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Daddies on the roll: Pioneer
New Delhi, June 20: Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, father of TV-film personality and former model Nasir Abdullah, is restive during a sultry mid-day session with us in Nizamuddin East. A widely-travelled, scholarly man with ascetic leanings, here he shares a father`s life...
New Delhi, June 20: Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, father of TV-film personality and former model Nasir Abdullah, is restive during a sultry mid-day session with us in Nizamuddin East. A widely-travelled, scholarly man with ascetic leanings, here he shares a father's life...
"I was an ugly baby. Dark, slit-eyed, parrot-nosed and thick-lipped. They took one look and declared me worthless. When I was older, if I went out with my brothers, my father, Ashafi, would introduce them to his friends as 'my two good looking sons.' I was dismissed in a few mumbled sentences. The freak, a rotten egg. Both my brothers were handsome boys. Girls would write the eldest, Elias, letters.
Ours was a conservative community giving me an excuse to rebel. We are Wahabis, Punjabi shopkeepers who settled in Delhi three hundred years ago after converting to Islam during Shahjahan's reign.
Before 1947, we were settled in Sadar Bazar area of the Old City. There is a lot of in-breeding in our community. We were rarely permitted to outsiders. To get an idea of the state of our isolation there is the incident relating to a murder at Haveli Nizamuddin Haider, Chandni Chowk, that Kiran Bedi was later called to investigate. She said she never knew such a place existed. It only came to public notice because the victim was an outsider. Usually matters relating to law are settled by our elders.
Wahabis lay a lot of importance on money. Education is not important. It is sufficient if it permits you to send a telegram or let women write their chits for the dhobi. You are unlikely to find lawyers, politicians or doctors in this community. You don't teach a fish to swim. You don't teach a Wahabi to do business. It's in our blood.
My father was a poor man who worked his way to wealth. Wahabi money lies in real estate investments. When father died I inherited 250 houses in Delhi which I managed to lose over 15 years. No head for business. I loved to read and enrolled in St Stephen's against my father's wishes. I studied history honours, dressed in kurta-pyjamas, amongst my fellows with their Doon school accents. I had had madarsa coaching and stumbled with my Urdu.
Zia-ul-Haq was a former classmate of ours. He belonged to the Araain shepherd caste. His father was a mullah. Zia was poor and washed dishes to pay for his education. Years later I asked classmates if they recalled the man who became Pakistan's President. They couldn't. They thought him unmemorable. Besides, he left before completing the course to join the artillery regiment in Dowh.
My father was a promoter builder and general merchant. Because of him I developed an aversion for money, particularly because he would make me beg for Rs 12 stipend everyday after setting me in a business I detested.
Work too I detested, so I married Roshanara at 20. She was 16. Rich family. I hoped to live off her money and stop depending on father but she wasn't having that! After a pilgrimage to Mecca, I thought of working in California. But the man's business failed. Now I was in England with no fare back, so I joined the Pakistan High Commission for four pounds a week and worked at Harrods till father's death. Money came. I travelled with my family everywhere we could and lost it all. I was proficient in eight languages including Turkish, German, Russian and Italian. I even learnt Uighur, the last Muslim province in Chinese-Turkmenistan. My knowledge of Persian came useful when I was asked to translate a Persian calendar in Roman script for the United States Library of Congress. Over the years I have developed interest in para- psychology, international affairs and studied Vedas for many years. Two books changed my life, Beggar Among the Dead, which I read in German every day before Khan Khana's tomb in Nizamuddin, and Day by Day with Bhagwan by Ramana Maharishi.
By the early 1970s, I had four kids and about three hundred rupees in my pocket. Hopelessly adrift, I visited Ramana Maharishi's ashram in Tiruvanmalai. I had abandoned my family to become an ascetic, but returned soon after, short of funds. The best part of that experience is it led me to my talent. I began to write for papers, periodicals. I started to take language tuitions. Sanjay Gandhi once approached me to learn German. A very fair man. He said he stayed at Teen Murti Bhavan. I thought, 'perhaps he is one of Mrs Gandhi's Parsi servants.' "
On parenting: "I've tried to be a kind father to my children- a businessman-turned yoga teacher, an actor, teacher and air-hostess. I once told them it was because of my reacting to my father. As for love, I don't know what it is. Only those who have been loved can love. But I allowed them freedom. I've never advised them on their lives. I said, 'I don't know your talent,but the world is there. Try it for yourself.' Nasir suits me personality wise, though unlike me, he likes good things in life. Food, clothes. I usually forget to take my meals!"
Nasir Abdullah is sitting on a Juhu beach when he agrees for the interview, between takes of Kalki, a forthcoming TV sitcom based on a superboy character, Siddharth. The 46-year-old actor plays the father.
"When my father returned from England, he was like a roaring tiger overturning myths about what life ought to be. He is very open-minded. Not a fanatical Muslim. He has made mistakes and both affected and misguided his children with a 40-year old's cynical remarks about money's unimportance. It turned us into armchair philosophers at the age of 12 and 13. We went around saying, 'Money is nothing,' though we never had it.
He never offered us a vision of life. I'm still suffering as a result but happily now. It took me a while to come round to this thinking. I used to have a warped way of looking at life, confused and insecure. But everything evened out. I visited Tiruvanmalai. I've tried various jobs like him. I even have a history degree. But our journeys are very different."
"I was an ugly baby. Dark, slit-eyed, parrot-nosed and thick-lipped. They took one look and declared me worthless. When I was older, if I went out with my brothers, my father, Ashafi, would introduce them to his friends as 'my two good looking sons.' I was dismissed in a few mumbled sentences. The freak, a rotten egg. Both my brothers were handsome boys. Girls would write the eldest, Elias, letters.
Ours was a conservative community giving me an excuse to rebel. We are Wahabis, Punjabi shopkeepers who settled in Delhi three hundred years ago after converting to Islam during Shahjahan's reign.
Before 1947, we were settled in Sadar Bazar area of the Old City. There is a lot of in-breeding in our community. We were rarely permitted to outsiders. To get an idea of the state of our isolation there is the incident relating to a murder at Haveli Nizamuddin Haider, Chandni Chowk, that Kiran Bedi was later called to investigate. She said she never knew such a place existed. It only came to public notice because the victim was an outsider. Usually matters relating to law are settled by our elders.
Wahabis lay a lot of importance on money. Education is not important. It is sufficient if it permits you to send a telegram or let women write their chits for the dhobi. You are unlikely to find lawyers, politicians or doctors in this community. You don't teach a fish to swim. You don't teach a Wahabi to do business. It's in our blood.
My father was a poor man who worked his way to wealth. Wahabi money lies in real estate investments. When father died I inherited 250 houses in Delhi which I managed to lose over 15 years. No head for business. I loved to read and enrolled in St Stephen's against my father's wishes. I studied history honours, dressed in kurta-pyjamas, amongst my fellows with their Doon school accents. I had had madarsa coaching and stumbled with my Urdu.
Zia-ul-Haq was a former classmate of ours. He belonged to the Araain shepherd caste. His father was a mullah. Zia was poor and washed dishes to pay for his education. Years later I asked classmates if they recalled the man who became Pakistan's President. They couldn't. They thought him unmemorable. Besides, he left before completing the course to join the artillery regiment in Dowh.
My father was a promoter builder and general merchant. Because of him I developed an aversion for money, particularly because he would make me beg for Rs 12 stipend everyday after setting me in a business I detested.
Work too I detested, so I married Roshanara at 20. She was 16. Rich family. I hoped to live off her money and stop depending on father but she wasn't having that! After a pilgrimage to Mecca, I thought of working in California. But the man's business failed. Now I was in England with no fare back, so I joined the Pakistan High Commission for four pounds a week and worked at Harrods till father's death. Money came. I travelled with my family everywhere we could and lost it all. I was proficient in eight languages including Turkish, German, Russian and Italian. I even learnt Uighur, the last Muslim province in Chinese-Turkmenistan. My knowledge of Persian came useful when I was asked to translate a Persian calendar in Roman script for the United States Library of Congress. Over the years I have developed interest in para- psychology, international affairs and studied Vedas for many years. Two books changed my life, Beggar Among the Dead, which I read in German every day before Khan Khana's tomb in Nizamuddin, and Day by Day with Bhagwan by Ramana Maharishi.
By the early 1970s, I had four kids and about three hundred rupees in my pocket. Hopelessly adrift, I visited Ramana Maharishi's ashram in Tiruvanmalai. I had abandoned my family to become an ascetic, but returned soon after, short of funds. The best part of that experience is it led me to my talent. I began to write for papers, periodicals. I started to take language tuitions. Sanjay Gandhi once approached me to learn German. A very fair man. He said he stayed at Teen Murti Bhavan. I thought, 'perhaps he is one of Mrs Gandhi's Parsi servants.' "
On parenting: "I've tried to be a kind father to my children- a businessman-turned yoga teacher, an actor, teacher and air-hostess. I once told them it was because of my reacting to my father. As for love, I don't know what it is. Only those who have been loved can love. But I allowed them freedom. I've never advised them on their lives. I said, 'I don't know your talent,but the world is there. Try it for yourself.' Nasir suits me personality wise, though unlike me, he likes good things in life. Food, clothes. I usually forget to take my meals!"
Nasir Abdullah is sitting on a Juhu beach when he agrees for the interview, between takes of Kalki, a forthcoming TV sitcom based on a superboy character, Siddharth. The 46-year-old actor plays the father.
"When my father returned from England, he was like a roaring tiger overturning myths about what life ought to be. He is very open-minded. Not a fanatical Muslim. He has made mistakes and both affected and misguided his children with a 40-year old's cynical remarks about money's unimportance. It turned us into armchair philosophers at the age of 12 and 13. We went around saying, 'Money is nothing,' though we never had it.
He never offered us a vision of life. I'm still suffering as a result but happily now. It took me a while to come round to this thinking. I used to have a warped way of looking at life, confused and insecure. But everything evened out. I visited Tiruvanmalai. I've tried various jobs like him. I even have a history degree. But our journeys are very different."