When the relations of any individual start shrinking and the process of shattering of his feelings and emotions starts within his personality his condition becomes like a dried tree devoid of leaves and fruits which is standing alone in the desolate desert enduring the heat and cold of the weather quietly. It has neither branches nor fruits on it.
It doesn’t have the leaves that could generate guests of pleasant air. The past of such a person has already gone and all the symptoms of sighting of an unknown future have become dim. In such a situation, I recollect a couplet of Ghalib:
NA THA KUCH TO KHUDA THA, KUCH NA HOTA TO KHUDA HOTA
DUBOYA MUJH KO HONAY NE, NA HOTA MAIN TO KYA HOTA
[When there was nothing, there was only God, if there had not been anything, there would have been God
Drowned me the being, if I had not been what I would have been]
These days, I am facing a situation like this. All of a sudden, I often think that if some such incident had happened in my past life, I don’t know what would have been my condition. After the partition of the country, when I came out of the university after finishing my graduation study, before my very eyes some of my good friends and classmates migrated to Pakistan. By then, two of my brothers had also gone to Pakistan. They also invited me to come to Pakistan but I remained quiet. When I entered into the sixties of my age, the doors of England, America and Gulf countries opened. In front of my eyes my beloved friends Naqui Tanveer, Dr. Yousuf Ali Khan and Viquar Lateef set out for England.
What should I tell you, most of my time used to be spent in the company of these friends. Thus our gatherings of Orient Hotel started becoming deserted. These friends tempted me very much to come to England. They made me aware of the effulgent and fascinating comforts of Europe. I tolerated with patience but never turned towards London.
By the time I reached the seventies of my age, besides majority of my friends and three cousins also went to America and adopted its citizenship after migrating form Pakistan. It is a different matter that when Hyderabad started looking deserted, I thought why not I resort to a mini migration within the country itself, because there is generally a blessing in migration. As soon as I got this thought, I very quietly migrated to Delhi in 1972. When the city of Delhi, whose tales of cruelty are scattered in the annals of History, started showering the rain of blessings and new openings, I was then drenched and in ecstasy I spent thirty five successful years of my life.
In 1980 I went even to Japan and was benefited with the luxuries and facilities of the developed countries. Not only this, in 1984, my brother Dr. Khursheed Husain, sent all the papers of sponsorship relating to American citizenship for me and for all the members of my family. My family members felt very happy because not only in that period but even after so much destruction, American citizenship is considered to be a blessing from God. However, despite the happiness of my family member I was not moved at all. And I considered American citizenship inferior to ground relatives of Delhi.
I was very much tempted for going to America but by many I was never tempted. It is a different matter that incidentally some of my friends present in Europe and America invited me to America and Europe as a tourist for two months. I saw with my own eyes the effulgence and comforts of Europe and America for complete two and a half months. Despite this the effulgence of my good natured personality could not be dazzled. However, I give importance to enlightenment of thought rather than the imaginary light for material comforts, the man in the west countries is running and gasping incessantly for five out of seven days.
I couldn’t swallow this action. The entire society there looks like a machine and each individual becomes as an inferior component of that machine. The function of a component in that machine is that it should continue to function with the assigned stak. According my thinking the importance is for the machine and not the individual.
I thought that while living in the west, no doubt I will get material comforts but my individuality and my identity would become extinct. I firmly believe not in being the component of a machine but in becoming a machine itself. After 1984, on two occasions I got two opportunities in America for a period longer than two months. In my travelogues, I have expressed my impressions in hundreds of series of articles about the Western society which I don’t want to repeat here.
At a time when I am at the fag end of my age and there seems to be no considerable future in sight, I just thought that if I had migrated to America my how would have been my lifestyle. Even this thought occurred to me because my old time companion Hasan Chisty has arrived in the beautiful city of Hyderabad completely after fourteen years of self imposed exile.
Eversince he has come to Hyderabad, he is seeing the streets, Places and Buildings of Hyderabad stretching his eyes fully and the other side, in response to it, the people of Hyderabad are also looking at him opening their eyes fully.
It cannot be said a competition of equal standards because Hasan Chisty is very badly famous for his kind heartedness. Whenever he meets an old acquaintances or he recollects old memories, a flood of tears flows from his eyes. It is said that ladies have such glands in plenty which produce tears. This is the reason why ladies have an expertise in weeping. I haven’t seen any woman weeping spontaneously like Hasan Chisty.
I had told a friend of mine in Chicago that “Hasan Chisty, living in Chicago sheds so may litres of tears. A Kathiyawar buffalo living in Hyderabad does not give that much of milk. Hearing this, my friend told “Gentleman-! Apparently, Hasan Chisty seems to be living in Chicago but half of his day he spends in maintaining contacts with Hyderabad. He will be telephoning, reading the newspapers of Hyderabad on the internet, sending e-mail to someone or indulging in solving some problem of a person from Hyderabad living in Chicago. I often think that if he had to remember Hyderabad living in America why did he go there. I have seen many Hyderabadis who have migrated to other countries. They are absorbed in thoughts of Hyderabad.
The founder of Hyderabad city, while inhabiting it had prayed to God through one of his couplets, thus:
“O God-! You inhabit people in this city as you have inhabited fishes in the sea.”
No doubt, these days, the people who have inhabited Hyderabad outnumber the fishes in the sea but the Hyderabadis who have inhabited in other countries, their condition is like “fish out of pond”.
It is good that I have not gained any material comforts by migrating to other countries. I didn’t live in air-conditioned houses, I did not travel in big motor cars but I was safe from the agony of a person living abroad in whose nature a sense of deprivation is generated from cutting off from the roots of his civilization, society and his identity on account of migration.
I have a doctor friend of mine who lives in America. He is a very busy and successful doctor. He earns lakhs of dollars but his engagement is such that he generally doesn’t take his dinner sitting at the dining table with his kith and kin.
He takes his dinner while driving a car. I can’t perceive how he drives his motor car and how he eats his food. He eats his food like an artist in a circus. He exhibits his circus jugglery. I asked him one day. “Gentleman-! The bread for which you had come to America, you earned it enormously. It is very sad that you have no free time in which you could eat adequately making use of your wealth.” After listening to my talk, he stopped his car and continued shedding tears for a longer time and said, “you have said something important but what do I do? I have been trapped in such a net that wherever I am I have no time to think about it.”
When I found some time to think about my past, I feel that I took a right decision not to migrate. Instead of becoming unknown and extinct, whatever identity I have been able to establish and how so ever it may be which can’t be bought even after spending enormous amount of rupees.
In such a situation, it is a sheer coincidence that I met at a marriage function Dr. Azeez Mohammed Khan Aleem, an Associate Professor of Zoology at Anwarul Uloom College. During the course of conversation, he told me that he too had got the facility of migrating to America in 1999. He had, therefore, migrated to America because all of his relatives had settled in America after migration.
He studied closely the American society in order to sustain his faith (iman) and for the protection of his identity he gave up American citizenship and came back to India along with his wife and children. How many youths are there in the race for competition and how many young men are there like this far sighted gentleman we have to given a serious thought to it.
No doubt, the world had turned into a global village but at personal level we have confidence that during the three fourth part of my life, I have kept myself busy in every moment and passing through various struggles and lived the life of luxury.
When I have come to end my column, I remember two different couplets:
Shikam Ki Aag Liye Phir Rahe Hain Dar Badar
Sagay Zamana Hain Hum Kya Hamari Hijrat Kya
[Iftikhar Aarif]
[We are wandering from city to city carrying with us the fire of the stomach
we are the dogs of the time, what are we, what is our migration
Shaakhe Gul Pe Chahek Wa Laikin
Kar Apni Khudi Mein Aashiyana
(Allama Iqbal)
[You may chirp on a branch of a flower but make your abode in your self ego]