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.