Teeja Rang

I have now seen the movie Chak De twice, each time the song Teeja tera rang tha main toh plays, it touches a chord. Initially I didn't get the word, till I realized its significance. Teeja rang, the third colour of the flag, the green in our flag that connotes the Indian farmer or as many say the Indian muslim. Our founding fathers chose our flag with care. Our politics is based on subtle messages, we as a nation hate being direct so if peace was the white then the saffron and the green symbolized the two communities that make the largest part of the nation, and the white probably was a hope for relations between both communtiies to be peaceful. Or so I feel.

The song means a lot to a secular muslim. I have been bought up by parents who respected religion yet rejected its impositions. We didn't pray 5 times a day, yet we observed Moharram and celebrated Eid, we also celebrated Diwali, Raksha Bandhan, yet avoided Holi as we found the muck raking mixed with the colour strange. I remember how the Nukkad Ahuja Speaker would cough to life on Holika night and blare bhajans in praise of Sri Krishna and film songs in praise of the latest heartthrob. We absorbed influences from all around, we sat at tea time and discussed God, religion, physics, particulate matter etc. Many years later I won an episode of Antakshari purely due to the songs I heard on Holi.

We travelled to school in a cycle rickshaw that was communal harmony at its best. A christian boy from near Gadbadjhala, the sons of a Halwai from Aminabad, a Hardware merchants son near Latouche road.

We would all bow before every church, every temple on the way. There were never too many mosques on the main road. When the rhetoric around Babri/Ram Mandir changed to a shrill cry for blood, small children roamed the streets of our locality with Gadhas shouting Mandir wahin banayenge. These were the same children who would play marbles all day outside our house and watch Chitrahaar on Thursdays in a community viewing at ur house. Earlier they used to run out when we caught them playing marbles as they would block our main door, now they played with a laconic ease. As if they were marking their territory. It was around this time that my father fortified the windows at home with a solid grill.

Years passed, occasionally i felt this label appear like a hidden attack of a dormant virus. When I searched for a house in Delhi my muslimness showed up!! When I spoke English in the traditional muslim community in Chawk they laughed at me for my alien behaviour. I have attended weddings in Gurdwaras and temples, sat through Havans in Bihar, attended Church services. I am the loudest in the cinema hall singing the national anthem.

Yet somethings changing, today in Mumbai I feel the lack of a certain rootedness. I am neither a devout Muslim nor an athiest. I try and follow reason and logic, a religion called humanitarianism. There is a sher I like " Ghar se Masjid hai bahut door chalo aisa kar lein, Kisi rote huye bacche ko hasaya jaae"

Yet with each Hyderabad blast, and failed bombing in London, with each deportation I feel the walls keep closing in. This city knows the language of money and hard bargains, nobody discusses religion or identity. Those who do are labelled intellectuals. Where does a secular person go!! What does he do to spread the word of oneness. With a polarized nation what do those who do not pick a side do? How do i prove my secular credentials?

I have no answers instead when I hear the song somehow I feel a tinge of remorse

mitti meri thi tu hi wahin mere ghee aur churee
wahin raanzhen mere wahin heer
wahi savaiyaan wahin kheer
tujhse hi rooth na re tuzhe hi manana
tera mera naata koi dooja na jaana
teeja tera rang tha main to
jiya tere dhang se main to
tu hi tha maula tu hi aan
Maula mere le le meri jaan…….
Maula mere le le meri jaan…….
Maula mere le le meri jaan…….