Mujh Na-cheez Ko Bushra Baby kKehte Hain

Growing up, one of my fondest memories and favourite pastime was to listen to my mum talking about her childhood. Correction, one of my fondest memories and favourite pastime STILL IS to listen to my mum talking about her childhood. Sure, my father is also a good storyteller but he is a Hafiz-e-Quran and has a routine that he follows to the letter so he can finish one manzil every day; he doesn’t have as much time as my mum does.

Usually, after dinner, if I’m not toast after a usually-shitty work day, mum and I do a silayi class. Mum does the cutting/designing/supervising while I do the stitching. Later, mum does the scolding and nitpicking while I laugh and brush aside her objections. She NEVER likes what I stitch even though it’s almost perfect. I don’t go for finesse, I go for finish; mum doesn’t like it, obviously.

But that’s not the real fun. The real fun is me probing my mum and her launching into a very long, very vivid narrative of her childhood memories, like how her Dadi struggled as a divorced mom with a young son (my nana), how nana started her business and became rich, how her siblings would perpetually argue over EVERY.LITTLE.THING.

I love how she tells a story. She describes the setting, sets the mood like a writer. She would explain her Dadi’s struggles in such details as if she has witnessed it herself even though I know it’s impossible; nana was a young boy, my mum did not even exist.

There are many such stories like how my mum and aunt curled their hair, how they played “circle” mimicking acts of jokers etc but the current one is about how the lifestyle of “rich and khandaani” families of those times.

In a city like ours, people were mostly working class, with most barely managingto make a living for their (usually big) families. Nana had a thriving business, and called “seth”. Obviously, he mingled with similar families, Muslim and non-Muslims alike. My mum would tell us about other families in the neighbourhood, Muslim and non-Muslims alike.

One of those families had two kids: a boy and a girl, and their mannerism was next-level. My mum is a keen observer, and she would notice how those two kids closely. If someone (elder) visited their house, they’d meet the kids and ask them:

“Beta aapka naam kya hai?”

And the girl would lower her eyes, soften her voice and say: “mujh na-cheez ko Bushra Baby kehte hain.”

Today, whenever I feel like bursting out with anger and say rude words, or just put a break to ongoing train of extremely negative thoughts, I say this line.

Mujh na-cheez ko Bushra Baby kehte hain.

First, “na-cheez” reaffirms my insignificance and reminds me to be humble. Second, the words depict childhood and innocence which is exactly opposite of my usual feelings towards people. It’s a nice grounding sentence, albeit irrelavant but I’m going to stick to this.

Mujh na-cheez ko Bushra Baby kehte hain.

مجھ ناچیز کو بشریٰ بے بی کہتے ہیں

~~~

Shabana Mukhtar