By K S Venkataraman

I heard this story by Sivakumar Ayya on Tirumandiram, a canonical work on Saiva Siddhantam in Tamil with 3000 four-line terse verses, many of them in what is called Sandhya bhasha with words having esoteric and hidden meanings. This makes it impossible to translate many of the verses into comprehensible English. You need a good commentator such as Sivakumar Ayya to explain the import of the verses.

In any case, this is his advice on the need for us to develop indifference to public criticism when we are trying to do something good:

There was a rich man in a village. After experiencing everything life offered him, he saw the futility of all his worldly pursuits. So, he gave up all his wealth and became a mendicant.

As a mendicant, he was lying down on the floor on a roadside public place using bricks as a pillow. Two local village women passing by recognized him. They were talking: “Look, this man was rich. He left everything and became a sannyasi. See how he is now lying on the floor!”

Her companion commented: “Uh! If he is really a sannyasi, why does he need bricks as a headrest for sleeping?”
The mendicant was listening. Seeing their point, he removed the bricks he was using as pillows and was trying to fall asleep.

The two women were returning after their errands. Seeing that the mendicant was sleeping without even the brick as his headrest, the first woman told her friend: “See, he heard your comment and is sleeping without the headrest. He is indeed a true sannyasi.”

Her cynical companion commented: “What sannyasi is he, trying to overhear the conversation between two women?”     ♣

They struggled to survive with their catering skills

Jagbir Singh and Indu Bedi

On December 23 last year, Jagbir Singh Bedi died in Pittsburgh; and just one week after his death, Indu Bedi, his wife and life partner for 45-plus years through the thick and thin of his life, also passed away. Heart problems were the causes for their deaths.

Jagbir Singh was a Partition baby, born in Gujranwala (in Pakistan today). His parents came to India after the Partition. Indu was born in Amritsar, Punjab. Jagbir Singh owned a business in India before they migrated to the US in 1984, landing in Pittsburgh.

In Pittsburgh, Jagbir Singh used his natural entrepreneurial instincts to start businesses in Indian groceries (Home Fair) and restaurants (Vegetarian Delight and Durbar). However, the businesses did not last. The Bedis stoically bore their disappointments, accepting them as part of life. They tried to stand on their own feet by servicing the catering needs of Indians in the Tri-State area.

About ten years ago I once saw him when he was in his early 60s working with his wife in their catering kitchen in Monroeville. They were sweating it out in the mid-August heat in front of a large kadai (wok) deep-frying samosas and making chicken and lamb items for his clients.

Jagbir Singh had a wry sense of humor. Laughingly he once recalled his experience selling his restaurant to Indians who had no experience in the restaurant business. “Do you know they had twelve partners? Can you imagine running a restaurant with twelve partners?” Laughingly he continued: “I am having difficulty running this place with my family!”

The Bedis leave behind two sons and a daughter. Gagan is in India and Sandeep is in Pittsburgh. Their daughter Poonam lives in Houston, TX; Jagbir’s brother Datar Singh and his family and his nephews and nieces live in Pittsburgh.

The Bedis were cremated in Pittsburgh following the Sikh rites.

— By Kollengode S Venkataraman  ♣

A Well-liked Psychiatrist

Suman Ahuja, a retired psychiatrist from the V. A. Medical Center and a longtime resident of Pittsburgh, died on February 1, 2017.

She was born on January 17, 1947 in Chiniot, Punjab (in Pakistan today). She was the youngest in a family of six, of four brothers and two sisters.

She had her schooling in Delhi and earned her medical degree from Gauhati Medical College in Assam. She met her husband Subash in New Delhi in 1974, married and joined him in New York that same year. After finishing their residencies in New York — she in psychiatry and he in pathology — they moved to Pittsburgh in 1977. She joined the V.A. Medical Center as a clinical psychiatrist, where she worked for over thirty years.

They raised two lovely children, Rajiv, born in Brooklyn, N.Y. and Nina, born in Pittsburgh, PA. She was grandma “Bima” to two adorable grandchildren, Riaan, 5 and Rayna Lakshmi, 1. With her two children settled in their careers, Rajiv, a lawyer, in practice in the field of Health Care Management, and Nina, a physician, pursuing a fellowship in Gastroenterology, and her own successful career in the field of Psychiatry, she was happy and content with her life.

She was a very caring person, always helping others. She volunteered in the soup kitchens and was on the Humanitarian Committee at Hindu Jain Temple. It was not money or fame that she sought, but a loving family and close friends she yearned for. She was successful in her goals.

She loved dancing, cooking and entertaining, enjoyed music and listening to soothing Bhajans, and Ghazals & Shayries (Hindi/Urdu poetry recitations).

Although, she was very conscious of her health and practiced daily yoga and meditation, she developed an autoimmune liver disorder towards the later part of her life. With her deep faith in God, she always maintained a cheerful and positive outlook.

Suman leaves behind Subash, her husband of 43 years, two children, two grandchildren, and three siblings in India. She was cremated with Hindu Vedic rites on February 4, 2017 in Pittsburgh.

— By Praful Desai, Greensburg, PA  ♣

By Kollengode S Venkataraman

Tiru-mangai-alvaar, a Bhakti Tamil poet, is one of the twelve savants in the Vaishnava tradition in the Tamil country. He composed several hundred verses (part of the compendium called Divya Prabandham containing nearly 4000 verses) addressing Vaishnava deities in his pilgrimage. Analogously, the works of several Tamil Saiva poets (between the 6th and 9th centuries) called Tevaram and Tiruvachagam, and others are over 8000 verses in different meters.

Literary critics date Tiru-mangai-alvaar between the 7th and 9th centuries. In one of his verses* he candidly pours out his personal inadequacies that resonate even today in our “modern” times. Here is his verse addressed to Venkateswara of Tirupati in India:

Here is the free-style non-poetical translation of the verse:

Unknowingly, in my youth, I indulged in countless bad deeds!

As an adult, laboring for others, I became impoverished!

O, Hari, the Lord of the Venkata Hills with surrounding forests
       where elephants roam,

Here I am! Accept me [with all my faults] and grant me your grace!

We work in our jobs as employees, professionals, or as entrepreneurs and accumulate wealth of various kinds. But the poet here poignantly confesses that he was impoverished working for others. Is this not strange? We may never know who he worked for or the nature of his earnings over 1200 years ago. It is entirely possible that he, like us today, was not content with his earnings. Greed is so simple: no matter how much we earn and accumulate, often, we wish for more. But not getting more than what we actually get does not make us impoverished. So, why does the Alvaar confess, “I became ‘impoverished’ laboring for others?”

The Alvar’s impoverishment probably was not material. Most likely, his was the spiritual impoverishment he suffered in earning his living — like the excessive servitude he showed to his employer. Or committing acts he should not have, or deliberately omitting acts he should have carried out, and making all kinds of unethical compromises along the way. In today’s parlance, it is like indulging in unethical practices to get ahead of others — even outright cheating and lying. Or by our becoming silent accomplices in the unethical business practices in work places, even in temples.

Such frustrations as in the confession above have been the bane of human existence. Here is another example: Pattinattaar, a Saiva mendicant in the 10th century Tamil Country, expresses the humiliation people endure when they go to rich and powerful people seeking favors. Incidentally, Pattinattaar was not born to poverty. He was a prosperous trader. He became a mendicant out of choice. A dramatic transformation occurred in his life when he realized, “Not even an ‘eye-less needle’ is of any help during our final exit.”  Here is his original expression in Tamil

Sewing needles are of value and use only so long as they have the “eye.” Once the “eye” of the needle breaks off, the eye-less needle has no value whatsoever. Realizing this, Pattinattaar walked away from his wealth, becoming a wandering mendicant. He composed priceless poems on the human predicament in various situations using humor, cynicism, anger, irony or sarcasm in his expressions. People memorize these rhyming, alliterating verses even today.

In one verse Pattinattaar puts his frustrations pretty bluntly in an alliterative and rhyming verse addressed to Shiva in Mount Kailasa:

Translation:

O, my father, the Lord of Mount Kailasa, when will be the day 

     when I don’t have to go behind the rich, whining about my problems 

     seeking favors by ingratiating myself with them and fawning over them?

And when will I be free from this misery, and experience 

     the bliss of being content with myself in solitude?

On the human yearnings for a higher call, every Indian language is a treasure trove of verses like the ones presented here. I say this with my sketchy understanding of Hindi/Bhojpuri/Awadhi Bhajans, Kannada Devaranamas and Vachanas, and after listening to pravachans on the shabads from the Adi Granth at the Gurudwara.

Unfortunately, in today’s India with the overemphasis on the anglicized education by rote, regional languages (including one’s own mother tongue) are losing their influence on youngsters. And nobody knows how to stem this tide. And there is only minuscule interest among India’s youngsters in one region to learn another Indian language. What is even worse is people’s benign condescension or outright hatred for other regional languages. This is a great Indian tragedy unfolding in front of the whole nation that nobody seems to recognize — or care, even when they recognize it. ♣

* I acknowledge Kalyani Raghavan of Edwewood, PA for the exact reference to this verse.   ♣

K. S. Venkataraman

A good protest placard conveys complex social issues in a simple and direct language. This placard is an example.

Take the example of today’s working class families with below-the-median family-income of ~$55,000 a year. They try to stretch their limited resources to meet their needs for paying their bills on time, saving for their future, and educating their children.

When allocating their limited monies for different needs, even suboptimal decisions have huge consequences. This is true in educating children. Not getting proper guidance at crucial stages in their high schools often make these kids to go unprepared to the rigors of university education.

With their limited resources, it will be difficult for these kids to make a course correction in their education when they realize that they took a wrong path when facing a fork in their education journey.

Families living above $100,000 dollars of income/year tend to be better educated and informed about the way of the world. They give better guidance to their kids. Further, children from these families have the luxury of time and resources to change their education options even after their first degree. The higher the family income and resources, the greater is the leeway for children in this. This is a simple fact of life.

Parents from higher income families are aware of this. But they try to camouflage this by attributing all their children’s accomplishments to their intelligence and hard work — on their DNA and the family memes. “We are a better breed,” they subconsciously would want to believe.

The DNAs and memes are very important factors, no doubt. However, many other factors — protracted illnesses, deaths, divorces, job losses for parents, political turmoils, for examples — over which the parents and their kids have no influence or control, have a big say in what we accomplish in our lives.

So, when I read the placard again, I feel a sense of gratitude for all the help and generosity I received at critical junctures in life — and a sense of obligation to society at large.    ♣

A Respected Doctor in Internal Medicine

Dr. Mohinder Mohan Bahl, a longtime resident of Pittsburgh, passed away on February 3rd, 2017. The cause of his death was complications following a stroke in his long battle with heart problems.

He worked at the Shadyside Hospital and the East Suburban Hospital in Monroeville (now Forbes), while also mentoring many young doctors. His specialty was internal medicine. Loved by his patients and respected by his peers, he was recognized by the Allegheny County Medical Society for his years of distinguished service.

Bahl was born in 1938 in Nairobi, Kenya.  He was the third among his five other siblings. He earned his medical degree in India on a scholarship. He came to the US in 1972, pursuing his American dream. He did his residency in internal medicine in Pittsburgh and other places in the US. In 1975 he opened his medical practice in Penn Hills where he served his community for over thirty-five years with diligence, dedication, and kind disposition.

While working as a doctor in Nairobi, in 1964 he married Saroj. The Bahls with their three young children came to the US in 1972. In the early days of Indians coming to live in Pittsburgh, Mohinder Bahl was active in the Indian community. He was a founding member of the Hindu Jain temple. He gave his full support to Saroj’s dedicated efforts to add the Indian Nationality Room in the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning. The Indian Nationality Room, against many odds, was dedicated in 2000. He supported many charitable organizations locally and abroad including the Red Cross and Ekal Vidyalaya, which builds schools in rural, interior India.

Mohinder Bahl was always dignified and gracious with people. He had a good sense of humor that his children imbibed from him. He liked gardening, current events, discussing politics, and he avidly collected coins.
He leaves behind Saroj, his dear wife of fifty-two years of marriage; his three sons Ashish, Monish and Sachin and their wives; his only daughter Mala and her husband; and his ten grandchildren, whom he adored. His brother Vijay Bahl lives in Pittsburgh.

His cremation ceremonies followed Vedic rites at the Beinhauer Funeral Home on Sunday, February 5.

—  By Nita Wadhwani, Presto, PA 

Translated Valmiki’s Sundarakaandam into English in his 80s

By Jayashree Phanse

e-mail: jphanse560@hotmail.com

February 12, 2017. Venue: A modestly decorated Banquet Hall at the Cascade Marriott in Dallas for 150 people. With children running around, adults were chatting, munching on hot samosas and pakodas and sipping Lassi or Chai. We were awaiting the arrival of Shri Ramalingam Sarma, our hero, to celebrate his 100th birthday. Ramalingam Mama — mama is an endearing term for maternal uncle in Indian languages — alert as ever, arrives in a wheelchair with his sons, daughters, and grandkids in tow. He lives in Dallas with his son Arvind. People  greet him with bouquets and pranams. Mama calls out one of the guests, “Govindraj, so you made it. Look, I am wearing the shirt you bought for me!!”

As Chaitanya, Mama’s grandson, gets ready to welcome everyone, Mama interrupts, “It is just another birthday and it happens to be 100. I welcome you all for my 100th birthday,” and blesses in Sanskrit: “Jeevet sharadah shatam” — ‘May you all live for 100 autumns.’  He continues with a smile, “And invite me for your celebrations.”

Geetha Manian, Shri Sarma’s daughter, is in the blue sari.

Mama has a Pittsburgh connection. With his wife Shakuntala (now deceased) he visited the US in 1984 for his son Arvind’s wedding. After retirement, they migrated to the US in 1988 since all their children were here. He lived in Pittsburgh with his daughter Geetha Manian until 2005 to help her raise her son as a single mom. Geetha still lives in Pittsburgh. Many here remember him as an energetic, wiry, alert man.

Mama had studied basic Sanskrit during his school and college days. This was eight decades ago. “Like many

youngsters, in my youth I was not interested in understanding Sanskrit chanting done during routine worships,” he says. After he turned 80, he started refreshing himself in the language’s arcane grammar with books and help from the Internet.

In his boyhood, he had listened to his mother reciting in Tamil Sundarakaandam, a section in Ramayanam. Later he read it in Tamil. Valmiki’s Sanskrit original has 2800 slokas (verses) in 68 sargas (chapters). He wanted an English translation to be useful for today’s youngsters with these features: It should go beyond the simple translation. He set himself for this big task while he was in his 80s. He wanted to present each sloka in the Devanagari script as in the Valmiki’s original with these features added: Classical Sanskrit slokas are with complex Sandhi rules (coalescence of vowels and consonants) and meters peculiar to the language. So, each sloka is simplified in the Devanagari script by breaking the coalesced phrases into simpler words with meanings for easy reading and understanding. Transliterating this into the Roman script, Sarma gives the translation of the verse in English.

For doing this, Mama, while in his 80s, learned computer skills and the necessary software for transliteration from the Roman to Devanagari scripts.

This enormous task took eleven years for completion, with Gargi (Mama’s youngest daughter) and her husband

Mama Shri Ramalingam Sarma at his Centenary Celebrations.

Chandrakant helping him in the last two years. Sujatha Awathi, a Sanskrit professor in Pune, proofread the work and helped in getting the work printed in two volumes of more than 600 pages each. Two-hundred-and-fifty copies were printed in Pune, and several were donated to various universities.

Many assembled in the centenary gala recited poems and prayers, and sought Mama’s blessings by doing pranams to the centenarian. Mama’s sons, daughters, and grandchildren put together a slide show with occasional commentaries by Mama himself! The guests were given a coffee mug with the famous Rig Veda phrase Aano bhadraah kratavo yantu vishvatah printed. The phrase literally means “Let noble thoughts come to us from all directions.” Incidentally, this is the first Sanskrit lesson I learned from my father when I was less than 10 years old.

In his 100th year, Mama sent individual and personal “Thank you” emails using his i-Pad for those present at his 100th birthday bash.

Even at 100, Mama is fully independent, with the need for occasional oxygen supplements. He is mentally alert, and his memory is as sharp as it can be. Evidently, the good genes he inherited from his parents have played a big part. However, we also need to recognize the other lifestyle choices he made: All through the one hundred years of his life, Mama has been disciplined and simple in his personal life, even as he lived through several difficult transitions; fastidious and frugal in his eating habits; regular in his exercise routines; and attentive to his health. He is a good role model for us on this. We wish him well.   ♣

By K. S. Venkataraman

Taking inspiration from Rajasthan’s rich tradition in miniature paintings, our multi-faceted Harish Saluja used his palette and paint brushes to create bright paintings using water color, acrylics and other materials. His medium for these miniature paintings are 3” x 5” index cards, with abstract and Asian motifs.

Over 100 paintings were on display during February-March in a gallery on Liberty Avenue. Arts aficionados, Saluja’s friends and well-wishers, including Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto (see below), were there on the opening day to hear Saluja sharing his inspiration for these paintings.

The adjacent picture measuring 3” x 5” is the actual size  of the paintings displayed.

Harish says he had no formal training in arts schools; or for that matter in music or film making, for which also he is known. His talents are natural, like the fragrance of flowers in the wild.  ♣

Well-liked Neurologist, Founding Member of AAPI and the Pittsburgh Sikh Gurudwara

Dr. Sarjit Singh, a long-time resident of Weirton, WV, passed away peacefully at his home on Thursday, December 22, 2016. He was 77. The Greater Pittsburgh Area has lost one of its outstanding members.

Born in Tanda, Hoshiarpur district in Punjab, India, Dr. Singh obtained his medical degree from Glancy Medical College, Amritsar, Punjab. He came to the United States in 1969 with his wife, Dr. Ranjeet Singh, now a retired pathologist. He trained in neurology in Buffalo, New York, and completed a clinical fellowship at Harvard University.  In 1975, the Singhs settled down in Weirton.

Dr. Singh was an assistant clinical professor of neurology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Medical College of Pennsylvania. Dr. Singh actively practiced neurology up to the time of his death. He authored numerous research papers in neurology. His patients liked him for his clinical skills, compassion, personal attention, and cheerful disposition.

Dr. Singh was a founding member of AAPI, the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, where he also served as president in 1991. During his tenure, Dr. Singh, with his colleagues, established three charitable medical dispensaries in India, serving thousands of needy patients. He was also involved in forming the Amritsar Medical and Dental Alumni Association of North America.

In 1992 Dr. Singh was appointed to the West Virginia Board of Medicine which licenses and governs doctors throughout the state. He later served as the Board’s president in 1998. In 1991, the Governor of West Virginia recognized Dr. Singh as one of the Most Distinguished West Virginians, one of the state’s highest honors. He also served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Urban Health Alliance, representing ethnic/minority physicians to aid the less fortunate in their healthcare needs.

Dr. Singh was one of the founding members of Tri-State Sikh Gurudwara in Monroeville PA, completed in 1985, for serving the spiritual and cultural needs of Sikhs in the Tri-State area.

He was also active in the Democratic Party at the state and national level, and was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the National Democratic Committee in 1992.  He was active in the Weirton Rotary Club, donating generously for the scholarship funds, and hosting many exchange students. The City of Weirton inducted him into the Weirton Hall of Fame.

Singh was an avid tennis player and loved playing golf with his friends and was a member of the Williams Country Club in Weirton.

He had a great sense of humor that came out even when he was seriously ill. He advised and rewarded people who quit smoking. I was one of the many recipients of $100 from him when I quit smoking.
Dr. Singh is survived by his wife, Ranjeet; his son Satbir, a urologist and his daughter-in-law, Shalu, a neurologist; and grandchildren, Sheraj and Simreen.

Private cremation services following the Sikh rites were held for Dr. Singh on Saturday, December 24, 2016 in Dover, Ohio. In the memorial service held later at the Sikh Gurudwara in Monroeville on January 7, 2017, a large number of his family members, friends and associates from near and far reminisced about their association with Dr. Singh. The common themes in the gathering were his determination, vision, kindness, caring, readiness to help others, and his sense of humor.

–  By Juginder Luthra, Weriton, WV  ♣