The sun flooded through the green leaves as I walked past the Church. The air smelt of festivities...of sewai and tender meat being cooked in spices. Families in shiny clothes and bright smiles walked past me on their way to meet extended families and friends. I definitely stood out as far as purpose was concerned. I craved to run back, put on a shalwar kameez and visit my 'other family'. But that was not to be. I obviously had to postpone all my 'Eid meeting sheeting' as I termed it, for later. For now, I was on my way to office. I-pod clutched in hand, wearing my very un-festive jeans, I almost dragged myself down the gali to the auto stand or rather the place where autos stand. There was just one auto waiting at the stand. Beside it, stood a man, with a big smile on his face. It was not one of those creepy smiles that make you want to run away lest you get molested. It was a genuine, generous smile, the sort that tells you, you are home. The kind of old world smile that you don't see any more.
Old world...he was barely 60. Tall. Well built with north western massive hands. He had a strong jaw and sported a stubble. Apart from that irresistible, 'you are home' smile, he wore an immaculately white Pathani Shalwar. For a moment, I didn't know if he was the auto driver and if it would be appropriate to ask him so. I mean, how many auto drivers dress like that? They are usually skinny, sweaty, nose diggers. No offence meant, but they are skinny and sweaty and they do dig their noses...we shall simply term it as a professional hazard.
Anyway, I asked him if he would go to Safdarjung Enclave, and he replied that he would. What sounded elixir to my ears was the impeccable Punjabi Urdu that he spoke. Old world he was. After I sat in the auto, I didn't quite know if I wanted to plug music in my ears because I was simply dying to hear more of that language. All I could think of was Lahore, at which of course the smell of food wafted back into my nostrils.
I am a part of a generation that is usually not very emotional about the Partition, barring exceptions of course. But how I wish I belonged to that Old World. I remember how fondly my grandfather spoke of Dhaka, where my whole family came from and how he would love the fact that among all his grandchildren, at least one loves to hear stories about 'those days'. My grandma whose family had been given shelter and hence saved by their Muslim neighbours during communal riots, told me the story often, emphasizing that people are essentially good. In fact, I promised by grandfather that one day I would go back to our house in Dhaka and write a memoir. Probably this is how I developed my affinity for the old world. And this guy in the auto simply brought it up again...the melancholy that would fill my grandparents every time they told and re-told the stories to me...the fondness and love for the land of their childhood...the one black and white photograph which I promised I would preserve to show the next generation...how I crave for the irreversible!
After work, I was supposed to have dinner with Wasey sahab and family, my head of the department in Jamia, it being Eid. People were sitting and talking in the living room, so he asked me to go and sit with his wife and mother inside. The women, which included all the women of Wasey sahab's family and the wife of this particular Rajya Sabha MP were busy chatting. I am pretty close to his mother and wife and hence I knew I would not be as bored as I usually am in such 'separation of sexes' situation. And to add to my day's Partition flavour, they were discussing, well, the Partition. Wasey sahab's mother was ruing about how half of her family got left behind in Lahore and Karachi and how her parents got her married off at the age of 12, left her behind in India and settled in Pakistan. There were frequent sighs followed by a 'I have not seen my brother for so long' or 'how beautiful Lahore looked'. Of course there were comforting statements such as 'take a month's visa and go visit relatives' but I knew it was not the same.
Whether we like it or not, we have wounded a nation fatally. Whoever's fault it was, whatever reasons there were, nothing can justify what people have had to go through...those who stayed back and those who left. I am not simply talking about physical pain or riots. It is about the heart ache and injury caused by tearing away from what was one, something that 60 plus years of progress has not managed to heal.
P.S: Dinner was awesome, except for that MP's wife exclaiming about my Urdu and a particularly irritating woman who turned up to rub secularism on our faces by her constant ramblings about her array of Muslims friends till Wasey sahab decided to shut her up for good.
Old world...he was barely 60. Tall. Well built with north western massive hands. He had a strong jaw and sported a stubble. Apart from that irresistible, 'you are home' smile, he wore an immaculately white Pathani Shalwar. For a moment, I didn't know if he was the auto driver and if it would be appropriate to ask him so. I mean, how many auto drivers dress like that? They are usually skinny, sweaty, nose diggers. No offence meant, but they are skinny and sweaty and they do dig their noses...we shall simply term it as a professional hazard.
Anyway, I asked him if he would go to Safdarjung Enclave, and he replied that he would. What sounded elixir to my ears was the impeccable Punjabi Urdu that he spoke. Old world he was. After I sat in the auto, I didn't quite know if I wanted to plug music in my ears because I was simply dying to hear more of that language. All I could think of was Lahore, at which of course the smell of food wafted back into my nostrils.
I am a part of a generation that is usually not very emotional about the Partition, barring exceptions of course. But how I wish I belonged to that Old World. I remember how fondly my grandfather spoke of Dhaka, where my whole family came from and how he would love the fact that among all his grandchildren, at least one loves to hear stories about 'those days'. My grandma whose family had been given shelter and hence saved by their Muslim neighbours during communal riots, told me the story often, emphasizing that people are essentially good. In fact, I promised by grandfather that one day I would go back to our house in Dhaka and write a memoir. Probably this is how I developed my affinity for the old world. And this guy in the auto simply brought it up again...the melancholy that would fill my grandparents every time they told and re-told the stories to me...the fondness and love for the land of their childhood...the one black and white photograph which I promised I would preserve to show the next generation...how I crave for the irreversible!
After work, I was supposed to have dinner with Wasey sahab and family, my head of the department in Jamia, it being Eid. People were sitting and talking in the living room, so he asked me to go and sit with his wife and mother inside. The women, which included all the women of Wasey sahab's family and the wife of this particular Rajya Sabha MP were busy chatting. I am pretty close to his mother and wife and hence I knew I would not be as bored as I usually am in such 'separation of sexes' situation. And to add to my day's Partition flavour, they were discussing, well, the Partition. Wasey sahab's mother was ruing about how half of her family got left behind in Lahore and Karachi and how her parents got her married off at the age of 12, left her behind in India and settled in Pakistan. There were frequent sighs followed by a 'I have not seen my brother for so long' or 'how beautiful Lahore looked'. Of course there were comforting statements such as 'take a month's visa and go visit relatives' but I knew it was not the same.
Whether we like it or not, we have wounded a nation fatally. Whoever's fault it was, whatever reasons there were, nothing can justify what people have had to go through...those who stayed back and those who left. I am not simply talking about physical pain or riots. It is about the heart ache and injury caused by tearing away from what was one, something that 60 plus years of progress has not managed to heal.
P.S: Dinner was awesome, except for that MP's wife exclaiming about my Urdu and a particularly irritating woman who turned up to rub secularism on our faces by her constant ramblings about her array of Muslims friends till Wasey sahab decided to shut her up for good.
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