An Obituary (9 March 2011)

My uncle, Abdul Baten died this morning. He was about fifty. A month ago, he had suddenly taken ill and was diagnosed with a weak heart. For a person who hadn’t suffered from any major disease before, this was a shock. He found it difficult to undergo the strict medication and the stricter daily routine. He was a farmer and had worked on his land for almost four decades. Leaving the work for a premature retirement was incomprehensible to him. So, he largely neglected the doctor’s advice and continued working on his farm and on his new dream- a house. He had built one earlier and had started on a bigger one a couple of months ago. Yesterday morning he had stood waist deep in water for a long time fishing. Then he had slit bamboo spears for his garden fence. In the evening, he came down with a cold and had a little difficulty in breathing. The problems intensified this morning and he passed away at around seven.

My uncle’s life was not extra-ordinary but is still a life worth writing about. He was our grandparents’ fifth child after my two pehis (paternal aunts), abba and Kalam uncle. By the time he was ready for farming, the family had achieved some prosperity, so he didn't have to work on other people’s land or shovel earth for the embankment as his brothers before him. He was the first among his brothers to marry and the family of seven brothers and one sister (my older aunts had married and moved out) lived under the ladle of his wife for some years. In 1986 my father brought my mother home (the marriage had been registered in 1984) and in 1987 after I was born and after ma got a job in the village school, we moved to a plot on my grandaunt’s land a few kilometres away. My siblings Gulam and Salma were born here. Our youngest pehi stayed with us to complete school and college.

Baten uncle didn't have much education. Our second eldest pehi says that he used to be an incorrigible truant. Assuming that he wouldn’t do well in general school, granduncle Arfan decided that religion was better suited for him and got him admitted in a Muslim seminary. But he proved his general dislike for all knowledge and ran about in his kurta pyjamas and prayer cap and tormented his classmates. Granduncle was frightened by this display of blasphemy and pulled him out of the seminary and had him work on the farm. He married a few years later and his first son Saiful was born in 1982.

When our grandparents were still alive and our youngest pehi stayed with us, she used to take us to our ancestral home every vacation for a day. It was a wonderful two mile walk and we looked forward to it. There, we had two lunches- one at Baten uncle’s house and another at Ghiyas uncle’s. Our dadi (grandmother) would cook us a meal once a while but she generally gave us excellent snacks- roasted corn and seasonal fruit from her trees. Baten uncle would pluck litchis from our ancient litchi tree, catch an excellent carp or kill a pair of pigeons. Once we had eggs with jackfruit seeds at his house. His wife had polished the seeds ivory white on the grinding stone and boiled them tender. Salma, then about four thought they were yolks of hard boiled eggs and was very excited. To humour her (Baten uncle used to call her putul or doll), he scooped spoon after spoon on her plate until she was round and happy. She had to skip the second lunch of chicken and small fish.

Uncle had three sons and two daughters. He had some hopes for his children, so cousins Saiful and Mary stayed at our home and attended school. They used to call my parents Jetha (uncle) and Jethiamma (aunt) at home and Sir and Baideu (madam) at school. Sometimes they mixed up the two set of terms and we laughed over it. In 1992 abba got the license for a printing press and Baten uncle came to help him in the evenings. Abba employed two other men and Ghiyas uncle, after repeated failures in many businesses, also worked in the press for some time. One of abba’s cousins also came a few times but one day he thrust his hand into a motor and got his fingers crushed. He left, continued his studies and became a very successful veterinarian. After finishing school, Saifulda worked here for a few years before leaving for another larger press in a small town across the Brahmaputra river. Mary discontinued her studies and went home.

In 1994 Kalam uncle married Amina mahi (maternal aunt), my mother’s younger sister and bought a six bigha plot in a neighbouring village. He had already taken up the post of a teacher in the same school where ma and abba worked. Baten uncle worked on the little farm and helped him dig a half bigha pond. Another of our uncles, Humayun Kabir, was working in Guwahati as a pharmacist. Abba made a rule that none of the government employed brothers could demand paternal property. He and dada (grandfather) then divided the land in our old village amongst our four younger uncles. The large pond was partitioned between Baten uncle and Boynur uncle.

In 1998, our eldest pehi Jamila shifted to Barpeta after peha’s retirement and abba bought their house and shifted the press into it. Dadi died the same year. Granduncle Arfan died in 2000. Abba died of renal failure in 2001. Overcome by old age and the sudden deaths of his wife, brother and eldest son within a span of four years, dada turned senile. With all the elders gone, the family fell into chaos. The mosque encroached on our house in the market and encouraged by it, Baten uncle encroached on the six and a half bigha land my father had bought from granduncle. There were constant readjustments of land boundaries in the old family plot. Trees that defied boundaries, trees that my father had lovingly planted were cut down. Noor Alam uncle sold his portion of the plot and bought a smaller one in the same village half a mile away. To make things worse, Boynur uncle’s young wife didn't gel with Baten uncle’s family. Small matters took larger proportions and there were constant quarrels. Dada died in 2006 and a few months after his death, our grandparents’ house, built by abba and his brothers was pulled down. The roof, walls and doors were divided amongst the three of my uncles who still lived on the plot.

In 2007, a terrible thing happened. A dispute over a pressure cooker between Boynur uncle and Baten uncle’s wives turned into a knife fight. Ghiyas uncle rushed to Boynur uncle’s side and Humayun uncle who had come from Guwahati on a visit joined the opposite party. Things heated up very fast and before the neighbours could intervene, Saifulda fell with a deep wound on his back. He died on the spot. Boynur uncle received multiple slashes on his arms and stomach and Ghiyas uncle was slashed on the cheekbone. It was Friday the thirteenth, April. In the case that was filed, Noor Alam uncle who was at school and Kalam uncle who was in Guwahati were also implicated. They were advised by their lawyers to stay away from the village for three months. Boynur uncle and Ghiyas uncle were jailed. Their terrified wives were given sanctuary in our and Kalam uncle’s houses. Baten uncle took to drink.

The same year, our youngest pehi got married. The family drifted farther away. Long before that the trips to the old village had stopped.

In 2009, things started improving. We won the case against the mosque. One day Salma and her friend Asma, granduncle Arfan’s youngest daughter were cycling in the old village (the road was now metalled and many of the familiar bamboo groves on the sides had been uprooted) when they decided to pay an impromptu visit to our old home. Baten uncle and his wife gave them tea and talked to them and they had an enjoyable evening. In 2010, Baten uncle started feeling the first symptoms of the disease that would consume him. Mediators outside the family circle said that it was high time the brothers made up with each other. So Kalam uncle put shame and anger behind and talked to his prodigal younger brother. The meeting was sober and emotional. In December 2010, Kalam uncle decided to throw a feast to celebrate his youngest daughter Lucy’s akika (birthday). Elaborate plans were made and all branches of the family were invited. Before buying the bull for slaughter, he went to Baten uncle’s house and pleaded with him to see through the whole event. Now that I look back, I can never thank my uncle enough for doing that.

On 29 December 2010, I was at the bank in the morning, so I missed the Quran reading and the prayers. But I came in time for the actual feast and when I did, I almost sat down and cried. The old feeling of sitting on my father’s knee watching my uncles move from table to table serving food, bringing the kheer from the open kitchen, laying out the rice on banana leaves for drying returned. This was the first time the clan was meeting after dadi’s funeral feast in 1998. Baten uncle was at the helm of affairs once again. From packing meat in polythene bags for the poor to dropping fried fish into curry to scolding the cleaning boys, he was doing it all. All around were old and new faces- aunts and grandaunts had turned heavy and matriarchal. In their places were their younger versions in careful lipstick and make-up and deep blouses. Instead of me, my siblings and my cousins, there were nephews and nieces running and screaming around. The smells were the same. The guests laughed and told the same old jokes. Even ma was being bossed around by Baten uncle’s wife as in those good old days.

That was the last day I saw my uncle Abdul Baten. I returned to Delhi on the first of January. When I was informed about his illness, I was worried. And this morning, when Gulam phoned to say that he had taken the long road, I could only groan and say,
“Oh no! Oh no!”