46. MY MOM HAD MOLDED MY LIFE.

My mom Nafeesa bi was born as a princess in the household of Abdur Rahman of Kannambra near Palghat, Kerala, not someone so particular to be familiar. Palghat was then a part of old Coimbatore district. My maternal grandparents came from Kerala and settled down in Coimbatore, in search of livelihood. They were not well fixed, the least well read. Reading reflection and observation was unknown to them. They were not wealthy, never loving- to- sit- fat- for- ever type. They knew no pride passion and conceit. They were just honest, industrious and soberly factual to Islamic principles.

 Those were the days of the worst part of the Second World War; astringent days indeed for everyone who had sought to live then. Starvation and poverty were towering high in all parts of India. Unemployment and financial insecurity were ruining the people in all provinces. The people lived restlessly with quarrels misunderstandings and enmities. Many unsolved questions disputes and controversies were rampant in every province and more so in Madras Province then.

 My mom was not well read and so were my maternal grandparents. They were able to earn their bread by doing odd manual labor. My mom joined my dad’s household chorus as a house cleaner. She was, might be, hardly thirteen then. She knew Malayalam and Tamil to speak read and to write. Joining our father’s family with the help of our aunts who were then living with my dad, she had started learning Urdu, which was widely spoken in all Muslim household. Soon she took to learning Urdu,   Arabic   and Persian very fast with the help of my old aunts and then dad.

 My mom was god fearing, honest and wise. She was a proof and illustration for a simple and sweet homely woman. Everyone in the house had approved her good and clean habits. She was never once invidious or quarrelsome and chose to be very accommodating.  Her attention and respect, audacity and skill were some of the attributes that won her a position in the mind of my dad’s family members. My dad was then forty plus and a bachelor. He sought after to live as bachelor for good, I presume so. He remained a bachelor given to a life of his office work and some societal efforts associated to Islamic affairs