I might not have gone back to my native place—Poona—but it has always stayed with me.
Although he continued to work from Bombay, where his office was on the fifth floor of the building, and his flat on the fourth floor, my father decided to rent a house in Poona, which was a military town known for its quiet and salubrious environment, and a good place to raise children. Our house was in the cantonment area, but just at the edge, so we enjoyed the quiet of the military areas but were not that far from Poona city. I grew up in a family of nine children.
Beyond my immediate family, there were three other families living in the compound, each in their own villa. There was a Parsi family, where an emigre German-Jewish music teacher would come to give piano lessons every day. Then there was an English family in the next villa, and an emigre Persian family in the last. This created a very cosmopolitan environment. There was a tremendous feeling of good neighbourliness and a great tradition of visiting each other, very informally. On top of which every family—the Parsis, Christians and us—would celebrate its own festivals and invite everyone from the compound. This was a taste of the "communal" in the very best sense of the term.
In the neighbouring compound, there was a long bungalow divided between a Goan Christian family and a Parsi one. The Parsi women were very skilled at playing Western classical music, while the Goan Christian family loved jazz, so different types of music were constantly in the background as I grew up. Beyond the compounds were the green fields of a Maharashtrian farmer, from whom we bought our greens and vegetables. He was one of my father's closest friends, although they really had no common language to communicate in. The farmer spoke only Marathi and my father had some knowledge of Hindustani but they were both drawn to each other. As I think back, all of this was also my education in theatre. Theatre is primarily about social observation and I saw a really rich slice of life, including a Parsi family that was like out of a Chekhov play. The sisters were all spinsters, and the one brother was a weak man, always drinking and borrowing money from the Pathan moneylenders.
My father was a self-taught man, and created libraries everywhere he went. These would include encyclopaedias, books in English, and he also subscribed to the latest journals from the Arab world, such as Al Ahram from Egypt. We read Naguib Mahfouz when he was just starting out, long before he became famous or received a Nobel. My father firmly thought that our cultural roots were in Saudi Arabia; we spoke only Arabic at home, and we had a teacher of Arabic and Islamic studies who was brought over from Saudi Arabia and lived as part of our family.
I never had a day's vacation from studying. My brothers and I would return from our Jesuit school—St Vincent's High School—to the study of the Quran and its interpretation at home. My sisters were taught at home. This gave us a solid foundation in Islam and Islamic studies. The second great influence on my early life was also a person in charge of a library—Father Riklin, who was also the principal of St Vincent's, and it was he who encouraged me to participate in the annual school play. I acted in those plays from age nine to 14.
Outside our immediate lives, other great events were happening. Poona played an important role in the Independence movement, which was at its height at this time. Gandhi and other Congress leaders would stay at the Aga Khan Palace in Poona city and I remember cycling around it. At night we could hear the Congress leaders working up the crowds. At the same time, you would have regimental bands marching through the streets, emphasising the presence of the British army. It was exciting, and scary.
I remember that on Saturdays, which were half-days, I would carry my bicycle over the sandy patch in the compound so that my mother wouldn't hear me leaving the compound. Some instinct would still alert her, and she'd call, "Ebrahim, Ebrahim!" But I'd pretend not to hear and cycle to Poona city. There I'd go to the International Book Service, which used to get the finest of new English literature from Europe. The intellectual fraternity of Maharashtra would also gather there, and they'd be discussing all the important issues of the time with the shop owner, a Mr Dikshit.