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Bua Ji:
The Song Bird in the Cage

T. SHER SINGH

We called her “Bua ji”, each one of us across three generations, regardless of  our age: even those who were far older than her.

It literally means “aunt”; specifically, a father’s sister. But even my father called her “Bua ji”

She was a family friend - part of the household of a Muslim neighbour, a “Mohd. Siddiqui, Esq., Barrister.

I was not even a year old when my parents -- recent refugees from the Partition of Punjab --  moved from old Patna City (now, “Patna Sahib”) to Fraser Road in the relatively new suburb of Patna Junction, a name which recognized the significance of the nearby train station. 

Straight down the road which spilled out of the railway station barely a mile away, was my father’s fledgling store, “M.I.T. Motors”, which fronted on the street. Right behind the store, with an entrance through the business premises, was the small residence of our small family: my father, mother and I. Later, in two or three year intervals, would come my sister, Davinder (nick-named “Baby“) and after her, my sister Sunder (nick-named “Guddo“).

There was a second entrance, directly into our home … the back door. It fronted on a very short, six-foot wide gulli (lane-way) which dead-ended a few feet past the door. We had two neighbours on the laneway. One, adjacent to us, was the residence of a Hindu astrologer. We had little interaction with him or his family because they used their main-street entrance, and we saw little of their strange comings and goings.

About ten feet across from us, diagonally from our back-door, was the rear-entrance of our other neighbour. A small, rusting sign-board outside his office around the corner, announced the lawyer‘s office from a side-street. Their residence too was in the back, extending in our direction.

We were there for almost a dozen years. They were our neighbours throughout.

I have some recollection of him and his law office. 

He was a scruffy and grumpy fellow in his 60s, almost always with a stubble on his chin and in white pyjama and kurta - unless he was off to court, when he would have a cleaner chin, and was bundled up in his scraggly black vest, a ‘white’ shirt which had seen better days and a pair of black pants which had long given up on creases. In the latter role, he would also have a ropey neck-band around his neck, a black barrister’s gown slung over his shoulders, and an unruly accordion file tucked under his arm. He’d be followed by a client or two, usually in village garb, sometimes even barefoot, carrying a stack of files, each held together with a red ribbon.

I gathered through the years, as I grew older, that his clientele consisted mostly of peasants from his village, and he eked out a living servicing their multi-generational law-suits over obscure land disputes which, not unusual for India, would have begun Bleak-House like, several decades earlier.

But I saw him only sporadically, because he was seldom seen outdoors. Mostly, he would be in his ’office’ which I had seen a few times and marvelled at the walls lined neatly with hundreds of books with identical bindings. Or I would get a glimpse of him deep in the shadows of his baitthak (living room), smoking himself into a stupor with a hookah (hubble bubble).

He and I never really had any interaction other than if he suddenly came upon me in his backyard, when he’d weakly shoo me away and then disappear out of sight.

I was often in his backyard, though, visiting his second of three wives.

We called her ‘Bua ji’ -- a Bihari variation of the Punjabi bhoo-aa -- because she spent much of her time at our house and being a Muslim woman visiting a household outside her family, and that too a non-Muslim one, it was good protocol to have her declared my father’s sister. 

I never saw her in public or, to be more accurate, never noticed her. Because, I assume, she would’ve never come out for shopping, etc., unless covered head-to-toe in a Muslim burqa.

But when she visited us, or we her, she was always in a simple, light coloured, cotton sari. It was usually off-white, with a simple blue or green border. One end of it always covered her head, though it often slipped off, revealing a well-oiled and groomed head of black hair and a bun behind it.

I can’t think of a time in our home on Fraser Road without her around, at least for parts of it each and every day. From early morning till late in the evening,  Monday to Saturday -- except for meal hours and short breaks -- my father would disappear into the labyrinth of his auto-parts store in the front. Soon thereafter, we’d hear a muffled voice from behind the back-door: ”O … Sher-ki-Maa! Mai(n) aa jaaoo(n)?” she would call - “O Sher‘s mother! Should I come in?”  

A servant, receiving a nod from my mother, would run down the verandah and unlatch the door.    

She’s spend the day with my mother. At lunch time, when my father appeared, she’s excuse herself and go home for her own meal. And return in the afternoon, to stay around till the evening, just before dinner time.

As the second of three wives in her husband’s household, she had all the time in the world. The eldest was visibly old, bent over with age, and spent all her waking hours alone with a portable, hand-held hookah, sitting in a remote corner all by herself.

The third wife, being the youngest and the most energetic one -- and, presumably, Mr Siddiqui’s current favourite -- seemed to be in charge of all that went on in the house.

Which made it convenient for everybody to have Bua ji away during the day. It appeared as if the household had arrived at a harmonious arrangement, with everyone staying out of each other’s way.

There were no children, which may explain, partly, the multiple marriages; hope springs eternal, especially when you believe it‘s the woman‘s job alone to bring children into the world.

Bua ji was also the only literate one among the three. So, she whiled away her spare time reading. She always had a book under her arm when she came over to our house.

Her time with us had developed somewhat into a routine. 

She never had meals with us because she being Muslim, and we Sikh, our dishes and diets were distinctly different. Also, to complicate matters, at the time my parents moved into the neighbourhood and Bua ji first became part of our lives, Partition was still a fresh wound, being no more than three years behind them. The anti-Muslim taboos, mostly enunciated by the Hindu majority but adopted by Sikhs through osmosis, were still part of the nation’s psyche.

My parents explained later: “We abhor those taboos, but breaking them is difficult for us since we’ve been brought up in them. But you kids do not have to, actually, must not, observe them, because they are evil!”

So, I, as a frequent and free visitor to Bua ji’s house -- being a mere child -- had free rein with the delicacies she concocted for me. Also, she would bring over a plate of something or the other every day … and it was accepted by all that it was for me alone.

As I grew up into a toddler, it also became routine for her to, at first, sing me lullabies to put me to bed. And then, tell me bed-time stories.

She had a treasure-lode of them.

It wasn’t until years later that I fully realized how widely read she was. But I remember, how much for me, a child, her tales were exotic and let my imagination wander with no restrictions or boundaries.

Her stories came not only from the Arabian Nights but from Sheikh Shaadi and a whole library of Persian texts … two of which I later recognized as Hafiz and Rumi . There were hilarious stories of Sheikh Chilli and Nasruddin Hodja and the classic interchanges between Akbar and Birbal.

Strange, but she had also partaken of Indic texts. She flung open the doors to the fables from the Panchtantra and the myths and fantasies from the Mahabharat and Ramayan.

She knew no English, but as soon as I was reading Hindi, she brought in copies of the children‘s periodical, “Chanda Mama”, to which I remained addicted for years.

When I exhausted her supply of stories, she ventured into new territory. She began to weave adventures of her own, albeit with familiar characters, and each story became a joint creation between us, her imagination fed by my constant barrage of questions and puzzlements. Each night introduced me to new creatures, good and evil, ogres and giants, midgets and elves, birds and beasts, kings and queens, princes and princesses …

It came to a point when I couldn’t go to sleep without her by my side, spinning the gossamer around me. Even during the day, she was my baby-sitter when my parents had to go out, or a nurse when I was ill and needed around-the-clock attention.

She became a seamless part of our family, but when she stepped out of our back-door, she stepped into another world, almost like one of her own creations. She herself was the song bird who re-appeared so often in her webs, perennially lost in a foreign land, pining to get back home to her loved ones.   

I was seven when I began to disappear from the scene for long intervals … I was now in boarding school. Also, a few years later, my parents built a new residence and moved a couple of miles away. Slowly, I grew older and became a stranger, though she always remained Bua ji. She continued to visit, though not as often, but receded more fully into the lives of my sisters who soon appeared on the scene.

But I’ve never forgotten how she irrigated my imagination and planted the love of words and ploughed and furrowed them into a hive of creativity.

Years later, during my first visit back to India after we moved away to Canada, I sought her out. She was widowed by now. The eldest wife and the younger one, both, had died. Mr Siddiqui, in his waning years, had brought in yet a fourth one, who now lived with Bua ji in the latter’s care.

The two lived in a modest unit a mile away from Fraser Road.

She was as motherly as ever, and hadn’t changed a bit in my eyes. She pampered me, serving me things she remembered as my favourites. She was turning blind and couldn’t read any more. “Doesn’t matter,” she said, “it’s all in my head by now!”

It was the last time I saw her. She died shortly thereafter.

March 8, 2013        
 

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