My first Ifthar party

I owe a big thanks to Padmashree Prof. Hakim Syed Khaleefathullah Sahib. The eminent doctor received the Padma award in April 2014 for his contributions in the field of Unani medicine. But he deserves another award, perhaps the higher Padma Bhushan, for his attempts to foster inter-faith friendship.

On July 28, 2014, at the close of the holy month of Ramadan, Prof Khaleefathullah (pictured here) did something remarkable. He organised a vegetarian Ifthar party. And he invited many non-Muslims, including Yours Truly.

The food was simple enough – poori, vegetable biryani, gulab jamoon, kheer, papad and curd. The party was held in Madrasa-i-Azam, which incidentally runs a ‘home for poor boys’, on Mount Road, Chennai.

Three days before the event Prof Khaleefathullah called P S Surana, Founder Partner of Surana & Surana, one of the more prominent law firms in the country. Prof Khaleefathullah wanted him to be the Chief Guest at the Ifthar party.

Now, P S Surana is a Jain. The Jains fuss about what they eat very much. They, for instance, do not eat onion, garlic, potato. As for non-vegetarian food, well they don’t eat anything cooked in a vessel in which meat was ever cooked.

But Prof Khaleefathullah did not give Mr Surana a chance to refuse. “The Ifthar party will be a vegetarian one,” he said. What more, Surana could bring his own cook, cooking vessels……

When I was introduced to Prof Khaleefathullah, I was struck by the brilliance and humility of the man. “Thanks for coming,” he said.

It was after a very long time that I was going into a mosque. The atmosphere of friendship, regardless of one’s faith, was overwhelming.

Thank you, Prof Khaleefathullah, Mr Surana, and not just for the good food.

“If you touch Muslims”, my grandmother used to tell me when I was a small child, “you should come home and take bath.” That was very surprising because my grandmother used to hold Muslims in high esteem. "They are good people," she would tell me. 

I loved my grandmother, now dead for 35 years. She was an extremely religious lady—a widow who had shaved her head off when my grandfather died and opted to remain hairless all the rest of her life—gave me my first spiritual instructions, taught me about God. I remember always obeying her scrupulously. Most of them had no basis in logic.

For instance, if I touched a bowl of cooked rice, I should wash my hands.

I was not to touch her – none of us in the family was allowed – until she had finished all her elaborate prayers and had her lunch. If I came into contact with her by mistake, she would go and take bath and get into fresh set of clothes.

To put it in our Brahiminical lingo, she was ‘madi’.

Funny it is therefore to think that I never followed her command that I should take bath if I came into physical contact with Muslims (and, of course, a few others too.) Not that I was grand secular at the age of 6, and hence rationally disregarded her dictum, but I somehow didn’t follow that one.

In my years at St Thomas Convent, Mylapore (since closed), my closest friend was Shahjahan. I loved him. He was slightly older than I and was very protective of me. If another classmate teased me or fought with me, he or she would have to deal with Shahjahan.It was a great friendship, so much so that over four decades I still remember his address: No.3, 4^th Main Road, Raja Annamalai Puram.

Regrettably, the last I saw him was on our last day at school, in 1969. After that we went to different schools. My social media searches have not helped me either.

But during my 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd standard years, I always sat next to him, to his right. Often we would sit with my left hand around his shoulder and his right around mine, until the teacher told us to “sit properly”. But I never came home and had a ‘cleansing’ bath.

My grandmother was a fine, noble lady. She loved everyone, including Muslims. If I fell sick, she would take me to the mosque – yes, mosque – or, ‘masoodhi’ in the local lingo, and get me treated by a Muslim cleric. I remember the gentleman with a flowing beard—he would blow on me, chant something and then run a peacock plume over my body.

Clearly, my grandmom felt no hatred for Muslims, or for that matter anyone. Quite on the other hand, she used to tell me often that Muslims were “very good people, whom we could trust” and would proceed to tell me the story of how a Nawab donated a piece of land to Raghavendra Swami, a 16^th century saint, to build a mutt, on which piece of land the now-famous Mantralayam mattha edifice stands, on the banks of the Tungabhadra. There were a few other similar stories too. So yeah, Muslims were very good people, on whom we could bank for support at times of crisis. Yet, if I touched one, I had to take bath!

Why did my grandmother say so? Because her grandmother had told her exactly the same thing? Why did my grandmother’s grandmother….? Because her grandmother had told her. Like that it goes on.

Some time in the deep past, a sense of ‘us’ and ‘they’ must have developed, cleaving the society, polarising people. Into this chasm fell a proper appreciation of each other and in the muck of ignorance that filled the chasm, grew distrust.

Every bomb blast and the consequent insensible anger towards all Muslims are signs of the cancer of ignorance and distrust. The cancer is not widespread, no, not at all, but it is there, and needs to be destroyed.

Everyone of us needs to chip in and do something.

This blog is the result of such thinking.

The objective is to promote friendship between Hindus and Muslims, enhance understanding of each other. The means is to exchange views and celebrate instances of friendship.

“Ah!” you say.

“You think the world needs you to preach friendship and blow away the dirt of hatred?” you ask me.

“Who are you, anyway? Some noble apostle of peace who has just descended from Heaven?” you say, indignantly, arching your eyebrows.

“What arrogance!” you feel.

It is not as though I have set out to correct the society waving my white flag of friendship.

There are billions of decent people out there and they express themselves in various ways. This blog hopes to be one such platform of expression. One more, rather. Conceived in ‘There are numerous strings in your lute….let me add my own among them’ spirit.

 Jai Hind