COMMENT : — Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed

Secularism, Indian-style, has its scope for a great deal of unconventional relationships in modern contexts, but in the villages inter-caste and inter-religious marriages are still a taboo 

My friend Sujeet Bhatt’s commitment to communal harmony and India-Pakistan peace is exemplary and easily exudes in his gentle and kind personality. I arrived in Mumbai from Nagpur on February 9 and met his like-minded friends at his residence in the evening. I delivered lectures at the Department of Political Science, Mumbai University, on the invitation of Professor Kannamma Raman, and at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) through courtesy of Professor Anjali Monteiro and her life partner Professor Jayasankar. One evening I spent with Gita Chadha (hailing from a Lahori-Rawalpindi family) and Sridhar Krishnamoorthy (South Indian) and their friends. Secularism, Indian-style, has its scope for a great deal of unconventional relationships in modern contexts, but in the villages inter-caste and inter-religious marriages are still a taboo. Quite simply there are two Indias, and I hope the modern, progressive one wins. This will be in the form of new syntheses and syncretism, as one replacing the other completely never happens anywhere.

During my stay at TISS, I learnt that RK Studios was only a few hundred metres away from the guesthouse where I was staying. With the help of my friends, I managed to enter RK Studios and walk around. A TV serial on cuisine was being shot on the main floor: you can imagine the anticlimax it induced in me, but I was glad I had witnessed the place where once the genius of Raj Kapoor created dreams that continue to haunt millions of us. His Awara remains my most favourite Indian film.

While at Panchgani, Mala and Suresh Vazirani of the Initiatives of Change network had listened sympathetically to my wish to meet some West Punjabis in Bollywood. Malaji took me to meet legendary West Punjabi-origin director and filmmaker Subhash Ghai (born January 24, 1945) at his famous Whistling Woods International Institute, a film, television and media arts institute where students can train for a career in acting and other branches of filmmaking. Subhashji hails from Jhelum. He married a Muslim, Rehana Farooqui, and has two daughters. We had a brief conversation in theth West Punjabi (my theory is that from Jhelum to Amritsar the Punjabi dialect spoken is more or less the same) and then an exchange of views on what can be done by Indian filmmakers to promote peace between India and Pakistan. He emphasised his responsibility to promote communal harmony and amity through films, and indeed his personal life is proof that he staunchly believes in it.

Later, his daughter Meghna Ghai-Puri very kindly took us around to look at the various departments of their institute. She told us that it was the only one of its kind in Asia where people could get a professional education for careers in the film industry. The institute received foreign students as well.

February 14 was my last day in Mumbai. Director, filmmaker, lyricist and poet Gulzar (Sampooran Singh, born August 18, 1936) had returned just then from Pakistan where he had gone to see his home in Dina, Jhelum, and to attend the Karachi Literature Festival. However, the visit to Dina proved too overwhelming emotionally and he had returned to Mumbai, cutting short his visit to Pakistan. We succeeded in contacting Gulzar Sahib’s secretary, Mr Kutty, but could not meet him unfortunately, as he was probably still in a state of emotional trauma. I had wanted him to autograph my The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed, for whose Indian edition published by Rupa of New Delhi in 2011, he had written a most memorable blurb: “The wind was playing with the disturbed waters of the pool. But it seemed only surficial. Somebody threw the stone of 1947 in the middle of it. A thousand ripples erupted from the bottom of the pond. Every ripple had a story behind it, like the epic Mahabharata. Ishtiaq Ahmed has written the story of this Mahapartition of 1947. It is intricate and fascinating.”

Ahmed Faqih in Stockholm believes Gulzar Sahib is a great contemporary poet who has evolved a unique imagery and diction in his Urdu poetry. The blurb he composed for my book is testimony of that quality permeating even his English prose.

We tried to meet the late Dev Anand’s wife Kalpana Kartik (real name Mona Singha). I had always thought she belonged to the family of Diwan S P Singha, the last speaker of the Punjab Assembly, but did not know the exact relationship. The Singhas were a prominent Christian family of the united Punjab with branches in Lahore, Amritsar and Gurdaspur. However, while at Panchgani, Maharashtra, Mahesh Kapoor Sahib, originally from Lahore, told me that Kalpana Kartik was actually the daughter of Diwan Singha. The Vaziranis live very close to Dev Anand’s residence. Kalpana (her servants called her Mona) was at home; in fact only the black gate separated us from her. I sent her a card saying that I was from Lahore and writing a book on the old Punjab and would like to talk to her about Singha. She sent a note saying that I should leave a contact number and she would call. She never did.

This was the second time I had been disappointed. In 2001 I happened to be staying in the Wankhede Cricket Club and the late Suraiya (June 15, 1929-January 31, 2004) lived only some 50 metres from there. With her too I pleaded for an audience for a few minutes to talk about her Lahore roots. A flat refusal came along immediately.

I was aware that both Suraiya and Kalpana Kartik were recluses and that the Lahore connection need not work the wonder it usually does for me whenever in India. Exceptions do prove the rule that in human affairs no universal law of behaviour is possible: for good and bad.

The writer is a PhD (Stockholm University); Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Stockholm University; and Honorary Senior Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. Latest publications: Pakistan: The Garrison State, Origins, Evolution, Consequences (1947-2011), Karachi: Oxford Unversity Press, 2013; The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed: Unravelling the 1947 Tragedy through Secret British Reports and First-Person Accounts (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2012; New Delhi: Rupa Books, 2011). He can be reached at billumian@gmail.com