Invited post from a friend Mr. Ali Talib

These are the stories,  I tell my daughter, about my childhood in Bombay.

I am  walking through the heavy rains, with my haversack inside my raincoat, and my gum boots splashing water all around the street. I purposely seek puddles of water and stomp my boots into them. I am walking all by myself, from my school to my house. I have walked this route for the last 5 years, and know the sights and sounds of the streets by heart.

In June, Mumbai (then called Bombay) experiences some of the heaviest rains, and with that, comes the cold which can chill the warm sun-loving citizens of this coastal city.

I  come to Princess Street, navigating through the crowds, and crossing the streets with honking cars, and shouting hand-cart "drivers", I reach the gate to the building where I live, and look at the sandwich vendor who sells vegetable sandwiches for 30 paisa each. He waves to me with a long black thin knife in his hand; he is busy slicing tomatoes and, as I pass by him, I notice a beggar lying next to him, wet, skinny, his ribs showing, and spit drooling from his mouth. He is nearly naked, save for  shorts of some kind that he is wearing, covered with wet newspapers, which are not much to keep him dry or warm. He is shivering in the cold. 

Spread on the pavement around him are a few coins and a tin can filled with water.

I  glance at the beggar and walks past the Farsan Shop (a shop that sells savouries) , and into the entrance of Fida Building, running into the dark narrow corridor and up the stairs, to the third floor where my family and I live.

As I am changing clothes, I tell my grandmother about the beggar lying there, but, although she acknowledges me, she carries on with her daily routine as if she never heard me.

Around 5 pm,  my mother ask me to get 2 vegetable sandwiches. I grab an umbrella and runs down the stairs, excited.

Standing in between the sandwich man and the shivering beggar, I order the sandwiches, and ask for and get the courtesy cucumber-slice with  salt and pepper and a little ketchup spread on it. I mouth it immediately, and I can see the shivering beggar  looking at me. I look back calmly at him, turn around and run back up to my home with the sandwiches, still munching on the freebie in my jaws.

On other days, I see other customers order their sandwiches and eat them on the street,  the beggar staring at them all and beseeching them for some food.

 

Not surprisingly, a Mumbaikar can shamelessly eat food in front of a hungry staring person without feeling any guilt or remorse. City life immunizes them to others' pain, hunger and suffering.

As days progress, the beggar’s health  deteriorates; he is now unable to move, his clothes are spoiled from human wastes, and a bad smell of pus, rotting flesh and urine comes from him. People are complaining, especially the sandwich man, as he is losing business.

He becomes the subject of daily evening talk, when the neighboring aunties meet in the building hallways, just before the evening prayers, looking out for the electric bulb to light up on the door of the neighboring mosque - a signal to inform the faithful to begin praying the Maghrib salat. Everybody wishes for the beggar to just disappear, and are quite irritated that the municipality or the police have not moved him from there. Some are even convinced that the beggar must have paid a bribe to the police to let him stay there.

A few days later, as is my daily evening habit, I stand in our room window, looking out at the street and the people walking there, counting the ghoda gaadis (horse-carts) and the Fiat and Ambassador cars. Then, I  notice a crowd gathered near the sandwich vendor.

Brimming with curiosity, I run down to the street, jumping 4-5 stairs at one time, to see what had happened.

The  beggar's body is covered with a clean white sheet of cloth, and spread on this  sheet are lots of Rupees,  five-rupee  and ten-rupee notes. I have never seen a beggar with so much money. I am busy calculating the vegetable sandwiches he could be buying with that money.

Then I realize that he is dead.

I was never a stranger to death. I had seen many in my 10 years of life. We were never shielded from death -  every day from my window, I would join my parents or grandparent to see a dead man being carried by his family and friends on the street - sometimes for burial, and sometimes for cremation, depending on their religion. 

The crowd grew all around him. I squeezed my way right up to the front, and was standing there among  strangers, listening to their conversations, and watching their reactions.

The people were talking about how sick he had been,  how they wished they or somebody else had taken him to the hospital, about how he came from some remote village to get medical treatment, and why he had selected this very spot to beg, about how they had given him some food or money, and so on. Everyone seemed to recollect having given alms or food to the dead man.

In an hour or so, a municipality hearse came by and picked up the body and the money and carried him away. The local sweeper threw water on the spot and brushed it hard to remove all traces of the beggar. The crowds came back to buy their evening sandwiches.

Everybody was happy. It was a win-win situation, after all. For one, the beggar was dead and gone, and, for another, they had contributed to his burial or cremation, and that would bring them blessings from the Almighty above.

In the evening, as the building aunties congregated in the verandah, they talked about the poor beggar, and some said that they, too, had given money for his cremation.They all agreed this was something that would bring them "sawaab", or blessings, from Allah.

The  life and death of the beggar did not affect me in anyway beyond this point, and I continued to lead my usual life.

But after 40 years, I still remember it very clearly, and I daresay, the event did change me in some imperceptible way.

The citizens of Mumbai are very kind to the dead,  but treat living souls with contempt.

You may wonder why it is that to contribute to the last rites of a dead person is considered a Sawaab (blessing) in all religions.

 

Comments welcome. You may directly contact Mr. Talib at THIS email ID.

Four days and already feeling so much difference

It's been four days since I returned to Al Muwayh and joined my duties. Ta'if, at least, is bearable, as it is a city, after all, and although one does not get all that one wishes for, one can at least while away the time going for a walk, eating at new places, or simply visiting the mall. Here, in Al Muwayh, time does not pass; it plods, slowly, as morning turns to afternoon, afternoon to evening, and evening to night. It doesn't help that it is very chilly outside - even the hospital temperature is preferable to the outdoors, although the former is centrally cooled with large machines. 

All those whom I gave a free gift to - the nurses and the helpers, really - appreciated my choice of dangling ear-rings brought from the shops of Mumbai. The main reason for this is that these have an ethnic design specific to India, and they don't get such stuff in their own country, or the neighbourhood, or in Saudi Arabia. I also gave a few doctors some selective hadiya, but that's about it ... one can't get carried away by gifting to all and sundry. For the record, no doctor has ever brought anything for me when they returned from their own vacations. Nurses have, though. 

I was invited, along with some other doctors, by Dr. Emaam Sayed for lunch a few days ago. His wife is a very talented cook. There was the usual fare of broasted chicken and rice, molokhia soup, a sort of tawa chicken, and then there were a few surprise dishes like the Egyptian "kucheri", which looks like masoor pulao of our country, and a "gravy" to add to kucheri, which was vinegar spiced with some herbs and a little chilli. Also, there were a few other starters such as a sort of fried thin slices of chicken, and what seemed to be veggie rolls. After dinner, we were served a dessert of what appeared to be pudding topped with shavings of chocolate ice cream and then, tea. All in all, a very nice meal.

In fact, Dr. Emaam had asked me to get spectacles made for his daughter Noor, his wife and himself ... from India, and on the whole, he was very pleased with the results. I made a total of 5 pairs of glasses ... all for less than the price of just 2-3 such pairs in Saudi Arabia. 

Yesterday, I finally shed my ennui to make my first food here ... I made a cauliflower-potato mix that I had today, for lunch ... it has come out very good. I do miss the endless snacking that I used to indulge in in India, but - to be honest - this is better, since it may help me lose weight and make me fitter.  

Dr. Yasser is due to join on Sunday as he is currently on leave from the job. One of our senior nurses, Sr. Armina, left the Kingdom for good. So did Dr. Jumaa, our ortho specialist. He has been replaced by Dr. Zohair, who comes from Palestine, but with a Russian passport (since Palestine is not yet a recognised nation on the international scene). All the others are where they were. Intriguingly, one of the Filipina nurses is on vacation, but has not chosen to go to her homeland and is staying here in Al Muwayh ... when I asked someone why, I was told that she wants to save money to make her house in the Philippines. Strangely, it does make sense, since we end up spending so much money taking gifts to our relatives ... and, also, the Ministry gives us back half of the air-ticket fees if we don't ask for a ticket to our own country. 

Since the last time I reported on the winds of change blowing in Al Muwayh, the progress wheel has ground to a halt. No new shops or enterprises have come up, and the existing new ones aren't thriving much either. It looks like a false start to me. 

And that is where I will end for now. Please do join the conversation by leaving behind your valuable comments in the blog ... thank you.

P.S. This is my 250th post on this blog.

Looking back at Two Years in S.A. - some thoughts.

I have now completed two years in the Kingdom as per the Arabic dates; if one wishes to follow the Gregorian calendar, then, well, I have about a fortnight to go before I cross the two-year milestone. I have seen a fair bit of this side of the world, and a lot more remains to be seen. I do not yet know if it will be possible for me to visit all the places in the kingdom. It has been a roller-coaster ride, and the big highs have been the steady, high income, the freedom to live in the way you want, the relatively easy work and the pilgrimages to Mecca and Madina. How can I forget that it was after coming here that I got more time at hand to study, to brood, to walk, to travel, to cook, to make new friends, etc. 

I had big lows too: staying away from a very charming family has taken its toll on both sides; while I miss them completely, the daughters have tasted a father-free life and my wife, a husband-less one; it is up to her, and not me, to comment if that has been a boon or not; regardless, their freedom has created some tensions, as the 100% female family there has no male control - I firmly believe that males can defuse the mental stresses that occur between females much more effectively than other females can; on the contrary, other females may even INCREASE that stress to higher levels! The other big low has been the loss of my father. Of course, nothing can stop Death, and I know that, but even so, I hold my absence responsible to some extent for his very acute deterioration over the last four months of his existence on Earth. If I had been there (and he really missed me, for he kept beckoning me to come back when I chatted with him on Skype), perhaps ... but who knows what Fate has destined for anyone?

Most of the time I have spent in Saudi Arabia has been one that has given me a lot of pleasure; the expats who live in Al Muwayh are from various countries, and talking with them, breaking bread with them, and going places with them has sensitized me to the lives others live; working closely with these people of different nationalities makes you understand how they live, what their values are, what their culture is all about, how they view BIG issues like religion, morality, Life, Death, etc. To summarise:

Arabs (Egyptians, Syrians, Sudanese, Palestinians, Tunisians, etc.) are very keen about Islam. Over 99% of those I have met are Sunnis and lay a lot of stress on the Qur'an, the Hadiths and the Sunnah of Prophet Mohammad (P.B.U.H.). They pray on time, eat mostly bland food with an overdose of the non-vegetarian stuff, love to drive cars, usually have 3+ kids, and some among them look down upon Asians (read Indians, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans). A large number of them are loyal to their wife (all of them have just one, unlike some Saudis who often marry more than one woman) and enjoy themselves in the Kingdom. They, being Arabs, mould well with Saudi society and customs and do not generally want to leave their jobs unless they have some peripheral problems such as when their children grow to school age and there is no proper schooling in Al Muwayh, for example. They love to chat in their own language and will often ignore me even when I am in the same room with them. Barring a few good doctors, most will not bother to translate the conversation they are having. They take their time to make friends, but when they do, they become very good pals. I must mention here that I have grown very pally with a few of these worthy doctors. 

Filipinas (Philippines), mostly nurses, but also engineers and other skilled and semi-skilled staff, are a totally different breed of people. Caring and nurturance is like second nature to the women staff, be they nurses or cleaners. Short in height but tall in "stature" Filipina nurses are ambitious, hard-working and meticulous; besides, most of them are talented in skills like decorations, craft, cooking and so on. They live a joyous life, spending hard-earned money or frivolous stuff like costume jewellery, cosmetics, hand-bags, shoes, dresses and the like with abandon. It is a surprise to me how they spend so much and save so little, considering that most of them are here to make a future for themselves. I am friends with almost ALL the Filipinas in my hospital. I try to help them when they need my help; in return, they smile a lot, get food sometimes for me, and help me whenever I need it. Most of them are married, with children, though some, especially Muslim Filipina nurses, aren't married. It is a different culture from the one that we see in South Asia. They marry late, only after achieving their financial targets. There is no such thing as an arranged marriage. Females must find their own life-partners through social meetings, dating and the like. In this respect, they resemble the Western culture. The nurses and the helpers live apart, but help each other, and do not differentiate between each other in most respects. 

This leaves me with fellow Indians (from various parts of the country), the lone Pakistani doctor and the few Sri Lankans. There is hardly any cultural divide between the people from India and those from the other two south Asian countries, though clear differences exist in language, cuisine and dress. The lone Pakistani is Dr. Niaz, a gynecologist-obstetrician, and we have shared our living quarters for a part of 2012. Other than him, I have met several Pakistanis, and my relations with them have been in the range of cordial to friendly. Not one of them has had problems with me, or I with them. I eat Pakistani food when I pretend to be eating Indian food, for they are the only ones who have restaurants in my village. 

The Sri Lankans are cleaners too, and a few are technical chaps working in the hospital as electronics technicians, plumbers, etc. My interaction with them has been very pleasant too and I have no regrets when I have called upon them to fix my water leak or set up my TV set, etc. 

This brings me to the end of my brief observations on the expats. In my next post, I will expand further on the indigent people of the Kingdom. Until then, bye.

Do leave your comments. Thank you.

A new page ...

If you will scroll to the right, you will now be able to see a new page called "Photograph: People". This has only two pictures so far, but I promise to add more photos in future. Thanks for viewing.

The month of Muharram, the month of Noel

As some of the readers of this blog aren't Indians, I will start by declaiming that the accident of birth placed me firmly in the arms of Islam, and within the subsect of Dawoodi Bohra community, about which you can read here

The Bohras are a one million strong community with its diaspora all over the world. It is one of the few Islamic sects to be led by a leader, who is called the "dai". The present dai is Syedna Mohammad Burhanuddin, and he is over 95 years old. Old age, illnesses and infirmity have curtailed his mobility significantly. During the month of Muharram, which Shia muslims observe to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Husein A.S., the dai selects a particular city or town where he stays for 10-12 days to preach a daily sermon to his devout followers. Read the book shown alongside to understand the story of the martyrdom of Imam Husein A.S.

This year,  our dai chose to stay in Mumbai for the entire duration of 10 days, and will extend his stay to shower his blessings on Mumbai's Bohras for a longer time as well. The locality of Mumbai that becomes the center of attention is called Bhendi Bazaar. This is because this is the place where the tomb of the previous dai, Syedna Taher Saifuddin, the father of the present dai, is located; so also, right opposite this tomb is the biggest mosque of the Bohras, the Saifee Masjid, where the dai presides to give the sermons. These sermons are linked by internet and other modern technologies to not just the important mosques and congregation centers of Mumbai, and not just to similar structures all over India, but also to all similar centers to all the parts of the world. Thus, a Bohra sitting in a mosque in, say, Andheri, will see the same images and so on as one who is located in San Francisco, California, or elsewhere. 

Now, don't get me wrong. I am NOT a devout Bohra, and although I admire the systematic structure of my community, I do not love its leech-like tendency to extort money from its members, and I certainly don't endorse the fanaticism of the members who have elevated the dai to a station that is higher than where it is meant to be. I can understand it, I just cannot endorse it. So be it.

Now, this year will go down as the mother of all the years that I have seen Muharram, for the people who came down to observe the Muharram in Mumbai was easily over a hundred thousand, and the community's administration arranged stay, food, and all other means of hispitality for all of them. The response, as they say, was phenomenal. I have appended a few pictures of the Syedna, and his faithful followers below. Do take a look.
 

Going on to the next big festival, Noel, or Christmas. It is around the corner, and shopping and other forms of activity is picking up as it nears. Yesterday, Hannah, my younger daughter, attended a prom function organised by the cultural dept of her college (read "seniors"). She went dressed in a violet frock that looked stunning on her. I will try and post a photo of the same if possible. 

That's it for now. Take care.

The Face of Terror

Starting on the eve of the 26th of November 2008, Mumbai city came face-to-face with stark terror: a group of well-organised terrorists landed at Sassoon Docks and proceeded to different places from where they masterminded attacks that left hundreds dead and many more injured; what I want to say about the actual attacks is already on my other blog in the form of three entries that are here, here and here.

In this entry, I am about to share with you the metaphysical dimension of the attacks: we all saw, over the days that the attacks continued, the aggressive attitude of the terrorists and in contrast, the fear and panic on the faces of the citizens of Mumbai, many of them dying unnecessarily in the random shooting of the terrorists. At the C.S.T. railway station, Ajmal Amir Kasab and his accomplice shot people waiting for their trains so cruelly and randomly that the victims never saw it coming. Here is a photo of the surviving terrorist Kasab. As you can see, he is a fairly handsome young man of about 22-23 years' age. Hailing from Faridkot district of Pakistan, he was one of the ten young men who devastated some of the most cherished buildings of south Mumbai. They - i.e. the terrorists - were clinical and brutal in their demeanour and in their action. Gone was even a shred of conscience as they set about killing people mercilessly - unaware that by killing even one person, they were changing or, dare I say, killing humanity as we understand it. Equipped with AK-47 machine guns, grenades, grenade and bomb launchers, satellite phones, and what not, these ten killers descended upon unsuspecting travellers on the railway station, watchmen, patients and doctors at a nearby public hospital (the Cama and Albless Hospitals), pedestrians, adults, men, women and children on the roads near Cafe Leopold and the Metro Adlabs cinema, guests, staff and security men at the Taj Mahal Palce and Tower Hotel, the Trident Hotel and the Oberoi Hotel, and finally, the residents and others at Nariman House where 6 innocent Jews were killed in cold blood.

In addition to the hundreds of Indians who died, some while eating, others while just going about their way towards home, several tourists from many different countries of the world also died within the hotels that they were staying at or visiting.

Staff of all the hotels died, some entire families, such as that of the General Manager at the Taj Palace - except that the father survived. At the C.S.T. railway station, entire families were killed in the gunfire, which, although it seemed random, was actually precise and targeted to cause the maximum amount of panic and psychological damage.

Through it all, most Mumbaikars stayed away from the roads, for over 2-3 days, watching the "drama" unfold over television, as the armed forces and the NSG began their rescue operations. They would finally emerge victorious after nearly 2 1/2 days, but during those 60 hours, ordinary Mumbaikars lived and died a thousand times: stories of carnage intermingled with tales of heroism and supreme sacrifice as several distinguished city policemen and some NSG guards fell to the bullets of the terrorists. In addition, several less well-known policemen also died. And we, the ordinary citizens, watched wide-eyed, our hearts in our throats, tears in our eyes, and an anger that gradually welled up inside us as we prayed that the aggressors got their comeuppance and were killed.

A terrifying week indeed. Heads rolled in the government - both at the state level and at the center, as chief ministers, home ministers and bureaucrats resigned. Homage was paid to the heroes of the nation and they all received state burials. And we, the common citizens, watched it all from home on the various news channels.

After three to four days, people gradually started going back to work, still depressed, dizzy, worried for their safety, panicking at the slightest rumour, and above all, angry at the inefficiency of the government, the intelligence department, the bureaucracy, the politicians and the armed constabulary.

But that is another story, for some other day.