This is a street in Luckow UP India which connects Bada Imambara ,Chota Imambara and Hussainabad.. one end takes you to the older quarters of Chowk and Nakhas.
Chowk was once renowned for its beautiful dancing girls called Tawaifs this intoxication of dance was known as Mujra.. households were lost on the beauty of a Tawaif.. a cultured prostitute , it was Adab and Tehzeeb,, etiquette, manners and deportment.
The Nawabs of Oudh I am told by an old wizened man in the Pata Nala area where I was born, were passionately crazy about this leisurely pastime…
other was love for little boys too, .. fortunes were spent on finding a nice doe eyed little boy who would be the apple of his owners pride.
And jealousies, the tenderness of these little souls in their feminine charms and guile.
The Nawabs loved pigeons or flying pigeons and this was known as Kabutarbazi.. racing pigeon from the roofs of their Havelis.. rare species of pigeons like Shirazis, Fantails, other imported varieties.
Kite flying was a hobby that was in their blue blood called Patang bazi..kite fights,the razored thread the delicacy of cutting the string of your opponents kite.
Poetry , nazm, ghazal, the Marsiyas of Mir Anis , Mir Taki Mir, Mir Dabir…part of my moms ancestry through her poet father Daroga Nabban Saab who worked for landed gentry at Agha Mir Ki Deodi, …
My Dads family I am told traced their ancestry from a race called Moghal Pathans .. converted to Shiaism.
The solemnity of Moharram the Tazias , the Matams Azadari E Hussain .
This was a Shia stonghold even in today’s time Moharram the Martyrdom of Imam Hussain the Grandson Of The Holy Prophet is celebrated in old time charm., all this happens in Nawabi Nostalgia of Lucknow.
I was born in Lucknow my Dad Mohomed Shakir Hussain, was called Jiyo, a very good looking guy with looks that could kill was settled in Bombay .. he was to marry my Moms step sister whom he had not seen, as he was the only child my grandmother was blackmailed into showing the bride to be, in arranged marriages the husband sees the face of his bride on the wedding night.
A plan was made my paternal grandmother Khurshed Baji , who hid my Dad in a toilet told him that he could see his bride from an opening.. instead of the bride my Mother only 14 years old ,playfully walked into the courtyard my Dad was hit by a bolt of lightning.. thus ended up marrying her.. my Moms step sister quite elderly was heartbroken locked herself up ..
My Dad consummated the bridal vow and flew away to Bombay as he was having a relationship with an Anglo Indian lady presumably my Dads bosses wife..I think much of my English figure of speech I owe to her..
How it came into me God alone knows,.. the Christian bit too.
I was born in the same year 10th December1953 in Lucknow never saw my Dad., some folks escorted my mom to Bombay caught hold of the Casonova the rest is history,
Dad left the bosses wife and the job.. the earlier days were in penury and living in a leaking shed on a cemetery in Kurla… where human pyres were lit
After that that things took a better turn Dad got a break and he was a Master Cutter and Outfitter and we came to live at Colaba with the old time famous actor Nawab Kashmiris family.. the Nawabs daughter Akthar Baji enrolled me in a school run by European teachers,, Private European School ..opposite Usha Sadan , the principal were Mrs E Lester, Miss Marjorie. Miss June… all deceased. The school was an extension of John the Baptist Methodist Church,.
My parents are dead and gone, my wife is from Lucknow..
I am a self made man.. Drop out and all… I am enmeshed to the Indianess of America.. revolving my life to the Medicine Wheel…
He is great who can do what he wishes; he is wise who wishes …
UPDATE
Today Lucknow is in mourning awaiting peace and calm, the skirmishes on Bara Wafat, the Holy Prophets birthday celebrations were marred by Shia Sunni riots, allegedly engineered to cause political unrest as the State goes to the hustings.The Bara Wafat procession was given police protection, as I write there is a curfew in the old city..shops closed in Nakhas , Kazmain other areas where a single spark can cause unimagined loss of property and life.
My father in law too has to sit at home.. shoot at sight orders.
Hopefully the elders the clergy of both sects will bring all this sordid events to an end , forget the idealogical differnces for the sake off collective human safety and calm.
Hate begets Hate.. healing needs a pinch of Love and understanding…
We both communities believe in the same God, the same Holy Prophet , the same Kalma, so for the sake of Humanity , as Indians lets do a rethink…
Whatever my personal views but I am sure Maulana Kalbe Jawad a sincere Shia cleric will instil a sense of calm, he his held in esteem among both communities, hopefully Lucknow will once again rise like a phoenix from the fires of this communal mistrust and Hate…that by default affects all us staying away from the epicentre of this religious quake…
All of us as Shias Sunnis especially as Indians.. let us not turn our lives,
UPSIDE DOWN AS IT IS IN A NEIGHBORING BACKYARD…
Firoze Shakir
Photographerno1
5April 2007
Filed under: Uncategorized , bara wafat, firoze shakir poet blogger photographer, healing touch, photographerno1, shia sunni riots
