PARADISE AND MAN

PARADISE AND MAN When Professor Nau Nihal Singh finally retired from an American University, he came to India where he was elected to the Rajya Sabha from 1992 to 1998. When he was nearing the end of his tenure, I chanced to meet him and was invited to his home. I found that his whole house was like a huge library. He was a scholar in the real sense. In the course of our conversation, I learnt that he had done his masters in political science. He later went on to complete his doctorate on international relations. Then he saw an advertisement by an American University for the post of professor on this subject. So Prof. Singh applied for it and was almost immediately called for an interview. When he reached the USA, he was received by someone who told him that he had been sent by the university to serve as his guide. Then he drove Prof. Singh to the university, where he was accommodated in the university guest house. This guide came daily to Prof. Singh and showed him around the vast university campus from morning till evening. In this way, he took him to different departments of the university and acquainted him with all the main areas of activities of the institution, for instance, the library, the dining hall, the class rooms, the teacher’s club, students meetings, university workers meetings, etc. Almost a week passed in this way. Prof. Singh started to feel anxious. He said to the chairman of his department, “I was called for an interview and I have been here for a whole week.” But so far no interview has taken place. The chairman replied, “Your interview has already been done and we have selected you. Now you can join as soon as possible.” Then the chairman told Prof. Singh that the person whom he had met at the airport, and who had acted as his guide, was a senior professor and also his interviewer. He added that they had learnt of his educational qualifications from the papers he had sent them and now they wanted only to know whether or not he measured up to the culture of the university. This had been the task of his interviewer, who had taken him to the different departments of the university and introduced him to all the activities going on there. The students and teachers had been observant of his behavior during their meetings. And the interviewer too was doing likewise. The report of the interviewer was wholly positive as were the reports of other teachers, students and workers whom he had met during his week-long stay there. Therefore, on the basis of these reports they had selected him. This incident parallels the situation of Paradise and man. God created a Paradise, a vast world which was perfect in the fullest sense of the word. Here everything was of the highest possible standard. Therefore, God wanted such people to inhabit this world as were flawless in character and thus fully qualified to live in this ideal environment. Now God created the present planet earth as a model of that world. Here everything exists that is available in the world of Paradise, the only difference being that Paradise is perfect