56. WAS THAT A PREMONITION?

I had slept for some time, one night, I guess, then suddenly I got up and hurried to dad’s room nearby, asking for matchbox. My dad awoke and was amazed to see me asking for matchbox as it was still midnight, and untimely. He asked why I wanted one, and I told him that I had seen a big black scorpion coming towards my pillow. He did not ask me any further questions and gave me the matchbox. Lighting the lantern, I saw a black scorpion standing near my pillow ready with its lethal sting to charge with.  Was this incident a variety of presentiment? I still wonder!

 My dad had killed the deadly little thing. Without saying anything he went to his room and slept. The next day he called me to his room and asked me how I knew of the presence of the scorpion there when I had already slept and it was so dark. I just told him I knew nothing.  Was that with a kind of vision that I awoke. I still wonder.Might be I had a sort of dream, I told.  May be I had a sort of premonition of which I did not perceive fully well. This kind of forewarning like insight had made me postpone some visits to places and make important decisions I had to do with.

One of these days, during the summer rains the wall that divided our house and that of the neighbor had fallen down. Our neighbor was one who had several bulls in his enclosure, which he used to pull his carts  with carrying goods to the goods shed of the old railway station. The wall was in between our backyard and his. As wont, my dad and I used to sleep in the porch of our house and my mom and sisters would in the common bedroom.

 The porch had a thatched covering with a window like breach through which several nights I had surreptitiously peeped into, to see if any of the angels or the ghosts of whom my grand mom told me of, in her stories; would ever play hide and seek in the dark backyard. They did not, and I was still scared stiff to death, in that haunting space. That particular night I could not sleep well, praying to Allah for one. Do not know when I slept. Some alarming sound as if the wicked ghosts were trying to tear away the thatched shed had awoken me. To my scarifying terror, I saw something obtrude its wicked monstrous head through that window like fissure.

 

55. MIGHT BE THE BEGINNING OF THE DISTURBING VISUAL HALLUCINATIONS

Dad had small garden at the paddock of our house where he loved to grow small vegetable plants and creepers. There was no water tap yet at the house. Servant or house cleaner used to fetch water from the public drinking water facility provided by the municipality. There was a deep well in the backyard from which we would manually pull water for all our domestic use with the help of a rope.

My dad used to water the plants both in the morning and in evening. There were two sturdy huge and all enveloping neem trees well-grown, thick and tall giving shadow and cool breeze in summer. Dad was very fond of them. In the evenings after prayers dad used to sit in the open portico bordering the paddock telling us the local and world news

We children usually would sit and have our own world of fun. Summer nights were very gorgeous with cool breeze gently slapping on every uncovered part of your body, making you want more and more of it to unwind after a day full of sultry schedule. Clear sky with swarming stars and moonlit sphere smacking of a jasmine aroma from dads backyard would be an extra fascination. I really miss the very atmosphere.

I had talked to my dad about this ‘old man frequenting our space’ occurrence several occasions, to which my dad had turned a deaf ear. I was hardly twelve then and these visions would frequently upset me. Was that a vision, or an apparition?  Was it some kind of spirit who had lived there long ago, nobody knows. Once my dad had told my mom that, going by the appearance of the vision of my account, it could be well my grand dad, who after his evening prayer would habitually walk on the foyer engrossed in his religious recitals. My dad also had told my mom that like my grand dad I was also to a certain extent imbued with the sort of vision with which one could see the dead and the apparitions.

It sounded so incongruous that I dismissed it long back. Nonetheless, could that be true? Would my dad unnecessarily coin something out of the ordinary about my faculty? If it were so, why would he? Years just rolled. Afterwards when I was doing my tenth I had a separate study room, where I had my bed too. I would study until late in the night, for the exams. I just loved and wished that none disturbed me. I felt a thrilling while I was all alone with the books in the lonely nights.

We had no electricity those days. A kerosene lantern known as ‘qandeel’ was all that gave light for my room. I had slept for some time, one night, I guess, then suddenly I got up and hurried to dad’s room nearby, asking for matchbox. My dad awoke and was amazed to see me asking for matchbox as it was still midnight, and untimely.

 

54. AATHA HAI YAD MUJHKO GUZRA HUA ZAMANA

On Sundays and other holidays my dad would start rearranging the books after removing the dust and the tiny insects you usually see making the old books their safe haven. He would often sit tight for hours together pouring on some interesting works of Muqaddamah, Gulisthan or Boosthan, Makhalath Rabbani or poetry of Ghalib and Allama Iqbal.

He was proud of Arabic Tafseers of the Holy Book, the Quraan. On these occasions, teacups after teacups would only he love, forgetting time, food and family. Wills was the brand of fags he loved after every cup of Brook Bond strong tea he sipped. The entire house just smacked sort of a nightclub you visit on weekend.

Most evenings I would fabricate alarming episodes from what I had heard from my maternal granddad, adding it with a bit of my own mind's eye and tell my younger sisters and brother stories, who would hear them very acutely, already scared by the shadowy and poignant  backdrop of the open backyard with the enormous  and tremendous  neem tress.

Southerlies sent howling winds making the gigantic mammoths swirling as if they were moving ahead slowly to catch us. At times, I found myself spooky as my own stories overwhelmingly frightening to me too. On such moments cutting the stories abruptly short, I would sneak into the house with my listeners with some strategy.

Most evenings while we sit with my family I would see, and I was convinced, some old man with a turban covering his head putting on a white long open coat and pajama walking to and fro on the foyer. He was more a specter. He would not see us and gave the impression to be unaffected about our being there. Not once but this, I saw on several occasions. He had become a part of our company, a member of our family to me while never known to others. None of my family members ever bothered to see him, as they did not ever appear to perceive him. For all that he had never once taken trouble to look at anyone of us or ever tried to talk to me. Still I loved him and his charisma. At occasions when he was not present, I was down in spirit. Might be it was my starting of visual hallucination.

 

 

53. IT WAS A LIFE IN THE LAND OF BOOKS

Almost all nights, dad would tell us some real stories from the Koran or something from Islamic religion. Our dad would tell about Allah, his Angels his Messengers his holy Books and about the heaven and the hell. He would speak how Allah would judge between the good and the bad. We were fed with lessons about how the good would happily enter the heaven while the bad, the hell, with a heavy heart and crestfallen.

 

There were books and books. Arabic, Urdu Persian and some in English, stacked on the plank hung from the ceiling in our dad’s room. They had been even more enticing me for a long time, as I had an eye for the books especially of ancestral assortment. I loved the very smell of the old books and a fancy for their worn out look. I longed to own them all one day. Our dad always expected us to be steadfast with daily prayers not once but five times a day and to study the Koran to learn and practice what it really teaches us, with its full import. It was quite a tribulation for all of us .My sisters would play hide and seek, while I took keen interest in them as I was the eldest of them all These stories would always end up with morals, specific messages and with a summary often with questions. Moreover, we would, on our part sleepily and simply mumble our answers. Despairingly we did.

We all had an official name as well as a name with which the world familiarly addressed us with a kind of love and reverence.  For instance, my dad’s name was Mirza Abdul Jabbar Baig and he was popularly known as Moulana Hakeem Sahib. Likewise, my name was Mirza Abdulla Muhammed Ibrahim Baig whereas I was known as bade miyan sab that changed into Padu bhai Sab.

 Old books and that were a collection from my dad and my grand dads were very inquisitive enough for me. My heart started pounding to explore them whenever I happened to spot them. Well my dad would never like that, my exploring his riches. They were his lifetime fortune. Termites ate rare volumes of Arabic Persian and Urdu and English volumes even when he was alive before I could lay my hands on them...He could not do anything of it. My brother and sisters did not conserve the remaining lot of manuals and books, as ought to be, after my leaving Coimbatore and settled at Erode. Even before that, my mom had already handed over many exceptional volumes to Moulvi Hashim Sahib of Deo Band before the termites had damaged them. Moulvi Hashim Sahib was the son in law of Wali Ahmed Qazi sahib. He became district Qazi after his father in law, whom I taught English for a brief period and I was sixteen years younger to him.

 

 

52. KABHI KHUD PE KABHI HALATH PE RONA AYAH

My brother Hameed Baig would always say amen a bit louder than my other three sisters would. He was ten years younger than I was, and he was the fourth child.  Razia Begam was my last sister while Zulekha Begam and Rokhya Begam were my second and third sisters. My mom Nafeesa Bibi was just fourteen years elder to me. It so happened that most often people would mistake my mom to my eldest sister, so young and comely was she.

Zulekha Begam was always an obedient daughter to dad and mom and a dutiful sister to me. She would willingly help my mom in the kitchen as well as in washing the clothes and cleaning the utensils. She did not demonstrate interest in her studies also. She also had a pet name given by my dad Noor jehan. Rokhya Begam was an attendant to my dad’s day-to-day work and she saw to it that she completed the daily duty in time. Punctuality was her forte. Dad used to call her Mumtaz very fondly. Mumtaz was mom’s fiscal counselor and was at her disposal. Both of them had inherited very little of dad’s social religious and Islamic impact.

Those days dad never sent my sisters to school, as it was wont, and so both my second and third sisters did no schooling. They had some Urdu and some Arabic taught at home by my dad. My mom too joined them in learning these languages from my dad. All that my mom taught us about Islam and the way of life was what she had heard from my dad. Our house was more an Islamic madarasa than a house in common.

When dad arrived in the evening, we all would look forward with all admiration to take what he would have brought for the evening refreshments. There was a big fowl cock and several hens all white leghorn, a part of our family chorus. These would also be joining us our evening snacks with due reverence and discipline while dad was present. Like us, our birds and the animals too loved him and obeyed him.

Before night dinner was served we would all have worked our home work and done worship with him and then join with him his congregational prayers .Dinner was always simple though with some pieces of meat, fish or at least eggs, unless it was a Friday or Sunday. On these days, we had a feast of multi course serving, yes! There was something of mutton, fish or chicken and biriyani or Pulav with Parathas with fried eggs in the menu.

51. OUR HOUSE WAS OUR PARADE GROUND

When it was close to evening, we would all freshen up smartly for the roll call and wait for dad’s coming back from his Office. He was a “nine -to- fiver” and largely he was on time. We would be very much closely controlled and would behave ourselves and keep ourselves very respectful to him and mom.  “Dizeplin” was the catchword, that often started spinning our head, and we would feel awkwardly sick. His very stature was a bit awe-inspiring to us. He was our OC, 2IC, ADJ and the parade commander, and our house was the parade ground. He would never expect us to be undisciplined and disorderly. When he was at home we would not shout, would speak in whispers. When he was at home, we would all sit together with him for the breakfast, the lunch and the dinner. This was the domestic policy, and it was mandatory. The standing rules of the unit.

Be it morning breakfast, midday lunch or the supper in the night, without dad’s launch we would not start partaking any of the routine. He would see if all of us were indoors and all that was prepared was on the mat before us on bistra for serving .There was no saying grace, but we would start every meal as every other work, good-naturedly, with Allah’s name... There was a sure saying   a glorifying thanks to the lord for having given us our daily bread and the right guidance. We would recite

 

Alhamdlillahil lazi at’amana wa saqana  wa kasana wa jaalana bileeman minal muslimeen wa da”aana ilal eeman wa hadana ila sirathil islam wa ila sirathim musthaqeem biwajhil quraan hamdan kaseeran tayyiban mubarakan feeh. This prayer came down to us from our great grandparents.

 

 

50. INSIDE THE FOUR WALLS

My mom was quite hard working and she always chose to be very compliant and affectionately dutiful to my dad in his all lifestyles. She never once stepped out of what my dad had marked as out of bounds in social realms, domestic affairs and financial matters. She was always a willing consultant in all small and essential affairs pertaining to day today routines. She had all the makings of a typical wife of Muslim household. She would not only concentrate to her domestic schedule but also renovate the wrecked mud walls in the kitchen, restrooms and the ruined paddock. She would whitewash them herself all alone, though sweating but happily. She would also make an adequate amount of time to read the Koran, Noor Nanah, Misbahul Hayath and some familiar Urdu Quesada books and would ask for dad’s observations.

When all the other homemakers had started going to night movies, which was a stealthy fashion at that time stealthily without the Muslim ulema coming to know about the fact, my mom never once asked my dad permission for a movie. She would not go shopping herself either, and whatever dad would bring she would gladly accept, seldom complaining. I never heard mom asking for money or clothes and the least the jewels. There was no occasion for any family dispute and hard feelings were quite unknown to us. The family the house and life therein was blissful with profuse love and harmony. Inside the four walls.

49. MY MOM GOT MARRIED AT FOURTEEN

My mother would on our school holidays, usually, after lunch, draw all of us together and try to put us to snooze. For that, she would moreover swell on her stories what dad told us the previous night concerning Islam. On certain days, she would relate gorgeous episodes and life-size anecdotes from the lives of the prophets and their companions very vibrantly. This had been customary. We were all part of the house we lived in, like bricks and walls, inside the fortress, and all that was outside was out of bound. This went on strictly and we all obeyed the home-rule. We all played rested entertained and lived inside the four walls. Happily.

She, as you would expect, was an artistic storyteller and all the stories were unforgettably poignant .We were by that time, had become staunch followers of Islam. We were all convinced by the time that Islam and the way of life it had sought to mould our faith were more than everything on this earth was. Worldly life and living was only secondary and insignificant that was the only reality.

Why then my dad did not get married, yet. Conceivably, he honored the bachelor life or might be he feared the nebulous marital obligations. My dad’s sisters were both older than he was by sixteen plus years and were married for more than thirty-five years. They were now aged and so they could not help my dad in his livelihood, to any further extent. They were pressing for my dad’s nuptials

In my maternal granddad’s family,  more often than not, they get their girl child married at an early age, no sooner than one attains one’s puberty. My mom’s family was going ahead to get her married somewhere in Kerala. They unfortunately lacked the economic wherewithal for the wished-for marriage.

It was here that my dad came forward to take her as his spouse in a bid to help my granddad tide over his financial suffering and so he proposed to this wedding with all his heart. My maternal grandpa also was joyful and gave his blessing. My old age aunts did not favor the idea of my dad getting married to one outside the Urdu fold. This proposal was not that much cherished by my old aunts. They had their own feeling of resentment, as my dad did not consent to marry the girls they had earlier proposed from their rich and orthodox relatives.

My dad’s outright denunciation of getting married to one in an affluent family close to my aunts’ was also something my aunts did not back up forever. My dad however, took the hands of my mom as his spouse when she was hardly fourteen while he was forty-four. It was a simple marriage performed as per the demands of Sheriah law.