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Abbas had no regrets in his turbulent life. Every time he was asked
how he felt he always said that he was “on top of the world”.
He believed he had received more than what he had given, more than
what he deserved. He was one of the greatest witnesses to an entire
era, to a crowd of some of the greatest leaders. He travelled all
over the world, lived a full life, a life very few Indians have
lived as lessons and I was lucky to be a part of the great man’s
life, a life which made one big difference to so many lives, to
individuals and institutions in the country.
One morning he was busy writing pages from his autobiography (I
AM NOT AN ISLAND). I asked him if I could read what he was furiously
writing and he himself pulled up a chair close to him, made me sit
and said “read if you can read my handwriting which cannot
be read by some of the greatest writing experts”. I was curious
and I began reading. He wrote and I kept reading and wondering what
a great man I was sitting with. I quote : Isn’t it enough that
one has lived for sixty-one years, living fully, experiencing the
richest emotions, witnessed the exciting events of one’s times,
participated, to whatever humble extent, in the great drama of human
existence?
As a writer of the historic developments of our country and our
world I have been singularly lucky. I have talked to Mahatma Gandhi
on his mat in a sea side hut in Juhu, plying the Charkha. I had
many occasions to listen to Jawaharlal Nehru, to talk to him, to
watch him working, relaxing, riding around Simla on a horse, feeding
his pandas, addressing meetings of hundreds of thousands, getting
angry, losing his temper, and firing a sickly poor cartoonist who,
a few minutes earlier had provoked the famous Nehru temper. I have
had the pleasure of listening to Sarojini Naidu reciting her poetry
and the rare experience of having fragrant Jasmine tea with Maulana
Azad at five am, the only time he could spare for an interview.
I have gone round the world and made a dozen trips to the Soviet
Union personally witnessing and experiencing the thaw and spring
of the post Italian era. I have made Nikita Khruschev laugh with
my wrong Russian. And I have talked to Yuri Gagarin immediately
after his history-making flight in space.
I have listened to the muse of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Omkarnath Thakur
and M. S. Subbulakshmi, heard Josh Mallihabadi and Suryakant Tripathi
Nirala and Sumitranandan Pant (the poet who blessed the son of the
poet Dr. Harivanshrai Bachchan with the name Amitabh) and Euteshenko
and Faiz Ahmed Faiz reciting their poems, seen the incomparable
Ulanvo playing Juliet on The Bolshoi Theatre stage, seen the paintings
of Leonardo Da Vinci and Rembrandt and Raphael and Picasso in The
Louvre in Paris and the Hermitage in Leningrad. I have seen beauty
in repose and beauty in action, beauty of nature and beauty of man
and beauty created by man, beauty hallowed by the age of the contemporaneous
world. I have seen the Taj and Ajanta and also The Acropolis and
the Parthenon. I have trekked up the flower-strewn window of Killianmarg
in Kashmir and taken a lift to the top of the Empire State building
to look at the utterly fantastic panorama of New York by night.
I have seen the serene face of the Buddha at Sarnath and the sad
smile of Mona Lisa. I have suffered with Christ and laughed at Charlie
Chaplin’s silly comic tramp. Together with other fellow students
I have cried with anguish when the news came that Bhagat Singh had
been hanged and I cried with joy as I danced with the hundred thousand
others on the streets of Bombay on the day of freedom-August 15,
1947. All this I have witnessed, observed, experienced, felt all
this within me, a part of me and I am a part of all that I have
discovered, experienced, felt. The world has made me and I have
made the world (atleast two thousand millionth part of it). I am
involved in humanity even as humanity is involved in me as the seed
is born of the tree and the tree is the offspring of the seed.
Am I sixty-one years old? I suppose I am, but I don’t really
feel it. When I look into the shaving mirror, a man with the greying
fringe roving the bald pate glares at me with his tired eyes. I
refuse to recognise the stranger if his face looks vaguely familiar.
This could not possibly be me. I am not claiming the quality of
eternal youth, such as Jawaharlal Nehru possessed. I met him for
the last time one month and three days before his death. He was
seventy-five and did not look more than sixty. When he smiled he
looked even younger. As far me I have seen sixty-one springs, even
more. But the trouble is, I don’t bother about the quantity
of youth but the quality. I want to do much more than what I have
already. My friends say I have done more than many men could do
in one life. I disagree. I feel I could do much more if I was a
little more soft, a little more tough, a little more ambitious,
a little more enthusiastic. My friend, Raj Kapoor, always envied
my “mystic youth” and my will to work but then he was
Raj Kapoor who had his own royal ways and I was Khwaja Ahmad Abbas,
a humble writer and filmmaker, and above all one of the millions
of Indians trying to make the best of India and make India one of
the best countries in the world.
Ali Peter John
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