My dad had cherished his books more than anybody or anything else on this earth. He had his own flavors, ideals, stance, and attitude. He was physically a bit handicapped in a sense that his left leg was broken and damaged when he was young. Might be this was also one of the reasons he had not married. He was fiscally sound, had a government job and had rent from shops located at the center of the town in Nawab Hakeem Road. They were a timber selling facility and a non-vegetarian eatery. My paternal uncle was Janab Ishaq Baig Sahib and the younger one was Janab Yaqub Baig Sahib. Their residence too was close to my dad’s property.
My elder uncle had secured service as clerical Superintendent in the District Sessions court and had married a Deputy Collector's daughter from a well-heeled family. Fortunately, Janab Yaqub Baig Sahib remained a bachelor until his death. He used to emerge all of a sudden from nowhere, regularly join us our meals as guest for some weeks, months, and then disappear for some more months. He looked like a Sufi saint, creepily tall and would easily pushed outta shape. We would seldom talk to him. He would speak very little. The long and short of it could be summed up to wacky blabs.
My aunts were very much older than my dad was, and were married in Pollachi to farming property owners. Both the aunts inherited vast expanse of irrigated garden lands measuring more than hundreds of acres. Long after my aunties were gone, forever, once or twice I had visited the vast green estate filled with a range of evergreen crops amid which massively stood several tall coconut trees and enormous mango trees.
There was a massive thick jack fruit tree by the side of a garden open well, which I had usually favored to frequent with some of my favorite books: Emerson and Robert Frost. To rest beneath the huge cool shadow, on the cot made of bamboos and coir, in summer was temptingly blissful. My uncles, those were my dad’s brothers in law were again men of no moral uprightness and respectability, and like all other rich folks of those days had prided in having more consorts along with their married lawful wives. They were given to a loose life of alky, angel teat and floozies and prosties.
No comments:
Post a Comment