The Hindu Business Line : The chronicles of migrants

Saeed Mirza in his book — Ammi- Letter to a democratic mother — dwells softly on the times when his parents made their way to Bombay in 1938. His father came to Bombay in 1935 with just about Rs 880 saved over two-and-a-half years.

He applied for jobs with the first being in the Times of India for the post of Assistant Editor. He got nothing, says Saeed Mirza. He went back to Bhopal “with no job but with a gushing admiration for the city.”

Saeed’s father (Baba) told Ammi (his mother) “of the magnificent Victoria Terminus Railway Station and Crawford Market. He had also told you about the great shipyards and docks and the architectural splendour of the Municipal Corporation and the General Post Office.

“He told you about the huge textile mills, oils, chemicals and paper mills and railway yards, where thousands upon thousands of people worked, about the impressive stone buildings with marble facades that housed offices, banks and great trading companies at Ballard Estate and Flora Fountain…..His favourite story was about a new road being built called Marine Drive that would have wonderful residential apartment buildings with a vast expanse of sea in front of them.

“Yes, this wonderful modern city was so different from anything he had ever seen. And, most importantly, he also told that this was a city that had no history. It was here that people came from all over the country to break free from their past and become what they really wanted to be.”

Baba and Ammi were migrants in a manner and they lived the way they wanted to. “Ya Allah,” Ammi said when she saw Bombay first. Then comes an important lifestyle change. “You told me you had been in the city for just about four months when it played its trick on you. You were emerging from the hall of the Eros theatre and were about to wear your burqa in the foyer when Baba popped the question to you. “Begum, do you really want to wear it?” You told me you paused for a moment, and then you shook your head. And that was that. The rest, as they say, is history… I am trying to imagine that moment.

“The year was 1938 and you had been wearing a burqa ever since you were 13 years old. … It was, perhaps, the quietest revolution ever because it seems you and Baba never talked about your decision again…. I am not suggesting that you had turned into a revolutionary because I do know you were a devout Muslim all your life and you even prayed five times a day. But I still wonder,” writes Mirza in telegraphic style.

The book has stuck to this reader though my hard-bound copy, which I bought from a bookshop, has about 20 pages missing towards the end. Saeed is upset over the “rhetoric of hate”. With a few State Assembly elections and a General Elections expected by end-2008, the country could see politicians parcelling human beings to win votes; kind concern will be rare.

Mirza’s tale could fit (with some changes) many a migrant. On the first day in Bombay in late 1969, this writer walked alone to the Gateway of India to see the Arabian Sea and be awed by it. One decided to live with the waves of the sea. If my Seshan mama had chronicled his feelings when he climbed down for the first time from a train at the then V.T. Station in the early 1950s, he probably would have worn an uncertain look. That day his home — Poonjaparambu Mathom in Kerala — was far away.

Last week, a phone call announced the end of Seshan mama in a road accident. An auto he was travelling in lost its front wheel, threw him out and it was over. He was living alone in Navi Mumbai and working in a company at the age of 75 or 76. Every third or fourth month he would call us up to meet over lunch on a convenient Sunday.

On the way, he would get down at Matunga Station, his favourite suburb, to pick up tapioca and banana chips, apart from some appalams and murukku. He never came home with empty hands and he never stepped in without a broad smile. He was short and stout with a thin, white moustache threatening to drop away anytime. A small red tilak on the forehead distracted attention from the worried lines on his face. With him came a strong whiff of the wind and green paddy fields of Kerala.

Unlike his brothers, he did not go to Dubai having made Bombay (and then Mumbai) his hometown. He was not impressed with America and Canada where his daughters have settled. “Naan oru masathele odi vandutten; namba oor porum (I ran away from US and Canada in a month; our country is enough),” he told us in Tamil on his first and last visit to the US.

He watched cricket regularly and never understood why India always lost. He was naturally excited over Sreesanth but did not expect much from him; “Poradu (Not enough),” was his pithy remark. He lead an ordinary life fully.

One Sunday afternoon, he turned pensive and told Rama, my wife, of the times when women at home had a status lesser than the cattle they tended. In my times, women woke up ahead of their cows and buffalos and went to sleep after the cattle got to snoring; and then there were the large families to look after.

“Andha kalam ellam rumba mosham; ippo nambal sukhama irrukom (Those days were bad; we are better now),” he told us sipping a cup of coffee, while adding, “If a male helped a female, he would be laughed at.” He disliked the past. Mumbai had allowed Seshan mama to make his own life.

P. Devarajan

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