For a change, this is going to be a guest post from a dear friend. Don't ask me who.
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Happy Reading.
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A season of forgotten memories
I was wondering... I was wondering about what i could share that had be truly worth it. From politics to poverty, anger to happiness, frustration to hope.. almost all emotions flashed across. And then I came across, the one thing I have always cherished but never been able to put into words. Its more of a talisman, more of a thing that one goes by.
I often look at this picture of my baba on this mantelpiece in my room and I wonder if he is up there looking at me, wondering if I had live up to his expectations, be able to somewhere make my own mark. I know that's the wrong thing, the wrong idea in my head, but I just can't help wonder. I wonder and I wonder, I wonder about what we would have had conversations about if he were alive, wonder about what he would say when he listened to my ideas, how he would bear the difference in ideologies. Its more of an ideological plank, that i am interested in. Its not so much of an emotional thing, the emotions in us are about ideologies and that makes us, us.
I remember having heard about him a lot of times, back in Iraq, from dad and mom. I remember because it must have been countless times because I was just four when we came back. I remember remembering their verbal references to a person “pitaji”, every time taken with a touch of reverence with head bowing slowly down. It just might be my bias, but that is how I remember it. When we came back to India, I remember a man in a hunter topi, all suited in a garb of a lawyer standing in the platform in Etawah and dozens and dozens of people had come to receive us, but my everlasting memory is of that one person who stood and smiled. Dad and mom bent and touched his feet, Sis did too and I did as well. It was I who got to be lifted up in his arms.
Now how does this person and his memories make it relevant to be so emotionally charged. Most of it is second hand. But this is how it goes.
Born in 1912 in Orai, he was eldest son of the second eldest son of a very well to do family. Now as it used to be, the eldest got to keep the ancestral property and the rest had to make their own, so he inherited next to nothing. Decently well off. Son of a religious man, my dad remembers him reciting Ramayan in Sanskrit by memory. Mother was the only daughter of the diwan of risayat of Gopalpur. At the age of three, a gang of outlaws put a sword on his neck and demanded all the gold, and his mother gave it all. So they were now decently poor. Sent to Allahabad to study law, he joined the krantikaaries and spent quite a lot of time there. Then came back to Etawah and was married in 1935. His wife died of tuberculosis in less than two years and then he vowed never to be poor. So now taking care of a family of more than 60 people, he worked from 5 in the morning to 12 in the night. My dadi defines it as puja. More about that later.
Engages in nothing more of that krantikaari activities, maybe he outgrew them or maybe he adjusted to the circumstances but then he became a gandhian. In 1941, he gets married to my grandmother. He had a “rolling” practice. That was the term used by so many of people who talked about his work. I once came upon his passbooks of Imperial bank of India (later State Bank of India), and he had balances of more than a lakh. He also became an Arya Samaji in this time. Became a bhakt of Swami Sharananandaji who was blind by birth, but is credited to have lived without food for months at a stretch and he once got puris fried in water (but those are very different stories).
Anyhow… so he converts to an arya samaji. The affect is profound… he has no bias for religion. When after partition , lots of Sindhi people move to Etawah, he helps them. How I got to know this is also a story. In 2000, I go alone to Etawah and give some clothes for dry cleaning and while taking the clothes back, I go along with our family help to the shop… the young man.. nearly my age takes the receipt and gives me the clothes. The old man sitting watching lovingly over his grandson asks me, how come I am there with pappu, and I tell him how I am the grandson of my grand dad. He asks his grandson to give back the money. He makes me sit there, calls for those mouth-watering lassis and talks to me about my grand dad and how much he remembers him still. I was shocked and amazed.
Then there was this time, when his younger brother, my dilli waale baba spoke about the number of inter-caste and inter-religion marriages that he had helped get done. All of them happened on the second floor of our house and dilli waale baba used to be brother to the brides.
So I guess, being a two time MLA on Socialist Party ticket and leaving voluntarily when Rajendra Prasad did so himself, the whole family going without food for two days during Lal Bahadur Shastri's call in 1966, taking up 7826 free cases during land ceiling act implementation. In 1990, an estimated 20000 people turned up for his funeral and kept coming till 3 months later. (They brought their own food and stayed in make shift tents)
If I ever wanted to be someone, emulate someone I would wanna be someone like him.His teachings were terse and simplistic. I remember only four of them which I got dressed in a dhoti-kurta, a 6 year old grandson sitting in baba's kothi next to him writing his A's and B's.
The first one was when he said, people should see the world, but live at home, near their roots and that is the one thing that showers “barraqqat” on the family. And this made me decide not to go to US.
The second one was about never calling on a lady unless indicated to do so. I must have missed 15-20 women who thought I was dumb when I did not respond to them despite the effort.
The third one was not about eating tomatoes. This was attributed to gall bladder stones and that since its a South American food, and does not suit Indians. So I tend to give tomatoes a miss in salads.
The fourth one was always eating curd after a long round of eating sweet food, either jalebis or mangoes. (Back in Etawah we eat jalebis by kilos and mangoes by dozen. My record for jalebis is 2.25 kilos and mangoes is 59 and bananas is 27 in a single sitting and that was when I was 12 years old) and I swallow curd at trhe end of food instead of eating it with food.
I wonder if these hold in these times, but all I remember about him are these things and his smile when he saw me walk up the stairs to deliver his paan and tea. And he had always make me sit next to him and ask for the kulfiwaalah to be called. All truth be told, I want to believe in his wisdom.
I was always referred to as baba's grandson, because I used to accompany him on his walks with my tiny hands folded behind my back, just like him till I got tired and was put on a rickshaw which followed him. He was a very warm fellow and since almost everyone has a nice incident related to him, I guess he must have been a pretty nice himself too.
I still see him looking at me and wondering if I will be able to do as he would wish me to. All I hope is that I would be able to do some justice.
