Ice cream, Cow and Eid….

 

I remember this particular episode because it was the first time when I first saw a ‘ice-cream cone’…It was in the mid 1980s, in a sleepy town in lower Assam, and it was a time when attending Eid lunches at a Muslim  friend’s home did not amount to ‘sedition’ in my democratic country.

Iftikar Uncle had a unique flair, and he looked like Jackie Shroff in ‘Hero’..I remember his sharp features, the baritone voice, the healthy moustache…He was my father’s friend. My seven year old mind was not mature enough to understand the hush-hush talks about Iftikar Uncle and Kakoty Aunty. Kakoty Aunty must have been a good two decades younger than her Chief Engineer husband. With bob-cut hair, and donning sleeveless blouses with intricate pipin, Aunty was what now we call ‘sexy’. I remember that Aunty baked, and she baked wonderfully. It was at her place that I first saw and tasted ‘marble cake’ , something which I learnt to bake too later in my life.

Let’s call the sleepy town in lower Assam ‘Rupalipur’, for Iftikar Uncle may still be there, smoking his Navicut. Aunty must have grown old in her husband’s mansion in the riverside of the state’s capital, and she might still bake. (In other words, I am trying to maintain the confidentiality of my characters). So it was Eid time, and we were invited for lunch at Iftikar Uncle’s place. I remember the elaborate layout on the dining table. Uncle’s wife and mother had prepared the most lavish spread which I had ever seen in my life. The taste of the pulao still lingers on my mouth, and I remember the silky chicken which just melted in the mouth.

It was getting late, and my father and his friends, and my mother and her friends (Deuta’s friends’ wives), were chatting and having a great time. I and my younger brother were being ignored big time. No one had time for us. I do not remember any other kids in the household. It was then when Kakoty Aunty, resplendent in her yellow saree and black sleeveless blouse, came floating towards us and asked if we wanted to have ice-cream. I timidly replied in affirmative. She called out to Iftikar Uncle and they both volunteered to take me and my brother out for an ice cream treat. The memory of that evening drive in Iftikar Uncle’s Jeep, with Kakoty Aunty in the passenger seat at the front and me and my brother at the back, remains fresh as morning dew in my mind. We had got down at a shop, which sold stationary items along with ice cream. There, that day, on Eid, flanked by Iftikar Uncle and Kakoty Aunty, I saw the first ice-cream cone of my life, and the chocolate flavoured ice-cream that day set the ball rolling for a lifetime of my romance with anything chocolaty. Aunty turned her kohl-lined eyes to me and said that I can eat the cone too!

I do not remember much of the aftermath. Time must have passed (months? A couple of years?) and one fine evening the truck carrying all the possessions of the Kakoty household leaving the picturesque colony where we lived (Kakoty Uncle and Aunty were our neighbours. They had a daughter who was of my age). Aunty had come to say goodbye to my mother; I remember her tears when she hugged my mother good-bye.

There was this huge jackfruit tress in the campus near the playground. As the Ambassador carrying Aunty and her family drove away, I remember a Jeep coming out of the shadows of the jackfruit tree.

I was too young to understand the incidents and the intricacies of the Rupalipur years. But they do seem to have been full of rich memories and deep impact. Today, being Eid, there’s not even a single invite from any of my Muslim friends for lunch. I wish someone had invited me for Eid; I know many of these ‘Indians’, my Muslim friends – proud of their land and its tradition of diversity – and I know there is disquiet at best and anger at worst at their Indian-ness being questioned. Maybe they did not foresee a time when a teenager named Junaid would be lynched and left to die on a railway station with no help forthcoming from onlookers because he was Muslim. May be they did not foresee that offering namaz would amount to being antinational. Maybe they never dreamt that the entire community will be blamed for bringing ‘corona’ during the pandemic outbreak to India. I woke up with jeers of the ‘cow-protection group’ and flag bearers of ‘secularism’ shouting out of the idiot box today. But beyond the theatrics, the reality is that intolerance has now become a serious issue with important ramifications. The  increasingly violent reaction to Indians who consume beef, the  spate of murders of Indian writers, the feeling that India belongs to Hindus and people following any other faith (read ‘Islam’) are leftovers of invaders who looted our great motherland, etc are common today. Harbouring any feeling of inclusion and tolerance amounts to sedition. To be very frank, I fear recalling Iftikar Uncle’s lunch parties. It’s just that today being Eid, I remembered that day in the sleepy town of Rupalipur, when religious diversity was a part of life.

There is a new reality now for being a Muslim in our democratic country. I know that my opinion does not matter, because I am neither empowered nor do I have the means to change the state of affairs.  One may not accept the reality, but in a rational democracy committed to a justice system and the rule of law, that such a feeling exists should be reason enough to spark soul-searching among Hindus and galvanize a government that claims to speak for all Indians to take corrective action. And I cannot help but wonder, would Iftikar Uncle have stationed his Jeep in the shadows of the jackfruit tree in 2021 to have the last glimpse of Kakoty Aunty ? (Yes, I know that I must have added some flavour to my childhood memories..But then, how does it matter???)..

Why did I WRITE THIS TODAY? May be I yearn for a chocolate ice cream in a cone. Or may be I am driven by the sentiment that I had something to say that needed to be said and which I had not said before, and knowing that no one but only one person who somehow understand me and respects y emotions would read my rubbish.