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From the day one, women have had their way.<br />
For, they alone account for why Rama lost his sway.<br />
1be Kauravas and Pandavas too suffered at their hands.<br />
Ful/ eighteen armies perished in the Kurukshetra sands.<br />
1bey bridled even Raja Rhoj, the wisest ever King<br />
With their toes they mauled and befuddled him, in the ring.<br />
o Shah Mohammed! No wonder then that the queenlind KaUT<br />
Had the country /aid waste in its darkest hour.<br />
1bis is perhaps the best way of describing how women in<br />
history are known to have led their menfolk to countless<br />
misfortunes. He makes a mention of not only Rama and the<br />
Kauravas and the Pandavas but even of Raja Bhoj whose stories<br />
portray him as a byword of cultivated wisdom.<br />
Of course, Shah Mohammed also mentions Ali Akbar twice.<br />
It appears he has done so for two very good reasons. One, Ali<br />
Akbar emerges as a model son who regains the crown of Kabul<br />
for his deposed father by organizing the Afghans against the<br />
British and expelling the latter from Afghanistan; and two,<br />
scanning a whole century of British expansion in India, he is<br />
the only one who by dint of arms, defeats the so-far undefeated<br />
British. Perhaps Shah Mohammed while being a good Punjabi,<br />
was a hater of the British too; perhaps he wanted the Feringbee<br />
to be crushed out of Punjab so that the Hindus and Musalmans<br />
could eternally live together in peace. Hence, Ali Akbar is<br />
important to him as a symbol embodying certain values and not<br />
just because he was a Muslim warrior.<br />
He also mentions Dulla Bhatti, the Punjabi Robinhood who<br />
as a jungle-king saved the honour of a Bralunin girl against the<br />
carnal avarice of a Muslim Governor. Perhaps Shah Mohammed<br />
fIrmly believed that it is men like Dulla Bhatti who should<br />
become symbols of the Hindu-Muslim oneness in Punjab. That<br />
Dulla Bhatti is today the best known folk hero of Punjab and<br />
his lays are sung both in India and Pakistan, is enough to justify<br />
Shah Mohammed in doing so. He also alludes to one Mir Dad<br />
Khan Chauhan whose wives commit Sati in the best Rajput<br />
tradition. Hence that allusion is again very well placed as a<br />
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