A Drop in The Ocean

'[Syeda Hameed] has spent her life working for the poorest, forwomen and for secularism. I witnessed her work for ten years asMember, Planning Commission. Her story opens new vistas and anew vision for all who read it.'-Dr Manmohan Singh'This is more than a memoir. This is history. Not as chronology, notas pedagogy, not as apology but as a soul's life-story drawn by thewing-flaps of bitter-sweet recall on the skies of truth-telling.'- Gopalkrishna GandhiSyeda Hameed was nine years old when her first story was published inShankar's Weekly in 1951. It was the start of a prolific writing career that wouldinclude the translation and editing of four volumes of Maulana Abul KalamAzad's works, and translations of Hali, Ghalib, Faiz and Sarmad Shaheed.But the story, 'You Have to Learn to Make Friends', also held within it theseeds of much that was to define her life in years to come. Born of an incidentwhen she was boycotted by the neighbourhood children because her namewas 'Syeda', it made her aware of her Muslim identity for the first time and,in time, of the need for peace between Hindus and Muslims, Indians andPakistanis. To this end, she went year after year with iconic journalist KuldipNayar and others to the Wagah border to light a candle on the stroke ofmidnight on August 14/15, and in 2000, took a 'bus of peace' to Lahore, andmet women who, like their sisters from 'the other side', yearned to forgebonds of friendship.Before this, returning to India after 17 years in Canada with her husband, SyedMohammad Abdul Hameed-a marriage of both happiness and heartache-she had built her life around the fight for human rights. As a Member of theNational Commission for Women and, later, the Planning Commission, shetravelled across the country listening to the dispossessed, and taking up theircauses-among them, Sajoni Kisku, a Santhal woman who was beaten andtortured for the 'sin' of picking up the plough when her drunken husbandcould not; 19-year-old Maimun from Nuh who was gang-raped for marryingoutside her gotra; and Tang Kumar of the Andamans, who lost his entire familyat sea and built a new life for himself as 'captain' of his village.Syeda writes of many such encounters that gave meaning to her life, and ofsome extraordinary people who shaped it: her mother, Aziz Jahan Begum ofthe royal Rampur family, and her father, the educationist Khwaja GhulamusSaiyidain; her uncle, the writer and cinema legend Khwaja Ahmed Abbas;Indira Gandhi, with whom she worked briefly; and Khushwant Singh, thegrand old Sardar who was her literary mentor.Sensitive, deeply human, intimate and often moving, this is an inspiring recordof a remarkable Indian life.