Miyan , My Nana

It comes to you in scattered memories.
Like bits and fragments of a corroding mosaic pattern.
I am talking of an entire era gone by.

Interestingly those childhood memories sometimes peep through the clouds of time in a casual conversation with one's own children
But most vibrantly they pour in when you are in the company of your school friends, cousins and siblings. Each one has shared a patch of their life with you. And together for each one the experience of going over that shared past brings a sense of enriched fulfillment

Radiant with golden rays of the setting sun at a point far away in the horizon, and promising to rise with renewed sparkle and vigour ushering in a new dawn ...
The past and the future thus meet in the present moment !

The vastly spread out palatial kothi with its arched gates and long baradariis, high ceilings, huge rooms ... intricate mosaic floors and walls ... still stands.
Many years ago the towering wooden gate would open in the morning and an uninterrupted flow of men and women would start soon after breakfast time.

Miyan ( My Nanaa ) would sit on a comfortable chair with long arm rests from morning till afternoon listening to people who would come to meet him on issues ranging from legal and political to personal and family.
Everyone who would be there at lunch time was inevitably his guest and would join him in the dining room at the oval dining table ...

We as children were always in awe of him and hence whatever I know about him is through Mummy telling us about the kind of person he was and the values he held close to his heart ...

I don't remember having any conversation with him .... We used to use the private side entrance so as to not disturb Miyan in his meeting, to go upstairs to where Ammi Jaan (My Naani ) would be busy  preparing paan-giloris for the people sitting with Miyan downstairs, or cleaning some part of the house with her marked thoroughness, or some such other activity ...
Miyan was more  a man of the people and for the people, greatly loved and respected through the town ...

Miyan would retire to his room after lunch for a siesta.
Early in the evening he would go to the family mango orchard adjacent to the Kothi, which also had a small graveyard, the resting place of family elders who were no more ...
Miyan would sit there reciting The Holy Qur'aN for some time

He was very fond of gardening.
He loved planting all sorts of trees and looked after them like an affectionate father taking care for his children.
Some of the trees planted in his time still stand like silent onlookers as Time passes through their branches and leaves.

Miyan was deeply religious, but not a fanatic or extremist ...
During Holi and Diwaali when people from the neighbourhood visited him he took their greetings  with great respect and affection

Also Mummy told us a small story to illustrate how sane and logical he was
One evening, when the town and its outskirts were experiencing a a communally charged atmosphere, Miyan had just finished the asar-ki-namaaz, his personal attendant came in to inform that there is a group of people outside who wish to meet him urgently.

They were the residents of a nearby village.
They spilled out their fear nervously.
They had heard that a mob was planning to desecrate a Masjid in their village in the darkness of the  night
Naturally they wanted Miyan to do something to stop it.
At least talk to the authorities and get police force out in the village for protection of the Muslim place of worship
Miyan's response must certainly have stunned them for he said :
"Look I believe that Masjid is a house of God / Allah / Khuda ... and  He is responsible for the protection of His House ... We need not interfere, He will do His best"
Perhaps he knew that if at all there was any truth in the rumour the presence of police without nay untowrd happening could serve the mischief mongers' purpose.

Miyan was opposed to Indian Muslims leaving India during the most scarring and nerve-shattering national tragedy called The Partition of India.
He would counsel the victims of violence, often providing financial assistance too to those who had lost their belongings, urging them to not leave their place of birth.
I am reminded of him very intensely every time I see Balraj Sahni in "Garam Hawa"

He was a great champion of education and women's emancipation
In matters of marriage also girls in the family had the liberty to choose and voice their dissent if they did not agree on certain things
Also noteworthy is another fact that even in those traditionally orthodox times purdah was never forced upon the women in the family.

These are just a few glimpses from a life lived simply and for the larger benefits of the common man rather than selfish materialistic gratification.
Miyan did not preach with words
His actions and life style were his teaching to those who came in contact with him.
He was Simple, philanthropic, secular, broad minded, logical, patriotic, respectful, with a warm sense of humour.
I am overwhelmed, but not surprised, to know how immensely he is respected even today not just by those have seen him, but also by those who have only heard of him through their parents and grand parents

These are the kind of Stories from the past that we must pass on to our children .
We really don't need to remember which king killed whom and in which battle or which of the battles were holy.
Anything that results in killing and bloodshed cannot be justified how much ever religious scholars try.
In fact violence finding religious sanction is certainly and most horrifically man-made.
It serves political agendas and desecrates religion.

Stories of pseudo valiance carried forward from generation to generation have done humanity no good.
One such, and perhaps the most recent in our History is that of the Partition of India.
It has since been used to generate and ignite self defeating emotions of Hurt and guilt, victim-hood and self pity and doubt and suspicion

There is now an urgent need to dig out positive stories from the past and share them widely
Tales of love and compassion may help people to think better, feel better ....and do better ....

People like MiyaN were blessed.
Even their memories help to light up dark moment with hope for a better future, making the connection with one's past a pleasant experience.
The chain from past to present to future must be one that adorns us with positive energy instead of being a chain that strangulates liberty.

Happy Anniv Abbi Mummy

Nostalgiaaaaa ....
Was looking in to the things Mummy has left behind ....
Her purses , clothes , books ...
And in one of her purses I found something that has touched me to tears ...
An ordinary piece of paper on which I had written these lines for her ... Lines that I had read somewhere on Facebook

She loved poetry and most often when I found something nice I used to share with her ...

She had loved this piece ...

So I wrote it on a piece of paper and gave it to her ....
" Aankhon se ojhal huay dil se bhi door ho gaye
Kitney pakkey thay wo rishtey jo yuun choor ho gaye

Maili-maili si wo yaadein meri aankhon ne unhein dho dalaa
Khil uthi khwahishon ki dhanak , sajda e dil manzoor ho gaye

Ab nayi mehfilein hain naye log naye rishtey hain
Zindgi mein roshni hain nayi, raastey puurnoor ho gaye

Maazi ki umass mein jiye jaatey thay khud apne hi dushman bann kar
Khol kar dil ke kiwaadon ko jo dekhaa hai to masroor ho gaye

Door thay khud se , to bhooley huay thay andaaz e safar e ziist
Dil ki dhadkan ne jagaayaa to khwaabon ke shaher zinda e tabeer ho gaye "

I love reading and I love poetry .... Heirlooms from Mummy's treasure chest ... !!!
Earlier family and friends would tell me that I'm a true replica of my father ...
And now some of my friends say I have started resembling my mother too ... !!!
What a humbling feeling it is to realize that your parents are living in this world through you

Kuchh cheezein to dikhaai bhi nahi deti haiN .... lekin khoob sunaai deti haiN ... I can still hear Mummy's khanakti hui subah subah ki Good Morning as I often feel her standing behind me or at the door to my room , when I used to be sitting at my table and she would come to say " I am going to sleep now " ... 
And the way she used to say " Hello .... I'm FINE " on the phone ... !!!

And my father's hearty laugh vibrating like a positive synergy in all corners of the house filling every corner with renewed vigour ...
His ever smiling face ... So serenely affectionate

My parents' exemplary selflessness , truthfulness , honesty, simplicity and innocence till the last  breath in this world ... Such rare and priceless treasure
Kuchh nahi khoya hai ...
Sab yaad hai ...

Our parents are never really away from our hearts ... But till the time they are around and with us we never really stop being a child ... Lekin ... when they leave , one suddenly grows up ... It is a life changing experience ...

28th Feb was my parents wedding anniversary ... This year they are celebrating it in The Heaven above ...

My First Love

It took me an aeon to actually realise that falling in love  comes naturally , easily .... and quite unknowingly too... :-) :-)
All these years  I cursed the Hindi Films for creating what I thought was an unnecessary hype about " First Love " because how much ever I thought of it , I could not remember the boy/man who was my so called First Love :-)

Yeah ! Yeah ! Memory takes a dip for the worse when one is getting old .... Lekin phir bhi .... If First Love was anything so exceedingly important , then  no matter how many dips the memory takes , or even if it freezes , that precious image had to remain forever intact and eternally exciting.
Not only this , there had to be and "in-built instant recall system" in the brain (or may be the heart in such cases ;-) ) to fetch it back at one's will and desire.
Strangely there seemed none in my case ....
Okay so this proves I was different .... Perhaps I just wasted my delightfully naughty teenage only to get tied up with the responsibilities of  a  married life some years  later :-)
Honestly this sounded a little boring and I sympathised fully with myself on having lost such priceless moments doing nothing !!!

But one fine evening as I sat with my cup of tea listening to an old song of Rafi-Dev Anand combo the memories of my First Love flashed like a rejuvenating sparkle , lighting up the evening with a glow that was both enriching and splendorous  ....
Never for a day was it away from my heart ...
Yeah ! Never away because it was not a memory .
It was a part of my own self ...and  as I grew up and matured , so did the magic of my first love ...its aura engulfed me so affectionately that I feel incomplete without those moments of euphoric joyousness and quiet contentment ....
Those were moments so gloriously colourful .... So divinely soothing .... So eternally stunning !!!

What was my age then ?
A tender thirteen or fourteen I think .
Father was posted at a place which was filled to the brim  with abundant  natural beauty ... And children were not over protected out there  for the simple reason that the place was perfectly safe .
The bungalow we lived in was almost on the edge of a valley ... And about a quarter kilometer away was this place that I would often go to all by myself.

Oh! How immensely I missed  that priceless phase in life  and longed to experience it all over once again right there ....at that very moment with the cup of tea in my hands and the song playing in the background ... :-)

The place where I used to sit evening after evening was a rock on the edge of the mountain . Far Far down below , in the valley there was a small village.
The huts in the village spread out vast and wide covering a large part of the valley . Evening was the time when , as the sun prepared to give us a cool and cozy break,  smoke could often be seen coming from the huts . A sign of  contentment that the families were preparing  a meal and would go to bed with their stomachs full ...
And across the valley rose the mountain range once again .... Behind which the sun had its retiring chamber :-)
I would forget the world around me and stare completely mesmerised by the magic unfolding right before my eyes as the sky changed colours from golden , to bright orange , from bright orange to dark ....and from dark oragne to a poetic mix of orange and grey ....
Why must all this happen so quickly ?
Why could Time not stand still in those divine moments when God  turned painter ?
Why must all that wealth of gold be lost in the darkness within such a short time ....

Oh! How passionately and wholeheartedly  I desire to hold those moments in my arms and sit with them forever !!!
That one picture of  "The Setting Sun" which I used to see almost every evening keeps coming back to me every day even now ...
That glorious sight was created by the Almighty right before me ....and solely for my eyes !!!
What a Heavenly  treat it was .... !!!
Even now I can feel its magic within me ....it gives me goose bumps whenever I think of it ....it makes me smile ...and it makes me happy
That sheer magnificence sure was ,   still is and will always remain my First Love ...
 

Words undress you

Ever thought about the power of  spoken / written words ?

What you speak and  how you speak gives away your most secret inner self .
Just like friends do.
Remember "A man is known by the company he keeps "

Body language has become an important tool in making personality assessment these days. The language of silence may also be included as an extension one's body language .
But still one cannot deny or even ignore the message conveyed through spoken words.
Body language and  the language of silence is pretty much guess work . Keen and intelligent observers do study gestures and  facial expressions with great attention, and then give their interpretations
But  after a thorough critical analysis what they conclude is  at the end of the day their personal perception .

I read  a lot of Urdu and Hindi poetry  and remember reading this very profound couplet a little while ago :
"(Lafz) kehney waalon ka kuchh nahi jataa
(Lafz ) seh-ney waaley kamaal kartey hain "

Another one that is again unforgettable is:
"Wo ek baat bahot talkh kahi thi uss ne
Baat to yaad nahi yaad hai lehja uss ka"

It is said that one must never speak when angry or tense , the logic being a mind preoccupied with anger and tension is usually not in the right state of taking decisions and judging situations sensibly., which is obvious .
This advice is for the speaker of course.
But the listener is advised to pay attention to people when they speak in anger because it is said that like a drunkard who does not know what he is doing , an angry person usually  pours out his/her heart's inner most emotions in that state of mind , and hence he talks without any mask or pretense , therefore one can conclude that in a fit of anger one usually lashes out all the emotions that they may have kept subdued for better reasons.

Written words become even more authentic expressions of one's mind and heart . It is said that words once spoken cannot be taken back , but they may be forgotten or at times misunderstood too , however the written word is an undisputed  proof of one's thought process.

These days we are seeing large scale degradation in the values and morals including the language that is being used all around , and knowingly or unknowing being encouraged by various kinds of media. 

Obscenity and rudeness seems to be gaining acceptance even in educated and seemingly cultured homes . Civility , respect and decency are becoming extinct in the present social set up .

It is therefore worthwhile to recall that sensuousness of the body and language is not enhanced by nudity or crassness . In fact whoever advised to "never under estimate the seductive power of a decent vocabulary" could not have said it more wisely and correctly.

In the conclusive analysis of behaviour  itt all come down to how someone made you feel through their word , action and attitude and since one's language plays an important part in what  people feel about you  , it is always better to choose your words CAREFULLY ,  RESPECTFULLY and with a HUMANE heart .

Hurt sentiment or wounded ego ?

Let us get this clear ....there are no hurt sentiments when a cartoon , a book , a film , a painting , a song  or such other thing gets branded as "offensive"  ....
Think about it .
Most people like me , I mean the masses who have better things on hand than divisive politics to keep them busy , would never even hear of what a few European cartoonists have drawn or what M F Hussain had painted or what Rohington Mistry had written in his book or what Deepa Mehta had shown in her films.
It is actually about egotism and selfishness ...and more dangerously about vested interests mercilessly slicing the  very idea of humaneness
They certainly revel and prosper under  religious , regional , linguistic , cast , color and many many other such sectarian divisions 

It also serves to divert the masses from asking far more relevant  questions ... How boring it would be for the media and the celebrity spokespersons of various parties to talk about water shortage , unemployment , police reforms ,  road  and electricity conditions , sanitation ,  health , poverty ....
Take the viewers of a television show or the reader of a newspaper or even the ordinary net surfer . Would they like to hear such unglamorous questions to which our powerful leaders otherwise also have no answers ?
And what is new about these issues ?
Don't we all know there is inflation , there is poverty , there is unemployment , the gutters often overflow with dirt , the roads have huge potholes and ill managed traffic .... So ? So WHAT my dear ?
We have learned to live with it .... Haven't we ?

But "hurting" so called  religious , lingual , regional , cast "sentiment" also keeps happening .... Then why does it ignite intense violent passion ?
Why does it instigate people to kill (and get killed ) ?
Why can't we learn to live with this "threat" to our existence too ???
Why ... Why ... Why ???

Undying .....and forever ......

Shaam-ki-chaai is always very special .
One looks forward to it for that much needed rejuvenating break from a hectic day's work .......and if fortunate luxury permits , then for that enchanting coziness that can only be experienced with a cup full of steaming hot tea , in the happy company of one's loved ones .

For  more than half of the past decade , I have had one constant and  most loved companion to share my shaam - ki-chaai with .
My Mother.

Her dedication to the beverage was matchless and absolutely and so profoundly  passionate
She never said "NO" to tea.
Her passion  was so strong that it could not be contained by her alone.
It  used to spill all around her and engulf the smallest being within its folds.
One had to see to believe and feel  her abundant  enthusiasm for chaai.

I remember the  long distance train / car journeys  when getting a good cup of tea en route would be  such a difficult task  .
But not for a true lover like my mother .

She loved tea : No conditions attached
The flavour , the aroma , the quality : Nothing mattered .
Her thumb rule was straight : "Chaai Ho Aur Bahot Ho"

Even during the days of her hospitalisation in the Cardiac Care Unit , she would ask for extra cups of tea , which the  nurses would most affectionately oblige.

She came home very weak and our hopes for her recovery took a depressing downturn when she refused  to have tea.
From that day  her condition went from bad to worse .
The struggle to bring her back on the road to recovery seemed a frustrating one
Nothing  .....absolutely nothing , not even the best of medicines seemed to be working for her this time orund.

Life from her body kept slipping like sand  from one's reluctant fingers even as the doctors tried to tighten their grip on it .......
It is so true that most often happiness comes  without making  much noise , in apparently trivial moments such as these . The priceless treasure chest fills up gradually.
But before you realise their worth , these small moments become memories.

 My constant shaam-ki-chaai-companion is lost forever ......but has left beautiful memories forever.
I love to picture her sitting blissfully  in a sprawling lush green tea   garden , sipping her favourite beverage in ultimate easement and glory

 May her soul rest in eternal  peace.......

:-) :-)

Never loose hope
You never know what new happiness  tomorrow may bring !!!

I have already written about how elated and happy I have been feeling after taking life's "most difficult " decision :-)

Most of my friends still feel it must have been perhaps a hugely difficult one after all  !!!

Oh! I am referring to that one wonderful  decision of my life bringing to an end  the tedious and unpleasant ( For me it was  very unpleasant and depressing ) process of  colouring the hair .
This decision to stop coloring the hair just happened ... and then thankfully there was no looking back :-)

Honestly though I was a little apprehensive of what my family and friends will say ... there was a " fear " within my heart that I ll hear long sermons from my sister and cousins , even my dear nieces , who love me very much , all exhorting me to reconsider this strange and anomalous decision of going silvery grey :-)

Not entirely wrong was I .
There were a few who did react as per my expectations :-)
Some friends who may have heard the stories of my " kanjoosi " ( :-))politely even suggested that I may have not tried the better quality hair colouring stuff which is a little expensive :-D

But there were most thankfully more voices of encouragement .
Not that I was going by the majority's decision this time , but it did make an enormously pleasing difference .
And the realization that I had achieved what many others just wish they could , was an extremely delightful sentiment .

But even with so much contentment coming my way through encouraging compliments , I was not prepared for the most smashing and glamorous one from someone most unexpected .

I was invited to the screening of short film recently. There was this adorably plump girl , with large beautiful ear rings , clicking pictures and mingling with the guests cheerfully .
Everyone , well almost everyone , seemed to know her .
She came and stood before me like a flash of lightening , introduced herself and clicked my pictures. She was still just a name to me ... at the most her introduction for me was : a very good friend of my host .

A few days later we got a call from this host ... I did not know how to react to this completely unexpected thrilling news he  had given !!!

That girl who was clicking pictures was a famous casting director working with one of the topmost production houses in the Hindi Film Industry , she is a cousin of a famous producer ,  she has hundreds of people sending her their portfolios for that one chance which could make their Bollywood dreams come true ..... !!!!

And here this "powerful" woman had herself almost come knocking at my door  ... asking if I would be interested in doing films !!!

I still can't believe this has happened to me !!!!
My hunger for adventure has long been satiated otherwise this temptation would be impossible to ignore :-)

It  would have been another entirely new innings in life ...
I can't stop picturing myself giving motherly hugs and rubbing shoulders with the super stars of the day :-) !!!
Although I have decided not to do films , I must admit that the thought of it makes me smile , and instantly there is a feeling of happiness and confidence deep within me .....

So never loose hope ......
You never know what new happiness  tomorrow may bring !!!