L - Gurmat Veechar

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