Stones Into Schools: by Greg Mortenson with Mike Bryan.

The story of Greg Mortenson and good work of Central Asia Institute of building schools in remote regions for poor children and especially girls continues from the first book Three Cups Of Tea in this book, with introduction to Afghanistan beginning repeating in the first part, but with considerably more detail than was included for that part in the previous book. Mortenson is more and more busy, giving speeches and meeting people in US for sake of more money for CAI so more could be done for the people of remote regions of western Himaalaya and contiguous mountain regions in Afghanistan. There is a great deal of interesting detail of stories about people of those regions, and the beautiful region too, making one wish this were full of photographs. Even better, one wishes there were a documentary one could watch on an information channel or buy a DVD of.

Meanwhile this book continues with little mistakes and subtle atmosphere of slight to India albeit with a somewhat effort to give a more balanced set of facts without compromising the politics of pro Pakistan (which has amounted to anti Indian over the six decades or so of all the history of Pakistan's existence), a tightrope walk this pair of writers do well enough.

Small mistakes are easier to point out - one small one to begin with is about meanings of words, here about the word Neelum which derives from Neel in Sanskrt which means Blue, and is so understood in all Indian languages including Urdu; the word Neelum is short for Neelamani which literally means Blue Jewel, that is to say Blue Sapphire, and that is precisely what Neelum means. Kashmir is known for the region's sapphires, more blue sapphires than any other, and while now science tells us that ruby and sapphire are the same stone in different colours, this is only very recent knowledge compared to history of jewels in India, so it is unlikely that this misunderstanding of interpreting Neelum as ruby is anything but a mistake of logic or information on part of the writers. If Neelum river valley does indeed yield rubies that certainly is not what gives the name to the river or the valley.

That much the writers could have inferred from the Afghan Koh-i-lal they mention where rubies are mined, and from the famous diamond Kohinoor of India - now in British possession - which is literally named Mountain Of Light by the Persians that looted it from India before it was brought back. So Lal must be ruby, they might have guessed, and indeed that is how it is referred to in Urdu (Maanik in Sanskrt, understood all over India) and spoken of in ordinary dialects that are closer to Urdu in north of Vindhya regions in India.

More serious is when they attempt to discredit Kashmir's accession to India by painting the king of Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, and his ancestors, in derogatory terms without checking on facts and making more than one mistake. For one thing they claim he cared only for his own possessions and sport - but one could point out in turn that this is largely true of most rulers of the day, and indeed few rulers in the world were known for doing better for their people than for themselves, two of such being known in India in fact but that is non sequitur.

One could also point out that one famous rich person they mention as a spiritual leader of a small sect of Islam who is now living in Paris was in fact from India, his palace was used to imprison Gandhi at various times and his wife - Kasturba Gandhi - died in prison there, and his living in Paris is perhaps due to the fact that he cannot make either Pakistan or India his choice of residence since he owns property in India and does not wish to declare a loyalty or lose property as millions of Hindus did when they were thrown out of western Punjab or Kashmir valley with death being the only option.

As a matter of fact Gandhi insisted that property of muslims that left - most were poor, but some did leave houses, and refugees from west needed shelter desperately - be kept for them to claim as and when they choose rather than be given to the refugees, no matter that the refugees mostly had left considerable property back in what was now Pakistan and that property was promptly taken by anyone who was muslim choosing to claim it irrespective of whether the claimers were neighbours or goons who had come in hoardes to murder and pillage and massacre and drive away Hindus and Sikhs. So anyone leaving India for Pakistan being in danger of losing property was only likely on grounds of being a nawab or princely status person, or someone who for political greed had wrought havoc on the nation to separate a piece.

One could also, in turn for the derogatory description of ruler of Kashmir, point out that at the very least he did not massacre or encourage a massacre of his subjects who were of a different faith than his own, as at least one ruler of a state acceded to India post independence did, which was credited to his soldiers while his name is usually not mentioned in the context for delicacy.

Fact is most rulers had a comparable lifestyle of wealth no matter where in the world they ruled, few did anything for people and the only reason king of Kashmir is bad mouthed is the war waged by Islam (and it seems tacitly supported by at least Mortenson and his various writers, or perhaps all church and perhaps all right wing US) on Hindu and other faiths that do not wage war for conversion. If the king of Kashmir were muslim and had butchered his Hindu subjects that would be painted in glowing colours or at the very least as natural by both Pakistan and generally muslims and this writer - as he does about Afghanistan ruler converting a whole region at sword point relatively recently.

As for the price That the king is supposed to have paid the British to purchase Kashmir, this interpretation on two sets of facts is ridiculous but incendiary - perhaps deliberately so? - since it is not as if British or anyone else in the world put up kingdoms for auction, and if a ruler paid taxes to the British to maintain a kingdom in his name rather than surrender it it was due to the fact that the British found it more profitable and less inconvenient; the heir and son to the famed king Ranjit Singh of Punjab (known for his valour) did not have such a choice, nor did the queen of Jhansi or many other including the royalty of Burma. The privilege of Kashmir being under a king rather than directly under British was entirely what British considered suited them best.

Perhaps the derogtory nature of this reference of purchase is due to a respect the writers maintain either openly or subconsciously for those that kill others to take power or land or money or wealth or women, rather than the respect the church is supposed to maintain for the gentle, the meek, the non violent and civilised. Germany after all is proud to have wiped out Prussia as it was and obtained lebensraum east to the borders of Russia, and US chose English over German as the official language of the new nation only by a thin margin. This speaks for the values of the two cultures meeting when Mortenson works in Pakistan and Afghanistan, even though officially Afghanistan had changed the name of Hindu Kush (meaning the place where Hindus were massacred) to a far more polite name over a couple of decades ago, before the destruction of Afghanistan far more by muslims than by Russians began (Khalid Hosseini's books give a clue to this statement with his character saying "this is the best time for women" before Russians are driven out with US arms and aid) and nevertheless the name Hindu Kush is used throughout this book. If that is in the name of tradition, while Indian traditions are disparaged throughout the two books of Mortenson, that speaks for a bias without reason or for truly bad reasons.

The final ridiculous detail in this little mistake is the five rupees per resident of Kashmir that the Maharaja paid the British for Kashmir (how much did the terrorists pay the Hindus that they threw out or massacred, or Sikhs?), which the writers say is price of a cup of tea on road stalls in India. Now if only they had sworn on their Bibles and Korans to the truth of this statement on all their faiths relate to, they would see everything they hold dear gone in their lifetime.

Fact is, inflation in US might have been affordable for the normal person, but it is not unknown. But in India it is not to be compared to the countries that have not known such travails. British looted the country (exact accounts are available, too) till it bled, crafts and professions were disallowed, and wealth was taken away - and then the British left, leaving debts to India that Pakistan refused to share although they demanded (and were given too) their share of the money what with Gandhi fasting to death for that even as Pakistan attacked India. Even after all this and the oil crisis, coca cola was less than half a rupee in India in seventies before the company was thrown out - now it is anywhere between twenty to forty rupees on "roadside" stalls, depending on your need and availability.

So - if a cup of tea in India on roadside stalls is five rupees today, that was not so even two decades ago, and the time when Kashmir was paid for with five rupees per resident a rupee was closer to a pound and bought far more in the land of plenty that was India. Five rupees most likely then was enough to buy an oxcart load full of household groceries enough for a year for a modest family.

Truth is, Kashmir was a state ruled by a king in India amongst many such other states under British protection once British established the rule all over, and in no way different or differently treated by India after independence - once the ruler signed over, India had legal claim to all the territory that was under the rule of the state, with boundaries in common with Afghanistan. If today that is occupied by Pakistan that is due to force pretty much as Baltic states were occupied by USSR, with one small difference - USSR did not swallow the said states. Today the erstwhile Soviet states have independence, while Pakistan occupied Kashmir like Tibet post occupation will never have any individual identity much less autonomy, forget independence.

Mortenson and co forget one very important fact - in their reverence for culture of killers and converters and lebensraum type of politics, they forget that the only person Mortenson respected in all of India (he traveled for just one day to India when he heard of her death, to sit with her body) managed to achieve her fame and glory due to one chief factor, namely she (and most of her faith, for that matter) was not murdered or molested in any way, unlike in Pakistan occupied Kashmir where the first onslaught of Pakistan army in 1948 had nuns murdered and raped in convents, and where today Mortenson has to look and behave like a local to remain relatively safe. In India he gets away with attitude and even publishing derogatory remarks, even to the faith of the majority.

Incidentally, it is all right with India - a matter of no importance at all, if he asked anyone in India - if Mortenson prefers aesthetics of Pakistan trucks, but in India trucks or any other vehicles or places that have any God or Gods in any place are not for decoration, any more than a cross or a crucifix or a Jesus or a Madonna in any place in west are for purposes of decoration signifying aesthetic preference or for that matter the one thousand minus one names of God in a mosque are a matter of decoration. If beauty is more in one place than another that is either subjective (Mortenson prefers Islamic style anti music anti beauty anti-Gods grim, others prefer Gods and Goddesses and music and sculpture and joy) or objective (most of us love snow, mountains, ocean, beauty of earth and heaven), while some are free to express their love and joy about such beauty in paintings and music and others (those respected by Mortenson and co) would rather kill all music and erect tombs over smashed temples just to terrorise and convert.

As almost a final insult, Mortenson tells about the terrorist attack in Mumbai (distorted to Bombay by British and corrected only recently in India) - as if there was only one rather than a continous series conducted while in perpetual denial officially, even as now one can hear their satellite phone conducted transmissions openly - almost as an afterthought and a postscript to the terrorists orgnisations helping their own nations' poor when over a hundred thousand were affected, by mentioning that the same organisation killed a hundred and seventy three in Bombay. This is comparable to mentioning that those that attacked the US are very charitable within Muslim world and benefit far more than they kill in lands far away, just in case anyone does not get why this mention in Mortenson the way it is done is atrocious.

Fact is, even the sheer number of people killed in terrorist attacks in India during last decade or more is over fifty thousand - even if one did not include Kargil, which according to Mortenson is "unconfirmed claim from India" to the effect that the attack was in fact carried out by Pakistan military with terrorists posing as a front at most, if that - it is far from impossible for army to wear Mortenson's favourite dress that everyone in Pakistan is forced to wear (incidentally salwar is the bottom part, loose pant or pajama, while the top or shirt is called kameez, which is not unrelated to chemise as a word - one of the many words Europe and English language borrowed from Asia either due to roots in Sanskrt or due to sojourn during crusades) but the documents found on the killed personnel can be checked for evidence, unless Pakistan has now executed whole families as well to deny that the said killed personnel were not army at all.

But even without that the number of people killed in India due to Pakistan oriented terrorist attacks is pretty huge, and the only reason Mortenson recognises the Tajmahal attacks is due to the pointed targeting of US, UK and Israeli rich (Taj is not a cheap place by any means - a decent middle class meal in a middle class restaurant for a family costs comparable to a cup of tea or coffee in a five star hotel, and Taj is more than that, it is luxury by any defintion except those contrived to keep India out of the club) while the tens of thousands of others dead in India due to Pakistan oriented terrorists attacks do not seem to count for this pair of writers, one doesn't know if they were not counted because they were middle class (which in India would be counted as poor by US standards) and poor, or because they were the wrong race, or because they were assumed to be all Hindu.

It is all about lebensraum after all - Germany had a policy of breeding profusely while going massacring other lands to expand so the growing German population could have room to live. The last time I heard about it was on a train to Paris from Germany where a German woman pointed out at the land (of France) we were rushing through and said, Germany needs land, we have no room. This was less than a decade ago. (There was another German woman who expressed dissatisfaction about the crowds in India where she visits repeatedly from Australia, her choice of settling land, and said she could not breathe due to the crowds; yet she returned on and on, was it to convert - which is against the law - or worse? We did not ask.) Now, in these books is implicitly clear Mortenson's tacit approval of the Muslims finding lebensraum in India after killing thousands and thousands.

India, if and when anyone pays attention to these demands of "hand over yet another state", wonders when this will stop. Pakistan was given after the Calcutta massacre in one three day period with thousands of dead by knives in name of demand for Pakistan forced Gandhi to accept the demand, and India still has more muslims than Pakistan. Now the demand is for Kashmir in name of Muslims, with Hindus and Sikhs and others of Kashmir thrown out from their homeland of forever to have to seem refuge in India, just as the ones from west Punjab were in 1947 and those from east are continously over the last six decades. When will it stop?

Pakistan knows the answer, not until the whole world is occupied and converted, of which India is only the first step, just as Israel is merely an excuse too. And if anyone thinks throwing a lamb or a neighbours' family to the wolf will satisfy it, think again - tomorrow it is your own.

But even meanwhile, the agenda really is not about faith or any such intangibles which are being used for an excuse to veil the real agenda, money - Kashmir has untapped potential what with tourism and mountaineering which already Pakistan benefits from, and the gems and more, just as Assam has other reasons for huge illegal migrations of Muslims from another piece of India that was so eventually it can be taken over with all its wealth.

And while Mortenson is doing good for the poor he helps with providing education for girls even though he allows their brothers in law to deny then the opportunity (shame, Greg!) for sake of not making any trouble for himself, this blindness to facts and truths won't do him or anyone else any good.

If you gain much and lose your soul, you lose.
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