Munna..

Munna Tauji was Manu’s uncle, his father’s elder brother. He was also Golhu’s father. A little very narrow street, covered by walls from both sides, that dissected from the Main Bazaar led to Munna’s house. There was a little shop just outside the main gate. Munna, like many others from the family was a tailor.

Manu remembers the time he spent with his Munna Tauji and Golhu as a very carefree time. Things were playful then. Heart ruled over mind. Little joys ruled over ambitions. When Manu was very little, his Tauji used to wrestle with him playfully on the bed. When Manu looks at the photographs from first birthday, which was celebrated as a big occasion, he finds only one picture in which he is crying (in others, he is just bewildered). In that picture, Munna Tauji is throwing him in the air. This crying is remembered by Manu as a mark of the playfulness, and carefree, roughly loving way of life, for which he was proud of. 

There were many people in Kharkhoda of whom Manu was fond of. But none of them was like his Munna Tauji. That infectious loud laugh, which could bring a King to shame, that radiant face, that person who loved Manu as much as his own children, was a presence for Manu, that was never filled with anything calculative or of the mind. Munna was poor financially, but when Manu demanded something, he could give that to Manu without any arguments with himself, and no one dared to argue. 

Manu never felt for his Munna Tauji in words. If someone would have asked him then, the top five persons he should name from Kharkhoda whom he was fond of, Munna Tauji’s name would not occur to him. Because he lived in that heart’s corner filled with so much wealth of real love, that to knock at that door wasn’t ever needed. 

When Manu went to study in college, when he was adjusting to a new life, when he was struggling with his own phantoms, in a foreign land, Munna’s health declined. He wasn’t too old, but his way of life caused a tumour in his brain. Manu was oblivious of all that and was never told of when Munna breathed his last, to let him pass his exams. 

Manu doesn’t remember Munna in words very often, but sometimes, when he is tired of the present day people – vultures, hyenas, hungry for ambitions – some tears somewhere, touch that heart’s corner, where a laughing, angelic face is seen behind a sewing machine. 

© Manan sheel.