[Reader-list] Mustafa revisited

[zainab at xtdnet.nl]

25th March, 2006

Everyone calls me Aga, says where is Aga? We are missing him.
(I wonder whether he likes to give himself these titles?!?!)
But he is Aga, Aga Mustafa - His Highness Mustafa, Lord Mustafa.

This evening I stepped into Café Khushaali.
Aga Mustafa was eating lunch at 6:30 PM.
He turned around to collect his (royal) photograph from me
(His photograph, which has been with me for more than three months now)
It's an interesting picture which captures Mustafa, but what he actually
is and what he actually does is captured as a reflection in the mirror.
Mustafa calls his twin images in the photo 'Ram aur Shyam'.
Ram ki leela rang layee, Shyam ne bansi bajayee, he starts to sing the
lines of the song from the film.
He looks at the photo,
Black-and-white, he asks, why not colour?
He is not very impressed with the photograph
But he shows off the photograph to everyone entering the shop
And as each one praises the picture, he starts to change his opinion.
Yes, lovely picture, he says.
And then, he turns around and points to me
Zainab, aks Zainab
(Meaning, this photograph has been given to me by Zainab)
Aks Zainab, karazdar
(I am indebted to her for this photograph.)

For him, my being Zainab means something
(Perhaps a reinforcement)
(Perhaps, an encouragement)
(Perhaps, a relationship)
(Perhaps, a brethren)
He points to me, as if I were a reflection of the photograph.
(Aks Zainab!)

He is Mustafa
And I am Zainab.

Today, Muzaffar and Salim are not in the shop.
Another fair skinned boy is doing the errands.
Mustafa tells me that Muzaffar has gone back to his village. He says he
will make marriage in his village, Mustafa tells me. Salim, the younger
boy, also went away along with Muzaffar. Hence, I have this new boy now.
Mustafa is definitely not pleased with this new fellow. He is a thief,
Mustafa tells me. The other day, he served three glasses of cold tea to
the cuustommers/custombers and then, he pocketed the nine rupees.
Cuustommers/custombers came and complained to me about the cold tea. I
questioned the boy. I gave him two tight slaps and asked him to come out
with the money. He apologized. Said he only wants space to sleep at night.
I told him no problem of sleeping at night. But he must be honest.
Mustafa is clearly not pleased with this boy.
Ramzaan bhai later comes out and says, earlier, the boy Muzaffar was
managing the shop because Aga was not around. Daily, the shop would do
business of five hundred rupees. Boy would pocket two hundred and fifty
rupees and leave the other two hundred and fifty in the galla (cash
counter). The owner would be surprised. Would say, what only business of
two fifty? But what could the owner do? He felt it was better to have the
shop running than closing it down. But the day Aga stepped into the shop,
the shop made a business of six hundred and twenty-five rupees. And the
owner was surprised.
Yes, the owner was surprised, Mustafa said, as a fact of matter of
self-praise. Six hundred and twenty five rupees!
Ramzaan bhai concluded, there is no honesty these days, dearth of honest
people!
Mustafa is totally displeased with the new fellow. He pats him on his
head, says he does not know how to make tea. My tea, my tea, Mustafa
bandies.
Boy makes many mistakes. Gets wrong change. Takes wrong orders from the
client
And each time, Mustafa is nagging him, sitting on his head, telling him
how he will drive away the cuustommers/custombers if he does not learn
soon.

I am interested in this relationship, in this space, which gets created as
'migrants' come and take employment under Mustafa in Café Khushaali. A
certain notion of migrants circulates in Khushaali. And the most
interesting and ironical fact (to me) remains that both Mustafa and
Ramzaan bhai are migrants of some sort themselves - Mustafa from Iran and
Ramzaan bhai from Jaamnagar in Gujarat. And both have certain attitudes
towards the migrants who have been in employment in Khushaali, migrants
who have so far been from the various districts and villages of Uttar
Pradesh. While I say this, I don't mean it in the sense of denigration,
but I say this in a fact of personal realization that attitudes and
notions of migrants circulate among all persons, irrespective of class.
And perhaps it is this circulation/imaginaries of notions and attitudes
that creates power and power hierarchies in different forms, in different
spaces, in different places and different locations. And the power
hierarchy and power is practiced among different classes in interesting
ways and means.

Mustafa starts talking about his house.
I live here, here in Imambada. But I have another three storeyed house
under repairs, near Zam Zam Hotel.
I tell him I know Zam Zam Hotel. I was living there once upon a time.
Where?
Where the famous qawalli singer Aziz Naaza was living.
Oh, Palkhi Mohalla you mean.
Yeah.
Oh, but that area has become very bad now. Lots of fighting takes place
there. I know, I know. There is a hotel, a circular hotel right beneath
Nazaa's house.
Yeah. Exactly.
Area has become quite bad now.

Area has become quite bad now, I think a bit, a little while, over
Mustafa's words. This again strikes as interesting. Mustafa's words create
an imagination and production of space, then and now. Living in Palkhi
Mohalla was an experience of living in a world that is now glamourized in
Bollywood films. It was an experience of living with crime, with
illegality, with people around knowing everything you do, people prying on
you, yet a sense of brethren because of communal identity, girls and boys
in love eloping, boys taking to crime sometimes to support the love, the
operation of the 'eye' among people, forms of surveillance outside 'the
state', etc. etc. And living with crime and illegality in those days, was
a matter of living life everyday. Crime and illegality were not the
glamorous aspects of our lives then. They were our life. And they weren't
crime and illegality. They just were, our everyday lives - that's it!
Fights between young boys, between petty gangs, was not new to us. Rumour
would circulate - this gang boy knifed that gang fellow. And this rumour
was entertainment, outside of state entertainment Doordarshan channel.
Today, it interests me that the notions of legality and illegality are
being defined more clearly, more distinctly, and this is happening in a
neighbourhood which is marked in the media and in the imaginations of
'citizens' as 'dangerous', 'crime infested'!
And as these notions of legality and illegality circulate and are
narrated, I once again think of power and the relationships between
narratives, images and circulation of information. How is the notion of
citizenship being constructed?

The evening continues.
Mustafa is back in action. He is working hard.
I have prepared cakes from home and have brought them here to sell.
These are Mustafa's 'specal mava cakes for six rupees each'.
Mustafa now wants to expand the business of the shop.
I want to sell samosas, patties, cutlets in this shop. I want to expand it.
Ramzaan bhai agrees. What is this business of black tea that you are
doing? What will selling only black tea bring to you? You must sell snacks
as well. There will be more business.
Mustafa agrees. But the space is too little. The shop is too small.
Yeah, when you were not around Mustafa bhai, cuustommers/custombers would
flock to your shop and say that the space is less. Some even suggested
that you put out benches for people to sit down, I said.
He murmurs about delicacies that he can cook and sell.
(And yet, he is aware of how lazy he can be when it comes to implementation!)
I just have to settle some matters with the municipality and then I can
expand this shop, Aga Mustafa says.
Meanwhile, an interesting drama unfolds outside, on the streets. A havalar
stands near a man selling clothes on the street and negotiates and
collects hafta.
Both Ramzaan bhai and I are keenly watching the drama unfolding and the
negotiation happening. The havaldar has slanted himself slightly, his body
language one of intimidation and power. The seller on the street is
carrying out business and negotiating with the havaldar simultaneously.
Ramzaan bhai smirks and laughs. Look there Aga, see what is happening. The
havaldar is out on his rounds to collect hafta. He is collecting twenty
rupees from all these street sellers. If you put out two benches, then
this havaldar will come and collect twenty rupees from you too, daily.
Mustafa shouts in defiance, says he will not pay.
What do you mean you will not pay Aga? You will have to. These days rules
and regulations are very strict, Ramzaan bhai says with irritation.
I will not pay. Why should I pay? Mustafa argues back. Look at that
restaurant in Dongri. He has a shop inside but he has put benches outside
and he is selling his wares there. If he can do it, so can I!
But he must have paid the municipality, bribed, etc. to do it this way,
Ramzaan bhai retorts.
No, whatever it is, I will not pay, Mustafa declares.
Ramzaan bhai looks at me and smiles, as if indicating that Aga has lost
his head.

It's time for me to move now. But let me just narrate the last event of
the day which took place at Khushaali this evening.
As the evening wore on, cuustommers/custombers started to pour into
Khushaali. Everyone was pleased to see Mustafa back in action.
Two Irani men came into the shop.
One of them excused himself to me and went straight to the kitchen area to
wash his hands.
I have watched this practice earlier as well. Some cuustommers/custombers
come into the shop and make way for the washbasin. They make the shop
their space, their place. And I think that this production of space stems
from the intimacy of relationship with Mustafa. And maybe even from the
fact that the people I have seen performing this practice have been Irani
men themselves, so maybe there is a communal linkage to it as well.
Mustafa showed off his photograph to the two Irani men.
One of them looked at it carefully and asked me about the details of the
picture.
I mentioned that my friend (Zeeshan) had made the picture.
Is 'she' a photographer too? he asked
I did not correct the 'she' to 'he'
(Because the truth was that 'he' had made the picture!)
Zainab, Mustafa repeated to this man.
What Zainab? he asked
She is Zainab, Mustafa responded.
Zainab, are you Zainab? he asked me
Yes, I am Zainab.
Are you Bohra? he asked me.
No, I am Shia, I replied.
Oh, really? Is that so? Because when I looked at you, I thought you are
Bohra.
I am not surprised by this man's marking of me. Modernity and Shias are
somewhat too distant to imagine and perhaps to see a Shia girl like me,
dressed in the way I am, talks in the way I do, I just cannot be Shia. I
can only be a 'modern' Bohra girl or Parsi in the least.
This man got interested and started talking to me.
He offered to treat me to a round of tea and cakes.
Today I experienced hospitality, a practice of this neighbourhood.
When I had brought Zeeshan to Khushaali for the first time, his words to
me were, 'I feel a sense of belonging here. I feel like I am among my
people. I don't feel alienated'.

I think the space and the publicness of Khushaali is becoming a very
interesting exploration. And while I write and observe, I constantly have
to negotiate between the space there is (and which is unfolding as a
trajectory) and Aga himself, Mustafa, who creates the some aspects of the
trajectory of the space of Khushaali!

Aga Mustafa.
I give him twelve rupees, six rupees for two cups of chai and six rupees
for a specal mava cake.
He gives six rupees back to me.
Keep the money, he says quietly.
The specal mava cake is a special present to me from Aga.

Aga Mustafa.
My Mustafa!




Zainab Bawa
Bombay
www.xanga.com/CityBytes
http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html