When I looked at Abba quizzically to figure out what the story meant, he said with a straight face, ‘Apni taraf se tum eye drops mere kaan mein dalo, aankh mein khud-ba-khud pahunch jayenge!’ (Why don’t you try putting the eye drops into my ears, I am sure they will reach my eyes on their own.)

He is very fond of good food and cannot eat a meal without gosht. He’s hugely ‘superior’ about being an UP-ite and will not condescend to eat Hyderabadi food, even though Mummy has tried to cajole him over the fifty-two years they’ve been married! Each time we eat khatti daal, a separate arhar ki daal is cooked for him and woe betide the person who unmindfully picks up the khatti daal ka spoon to serve him his arhar ki daal! He never serves himself and you are never to ask him what he would like to eat. Mummy’s trained eye knows almost by a process of osmosis what he should be served and in what quantity. When I protest that this is dadagiri, Mummy says she was warned by her mother-in-law that unless she served him, he would get up from the table hungry rather than open his mouth and say yeh cheez aur chahiye! The only time he does ask for more is when I cook something. Unfortunately, cooking is not one of my talents and the family runs for miles if they’re made to suffer the ordeal of my cooking. But Abba behaves as though he is tasting the best of Avadh’s culinary delicacy! He fools nobody but I am touched nevertheless.

There is much that he and Javed have in common. Both have a strong sense of propriety, are extremely takkaluf-pasand and cannot brook mediocrity. Both are hugely political animals. I used to deliberately stay away from politics and pride myself on not reading the newspaper as a reaction against all the politics that was discussed constantly in the house. But when I got involved with Javed and heard him and Abba have their discussions (I used to listen from a distance) I gradually started taking an interest. In discovering Javed I was rediscovering Abba, getting in touch once again with Urdu poetry and passionate politics, realizing how deep into my father’s ways my roots were.

I got involved with Javed, a married man, which made my mother very unhappy. All my well-wishers predicted disaster for the two of us. All around me there was tremendous pressure to break up with Javed. With my heart pounding I turned to Abba, ‘Do you think Javed is the wrong man for me?’

‘He is not wrong, his circumstances are,’ came the reply.

‘But what if he can change the circumstances? Trust me, the marriage was over long before I came into the scene,’ I said quietly.