The Hindu : Front Page : Biggest festival of their lives

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 30, 2007
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Biggest festival of their lives

Afshan Yasmeen

A stranger could be forgiven if he or she thought there was a wedding in the house

— Photo: K. Bhagta Prakash

WAITING FOR HANEEF: Family members of Mohammed Haneef decorating the house at BTM Layout in Bangalore on Sunday.

BANGALORE: For a family that could not bring itself to eat properly in a long while, Sunday night’s dinner more than made up for the meagre fare of the past month. It was a veritable feast that was spread out for Mohammed Haneef’s return after 27 days of incarceration in Australia. His ecstatic family worked overtime to list Dr. Haneef’s favourites: mutton biryani, chicken kebab, hyderabadi chicken, muzaffar, daal ka meetha and ande ka meetha for the feast at the B.T.M. Layout residence of his father-in-law Ashfaq Ahmed.

The happy family members, who were too excited to do any cooking themselves, thought it best to order the food from a nearby caterer.

All his favourites

“Mere damaad ko meetha bahut pasand hai aur ande ka mitha to bahut hi zyada pasand hai. (My son-in-law loves sweets, especially the sweet prepared with eggs.). So we have ordered all these dishes from Tandoori Gardens, which is owned by one of my acquaintances, Abdul Ghani,” Mr. Ahmed told The Hindu.

He said the dawat had been arranged for more than 60 people, including relatives and friends. “We have several friends in the city and more have come from Mysore. I extended a special invitation to my samdhan (Dr. Haneef’s mother Qurath-ul-ain), brother Mohammed Shuaib and sister Sumaiyya Tabassum. We are greeting him together in our house,” he said.

A stranger would have been forgiven if he thought there was a wedding at the house. There were flowers everywhere. The place was suffused with the heady aroma of specially designed mogra (jasmine) garlands.

“We have two major festivals — Ramzan and Bakrid — in a year; but this is the biggest festival of our lives. Hamare ghar mein Idd ka mahoal hai aur hum sab ise yadgaar banana chahate hain. (Our home feels as if the re is a festival and my entire family is celebrating this memorable occasion to the hilt),” Mr. Ahmed said.

Keeping in mind a brother’s farz (duty), Dr. Haneef’s brother-in-law Ateeq Ahmed bought new clothes for Firdous and his baby niece Haniya Kulsum from Commercial Street. “I bought them just this afternoon,” he said.

Hastily-made posters welcomed Dr. Haneef, his lawyer Peter Russo, and his cousin Imran Siddiqui.

In the midst of all the gaiety, there were the residual clouds. The reticent Ms. Qurath-ul-ain, who had been silently suffering all these days, gently said: “Bahut saal pehle jab mere shohar ghuzar gaye, mere oopar qayamat-e-qubra h toot padi thi. Pichle ek mahine mein jin halaat ka saamna kar rahi thi, aisa mahsoos hota tha ke qayamat-e-sogra toot padi hai. (Years back when I lost my husband, it was doomsday for me. But what I had been going through the past one month it was beyond even that.)”

But the clouds seem to have dispersed at last.

A photojournalist, who has been on the beat, said: “After the media stampede initially, for days on end there would be nobody around and the place was deserted. Today, all sorts of people were claiming to be their cousins and relatives.”

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