PUNE DIARIES

One extraordinary thing about a believer is that everything turns out well for him. If everything goes according to plan, a feeling of thanksgiving is aroused in him, but should his plans go awry, he realizes that man can only propose; it is God who disposes. ranging airline companies, possessing a big fleet, consisting of a variety of aircrafts. It provides a daily service of 240 flights, landing at 73 airports all over the country, besides which its planes also fly to Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bangkok and Bangladesh. It has agreements with various international airline companies, “so wherever you are, Indian Airlines is within reach.” The aircraft I had boarded was still standing on the runway, and I was reading all these impressive things in the in-flight magazine, when, all of a sudden, we heard an announcement over the loudspeaker that we should all alight from this plane. It seemed that we were to make the journey to Poona in another aircraft. So, all the passengers disembarked and boarded another aircraft. Clearly, more time elapsed in this process and the plane was eventually two hours late. The words, “We wish you a comfortable journey,” were written in bold letters in the in-flight magazine, which made me think how easy it is to say things, but how difficult to convert one’s words into actions. Muslims in Poona Muslims in Poona number one lakh (100,000) a sufficient number to accomplish any constructive work, should they set their minds to it. But, unfortunately, the state of Muslims in Poona is much the same as that of Muslims in other cities. Instead of applying themselves to constructive work, they waste their time and energy quarrelling among themselves and making futile demonstrations. Christians in Poona are fewer in number than the Muslims, but they far exceed their Muslim counterparts in the amount of constructive work they perform. Negative Approach of Muslims A Hindu building-contractor in Poona constructed a multi-storey apartment building. Immediately Muslims were alarmed that their houses were being exposed and their purdah violated, so they began a campaign against the contractor. He pointed out that there was a Muslim-girls’ school nearby, next to which the very Muslims whose children attended the school had built a multi-storey building similar to the one constructed by himself. The apartments in that building had