THE%20SINDH%20STORY

Congress President-and whom he addressed as ‘Uncle’. He found the outer gate
locked. From inside, he was greeted by a barking dog. When he told the durban
that Jinnah was his ‘Chacha’, he was told that Chacha or no Chacha, he could not
see him, as he had no appointment. Syed said, Bhurgri came back and said:
“‘Kafir’ Gandhi had taken his bath and said his ‘namaz’ (prayer), but ‘Momen’
Uncle Jinnah was still asleep, with only his dog to greet you.”
Syed was a Sufi; but he was also very much of a Theosophist. Many of his friends
were members of Theosophical Lodge, Karachi. They included Jethmal Parsram,
Jamshed, Tahilramani, PM Advani (of Karachi’s School for the Blind). One of his
frequent callers in Delhi was Ann (full name, Anandamai Advani) daughter of
PM Advani, working with Tourism Department. He told her jocularly that her
father and he were both fond of Ruki, who eventually married PM. When asked
why he failed, he said it was too bad, he was already married. Syed had
particularly fond memories of Jethi Sipahimalani. He had prepared a book on her
life and collected her letters to him. It is yet to be published. He told me a few
anecdotes of Jethi
1. “One day Jethi, Jethrnal, Abdul Majid and I were sitting together. In the
arcument that followed, I was cornered. Jethi turned to me and said ‘you are
surrounded by three Jethas’, (Jeshtha, big one). Sheikh Abdul Majid’s original
name was Jethanand!
2. “On another occasion I happened to shed tears over something. And Jethi said:
“Syeds are a weepy lot”. I said “How?” And quick came the retort: “Don’t you
beat your breasts every year, crying Ya Ali! Ya Hussain!”
3. “On a third occasion, many of us were sitting with Khuhro, then CM. We were
all taking tea, but Jethi did not touch anything. When Khuhro asked her why, she
said she could not forget that he had been accused of murdering Allah Bux.
Khuhro told her that even Allah Bux’s son and brother met him and dined with
him. Jethi told her, min could be hard-hearted; they could be ‘Dodo Chanesars’
(who had betrayed Sindh to Allauddin Khilji); but not she! “He said Jethi had
written to him, not to leave Sindh out of disgust, and come over to India.
“Sentimentality”, she wrote, “won’t do. We have no ‘izzat’ here.” Syed said that
when Partition was announced, Kripalani had come to Sindh. “We were all
sitting in Bhai Pratap’s house. Abdul Majid wondered what had gone wrong.
And Kripalani said we had unleashed forces that we could not control.”
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