chapter 4

MY EARLIEST MEMORIES –




I couldn’t have been more than four, most likely between three and four, because my paternal grandfather died when I was about three and I don’t recall him being there.. We lived in Jhansi, a city in western U.P My Phupho ( father’s sister, mother’s sister is called khala) had been visiting us. Her husband worked in a town some forty miles away, a great distance at the time. At the conclusion of her visit, she invited me to go along with her. To my mothers consternation, I agreed, ran to the Tonga ( a horse carriage), which was taking her and her husband (my Mamoon, mothers brother, fathers brother is called chacha) to the railway station. When I reminded my mother of the incident later in life, she won’t believe me, insisting that I must have heard of it from some one else. But I do have a vivid recollection of the whole scene. Memory plays strange tricks. I have a very hazy memory of my younger sister being born, though I was five at the time.
My Phuppo childless then, doted on me. She prepared special delicacies for me. She didn’t insist on my studies,. My commiserating aunts tell me that, my mother had started me in formal reading before I was four.. She was much more permissive than my mother. I spent an idyllic two weeks there.

We spent the better part of WWII in Chindwara another military town. Our predilection for Cantonment areas was due to the fact that my father was a civilian employee in the army. The town was at the foot of a range of mountains, with forest coming almost to the edge of the populated area. Of an evening one could sight a tiger roaming around in the Jungle. It was said that the predators would jump over walls at night, alighting in open court yards and carry off goats, sheep or a human, so unlike the custom in U.P. we slept with our bedroom door firmly latched. I recall a visit by my younger Mamoon. We used to go for walks in the evening. He was a college student in his late teens, and very adventurous. We used to live very close to the forest and unless my memory is playing me false we actually saw a tiger taking a leisurely walk. But I do vividly recall my mother chastising him and warning him to keep away from close vicinity to the mountains.
We returned to Jhansi at the end of the war. British soldiers used to prowl around the city, and it was rumored that they kidnapped children. I recall my Phupho hurriedly dragging me inside when she saw a soldier taking a stroll. .
I have a vivid recollection of visiting our ancestral village during summer vacations and to attend the festival of the local saint every October. The latter visit was special fun, as it fell during school term ,which I was thus able to skip for a few days.
My Nana (mother’s father) doted on me, and had great plans for me. At the time the highest an Indian of Non political/large feudal family could aspire to was I.C.S. (Indian Civil Service). If you could qualify, you could hope to become a deputy commissioner, the lord and master of a district , the post often combined administrative and magisterial offices. There was an age limit beyond which one couldn’t take the examination. To make sure that I would still be of age to take the examination, even if I failed the examinations a few times, he changed my year of Birth from 1937 to 1939. This was incidentally, the usual practice (and still is) in South Asia.
He built a house on a large plot of land outside of the town. It was probably on about 3 acres. It was per custom, divided into men’s quarters, family area and a female domain. Half the plot of land was covered with a garden with all kinds of fruit and flower plants and trees. We burnt wood for cooking, and coal for heat. Winters were bitter, the house was draughty, and insulation was unknown. There was an indoor water pump. Being a government official, Nana was allowed domestic servants, cook, gardener a person to sweep floors, another to do grocery shopping, cook’s assistant to do the dishes. This was not extraordinary, an average household had 2-3 domestic servants, labor was cheap Laundry was done by a washerwoman. Society was to some extent egalitarian. Children didn’t call adult servants by name, so I called the lady Mausi (mothers sister in Hindi) She treated me like her own child. I missed her for a long time.
We used to have frequent evening gatherings of my Nana’s friends . One of them was a well known Urdu poets, Jigar Muradabadi He was the pupil ( the term in Urdu is Shagird , roughly a cross between a pupil and a disciple) of another well known poet Asghar Gondvi..A poignant and for the period a rather scandalous story was current at the time. Asghar fell in love with Jigar’s wife.Jigar asked his wife if she would be willing to marry Asghar. Finding her agreeable he divorced her.Asghar died a few years later. Jigar flouting family and public opinion married her again. They were a devoted couple. Another close friend was a Hakim (doctor of oriental medicine). He was something of a religious scholar and used to hold discussions on Islamic traditions, jurisprudence etc He belonged to a rather orthodox sect of Islam called Ahl-e-Hadees, yet he was a Mureed (disciple) of a saint Religious practice was a very mixed up business. One of our neighbors was a titled ( I forget the title) Hindu lawyer. He used to drink and was not allowed meat in his house, so he used to send word of his visit to Nana’s several times a week times a week Kebabs would be prepared for him and my Nana an observant Muslim, who never would go near a bottle, welcomed him like a brother. His friend would at times be deep in his cups. My Nana would gently admonish him. “Itni na piya karo”- don’t drink so much. Such was the level of tolerance and friendship!
Nana gave a lavish and sumptuous party for my first Roza ( fast ) Muslim children fast for one day during Ramadan, a year or two before fasting for the whole month becomes obligatory at age 12. I don’t know the antecedents of this custom of ceremonial fasting.. It don’t recall any one claiming the Quran or traditions as the authority for the practice. It is probably an adaptation of an Indian Custom.(check this one)
A huge Pandal ,an ingenious system of covering a large area with a vast sheet of tent material fabric, propped up with numerous bamboo poles, anchored to the ground with a rope and nails, was setup with tables and chairs underneath. This was a novelty. People usually sat on floors to eat even in large parties. Two tents, one for Hindu and the other for Muslim cooking were also erected. The tents and food were prohibited for the other party. Few followed the strictures.
We never had Hindu-Muslim riots in our town. But there were rumors galore, and there was a lot of tension in the air. People brought news of people getting killed in riots organized and incited by communalist parties, of stray killings of persons found walking alone after dark, of shops and isolated localities being ransacked but the government tried their best to scotch rumors and keeping a incidents from getting out of hand .Some police officers were known to have communalist leanings but they could not exhibits them overtly. When rumors were more credible there was a lot of tension in town and we firmly closed our bedroom doors, on occasion the whole family sleeping in one room. Some times we even barricaded our rooms at night .One such occasion was when Gandhiji was assassinated .Some miscreant spread the word that the assassin was a Muslim. We feared the worst. My grandfather came back from the office early. But an hour or two later it was announced on the radio that the assassin was named Nathu Ram Godse.Pandit Nehru’s address to the nation followed soon after wards exhorting all in this hour of national distress and grief to stay calm and united.
There were ,how ever, grievous conflagrations in some cities of U.P. Shahjahanpur, Barielly,Badauin,moradabad come to mind. My younger Phopho’s husband was killed in a riot in Shahjahanpur.
There were, of course, wide spread riots in India else where, even after the frenzy and madness of the immediate after math of the partition had diminished and continue to this day.
But people were politically aware. In 1950 there simultaneous All India Students, Teachers, Postal workers and many other workers union strikes. There were no communal based dissensions in the ranks. Most Unions were controlled by the Communist Party of India or were under their influence. They were certainly effective in curbing overt hatred among adherents of different religions.
We used to have an annual fete in our college ( it was intermediate college with classes from third to twelfth grade ,named Thompson after some British bureaucrat). An eleventh grader student was masquerading as a barber. He would apply shaving cream on a guest’s face wipe it of and ask for donation. He did this to the faces of the high officials, judges, civil surgeon, but when he tried to apply the cream to the face of the Police Inspector who was in the town for his ferocious temper the man took umbrage and called the student names. The student returned the compliment at which point the inspector beat up the student with hid stick, called a few policemen for help ,put the student into his jeep and took him away to a police lock up . the student happened to be a Muslim. The area the incident took place in, for some reason only a few on lookers who did not have the courage to stop the police atrocity.
Very soon the news reached every one. All the festivities were abandoned. The students gathered in the main quadrangle and were addressed by the President of the student’s union. His speech is etched in my memory. He declared that he belonged to Hindu Mahasabha, a militant anti Muslim organization, and that he did not like Muslims. But it was not a communal question. It was a question of solidarity in the rank of students. He directed students to follow him to the police station to free their comrade. Several hundred students rushed to the station about half a mile away broke the iron door of the lock up freed the student and came back in a procession.
Other students had kept the deputy commissioner, the highest local official and chief guest of the evening hostage. They demanded that the Inspector be brought back to apologize to all the students. The deputy commissioner ordered the man brought back, but he won’t ask for forgiveness. He was dragged off the vehicle he had been brought back in, and beaten senseless. Our Gym instructor, a retired army sergeant organized squads of students. We had running fights between students and the police the whole night.
The next day a student leader from the provincial capital Lucknow arrived to lend the collective voice of all the students to the protest. Messages of outrage at police brutality arrived from all over India.
The following day the police minister Shastri, later to be a Prime Minister of India, descended on the town, and addressing a public meeting called the students and teachers goondas ( gangsters ). The crowd hailed his words with a storm of shoes. I am a witness to one shoe landing on the ministerial face.
I have described the incident in some detail, to high light the point that even a small town in the back waters like Gonda had vibrant political ambience and that politics was secular.

,( Nehru Lucknow speech if not mentioned elsewhere)
My Nani (mother’s mother) was a lady of leisure, very affectionate, rather timid, letting others take care of things. My mother, second of four children generally being the most frequent “other” I recall very vividly her managing the servants, household finances, parents and siblings .
In oriental households, it was very unusual for a daughter to rule her family. Girls were supposed to learn enough to write letters in Urdu and read Beheshti Zevar(roughly jewellery of paradise) a book detailing decorum, code of behavior and how to be obedient and loyal to elders in the house they were born in and later to the elders in the house they were married into, father eventually to supplanted by the husband as the main object of reverence. Even the ones with strong personalities had to curb themselves.)
My mother, highly intelligent, proud, independent with a sharp and ready tongue, wanted to be educated. She was her fathers favorite child so she was allowed to go to school. But even a doting and liberal father would get his daughter married off as soon as a suitable offer for her hand came.. My mother got married when in eight grade. Such were the times.
My earliest memories of her are that of a frustrated person, living with a mother in law, a married but separated sister in law and her son, two brothers in law, one married, the other a college student and a husband buffeted by two strong personalities, his wife’s and his mother’s. The only peace of mind she had was during her visits to her own parents home, I think for a few weeks every year.
She loved me dearly, of course, but won’t let her affection get in the way of my schooling and good conduct, punishing me mercilessly for any infraction. I had to wait for my Nana’s return from office who instantly commuted the sentence.
My Mamoon and Khala ,I called her auntie, both younger than my mother did their best to give me emotional support.. My Mamoon in 11th or 12th grade at the time would tutor me in English and Mathematics too. My Khala only pampered me that is when she got a chance. My mother kept a vigilant eye on me.
Khala got married, went to live in Lucknow,( describe her in laws house, first time in a restaurant,) It should come later.
My earliest memory of my father is that of a harassed person, at a loss to know how to tackle his mother and wife. If he showed consideration to one the other would take it amiss. Once when he bought a silk Sari for my mother, a luxury admittedly he could hardly afford, it must have been a special occasion, his mother sulked for days. My mother would not forgive him if he said hello to his mother first on coming back home from office.
He was for several years the sole bread winner of the family, and though at the time I was my mother’s firm partisan, I came to realize in later years that he deserved better treatment from both the principal women in his life .But jealousy is not a sentiment conducive to rational behavior and attempt at being even handed between your wife and mother is not a policy that leads to good emotional health..
My father had a modest position in the judicial system, as a personal assistant to a Judge. He could have made a fortune if he conformed to the system, he was supposed to be the principal conduit of bribes in the department. The Judge who had appointed him to the position was an upright citizen. He did not last long. His successor , more worldly wise, tried to make my father see the “correct way”, but did not recommend him for permanent appointment when the latter refused to “mend” his ways.
We lived in a smallish rental house. It had two storeys, but to me compared to my Nana’s house, it looked liked boxes put on top of one another. I lived in a room with my parents, and my sister five years junior to me, so a small baby at the time. My grand mother with a married but separated daughter and her son lived in another room. My unmarried uncle lived in a sort of verandah, and my married uncle lived upstairs.
The house was in a congested area of the city. . It was bitterly cold in the winter, there was no insulation, and we depended on coal heaters for warmth. They were any thing but adequate. It was stiflingly hot in the summer, temperature often rose to 120 F and people would die of hyper pyrexia and dehydration , if exposed to the hot wind called Loo .Only monsoon rains would bring some relief, but then it would be distressingly humid if the wind did not blow. We also had to contend with all kinds of epidemics like cholera, small pox and even plague. Malaria and Typhoid were endemic, but would often assume epidemic proportions. I am told that I survived two bouts of Typhoid fever, to which dread affliction my parents had lost two of my elder siblings.
I recall a family physician Dr Chaudhury, a Bengali; doctors from the province were for some reason highly regarded. He had a huge house. He also had his clinic ( office ) in the building .I had an abscess in one of my hands. He drained it, and refused payment for the service. I was his star patient, he often exhibited me with pride to other patients, exclaiming in his broken Urdu “ hum iska jaan bachaya tha “ I saved his life. He had brought me back from the brink of death in my bouts with Typhoid, and never charged for my treatment. .Medicine was truly a noble profession then.
There was a huge drainage channel for rain/flood water in front of our house. During the rainy season one had to wade through it or make a long detour to offices, shops or schools .It would be impassable at times with strong currents and up to six feet of water.
Jhansi was known for its Fort. Jhansi KI Rani, one of the icons of 1857 war of independence, which had fought the British, led forces valiantly, and facing certain defeat had jumped off the twelve feet walls of the fort to her death, rather than surrender. Her gallantry was commemorated every year. A part of the commemoration was a procession led by a young girl acting the part of the Rani riding an elephant and brandishing a naked sword, followed by other young girls on horses, in palanquins and on foot, all in form fitting military uniforms .In my entire memory, that was the only congregation of young girls any where in South Asia which was not subjected to vulgar cat calls and harassed.
The fort was huge, built of black stone, with boundary walls at least ten feet wide, and had all the usual sections for the Royal family, their immediate attendants ,lower servants, guards, soldiers of the garrison, kitchens, separate reception halls for the upper and lower classes, quarters for menial servants and guest houses etc.
We used to go to the fort for walks in the evening, Jhansi had cool desert evenings. There was free and unrestricted entry. There were few guides; it was off the beaten tourist track., not in the same class by, any means, as the Taj Mahal or the red fort in Delhi.
Many years later, when I first visited Windsor castle in England I was a bit taken aback. The premier English castle could fit in a corner of the Jhansi Fort. May be I am being carried away by my nationalist chauvinism, but latter is undoubtedly much larger in size. And it is by no measure one of the premier castles of India. I marveled at the irony of fate, these people had conquered us and ruled over us for the better part of two hundred years .Then I recalled another page of history, the hordes of Helegu had sacked Baghdad, burnt its vast libraries and massacred its population. That unfortunate city does seem to attract barbarians.
My Dadi (father’s mother) was a veritable tyrant, forcing her will on all comers .Her husband had died young. Widow hood, straitened circumstances and a daughter in law from a comparatively prosperous house, intelligent, strong willed, good looking and well educated from her standards, her own daughters had dropped out of school after primary grades, all these factors added to her insecurity and made her bitter .Her younger daughter, separated from her husband, after the birth of her only child, used to have “fits”. She probably had eclampsia, an affliction attendant upon childbirth, very difficult to treat and often leading to “insanity” . Her son also was subject to bouts of uncontrollable rage. This was an additional financial and emotional burden on us all, but my Dadi was naturally affected the most. Both my Dadi and the aunt lived till 1965, a long and sorry life.
My older married uncle, he was younger than my father, at the time a temporary employee of the Railway department, was very affectionate to me, but had a short temper. He and my mother had very good relations. He would often defend my mother against his own mother but could not stand up to my father, who stood in loco parentis to him. I recall a particularly unpleasant scene when he got into a shouting match with his father in law, and only my mother was able to restrain him, and keep the situation from degenerating into a fistfight. It must have a very serious problem; fathers in law are generally given the same respect as one’s own father. My uncle divorced his wife soon afterwards.
My younger uncle, then a college student, was rather indifferent to me. Once I heard that he had passed the pre-university examination. I ran out of the house looking for him , found him with a friend, and breathlessly imparted the news to him. He disdainfully ignored me, may be he was trying to impress his friend with his nonchalance, but it hurt .I was to learn much later that it was the way he behaved with every one. We were to become very good friends later in life.
The memory of the next year or so is hazy. It was a very difficult and emotionally charged time for us. I think I have subconsciously blocked the details. I have clear enough recollection of the preceding and following years. There was some kind of strife in the family. It was largely related to my Khala marrying my elder uncle. It was all arranged, but my Dadi vetoed it. Her logic was that she had enough trouble with one sister in the house. With two ganging up on her she won’t survive. One can see her point.
My mother decided to leave for her father’s house. My elder Phuphi. married to my mother’s elder brother, it was rather complicated arrangement for non-Muslim eyes, but fairly routine among Muslims, shifted to her mother’s house.
I spent 1946 to 1950 in my Nana’s house.
I have mentioned elsewhere that my schooling till fourth grade was at home. I was taught English and Mathematic, little else. In my first mid-term examination, I attempted only three out of six questions. On being asked by the teacher the reason, I told him in all innocence that that pass marks were only 33%, and surely I should score passing grade on the questions I had attempted. Once a teacher marked my work “poor”. I was incensed. I was from a fairly prosperous household. I routinely did poorly in all subjects, except for Mathematics and English, from fifth to eight grades.