( UNFORGETTABLE NAZIR AHMED )
“ Sir, I shall come with my maternal uncle who has to open a bank account. You should tell him that my guarantee will not do. I have an apprehension that he may put me to some trouble . He has some cheque with him and he wants to cash it.”
This is what Nazir Ahmed told me one day as I entered the bank at 10 a.m. Nazir was reluctant to sign as introducer to his maternal uncle’s new savings bank account . This was conveyed to me in strict confidence. And I was required to say something to his maternal uncle that was not correct. His maternal uncle or the prospective new account holder was expected to come to the bank in the afternoon that day. We would often hear this typical Kashmiri expression in the loan section of the bank:-
“Tell him tactfully that I can not be a surety or guarantor .”
Those days, Kashmiri Pandits and some educated Muslims tried to avoid signing loan guarantee deeds to secure credit facilities that their intimate friends or relations intended to raise. They never said straightaway ‘No ’ to these relations or intimate friends. To them, these proposed guarantors would say:-
“ Why do you worry? I shall stand surety for the loan. Be happy. Trust your Khudaa ( almighty ) or have faith in the Bhagwati (mother goddess ) .”
I would invariably ask every prospective borrower a simple question at the time of initial appraisal:-
“ Is your guarantor educated? Has he agreed to sign the guarantee deed ?”
And every time I put this question, I would get almost similar reply that would be as under:-
“ You possibly don’t know us. He is not from the illiterate lot. He is ready to do anything for me.”
The person coming for a loan, hardly understood what turbulence this guarantee issue created in the mind of his proposed surety or guarantor. Quite often, the educated guarantor ( proposed ) would ask for a blank guarantee deed to read various clauses and know what and where he was signing. The moment he reached the last clause, one could read anguish and agony visible on his face. Many prospective guarantors would put me a question:-
“ What is meant by these terms like legal heirs, successor, administrators, assigns and executors written in this deed ? ”
“ This means that not guarantor alone , his legal heirs or successors or to whom he assigns his assets or who executes or administers his will after his death is also liable to pay after his death in case the loan remains unpaid .”
With a heavy sigh, the proposed guarantor would comment:-
“This means that a guarantor’s children and grandchildren are also liable. No problem sir. He will finish this loan in two years. He is a hardworking man. And sir , what if some person makes advance payments of the loan? Will the bank accept advance instalments for the loan? ”
And then most of these proposed guarantors would come alone the next day and start making requests for a graceful exit from the execution of the proposed guarantee. Most often these persons would say:-
‘ Sir, get me out from this guarantee worry. I am responsible for this mess. I have myself invited this trouble. I am a poor man. I have daughters. Don’t go by my dress. Don’t put me to this unhappiness. Please don’t tell the proposed borrower that I had come here and what transpired between us. Tell him something else. You know it better how to avoid such issues. Tell him that I have already stood surety for a defaulter and I can’t be a guarantor any more now. Who knows this gentleman may not repay the bank loan and my property may be put to public auction? This guarantee is not over even after the guarantor’s death. Save me from this worry. God will send you to Haridwar Teertha .’
However, illiterate people would come and sign any and every paper to stand as surety for the loans raised by their intimate friends or relations. No hassles or arguments or doublespeak.
Here Nazir Ahmed was not required to sign any guarantee. He had simply to introduce his maternal uncle to the bank . For this simple introduction issue, he felt nervous. Nervous for a man who was known to him since his childhood. He had a reason for that as well. Nazir knew about some fraud that had occurred in the bank and the innocent introducer of a fake account had been roughed up and interrogated by the police to locate the real culprit. Some bank employee had also warned him not to introduce any and every prospective customer of the bank. Maybe this could also be due to the simple fact of his friendship with educated employees of the bank . Nazir also had a strong feeling that his maternal uncle might have stolen someone’s crossed cheque or added his name as payee fraudulently to some cheque already signed by the drawer. And on the top of it, he felt that he had nothing to do with people who still threw themselves before running vehicles to earn a living.
Nazir sold rubber and plastic shoes and sandals on the footpath just outside our bank branch at Amira Kadal near the office of N. D. Radhakrishan and Company. He had dissuaded himself from his maternal uncles who were engaged in the disreputable ( as he felt it ) activity of throwing themselves on the road. During winters, he sold BOLA brand shoes where word BOLA was made to appear as BATA. These shoes were supplied by a Punjabi trader from Amritsar. BOLA shoe had shining rubber uppers, more shining than the usual Duckback shoe popular in Kashmir valley during the winter season. BOLA had an inner lining of flannel cloth that made it an ideal winter shoe. But with use, the upper surface of a BOLA rubber shoe would start wearing out. Cracks would appear on this upper rubber surface. To protect a BOLA shoe from this damage, you had to keep the foot straight and motionless and walk. In a way, you needed to give comfort to the shoe and not the other way round. User’s foot discomfort gave a longer life to the BOLA shoe. As a token of our friendship, Nazir had gifted a BOLA shoe to me that my mother used as a snowshoe. It survived just one month. He gave a shoe to my friend and colleague Basharat Fazili also. And when we tried to pay , Nazir said:-
“You should have slapped me instead of paying the price of the shoes .”
To us, Nazir would complain against our bank manager’s driver. The driver would pick up a pair of new shoes every month from Nazir’s stock. In settlement of this, he would exchange some old or mutilated currency notes of Nazir or help him to get a five- or two- rupee new notes packet from the bank.
Nazir had also revealed to us that the plastic shoes were not for his friends in the bank. The plastic turned stiff in winter and gave trouble to every user. Also, in winters, size 9 shrank to become size 8. In summers, it turned so soft that size 9 would become almost size 10 and give discomfort while walking. It kept the wearer busy in putting the feet inside the shoe at every step. The other alternative was to put some additional cloth inside the shoes. The shoes would undergo something like a reversible seasonal metamorphosis. In summers it loosened itself while in winters it shrank.
Nazir had the skill to sell anything and everything on the footpath. Before selling shoes, he sold cloth that some Punjabi supplier from Amritsar would bring to Kashmir. He had a fixed deposit and a savings bank account in the bank. Through his bank friends, he had also purchased a Life Insurance policy. Now he desired to build a Pucca house. We had suggested him to save money by opening a monthly recurring deposit account. And he did save money.
Nazir’s customers were mostly villagers and Gujjars who were addressed as Khan Sahib by him. Sometimes locals from the city would also buy his shoes. Bargaining was a ‘win-win’ situation for Nazir as well as his customers. Before a customer could divide the quoted price by two and enter into what he felt a solid bargain, Nazir had already multiplied the cost price by three and quoted it to the intending buyer. He would thus earn a minimum of fifty percent profit from every pair of shoes that he sold. That was normal for all footpath traders in Lal Chowk, Srinagar .
Nazir lived in Tankipora locality near Habba Kadal. Tanki Pora was a notorious area where every innocent bicycle rider had to pay for allegedly hitting a hen or cock. This hen or cock was deliberately thrown at opportune time on the road the moment a cyclist was seen. It could be a Pandit or a Muslim. Anybody could be a victim in this area. And sometimes, some elderly Pandit victims were offered a glass of fresh curd Lassi by the shopkeepers who felt that these elderly persons had been unnecessarily put to rough treatment by some swindlers operating in the area.
Through Nazir Ahmed, I came to know about a strange activity going on the road near our bank. He revealed that some persons threw themselves on the road at an appropriate time as and when some vehicle passed by. This act was performed very close to the vehicle to confuse the driver who applied instant brakes. Immediately three or four accomplices ( of the person who threw himself on the road ) would appear on the scene and join him. They would help the man to get up and then start an argument with the driver. The man would be made to get up and act as if he had suffered a fracture in his arm or leg and had escaped a fatal accident. To an outsider and ignorant passerby, it looked as if some serious accident had taken place.
“ O, you driver! You had almost killed this poor man. Are you a driver? Come, let us take him to the hospital. O God ! he should survive now. Note the number of the vehicle.”
The driver would hardly grasp as to what actually had happened and where from the person had suddenly appeared on the road that looked clear to him. In the heat of the arguments, as also to save himself from further harassment by the police and onlookers, he would hand over fifty- or even a hundred rupee note to the alleged victim and drive out from the crowd.
Sardar Baja Singh, the head peon cum Jamadaar in the bank had once told me and my friend Basharat Fazili about some people doing this reprehensible activity in Lal Chowk, Srinagar . At that time, we thought he was just making a story for our entertainment. Sardar Baja Singh was friendly with Nazir Ahmed and other footpath vendors of the area. For performing his duty, he always positioned himself near the entrance of the bank close to the main grill gate. This position made him to gossip with all the footpath vendors and also keep his ear close to the bell calls of the manager. He was respected by almost all footpath vendors right from the Little Sons petrol pump to the Taj hotel entrance in Amirakadal , Srinagar .
Nazir would often gossip with our bank’s bill collector Mohan Lal. And Mohan Lal bought a new shoe every month from Nazir.To Mohan Lal , Nazir would sell the shoes at cost price. Mohan Lal was a bachelor who spoke a mixture of Kashmiri and Punjabi. For speaking this mixture of a language, many employees nicknamed him ‘Gola Parieum’. In the bank , we were paid salaries on 25th of every month and Mohan Lal would start borrowing from 26th by delivering post-dated withdrawal slips to many people who were finally paid on first come first served basis on the next salary date. The bank’s canteen manager exercised preferential rights over his salary and his payment was first settled on every salary day. Mohan Lal would have his breakfast in the bank and would also eat lunch in the bank’s canteen.
During extreme exigency, Nazir would come to Mohan Lal’s help by offering him Interest-free long term credit repayable from yearly bonus. Many times Nazir had written off Mohan Lal’s borrowings as bad debts without even making a demand. May be he took pity on his plight.
Once we took Mohan Lal to Ali Mohammad , the foot path barber for a shave and hair cut as our manager had turned furious looking at his personal hygiene . That day onwards, Mohan Lal started using backside gate of the bank to enter and leave so that the manager could not see him. Mohan Lal lived in a rented house at Suthra Shahi locality near Neelam cinema. As and when we sought reasons from Mohan Lal for not shifting from Sutra Shahi house, he would say :-
“ Sutra Shahi mein flesh lettering hai .Habba Kadal mein kahaan hai ?”
(There is a modern toilet in Sutra Shahi house . It is not so in Habba Kadal .)
Some employees had told me that Mohan Lal had a real brother in Mumbai who was well off and engaged in some furniture business. Many times Mohan Lal would come to my seat and say that very shortly he was applying for his transfer to Mumbai to join his brother’s business . He would also relate stories about actor Pran and Jeevan coming to his brother’s shop for buying furniture. While he came closer to reveal all these details, he passed on a whiff of repulsive odour emanating from his clothes that had not been washed and changed for many days.
Mohan Lal was terribly scared of facing the branch manager . To make Mohan Lal order eggs , butter toast and tea from the bank’s canteen, you had to tell him that the branch manager was looking for him . He would say something like this in a language that had a mixture of Punjabi and Kashmiri words :-
“Mukaa yaara mainu iss jhamelay vichoon . Panaai karus zaar- paar . Ba gatchha na tamiss nishi . Me khuli seva karsaan.”
(Free me from this manager’s worry. Request him on my behalf. I shall not go to him. I shall serve you generously .)
That is what he would tell after offering tea, butter toasts and boiled eggs from bank’s canteen.
Mohan Lal would always keep a pencil in his left hand while his right hand was either in his pocket or holding a small bag in which he would keep signed Hundis or proof of acceptance of bills by the traders . These traders were customers of our bank. He would leave early for his field duties and return at lunch time after finishing his work. When he spoke to you, he would smile , turn serious , move away and come closer all simultaneously but his left hand would always be shaking. The pencil held in that hand would also keep shaking. That was a typical Mohan Lal trait. All this looked like a contrived stage performance.
Mohan Lal lived as a paying guest with some family in Sutra Shahi locality of Srinagar city. He was always in a shabby dress without a purse in his pocket. Once Nazir arranged a room almost free for Mohan Lal at Tankipora locality but he avoided shifting. Nazir had told us that Mohan Lal was being exploited by his land lord’s family.
And then one day, something serious happened in Lal Chowk,Srinagar . We saw a mammoth crowd agitating near the spot where the clock tower stands at present. The footpath bazaar vanished all of a sudden. The vehicles were off the roads. The shopkeepers pulled down their shutters. The road leading to Budshah bridge from the Telphone Exchange building was totally deserted . The buses belonging to K.M.D.A. were hurriedly parked inside the Adda that had been almost sealed from the front entrance. Fearing disturbances and violence, most of the employees in the bank rushed to their homes. The main grill gate of the bank was closed and locked by the armed guard. The main gate leading to N. D. Radhakrishan building adjoining the bank was also locked by the Gorkha watchman . Six employees could not leave early and got stuck up inside the bank. They were busy with some urgent audit and balance tallying work. The strong room and the currency chest had also been locked and secured. I happened to be one among the six employees inside the bank.
The crowd was agitating against the execution of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan. Loud noise and high pitch slogans could be heard inside the bank. We moved to the third floor and kept looking from the closed window glass panes. The slogans, emotions, raised fists and the uneasy atmosphere made us worried. To our surprise , Nazir suddenly appeared on the scene. We saw him waiting near the bank’s grill gate. We also saw a long stick with black cloth hanging from the top of the main grill gate of the bank on the ground floor. The crowd had to pass by our bank to go across the Budshah bridge towards Jahangir Chowk.
As this agitated crowd moved towards Budshah bridge, some street urchins pelted stones towards United Commercial Bank’s signboard just opposite our bank. The bank had already pulled down its shutters. Some stones were also thrown towards government-owned Budshah hotel.Raising roaring slogans against General Zia ul Haq, the agitators moved ahead after seeing the black flag on our bank’s grill gate. And we heaved a sigh of relief.
The next day, Ali Mohammad barber, who sat on the footpath outside United Commercial Bank, told me this :-
‘ Sir, that black flag outside your bank’s gate was Nazir’s brainchild. He is your special friend. Sir, tell me if I have introduced a depositor’s account in this ‘You Kee bunk ‘ ( United Commercial Bank ), will the police subject me to interrogation? I have been put to great trouble by Nazir’s maternal uncle. He would come to me for his hair cut but now he is nowhere to be seen. I tried to seek Nazir’s help but he told me plainly as to why I didn’t ask him before signing bank papers .He has drawn cash for a cheque fraudulently from the bank. I am extremely worried now. ”
( Avtar Mota.. Srinagar..1985 )
CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.
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