"What events do you recall in the city post 1990's?"
Pareshbhai is looking carefully at the workers cutting the small threads in the synthetic laces. He turns his face towards me after a couple of minutes, asking to repeat the question by saying, hmmm?
But before I repeat my question, he remembers it. His 'hmmm' sounds more like an act of remembering to me.
"Oh, 1990's? You know, there was an alignment in the city area (Kot Vistaar) of Surat. Lots of houses and shops were re-built according to commissioner Rao's instructions. In fact, many people lost their shops because the roads were to be broadened and they were not the owners, they had this 99 year old lease with the corporation."
I take out the cadastral map of Surat and he shows me the places that are no longer there, that are merely concretized as roads now. He looks at the map again and says, this Viramgaami mohallo is a Muslim locality but it was not the same.
"Why?" I wait for a long time after this question. I wait for his 'hmmmm' but he doesn't say anything. He scratches his sideburns. I still wait in anticipation.
I ask him again, "Do you remember anything else? Any other event in the city? Anything that affected the communities in the city area?"
"Oh yes, the floods! And the Plague! These were terrible times. The floods have ravaged this city so many times but you know, Surat is strong enough to rise back from ashes. Within fifteen days, you'll see the machines working, you'll see the city working. People do not sit back and lament the past. Which also means, we forget."
"Do you remember anything else that is forgotten?"
"No!"
"Can you tell me about what happened in 1992, 2002?"
"What happened? In Surat, we leave peacefully, in harmony. Nothing happened. We are not like them."
"Them?"
"I do not want to talk about it."
I sit there, looking at people constantly winding laces, winding pasts, throwing them in big bundles. I remember 2002 March, my birthday and the small Dargah near our house.
I look at that Dargah again. There is a striking green patch on the wall. I let a hmmm, a sigh though and remember the crack on this wall because of an axe and some stones. I look at the old man swiping peacock feathered broom on someone's head and I remember the street in March smothered with reminiscences of peacock feathers.
But hey, that road is now concrete, with multiple cars, some five fly overs and a big business complex on the right. Should I remember?
Pareshbhai and I have series of conversations, almost every day. He tells me how he remembers the story from his grandfather that the Nawabs always ruled Surat, that the Portuguese could do away with less taxes because the Nawabs were constantly thinking about their own benefits. That the Muslim merchants wanted to mint money and marginalized the Hindus. That Gurus had to come to in Surat save the Hindus. That Hindus could not own much during the Nawabi rule, they were constantly worried about their safety and being stereotyped.
During these series of conversations that entailed memories of his grandfather's stories,
Pareshbhai never had to utter, "Hmmm?"
Thanks!
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