Colas, Cars & Communal Harmony
Book review:
Colas, Cars & Communal Harmony
By Bharathi S. Pradhan
Book reviewed by M.V. Kamath
At a time when communal harmony seems to be at its lowest ebb, it is most heartening to learn that at least Bollwood has a different message to give. Not in the films it produces with breath-taking abandon. Not in the scripts it presents in ritualistic regularity. But, believe it or not, in the happy lives that its stars live in unsung glory.
The marriages of many stars surely were made in heaven. Shah Rukh Khan, a very proper Muslim, is married to a very proper Hindu, Gauri Chhiba. Salim Khan, another presumably proper Muslim is married to Susheela Charak, no doubt a proper Hindu. And listen to this: Bina Advani, with one devastating experience behind her, falls in love with the world’s best-looking ghazal singer Talat Aziz. Bina Kher (Tanvi Azmi), daughter of Dr Manohar B. Kher and former actress Usha Kiron marries Baba Azmi. Aditi Govitrikar hooks Mussazal Lakdavala. Farhad, son of Sultan Nathani, an Aga Khani Muslim marries Radha, the daughter of former Indian Airlines pilot Mohan Patkar, a Sarawat Brahmin. Raj Babbar is married to Nadira…. the story is endless.
And it is told by Bharati Pradhan, a film journalist who has known them all. A Hindu girl marries a Muslim boy. And vice versa. And, for all we know, the live happily thereafter. How come?
Because, in the first place they are in love; in the second place they have a sensible understanding of religion. Shah Rukh and Gauri first met in 1984. They got married in 1991. Shah Rukh asked Gauri’s family if they’d like to call all their people and have a Hindu marriage. And they said yes. Then Gauri said that she would like to have a Muslim marriage. They went through that, too.
Bharathi quotes Shah Rukh as saying: “I believe in al religions, I’m a believer in God. I’ve no problem entering a temple. It’s were the belief of lot of people lives, it is a pious place and I’m not the kind of man who’d rule that this is wrong”. And then he adds: “I call God Allah. My wife calls Him, Bhagwan. That’s why my children say Ganapati Allah. But they’re not confused. There’s no confusion in my house. Like Gauri stands during Idd prayer with her hands folded like this (in a namaste) and prays. Our prayer room is going to be like Amar, Akbar, Anthony Actually, I have Allah and Om in my room’’.
The stories that Bharathi Pradhan recounts of happy inter-communal marriages are almost unbelievable. Can such things be? But she is presenting facts, not recounting fiction. If Salim Khan is married to Susheela, their eldest son Bollywood heart throb Salman is followed by Arbaaz who is married to Malaika Arora, a practising Roman Catholic and third son Sohail is married to Seema a Hindu and they have a two-year old son Nirvaan. And the Khan daughter Alvira is marries to actor Atul Agnihortri - a Hindu.
Somewhat mind-boggling, one might say. How did all this come about? Salim Khan’s answer is convincing. He is quoted as saying: “I believe in a power that looks after all of us. But my concept was never of a Muslim God or a Hindu God or a Christian God. Once I grew up and could rationalize things for myself, I started talking to God, I never prayed ritualistically.”
Salim asks: “Is there, cultural difference between Hindus and Muslims? On the contrary, I honestly feel that Muslims are culturally isolating themselves. They should live like the rest. I personally feel Muslims should be part of the mainstream, they should look like any other person… Prophet Mohammed never told Muslims that you should grow your hair like this or wear a beard like that”.
And his wife adds: “I learnt the namaaz and other prayers on my own, my husband never forced me to. At no stage did he ask me to change my religion either. I still say my Hindu prayers, “diya jalati hoon.’’
What a wonderful way of establishing Hindu-Muslim harmony at home! In the case of the Shivadasanis, Prem, of course, was a Hindu while Putli was the daughter of a staunch, typical, Irani. Papa blew up when he learnt that his daughter wanted to marry a Hindu but Mama was most accommodating. When she saw Prem standing next to Putli, her reaction was “You two make a very nice pair, both of you look really very good together”. They still do, after 28 years and two kids later.
And how is the Govitrikar-Lakdavala marriage doing? Writes Bharathi Pradhan: “When you walk into their apartment in Bandra and meet Muff’s parents, there’s a strong sense of aman, an inescapable feeling that all’s right in this part of the world. Peace prevails simply because Aditi and Muffy have worked at it consciously”.
Bharathi writes engagingly of the problems - or their absence - in the lives of the couples, who are, so to speak, inter-married. When Radha Patkar fell in love with Farhad Nathani, it was never a question of how she would adjust to the Nathanis but how her parents would accept the marriage. “Today” she says, “I don’t think my parents would have wanted anybody else as a son-in-law because it all goes back to being just a good human being…Harmony is possible, it works if you keep religion on the back seat”.
Incidentally we learn that Farhad’s mother Perin was Justice M. C. Chagla’s sister. Once when Farhad’s son Sameer was three-year-old, Chagla had come to their house for dinner. Farhad told Sameer: “Chagla Mamu ko salaam karo beta”. But the Justice quickly corrected Farhad saying” “No, teach him to say namaste, he’s first an Indian!”
Colas Cars & Communal Harmony (a very inappropriate title for a book on happy marriages!) is full of such stories, of inter-religious marriages and how well they have lasted in happiness and contentment. And the book, of course is full of pictures of couples with their families.
Looking at them one would never be able to recognize who a Hindu is and who a Muslim, which merely shows that when all is said and done, Hindu and Muslims come from the same stock.
When Suniel Shetty married Mana Kadri, her father, I. M. Kadri, the distinguished architect had only one condition: that the marriage should be registered. Mana adds though: “We had one with South Indian rites, but we had a registered marriage too where a woman gets her rights. May dad was very particular about that”.
Let it be said right away: Bharathi Pradhan has done signal service to the cause of communal harmony and the oneness of the Indian people whatever be their religion, by recounting these stories in all faithfulness.This is not a book slyly advocating inter-religious marriages but it surely carries the message that such marriages are not only possible, they can also be successful. Scores of such marriages are recorded, probably the first time in publishing history.
Shakespeare said it all when he wrote: “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds…O no ! it’s an ever-fixed mark…” It is, as Bharati shows it.