Oct 19, 2021

Kayare The Practising Secularist

 Kayare goes to the durgah with me. There he sits down in the mosque area and chants the Kalima and soon slips into the zikr-e-khafi of the Kalima by breath alone. By quietly observing me, he has developed the alertness of entering the durgah by his right foot and exiting by the left. Having done this for many years, he tells me that it is a tremendous exercise in the alertness of the mind. Since his school days, he tells me, he has always washed three times the bowl out of which he has eaten kheer, firni or ice cream and drunk the washings. If the prophet used to do it, he too must follow him at least in such small things. He also removes stones or banana skins from the road if he sees them. I am a small man, therefore I can always follow great people at least in small things. He calls himself a Musalman Brahmin! He served in Bhopal for some years. His sons used to go to school there. One day, the teacher asked the youngest son his name and he said, “Anil Dixit.” “Are you a Brahmin? If yes, which Brahmin?” the teacher asked. “Musalman Brahmin,” Anil said. The teacher called his elder brother and asked him the same questions. She got the same replies!

Why do they call themselves Musalman Brahmin? Kayare has lived with Muslim friends since childhood. When he had to serve in Bhopal, he and his children naturally and readily absorbed the Hindu-Muslim trans-cultural rituals and various other features of the Muslim lifestyle. For example, he got his sons circumscribed. All of them eat meat except his wife. Kayare would come to meet my mother on Eid sporting a Jinnah cap and faking a faqeer who would sing to wake people up for sehri. While they were in Bhopal, he would invite nine neighbourhood young unmarried girls for his wife to observe a Brahmin ritual called nau kanya bhoj (feed nine young unmarried girls). It was almost impossible to get nine Hindu girls from the locality. Kayare would pick any nine irrespective of their religion. Some of them would obviously be Muslims. During one such feast (bhoj), the first in Bhopal, when a girl called out another by a Muslim name, Mrs Kayare’s hard stare at Kayare was replied with, “Go ahead, we’re Musalman Brahmins and kanyas are kanyas with the same stomach.” Since then, his children have called themselves Musalman Brahmin.

According to Kayare, religion is only a lifestyle. Therefore it should not come in the way of public life. Public life should always have national interest at the top and religions should not come in the way because the love of the land and faithful allegiance to the government working in national interest are the demands of any religion. It applies to all citizens including politicians. He gives an example: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama got into fierce public debates to be elected as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate before the last election. But once Obama won, their opposition merged in the interests of the party and the state. Both of them shook hands to serve the nation. Now Obama and Romney debate against but laugh with each other.

But in India and Pakistan, presumably, it is often man before the party and the party before the nation. It is also seen that community and social life nearly always comes in the way of public life.

Kayare is right. I remember when I was in fourth standard Urdu I used to go to Baijnathpara Urdu School after morning prayers for the children’s programme in the 12-day celebration of Milad-un-Nabi (the Prophet’s [PBUH] birthday). I remember there would be programmes for ladies between the two afternoon prayers (zuhr) and (asr) on all 12 days. The main programmes would be held after the night prayers (isha). There would be Quran recitation (qirat), sermons (Wa’z) and poetry presentation of Na’ts (poetic compositions in praise of the Prophet [PBUH]). I distinctly remember there was one Professor Kapoor from the Raj Kumar College. He would come every night to recite one from the 12 he had written over the year. Immaculately dressed in the humility and grace of a sherwani, churidar and a topee, he was a model to copy for other Muslims with handkerchiefs on their heads.


Kayare endorses me and recalls how Diwali would in those days be celebrated with earthen lamps (diyas), and modest firework and firecrackers (atishbazi). Nowadays, both of us agree, all religions have come onto the streets in an unwanted competitive display of fake enthusiasm.

Kayare wishes public places and government offices to be without any shadow of religion. He wishes Imran Khan to become the prime minister of Pakistan. I endorse Kejriwal but I would prefer Sachin Tendulkar, in my opinion, the next PM from Rajya Sabha, to face Imran Khan!

Both of us pray for world brotherhood and peace.

Jun 14, 2020

THANK YOU GOD FOR ANOTHER DAY

Thank you God for another day!
Thank you O God for taking good care of us day in and day out everyday providing us with the essentials of life. Thank you O God for blessing us with the all time spiritual presence of our mentor philosopher guide who has with kindness, love and compassion very generously filled our hearts with more kindness more compassion and more love so that we feel extremely elated to find an opportunity to help or feed a person or an animal or a bird. Thank you O God for getting our attitude changed towards our environment and natural resources as our mentor philosopher guide has blessed us all with good sense to finally leave this world a better place to live for our children.
Thank you God for another day!

Jun 13, 2020

THANK YOU GOD FOR ANOTHER DAY

Thank you God for another day!
Thank you God for giving us the gift of eyes and eyesight. Help us now to see the beauty and the good things in otters rather than look for faults and defects. Bless us with the attitude so that instead of judging and hating we’re able to pray for them. 
Thank you God for blessing us with the faculties of speech. Let our words be polite and kind but firm in belief and spoken in respectfully low polite tone.
We thank you God for giving us the gift of good ears enriched with the patience to hear others. Give us O God the habit of saying ‘Thank you’ when we hear good words and ‘God bless’ when we hear bad words in angry tones.
Thank you God for another day!

Jun 12, 2020

THANK YOU GOD FOR ANOTHER DAY

Thank you God for another day!
Give us the capability to ‘see’ all the blessings you’ve been so kind to shower on us - some of which we know we didn’t deserve. Fill us with kindness and give us kind hearts so that in our actions we’re kind compassionate and forgiving and loving than looking at the faults and judging while we’re dealing with people with animals and birds and with the natural resources around us. Keep us awake all the time O God to notice the spiritual presence within us of our mentor philosopher guide and make us do all that would please him.
Thank you God for another day!

Jun 11, 2020

THANK YOU GOD FOR ANOTHER DAY

Thank you God for another day!
Thank you O God for granting us the quality of looking around instead of having a self-centred outlook but taking stock of people around us and the condition of life they have to cope with. It is only then that we realise O God you have given us a life that is better than the lives of many. This leads to benefit us in three ways: one, we are right away filled with immense sense of gratitude; two, we stop complaining about what we have not; and three, we begin to feel compassionate and sympathetic towards them and add them in our prayers. We are grateful to our mentor philosopher guide who has quietly led us onto this path of kindness and love. Finally we owe all this to your generosity and magnanimity in choosing such a life for us. We thank you O God for all such things and thank you yet again for another day!

Jun 10, 2020

THANK YOU GOD FOR ANOTHER DAY

Thank you God for another day!
Thank you God for granting us most of what we prayed for and for that we’re ever so grateful. But some of our prayers haven’t yet been answered. Let this O God not in anyway diminish our sense of gratitude towards you. Give us the strength of patience to bear with the present and wait till they are granted. It is quite likely that some of the things we’ve asked for may not be beneficial for us. Give us the good sense to understand your designs and keep us away from getting impatient. Keep us away O God from worrying as worrying according to Rumi is insulting your wisdom.
Thank you God for another day!

Jun 9, 2020

THANK YOU GOD FOR ANOTHER DAY

Thank you God for another day!
Thank you for making us so lucky that we were chosen and blessed by our mentor philosopher guide and all the saints along the line. Help us make the most of his spiritual presence within us to improve our spirituality as our mentor philosopher guide would like us to attain. Thank you God for looking after our mental and physical progresses and thank you God for showering mundane gifts like good food good clothing and security of a formidable roof at the top and rich company of family and friends.
Thank you God for taking us through a number of very tricky, critical and dangerous situations and protecting us.
Thank you God for another day!