Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow Page 4

  My phoopis, chachis and chachas** doted on me for two reasons. First, I was a healthy robust baby and, second, I gave little trouble to my Amma because of my friendly nature and my willingness to be passed on from one aunt to the other while Amma went about her chores. As I grew up and began to comprehend the conversations that I heard, my little mind often weighed with concern for my Amma who used to be summoned by my despotic Dadi and given tasks to do while her own daughters relaxed and did not do anything. I remember Aghaji asking Amma one morning why she was toiling single-handedly in the kitchen when there were other women in the house who could share her chores.

  I can still hear the echo of my mother’s soft, gentle voice as she hushed my father and explained to him that she was assigned the kitchen chores because that was her forte and she was happy that she was given charge of making endless pots of tea and all the delicacies that went well with it because no other lady of the house could equal her in that activity. Phoopi Babjan (Aghaji’s sister) would turn red in the face whenever she heard this explanation and she would take my mother aside to chide her for the camouflage.

  *Can be roughly translated as ‘and Ayesha’s handsome son Yousuf arrived’.

  *What have I done wrong Ayesha? You too heard what the fakir said. He singled out Yousuf to talk to while the other children of the house were also in front of him.

  **Paternal aunts, paternal uncles’ wives and paternal uncles, respectively.

  2

  THE MATRIARCH AND HER BROOD

  … there was a divine purpose in the episode of Dadi blindly believing the fakir and giving me the ugly appearance that made me the butt of unpleasant remarks in school. It was the pain I endured as the alienated child in school that surfaced from my subconscious when I was playing the early tragic roles in my career and I had to express the deep mental agony of those characters.

  IT WAS NOT FOR NOTHING THAT DADI WAS REFERRED TO AS THE ‘iron lady’. She had a commanding air about her, which my eldest sister Sakina Aapa inherited genetically. Dadi shared all her thoughts with Aghaji and often listened to his accounts of what was going on in the country with her brows knit and her gaze fixed on her son’s handsome face. It was a daily routine when he returned home from the market, often after Maghrib (the evening prayer). He always went straight to Dadi, who would be waiting for him in her room, rocking majestically in the wooden armchair that was exclusively reserved for her use. Her lips would be moving and we knew she was mutely saying her Tasbeeh (the repetition of short sentences glorifying Allah).

  She was tall and broad shouldered and she appeared to completely fill the armchair when she sat in it. She wore loose Pathan salwars and long, flowing kameezes, which made her look more masculine than feminine. Her head was always covered with a dupatta (a long piece of cloth usually used to cover head and the bosom). For some reason, she always wrapped around herself a large shawl, which was almost the size of a single bedsheet. When I chose to hide from Aghaji or Amma after getting into some mischief, I invariably found refuge in the folds of her shawl, which she would open for me like a magic tent to engulf me and hide me from whoever was indignantly searching for me. I enjoyed the mystery and the suspense the whole exercise triggered in the household when little Yousuf went missing. Few in the large household could guess that I was concealed within Dadi’s shawl with my head buried cosily in the cleavage of her enormous, heaving bosom. The delightful part of the escapade was that Dadi was such a sport that she simply sat with her eyes shut while Amma and Phoopi Babjan searched the room several times muttering where on earth Yousuf was.

  Dadi loved me for more reasons than one. The fakir’s prediction was one reason but the more important reason was that I was very different from Noor Bhai, my eldest brother. He was an eternal bundle of trouble as he got into scuffles with our cousins and the boys in the neighbourhood. Though they were not serious brawls, still complaints reached Dadi from parents in the locality. However, Noor Bhai, with his light eyes and charming ways, had the support of the ladies in the house when he feigned innocence and artfully cast the blame on the boys who came with the complaints. Dadi was no fool to fall for his pretence but it must be said to her credit that she never rebuked Noor Miyan in front of the boys or the parents. She took him to task when they were out of earshot and his wails were only for our ears.

  Sakina Aapa stayed out of Dadi’s way and the matriarch chose not to intervene in the arguments between Sakina Aapa and others in the house. In her heart of hearts, I think she knew where Sakina Aapa’s obstinacy and quarrelsomeness came from.

  Ayub, who was elder to me by a year and a half, was a quiet fellow and his presence in the house was felt only when he and I played together and chased each other up the stairway or played noisily in the aangan (courtyard). He was the one who was privy to a secret I kept for a long, long time even after we moved out of Peshawar. I was once told by my paternal grandfather (Dada) that I could keep coins that I wished to save inside a crevice where a tile had partially come off beneath the staircase. Dada had made up the story that the crevice had the magic power to double the coins and create a fortune for the one who kept it a secret and placed the tile back over the crevice with a wish to let them grow.

  I had listened to Dada’s story with a sense of awe and thrill and so had Ayub. Together we had pulled off the tile when no one was around and I had buried a couple of coins in the crevice reverentially. Dada had told us that we should let the coins be for as long as we could to let them multiply. ‘If you keep opening it the magic will cease,’ he had told us ominously, without batting an eyelid, in a hoarse whisper, his face taut with a serious expression.

  Indeed, I forgot all about the crevice and the coins after we shifted to Bombay (now Mumbai) till Ayub reminded me of them during one of our visits to Peshawar during school holidays. The sizzling story still had its credibility even though by then Dada was no more and a mound of dust and heaps of unwanted things had covered the area under the staircase. Ayub and I had tiptoed in the dark one night and unearthed the hidden coins only to realize that it was Dada’s fable to entertain us and nothing more. We felt awful not because the coins had not doubled but with the realization that Dada was not there to laugh with us and stroke his flowing beard and tell us with his sparkling, beady eyes how he had fooled us.

  Phoopi Babjan was the only friend Amma had in the family and she was genuinely fond of her brother’s loving wife. She lived in the rear side of our house, which was skirted by a canal full with flowing water, beyond the large courtyard and the expanse of vacant land stretching up to the walls of other similar houses on that side. Phoopi Bajban lived in one of those houses, while Chacha Ummer too lived in a house near the canal, which had the appearance of a lake when seen from a distance. Though they had their own residences, they were almost always with us in our house, which was a large two-storeyed, well-constructed dwelling put together by men whose sole concern was to provide security to the occupants from the harsh variations of the climate and from petty thieves.

  The truth was that my Dadi was known and feared for her authoritarian ways and she ensured that the heavier responsibilities of the household were not shared by her daughters. My Dadi knew about Phoopi Babjan’s fondness for Amma and there was no dearth of occasions when this bold, outspoken daughter gave her mother a verbal bashing in the presence of shocked, but delighted, family members.

  I must confess that the isolation I suffered at school did not affect my activities at home. My eldest sister, Sakina Aapa, went to a school for girls. She being the eldest, was Amma’s aide and I found her mostly with Amma or my paternal aunts. She exercised her authority as the eldest sibling and I could see my elder brothers Noor and Ayub plotting innocent mischief behind her back. They tried in vain to frighten her with spiders and insects that scare most girls. Sakina Aapa was made of sterner stuff even as a twelve-year-old and she never spared an opportunity to catch them and our cousins when they were up to mischief and report the matter to Dadi, who was
the acknowledged ruler of the household. Sakina Aapa left me alone because she was wise enough to know that I was my grandparents’ favourite child and was not party to the conspiracies against her as my interests were different.

  As for me, I derived great pleasure in trailing behind Amma, seizing her flowing dupatta with which she covered her head at all times. She would walk briskly from one room to the other in the sprawling house we lived in. She never tired of answering Dadi’s calls from wherever she was and she would flurry to find out that Dadi wanted her to listen to some gory gossip she had heard. I would be hiding just behind her and she rarely noticed my presence when they would converse about happenings in the neighborhood that were sometimes spooky and sometimes silly.

  One morning Dadi called Amma urgently and, as usual, I was running behind her unnoticed. Dadi was unusually serious and she was not in a mood to whisper. I could see that she was sad and disturbed. ‘Go immediately,’ she was loudly telling Amma. ‘The bodies may not be there for long. It is a case the police have begun to investigate, you know. Poor parents. May Allah give them strength. Come back soon.’

  The houses in Peshawar were constructed in a manner that the terraces were inter-connected. If the ladies wished to visit neighbours, they just had to cross a terrace or two. The buildings were so designed as to give the ladies who observed purdah those days the mobility they needed without coming out of their houses on the streets to walk to the house they wished to visit.

  In an instant, Amma was hurrying across the connecting passage from our house to another house some distance away. She was unaware that I was following her noiselessly. She reached a house where there was gloom and an ominous silence. She stood beside a plump woman who was wailing inconsolably and tried in vain to comfort her with gentle words of solace. Then, she walked into a room where three dead bodies lay in a row covered in white cloth and there was blood oozing out from the sides, staining the cloth and flowing out to the floor like a red ribbon. The stench was unbearable. Amma was covering her nose with her hand. She was in purdah but I could see her eyes brimming with tears.

  Amma had no clue that I had followed her to the house and to the room where the bodies lay still and cold. The investigating officers walked in and out talking in Pushtu to each other and one of them had a writing board and he was taking notes of what the seniormost among them was asking him to record. It was apparent that they were so absorbed in the business of jotting down their observations that they did not notice Amma. Suddenly, an English officer pushed both the doors wide open and walked in making a lot of noise with his boots and with his loud conversation with the local police officers.

  I was completely engrossed in the movements of the uniformed men, especially the way they walked, talked and grimaced at the sight of the dead bodies. I did not notice Amma’s absence or realize when she had slipped out of the room. The Englishman walked out with the local policemen following him and suddenly the door slammed shut and I found myself alone in the room crouching behind a table not far from the bodies.

  Terror and panic gripped me as thoughts began to whir in my mind about the possibility of spending the night in the room if no one came to know that I was trapped inside. I reasoned with myself that even if no one else missed me, surely my Dada and Dadi would notice my not being in the living room when the family gathered at home in the evening for tea.

  The high tea every day in the living room was an elaborate affair and, as the evening passed, I did not miss my chance ever to take a ride on Dada’s back while he moved on all fours pretending to be a horse. It was his way of entertaining the grandchildren and, since I was his favourite, I got a longer ride and he did not mind my holding on to his beard with both my hands.

  It was a comforting thought (my being missed) but then who knows I thought to myself. It may just happen that Dada may not be at home for the tea gathering and Dadi too may not be in the room for some reason of her own. Who will miss me then? Surely not Amma, because she would be too preoccupied with the preparation of the snacks and the tea in the kitchen.

  The more my mind worked, the more frightened I became and, though the room was not cold, I found myself shivering slightly. The window of the room was open and the wind unexpectedly blew the white cloth away from the face of one of the victims. He was a youth I had often seen in the market place and it was chilling to see his ashen face. I felt for a moment that his eyelids moved and I would have screamed if my throat had not run dry and my voice had not been stifled by the dryness.

  The only thing I could do was pray and pray as hard as I could. Just then the door opened with some force and the same English officer barged in. His eyes fell on me now. He stared at me and then shouted: ‘Who is this boy? What is he doing here?’

  I was now shaking with fear. Two policemen came up to me and physically lifted me and took me out. It was still bright outside and I felt relieved. There were men standing in the corridor who recognized me as the son of Sarwar Khan. The officer asked me: ‘How did you get in there my boy?’

  Now that I was outside and breathing the air freely I found my voice and I told the policemen how I had followed Amma and had got shut inside accidentally. There were some more civilians who recognized me and the English officer was convinced by my explanation to let me go. I took off as fast as I could.

  At home the table was being set for the tea gathering of the family. My Dadi saw me first and she guessed from my facial expression and from the fact that I had neither bathed nor changed for teatime that I must have been out for a fairly long time. She was curious to know what I was doing all afternoon. I avoided telling her the truth but Dadi was not one to buy any concoction from me or anyone for that matter. She possessed an uncanny ability to get to the bottom of any unusual happening in the house. When she heard what I had experienced she called out to Amma and began scolding her for not being in the know of my movements and doings. Fortunately, Aghaji arrived and he diffused the situation.

  At tea, the talk was all about the brothers who had got into a physical encounter with men of a family that had a score to settle with the elders of the boys’ family. Blood spilling was not unusual between warring and feuding families in the locality but seldom did it end with the finality of death. A normal Pathan family comprised at least a dozen children and it was not such a big loss when one or two sons died in such encounters. Quite practically, the parents consoled themselves that they still had sons who could be counted upon as sons. As a matter of fact, the quick arrival of offspring one after the other at intervals of two years was a must in a Pathan Muslim family for this very reason.

  On most days when the family gathered for tea, it was a pleasant occasion with the ladies sitting together and making meaningless conversation and the men indulging in serious discussion. Dadi presided and she quite enjoyed her queenly position and the fact that her daughters, barring Phoopi Babjan, and her sons did not dare to question her or oppose her when she spoke on domestic issues or anything that concerned the family. It pained me to see Amma not at the table but in the kitchen making pots of tea on clay choolas (stoves) emitting fire and smoke that made her feel uncomfortable and breathless at times. There was unstinted praise always for the delicacies she prepared for meals and at tea time but there was no offer of help from her sisters-in-law and mother-in-law. The only help that she got occasionally was from Phoopi Babjan.

  What I remember most about Amma in my childhood years was her ungrudging slogging in the house. It wasn’t as if there were no servants to help her but Amma preferred to do the work assigned to her in her own fastidious way. She always told those who asked her why she was not leaving the task to the servants that she liked doing whatever she was doing and Dadi had given her the responsibility because it was her forte. She stayed calm and unruffled all the time and it made life easy for Aghaji as he never had to hear complaints about his young wife or intervene in squabbles that usually abound in joint families with innumerable members. Amma hailed from an aristocratic f
amily. Her parents and sisters who came visiting were always well dressed and they came in horse-drawn carriages with an attendant or two carrying bags of silk cloth or sweets or whatever they brought as a gesture of goodwill. They knew there was no dearth of fruits and dry fruits in our house, so they brought freshly made sweets and namkeens (savouries). Amma found time to sit and chat with them, especially her sisters who were beautiful and delicate unlike Aghaji’s sisters who were broad shouldered and sturdy.

  When Amma took a break (perhaps just once) from the drudgery of our household chores to spend time with her parents, it was for the marriage of one of her sisters. Since I was only five or six years old then, she took me along. I did not know about my going with her to her maika (mother’s house) till I returned from school and I heard Dadi telling Aghaji that he and Amma should take extra care of me and not let me go out with other children. She reminded them of the fakir’s words. I was no doubt delighted at the opportunity I was getting to undertake a short journey with Amma and Aghaji but I shuddered at the thought that I would stand out in the crowd with my forehead covered with soot. It was Phoopi Babjan who came to my rescue and quietly advised Amma to spare me the humiliation at least for the time I was in her own parental domain.