Proud Days, Azra Tabassum
[06-10-2006]
"It doesn't seem to me you have come from somewhere else. You seem to me to be from here itself!"
When she said this, it broke through Yashoda and my hesitation about it being our first day here. Smiling, we sat down on the cot that lay beside the cot on which she was sitting.
Noorjahan baaji lived in a house of forty yards in Lakshmi Nagar's area number 8 for fifteen years. Now she has been given a plot of 18 sq m here. As of now, the plot has not got transformed into a casing supported by beams of concrete. There are few people around, and so Noorjahan baaji's heart is not in this place yet. "But so what! I have somehow made my place amidst others who live here, and I live among them."
The narrow spaces between houses that have been constructed does not shy away from inviting others. It is prepared to soak in different kinds of presences into itself.
"It doesn't seem to me you have come from somewhere else. You seem to me to be from here itself!"
When she said this, it broke through Yashoda and my hesitation about it being our first day here. Smiling, we sat down on the cot that lay beside the cot on which she was sitting.
Noorjahan baaji lived in a house of forty yards in Lakshmi Nagar's area number 8 for fifteen years. Now she has been given a plot of 18 sq m here. As of now, the plot has not got transformed into a casing supported by beams of concrete. There are few people around, and so Noorjahan baaji's heart is not in this place yet. "But so what! I have somehow made my place amidst others who live here, and I live among them."
The narrow spaces between houses that have been constructed does not shy away from inviting others. It is prepared to soak in different kinds of presences into itself.
"Do you know, a sardar came here today; and he parked his bike behind my cot." Baaji lowered her voice and brought her lips close to my ears to continue. "He had come to buy plots. He was staring at me. I turned my back to him. Then he said, 'O bibi, O bibi, can I get a glass of water please?' I turned around and looked at him in surprise and said, 'Bhaiya, I am Muslim'. He replied immediately, 'So what? What is Hindu and Muslim when it comes to drinking water?' I liked it when I heard this. Where I used to live, that is exactly what people used to say. I gave him water in a plastic utensil. There, see, it's kept there."
I saw, next to the stove, lay a turqoise blue pastic trough. She uses utensils that are separate from her utensils of everyday use when she gives us water to drink too. When we meet Noorjahan apaa, we always feel she creates a distance from people in her mannerisms, but not in her conversations.
Looking at a shadow that stirred on our right, she said, "I never eat anything someone else has taken a bit of, or from another's plate. I always remain pure and perform my ablutions. I used to wake up at 4:00 AM where I used to live, and after saying my prayers, I would clean the entire house. The floor of my house used to shine and one would not hesitate to lick curd off the floor. I would get a new suit made for myself every month, and that too of a kind that others would not be able to take their eyes off of it! People from the neighbourhood would come to my house to ask my advice on all kinds of matters. And now! Now can anyone tell I have lived those days. Why, I myself wonder if it was someone else, not me, when I recall those days."
As she said this, she brought an unknown kind of laughter on her lips, and tried to hide the moistness in her eyes. Maybe this moistness wanted an answer to "when?". It was very difficult to say anything at that moment.
I saw, next to the stove, lay a turqoise blue pastic trough. She uses utensils that are separate from her utensils of everyday use when she gives us water to drink too. When we meet Noorjahan apaa, we always feel she creates a distance from people in her mannerisms, but not in her conversations.
Looking at a shadow that stirred on our right, she said, "I never eat anything someone else has taken a bit of, or from another's plate. I always remain pure and perform my ablutions. I used to wake up at 4:00 AM where I used to live, and after saying my prayers, I would clean the entire house. The floor of my house used to shine and one would not hesitate to lick curd off the floor. I would get a new suit made for myself every month, and that too of a kind that others would not be able to take their eyes off of it! People from the neighbourhood would come to my house to ask my advice on all kinds of matters. And now! Now can anyone tell I have lived those days. Why, I myself wonder if it was someone else, not me, when I recall those days."
As she said this, she brought an unknown kind of laughter on her lips, and tried to hide the moistness in her eyes. Maybe this moistness wanted an answer to "when?". It was very difficult to say anything at that moment.
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