Never-ending unhappiness
Shaadaab S. Bakht
Shaadaab S. Bakht, who worked for famous Indian dailies The Telegraph, The Pioneer, The Sentinel and wrote political commentaries for Tehelka.com, is Gulf Today’s Executive Editor.
- Last updated: August 28, 2025 | 15:01
After a marathon tea session devoted to discussing the Middle East and Ukraine crises, my heavily politicised brothers and I decided to go shopping.
The tea session, during which all the crises were thoroughly examined and theoretically resolved, is a very popular Bengali pastime. There is nothing called a quiet Bengali. The session is known as ‘‘adda’’ in Bangla, the local language.
Coming back to shopping.
The list was short, but arguments over colour, quality and cost made it unusually long. The familial expedition took a very interesting turn with the call for the maghrib prayer. The team decided to offer the prayer in a mosque. Accordingly, we moved out of the huge and crowded shopping centre. We got into a car and decided to look for a mosque in the vicinity. We nearly drove for five kilometres before we found a mosque.
After an intense session of ablution, we entered the mosque. We said our prayers in the comfort of well-oiled fans unlike the ones that make a creaking sound. The floor of the mosque was clean and shining. The windows were large and polished.
The congregation consisted of seven or eight people, including the Imam. The place of worship was located in a non-Muslim area, hence the small congregation.
We couldn’t resist the temptation of looking around to know more about the maintenance of the masjid. A shopkeeper, who has been living in the locality for some years, told us that the place is very well-kept in which non-Muslims have a major role to play. They display a tremendous sense of respect towards the masjid, the shopkeeper added. The discovery was indeed heartwarming and uplifting. Once again, it brought us back to our settled belief that Hindus and Muslims would have lived as friends forever if the Partition hadn’t taken place, the fallout of which has been eternal unhappiness.
Well, the bulk of the pie after the Partition went to a manipulative handful, who merrily slurped the haul as the majority were left to battle the heat generated by the Partition.