A Lifetime with Farook — Eulogy 1

He was one of our dearest friends, for over half a century. With his passing we can only be grateful that we met this extraordinary person who so enriched our lives.

Last month we received the sad news: our dear friend Farook had passed. He was 86 and died of a lung infection, peacefully in his sleep. This after a long and exciting life — in which we were on occasion able to participate.

Let me start at the beginning: in 1969 we were in the beautiful south Indian city of Bangalore, on a summer holiday. I wanted to have myself a raw silk suit made, and went to a high-end tailor’s shop in the main street. There, Farook, the son of the owner, attended to us, and we quickly became friends. It was a friendship that would last fifty-six years.

At the time Farook was infatuated with the Belle of Bangalore, Devika, who had won multiple beauty contests. She returned his affections and the two wanted to marry. But there was a giant wall separating them: religion. He was Muslim, she Hindu. There was not a single instance of inter-religious marriage of that kind in Bangalore. But the two were determined to make it happen.

When Devika’s family learned about her intentions, she was whisked off to Bombay, a thousand kilometers away. There she was put up in a hotel, and introduced to potential (Hindu) suitors. She balked, and secretly stayed in touch with Farook. He wrote her letters in a unique way: he’d separate the thin inner lining of an envelope, write a letter to her on it, reattach it and then insert a letter, written by Devika’s sister on a regular sheet of paper, into the envelope. When the “sister’s letter” arrived in Bombay it was examined by Devika’s parents, who deemed its contents innocuous, and handed it over to her. This is the way Farook and Devika stayed in touch.

After a considerable amount of time her parents gave up hope of their daughter accepting one of the suitors, and returned with her to Bangalore. There she and Farook convinced her family of the inevitable, and the two married, in Hindu ritual. Farook’s family was kept strictly in the dark — it was too dangerous for them to know.

Then Farook and Devika took off on a trip to Europe. On the way they stopped in Bagdad, where they were married in the Muslim way. And then they traveled on — to Hamburg! We had invited them to come and stay, which they did for a few weeks. Then they set out on their honeymoon — together with us. We drove through Denmark and Sweden, where they spent most of the nights in our VW beetle. They did not have the funds to stay in the camping houses, where wife Ingrid and I slept, but could use the bathroom facilities. In the evenings they would fill large plastic bottles with hot water to keep themselves warm during the night in the car.

At one Swedish summer resort we all got inexpensive rooms. Outside was a lovely swimming pool, and the next morning I got to see something nobody else has probably ever witnessed: a Muslim male convincing an attractive young lady that it was okay for her to join men and women in a pool while dressed in a skimpy bathing suit. Devi, as we called her, accepted, and she had a great time splashing around with us. Unfortunately the “dia positive” pictures we took on this honeymoon trip are lost, and I cannot include them here.

Now came the return trip to India. Farook had booked the flight back home, and before embarking had sent a telegram to his family: “Arriving at Bangalore airport at 2 pm, with bride,” it said. That came as a colossal shock. They were picked up and brought to his home, where the family sat around in pure trauma. Farook’s mother locked herself in the bedroom, making the Muslim female wail.

After a while Farook’s grandfather went to her and said: “You have a choice. Either you gain a daughter-in-law, or you lose a son.” With that the family resigned themselves to the inevitable. And then at midnight the mother emerged, carrying a necklace, which she attached to Devika’s neck. Acceptance, all around. But there was one condition: she had to change her name. “Devika” is the most Hindu name you can imagine. They agreed to change it to “Mona”, which is less revelatory.

A few years later we were back in Bangalore, and Devika invited us to visit Farook’s family. There she stormed around the house, complaining and giving instructions, like “Where’s the mutton we want to prepare? What, you have already done it? Why? I was going to use my recipe. It’s better.” All this showed me that she was completely accepted, a fully integrated, normal part of the family. Everyone called her Devi, and Farook’s mother was especially fond of her. In fact she enjoyed recounting the “evening of hysterics” she had staged when Farook and Devi had returned from Europe.

From then on we met Farook and Devi many, many times — in Europe and in India. When we were travelling they would meet up with us and have some special adventure arranged. There were too many to recount here, so the following is an incomplete selection.

A Muslim Wedding

A number of years after their marriage we were again in Bangalore. One day Farook woke me up in the early hours and told me to come along with him. I wanted to wake Ingrid, but he said “no, just you.” He drove me to a festive hall where a celebration was in preparation.

In the courtyard next to the kitchen a number of goats were lined up. Then out came some men, with sharps knives, and uttering the words “Bismillah Allahu Akbar” severed the throats of each of the goats, in one quick motion, leaving them to bleed out on the lawn. This method of slaughter is a prescribed by Islamic law to ensure the meat is halal (permissible).

We watched how the men cut the meat off the bones, and put it into a couple of giant, meter-wide cauldrons. The bones went into different cauldrons, and all were put onto round brick fire-places filled with burning coal. The pots came to a boil and were left simmering (“for the rest of the day,” Farook told me).

That evening he picked both of us up to take us to the Muslim wedding. All men were directed to the ground floor rooms, all women to the first floor. There were many hundred guests, milling around the gardens, drinking fruit juices or the yogurt-based beverage lassi.

At some stage a window of the first floor opened and Devi leaned out. “Farook,” she cried, “go see if I left my coat in the car.” Which he dutifully did — while a hundred Muslim males stood shaking their heads. “See what you get when you marry a Hindu!”

After the wedding ceremony there was the festive dinner: long tables with the kitchen personnel serving large globs of the most delicious lamb biryani (look it up) you can imagine. When I finished my glob, it was immediately replaced with a new one, and I asked Farook how I could stop them adding more and more on my plate. “There is only one way,” he said. “You have to confront them as they approach, grab both their wrists and say ‘stop, no more for me’.”

During dinner there was a discussion with a group of around twenty Hindu Indians. The host wanted them to join in the meal, but as strict vegetarians they could not partake of mutton biryani. “We have dal,” the host said. Dal is a stew made with split red lentils and various vegetables. But the Hindus would not sit at the same tables as the meat-eating Muslims. So a separate table was set up in a remote place in the garden, and the dal was served there to them.

I went over to the Hindu table with Farook to greet some acquaintances, and overheard the following conversation. “These Muslims are barbarians, eating the flesh of dead animals. How disgusting! But one thing you have to admit: they really cook excellent dal. It’s much better than what we make.” The secret: Muslim dal is made with the broth from the boiled bones! Of course we did not tell our friends about that.

• There will be further stories on adventures with Farook coming up.