Remembrances
Apajia will not sing again
She called me Tukun Japani and cared for me from the day of my birth to age three like a mother. She fancy-dressed me in different robes and photographed me in different postures. She made a special album for me with my baby pictures, the remains of which still lie in my drawer here in London. She was the fourth among my six sisters and called Baby by all. I called her Apajia and hold that name close to my heart. She was a mother figure to me, though I did not get to see her much because she married when I was only three years of age. People were apprehensive of what they saw as her imperiousness, little knowing that when she was angry it was for a potent, plausible cause. She loved people passionately and despised two-faced deception. She was a chaste woman who lived her life, making it resonate with the ideals of our father. She also had a deep aesthetic sense and was a connoisseur of khandani cuisine. A very good interior decorator, she loved dolls and had the most wonderful collection of them from all over the world. She was well versed in the politics of South Asia and kept tabs on it all her life. She was eloquent in speech and spoke fluent Urdu, Bengali and English and wrote very deeply touching and eloquent letters. She once met Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who received her and heard her with great respect and admiration, for he had come to know she was Syed Badrudduja's daughter. She was a singer who sang well, the lyrics coming trippingly on her tongue. Jaane wo kaise log the jinko pyar se pyar mila was her favourite song. Some people compared her to Lata Mangeshkar. Such was the lilting quality of her melodious notes. My sister will not sing any more. She will not call me any more. But her lilting voice and love still resonate in my thoughts and as the sun sets in distant London, I know I cannot any more call Dhaka and ask for cabin 22 to hear her voice from the hospital she spent her last three and a half years in. I can only try to locate her in the evening sky and imagine her singing in the company of the angels in the heavens above. Surely like so many in my clan she was born to blush unseen, but her sweetness still touches those whom she loved when she lived. It lingers, as summer makes ready to give way to the falling leaves of autumn.
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