‘I WOULD LOVE TO DO A BIKE TOUR OF INDIA’
When Farooq Abdullah turned up in bright red for a Christmas party, heads turned. It’s not an easy colour to carry off, particularly for an octogenarian, but then Abdullah has always had a certain flair, a flamboyance, quite in contrast to his son Omar Abdullah who is restrained and measures his words.
Politics runs in the family. Farooq’s father, Sheikh Abdullah, was popularly known as Sher-e-Kashmir, or Kashmir’s Lion. He founded the National Conference, was the state’s prime minister before the J&K constitution was amended, and later served as its chief minister. Farooq succeeded his father and after a few stints as chief minister came to the Centre as an MP and a union minister; his son headed the state as its youngest-ever chief minister.
Farooq’s daughter, Sara, is married to a Congress politician, Sachin Pilot, currently deputy chief minister of Rajasthan. Neither their marriage nor Sachin’s accession was free of controversy.
Farooq Abdullah’s friendship with Rajiv Gandhi was well known, as was its souring. There are stories about how he took Rajiv Gandhi to see the saffron fields in Kashmir, just as there are stories about his motorcycle rides. Even as chief minister, he threw protocol to the wind and crisscrossed Srinagar on motorcycle, often taking a guest along as pillion rider: “I would love to do a mobike tour of India someday,” he says.
Once he fell out with Rajiv Gandhi, things took a turn for the worse. At the Mecca, where he went for Umrah, the Islamic pilgrimage, he had wept and prayed to be spared humiliation.
But tears come easily to Farooq. At his daughter, Safia’s, wedding, Farooq cried more than she did: “Any father would… it is like giving away a part of your being,” he says.
A movie buff, in college Farooq hit upon a formula to woo girls: “It was simple: when in tragedy mode, reel out lines from Dilip Kumar films, and while writing mushy love letters, borrow from Raj Kapoor’s.” Enamoured by Madhubala, Farooq describes her as a “fairy” and Helen as “something else”.
Horror movies, injections and snakes send a chill down his spine: “When I would see Dracula starting to bare his teeth, I would close my eyes. When the doctor came to our home to give us the cholera shot, I would run three floors up and hide.” What hardened him was his life as a medi- cal doctor and his own surgery. “Once under the knife, one learns to take everything,” he says.
He has had to give up eating the red meat he loved. Farooq’s wife Molly, a trained nurse, keeps a close watch. They fell in love in England. Her friends told her the marriage wouldn’t last a year: “We’ve done 50 together,” Farooq says, beaming.
There is, however, a conscience burdenof Farooq not making time when he needed to be by her side: of choosing golf over her. “Molle walked in from the hospital with our newborn and all I said was I have a match to play, and walked off. But then that is me.”
That is him: forever on the move. Age and ill health may have slowed him down but they have not taken away his zeal.
EVEN AS CHIEF MINISTER, DR ABDULLAH THREW PROTOCOL TO THE WIND AND CRISSCROSSED SRINAGAR ON MOTORCYCLE