LIFESTYLE

The first time that Ibn-ul-Vaqt goes to his aunt’s house for a family dinner in an ‘old Indian dress’ (Kabhi key paray huey Hindustani kaprey yaad aye), Nazir Ahmed describes particularly the joy of the females alongside the other relatives who make conversation with him. (Sab ney rejh rejh kar us sey baatien ki’). The entire scene boasts a pleased and approving narrative voice. Nazir Ahmed makes note here that acceptance of people in society is in the dress; true for both the Indians and the British. Ibn-ul-Vaqt found himself distant from the ‘familial’Muslim  society primarily because he had become too English. And the same got him displeasure from the British collector.

Lifestyle, in the context of Ibn-ul-Vaqt, accounts for all practices that are adopted. It then becomes a chief instrument of exile as it situates the character in a grey area as far as judgments for dress, language and dietary habits etc. go. Exilic figures recognize their displacement most when they are up against the decision to drop one culture and adopt the other. However, what makes them severely displaced is their inability to perform either of the above tasks wholly. The sharif Muslim male is subject to more pressure on being native and loyal to his culture and religion –because Islam defines Muslims’ lifestyles to the full extent that any change in their lifestyle is automatically an effective drift from religion. And just because Islam and a Muslim male’s private existence in India are not mutually exclusive, Ibn-ul-Vaqt is exilic to both his native Muslim home in Delhi and to the English colonizers. To deliver this idea of the ideal Muslim in India, Hujjat-ul-Islam’s unresolved conversations with Ibn-ul-Vaqt seem like Nazir Ahmed’s own view as a narrator. Personally, the religion-political bits then seem much advocated and less natural; though unresolved, Nazir Ahmed’s narration is determined to raise Hujjat-ul-Islam’s opinions as sensible and winning, automatically failing Ibn-ul-Vaqt in his reasoning, language and claim to the new lifestyle.