Maulana Sahab

Today it is two years since I moved to Bombay and joined TIFR. Yesterday I decided that I have achieved nothing. In life or in this world. Because it is not in my powers to lift the burden off the shoulders of Maulana Sahab.

Maulana Sahab is a tiny man with a grey beard. He always dresses in a long, floor-length white robe and wears a maulvi’s cap on his head. This is not the most striking thing about him, however. The most striking thing is his smile. Sparkling, genuine, warm. And constant. No matter what, he smiles.

He is my Bua’s tailor. He stitches clothes for all the women in that house including me. We’re women ranging from the ages of 5 to 40, each with her own range of moods, tastes and specifications in clothing requirement. We’ve made him stitch halter neck blouses; we’ve made him copy FabIndia designs; we’ve made him stitch clothes for a five-year-old from little scraps of cloth left from the rest of our clothes. He still never stops smiling.

He sometimes overestimates and sometimes underestimates my size. Our conversations usually start this way - “Maulana Sahab, churidaar phir se phat gaya!”or “Ye dheela hai Maulana Sahab, main itni moti nahin hoon!” and he’ll just chuckle and say “Laao, isko kar denge.” With the smile.

He teaches in a madarsa. He and his family stitch clothes for a garment shop in Colaba. Sometimes we can’t locate him for many weeks. Sometimes there is a tragedy in his family; sometimes the rains are causing a problem in his home. But when we find him again, he is smiling.

Yesterday I went to Bua’s place after a month and inquired about him. It turns out that the garment store has cut his family off because they’ve found bigger, fancier tailors. Maulana Sahab’s family’s only source of income now is the madarsa and needless to say that it isn’t enough. He has little girls who he’s trying to educate and older boys who are hunting for jobs everywhere now. He came to my aunt and told her. He told her that he doesn’t have enough money to pay the fees for the girls’ school. If he doesn’t pay up, their names will be off the register. I wasn’t there so I don’t know if he managed to smile.

Bua asked him how much he will need. He said he needs Rs 1200 for the year for both girls put together. My stomach felt like it was dissolving when I heard that. 1200 bucks. If you ask me where I spend 1200 bucks and how fast, I will not be able to tell you. It almost magically disappears from my hands. It gets spent thoughtlessly. Its absence might go unnoticed. Its loss would barely be mourned. It gets no respect in my purse. In Maulana Sahab’s it will at least bring some smiles.

Bua had given him the money immediately. He came back later. You know why? To show her the receipt from the school so that she trusts him. If I were Bua I would have wept right there. She did not and I hope Maulana Sahab was smiling.