MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS AND INDIA IN THE BRITISH RAJ

                                     

                Thoda roti, thoda cha
                Queen Victoria bahut achha
                 Thoda roti, thoda jam
                 Queen Victoria very fine man!

Have you heard this doggerel? Perhaps yes, perhaps not. This is from the repertoire of my friend Prem Bhasin (all of 87 years in 1994) during my five-year stint in Patiala. Bhasin was the most colourful personality that I can remember. More of him later.

This ditty is supposed to be one of the nursery rhymes that the Indian nannies of the British Sahebs used to sing to their charges. Like our very own Little Miss Muffet in

                  Muffety Mai dahi malaai
                  ghaas pe baith ke khaai
                  ek badaa saa makraa
                  kapraa ko pakraa
                  aur bhaag gayi Muffety Mai

But I must not digress.

Obviously, the versifier of the first belonged to the pre-Independence era. Equally obvious it is that he had a pragmatic approach to life and, sure, his priorities were right. He was perhaps the pioneering proponent of the concept of mai-baap sarkaar. The inspiration behind the slogan "roti, kapda aur makaan" flogged to death several times over by the politicians of India in the past three score and twelve years could have been none other.

Poetic merits apart, the attempt to curry favour with the presiding officer of the Empire where the sun never sets is transparent. Nevertheless, the Queen, after whom the orthodoxy of tight-corseted primness and prudery is named, I am sure, must have raised her royal eyebrows in a frown at the confusion that caused her to be described as a man. She must have, in her characteristic style, exclaimed, "We are not amused!"