In 1985-86 I happened to be in England. Being a student of English literature I knew a few things about English culture and society. But when in England I really discovered my poor and pathetic knowledge of the country and its way of life. In fact, I did not even know that every city in that country had registered companies for burying the dead. I was told, then, that these were the requirements of the modern age. Who had time to bury his father or mother? The city of Leicester, where I had my temporary residence, had a Rose Funeral Ltd which served the clients who had no time for burying their loved ones. It would obtain a priest to perform the last rituals, buy coffin and do other needful to bury the dead honourably. It would even place fresh flowers on the grave every day if the client so desired. Finally he would send the bill to his client who will pay it without questioning and appreciate the services which he had neither bothered to perform nor to see. This was probably my first encounter with the mechanized life of the modern world.
There were more things to happen. One day a nice-looking and well-mannered man came to us and wanted to take us to the graveyard. He was employed with Leicester University and a Muslim colleague had expired whom he wanted to bury. The departed soul was from India’s Dehradun and was dead against the idea of Partition and Pakistan. He never interacted with the Muslims of the city thinking they all were Pakistanis which, in fact, was untrue. He was alone at home, his wife had gone to London accompanying his elder brother who had come from Pakistan and thus there was no one to look after him when he was breathing his last. He had a stroke, and despite being in immense pain, could manage to call the doctor. He was rushed to hospital where he died soon after.
No one knew him except Mr Abdur Rashid Siddiqi, the nice-looking, ever smiling handsome gentleman I have mentioned above. Barely he could manage some two dozen people who offered Salat-e-Janaja and buried him in his new abode, just a yard wide and six fit long.
We Indians die with some ‘fanfare’ by which I mean the religio-cultural rituals which are normally performed by sufficient numbers of people who make a reasonable crowd. I remembered the death and burial of some relatives/ acquaintances whose last rites were performed with the respect they had never commanded when alive. That moment I prayed in my heart not to die in England and a few months later I indeed returned to India.
But what I could not foresee was the fact that modernity was fast spreading in India as well. Our mega cities have especially become the islands where the modern world lives with all its fatal diseases. In England the graveyards, at least, were neat and clean but here in India most of them are in bad condition. The relatively small England has more space for its dead but a far more bigger India, especially in Delhi, seems to be quite miserly in this regard.
Recently a dear one breathed his last in Delhi. A man of knowledge with great literary sensibilities he has been buried in the graveyard located behind the Times of India building. While standing beside his very narrowly-dug grave I began to recount all that I have written above. Here, too, there were not enough people in the graveyard, though a large number had offered the Salat-e-Janaja in the mosque. Has modernity reached our doorsteps as well, I asked myself? I immediately answered in negative. Surely, some bad aspects of modernity have creeped into our lives but we are still the famous – not notorious – emotional Indians. At least I was there to recollect my childhood memories, remembering how hard he had struggled to study in adverse circumstances. He was our Badar Bhai, many years senior in age who would occasionally play with us, a poor player indeed he was. We would run fast and climb trees even faster which he would try and fail invariably. But he never got frustrated; he would crack jokes, laugh and make us laugh.
I recollect another thing from our childhood days. He had a photo, in black and white, but in a good frame.
The photo showed him as a weak, poor labourer with a bagful of load on his back. Beneath the photo he had got inscribed the following couplet:
Hai Shabab Apne Lahoo Ki Aag mein Jalne ka Nam
Sakht Koshi se Hai Talkhe Zindagani Angbeen.
A literal translation: “Youth is to burn oneself in one’s own blood/hard work makes even a sour life as sweet as grapes” would not do justice. The deeper meaning is that you need to put in hard work to enjoy and relish the sweet fruits of life. Badar Bhai practiced this philosophy all his life.
Despite being born and brought up in a village, where the atmosphere was not quite congenial to studies, he would read books for hours—books which became his life-long passion. He studied at Shibli College, Azamgarh, then joined AMU, Aligarh for postgraduation and finally became an IAS officer. Officers in our country are known to be quite rich but could never learn the art of becoming rich. He indeed remained a “rich poor” and could not manage to buy even a flat in Delhi with his salary. He was compelled to sell the land he had inherited from his ancestors for owning an abode in Delhi which, I am not sure, if he had managed to buy. Our media highlights the misdeeds of corrupt officers, but have no space to appreciate the honesty of officials like our late Badar Bhai.
References made to modernity should not mislead anyone. I detest the aspect of modernity that converts man into a soulless machine; the modernity that seeks the development and progress of man is my passion. Our civilization must grow but it must also maintain a balance between material and spiritual spheres. This balance is missing from life in mega cities.
As a result of the missing balance between spirituality and materialism people make big houses in this ephemeral world and forget to make even a small hut in the world hereafter. Tolstoy ends one of his beautiful stories that his protagonist – a greedy man– could get only two yard land as do all other men after they die. Our last Mughal King, Bahadur Shah Zafar has beautifully said:
Hai Kitna Badnaseeb Zafar Dafn Ke Liye
Do Gaz Zameen Bhi Na Mily kuy-e-yar mein
Zafar is unfortunate to have not even Two yards land in the alley of the beloved where he would be buried honourably.
Delhi has really become a cruel city where the dead do not get even two yards land. In our village our Badar Bhai would have got enough space; here in Delhi he could get even less than two yards. Why the Muslims cannot have spacious graveyards in Delhi, why their permanent resting place should be very crowded? We must ask ourselves or the government must answer it. Perhaps ultimately it is the Muslim community which has to do something for having cleaner and spacious graveyards.
I have heard some senior citizens narrating an anecdote. Once Maulana Azad, the first education Minister of India, complained to Nehru that the DDA was grabbing Muslim graveyards to develop our grand capital. Nehru’s reply was that large chunks of Delhi’s land were graveyards which were not in use. He gave the verdict that the portions of graveyards having no graves may be acquired by the DDA. Now the Muslim population in Delhi has increased many fold and the existing graveyards cannot provide ‘honourable’ space to all their dead. Can the DDA now pay back by allotting some land to the Muslims so that he honest people like Badar Bhai can get a spacious grave atleast.
[December, 2010]
