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Our Verandah Tailor
For the last ten years or more you made my motherfs home your own; Traipsing in and out as you pleased, Your demented son on your trail To torture you with complaints of his life Unfulfilled, possessed, sterile, alone. You bore his barbs in sad silence. But I know how deep the scars ran, For you, verandah tailor, Farid our Durzee were something special.
Hazratganj was your beginning The havelis of Atiya and Rezia Hussain where the tales of Ismat Chughtai were spun, and nawabs and begums moaned as they tossed down pounds of pan sighing on charpoys heavy with satin ghararas muslin kurtas and chiffon dopattas. But your strength Farid lay beyond that opulent decadence.
For you, first and last were a memsahibfs verandah
tailor.
Like Fazlu of my childhood whose
breath fumed acrid toddy but
whose hands could conjure up, from
fashion books in alien tongue, sheer
shimmering velvets and ruffles
straight from Calcuttafs Hall and Anderson. His
smocks, rompers and dungarees
looked like off the pegs of Selfridges.
In that mould and from that clay
you carved my silken waistcoats, Farid
and with my printed blue dressing gown
in Christ Church - Oxford town
they walked with me on fresh meadows
not far from my cathedral room in the House.
And on that hot August day in 1970
Encasing me in Amanfs brocade Sherwani
(Conceding once to tradition)
You cunningly crafted those sequins
on my bridefs gharara
magenta and gold.
On gossamer lawn you inserted lakhnavi lace
And filigreed cut outs then tucked away
In your faded cloth hold-all jhola
to Chandni Chowkfs women you went
to weave magical ekalisf into kurtas
with delicately gnarled hands.
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