HISAR: Uneasy calm prevailed around the Satlok Ashram today with the police and supporters of self-styled godman Sant Rampal appearing headed for a face-off, as heavy police force is closing-in to execute the court orders to arrest him.

The situation is volatile around the ashram, which has been created into a virtual fortress by the disciples of controversial godman who have gathered in large numbers to prevent his arrest in a contempt of court case.

Hisar-Barwala Road had been blocked and prohibitory orders were imposed around the ashram, police said, adding senior police officials were camping in the district and keeping a close eye on the volatile situation.

Senior police officials today assessed the situation in view of the disciples adopting aggressive attitude towards Punjab and Haryana High Court order to arrest and produce the controversial self styled godman on November 17.

The disciples of the godman have maintained that they would not allow the police to arrest him till he recovers completely.

Earlier, the doctors monitoring him had pronounced his health as normal.

A large number of supporters of Rampal, including women and children, are still in and outside the ashram, where power supply had been disconnected and there was apprehension of them resorting to violence to avert the arrest, senior police official said.

The police force is getting closer to the ashram and about forty ambulances are ready in case of a showdown between the police and followers of the godman.

Rejecting the state government's plea that Rampal was unwell and his arrest would create law and order problems, Punjab and Haryana High Court had on Monday issued a fresh non-bailable arrest warrant against him in a contempt case and asked why his bail in a 2006 murder case should not be cancelled.

Observing that the state government lacked willingness to arrest the godman and no sincere efforts were made to produce him before it, the HC directed the Haryana Director General of Police and the Home Secretary to ensure that Rampal appears in person before it in Chandigarh on or before November 17.

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Uneasy calm prevails around godman Sant Rampal's Satlok Ashram

Piecing it together: Jigsaws can reward a second look.

Americans are fond of noting (perhaps too often) that, if the only tool you possess is a hammer, then every problem tends to resemble a nail. What, though, do problems look like if your sole tool is a jigsaw puzzle?

I have pondered that question while struggling vainly and interminably with a present from Paris' Musee d'Orsay. The woman I love, evidently resolved on torture, brought home a jigsaw puzzle with no right-angle corners, containing hundreds of tiny pieces in bizarrely convoluted shapes, including a fair number sawn into miniature statues, torches or blank squares of wood. If your only tool is a puzzle as weird and tough as that, then every problem needs to be treated as a puzzle in itself, then a sequence of interlocking puzzles, all to be finally puzzled out. I still await that happy ending.

Books of management advice draw on all manner of nutty sources, ones as eclectic as Zen Buddhism, cricket, yoga or dog training. Management counsel based on jigsaw puzzles would be eminently more practical and pointed.

Jigsaw puzzles teach how to focus on one object alone, to the exclusion of all the world beyond. I have been known to disappear down the jigsaw hole for half an hour scrabbling and scrounging around in search of a single piece, refusing to put on the air conditioning as an incentive to make rapid progress.

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Jigsaws reward a second look or a second thought, especially for those prepared to look and think again after doing something else, allowing time to elapse, and only then coming back to the table. Solving crossword clues works in the same way. The puzzles oblige us to explore all possible permutations, turning our minds as well as the pieces this way and that to fit colours and shapes harmoniously together. They force us to be logical, because improvisation, even allied to common sense, just will not solve the problem.

Finally, but critically, jigsaw puzzles offer us a rare opportunity to deal with a problem from beginning to end, and actually just for once to bring a task to a successful conclusion. Putting in the final piece is, obviously enough, the simplest of all, but simplicity and satisfaction can be synonymous. If many problems cannot be fixed, most puzzles can still be solved.

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First Word: Jigsaws an exquisite torture for Mark Thomas