1. Earliest Memories
In the name of Allah Almighty, who has always given the right direction to
my life. Never in my life before, have I written a short story or an essay.
Suddenly I am taking up this monumental task of authoring the gist of virtually
the entire lifetime. At every crossroad of my journey since birth, Allah has
given me the desired support which has helped me to have completed the 75 years
of my life. As the adage says the benevolence of parents comes to the benefit
of their children. My mother was an immensely benevolent lady. Kind hearted and
noble; who possessed tremendous virtue of patience. May be I have been
receiving the fruits of the virtues that she possessed. Since my childhood,
whenever I stumbled or was in a state of disarray, it was she who always was
there for me. I feel that when a child returns home after playing in the field,
the mother is always there to dust away the clothes and clings the child to her
chest. The dirt over the clothes doesn’t matter. That is UNCONDITIONAL love.
My own family from the paternal side had a slim structure. For the last
three generations, it was restricted to a boy and a girl. My father Khwaja
Mohammad Ismail was one of them. My grandfather was involved in the publication
of Quran Sharif and his family lived alongside a Madarsa. I have been hearing
that his forefathers actually migrated from Kashmir and settled in this part of
the country after getting married here. Probably it was the inherited factor
that my father was all pink and fair and very handsome. He was a lawyer by profession
and practiced law in Patna. He had three close friends. Khwaja Noor who also
happened to be a cousin, Sir Syed Fakhruddin and Mohammad Hussain who later
became a minister. But ever since I grew up, I saw my father as
physically handicapped whose legs had been paralyzed. He was always lying there
on his bed in his room. My brother Khwaja Mohammad Ali was 16 years
elder to me and my sister Sajda was elder to me by 12 years. I was the third
child to have born after such an unusual time gap. I can only visualise the
celebrations that could have taken place at that point of time, but for a
tragedy that occurred in the family .
Allah had his own ways of determining the destinies. My mother had an
elder sister Shahzad Bibi who was married at the age of 11 to the uncle
(chacha) of my father in-law. May be out of place, but I would like to mention
that the mother of my father in-law and my own maternal grandmother were own
sisters. Thus it was like the Khala marrying her Bhanji to her Devar. Shahzad
Bibi had a close saheli (friend) named Zubaida Baji who was a teacher who
taught me the three Rs. I pray for her always as the entire credit goes to her
for getting me admitted to the school. Zubaida Baji used to give a good account
and description of my Khala as a delicate beauty in her prime days. It is said
that when she used to have paan, the reddish tinge was visible from the cheeks.
She had a slim waist coupled with extra long lush hairs. When she was 16 and
her husband 21, he went to Banaras where her husband died in a plague pandemic.
She eventually settled down back in her “maika”(parent’s house). She adopted
the child of her Khala after the latter’s premature death, and the child was
later being called as Zafar Mamoo by us. Zafar Mamoo had a daughter Razia
Tabassum.
Anyways, when 40 days past the death of my Khala was being observed on 29th day
of Ramzan Mubarak, I was born at the time of Maghrib. Amman was observing a
fast even that particular day. In fact Amman never missed a day of fasting. No
sooner was I born, there was the azan for the Maghrib Namaaz and thereafter she
took some water to break the fast. Within a few days of my birth, she was taken
ill so severely that all hopes of her recovery was virtually lost and even
Surah Yasin was being recited which is traditionally done at the death bed.
Allah’s mercy then came to the rescue of the infant and my mother survived.
Both Amman and Bhaiya later told me that during those difficult days of
illness, it was my Bhaiya who fed the newborn me with goat’s milk. Indeed he
did for me what usually a father does. I am thankful to Allah that he kept
Amman alive for my upbringing, else I cannot imagine how my life could have
shaped up without her.
I am unable to recollect the memories prior to the age of 9. At this point
of time my Aapa was married to Manzoor Bhai who was the son of my Amman’s first
cousin Ayesha Khala. He was a highly educated and a post graduate from Aligarh
Muslim University but somehow remained unemployed as he
wouldn’t care less for ordinary jobs and higher positions evaded him. Aapa was
married when she was just eighteen. After two years, Bhaiya got married to
Abida Khatoon, who was the daughter of Mohammad Hafiz Saheb, a
prominent advocate of his time. At that point of time, my Bhabhi was
13 and I was just 8. Bhaiya, then used to live in Calcutta. I cannot recollect
what exactly he was doing there. I only have a hazy memory of Bhaiya’s wedding
day. In my family, the weddings generally used to take that appeared to be like
long gaps. Most of the times on such occasions, after waiting for
long filled with excitement, I was sure to fall ill on the very fateful day and
thus could never really enjoy as I wished to. I would then start
looking forward to the next wedding in the family. Amman
used to say not to have high expectations from the beginning.
My early childhood days were not too pleasant. As I opened my eyes
into this world, I always saw Abba confined to bed. I was never told about his
ailment. I never saw him going to the Court and he had become extremely
irritable. I was the lone girl in the house and for me even running around the
terrace, laughing and talking loudly was forbidden. Occasionally my Phuphi used
to visit us with her granddaughter Chunna who was my age and was like a friend.
Whenever she used to come, it was a day of merriment for me, not that we could
play as we wished. The limits were clearly prescribed.
My maternal side belonged to Patna
City. My Nani had passed away when I was still very young and I don’t have
clear memories of her. We got an invitation for the wedding of Chanda Khala who
was a sister of Bacchu Mamoo. I was thrilled at the prospect of attending a
wedding. I wore a pink crepe sari and went for the wedding on a horse driven
carriage called “buggy”. As much as I can recall, this was the first occasion,
when I saw Humaira, Sakku and Hassu (who later became my sis-in-laws) who
appeared to be my contemporary. I got friendly with them and started
calling them by their pet name.
The family elders later calculated
that when Shahzadi Khala had died, I was not yet born whereas Sakku was then
one and Humaira was two years old. But despite insistence from the elders, I
refused to call them Baji or Aapa as they looked like younger than I was. The
wedding was grand and it was there that I saw Bacchu Mamoon. Kajju Mamoon and
Minnoo Bhai (who later became Ejaz’s father in law). At the time of the
Ruqsati, the three brothers and Minnoo Bhai was crying like hell had
broken loose. The reason for their uncontrolled sobbing, I was told was that
Chanda Khala had lost both her parents and her in laws lived in a
far off place like Allahabad. In those days the girls were married mostly
within the family. Prior to this wedding function, I had visited Dhawalpura just
once before, for another wedding, but the memories of that occasion are very
faint. I just remember that Maqdooman Bua (nanny) got me inside the
palki of the bride(Amnu Aapa) who was getting married to a cousin in Sheikhpura
and I landed at the railway station along with the bride who was to go to
Sheikhpura. When the search for me started at home, it was revealed that
Maqdooman Bua had sent me along with the bride’s doli. There was a chaos for
some time and all the male members, servants were rushed to the railway station
and eventually I was brought back home.
Bhaiya felt sorry for me at times. I
never played with a doll. Not that I didn’t like it, but there was no one my
age in the house to play with. An old toothless Maulvi Saheb used to come and
properly dressed in a Dupatta, I used to sit opposite him to learn the Quran. I
never used to comprehend the correct pronunciation, coming out of the toothless
Maulvi Saheb. I was also supposed to learn Urdu from him. I never really liked
being taught in that insipid atmosphere. Bhaiya came from Calcutta for a few
days and got varieties of cheese and chocolates for me as I was very fond of
them. I used to be a little shy and formal with Bhaiya and
we never could talk freely. Even when I talked to him, I used to
address him as ‘Aap’ like an elder as Amman used to get offended when I
addressed him as ‘Tum’. But Bhaiya said that was fine as it reflected intimacy.
Bhaiya felt pity on me and took me shopping and we bought a white shalwar and a
striped kameez and a hat.
Prior to this, I used to wear only thick churidar pyajamas. I wore the new clothes and put on the hat and went for a ride in his new car which he had got from Calcutta. On a few occasions, Amman used to go to Mussalahpur in that car driven by Bhaiya and I used to sit next to him on the front seat with pride. Amman used to get the rear window shielded by Purdah which I used to dislike.
Then one day, in the same dress and hat, Bhaiya took me for a football match being played at lawn (now called Gandhi Maidan). While I could hardly understand the intricacies of the game, I was clapping all the time sitting on the make shift benches of the stadium. We had lots of roasted groundnut. There we met a friends of Bhaiya, Abul Khair Saheb, Moin Saheb, Shuda Saheb and a few others names I cant recollect. This Football Match visit continued for another three four days and we had tons of groundnuts there. Ended up with an upset stomach but still we thoroughly enjoyed, like never before.
Probably Bhaiya had completed his studies for talk of his marriage had
started. The girl was Abida Khatoon, the fourth daughter of Maulvi Hafiz Saheb
Advocate and who was a cousin of my Abba. The “nisbat” (alliance) was fixed
since childhood days. My Bhabhi had 5 sisters and youngest of them was Zubaida
Khatoon and after a long gap, a boy was born in their family. The boy was named
Zafar and even he was elder to me. He was skinny and extremely shy in nature. I
wanted to play with him but he would always shy away. Bhabhi was 13 and Bhaiya
was 21 and I was 6. At this age there was not much of understanding but I
remember I used to sit and sing “Geet” with others during and after the wedding
of Bhaiya.
At around the age of 8, one day a decent fair complexioned lady came to
our home in a palki, clad in a white sari. She called me close to
her and asked me about my studies. She told Amman (She used to call Amman by
her first name Chanda) that I was a cute child and asked her to get me admitted
to her school. Amman in response said she will consult and let her know. Till
that time Abba was alive but was confined to bed. I never saw him moving around
even within his room. Amman used to take care of all his requirements.
Later I was told that the lady who came the other day was a very close
friend of my Khala. When Amman mentioned about the school to Bhaiya, he was
pleased with the idea that this will lead to some change of environment and
freedom for me. He always used to feel bad for my lonely confinement at home.
But what concerned Amman was that how a girl would go all alone to school. Even
though Zubaida Baji had explained that the carriage (horse driven) on which she
herself used to go to school, would pick up and drop me right at the door-step,
and there was no reason to be apprehensive about. Still Amman could not take
that decision on her own. Finally Bhaiya said that after his going back to
Calcutta, even Bhabhi will also get bored and therefore it would be better if
she also is admitted to the same school. Thus was paved the way for the
admission of both of us.
In the meantime, Noor Jahan Baji got married. They used to live in the
adjacent lane to our house. I went for the wedding with Amman. When the groom
came inside after the nikah, Salaami (cash gift) was given by all the
relatives. Other young girls of the family were joking with the groom who was
all giggles. I was just waiting for this opportunity. In entered the gang of
girls and started pestering the groom. And suddenly I heard the stern voice of
Amman. “Get back”.
That tone of Amman’s voice always had a shivering impact on me. Even
Bhaiya used to get scared by the tone itself, though she never used
to scold us leave aside the mauling. All she used to do at times was to pinch
me in the thighs so fiercely that it had convulsive effect on the entire body.
As we returned home, I was given a good piece of her mind
for being so brash. All I could do was to sob alone.
A number of days passed by but we didn’t go to school till one day Bhaiya
reminded of the admission. The next day we were dressed us properly early in
the morning and I along with Bhabhi eventually landed up at the school. I was
recommended by Zubaida Baji for Class-II. In my interview, I performed
decently well in Urdu recital from the book, but proved to be a big
cipher when it came to arithmetic. The Maulvi Saheb had never even taught me
the basic tables. Eventually I was selected for Class-I where as Bhabhi who was
senior to me got into Class-II. She soon became Bhabhi of the entire school as
I used to call her like that. In the evening I returned home like a conqueror.
The transportation fee was like Rs.3 per month and the tuition fee I can not
recollect. I was given a list of books and stationery to be purchased.
The next day the one had to see my enthusiasm and excitement as I got up
real early in the morning and got ready along with Bhabhi. After a long wait
the carriage came at 9’ O’clock and the class commenced at 10. My departure was
accompanied with lots of recital of verses from the Quran and Baqridan Bua, (my
sort of nanny) even, went to the school along with me. While my original real
name was Hamda Bano, as it rhymes well with Sajda Bano, my elder
sister, got changed to Hamida Bano, in the process of admission. The reason was
that the headmistress of the school was a tribal lady who was not too familiar
with the Muslim names. Another reason could be that another girl named Hamda
was already there in the class which might have caused confusion at the time of
attendance call. Thus my maiden name became Hamida Bano. Within a few days I
made friends with lots of girls amongst whom Hamda and Aram Bano were the ones
who came quite close to me. Bhabhi too made a number of friends and all of them
used to call her Bhabhi. For me going to school was like discovering a hidden
treasure. After the lunch recess as also after the classes were over, all sorts
of games were played with intense enthusiasm. The buggy used to take the
students in two shifts. Those were the winter days and one had to start early
in the morning as Amman used to comb and tie my hair. In the night
itself roti was kept for my breakfast along with cheese and sugar added butter.
That sweet taste of butter along with the bread still lingers on my taste buds.
Such insignificant looking small things cannot ever be forgotten.
The school campus had plenty of monkeys around. The school was
like a king’s palace and its size was far too huge for the number of girl
students enrolled there. Sending a girl child to school was not in vogue those
days. May God bless the soul of Nawab Rizvi who constructed that structure and
donated it for the purpose of education of the girl child. Later the
British Government named it BNR Training college. The school was ideally
located right on the bank of the Ganges river. There was a huge main
gate guarded by an attendant. The buggy was being pulled right inside the
ladies gate which was guarded by a female. Inside there was huge green ground
with rows of flowers in between. By the side of the river was
an arch inside which there were two lunch rooms for Hindu and Muslim girls.
Drinking water was available in large earthen pots. Girls used to
play and drink water. That was the best phase of my childhood days.
One evening, I was in the second shift for going back home and we were
having the game of Kabaddi. As I mentioned earlier, there were innumerable
monkeys around the school campus who often used to snatch away the tiffins of
the girls. For this purpose a cupboard was provided to store the tiffin boxes.
As we were playing Kabaddi monkeys were hovering all around the place. My
friend Araam Bano, as her turn came to run for the game, the old monkey thought
she was trying to catch him. The monkey came over her and took a good bite of
her nose. All the mates playing with her ran away to lock themselves inside the
room. Finally the maids came to the rescue of the injured as the monkey was
made flee. A Muslim nurse used to live nearby. A dozen of us rushed to the
nurse to get the first aid, but the bleeding was incessant. So the Headmistress
had to be eventually informed as she used to stay on the first floor of the
school building itself. She informed Tripolia hospital and a lady doctor soon
arrived with her first aid bag and she dressed up the wound. The poor girl
could not attend class for good number of days. Whereas it appeared to
be a very serious situation at that point of time, when this
incidence took place, the same event later seemed to be hilarious and became a
matter of entertainment and fun for weeks together. Once the monkey took away
the mirror of a girl from the hostel and sat on the boundary wall of the school
trying to make funny faces and enjoy viewing it in the mirror. When the maids
tried to chase the monkey to get back the mirror, it was thrown in the river
before the monkey fled away. Quite often the monkeys use to steal away the
tiffin boxes and when the girls used to chase them, it would roar fiercely
enough to scare those girls away. After consuming whatever was there for the
tiffin, the box was invariably thrown in the river. It is difficult to forget
those days in school which was probably the best period of my early years.
During those school days Bhabhi became like my best friend. But she was
very skinny and feeble. She had a nanny who always stayed with her.
Whenever Bhabhi had an upset stomach her nanny would declare that her intestine
had got entangled. So mustard oil was rubbed on the belly and camphor was
burned inside a glass placed on the belly. We had never heard or seen these
things before. She was thin and delicate. Being married to the only son, the
daughter in-law was pampered a lot. She was very nice to all of us and once we
got close to each other, she turned out to be a humorous person and we used to
giggle a lot together.
Worried about her general health, Bhaiya used to get lots of fruits for
her. She never took the fruits and they were all thrown away after getting
stale. She had two rooms over the staircase and a terrace at her disposal, on
the first floor of the house. On the ground floor Bhaiya had another room where
he used to play cards with his friends. Bhaiya once got dozens of identical
looking Santapuri sarees from J G Carr (the only departmental store of Patna
for a long time) which were eventually returned or distributed amongst the
needy. Even the mother in-law used to pamper her like anything. Though I was
quite young at that time, I still got into an inferiority complex often
wondering what was lacking in me that I was not looked after in the same
fashion and why I was not offered the fruits like she was. Even in the school
she was more popular than me and practically the entire school used to call her
Bhabhi.
One day when I returned from the school, I found Amman was in tears. In
those days the mother and daughter did not have a heart to heart talk. I dare
not ask her what had gone wrong. As I grew up, even conversations with Bhaiya
also gradually became more reserved with me and we used to talk just the
essentials. In fact, before my marriage, even coming across each other was to
an extent avoided. Coming back to the incident, as I could not ascertain the
reason directly from Amman, I checked with the maids. Kariman Bua, who was
closer to Amman and had also breast fed me, told me that Bhaiya who had earlier
set up a factory, has failed and has closed down. Not understanding
much , I went and checked with Aapa who told me that Bhaiya had taken a lakh of
rupees for establishing an agency for sale of cars. The cars were driven by
road to Patna from Calcutta.
There were three partners in the business. Bhaiya was looking after the
Calcutta office and therefore had to keep shuttling between Patna and Calcutta.
I was told the other two partners were cheating on him. One of them was Samar
Sen who was bringing two cars from Calcutta to Patna by Road when both of them
fell down the hills in a valley and broke into pieces. It was never clear to me
how did Samar Sen survive if was driving one of the cars.
It was from Calcutta that all kinds of goodies used to come for Bhabhi but
she was rarely seen to have enjoyed the gifts. As gramophone came, it was
followed by all the records that were then in circulation. When his hobby
shifted to photography, expensive cameras were bought from Calcutta. This was
followed by a setting up of his own dark room with all equipments. The printing
of photographs required snaps to be taken which necessitated the hunting trips
along with other friends to Rajgir or other such destinations. He had two cars
those days- one of them was huge while the other one was like its baby. He had
obsession for cars and used to drive very well enough to have won a few prizes
in driving competitions in Calcutta. Amman used to tell me that his craze for
cars was since his early childhood days and unless he was recited a story
related to cars he used to refuse to take dinner or go to sleep. Till his end,
Bhaiya kept himself associated with cars. During the second world war, when the
war broke between England and Japan, he was asked to join to impart training
pertaining to driving techniques to the military personnel. The training
curriculum included jumping the car over the ridges and drive through a passage
on fire and things like that. For this job he had to shift to Rampur and took
all of us along with him including Amman and Bhabhi and myself. This happened
after I was married and was a mother of two children.
Coming back to the bankruptcy of Bhaiya’s business, it was
a tremendous setback for Amman. But she was a female
who possessed unbelievable degree of patience as well as tolerance.
How could anyone else guess the true feelings of a lady who had a grown up girl
to be married and there was no earning member in the family since long. Abba
was ill since ages. How she was managing the household and other expenses till
the end was creditable. But I never saw her grumbling.
Thereafter in 1933 Aapa had a delivery after 8 years of her marriage.
During those days the usual practice was to call mid-wives who
used to come home for the delivery. Considering, however, that the
child birth was taking place at a good age, the reputed lady doctor Miss Gupta
was called upon from Tripolia Hospital for the delivery for a fee of Rs.100.
Subsequent to the child birth too she used to visit Aapa on a fittin (carriage)
on a daily basis for a fee of Rs.10/-. One day Amman consulted the lady doctor
for me as I had a gland in my neck. She said there is nothing to worry about
and it is due to weakness and will go with injection to be given at Tripolia
Hospital. She was like a family doctor for us. She would enquire whereabouts
and welfare of each one of us. It was however never disclosed in public that
Bhabhi was also being subjected to her treatment because she had still not
conceived even after considerable time had elapsed after marriage.
It was late December, by the lunar calendar it was the first day of Shabe- baaraat, when Abba passed away. I never got the love and affection of my father. Still later on, whenever inside his small room I used to see his bed empty without him, I felt a deep sadness creep inside me and I used to weep. I then wished he had continued lying there in bed like that, as he always remained, rather than vacating the room and the world.
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Chapter
INDEX.