My first vivid impression of Rashid Jahan (my eldest sister) andone that has withstood the passage of time, is when she returned from Delhi after undergoing anappendix operation.
Apabi must have been about nineteen-years-old at the time. I remember she worea long kurta over a tight pyjama with a muslin dupatta, and looked very paleand thin. Her jet-black hair curled around her face and I thought she lookedutterly lovely and fragile. In a gush of affection, I ran up to her andboasted, 'I can lift you up'.
Amid loud protestations from everyone, I caught her round the hips and swepther clean off the floor, wrenching my back. I remember I hardly reached up toher torso at the time and, after performing this Herculean feat, I ran out ofthe room laughing but, upon reaching my room, I rolled on the bed in agony.
No one ever knew the damage I had done to my spine. I was a child then and thepain did not bother me, but now the frequent discomfort in my back evokes the lovelyimage of my sister.
By the year 1905, the Ladies' Conference had passed a resolution in favour ofstarting a school for Muslim girls. Many men stoutly opposed this boldresolution, but a forward-looking section of Muslim men was on the rise, andSheikh Abdullah's hand was strengthened. It was in this atmosphere that RashidJahan was born.
Her friend and sister-in-law, Hamida Saiduzzafar, recalls in her autobiographyhow Rashid Jahan had once remarked casually, 'We have slept on the mattress ofwomen's education and covered ourselves with the quilt of women's educationfrom our earliest consciousness.'
"It is thus obvious that hers was not the 'traditional' Muslim home,"writes Hamida.
But one where there was purposeful activity and enthusiasm for a cause, ofwhich she became a part. The school came into existence in 1906 in a house in Aligarh city whereRashida, as the family called her, went every morning in a covered palanquin tostudy when she was old enough. She read all the Urdu magazines and pamphlets that Shaikh Abdullahreceived from all over the country. Her father was also a keen reader ofShakespeare and used to recount some of the stories of the plays, especiallyKing Lear, to his children.
Page I, Page II
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