CHILDREN'S CORNER

Riyaz was a naughty boy. Every single moment he would be up to some new mischief. It was common for him to break the pitcher of a village woman or pull the pleats of a little school girl. There was no one in the locality who would like him. But for Rasheeda Dadi he was abomination personified. She would not withstand his sight. Every time the guava trees in her large courtyard bore fruit, Riyaz and his band would appear on the scene, climb up the walls, pluck the fruits and threw leftovers down. As monsoon clouds hovered on skies, Riyaz would take position on her roof flying kites and would not come down before breaking a few tiles of the verandah.

Rasheeda lived alone in her large house with just a maid doing household chores and running errands for her. Her only daughter had settled in Australia years ago with her husband. It was only once in five years that they showed up at Rasheeda's house in the small town of Chhindwara.
Nagged by Riyaz's mischiefs, Dadi would try chasing him in the street with a stick in hand. But Riyaz felt happy laughing behind his sleeves at Rasheeda's plight while perched at the topmost branch of the guava tree.

Vacation was on yet again. Guava trees were laden with fruits. Monsoon breeze promised steady flight for the kites. Riyaz and his buddy Irfan were back on the Rasheeda's roof. They plucked quite a handful of guavas, reeled off the kite and gave it a free reign in the sky. But to their utter surprise, this time Rasheeda did not turn up on the door to warn the duo.

'How could this be, why Rasheeda is not astir as is her wont, or she is not home, or has she gone to Australia, or is she just accustomed to our antics', a stampede of thoughts crossed Niyaz's mind.
'What is the matter?' Niyaz asked Irfan. 'How could Dadi remain silent? Look, even the milk sachets are lying in the verandah at the door leading to her room, ' Niyaz said peeping through the courtyard.

'Wait, I will go down and see for myself if she is around', Niyaz whispered into Irfan's ears and began to climb down the compound wall in the courtyard.

'Be careful, Dadi may be enticing you in, to pounce upon you suddenly,” Irfan warned.
'Irfan, But let us see if Dadi is doing well', Niyaz wondered.

Niyaz got down into the orchard in the forecourt of the house and reached the front door. A little push, and the door creaked open. He could now hear Dadi's low-toned shrieks. She lay in bed with her thin arms spread flat on her side, her face outside the covers and hair fanned out on the pillow. Her body was ablaze with fever. Niyaz could feel the waves of warmth oozing out of her blanket.
'Dadi, what happened to you? Are you sick? Where is your maid? Didn't she turn up today? Has any doctor visited you? Niyaz unleashed a volley of queries.

Rasheeda opened her eyes with great difficulty. 'No beta, maid Fatima is on leave, she has gone to her daughter's place. I could not lift myself from the bed. Nor was there anyone who could call a doctor', Rasheeda shrieked a bit surprised at the sight of Niyaz at her bedside.

It seemed the guilt of years melted within a jiffy.

Niyaz called out Irfan, asked him to heat the milk and himself rushed out towards Dr. Shashi's clinic. Enroute he waltzed into the room of his house, broke the mud hundi that had been repository of his savings for months together. There was enough change to pay for the doctor and even buy some medicine and fruit for Dadi. Once into Shashi Clinic, he placed the money onto his table and begged him to accompany to Rasheeda's house at the street end.

They were soon into Dadi's room. Within no time Dr. Shashi could diagnose pneumonia, administered an injection, prescribed a few medicine and a diet. Niyaz and Irfan organized the medicine and bread, offered her a cup of hot milk and sat beside her.

Feeling some relief, Rasheeda sat up and began to peer at the roses abloom outside the window. Niyaz could read despondency in her eyes. Emerging from her pensive mood, Rasheeda said: 'Beta Niyaz, look at those beautiful roses. Soon they will start wilting. They will wither away soon. So would I. I may not outlast them. I will be gone before the last of them has withered'. Despair was almost choking her voice.

'Dadi, no need to be so upset. Health and sickness are part of life. Buds blossom out into roses, wither under the sun, petals are strewn into the winds. But new buds replace them and the garden is abloom with new roses yet again', Niyaz consoled her.

Niyaz now made it a routine to be at her side everyday after school hours. Often he would be joined by Irfan. They would together watch cartoon films on the TV and share a cups of coffee with a rare, warm camaraderie. A couple of days later maid Fatima resumed her duties. Dr. Shashi's treatment worked and Dadi appeared to be on the road to recovery.

But somehow Rasheeda was not able to live down those negative thoughts. She would frequently relapse into despair and would remind Niyaz of her approaching end.

Rasheeda was gaining strength. In a week's time, she was up and about and began to walk. Most of the roses had by now disappeared. Yet a single large red rose had retained all its resplendent colours and kept happily swaying across in the gentle breeze.

Rasheeda was now able to take a walk across the forecourt. The large red rose was all smiles, unperturbed by the fate that had befallen the flowers around. A bit surprised, one day Rasheeda walked close to the plant that held it aloft. As she took a close watch, a light smile began to play on her lips. It was just a synthetic rose that someone had tied to a robust twig of the plant with a green thread. Rasheeda understood it all. It was Niyaz's mischief that had kept her hopes afloat.

That evening when Niyaz and Irfan returned from the school, Rasheeda invited them in. They had coffee and biscuits together. She said: Niyaz I have a gift for you and presented the synthetic rose. With their cheeks ablush, Niyaz and Irfan could figure out that Dadi had unraveled their prank. They all had a hearty laugh.

The botanical name for tulips, Tulipa, is derived from the Turkish word "tulbend" or "turban", which the flower resembles. It's considered as the King of Bulbs.


The gardeners of Turkey favour the tulip flowers over the others. The flower fits into their short springs that occur between their bleak winters and dry summers. In the 16th Century they were brought to Holland from Turkey, and quickly became popular in Europe inasmuch as Amsterdam became synonymous for its Tulip festival and gardens.


The credit should go to the genius of the Turkish gardener that they brought the best collections of Tulips together, and made crossbreeds of the best known varieties to give them various hues of bright colours, selected the best out of them, which finally made a way into our gardens.


Busbecquuis, the Austrian Ambassador at the court of Sultan of Turkey was the first to notice this unique flower and liked it. He brought back its seed, when he returned to Vienna in 1554. During the period of 1573 to 1587, the Dutch herbalist Clusius was the Court Gardener to emperor Maxmilian II at Vienna. Later, Clusius was made a professor at the University of Leiden (died 1609), and it was largely due to his efforts that the Tulips were introduced into Holland and were popularized there as the Tulips of Holland.


order to stay alive. Although, the circumstances were unfortunate, it demonstrated what the Dutch had forgotten – that like many other flowers – the Tulip was also valued as a food plant by the Turks rather than for its flowers.


During the role of the Ottomans, the tulips played an interesting role. This period in Turkish history between 1718-1730 is called the "Tulip Era", under the reign of Sultan Ahmed III. This period is also expressed as an era of peace and enjoyment. Tulips became an important style of life within the arts, folklore and the daily life. Many embroidery and textile clothing handmade by women, carpets, tiles, miniatures etc. had tulip designs or shapes, large tulip gardens around the Golden Horn were frequented by fashionable people, and so on. The Tulip Era was brought to an end after the Patrona Halil revolt in 1730 that ended with the dethroning of the Sultan.


There are early, mid, and late blooming varieties of tulips. They come in a huge variety of bright colors, including white, yellow, pink, red, black, purple, orange, two-colors, multicoloured and more. There is also an abundance of mixed colors of Tulips to select from depending upon the likings of a person. A special breed from Manisa is called as Anemon.


Tulips should be planted as soon as they are purchased in the autumn. But they can also be grown indoors during winter months. After blooming, the plant continues to grow until it dies off. During the post bloom period, the plant sends food reserves to the bulb to store for use in the next spring, when it blooms again.

In proceeding to give a detailed account of the principal ethico-religious values that are found in the Qur'an, I begin with kufr rather than any of the positive virtues. I adopt this course because it has an obvious methodological advantage for my purpose:


kufr not only forms the very pivot round which revolve all the other negative qualities, but it occupies such an important place in the whole system of Qur'anic ethics that a clear understanding of how it is semantically structured is almost a prerequisite to a proper estimation of most of the positive qualities. Even a cursory reading of the Scripture will convince one that the role played by the concept of kufr is so peculiarly influential that it makes its presence felt well-nigh everywhere in sentences about human conduct or character. In my opinion, even the concept of faith or belief, as the highest ethico-religious value in Islam, may best be analyzed not directly but rather in terms of kufr, that is, from its negative side.


Now concerning kufr, let us briefly look at the complex meanings that has been established.
1. The basic meaning of the root KFR, as far as our philological knowledge goes, is most probably that of 'covering'. In contexts concerned especially with the bestowing and receiving of benefits, the word naturally comes to mean 'to cover, i.e. to ignore knowingly, the benefits which one has received', and thence, 'to be unthankful'.


2. The Qur'an emphasizes most strongly the Almighty God's being particularly a God of grace and goodness. Man, as His creature, owes everything, his very existence and subsistence, to the boundless mercy of God. This means that he owes Him the duty of being grateful for His goodness which is being shown him at every moment of his life. A Kafir is a man who, having thus received God's benevolence, shows no sign of gratitude in his conduct, or even acts rebelliously against his Benefactor.


3. This fundamental attitude of ingratitude with regard to God's grace and goodness is manifested in the most radical and positive way by takdhib, that is, 'giving the lie' to God, His Apostle, and the divine message he is sent with.


4. Thus it comes about that kufr is actually used very frequently as the exact antonym oilman 'belief. In the Qur'an the most representative opposite of mu 'min, 'believer', or Muslim, lit. 'one who has surrendered' is admittedly kafir. It would appear that kufr, having been used so often in contrast to iman, lost more and more of its original semantic core of 'ingratitude', and assumed more and more the meaning of 'disbelief, until finally it has come to be used most commonly in this latter sense, even where there can be hardly any question of gratitude.


5. Kufr, as man's denial of the Creator, manifests itself most characteristically in various acts of insolence, haughtiness, and presumptuousness. Istakbara, 'to be big with pride', and istaghna, 'to consider oneself as absolutely free and independent', have been mentioned above; as we shall presently see, there are many other words standing for similar ideas. Kufr forms, in this respect, the exact opposite of the attitude of' 'humbleness', tadarru', and clashes directly with the idea of taqwa, 'fear of God', which is indeed the central element of the Islamic conception of religion in general. (By Toshihiko Izutsu- Ethico-Religious Concepts in Quran)