Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Introducing Jalali Baba ... 1.
So, I thought he was a Jamatiya, especially because he kept appending Bhai to my name - something of a trademark of the Jamatiyas. I decided to ignore him. That was when I had met him for the first time, along with Fash’s soon-to-be-father in law (FIL), and soon-to-be-brother in law (BIL). The Jamatiya thug was, is, the brother in law’s old buddy, and I remember trying to figure out what common interests could bring a mummy-daddy nice IT boy like BIL together with a bearded Jamatiya who spoke articulately in Urdu in his deep baritone voice. We made a nice five some that evening though. Fash and BIL are so not into Urdu literature, but FIL more than compensated for them both. I knew Fash had portrayed me as the next best thing after Faiz, and tried hard to act the part out. Not a pretty sight when I look at it in hindsight. Damn Fash and his good intentions!
We were having our fair share of laughs, more than the sort of fair share you can normally hope for when in the company of a buzurg, and that too the susrali buzurg of one of the boys. Due credit to FIL for that. What a thorough (read thoroughly well-read) gentleman. The Jamatiya thug stayed silent for most of the first hour, except joining in the laughter now and then, and quipping in with a few sentences here and there. Now dear readers, any of you who has seen my profile, will know that I am HUGE Yousufi fan. To me, he is one of the best things to happen to Urdu, and to Pakistan philosophy. I also regard him a great contributor to world humour. Having read his four books innumerable times over the last decade or so, I am prone to quoting him every now and then. Apart from making me look good, these quotations almost always elicit a good laugh – if the audience is discerning and intelligent enough that is. So I did it, I quoted Yousufi. And the thug corrected me…ME!!!
He could not be a thug! Anyone who read Yousufi could not be a thug. Anyone who read Yousufi well enough to correct me was NO THUG!!! Heck, he was no Jamatiya either. Since when did the Jamatiyas develop the good sense to appreciate Yousufi. I looked at this bearded, "camouflaged intellectual" with a new found respect. We got on famously after that. That evening we formed a great two-some, actually a three-some with FIL, because FIL knew his Yousufi as well as any. By the end of the evening I was surprised to find he was an IT specialist working for some semi-government organization. Now, here was a paradox. This guy had to be special. He was an IT guy, looked like a Jamatiya, and knew Yousufi verbatim. There was less than one in a million chance of finding that combination again. IT guys, I knew, could hardly spell their names right in any language, no offence intended. This one read Yousufi. Heck, he knew him better than I did. This was an aberration, one that interested me no end.
We did not meet for a long time after that. When we did meet, the beard and the starched dress were gone. We discussed Yousufi, and somehow the discussion drifted to patriotism and nationalism. I was surprised again – the guy loved Pakistan more than I did, if that were ever possible, the dismal situation in the country perturbed him just as much as it did me, and to top it all he knew the history of the country so well, I started feeling like an ignorant slob in front of him. His family had migrated from Bihar in 1947 to East Pakistan, and then from East Pakistan to West Pakistan in 1971. He came from a family which had made sacrifices for Pakistan twice, real sacrifices, in a span of two generations. From then on when he spoke, I listened.
¶ 11/09/2004 01:50:00 AM
We were having our fair share of laughs, more than the sort of fair share you can normally hope for when in the company of a buzurg, and that too the susrali buzurg of one of the boys. Due credit to FIL for that. What a thorough (read thoroughly well-read) gentleman. The Jamatiya thug stayed silent for most of the first hour, except joining in the laughter now and then, and quipping in with a few sentences here and there. Now dear readers, any of you who has seen my profile, will know that I am HUGE Yousufi fan. To me, he is one of the best things to happen to Urdu, and to Pakistan philosophy. I also regard him a great contributor to world humour. Having read his four books innumerable times over the last decade or so, I am prone to quoting him every now and then. Apart from making me look good, these quotations almost always elicit a good laugh – if the audience is discerning and intelligent enough that is. So I did it, I quoted Yousufi. And the thug corrected me…ME!!!
He could not be a thug! Anyone who read Yousufi could not be a thug. Anyone who read Yousufi well enough to correct me was NO THUG!!! Heck, he was no Jamatiya either. Since when did the Jamatiyas develop the good sense to appreciate Yousufi. I looked at this bearded, "camouflaged intellectual" with a new found respect. We got on famously after that. That evening we formed a great two-some, actually a three-some with FIL, because FIL knew his Yousufi as well as any. By the end of the evening I was surprised to find he was an IT specialist working for some semi-government organization. Now, here was a paradox. This guy had to be special. He was an IT guy, looked like a Jamatiya, and knew Yousufi verbatim. There was less than one in a million chance of finding that combination again. IT guys, I knew, could hardly spell their names right in any language, no offence intended. This one read Yousufi. Heck, he knew him better than I did. This was an aberration, one that interested me no end.
We did not meet for a long time after that. When we did meet, the beard and the starched dress were gone. We discussed Yousufi, and somehow the discussion drifted to patriotism and nationalism. I was surprised again – the guy loved Pakistan more than I did, if that were ever possible, the dismal situation in the country perturbed him just as much as it did me, and to top it all he knew the history of the country so well, I started feeling like an ignorant slob in front of him. His family had migrated from Bihar in 1947 to East Pakistan, and then from East Pakistan to West Pakistan in 1971. He came from a family which had made sacrifices for Pakistan twice, real sacrifices, in a span of two generations. From then on when he spoke, I listened.
¶ 11/09/2004 01:50:00 AM
