Meanwhile, we were dying of suspense: ‘Tai Amma, batao, kya kiya sitare ne? Phir kya hua?’ (Tai Amma, tell us, what did the star do? What happened next?) You won’t believe it but she spent two hours just describing the interaction between her and the star. From midnight to 3 a.m., we were just there listening to her. This was storytelling at its best, and it came naturally to her in her day-to-day conversation.
She was so poetic, so elegant. She also sang. Her brother was a renowned lyricist and an amazing singer. Today’s best singers would fail in front of their singing. The brother was about seven feet tall, and dressed impeccably in a sharp sherwani and a half-coat—he had an overwhelming presence. He died recently, about eight years ago. He is not known today, like most local folk singers. But several big poets and lyricists copied him, stole his ghazals and established themselves in Bollywood.
Quran Khaani was a common part of my childhood. About forty ladies from the neighbourhood would gather together for little functions, celebrating a child’s birth or the renovation of a house, and scriptures from the Holy Quran would be read. Tai Amma was excellent at reading Quran Khaani, but like dessert comes last, the best part was that afterwards she would sing ghazals that she had written herself. All the women would huddle together; even those who were not there at the function would gather on terraces nearby, as if a big celebrity was there, to listen to her melodious voice. They were stunned, transported as if hit by magic; that’s how her voice was.
Years later, Tai Amma crossed over to the other side, leaving much emptiness behind where she had once been. Her house lay empty too, and consequently up for sale, with several aggressive buyers lined up, with one particularly so. Fortunately, I managed to buy it in time. Every time I visit, it reminds me of her extraordinariness. If I could capture even 5 per cent of Tai Amma’s calibre, of her poetics, I could do wonders in my acting.
* * *
Tai Amma had impeccable grace. But the person I was the most enamoured by was a woman who was crassness personified. She had many children but was called the Mother of Sammi, her eldest daughter. We called her Sammi ki Ammi. She was a Qureshi which meant that she was a Kasaani, the caste of butchers. Caste might dictate social behaviour but by those days many people had opted for professions different from what their caste dictated. Her husband, for instance, was not a kasai but in the business of constructing houses which we called chinnai. He was a thorough gentleman, pleasant and mild-mannered. His wife though was a massive fighter cock. Whenever she fought with him, she would climb up to her terrace and put on a very dramatic show, which would continue at the very least for half an hour. If she was offended by a neighbour, she would go to their house and up to their terrace and loudly pick up a fight for the whole world to see and the whole world did see. She would scream lewdly with exaggerated gestures and shout animatedly something to the tune of ‘Oh, your husband walks like this!’ and do a caricature of a limp. Or she might say, ‘One day your husband stopped me, asking where I was going. What the hell! I gave him a piece of my mind.’
Everybody judged her for her vulgarity and meanness. And yet the very moment they heard the first few words or saw her on the terrace, they would all gather for entertainment which easily lasted some thirty to forty-five minutes. I never judged her. I was way too much in awe of her, way too mesmerized to judge. To me, she was a performer par excellence. What presentation! What dialogue delivery! What body language! Sometimes she even threw in an impromptu dance. Every single time her performance absolutely blew my mind. Looking at the hypnotized faces around me, I realized for the very first time what performance was, what entertainment was. And the power of performance to put people into a trance. And also, how different this was from Tai Amma’s poetics.
Mass entertainment is not just song and dance. One’s performance itself should be entertainment. Folk artists knew this and mastered the art. A half an hour’s play they could stretch to three hours, sometimes four, depending on how the audience was responding.
We called Sammi ki Ammi the local akhbaar, though tabloid would be a more fitting word for her gossipmongering. She would tattle about this one to that one, about that one to another one and continue with this chain until she had covered almost all of the women in the community. She was also an expert at psychology. She knew the Achilles heel of every single person in Budhana; she knew what made them jealous. Whenever she came to our house, I’d notice that she had done her homework and come prepared. Like she knew that Ammi was slightly jealous of my chacha’s daughter. So the moment she entered, she would start bitching about this person, thereby establishing an instant camaraderie with Ammi every single time.
‘Arrey, Nawab ki Bahu, listen, I went there, to her house, and you know what? You know what she said about you? My goodness, you won’t believe it! . . . Her sons are all loafers and her husband is totally useless . . . I told them not to talk too much. I know Nawab ki Bahu, she is not like this, like you guys.’
Naturally, Ammi’s heart warmed at once, because at least somebody got her. ‘Tea? Have some tea,’ Ammi would say, declaring rather than asking, as she
