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The One and the Only Shah Rukh Khan,
master of dance, drama, comedy, action & romance.This image gives the author's impression of what Qasim Ali Hussein might've looked like as a young man.

The Shia Muslims have a saying: Live like Ali, die like Hussein, and that expression fairly sums up Qasim Ali Hussein's inflexible sense of honour, duty, and devotion to God.

In his youth, Qasim was selected by his father and his three uncles, all of them middle rich farmers from Karnataka State in south central India, as the one boy among all their sons and nephews who possessed the qualities to become a leader of men. The young boy was hard working, respectful to his elders, good natured with younger children, and cheerful in the face of hardship, but it wasn't these qualities alone that suited him to the leader's role in the eyes of his uncles. It wasn't even his bravery - which young Qasim demonstrated on several occasions with his daring friends - that recommended him, nor even his willingness to face a challenge. What singled Qasim out, when all the names and qualities of the nine boys who were sons to the four farming brothers were discussed over the evening fires, was his wisdom. And that wisdom was most frequently called into play when disputes arose between Qasim's young friends.

One example of Qasim Ali's youthful wisdom that was told and retold was born in a simple game of marbles. The game was very popular amongst the boys in the village where Qasim Ali grew up, and every day there were determined bouts to win the highly prized glass marbles. One day, during a particularly fierce contest, with an especially large circle of precious marbles at stake, a fight broke out between two of the older boys. The best efforts of Qasim Ali and several other boys couldn't reconcile the antagonists, and whenever they were released by their friends, the two fighters flew at one another again. Finally, Qasim Ali seized all the marbles, and walked slowly toward the village well. There, watched by all the children in the village, he stood at the well's edge and began to drop the marbles into the long, deep shaft.

One marble fell, and a second, then a third. Suddenly, the two boys who'd been fighting shouted for Qasim Ali to stop. Forgetting their fury at one another, they rushed forward and pleaded with the older boy to stop dropping the marbles into the well. With his hand still suspended over the mouth of the well, Qasim Ali demanded that the boys make up, and ask their assembled friends to forgive them. When the boys did that, and embraced one another as friends again, Qasim Ali handed back the remaining marbles, and joined in the game with the others.

No-one knew the source of such wisdom in one so young, and no-one could account for Qasim Ali Hussein's instinct to intervene in disputes and attempt to resolve them. But in a land where conflicts can arise like dust devils in the parched squares of dry rice paddies, Qasim's instinct was prized. And as the boy grew into a young man, and the man became a husband and father himself, his wisdom was revered.

And it was that instinct to resolve conflicts, and bring peace between troubled friends, that brought the young Karnatakan farmer to the streets of Bombay. It came to the attention of Qasim Ali's father and uncles, the four of whom were senior members of the panchayat, or village council, that one of the village men had sworn a blood revenge upon another of the village sons. Since both men had settled in Bombay with their young families, it was a difficult matter for the council to intervene and attempt a reconciliation. It was decided that Qasim Ali would be sent as a representative, with the hope that he might be able to prevent bloodshed.

When he arrived in Bombay, Mumbai, the Island City of hope and dream and sorrows more liquid that the monsoon rains, Qasim found that the men were living in a slum. At first, the smell of the slum's open latrines and garbage dumps was intolerable for the young villager, and he saw nothing in the slum but poverty, misery, and resentment. He resolved to leave the slum as soon as his job was done, and return to the clean air and sweet waters of his village.

What Qasim discovered, when he spoke to both of his fellow villagers, was that jealousy for the love of a woman was at the heart of the feud. Each man blamed the other for provoking the jealous rages that had led to one of the men being savagely beaten by the other. Because one of the men - the man who'd suffered the beating - was smaller and weaker than the other, he had vowed to kill the other when the wounds of his beating had healed. Qasim tried every method of reasoning that he knew, and even begged the men to make the peace, but it was to no avail. The rage of both men was so intense that it sparked little fires of anger and smoulders of spite in the neighbours who looked on, and Qasim knew that the situation was desperate.

As a last resort, Qasim Ali challenged the bigger man to a fight, stating that he would stand in the stead of the beaten man. At first, the big man refused to fight, claiming that he had no quarrel with Qasim Ali. But when Qasim stripped to the waist and took up a position in an open piece of ground, and the crowd began to chant and taunt and jeer, the big man's eyes flashed with the knife-glint of anger. The bigger man rushed at Qasim with a roar, and the fight began. Qasim allowed the big man to land a few blows, ducking away from each hit to soften the impact. When he had the measure of the man, Qasim reached out and pulled the big man down, using the man's own charging momentum to urge his fall. Landing on top, he quickly seized the bigger villager's wrist, and twisted it until it reached up between the shoulder blades. Shrieking with pain, the man struggled for a few moments, and then surrendered.

Standing once more, his body lean and strong in the hot afternoon sunlight, Qasim walked to the beaten man, who was cheering the victory. Silencing him with an expression so stern that it seemed like a demon's mask in a village temple play, Qasim demanded that the man hand over his knife - the very knife that the beaten man had threatened to use on his bigger compatriot from the village. Reluctantly, the beaten mad handed over the weapon. In view of the crowd, and both of the combatants, Qasim then ran the sharp point of the knife along first one forearm, and then the other.

The crowd recoiled in shock, and cried out for him to stop. With the blood running into the palms of both hands, Qasim Ali Hussein then showed the wounds to both of the once angry men. The wounds were for their sake, he told them. Now, they could regard their feud as having drawn blood on both sides, and having been resolved. Ashamed, the villagers rushed forward to comfort Qasim Ali, and pledged their loyalty to him. They promised never to fight or feud again, and that they would work to repay the damage they had done to one another, and their community.

When Qasim Ali Hussein woke from his deep sleep the following morning, he was greeted by a delegation of men and women from the slum. They told him that they were some 25,000 souls, crowded into a space that was ten times too small for their number. They told him that the community of slum dwellers was plagued by conflicts and seemingly irreconcilable disputes. There was, they assured him, a better life to had by all of the people, if only they could find a suitable leader. They told Qasim that they were sure he was that leader, and they wanted to offer him a large house, and an income drawn from the contributions of all, if he would agree to stay for just one year, and improve their lives.

Qasim looked at the ragged homes, slumped against one another in black-grey waves that pushed against the horizon of concrete walls at the navy dockyard. He smelled the madness of filth and incense and rubbish and good food cooking on kerosene stoves and perfumed soap. He looked at the people, with their faces from every last dream of India. He listened to the voices from every musical language. And he decided that he would stay. Everyone, he said later, when his one year in the slum had become three and five and then eight, is connected to Fate through the will of God, and it's not until we open our hearts to what we fear, that we hear Fate knocking at the door of our lives.

NEXT MONTH'S CHARACTER PROFILE: ABDULLAH TAHERI

Love and best wishes,

Greg.