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.
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