Missing the communal cordiality of Phulpur
Of all the places we have lived, our relatively short stay in Phulpur, a small town near Allahabad, was the sweetest. The town, once the constituency of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his sister, is now known for its dreaded ‘Bahubali netas’ (arm-twisting leaders). However, until the ’80s it was quite different.
It had been a tranquil place where everyone knew everyone else, be it the sub-divisional magistrate, principal Sidiqui of the local college, the town’s best doctor Aziz (our landlord) or even the betel-chewing lone car mechanic Hashmat mistry operating from his ramshackle garage at one end of the sole road coming from Allahabad and passing through this sleepy town.
Life at Phulpur moved at a snail’s pace without phones, films, fashion, flamboyance, cars and even electricity. Light switches were left ‘on’ and when on rare occasions, electricity showed up, the whole town burst into a chorus, ‘Line aa gayi! (Current is flowing)’.
In a Muslim-majority town, we were one of the few Hindu families. Our four-year-old daughter was the cynosure of the eyes of our landlord’s family, whose burqa-clad wife and daughters invaded our house as soon as I left for work. During the holy month of Ramzan, every evening we were flooded with so much variety of dishes that we seldom had to cook dinner. Dr Aziz would take our daughter to the mosque and she tried to copy the kneeling ‘n am az is ’( devotees ), but could not and was left bewildered, standing alone while everybody else knelt in reverence. She learnt to say ‘Aslam-aleikum’ and ‘Valekum-aslaam’ and started speaking Punjabi mixed with Urdu in her lisping voice.
Once there was curfew in Allahabad due to communal tension. Almost the whole town came to assure us that nothing could happen to us in Phulpur. We felt as if we were living in a town surrounded by numerous bodyguards. Every morning while I came downstairs to leave for work and passed by Dr Aziz’s clinic on the ground floor, even the patients would smile and ask, “Sir, koi taqleef toh nahin hai na? (Sir, hope you have no problem?)”.
One day my daughter accompanied me to the car and the good doctor asked her, “Kaisi ho Neeru? (How are you Neeru?)”. I was flabbergasted at her response in chaste Urdu, “Aapki dua se sab khairiyat hai (Everything is fine with your blessings)”. They had taught her how to respond to such queries!
There was only one adverse incident when principal Sidiqui was shot at by some rowdies, who were supposedly former students of his college. Visiting him, I just asked as to why he used a horse instead of a car to commute to the college. He smiled and said, “The horse has saved me. Had I been in a car, they would have killed me for sure. They couldn’t follow the trail of this lovely animal, which brought me home safely, trotting through the meadows.”
Hashmat’s garage-cum-residence was just opposite the principal’s house, across the road. As he saw my Ambassador parked there, he came to ask, “Sahib, gaadi theek chal rahi hai na, koi taqleef toh nahin hai na? (Sir, is the vehicle running fine? Hope you have no problem).” Where on earth could one find such concern and bonhomie?
While living in the concrete city of Chandigarh, I fervently missed Phulpur and its people the most a few months ago, when I had a mild cardiac problem. Though there were numerous ‘Get well soon’ messages on Facebook and WhatsApp, not a single face showed up to ask, “Koi taqleef toh nahin hai na?”
ALMOST THE ENTIRE TOWN CAME TO ASSURE US THAT NOTHING COULD HAPPEN TO US