Bade Baba's Haj.

15 October, 2011

An anecdote relating to the Haj...

This was around the late 60s or very early 70s, but I remember this one pretty well.

Our family carpenter- a tall, bent old man with a flowing, soft white beard & a white skull cap, known to the world as 'Bade Mian' but to us kids as 'Bade Baba' came over to the house looking sad and elated at the same time.

When asked why, he said that he'd decided to go on the Haj to 'Arab' (as they called Saudi Arabia then)  by ship and while he was elated at that prospect; he was sad as it may take him over a year to come back, if at all, as he was old and the journey difficult.

He said he'd come to say his goodbyes to us and if he did not return, we should consider that as his 'aakhri salaam' (last greeting/goodbye)

I remember my father asking him if he required any money, etc, and my mother forcing him to have some tea & bread (double roti) before he left. I remember myself hugging him and crying and begging him not to go to these places called Mecca and Medina in 'Arab' if it entailed his never coming back.

He just smiled, patted me on my head and gave a ' Gulli' (the worse half of the Danda) which he had specially made for me and left, saying,
" Dua kariyega. Inshallah, phir milenge agar zinda rahe toh" (Pray for me, we shall meet again if I live, god willing)

He came back about a year and a half later but was never the same man again. His back had bent further and his complexion had darkened. He had grown thinner and there was this tiredness in his eyes. He was not the same jolly old man whom we had lovingly called Bade baba all our lives but more a man who was now waiting to meet his maker and rest in peace forever.

He died about a year later.

I was too young to understand then what had happened to him, but now as I look back, I feel that maybe it was the arduous journey by ship and walking in the hot desert which had exhausted him and literally sapped him of all his energy.

Or maybe, it was the fact that he'd experienced God and life held no meaning for him after that.

I will never know.

But I will always remember Bade baba and his Haj.