My father is a tyagi a person
who fought to liberate India from British rule. After his stint in jail he
applied for a job in the economics department of a government college in
Jullunder. He taught a class full of
rowdies, eternally interested in creating a ruckus. Whatever he tried to say
went over their heads.
“Hai Madarasi,” were words he
frequently heard followed by choice and explicit words in Hindi, Punjabi and
Jodhpuri. Only God knew why they attended class at all!
One day while walking to his
room, he passed a bunch of them playing football. They laughed and joked and
one of them said ,” Hey Madarasi do you play football?”
My father had been a
forward on the college foot ball team.
Later he played for the university.
“Yes,” he said, “I play a
little.”
They started a friendly match
and he kicked in two goals. The six foot goal keeper (my father is 5 ft 5 ins)
was left plucking straws in the air. There was a stunned silence after the second
goal.
“ Professor,” said a huge
player, (my father was just a lecturer) “ I am the captain of the foot ball
team. Do you think you could find the time to coach us?”
My father agreed. “what is
your name?”
“Just call me captain.”
The next day, as my father
went to class, he found the captain standing outside. After my father entered,
he followed.
“Professor Madarasi,” he
announced, “is coaching my foot ball
team. I don’t want to hear any noise in his class.”
He attended three more
classes.
There was pin drop silence
and very polite and attentive students. No more problems!
My father became close
friends with captain. It turned out that he had crossed over from what is now
Pakistan with his family during partition. One of the things he told my father was that a number of the rapes, riots and murders at that time, were, to his
personal knowledge not due to “Hindu- Muslim “ enmity, but due to old quarrels,
revenge, honour killings and land
grabbing.
He came to visit my father
recently. He is a stooped old man but very alert mentally. He said, “you know
this beef ban? It is not really religious. It is political. It is directed at
the 33000 crore beef export industry and the leather industry. We are one of the largest exporters of both.”
Food for thought?
