I met a Sindhi journalist today. Just to make him feel

good, I told him I do read his articles in Sindhi

magazines. “But,” he said “I have already stopped

writing a long time ago, in fact it is almost two years

now that I have hardly published anything. There is

absolutely no value, respect and use for a Sindhi

journalist in our community.” I wholeheartedly

agreed with the senior gent of 70.He continued “you

know I was present at the function where the then

newspaper of Sindhis, THE HINDU, was being

renamed as HINDUSTAN DAILY. It was back in

Sindh and I was a child of 7 years, passionate about

Sindhiyat, even then” Taking a deep breath and

perhaps realizing my presence his attention came back

to me and he asked, “what do you do…I believe you

also write for our community magazines?” I nodded

hesitantly and he continued his sharp gaze on me,

asking, “Why? Why do you write? Do you get paid?”

Again I nodded and mumbled “well , some

peanuts…!” As if he knew the answer beforehand, he

asked, “Then why? Why do you get into such a sorry

situation? I have written four books and countless

articles in last 60 years…, what do you think…why do

we go on doing this strange thing?” I said, laughing

“We write ourselves, we read what we write ourselves,

and we feel happy ourselves…”He cut me short

asking “Why, why do we do such a strange

thing…that's what I'm asking you…”I laughed and

said, “You can call it Junoon…passion or simply a

madness…”That shocked him, “madness?oh my

God…! Do you think we are mad? Insane?” I smiled

politely and began to fumble for words because I

noticed that my answer had genuinely hurt the

gentleman and he was going into some deep thought

realizing the validity of that fact. “You mean to say

that it has all along been a nonsense thing to do, to

t h i n k a n d f e e l f o r t h e

community?”

His voice now trembled as if

asking me for support to stand up

and walk. I quickly gave that

support, saying “No no Dada, not at all, you have

done what you believed in. The fact that our work and

our passion has not been recognized and valued is an

unfortunate fact of history and of our culture. Today

priorities have changed, people's perceptions have

narrowed down to superficial stuff, but that doesn't

mean that your vision and values have gone waste, not

at all. Every age gets a vision that it deserves and this

age seems to be happy with the trivial and the twitter,

so be it!!” His face lit up a little but not quite and he

said, “You know I filled a sack of Sindhi books,

hundreds of them, carried the sack all the way to

Chembur, to a Sindhi institute and right at the door

the officer told me to take it away, 'we have not yet

opened many sacks of books sent by others…' and

then I took the sack back and brought it to Sita Sindhu

Bhavan where also they told me that they don't need

this garbage…”Picking a tear from his eyes and then

smiling a toothless smile he continued, “I'm over 70

now, weak, fragile…how old is Kirat?” “90”, I said,

“his library, we donated to the department of Sindhi,

Mumbai University..” “What would they do with all

that?” he asked, surprised at my revelation. “They'll

make a library..” And he immediately retorted “that's

because they get paid for it…. The staff there gets

money to do all that work…!!” I saw a strange

vengeful look in the old man's eyes, a look of rejection

by his own brothers and sisters and family members.

He feels a little foolish I thought, but looks Godly…

A foolish God or a Godly fool…!!

A GOD'S FOOL

Arun Babani

TM

VOLUME - 11, ISSUE - 1 • JAN.-MAR., 20129