Zaheda – is the only name known to us of Ammi, our mother. Apparently she was linked to our father’s family tree through our Great Grandfather, Syed Abdul Wahab’s father, Syed Abdul Hye, branching out to a part of the bigger tree. As I am searching for our family tree, if found, will old the answer to this question. Ammi grew up in a house, close to our paternal home at 10/2 Abul Khairat Road, in the Old Town area of Dhaka known as Becharam Dewry.
Her marriage to my father, from what is known to me, was either by his choice or upon the
quest of my grandmother for a grandson who would carry our lineage since Abba was an only son. My half-sister , Farida's mother, passed away untimely and was also an only child. Abba's previous marriages had not yielded any other children. Ammi was bethrothed prior to becoming of full age and is considered child marriage, which was, and in many places, is still practiced, though there were laws passed in British India making it illegal. At any rate, Ammi was married at a very young age to Abba and lived in her own home for a few years before moving in with Abba.
Practically being neighbors in the residential area known as Becharam Dewry in Old Dhaka, Ammi and Farida knew each other as kids. It is sad we do not know Ammi's date of birth, but since Farida Apa's birthday is in 1939, Ammi's birth year is likely within a few years of 1939. Ammi passed away in 1979, which would mean she was in her early or mid-forties when she left us. Her life ended tragically while I was in school in Austria, 12000 miles from Dhaka.
Ammi never got the benefit of education. She grew up disadvantaged in more than one-way so it is very easy to blame her for her inability to deal with the obstacles and hardship that haunted us all after Abba's untimely demise in 1971. The extreme hardships we went through even caused serious rifts within the siblings. Ammi sought some form of moral support and security when befriended by a distant cousin of hers. That painful
relationship was sorely and poorly viewed by all. Hardly anyone gave Ammi any refuge from her pain and suffering. Even I am regretfully guilty of failing to understand Ammi's needs at that time. As Allah would have it, I was unable to be by Ammi's bedside when she tragically passed away, drowning in a bathtub. I was told she knocked herself out when she hit her head on the bathtub faucet. To this day, I know in my heart how I loved my mother, but was never able to do anything that would have perhaps been looked back upon today as a consolation for myself, to somehow soothe myself from the anguish I feel for having so miserably failed my mother.
The utter dislike Farida Apa had for Ammi continues with her even today after Ammi has been dead so many years ago.It amazes me to hear Apa still speak so poorly of Ammi. I have extended my hand out in friendship to Apa considering that we are not getting any younger but closer to our golden years. I wish we could let bygones be bygones,. but some people never change. I have tried hard to understand what drove Ammi and Apa to become so polarized but I never will because of Apa's rigid dislike for Ammi.
I do remember from when I was a young boy, maybe about 6 or 7, I witnessed an event when Abba took the steel almirah from Apa and handed it to Ammi. This was like turning the charge of the household over to Ammi. I do think this was held in a lot of disdain, the feeling of which was so profound that it embedded dislike in Apa against Ammi. Something that festered and grew over the years, never to leave her heart,until this day.
