Wishful Thinking

By Saeed R. Faruqui

Coming from a distinguished family in India with loving parents and siblings and spending most of his childhood and adolescent life in the old country, Saeed and his family went through a turbulent life due to intolerance by certain individuals. The sad experience was repeated when he grew up and faced similar situations. Wishful Thinking is an account of courage and resilience and a testament of patience overcoming lifes curveballs. This is a true story of an immigrant, depicting trials and tribulations of life, and how he and his immediate family endured it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503558144

Saeed R. Faruqui

Dr. Saeedur Rahman Faruqui taught physiology at Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa, USA, for thirty-six years. He served as professor there for the past twenty-three years. He received his master of science degree from Gorakhpur University, India, with distinction and was awarded a gold medal for his superior academic performance. He received his PhD degree from Walden University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has published several research articles in scientific journals and received the Presidential Research Award from Palmer College twice. He also served as the editor of proceedings of six symposia on nutrition and chiropractic during his teaching tenure. He comes from a family of writers, and this is his first prose book.

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Copyright © 2015 by Saeed R. Faruqui

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Rev. date: 04/08/2015

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Contents

Foreword

Part One

My Family Background

I

II My Beloved Father and His Family

My Grandmother

My Mother and Her Family

My Father

My Father’s Literary Interests

Part Two

Our Immediate Family

I My Siblings

II My Childhood

III My Grade School Education

IV 1956–1959

V 1959–1961 My Youth

VI 1962–1964

VII Teachers Who Made a Difference in My Life

VIII 1965–1969

To Faizabad

IX

The University Life in Gorakhpur

The Encounter with the Vice Chancellor of Gorakhpur University

Saeed, the Suspect

The Miracle

Dream or Reality?

1973—The Year of My Wedding

Farzana’s Family

Part Three

Voyage Out of India

X

Across the Seven Seas in Fifty-Eight Dollars

Wisconsin, Here I Come

My First Thanksgiving Experience

Meeting with Mushtaq and Burney

Literary Meetings (Mahfil-e Adab) in Madison

1973-1977: The Blue Moon

Part Four

To Iowa

XI

Iowa—A Place to Grow

1978–2014

Meeting Lisa

Pursuit for Professorship

Our Grown-Up Children

XII John Faruqui by Lisa Zaynab Killinger, DC

My Fascinating Exotic New Friends

John

My Muslim Mentors

The Outside World

Friday Prayers

My Teacher and Boss

The Kids

Attempted Murder

The Decade of Hiatus

My Colleague

My Brother

My Friend

XIII Retirement

XIV Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Glossary of Urdu Terms

The Faruqui Family Tree

About the Author

Dedication

To my parents, whom I cherished

but to whom I never got a chance to say, I love you.

I love you, Amma and Abba!

This book is dedicated to those who hate everybody because they’re different.

It’s time to grow up.

To my lovely wife, children, and grandchildren, for whom I wrote this book, who may someday read this book when I’m gone.

FOREWORD

Every nation and its people leave some kind of legacy. Some build schools and hospitals, others leave their sons and daughters after them, and still others leave books as their legacies. The ancient Egyptians at the time of the pharaoh were proud of their magic. The pharaohs left the great pyramids. Arabs in the Dark Ages were famous for their superb Arabic language and poetry. The Moguls in India left the legacy of masterpiece architectures, including one of the seven wonder of the world, Taj Mahal, and numerous forts and monuments. Martin Luther King Jr. left the legacy of civil rights movement in America. Now all these things happened because people have been interested in leaving some kind of legacy behind for future generations. I particularly like Benjamin Franklin’s quote that said, If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

When my children started growing up here in America, I started pondering, what kind of legacy am I going to pass on to them? What am I going to leave behind that will benefit my children and my future generation? How would they know who their forefathers were and where they came from and what their culture, philosophy, and lifestyle were? That’s when this autobiography was born.

I have lived in the United States of America much longer than in India, where I was born and raised. After so many years of living here, I sometimes wonder if I am an Indian, American, or have become something that is neither! To a casual person I may look like a typical Indian; however, at a deeper level, my reaction to various situations is influenced more by my heritage than by the Western culture in which I reside. The two cultures may appear quite dichotomous, even though the gap is closing fast now, thanks to technology. We in the Eastern culture do not look at issues with a clear-cut, textured perspective. But in the West, people try to find rational truths and are more focused toward material gains, which is what makes the United States the Land of Opportunity. I wonder if these two cultures can ever be bridged! Only time will tell us.

Since all my children were born here in the United States and grew up in the West, unfortunately, neither my sons nor their children were exposed to the rich culture and heritage from where their forefathers came.

The intention of writing this memoir is solely to inform my children, grandchildren, and the future generations about my family background and our culture so that it remains a source of inspiration and pride for times to come. I also wanted to bridge the sheer distance in time and place between my life today and my life then. I’ve gone back to memory lane and simply tried to be true to my memories, experiences, and feelings.

I firmly believe that one should always remember his roots, culture, and certainly, family values. Living in the United States for the last forty-one years, I have seen how quickly the family values deteriorate and all ties from the Old World get severed. The flight to freedom, opportunities, and prosperity may, in some cases, become an imprisonment. One can easily succumb to new values and new culture. In the hurry to assimilate in the mainstream, one may forget his roots altogether. Sometimes it may be a blessing in disguise; other times it may well be a prelude to disaster.

I grew up in a nation where cows roam on the main streets in many places and where families are woven together like tapestry; moving from my homeland to America took a lot of courage. To leave behind my old country, India, my culture, and my beloved parents, brothers, sister, and other close relatives and friends to follow a dream took tremendous amount of heart. After all, such a drastic measure to travel across the seven seas, and that too without much resource, calls for a well-thought-of plan. Was it a plan or simply the work of destiny? Was it a knee-jerk response or a quick fix for a chronic, recurrent problem? What were the circumstances, both political and social, that were responsible for the upcoming events? It is answering these questions that will make this memoir both intriguing and, at times, sad. In it will be some lessons of life to be learned for those who would like to apply their wisdom and ponder over it. If that will be done, I would think that my time in writing this book has been well spent.

PART ONE

MY FAMILY BACKGROUND

I

I come from a renowned Faruqui family from the state of UP (Uttar Pradesh, or North Province). Legend has it that our forefathers migrated to India from Saudi Arabia. Our genealogy links us to the second caliphate of Islam, Hadhrat Umar Faruq, hence the name Faruqui. Our elders in India have the documents to link us to Hadhrat Umar Faruq.

According to my father’s book Ayeena-e Shams, my great-great-grandfather Shaikh Muhammad Ikram Baksh settled in the village of Koeriapar in Azamgarh District of UP. His son (my great-grandfather), Mohammad Asghar Faruqui (1870–1946), was a tall, handsome, well-built individual who inherited and owned quite a bit of agriculture property in the village. He was married to Waheeda Khatoon, daughter of Qazi Bakhshish Ahmad, a resident of Qazipura, Ballia District.

I have heard from my elders that my bare dada (great-grandfather) Mohammad Asghar Faruqui was a very pious, generous, and kind individual. He spent most of his life in Gorakhpur, where he was a teacher in a normal school. He moved to Koeriapar after his retirement and drew pension for almost thirty years.

Asghar Faruqui was blessed with eight sons, for whom he built a modest mansion, which had seven houses, one for each adult son, interconnected to each another. Later his able children built a mosque annexed to the housing for him. My dadi (grandmother) Ahmadi Faruqui used to tell me that during summer vacations when all the families were home, breakfast, lunch, and dinner were cooked for all of them, numbering more than one hundred persons, and everyone ate together. What a feast that would have been, with scores of relatives eating together! He used to give away herbal medicine and help people in need, or they could purchase it at cost if they could afford it. He died on January 17, 1946, at the age of seventy-six. One hour before his death, he asked one of his sons (Habibur Rahman) to face him toward the qibla, facing Makkah (also known as Mecca) in Saudi Arabia. His son didn’t understand that his father’s time had come and he was getting ready to meet his Creator. Despite the fact that he had become old and was very sick, he never quit fasting in the month of Ramadan. In his unlocked suitcase, he always kept fifty silver coins in a sack as he didn’t want to bother his sons with the burial expenses.

My great-grandmother Waheeda Khatoon was a tall, beautiful, and pious woman. She was bayt (had religious allegiance) to a great scholar of India, Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi, whom she considered her spiritual guide. She was very regular in her salat (five times daily prayers), sawm (fasting), and other types of ibadah (worship). Their eight sons initially lived in Koeriapar Village with their families in the individual interconnected houses that my great-grandfather had built for them. Waheeda Khatoon was a very strict and tough house manager. No one could do anything without her permission. Her second son, Mohammad Abdullah Faruqui, was my dada (grandfather).

My grandpa Mohammad Abdullah Faruqui (1894–1923) was an extraordinarily intelligent person and the most learned one in the village of Koeriapar at the time when there were hardly any educated people in many nearby towns. He graduated from Aligarh Muslim University with a BA and a law degree and later became a government prosecutor in the civil court of Ballia, a city close to Azamgarh. He started his law practice in 1918. Grandfather Abdullah had won many awards during his student life. He loved his younger brothers tremendously and used to say that nobody in the family would be illiterate because of the blessings of my parents and the grace of God. His predictions became the reality for times to come.

Elders have told me that Grandfather Abdullah was an activist and a staunch supporter of the freedom of India revolution in the 1920s. Since the British ruled India for three-hundred-plus years and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi started the nonviolence and civil resistance movement, Grandpa started anti-British protests where he was living. The first thing he did was to collect all his Western clothing in a heap and burn them all. Others followed him. Then he started wearing khaddar (handmade by handloom) clothes to support Gandhi and his very crucial freedom movement. He had close ties with brothers Muhammad Ali and Liaqat Ali.

Grandfather Abdullah married my grandmother, Ahmadi, who hailed from a respected zamindar (landlord) family of Chandair, Ballia District, and was only thirteen or fourteen years old at the time of her wedding. (Getting married at a tender age was common practice in those days.) Their married life was short as my grandpa died of cholera while traveling in a train on his way back to Koeriapar in Azamgarh on August 23, 1923, at the tender age of twenty-nine. He was taken to Mau for treatment, but it was too late as he was severely dehydrated, and he passed away at sunset in Mau. His Janaza was then carried by a palanquin to Koeriapar Village, where he was buried near his ancestors’ home. He was survived by five children: my father, Shamsul Huda Faruqui; my aunts (phuphu) Aqeela Kahtoon, Saleemun Nisa, and Zebun Nisa; and my uncle, Qamrul Huda Faruqui, who was the youngest of all. My father was only six years old when my grandpa passed away, and at the time, Grandma was only eighteen years old. In this cholera epidemic, Phuphu (auntie) Zebun Nisa (two years old) and my grandpa’s youngest brother, Mas’udur Rahman, who was only ten years old, also got infected. Within a couple of weeks of the death of Grandpa, Mas’ud and Zebun Nisa also succumbed to the disease. This was indeed a terrible tragedy for the entire family, especially for a young widow (my dadi) with four small children to take care of.

The wisdom of my great-grandpa of having a combined family becomes evident here. He bequeathed some of the property to my father and to my uncle. But more importantly, the close ties and the love of my great-grandparents and my grandpa’s brothers made everything so easy to manage. My father’s uncle Moulvi Abdur Rahman Faruqui (poetry nickname, Zahid) and his wife, Qamrun Nisa, took the responsibility of raising my father and uncle Qamrul Huda in 1923. It was in their household where my two phuphus (my father’s sisters) were also raised and educated. My dadi did a heck of a job raising these four children while she was herself so young. They all turned out to be exceptional individuals.

Abdur Rahman Dada (1898–1964), who helped raise my father like his own son, was a geography and Urdu teacher in a government school in Gorakhpur, UP, until 1947. I have fond memories of him, as he started living with us after his retirement in the 1960s. He taught me English when I was in middle school. He was a tall, handsome, very gentle, and pious individual.

A unique incident is worth mentioning here when he was with us in Jaunpur, UP, back in 1964. On January 4, when my father returned from the district court due to an early dismissal, he asked my father why he came back home so early. Father informed him that a government lawyer’s dad passed away, so they closed down the court early in his respect.

He became perturbed and said to my father, "Everyone is passing away, babu,—son—I don’t know when my turn will come."

Don’t worry, you’re not going anywhere, said Father.

After the afternoon prayer the same day, when he was done with his worship, I went to check up on him to see how he was doing. He told me he was not feeling well and asked me to sit by his bedside and recite surah Yaseen (a chapter from the holy Qur’an, also known as Koran) out loud. My father had come, in the meanwhile, and had put him on his lap. Shortly thereafter, he said to my dad, My time has come.

He then recited the Kalima (a Qur’anic verse that specifies the Islamic faith) and took his last breath. He died so peacefully right in front of me. It was devastating for all of us, but especially for my dad, as Abdur Rahman Dada was like his real father. All his life, Abdur Rahman Dada lived like a true Muslim, generous and kind to everyone and never missing any salat or doing good deeds in his life. I have never seen a more organized and time-conscious person than him in my life. At the time of his death, he simply had in his possession a perfume box; an unlocked suitcase, which had two pairs of clothes, an alarm clock, and Rs. 300 cash to offset the burial costs; and a white piece of cloth for his kafan (shroud). He had told my father that he wouldn’t be a burden on him when he dies, and he had indeed thought of that. My father spent Rs. 150 for the burial expenses and gave away the rest of the money as sadaqa (charity) in his name in a madrassa (Islamic school). My father only kept his perfume box