Deoband, 6 March, 2006
After some guava juice, and nuts, and halwa, and namkeen we get talking about madrasa syllabi. We were looking for a Principal-type voice and after stern rejections from the VC and Pro-VC of the 19th cent-established Daul Uloom, we were shepherded through narrow gullies and past fly-infested drains to the Principal of the Darul Uloom (WAKF) - a sort of rebellious younger brother.
Everyone knows his house since he's a Congress leader of some local standing as well and soon we are greeted by a voice, but no person. I peer past the door to see a lady hovering by the wall, smiling encouragingly at me.
"Come in, come in," and so I enter without my cameraperson. I'm fed and fed and fed. Then finally the Principal is awoken from his nap whilst I'm entertained by his two young daughters. Their mother appears briefly on and off and then two veiled friends of hers enter, they look intrestedly at us and then all disappear giggling into an inner room.
His daughters are curious about my job. One of them wants to be a journalist. There're three daughters, one son.
"Buy three, get one free," the older daughter informs me. It sounds odd to hear a subverted jingle from the daughter of the Principal of an orthodox madrasa, sitting here in the depths of Deoband; the middle of their little zenana.
Once the interview begins, his colleagues appear from the Darul Uloom WAKF. Talk turns, predictably, to the Danish cartoons, which of course they feel strongly about. They flip the question over to me though, in a final trumpcard as if to capture the essence of their argument: how did I feel about Bush's sniffer dogs at Gandhi's samadhi?
I hemmed and hawed. Didn't feel much actually. I doubt Gandhi himself would have minded much, I offered mildly, but already it had hit me how few things I really felt threatened by, or offended at.
Liberalism is, possibly, a luxury.
