By Omar Luther King
It was a Sunday morning and the date was October 30, 1966. A man died. He was not a world leader, only an Indian national leader from Assam. He was not a war hero, only a political prisoner jailed intermittently for a total period of a little over eight years. He was neither the President nor the Prime Minister of India, only their political associate and their family friend. His name and photograph rarely appeared in the newspapers, only that his sudden death hit the headlines of all the newspapers. The schools and colleges and the other educational institutions and offices (government and private) were closed down on the day he died and the day after his death, as a mark of respect for the departed soul of that man. He was one of the greatest men who impressed me most and influenced my tender mind like no other person on earth did. He was Maulana Mohammad Tayyebulla. My father.
Family and friends were gathered around his bed. I sat by his bedside but could say nothing. He also said nothing to me or to anyone around him. Words did not come to anyone, except to my brother-in-law (my second eldest sister’s husband), Professor Abdul Jalil. He was chanting (from memory) some Arabic verses from the Quran near my father’s ears. My father took a long and deep breath, very slowly. It was his last breath. He was gone.
That was 56 years ago, and I still miss him.
My father had no intellectual, social or political pretensions about himself, though he was the first man in post-independence and pre-constitution India to be elected by joint electorate suffrage to the Legislature. He was elected uncontested in a by-election, consequent upon the partition of India, to the Assam Legislative Assembly in November 1947. Having been appointed Minister of the Government of Assam in March 1948, he resigned from the office of President, Assam Congress. He held the post of Congress President from 1940 to 1948, perhaps the longest period that any person ever held that post. As Minister, residing in Shillong, among many other things, he stopped opium and other drug peddling, and even made (Meghalaya, then) Assam dry (alcohol free) state for a while.
In the 1952 general elections, my father was offered a seat in the Assam Legislative Assembly with a view to sending him to the Ministry again. Ministry and, in its train, power politics, was not for him. So he declined the seat. He was then ‘selected’ by Congress for a Parliament seat in the Upper House, and elected uncontested. Having been elected – and re-elected in 1958, he lived for twelve years in New Delhi, the capital city of India, at 181 South Avenue, between the official residences of the President and the Prime Minister of India, as the honourable Member of Parliament, well enjoying his ‘Peerage and Pension’.
The night of October 30, 1966 was my first night without him. I did not then know how I would live without him. Suddenly to my mind came those moments of my life when I had not listened to him and had disobeyed him. I felt guilty and sorry. But I am grateful to God that He has forgiven my ‘not listening’ and ‘disobeying’ my father on more than one occasion. What is really more heartening for me is that there were umpteen number of times that God made me bring happiness and joy to the life of my beloved father by making me obey and honour him.
Now that I am deep into fatherhood and grandfather of three girls, I have the perspective from the other side. And I realize how much it must have pleased my father when I treated him right (which I did not always do). And I also realize that the response my father must have desired most from me was not mere obedience but an expression of true love.
I will always remain thankful to God for letting me have my father for 19 years, notwithstanding the sad fact that my mother could be with me for mere 36 days. I am also glad that God gave me ample opportunities to express my love to my beloved father who died with a smile on his face and a sense of fulfillment in his heart. He did everything he possibly could as a loving father, a faithful husband, a helpful brother, an obedient son, a dependable friend and as a great fighter for India’s freedom. How I wish every son or daughter could say that about his or her father!
The heavenly reassurance did not take away the ache of not having my daddy with me. The sense of peace, of being loved and cared for, however, stayed with me. God, who is always good to everybody, gave me the needed strength to get past my grief, and to go on with life.
The author is a Delhi based contributor at The Shillong Times