MERE SHEHAR MUMBAI MEIN KABHI SHAAYAD HI AISI EID PHIR MANAAYI JAAYEGI ( MEEI AAKHRI EID DILIP KUMAR AUR SAIRA BANU KE SAATH )

I fail to understand why some people, even some of my friends and so called friends have problems when I write about my mother. Two nights ago, I saw a very strange, amusing and disturbing dream, like I have been dreaming so many dreams in my life - Ali Peter John

I saw a very close friend walking up to me and picking an argument with me. He was asking me why I kept writing about my mother and neglecting my father. He said I was whatever I was because of Haroon Ali ,my father. He said my mother was what she was all because of my father and that's why she was called Mary Ali.

He said my brothers were also in the places they were in because of my father and that's why they had Ali as an important part of their names. The man had the gumption to say that I was avoiding giving importance to my father because I was scared of the situation in the country which is not a very comfortable state for Muslims to be in.

He accused me of keeping my father in the background in my effort to make my mother a heroine , a crusader and even a saint. It was no doubt a dream but it was a dream that thoroughly disturbed me and I even prayed for the stupid dream to end,but it ended only when I finally woke up when I saw the sun shining brightly outside my window....

I have my explanations and clarifications for every chrage levelled against me in that dream, but I will leave all that for another time and continue with praising my mother because in all my seventy years, I have not seen a mother like her.

Mary Ali as I have said to so often was the first secular woman I came to know as a boy, a woman who practiced secularism without knowing what the term secularism meant. Let me not go into all the stories about my mother, but I must talk about how she, a genuine Roman Catholic woman went out of her way to celebrate festivals like Diwali and Dussehra with her Hindu friends and neighbours, how she made people of all religions a part of her Christmas celebrations which used to be the talk of the village among people of all religion and the happiness of her celebrations was that .She never once knew or realize that she was doing something extraordinary.....

And if there is one thing about her that makes me proud to be known as her son ,it is the way she celebrated Eid. She knew that her husband came from a renowned family of Muslims.

She also knew the bitter truth about how her husband's family had treated her and her children like outcastes and showed it so obviously when one of my father's sisters used to call my mother to the Bandra Station and not even get out of her car and give her some seventy rupees with which she was supposed to look after her family which was herself and we her growing up sons.

I don't remember much about my father who died when I was seven years old ,but I remember how my mother made it a point to celebrate Eid with him in her own small way. She had the best food including sevaiyya,the taste of which still lives on the tip of my tongue.

For that one day, she was not the Roman Catholic she was, but was the devoted wife who used to transform herself into the wife of Haroon Ali and after she had finished her Eid celebrations in our hut, she made sure that the dishes she had prepared and the sevaiyaa was distributed to all the families irrespective of caste and creed .

She never gave a thought to small issues like these and the only thing that mattered to her was that they were her friends and neighbours and above all human beings. If this was what my mother was and if she had not made such a strong impact on a sensitive boy like me and if I try to hide her being a complete woman and great human being and I don't recognize her contribution in my life and try to record it in the only way I know (writing),I would be committing a grave wrong against her.

The last time my mother celebrated her kind of Eid was in May 1965 and then she died and not only were be forced to cancel all celebrations because we couldn't even manage our meals.

And the neighbours who looked forward to her celebrations had nothing to look forward to and the most shocking thing to happen after she died was the in-fighting between one community and another and especially the mini- riots between Hindus and Muslims which was the beginning of a curse that has only grown into a conflagration which can destroy the fabric of this country if it is allowed to grow.....

I had never celebrated or even tried to celebrate Eid after my mother left for I still don't know what or which place....It was like a young man waking up from a trance when I was told that I would have to represent "Screen" at the Ramzan Eid celebrations at 34-Pali Hill, the house where the Shahenshah ,Dilip Kumar and his Begum Saira Banu lived. I had to pass through the bungalows of my two aunts about whom I had bitter experiences to reach 34-Pali Hill,but I had learnt to forgive those aunts but not to forget them....

I was one of the man in the crowd outside 34-Pali Hill till one of the man from the bungalow came out and asked me if I was "Ali".I was led to the entrance of the bungalow and was lost completely when I saw the Shahenshah waiting ,but I went mad when he said he was waiting for me.

He led me in, introduced me to his Begum and it was the beginning of one of the most glorious Eid celebrations for me . I walked around the bungalow and saw big stars like Pran,Dharmendra and writers like Salim Khan, Humayun Mirza, Hassan Kamaal and a renowned filmmaker like Mohan Kumar having the time of their lives because they were after all invited to the Eid celebrations by the Shahenshah himself.

The Shahenshah together with his Begum kept welcoming guests and making sure that they were comfortable and with a bowl of the most delicious sevaiyya in their hands. They were supported by the beautiful mother of Saira Banu, Naseem Banu, the star of the forties and fifties and Sairas brother Sultan and his sweet wife Raahat.

I had the first experience of seeing why the Shahenshah was a Shahenshah. He took personal care of evey guests,the drivers and assistants and even the policemen on duty .He even went up to the second floor of the bungalow where Sairas grand mother, Shamshad Begum was lying sick, to make sure that everything was well for her. She was a known classical singer of the forties and the Shahenshah was her favourite and they used have singing sessions of their own.

The kitchen was working over time with several cooks and their assistants working to prepare the food and snacks, which filled the atmosphere with the kind aroma that could tempt even a holy man on a fast to break his fast.

There were times when the rice for the biryani would get over and Naseem Banu ordered fresh rice of the best quality by the kilos.There was a common philosophy about food in the family,they all loved good food and loved sharing the same food with all their guests....

The lunch session started only after 2.pm and for the next two hours, people every where in the huge drawing room were creating poetry describing the taste of the biryani served.

The Shahenshah was still on his feet after more than four hours and kept welcoming guests. And I as a first-timer to the Eid celebrations at 34-Pali Hill was all eyes when I saw ministers, Consul generals, ambassadors, envoys, literary figures, doctors,lawyers and poets walking in to greet the Shahenshah and than proceeding to savour the sevaiyya and the biryani there was a stir at around 3.pm when a" gang" of some of the leading one-time smugglers like Haji Mastaan ,Kareem Lala and others walked in as if they were walking into a holy place where the very great "baba" was the presiding deity.

For more than an hour, Haji Mastaan led his group in singing the praises of the Shahenshah and Haji Mastaan had the last word, when he said "Yusuf Saahab nahi hote, toh ye zindagi bhi koi zindagi hoti ".

None of the one time smugglers had come with their henchmen or their secret body guards with guns they came like a group of school boys and left like the same boys who had a great time with the Shahenshah and looked forward to their next pilgrimage to their "baba"....

There have been very few grand Eid celebrations at 34-Pali Hill and they have almost stopped ever since the Shahenshah has fallen seriously sick.0

Shamshad Begum, Naseem Banu, Sultan and his wife Raahat are all dead. The only ones who are till there are the sick Shahenshah and his Begum ,who has been taking care of him for more than fifteen years like no other nurse or a team of nurses could have looked after him.....

And 34-Pali Hill now stands like an historical monument where the Shahenshah and his Begum are still very much there and surrounded by millions of memories about a glorious past which will never happen again. Alas !!!