By Z.G.Muhammad
Sometimes a verse or two can stir the mind and call back the days gone by; even make one to relive them. One morning, groping in the dark, I stumbled across Tunisian poet
Abou Kassem Chebi’s verse:
Once the people wills life,
Destiny must succumb,
No more shall reign the dark of the night,
No more shall we by the chains be bound.
The verse written some eighty years back has been part of literature of resistance to the French protectorate imposed on Tunisia in 1883. It very subtly conveys that nations need genuine will to life for changing their world rather than lament’. Moreover, this will to life starts from the bottom rather than from the top. Our history is punctuated with instances of the movements having been started by common folks rather than by the elite. I remember December 1963, when everything around in wee morning hours of 27 December 1963 had frozen, I overheard people outside the barbers shop talking about ‘stealing’ of the Holy Relic from the Hazratbal shrine. I have a very vivid impression of the day, the frosty majestic Chinar trees stripped to the core had their shimmer, and the humble shingled roofed houses with chandeliers of icicles had their royal touch. The frozen icy streets looked like big sheets of glass and the tiled lane that led to our house resembled a big patterned mirror. I remember, unmindful of the gravity of the news I overhead, taking every step cautiously, like a toddler I walked on the glassy road to my house. Shared the news with my mother- either she did not believe the news or under a shock could not realize its impact and asked me to go for the tuition at Bulbul Lankar.
I walked through the maze of lanes, passing through historic part of the city to my teacher’s house. On route, there was an eerie feeling in the atmosphere-as good an eeriness that often blanketed our part of the city on the arrest of a leader with groups of men on roadsides closeted to each other.
The room, where my teacher Labroo Sahib tutored students had only one window, and it opened towards the canal. To allow more light into the room, while teaching us he often kept the latticed window open. From the window, one could see only vast tracts of vegetable farms, during summers these were verdant and during winters as desolate as deserts. Sitting in the clay daubed room, one could hardly know about happenings on the streets.
It was by eleven, with the sack of books I strolled back to home through labyrinth of lanes and by lanes. Silence had descended on all lanes that otherwise despite cold came to life before noon with boys playing games. The minor vendors inside the lanes had pulled down shutters of their shop. As I approached the main road, the uproar started becoming louder, thousand had converged on the lawns of the Jamia Masjid and maddening crowds from far and distant villages shouting full-throat slogans were moving through the streets towards Hazratbal shrine. Half a million people were on streets by mid-noon.
The elders of the locality were discussing making arrangements for food and shelter for the night for protestors from villages.
The boys eagerly waited for direction from elders. Each one of us wanted to become a volunteer. The word volunteer in our childhood had become a volunteer. The word volunteer in our childhood had become as good part of our lingua franca as curfew and bunker during the nineties. Perhaps, it had become part of our lexicon in mid-thirties or early forties when people’s fight against autocracy was at its peak. Moreover, being a volunteer or a razakar an honour.
The boys were assigned the job of collecting food grains, other eatables; something we had mastered at during ‘hupa-hupa’ collections. All of us tied pieces of black cloth on our arm and collected rice and eatables. I remember by late night food was ready for thousands… Thinking about organizing capacity of people of my birthplace makes me feel proud.
Z.G.Muhammad is a noted writer and columnist
