I was born and bred in Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. We lived in a large mansion in Mohalla Lahorian at a stone's throw from Dhakki Nalbandi off Kabuligate. I have nostalgic memories of the landmarks: the National High School, Panj Teerth, Shahi Bagh, Cunningham Park and Peshawar radio station near the Civil Courts.Ours was a joint family consisting of my father and uncle's families, two widowed paternal aunts and their offspring, and an overbearing, indomitable grandmother who presided over family affairs with supreme efficiency and fervour.
My grandfather, since dead, had engaged a boy servant Wazir Singh to tend to the two cows and help grandmother in household chores. The strapping youth, owing to his unflinching devotion to duty and sincerity, won the hearts of the denizens of the household and attained the status of an elderly patriarch with the passage of time. I still have visions of a white-clad, tall, sturdy Sikh gentleman with a flowing white beard, a
bun of white hair on the top of his head, a rosary of thick beads around his neck, milking the white or the brown cow or reciting Japji Sahib in his room adjacent to the room of Darbar Sahib near the stairs.
We, the children, had never seen Wazira chacha working in the kitchen or doing menial tasks. He was meant for higher things, being the family's friend, philosopher and guide. His counsel was sought in times of distress, despair or doubt and, with his sagely advice, Wazira was ever able to retrieve the situation. To me, Wazira was especially dear because he was a treasure-house of stories which, from a very early age, I lapped up zealously from whatever source I could manipulate. I remember, as a five-year-old curious lad, sitting on Wazira's knee in his room and listening raptly to the story of Guru Nanak's encounter with his teacher at school while reading the alphabet or doing Sachcha Sauda by distributing his money among a band of itinerant recluses. I was intensely fascinated bythe story of Malik Bhago and Bhai Lalo whose loaves of bread, on being squeezed in Guruji's hand, oozed blood and milk respectively.
Time rolled on. Children became adolescent, the ladies got streaks of grey in their hair and the men folk became more withdrawn and taciturn with age. The families were becoming larger and the house appeared increasingly insufficient for their needs. There was a scramble for space. Verandahs, lobbies, porticos were fast turning into rooms. Avaricious eyes were being cast on nooks and crannies. Wazira's room too was fast becoming a bone of contention.
The inevitable happened at last. A dispute arose over the room and grandmother was pestered to ask him to sleep in the kitchen and spare the room for children's studies, with relentless persistence, much to granny's chagrin and Wazira's discomfiture. Granny refused point-blank. Like a furious Amazon, my chachi cast aspersions on her mother-in-law and slighted her, which Wazira could not withstand, unaccustomed as he was
to this sort of conduct. He reprimanded the woman as he used to do in similar situations earlier. But things took a different turn this time. Chachi, in a fit of rage, burst out, "Look, you need not interfere. You are just a servant."
All were stunned. A hush descended on the scene. Wazira rose like a wounded fox, uttered "Wahe guru" three times and tottered to his room. When, after dinner, I went to his room for a story, I found him sobbing like a child. "I, a mere servant?", He muttered and wept uncontrollably. "Puttar, tell your chachi I shall vacate the room tomorrow early morning -- Amrit Vela," he said haltingly.
At dawn, Wazira kicked the bucket and was gone. And I am writing this story at 4 a.m., Amrit Vela.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
