opposition to his regime:

“What can I say in this case? I can say: “Come to me, bandarlog,” Putin said, citing python Kaa from Kipling's "Jungle Book" who lured monkeys before suffocating them.

When asked the wherefore for the allusion, Putin reveals that Jungle Book is one of the most read books in Russia!

Geoffery Wansell, the well known British movie critic writes about IF in the Daily Mail:

My own father gave a copy to me when I was ten and I carried it around in my wallet for the next 15 years. He felt it was the perfect advice for a son born at the end of the last world war, who could not know what triumphs and disasters lay ahead.

And now for the mandatory pictorial:

DEAN'S RESIDENCE SIR JJ SCHOOL OF APPLIED ARTS OPP. VT STATION (NOT CENTRAL SALES TAX), MUMBAI: BIRTHPLACE: HE ALWAYS FELT LIKE                      MI MUMBAIKAR

GABLES: ANCESTRAL HOME IN SUSSEX

SO FOND WAS HE OF LAHORE FORT, HIS AMERICAN HOME IN VERMONT WAS CHRISTENED NAULAKHA AFTER THE PAVILION

ORIGINAL NAULAKHA PAVILION AT LAHORE

NAZI SWASTIKA (CLOCKWISE) ON ORIGINAL JUNGLE BOOK COVER

CONCESSION TO HUMANITY: ON THE BACK COVER, THE HINDU SWASTIKA (ANTI-CLOCKWISE)

SOFT TONED COLLIER PORTRAIT 1891

RIGHT MAN, RIGHT PLACE

AERIAL VIEW OF LAHORE FORT

GITA SAAR BY RUDYARD KIPLING

Which poem is considered the zenith of British poetry by the native British? No, it’s not authored by Keats or Wordsworth, but by an unlikely poet Rudyard Kipling, and is called IF.  Here goes:

              If you can keep your head when all about you
                Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
              If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
                But make allowance for their doubting too;
              If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
                Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
              Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
                And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

              If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
               If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
              If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
               And treat those two impostors just the same;
              If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
               Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
              Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
               And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

              If you can make one heap of all your winnings
               And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
              And lose, and start again at your beginnings
               And never breathe a word about your loss;
              If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
               To serve your turn long after they are gone,
              And so hold on when there is nothing in you
               Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

              If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
               Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
              If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
               If all men count with you, but none too much;
              If you can fill the unforgiving minute
               With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
              Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
               And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

That’s the picture of a wooden carving which is sold off-the-shelf by an artefact manufacturer for $ 36.00, as on date.

And this is the entrance to the Centre Court at the Wimbledon, which demonstrates the stature and dhaak of the lines penned by Kipling.

In all literary excellence surveys since 1995 conducted in Great Britain, IF has consistently beaten others by hefty margins.

Khushwant Singh, one of the deities of this blog, wrote this about IF, reviewing the Book of Prayer by Renuka Narayanan in The Outlook a while back:

“I look upon this poem as the essence of the message of The Gita in English…”
 http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?211656

That sounds terse and matter-of-fact, but is really a loaded sentence, the tip of an iceberg. We’ll explain why in the second part of the post.

Of course there are also some contrary opinions on the excellence of this creation of Kipling. In the assessment of T.S.Eliot, admirer that he was of Kipling, it qualifies as a great verse, but fails to rise to the stature of great poetry. Does not deserve the standing ovation it commands. And that coming from Eliot who had written glowingly about the skills of the first British writer to get a Nobel for English Literature in 1907..
 

“an immense gift for using words, an amazing curiosity and power of observation with his mind and with all his senses, the mask of the entertainer, and beyond that a queer gift of second sight, of transmitting messages from elsewhere, a gift so disconcerting when we are made aware of it that thenceforth we are never sure when it is not present: all this makes Kipling a writer impossible wholly to understand and quite impossible to belittle.”

And then are we not to classify him a ‘reactionary’ and ‘colonial’ for creating the following monstrosity:

Take up the White Man's burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
—The White Man's Burden

George Orwell harboured mixed feelings about the man:

"Kipling sold out to the British governing class, not financially but emotionally. This warped his political judgement, for the British ruling class were not what he imagined, and it led him into abysses of folly and snobbery, but he gained a corresponding advantage from having at least tried to imagine what action and responsibility are like. It is a great thing in his favour that he is not witty, not 'daring', has no wish to épater les bourgeois. He dealt largely in platitudes, and since we live in a world of platitudes, much of what he said sticks. Even his worst follies seem less shallow and less irritating than the 'enlightened' utterances of the same period, such as Wilde's epigrams or the collection of cracker-mottoes at the end of Man and Superman."

But then was not Kipling also responsible for the prophetic lines-presumably that is the quality Orwell alludes to while acknowledging Kipling’s ‘corresponding advantage’ :

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet.
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
—Recessional

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1146109/The-remarkable-story-Rudyard-Kiplings-If--swashbuckling-renegade-inspired-it.html

Gita  and  IF:

The ‘ideal’ extolled in IF is of course, the स्थितप्रज्ञ of Bhagvad Gita. The Gita describes the various facets of such a person. Roughly the word stands for some who is self-collected and detached from worldly things. The description is contained in various shlokas of second chapter which go as follow:

भगवद्गिता अध्याय २, श्लोक ३८:
सुखदु:खे समे कृत्वा लाभालाभौ जयाजयौ
ततो युद्धाय युज्यस्व नैवं पापमवाप्स्यसि ॥

 श्रीभगवानुवाच -
प्रजहाति यदा कामान्सर्वान्पार्थ मनोगतान्।
आत्मन्येवात्मनाः तुष्टः स्थितप्रज्ञस्त-दोच्यते।।55।।

दुःखेष्वनुद्विग्नमनाः सुखेषु विगतस्पृहः।

वीतरागभयक्रोधः स्थितधीर्मुनिरुच्यते।।56।।

यः सर्वत्रानभिस्नेहस्तत्तत्प्राप्य शुभाशुभम्।
नाभिनन्दति न द्वेष्टि तस्य प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठिता।।57।।

यदा संहरते चायं कूर्मो।़ङ्गानीव सर्वशः।
इद्रियाणीद्रियार्थेभ्यस्तस्य प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठिता ।।58।।

Lord Krishna tells Parth in his sermon: स्थितप्रज्ञ is one who has relinquished all desire and is contented in his present state. He has conquered grief, fear, greed, and other emotions. He neither revels in happiness, nor rancours in adversity. This is because he is one with the world, and is one with the atman. IF explores various dimensions and possibilities of such a personality, some of which are more dramatic than envisaged by the Gita, like staking one’s all, or strolling with a King...

As this blogpost threatens to cross the 1000 word limit set by Missus, we carry forward the following yaksha prashnas (which really are the subtext of this Post) to the next post:

1. Will the Intelligent Woman [1] abhor Kipling as a reactionary ‘running dog of imperialism’ [2]?

2. How about dubbing Tulsidas’s dohas and Gita, reactionary tools as some pogressive (used in lieu of ‘progressive’ in Poha-Jalebi territory) ? Tulsi wrote dhol, ganwaar, etc. etc., and D.D.Kosambi black-balled Gita for the supposed anti-people stance.

First of all, forget Gita or Tulsi or Kipling, using the word ‘reactionary’ for works of a bygone era itself is a Logic issue. It just fails to cross the mind’s ‘logic gates’. How can there be a reaction in 16^th century to a phenomenon of the 21^st century? Flies in the face of Sir Isaac Newton. Would be understandable in the reverse order, I sayyyy...

‘Context’  is a powerful variable while analysing a concept. The above concerned material was written for consumption in another era, in another context. Here is a beautiful exercise which you must endure:

POWER OF CONTEXT

Bill Eisner

To begin, read the following excerpt at normal speed. Don’t skim, give up halfway through, or skip to the explanation. This experience can’t be duplicated once you know the explanation. So once you’ve read the paragraph that follows, take a moment before you read on to sense how you feel:

A newspaper is better than a magazine. A seashore is a better place than the street. At first it is better to run than to walk. You may have to try several times. It takes some skill, but it is easy to learn. Even young children can enjoy it. Once successful, complications are minimal. Birds seldom get too close. Rain, however soaks in very fast. Too many people doing the same thing can also cause problems. One needs lots of room. If there are no complications, it can be very peaceful. A rock will serve as an anchor. If things break loose from it, however, you will not get a second chance.

Okay, how do you feel about what you’ve just read? I’ve shared this exercise with thousands of marketers. If you’re like most everyone else, you probably are feeling a bit confused by what it all means. You might be feeling annoyed because what you’ve just read makes no sense to you. You don’t feel that you know what it all means.

It refers to Kite Flying!

 One recalls the times when one worked with d’Base packages. The Compiler is a language which is used on programmes in another language to create an executable programme. A Clipper was used to ‘compile’ programmes in order to create an independent programme which was portable, too.

So the ‘context’ of an era is a Clipper which ‘compiles’ that era’s programmes and till the said ‘Clipper’ is put to operation, the source code of another era’s programmes cannot be operationalised. Now, the past Socio Clipper no longer exists, and as we cannot live that era, no sense can be accurately made of today’s affairs. It’s like trying to play ‘Prince of Persia’ on a calculator.

So friends, in the next Post coming within a day/2, we examine the contributions of Rt. Hon. Rudyard Kipling and Gitadevi through the Worm’s Eye and also expand on the Khushwant Singh quotation as promised.

________________________________________________________________

[1] George Bernard Shaw wrote The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, supposedly for Lady Cholmondeley (pronounced Chaomley), his sister-in-law, and this terminology  has got canonised in English:  an un-initiated but intelligent person.
[2[ Mandarin usage, inter alia, used for US by Mao.

Khushwant Paaji and Kasauli Days

The principal merit and endowment of Chandigarh lies in its location rather than its architecture. Limitless vistas to the traveler open up, once she arrives there. Not just beautiful hill stations, but  curiously curious spots as well.

Earlier this week we happened to be in Chandigarh for a 2 hour Conference – ConclAv they call it now-, where in an audience of 200 just 2 people argued with each other and finis! Flying from Guwahati and back is a three day affair, bound to raise hackles- but not to the Chandigarh-initiated, in which ranks CVB fancies himself…

The destination that suits our taste best, if we have 4 hours on hand while in Chandigarh is Kasauli. As kids we have visited the place a plenty of times, for our School Principal the Rev. Jim Douglas Tytler had a Villa there, which would be the summer retreat of the whole School. It was, isss, a little Church centered hill station, tucked westwards behind the hills that led to Shimla or Simla. The solid Raj roads and railroad took you there…

The moment the takraar alluded to above ended, colleague Raj and YT took a bite of the excellent butter chicken-tandoori roti combination that forms the backbone of a Punjabi meal, and jumped into Bhag Singh’s Dzire, and yelled “Singh saab, Kasauleeee..”-before anyone could spy us- for what we love to see is usually hatke from accepted norms. Many a precious trip has foundered on the rocks of suum cuique…

One of the inherent strengths of Kasauli- its métier- is its geography. In a space of 75 km., you ascend 6,000 ft. ! Just give an hour and a half, and you are upp there in the clouds savouring the fragrances pervading endless pine-woods, admiring the expansive broad-shouldered mountains, interspersed with supremely beautiful valleys …

The other two draws of Kasauli are the Pedigree of the place, and last but not the least- Cheers! -the one and only single Malt Whisky produced in Ancient India: Solan No. 1- from the highest distillery in the world, the solvent of the 42.8 % alcohol being unadulterated water from Himalayan springs.

But of course they’ll tell you it’s no longer what it used to be- those shaalaa (minceশালা )  professional nostalgia seekers, nostalgia ke vyapari- the height being “Owwwww…nostalgia is no longer what it used to be..ha,ha,ha..”

There were times when the whisky was available only in Military stores. And boyyy…did the Generals swear by the Holy Spirit!  Once on a trip from nowhere to nowhere we happened to befriend Brigadier Shamsher Singh (now retired) of Signals, who promptly christened nacheez, chotte prah, and naturally after a couple of pegs of Solan No. 1 we reciprocated by addressing him as Veerji. The difference in our ages should have been around 125 years then, a century here or there... No Sticky Label, Walker-Shalker for me, he used to say, “I am monogamous- one wife, one whisky…” –a  General like which they don’t produce anymore…

As is known to anyone who has tippled on occasion, the whiskies that go under the garb of IMFL are all derived from molasses. The only ones which answer to the description of real whisky are Solan No. 1 and possibly Amrut of Bangalore. Those are the only two whiskies ever sighted on international turf, for instance Solan is reviewed by Canadian Chip Dykstra on his site rumhowlerblog, which reputedly crossed 2 million hits last year…he rates the whisky at a respectable 84/100, which is the highest end of cocktail whiskies and the lower end of the elite independently consumable brands- according to Chips, that is...we’d give it a neat, on-the-rocks 90.  To give you an idea of his exacting standards, Bacardi White Rum earns a mere 70/100 on Chip-scale. This is the only whisky to figure in the Penguin title “Happy Hours: The Indian Book of Cocktails” by Bhaichand Patel, and that, without any insult …! Google Solan No. 1 and you’ll be startled by the fan following the brand commands...

The brewery, at present known as Mohun Meakins, was set up in 1860, in the foothills of Kasauli on the Solan spring, with equipment imported from Scotland by Edward Dyer, the father of the infamous Brigadier General Reginald Dyer, the perpetrator of the Jallianwala Massacre. Too bad…Reggie did not stick to his dad’s venerable vocation…

The equipment of the distillery is still the same, though the ownership has changed. The senior Mohun happens to be a teetotaler and has never sought to hype the whisky from his side. On the other hand, he has been contracting the production as the availability of Malt and Himalayan water dwindles. Today one has to visit Kasauli to buy the concoction, it is so scarce, and all we could lay our hand was a solitary bottle. MRP? -only Rs. 280.00! Best things come for free nooo....?

RIDIN'  INTO THE SUNSET

Having accomplished the prime object of the Mission, we now trot around the hills, intending to bring friend Raj face to face with the most celebrated hasti –personality- of Kasauli- Sardar Khushwant Singh. But of course he is too old now to undertake the journey to his home at Kasauli, they say, and the Khushwant Singh Festival of 2012 did not venture beyond the celebrated Kasauli Club. Anyhow, we get to explore a bit, the precincts of the historic home where he did most of  his writing. YT and his friend share a certain warmth for Khushwant paaji if only because he calls himself  a “simple-minded Sardarji”. Quite endearing I sayyy…! Raj should be delighted to find that the estate is named after him..Raj Villa… or the other way round. With some temerity, we complete a pradakshina of the house-apparently at the other end is a sunset-point. “Whose woods are there I think I know, his house is in the village though, he will not see me stopping here..” there the analogy ends: snowfall ‘ardly ‘appens in Kasauli, it happens in the leap years they used to say- ya- it did happen in 2012…We remember Miss Parks, our school-time old-flame, our chaperon, never allowed us to go in the direction where Raj Villa lay, it was supposed to abound in dangerous precipices...

As for the vastu- khandahar batate hain - imarat kitni haseen thi… Here are the mandatory snaps:

ਸੱਦੀ ਗੱਲ ਏ : ਤੂ ਕੀ ਸੰਜੇਗਾ ਤੰਨੁ ਕੀ ਦੱਸਿਏ !

The first one is in rrrreallly bad taste—baaad boys, but what better can you expect  from a Rehgarpuria, aks the Dev Nagaris and Karol Baghis I sayyy… Rehgarpura, a Karol Bagh suburb where the outcastes used to live was our home till we were further outcasted from there… to JJ Colony, Inderpuri, next door neighbors to, we boast, the Rt. Hon. Mayawati, whom every Indian Politician aspires to emulate, but lacks the gumption…

It was too tempting a photo-op, and we’re sure Khushwant paaji will understand, large hearted that he is…by the way Khushwant Singh was never a Solan No.1 enthusiast- he just prefers the generic Scotch…The twain did not meet…alas…

May waheguru see Khushwant paaji break the glass wall of the Century, and may the equivalent of Thoreau’s Walden, or Poe’s Bronx and Maugham’s home at Cat Ferrat, light up on 2^nd February 2015 resplendent in glory!

And don’t you sneeze at the pains we take for just a dekko at Raj Villa. Defined circuits of Great Writers’ Homes form big-ticket tourism in the West.

RAJ VILLA 2013

GRANDEUR BEHIND RAJ VILLA

FLEET STREET

RAJ VILLA IN ITS PRIME

MAUGHAM AT CAT FERRAT RESIDENCE

POE'S HOME BRONX

THOREAU'S WALDEN

One blurb @ http://voices.yahoo.com/visiting-historic-homes-famous-authors-western-548016.html shrieks “sleep in historic surroundings from just $99 per night”. The Americans: I Love Them/ I Love Them Not/ I Love Them/ I Love Them Not/ I Love Them/ I Love Them Not…No- Never I sayyy…Oh Yes I sayyy...

YESSS...!!!

TAILPIECE:

Paparazzi gathered at the 99^th birthday celeb of Paaji.. Paparazzo condescendingly remarks “ SIRRRR, I HOPE  I’LL ATTEND YOUR CENTENARY CELEB NEXT YEAR…”… “WHY NOT..?!” says Paaji, “ YOU LOOK QUITE HALE AND HEARTY, CVB..!”