| Apne
Baare Mein (About Myself)
When people write about themselves they usually begin with their
hometown. Which city should I call my own? Born in Gwalior, it was
in Lucknow I came to my senses only to lose them a little later in
Aligarh. In Bhopal I sharpened my wits but it was in Bombay that I
really came alive. So why don't I just go into a small flashback, it
will be easier for you to read and for me to write my story.
City-Lucknow...
Characters: My maternal grandparents, other relatives and I.
I am eight. My father is in Bombay and mother in her grave. The day
is spent playing cricket with my younger brother in the courtyard. A
fierce looking tutor comes every evening. That he is being paid Rs
15 a month is a fact I am reminded of every day. Each morning I get
a half anna and every evening an anna to spend. In the mornings I
buy coloured sweets from Ramjilal, the neighbourhood grocer and in
the evenings the one anna gets me chaat from Bhagwati the hawker
from across the road. It's a wonderful life! School has reopened. I
am admitted in class six in a well known school of Lucknow-Calvin
Talukadar College. Once upon a time it was only the sons of the
aristocracy who could study here but now mere mortals like me also
can but still it is an expensive school with a monthly fee of Rs.17
(a fact which is..well)! Many classmates have wristwatches-they come
from wealthy families. They wear beautiful sweaters.One even has a
fountain pen. These kids buy eight anna chocolates during recess (Bhagwati's
chat is not appetizing anymore). Just yesterday Rakesh announced
that his father was sending him to England to study. And yesterday
my grandfather chided,"At least pass your matriculation, you may
find a job stamping letters in a post office." At an age when boys
dream of becoming engine drivers, I had decided to become rich when
I grew up.
City-Aligarh...
Characters: My Aunt,other relatives and I.
My younger brother continues to stay in Lucknow with my
grandparents. I have been assigned to my aunt who has come away to
Aligarh.Obviously one family cannot be burdened with two orphans. In
front of her home beyond a sprawling ground ahead is my school.Aged
fourteen I am in class nine. In Aligarh's winter is for real. The
school bell strikes at seven. I am on my way there. Razor sharp
wind-chill cuts across the face sniping at the nose and ears. School
is another story. Somehow I manage to pass. My uncle had remarked to
my teacher the day I was admitted to this school, Minto Circle,"Be
watchful, this lad has more interest in film songs than his
studies."I have so far seen Dilip Kumar's "URAN KHATOLA" and Raj
Kapoor's "SHREE 420".I know a lot of film songs but no one is even
allowed to listen to them at home forget about singing them.So I
sing aloud while returning home from school (Excuse me but the early
morning chill on way to school would have permitted warbling of only
classical ragas).Since my school is near the university except for
some classfellows I am more friendly with boys from the University
with whom I like to sit around in cafes. Often I play truant and the
school authorities complain and I get a hiding at home though it
doesn't make much of a difference. I don't care for school books but
love reading novels inspite of being reprimanded at home. Whenever
there is a contest of Urdu poetry at the University it is I who
represents my school and win prizes. All the boys and girls of the
university can identify me.I am happy at this recognition more so by
the girls.
...I am fifteen and growing up. For the first time helped by my
friend Bilu I write a letter to a girl. I encounter the girl next
day in an empty Badminton court and bravely hand over the letter.
It's the first and last love letter of my life (I cannot remember
what I wrote in that letter though I remember the girl well). I am
leaving Aligarh after my matriculation. My aunt weeps as she bids me
farewell prompting my uncle to say that I was going to Bhopal and
not to war. (It's another matter none of us realized then that I was
going to war in a way.)
City-Bhopal...
Characters: Innumerable benefactors,several friends and I.
En route Aligarh to Bombay my father almost drops me midway at
Bhopal. I stay a few days with my step mother but soon move out. I
study at Safiya College and live off friends whose list if I were to
compile I would end up with a telephone directory. I am in BA 2nd
year and live with a friend Ejaaz. He pays the rent, I just live.
Although a student, he earns by giving tuition hence friends have
nicknamed him "Master". I have quarreled with Master and we are not
talking to each other so I cannot ask him for money. I help myself
by delving into the pockets of his trousers hanging on the wall or
sometimes he leaves behind a rupee or two by my bedside.
It's my fourth year in college and I am in my BA final. I have never
paid my fees and no one has ever asked.This can happen only in
Bhopal.
I have been given a vacant room in the college campus to live. After
classes are over I pull over a few benches lay my bedding to
sleep.It's quite comfortable except for the bugs in the benches.The
restaurant where I have my meals on credit has closed down unable to
sustain freebooters any longer. There's a shoe shop in its place.
Where will I eat now? I am lonely,ill with a high fever and
famished. Two collegemates with whom I am hardly acquainted bring
some food for me in a tiffin. Strange fools those two but I'm clever
by half. I hide my tears till they leave. I recover from my illness
and become friends with them. I am a keen debater in college and
have won the Rotary Club Prize for three years running. I have also
won several Inter-college debates and have represented Vikram
University at the National Youth Festival in Delhi. During college
elections two opposing groups want me to speak on their behalf. I
have no interest in elections but am keen on public speaking so I
end up canvassaing for both groups. I have lost the vacant room in
the campus and now live with Mushtaq Singh who earns even as he
learns andd is also the President of the College Urdu Society. I am
good at Urdu. He is better. I know countless couplets. He knows
more. I am away from my family. He has no family. He seems to be
better than me every which way. For a year our friendship has
thrived on food and clothes. He provides for both. He is a true Sikh
yet buys my cigarettes for me.
I have begun to drink occasionally. Mushtaq and I sit drinking one
night as he tells me tales about the partition and its horrors.
Although he was very young yet he remembers: In Delhi's Karol Bagh
two Muslim girls were thrown in a scalding drum of coal tar and
another Muslim. I interrupt him asking whether he was trying to turn
me into a Muslim fundamentalist with his horrific tales!Every story
of terror has two sides.What about the other point of view?
Mushtaq Singh smiles.What do you want to listen? "My story" or a
general account.Your story, I say. "We were a family of eleven. Ten
of them were hacked in front of my eyes..."
Mushtaq remembers a lot of Urdu couplets-I have been staying with
him for over a year. I fail to understand one thing. Good guys ,
whatever their faith, always end up on the gallows. How was he
spared? Nowadays he lives in Glasgow. While we were he were parting
I took off his "kada" and have worn it on my wrist ever since.
Whenever I think about him he seems right there with these lines on
his lips."You pride a lot on your failures, you are unaware about my
shortcomings."
City-Mumbai...
Characters:The Film Industry,Friends,Foes and I.
On October 4,1964 I alight at the Bombay Central station. This is
the court where my fate will be sealed. Within six days of my
arrival I have to leave my father's home. I have 27 paise in my
pockets. I am happy that if I am able to add another paisa to my
riches I will be the winner and life a looser.
It's been two years in Bombay. There's still no certainty of either
food or shelter. I have managed to write dialogue for a minor film
for Rs100. Sometimes I get some work as an assistant or otherwise
but often even this work eludes me. I go to a film producer's office
at Dadar to collect money for some comic scenes I have ghost written
but which will be credited to a famous screen writer in the film.
The office is shut. I think about the long trudge back to Bandra. I
have just enough money to either grab a bite or a bus ride. I buy
some gram and start walking. Ambling past the gate of Kohinoor Mills
I think that things may change but this gate will remainand one day
I will drive by in my own car. I have got an assignment to write
dialogue in another film. I reach the directors' home with the
scenes. He is having pineapple for breakfast as he takes and reads
the scenes. Throwing the papers at my face he dismisses me by saying
I would never become a writer. Walking out into the blazing sun I
wipe a tiny tear. I shall show this director someday but suddenly a
strange question comes to my mind, "Does this fellow have pineapple
for breakfast everyday?"
It is perhaps two in the morning. The Bombay Monsoon is at its worst
fury. The sea seems to be pouring from the sky. I am sitting under
the pale light of a weak lamp on the steps of Khar Station's
portico.Closeby three men sleep on the floor oblivious of the
storm.In a distant corner a wet dog shivers away. Incessant rain
pours on dark empty streets. The lights have gone out in the
noiseless highrises. People must be sleeping in their homes. My
father too has a home in this city, what a large metropolis is
Bombay and how insignificant am I? Once in a while even the bravest
can feel fear.
For a year now I have been living in Kamaal Studio (present day
Natraj Studios). I sleep wherever I fancy-sometimes in some
verandah, sometimes in some corridor, sometimes under some tree.
There are several homeless, jobless people like me who live here. I
befriend one such man Jagdish. Everyday he has a new plan to get a
free meal and a free drink.Infact Jagdish has turned survival into
an art-form.
I have become acquainted with a second hand bookseller on the
pavement outside Andhei Station so there's never a shortage of books
to read which I do late into the night in the dim light of the
studio compound. Friends often mock saying I would soon go blind
with all this reading. I get a chance to sleep inside a room. This
has the studio wardrobes where costumes of the film Pakeezah are
stored. The shooting of this film has been suspended as Meena Kumari
and Kamaal Amrohi have separated. One night I open one of the
wardrobes and amidst assorted shoes and sandals lie the three
FILMFARE trophies which Meena Kumari has won. I dust them and keep
them aside. This is the first time I have touched a film award
trophy. Every night I bolt the door and with the trophy in my hands
I stand before a mirror imagining the day I would be receiving these
awards; amidst all the applause how I would wave to the audience.
Even as I battle with my fantasies a notice is put up in the studio
prohibiting non workers from staying in the compound. Jagdish
suggests an interim arrangement of shifting to the Mahakali Caves
(these ancient Budhist Caves in crowded East Andheri near Kamalistan
Studio were a part of a desolate landscape in those days where hemp
smoking mendicants lay about). The mosquitoes here are monstrous and
they wake you up by just sitting on your body forget their bites. In
one night I figure out that to sleep here you need the stupor of
hashish. Somehow I pass three days before a friend asks me to stay
with him at Bandra. As I leave for Bandra Jagdish says that he too
will find a new abode in a couple of days (This was my last meeting
with Jagdish. In the years to come life took me to new heights but
for eleven years Jagdish languished in those caves in a haze of
pot-smoke and hooch. He was cremated with the sadhus and
neighbouring slum dwellers pooling together some money. The End. My
friends and I learnt of his death much later. I often reflect what
is so special in me which Jagdish lacked? There is always the
possibility that a friend of Jagdish's could have invited him to
stay at Bandra and I left behind to perish in those caves. Why the
vanity then?).
The friend with whom I am living in Bandra is a professional
gambler. He and his two accomplices are card sharps. They teach the
tricks to me too. For a few days the cards provide the means of
survival but then the three men leave Bombay and once again crops up
the question of next month's rent. A famous and successful writer
calls and offers me a job at Rs 600 per month. The work is to ghost
write for him. I contemplate. If I accept I may end up doing the job
for entire my lifetime. On the other hand there's is the rent to
pay. I reject the offer after three days of thought. Days, months,
years roll by. It's been five years in Bombay. "Roti" is a moon and
fate stormclouds. The moon reveals itself on somedays and is elusive
on others. These have been five difficult years for me but I have
retained my dignity. I not disillusioned. I have faith I shall
overcome. I am not born to just survive. At last in November 1969 I
get some work which in film parlance is called a "break".
Success is like Alladin's magic lamp. Suddenly the world is a
beautiful place and the people good. In a matter of just more than a
year I have got a lot and more is on its way. I see the dust I touch
turn to gold. My first house, my first car. Dreams are coming true
but life is still lonely. I meet Honey Irani on the sets of "SEETA
AUR GEETA". Open hearted frank she has a cheerful demeanour. Within
four months we are married call many of father's friends to my
wedding but not my father (Even the genie of Alladin's lamp cannot
heal all wounds. It takes time.) In two years we are proud parents
of a daughter Zoya and a son Farhan.
The next six years see a string of blockbusters. Awards and acclaim.
Fame and fortune. Parties and write ups. Travel around the world.
Bright days and dazzling nights. Life is a technicolour dream and
like all dreams it shatters. For the first one of my films flops
(there have been several hits and misses subsequently but the joy
with its innocence is lost somewhere).
My father dies on August 18, 1976 (Nine days before his death he had
given me his last book. He had autographed and inscribed it with
these words "You will remember me when I am gone. "He was right.)
Until then I had thought of me as a rebellious and angry son. What
am I now? I look at me and the world with a different point of view
and ask myself whether I have got what I wanted from life? Others do
not realize it but I am no longer enamoured or content with things
which hitherto gave me much joy. I am attracted to things more
abstract. I have poetry in my genes and an abiding interest in it as
well. I have always known even in my adolescence that I could write
poetry but have not done so thus far as a symbol of my angst and
rebellion. I write my first poem in 1979 and make peace with both my
father and my inheritance. During this period I meet Shabana. Kaifi
Azmi's daughter is too perhaps retracing her roots. She too is
troubled by new questions and doubts. It's not surprising that we
come close. I am being metamorphosed. Even my professional
relationship ruptures. My friends are noticing my transformation.
Honey and I are separated in 1983.
(Our marriage may have fallen apart but even a divorce does not
diminish our friendship. And if our children do not have the
bitterness of a broken home it is more to Honey's credit than my
doing. Honey is today a successful screen writer and a good friend
and there are but a few in this world for whom I have as much
respect as I have for her).
Although I had moved ahead but life was becoming a journey which
goes from a hotel room to a hospital bed. I always used to drink but
began drinking more. This is one phase of my life I am ashamed of
and if people tolerated me during this time it was their
benevolence. It was quite possible that I could have died during one
of my drinking bouts. However someone's remark one morning touched
me so much that I have never touched alcohol since and will not in
the future.
Today when I look back at life I see a river emerging from the
mountains, battling with rocks, meandering through gorges, bubbling
and frothing, creating ripples as it flows. Where once it broke its
banks the river has now reached the plains. Tranquil with waters
running deep. My children Zoya and Farhan have grown up and are
embarking on their journey in worldly life. In their eyes twinkle
dreams of tomorrow. Salman, my younger brother is a successful
psycho-analyst in America. He has written several books, is a good
poet, a loving husband and a doting father of two intelligent kids.
Life was no easy journey for him either but with his hard work and
dedication he has reached his destination and beyond. I am happy and
so is Shabana who is not just my wife but also my beloved who has a
noble heart and an invaluable mind. "She is a woman of my times", my
uncle Majaaz could be talking about Shabana when he wrote these
lines.
Today I have nothing to complain to life but still I remember one
particular day-January 18,1953. Place: Lucknow, my grandparent's
home, aweeping aunt takes my six year old brother to a a large room
in the house where many women are seated on the floor. I can see the
uncovered face of my mother lying wrapped in a white shroud. My old
grandmother held gently by two women sobs silently besides her. My
aunt takes us two brothers close to bed and bids us to have a last
glimpse of our mother. I had celebrated my eighth birthday just
yesterday. I am intelligent and know what death is all about. I gaze
intently at my mother's face so that I can freeze it in my memory.
My aunt asks me to promise my mother that I would do something in
life, become something in life. I cannot say a word but just keep
staring till someone covers my mother's face with the shroud.
It is not that I have not done anything in life but I have done just
a quarter of what I can. This thought makes me restless. Always...
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