Shouldering his bag, he had walked out of his house very early in the morning. That bag was, in fact, his Pandora’s Box. His wife had been nagging him for many days. He decided to do it today.

He had to meet the new District Collector. The former Collector, Mr. Narang, was a gentleman and he had struggled his way up to reach that higher office; he understood the pains of the poor and middle class people in that area. Nothing much about the new Collector had come to be known.

From his house, the old man had to walk for about two kilometers before he reached the main crossroad where he could get an auto-rickshaw. He had not ventured out of the house for two months. The sunlight almost blinded him, for in the congested locality where he lived in his small house in a narrow by-lane, the sun hardly reached them. He had to walk because he did not have enough money to hire a rickshaw from his house. He had decided to share an auto-rickshaw from the crossroad.

Having reached the Collector’s office, he met the Personal Assistant of the former Collector. The P. A. told him to wait for some time.

“I have heard that financial assistance is provided to the senior citizens, national award winners, and popular old artists in case of sickness?” said the old man.

“Nothing like this has come to my notice. Mr. Khan, this new Collector is a young man and he does not pay respect to folk art and folk artists. He is a progressive young man. He thinks that the old artists who get allowance from the government are like white elephants. But if you insist, I will help you and arrange your meeting with him. Due to festival season, there isn’t much crowd today. I will prepare a paper for you. Come and sign here,” said the P. A.

“May God bless you, my son!”

It was not so quick and easy, for Mr. Khan had to wait outside the Collector’s office for three hours. Sitting on the wooden bench, sharing it with five other people was painful. He kept on changing sides to make him more comfortable on that wooden bench of about three feet in length which gave support to the load of five people.

Finally, it was his number and he was shown in. The office looked quite different. It had been redecorated according to the taste of the young Collector. Everything looked fresh and new.

As the P. A. had informed him outside, the young Collector was quite different from the former Collector.

“Sit down. Peon, keep his bag outside,” said the Collector.

When the peon was about to go out of the room, carrying his bag, Mr. Khan said, “Please be careful, there are fragile things in it.”

“I don’t have much time, so tell me quickly what is your problem?” said the Collector, not taking his eyes off the computer screen in front of him.

The old man began to tell him the problems which the old man facing. He was not sure whether the Collector was listening to him or not because he had been working on his computer, while the old man was speaking.

When Mr. Khan stopped speaking, the Collector lifted his eyes from the computer screen and looked at him, “Listen Mr. Ghulam Khan, that is your name, am I right?” he looked at the paper in front of him and continued, “Your pension of last three months will be given to you but there is no provision of financial assistance for medical treatment. There is no provision in this District and we have not received any such instructions. Our budget is very limited. There are three thousand old artists who were the employees of the Royal Family before Independence but they are now burden on our government. Their old art is no longer appreciated and even their children have taken to other professions. In this modern world, art does not have much importance, and your art is ancient belonging to the time of kings and queens. I am totally helpless, Mr. Khan.”

The old man’s face developed expression of disappointment but he began hesitantly, “You are right, Sir, no one values our art in this modern world. They have forgotten us. But still I feel that government could do something for us. I would be highly obliged.”

“I have already told you that there is no provision of medical allowance for the old artists. By the way, what ails you?” said the Collector.

Mr. Khan told him everything in detail.

The Collector thought for a while and then said, “I know about one hundred rich people in this area. If you say, they will willingly donate Rs. 10.00 each to help you.”

The old man did not speak a word and left the chair. He looked coldly at the Collector and began to walk.

He did not meet the P. A. and walked out of the compound of the Collector’s office.

Having walked for about half an hour he reached in front of the office of Tourism Department. It was the time of the festival and, like earlier years, they had organized a fair for the locals and tourists. In the big compound in front part of the main building there were more than two hundred stalls selling their wares. The tourists were buying handicrafts, handmade dolls, clay pots, paintings, embroidered garments, bangles, musical instruments, and other things which were handmade, reflecting culture of this ancient land. There were some stalls selling snacks and local drinks. Folk music added to the delight of the visitors. There was a big stage in one corner of the ground and folk dancers were performing there.

Suddenly, Mr. Khan noticed a woman, sitting on the ground, in front of a stall. She was selling handmade cloth dolls. A police officer was troubling her. He was forcing her to go out.

“Why should I go out?”

“You can’t sell things like this. You will have to book a stall!” the police officer shouted.

“But I can’t pay for the stall,” the woman showed her helplessness.

“Then go out of this fair and sell your products on road,” the police officer held her arm and literally pushed her.

“Why are you pushing me? I have three little children. I must feed them. There are many foreign tourists here. They will buy my dolls and give me money. Please, let me stay here,” the woman pleaded.

The police officer did not listen to her.

“Leaders and rich people are earning big money but we the poor people are always treated like this. I have made many dolls for this fair. My children will starve if I don’t sell these dolls today,” the woman folded her hands and requested the police officer.

Mr. Khan saw everything but he knew that he could not do anything. Meanwhile, the Minister of tourism reached there. He was surrounded by his people. One of them noticed Mr. Khan and said to the Minister, “Sir, this is Mr. Khan, the most famous artist in our state. He is the master of disguise. His art has many admirers.”

The art of the artists like Mr. Khan was gradually disappearing. People had found new means of entertainment and they did not pay much attention to folk artists like Mr. Khan.

One of the men accompanying the minister gave him a currency note of five hundred rupees. Mr. Khan was happy to get that gift.

“Sir, it is only because of the people like you that I am still alive. Ten years ago they gave me the ‘National Award’ and I began to receive Rs. 300/- every month as pension. But that is all because after that no other help reached me from the government. They don’t care whether I live or die. Sir, how can I live on the pension of Rs. 300/- per month,” said Mr. Khan, with his folded hands and bent head.

The Minister said something to his assistant and the party moved on. Mr. Khan moved aside to make way for them.

In the afternoon, Mr. Khan opened the little box which he had brought from his home. His wife had given him two rotis to eat. It was very hot and he felt that the makeup on his face was getting stiff. He wanted to wash his face but he knew that he could get some money from the tourist by showing them his different disguises.

He had been given Rs. 900 by the Tourism Department, Rs. 500/- by the Minister, and he was sure that he could earn a little more from the tourists. Holding his bag, he entered one of the tents erected there for the artists. He changed his dress and put on the clothes of a police officer. It was an old dress but with his makeup and beard he looked like a real police officer.

Holding a cane in his hand, he came out and began to shout at the group of young boys, “Listen you carefully. Don’t tease girls in this fair. If I see you messing with the girls, I will put you in the lock up!”

The boys got frightened, but when they heard that he was in the disguise of a police officer, they began to laugh. They gave him some money and praised his art.

Khan decided to go to that part of the fair where some Rajasthani village girls were performing. They were dancing very beautifully and the accompanying music added to the delight of the onlookers. An American tourist could not restrain himself and he began to dance with them. One of his friends was recording all that in his video camera. They were the members of a group that was making a documentary on the dying folk art of Asia.

One of them looked at Mr. Khan and smiled. He did not know that the police officer standing near him was an artist in disguise. Mr. Khan extended his hand and the tourist shook his hand.

“I am an artist,” said Khan.

“Yes, policing is also an art,” laughed the tourist.

“No, I am an artist. You wait here and I come back,” said Khan and ran towards the tent.

After a few moments, he was disguised as a village girl. The tourist did not recognize him.

“How do I look? I am not a police officer now,” said Khan.

The tourist was highly impressed and he told the cameraman to shoot that scene. Mr. Khan began to dance to the tune of the music. He was dancing better than the girls on the stage. Soon people began to gather there. They made a circle around him. After his performance, he spread a cloth on the ground and people began to throw coins and currency notes on that. The tourists gave him Ten Dollars. He began to calculate how much he would get in exchange.

It was the last day of the fair and he knew that he would have to wait for one year to earn like this. In the evening, on the final day, he counted the money. He had earned about six thousand rupees in three days. It was much more than his one year’s pension. He was sure that his wife would be delighted.

It was Friday, so Khan decided to visit the mosque to offer his evening prayers. After the prayer, when he came out of the mosque, he found the streets and roads deserted.

A group of people was running towards the mosque.

A young boy said to him, “Don’t come out of the mosque. They have attacked us. They have burned our housed!”

The boys had sticks, guns, and other weapons in their hands. It was getting dark and Mr. Khan was worried about his wife and children.

He had to go back home. The young men tried to stop him but he did not listen to them. He came on to the main road and looked for a rickshaw. He did not find any vehicle there, so he began to walk towards his home. It was a long way and he knew that it would take about one hour to reach his home.

When he was near his locality, he saw smoke rising from some of the houses. That was a Muslim locality and he understood that they had been attacked. He began to run, though his old legs were hardly supporting him.

He was in the disguise of a woman but he knew that he would be caught. He decided to put on the disguise of the police officer. He entered a by-lane and changed his dress and makeup in no time. Now he looked like a real police officer.

Unfortunately, when he reached home, he found nothing except the flames and smell of burning flesh. His wife had been burnt alive. The fundamentalist Hindus had attacked their locality and burnt sixty houses. More than two hundred people were killed. It was the reaction to the bomb which Islamic terrorists had exploded in a temple.

“I think I will have to keep changing disguises if I want to live…” whispered the old artist and began to walk away from his burnt house and his locality.

According to Aristotle, friendship is a necessary part of the good life. The master presents three types of friendship: friendship based on usefulness, friendship based on pleasure and friendship based on virtue. In his opinion only the last type of friendship is genuine friendship. Friendships based on usefulness and pleasure tend not to be very enduring, since they only last as the long as each party derives the usefulness or pleasure he desires from the relationship. Friendship based on virtue is based on wishing the good for the other person. This genuine friendship is necessary for self-knowledge and helps both of the friends to grow in virtue. Friendship presupposes justice and goes beyond it. The virtue of a friend is to love. The relationship one has with a friend is like the harmonious relationship between the different parts of the soul of a virtuous man.

With due respect to the master and other scholars who have written so much on friendship, I would like to very respectfully disagree with all of them. Sometimes, I feel that I am trying to contradict almost everyone on any subject, but it is beyond my control because when I enter my world of philosophical exploration, I leave no stone unturned. I don’t think that friendship is a necessary part of the good life.

Most of the philosophers, like the master, Aristotle, have written at length about friendships between two human beings and they have given their own opinions according to their perception of the world around them. Aristotle formally presents the types of friendship on the basis of usefulness, pleasure, and virtue.

I have known a person who is not at all useful to me because he is physically handicapped, I don’t draw any pleasure in his presence, on the contrary, he mostly distracts me from my writings, and he does not seem to be in possession of any socially labeled virtues. His only virtue is silence and constant stare at me, if you like. I have known him for more than three decades and if you like you may call him my only friend, besides my animal friends, Tyson, Bolton, and Jackie, my dogs.

The master, Aristotle, seems to have overlooked, or maybe he never experienced, the connection of heart and soul, which is beyond pleasure, usefulness, and virtue. If you ask me, I can neither define nor describe friendship. The master says that the genuine friendship is necessary for self-knowledge and helps both of the friends to grow in virtue. In our case, my handicap friend and I, it does not seem to be true because there is no enhancement of self-knowledge, at least on my part, and there is nothing like growth in virtue.

Why is it so that most of the great philosophers and scholars only talk about friendship between two human beings? I think my dogs are my best friends from the animal world and my handicap friend from the human world.

I often tell my students to refrain from drawing any firm conclusions when it comes to abstract notions like friendship because they can’t be generalized and their definitions differ from person to person.

This classification of the abstracts like friendship limits the thought process of students and they stop thinking beyond that. I am surprised that Aristotelian concepts ruled the intellectual world for more than two thousand years and the following philosophers either bowed before his doctrines or added something to them, thus earning the tag of critics or modern philosophers.

Why I am writing all this has a very specific objective. I would like to vehemently tell the students of philosophy and literature to grow beyond theories and doctrines because you are very special and your life is your most personal property, and consequently it has to be guided by your own philosophy. Don’t take me wrong for God sake, I am not trying to make you deserters or destroyers of the antiquity, what I am trying to say is not to follow these doctrines blindly even if your college professors most powerfully support them and try to impose upon you.

A true teacher does not show you the way to a school, he shows you the way to your inner self.

According to Aristotle, Justice is the virtue which unites and orders all of the other virtues. He argues that justice in generic and specific sense is defined differently. Justice in the specific sense is concerned with honor, property, safety and similar things, while justice in generic and larger sense is concerned with virtue as a whole.

This categorization of justice is not easily digestible, for anything virtuous is as a rule unbiased irrespective of status and society. In this modern world we perceive justice in a broader sense and to us ‘Justice means the quality of being just or fair’ and it is neither specific nor generic. Likewise, we can further expand this in to ‘Justice means the judgment involved in the determination of rights and the assignment of rewards and punishments’.

However, I feel that both these definitions need further examination and require deep thinking. Historically justice and the definition or definitions of justice, in different parts of the world, were drawn on the basis of the majority acceptance of the rules, law, and legislation. It seems to be a very ridiculous fallacy to me, for there are hundreds of examples where collective decisions often prove to be wrong and one genius the final word. Likewise, when it comes to deciding what is just and what not, we mostly rely on precedents and the will of the majority, without ever pondering to think that the majority could be wrong and the historical examples inappropriate. Our justice seems to be guided by various factors: history, religion, religion, following the more powerful, and so on.

Aristotle argues that natural justice is that which is just in all times and places. There is no disagreement with it. Conventional justice is that which is made up of laws and customs. All laws are to some extent just because any law is better than no law, but are always at least slightly flawed in that they must be formulated universally and cannot take into account all specific circumstances. As a result, a judge should rule in accordance with the intention of the lawmaker or the idea behind the law when the law does not seem to properly fit the situation.

According to Aristotle, munificence is a virtue. Munificence consists giving large amount for suitable occasions. Lack of this virtue is called meanness and the excess is ostentation. He further argues that a munificent man spends gladly and lavishly, not calculating costs, but always for a noble purpose.

When I analyze this Aristotelian concept, I can’t help viewing it from one very significant angle. This virtue is only related to material and economics and only the rich and privileged one can be in the possession of this virtue. Aristotle seems to have ignored the point: munificence also means extremely liberal and generous of spirit.

Munificence means liberality in bestowing gifts; extremely liberal and generous of spirit.

A person who is not in the possession of material and property can’t be munificent if we follow the Aristotelian concept. Secondly, he says that lack of this virtue is called meanness. It means a person who is poor and can’t give generously is mean. The master seems to be taking only a particular class of people and his this very virtue can’t be applied to the masses, which include the rich and the poor.