Jaun Elia: The Other Side of the Picture

by Fainaana Farnaam
Translated by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

It has been nineteen years today since Abbu’s devotees lost him. But I’d lost him years and years before then. I’d never wanted to discuss this; I stayed quiet for decades. Many people would want me to talk about this but I would always find excuses as I felt this was a personal matter and why should I share with the world what was going on in my house? Still, Sohaina and I wanted to speak because our silence allowed people to say things that were hurtful and untrue.

The difficulty for Sohaina, Zeryoun, and me is that our parents are famous, and famous people’s fans assume that it is their right to talk about their lives. If the matter were straightforward then this wouldn’t be a problem, but to only hear the story from one side, and to form an opinion based on that and then to believe in the truth of that view is an injustice. Our silence encouraged people to say and write whatever they liked.

There is no better day than today to write everything down that is not easy to write, and that I have always run away from writing.

Until the age of twelve, this photo was what I thought was the truth of my life. I didn’t think that this picture might not be real. I didn’t wonder if Ammi and Abbu were really like this for each other when this photo was taken, or if they were just posing to make me happy on my birthday.

When, late one night I heard Abbu fighting with Ammi, I didn’t understand anything. To this day, I can’t explain how I felt that night, but I stayed up all night, waiting for morning. I had to speak to Ammi. I had to know what had happened. I should have cried then. If I see an emotional scene in a film my eyes moisten and my children make fun of me for getting so emotional at the cinema. But that night not even one teardrop fell from my eyes. In the morning, I asked Ammi, was Abbu fighting with you last night? My ears couldn’t believe the question that was coming from my own lips because until then I had considered my mother and father to be the world’s most ideal couple, and Abbu was my ideal. I loved him intensely. More than I loved my mother even. And so, maybe on that basis, I believed Ammi when she told me everything was fine. Or maybe I believed her because I didn’t want to know any different. That was the time when Ammi and Abbu’s conflicts would get resolved in their room, but a few years later those conflicts moved past those four walls and became a subject of people’s gossip.

That was a very difficult time for Ammi and us three siblings. We had to put up with a lot of hurtful things from people around us, and this happened because Abbu would go sit somewhere and say whatever he felt like saying, and people would believe him. I have never understood how people couldn’t see that for them Jaun Elia was their favourite poet but to me he was my father. I couldn’t find my father inside his couplets. He was my life, he was my, Sohaina and Zeryoun’s father. We didn’t want Jaun Elia the poet, we needed Jaun Elia the father, and he was nowhere to be found.

He would forget what class we were studying in, how old we were. He could not remember our birthdays. When he wanted to call out to me or Sohaina he would use his niece’s names. He was never able to accept Ammi and his family couldn’t accept Ammi either; this was because Ammi was not from Amroha, nor was she Shia. For these reasons, a distance was created between Ammi and Abbu that only grew with time. Abbu also found it difficult to accept that Ammi’s fame was increasing. From a man as educated as him this kind of thinking was hard to believe.

I stopped going to mushairas because when people would find out whose daughter I was, whispers would start and I would feel hurt by the things I heard. When I had to fill out the examination forms for class nine, I went home and said I wanted to change my name. At the time my name was Fainaana Jaun. Ammi was very shocked that I would want to do this. I said I didn’t want Abbu’s name next to mine. I was sixteen then and this was a painful decision, but I knew that this relationship, which had been my most precious one in the world, had finished. Abbu died for me that day. The meaning of life changed for me. Abbu was the one who changed my name from Jaun to Farnaam. When I was born Abbu had named me Fainaana Jaun. After my relationship with Abbu broke, everything changed for me. My entire identity changed, and it happened because of Abbu, which was why I insisted that whatever new name I was to take on, it would be Abbu who picked it.

It was very difficult for me to face people, to endure questions that pinched, but then I understood – I was not responsible for Abbu’s actions. He was responsible for his actions. Abbu would often say after fighting with Ammi that he didn’t remember what had happened the previous night because he was drunk. But we all knew he had been in his senses. He knew what he was doing. He would say that it is not a poet’s problem to worry about rent or buying groceries. The truth was that he wanted to run away from his responsibilities. I never met my father’s parents; they died before Ammi and Abbu got married. They were both simple people and were pained by Abbu’s lifestyle. Abbu believed that poets and intellectuals should be free of life and its troubles, and so he would slip away from the responsibilities that came with life.

When I was four years old, Abbu took me with him to the house of Aleem Mamoo (a famous poet). Ammi didn’t want to send me but Abbu insisted. When he got back home at two in the morning Ammi asked him at the door, ‘Where is Feeni?’ He said, ‘How would I know? She must be inside.’ I think of what Ammi must have gone through at that moment. She went to Aleem Mamoo’s house to bring me back.

The problem is that we believe that a poet or a writer, an artist or a musician, or anyone associated with the arts can’t live their life like an ordinary person. We say, they’re a poet, an artist, how can we ask them to be responsible? We forget that an artist has a family too that needs that person’s presence and support every step of the way.

I’ve always felt that Abbu’s fans wish that his children would see Abbu as the great Jaun Elia, the murshid. How do we explain to his admirers that for us he was just a father? We only wanted his love and care. A child can surely ask this much from their father, whether the father is a king or a beggar. For the child, he is only a father. All three of us only wanted our father’s love.

I have not seen a luckier man than Abbu. He was blessed with respect and fame, but he was not happy, because he hadn’t cared for his relationships. A man not connected to loving relationships with his parents or children can’t have a loving relationship with himself either.

Ammi gave me the news of Abbu’s death over the phone. I couldn’t believe that Abbu was no more. He had departed from my life long before then, but that day he departed from the world. In our lives the position of father remained empty, and so life was not as it should have been. But Ammi, Nana, Khala, Mamoo, Bua, Uncle, and Rahmat Mamoo all loved us very much. They had taught us how to live a good life without Abbu while he was still alive. We lived our lives with our heads held high and are grateful for the happiness and blessings we got. Had Abbu been present in our lives it would have been very different, but we have no complaints because it has helped us become who we are today. Not only are my siblings wonderful people, they should be praised for living their lives with their heads held high which wasn’t easy. It’s also not possible to praise Ammi’s patience and courage enough, she raised three children all by herself and we all turned out to be happy.

When I had married Kamran, Ammi told him and his family members about Abbu in detail. I also spoke to Kamran about this, because I knew he was a fan of Abbu’s and I needed to let him know that, although alive, Abbu was not a part of my life. He’s still a fan of Abbu’s, but he understands the breakdown in our relationship and always stands by me. Both my children also know about my relationship with my father. My daughter reads his poetry and my son comes home from college and tells me that when his friends are unsuccessful in love, they read Abbu’s poetry.