Bahaar is Missing! | Humra Quraishi

MUSINGS - February 2, 2022

Yes, it is the start of February but there’s little enthusiasm to look forward to the upcoming season of Bahaar or Spring, with Valentine’s Day splashed in its midst. Where is the excitement? Nowhere! Viruses of all hues holding sway, trampling upon even the faint traces of longing.

Not to overlook the communal virus consuming us. Attacking our emotions, our sensitives, our very existence. Polarization on the housing front affects other fronts, including the love front! Tell me, how can Hindu-Muslim love affairs take off, when there’s little interaction, when Muslims can’t get homes on rent in Hindu dominated areas and housing complexes, when Hindutva goons hang outside colleges and universities, keeping a watch!

One news report after another of sabotaged love affairs, between Hindus and Muslims. Now, of course, the so-called ‘Love Jihad’ laws, are terrorizing couples. The State flaunted divisive cum destructive strategy along the ‘Love Jihad’ strain, seems to be the last nail in the coffin of our collective togetherness.

One of the biggest offshoots of this changed scenario is loneliness. One has to think a hundred times before making friends. Whom to befriend and who all to discard!
 Spontaneity gets hit. Worries compound, as scares of all hues and forms gather around, gaining momentum. And in the midst of it nobody even talks of loneliness!

I can’t speak on your behalf but where I’m concerned I rather sit all alone than befriend a person with Right-Wing tilts. Keeping a great distance even from any of the fence-sitters, as they are mere third-class opportunists. Yes, it’s far better to declare your lonely status, “Yes, I’m lonely by choice as one doesn’t wish to befriend a this or that rubbish!â€

The other stark reality to loneliness is that till about recently nobody would dare talk of loneliness. Yes, though there’s no denying the fact that loneliness could be as lethal as corona but, here, in our country we don’t want to talk about any of the emotional realities. Nobody gives a damn to loneliness! Not even in those political speeches of the day!

How I wish candidates in the upcoming electioneering or political battles, focus on loneliness and how it ought to be given some level of significance.

Khushwant Singh Would Have Turned 107 Years on 2 February 2022 

Born in Undivided Punjab, in village Hadali, in 1915, Khushwant Singh celebrated two birthdays - 2 February and 15 August.

Khushwant Singh lived life at his own terms. He spoke fearlessly. He wrote  along the  same strain. No contradictions. Just no hypocrisy, no frills and none of the modern day complications. He hadn’t got himself a computer and nor a secretary and definitely not a mobile. "Mere bas ka naheen hai yeh sab ...I happy  writing  on a note pad." And he ’d moaned when one of his friends had got him a  mobile. Rejecting all modern day gadgets, keeping to the very basics.

What would you say to a man who wrote for hours every single day! There were never  sermons. Only subtle relays: No wasting of time in gossip or in those  useless wanderings .No facades, no tilts, no deceit and no hypocrisy. Even at the cost  of sounding  cliched, he was  ’doston ka dost’. Anything for a friend! Yes, he could  do anything ...Till about the  time his close friend Prem Kirpal  died, Khushwant did make it a point to visit  him almost every week. Often , I ’d accompanied  hi, and though  Prem Kirpal was stone deaf  but would receive us with a  smile and much hospitality followed .And when  Khushwant would announce that was time to go, Kirpal looked sullen. This when Khushwant has written some rather provocative passages on Kirpal’s chronic bachelor-hood But, then, there was that rapport between the two. There could  be many whom Khushwant had helped out, though  he had never ever  dwelt  on those details... when theatre personality Balwant Gargi was undergoing severe financial crisis only one particular person in this capital city helped him out, "Sardar Khushwant sahib paid my electricity bills...he did so without letting sardani or any other person know."

I’m  certain that  patients lying  in the confines of the Guru Teg Bahadur hospital in New Delhi wouldn’t have an inkling of Khushwant’s role in the building  of a  modern and well equipped dharamshala  for the caregivers accompanying these patients from far-flung sectors. This dharamshala  is a Sir Sobha Singh project that came through because of Khushwant’s persistence and initiative. He seemed determined that this building come up as part of the  hospital bandobast  for the hapless  patients, in tune with  the Sikh  philosophy that one tenth of the earnings should go to the disadvantaged. A philosophy followed by his parents, "My father  always  gave one tenth of his earnings to charity, now this trust is in his name ... whenever my father visited AIIMS he’d commented there was no place for care givers to  stay, particularly as many may have travelled with their patients. He couldn’t build one in his lifetime. So it was left for the family and to the Sir Sobha Singh Trust to build this one."

All the years in my interactions with  him I hadn’t ever heard him raising his voice. On  several occasions I ‘d  seen  young  enthusiastic writers barging in unannounced and he looking totally taken aback, saying that  he doesn’t meet  without a  prior appointment. The intruders still about lingering on . With that, he looking upset but somewhat  relenting, "Okay sit, okay have a drink.† Yes, he could look upset or irritated, but, then, nothing beyond. Even if  guests  lingered on, that is beyond 8 pm, he  comes  up with rather  gentle  reminders, "bhai ...aab  tum jao.â€

There was that look of impatience in  his eyes but, then,  he was  not the one  who could ever  get  rude . Call it strange or call it by any other term but all those years I’d seen him sitting  on the same chair and amidst the same settings .In fact, years  back when his spouse Kaval was  battling the Alzheimer’s disorder, he’d be sitting  on the  sofa  chair  placed  across  to where she’d sat His eyes moving from the  notepad he’d be writing  on ,towards her. Had been seeing  him  in that  role,  mind you, not just one evening , but for  months at a stretch.

During  that  phase  I used to visit him almost every day, as the two of  us would walk towards the Lodi Gardens. Once there he’d walk for a while, before  being  surrounded by many of his  admirers. And when we’d reach  the side gates to this garden, we’d part ways - in the sense I would take  the  full round,and he ’d  walk along the stretch facing the  ’gumbad ’ situated in the very heart of these gardens. The meeting point, to walk back , was those steps  leading to the  ’gumbad’ . Invariably, I found  him sitting  on the steps leading to  the ’gumbad’ with at least a  dozen fellow walkers also sitting on those steps. Chatting with him, asking for his views about the  various  political  aspects  and current happenings. And along with them there’s to be a channa seller who’d always  come along to wish him .Not that  Khushwant bought any  of his wares but did make it a  point  to  exchange a sentence or two, followed  by polite nods.

"Don’t you  get  irritated with all these people  coming up to you, not leaving you even whilst you ’re walking?" I couldn’t help asking him and he’d  smile, implying its all okay, part of everyday life ...No, not  once I’d spotted  rudeness or  arrogance  in his attitude. And  if one were to ask him what he’d  utterly disliked, he’d said, "Can’t stand  arrogance, can’t  stand rudeness  and those  who are  fake  ...in seconds I can see through those  flatterers."

 Then why so many have been taking advantage of him? So many trying to get close to him, by faking and super-faking?

 He  did  realize  people taking advantage of him but  came in way his inability to say no. He  couldn’t say  no. And in one of those introspective moods he would  offload details of the  who’s who , who’d  not just wasted his  time but had  even taken him to court. Looking upset he  recounted   the many  times he  has been let down  by close  friends , yet  not one of those  to have  thought of  revenge or  avenging. "No, that’s not in me...I immediately withdraw and that’s about it."

 His Emotional Connect With His Place Of Birth / His Roots Not really bothered what others comment ; some even calling him "Pakistani rundee ki aulad ",he kept his  home open to  anyone landing  from  the place of his roots, Pakistan .There was  that  smile  ever  widening  on his  face when he spoke with Pakistanis landing at his  doorstep. In fact,tradition has been that High Commissioners  of Pakistan coming on a posting to India  would  call  on him within the first few days of their reaching New Delhi. Many of the  ordinary travellers  from the  neighboring country  making it a point to  meet  him .And he’d  be there asking  details  of his  ancestral village in Pakistan, along with several of the  basic queries .Yes, with them he’d break into Punjabi, with ample English and Hindustani words  thrown in for our sake , the  non-Punjabis sitting around ,trying to grasp each word. And it’s in his home  I’d first met  Minoo Bhandara  - Bapsi Sidhwa’s brother, owner of Murree Breweries and also a former member of Pakistan’s National Assembly...Minoo had travelled to his village Hadali (in Pakistan’s Sargodha district) and  clicked pictures ... there were  tears in Khushwant’s eyes when he’d asked Minoo who was living in his ancestral home and more along with the strain. And for what seemed minutes he’d kept looking at his home, in those photographs, saying, " Last  I had visited my village was several years back,when I was in Pakistan. It was a very emotional experience with a  reception  held for me and people coming to meet me ...ours was a huge  haveli and today it  lies occupied  by three refugee families who had gone from Rohtak. It was touching to see the gurdwara in the village still intact ...even during the Partition chaos, nobody touched the gurdwara though the village population was 90 per cent Muslims and there only few Sikh and Hindu families. Then this village  has the distinction of sending  the largest number of men for World War 1 ... have several memories of my village - how my grandmother would  take me along to the  different families she’d visited in the village, and how she’d tell the time of the  day; there was no clock or watch, during the day my grandmother would tell the time by the shadow of the sun on the wall and at night by the stars."

A Loyal Friend There were who’s who of this  city  who’d come to his home  for advice No, not at the usual slot - 7 to 8 pm, but either an hour before that, or  even earlier  during the day, towards noon. Many confided  in him and many more asked for advice. And, mind you, his  advice was invariably along the conservative strain. Not just conservative  but very conservative, if I may so say. It might come as some sort of surprise to hear this but this is so . Then why that  image of him, sitting with women amidst  those hackneyed frills around?

"All that is because I speak out, talk openly, write...if I like a woman’s looks I say so but say so right in front of her husband ." The basic reality is, as he himself proclaimed rather loud and clear that no woman, however beautiful, can  sit more than fifteen minutes, for by then she ’d had  read the impatience in his eyes. Though not a loner in  the  actual sense of the term but, then, he seems to be at ease in solitude. On that one  week end I ’d visited  him , whilst he was in Kasauli, he  looked  so relaxed being by himself. , that  I felt some sort of an intruder. For most part of the day, he ’d kept sitting on the front stretch, reading or writing. Keeping himself  away from the  lone landline  and there seemed no trace of a television set. Its only in the evenings that visitors had dropped in. There’s  was something  along with the old world charm, as his neighbours and friends got  together, discussing and chatting over dinner. The guests included Churamanis, Prashers (if I am not mistaken Mrs Prasher has been India’s number one Badminton player), Baljeet Virk, Anil & Sharda Kaushik and the then Scottish principal of the Lawrence Sanawar School - Andrew  Gray. And the next afternoon, as  Khushwant and I had walked  to the  Kasauli market, he knew several of the shopkeepers. No, not mere formality ridden sessions, but as though he’d cared, asking them about their children and work.

His Views On Death: “I’m not scared of  death, there are no  fears. Death is inevitable , no brooding about it, be prepared for it, as Asadullah Khan Ghalib has too aptly put across - ‘rau mein hai raksh-e-umar kahaan deykheeye thammey /nai haath baag par hai nah pa hai rakaab mein ( age travels at a galloping pace /who knows where will it stop /we do not have the reins in our hands /we do not have our feet in the stirrups.)â€