Daily Times

This poem was written for my father shortly before he left us forever. While dedicated to my father who I respected and loved immensely his generation becomes a metaphor for the older generation that lived and worked in the British Raj. My father was the generation that had transitioned from being subjects of the Raj to those who literally created Pakistan following the Quaid “like Moses to the promised land of Pakistan.” The poem attempts to capture the predicament, dilemmas and challenges of that time.

I saw in those forgotten files

a photograph

a fading daguerreotype

of you, my father

now so gentle

white and near

you, my father

half-seen in the yellowing solar topee

knee-long shorts and the Imperial stance

the faithful servant of the Raj

that strode a world

so secure and warm

under the never-sinking pink sun;

misted autumnal khaki world:

cricket flannels, Simla summers

polo and pith helmets

sherbet and shikar

Indian heat and gymkhana retreat;

Olympian security

felt

not always shared

and the distant tread of gandhian

feet naked in the night.

Yours a simple wardrobe:

the other native mask

inturned, cloth-spun, clay-made

that looked over your shoulder

to a favourite Mughal

to some Ghalib,

Aligarh

and even Iqbal.

Inside: lapped about

in the sure susurrant waves

in the ocean of shared Muslim cultures,

ruffled by the deeds of dead Muslim heroes.

Outside: basked in the warmth

of an Empire at high noon.

You stood to attention when your father

entered

(or an Englishman)

you walked your morning constitutionals

(or played tennis if the sahib so wished)

you fought to pull up babu standards

(and to strive up to the bara sahib’s).

But that misted subliminal stance

on the two stocky legs

of security and confidence

I lack.

In my repertoire:

the Mao book, the American scheme

the English tweed, the Indian dream

the Mughal drug, the Muslim scream

and I rest bewildered

weary-legged and stooped in youth

the forest is thick

the night black

and the sky-lights too many

and the sky-lights too bright.

I put back the gray daguerreotype

with

a little atavistic nostalgia

a little admiration

and some envy.

The writer is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC