Muslim Money Talk
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Muslim Money Talk
84 Years of Life Lessons From My Grandmother: Pre-partition India, Tiger hunting and More
In this episode, the Areeb Siddiqui interviews his grandmother, Naina, about her remarkable life spanning pre-partition India, the creation of Pakistan, and her experiences living through pivotal moments in history. She reflects on her family’s legacy, her father’s resistance during partition, and shares advice on marriage, faith, and resilience.
This podcast is hosted by Areeb Siddiqui, the founder and CEO of Kestrl, the app that helps people to grow their wealth without compromise
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Show Notes:
00:00 – Opening
01:47 – Naina’s career as a color consultant and inventing “ash white”
03:01 – Early family history: Nawabs, British titles, and their land
06:57 – Grandfather’s barrister training in London and British influence
10:42 – Father’s resistance during partition and move to Hyderabad
14:35 – The value of jungles and the struggle over land
18:55 – Hyderabad’s independence, weapons surrender, and returning to Nagpur
21:22 – Bombay memories and partition violence stories
25:27 – Father’s plans for Pakistan and his untimely death
28:08 – Life at Bhadra House: elephants, tiger hunts, and palaces
33:11 – Hunting stories: man-eating tigers and family traditions
42:05 – Moving to Pakistan: Karachi in the 1960s and climate changes
45:52 – Comparisons of Pakistan then vs now, 1971 war memories
47:50 – Marriage and moving abroad; life in America and Europe
51:29 – Living through global events: WWII, partition, 9/11 aftermath
56:30 – Islamic banking, zakat, and her perspective on Kestrel
59:02 – Advice on marriage, family, and resilience in life
1:07:06 – Closing thoughts and reflections on her peaceful life
Who is your favorite grandchild? I can't say that. I want to go right back to the beginning. Naina, you were born in 1941 in pre-partition India. Do you remember being afraid during the time of partition? It was a lot.
Speaker 2:We were all hearing all these things, all the doors were open and we used to live in our homes.
Speaker 1:It doesn't sound like Pakistan today. Do you remember when 9-11 happened? Were you in America during that time, we used to live in our house. It doesn't sound like Pakistan today. Do you remember when 9-11 happened? Were you in America during that time?
Speaker 2:We were flying at that moment, what you were in the air.
Speaker 1:We were in America. In today's episode, we're doing something that we've never actually done before. It is the 14th of July 2025, and I am in Karachi, where it's very, very hot right now, and I'm at my grandmother's house. Nena, who is actually the guest for today, my grandmother will be talking about how she grew up and was born pre-partition before India, pakistan, bangladesh ever existed, what her life was like over there, what she saw, what she remembered and then how she found herself here in Pakistan and what life was like in Karachi in the 1960s. I think there's a lot that you can share and a lot that I've always wanted to hear about, quite selfishly, but a lot that I think our audience might be interested in as well, naina. So feel free to speak in English, or do we can translate as well, whatever you are comfortable in. But first of all, assalamu alaikum, nana, and welcome to muslim money talk assalamu alaikum so it's okay, we'll keep on going.
Speaker 1:Naina, you've never done an interview before, have you? Is this your first time?
Speaker 2:No, this is not first time. I have done it before when I was working for ICI. What was your job, naina, at ICI? No, ici, color consultant. I was just a consultant there, or normally I go to the building, the complete building, and see the building and give the colour scheme to those people.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, because before you were an artist, basically, you would do all this and you actually invented a colour whilst you were there, right? Yes, do you want to talk about that colour? What did you invent the colour? Was it a kind of grey? A kind of grey that you invented?
Speaker 2:Yes, I invent ash white. Ash white and ash white was very after this. Ash white was very popular and then they added it in their color card.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, I mean we'll get into more of that and how you actually invent a color. I'm a little because my khala is looking at me off screen like what am I talking about? But that did happen, right, that did happen, um cool. So I want to go right back to the beginning. Nana, you were born in 1941 in pre-partition india, in nagpur, which I think is right in the center of the indian map. It's like bang in the center. But your family is very interesting in that you guys were what's called the nawabs of the of the region, or the british appointed muslim rulers of that, of that state, of that area in nag. So I want to ask more about how your family became that. Your grandfather was the first Nawab of Nagpur, is that right? And he was appointed at a very, very young age. He was still a boy when he was appointed that.
Speaker 2:Actually, nawab Niazuddin Khan was my grandfather, so your grandfather's family. It was a big state. It was a very big state, but they had a very big property.
Speaker 1:So your grandfather's family already ruled a lot of land when the British were already there.
Speaker 2:But it's not given by British. Because he had such a big property and the jungles and everything was in his land, british government gave him the title of Khan Bahadur, but after that my grandfather, nawab Niazuddin Khan, his mother, was the only child, so he got the property of his father.
Speaker 1:I understand so your grandfather. It fell to him because he was the first son of an only daughter and that's where all this land came to him. And then the British came and said well, this would be quite a good person to give the title of Nawab to, even though he was just, he was 18 years old. He was 18 years old, he was very young at the time. So where did they send him for his training, his education? Because they were basically training him to rule this area and look after something like 250 different villages.
Speaker 2:Yes, something like that. But he was young, so to bring them up, brought up, there was a lot of class in India at that time, so they all belonged to an elite class. So the British government held on to the entire property and the government and the government prepared a palace for them.
Speaker 1:The government took them to England and they studied there. Happening right now politically, a lot of people feel like Muslims wherever they're from from India, pakistan, turkey that they shouldn't be there and they shouldn't belong there. But weirdly, your grandfather, my great-great-grandfather, was studying in London and he was studying to become a barrister at Lincoln's Inn, and this must have been in the 1890s or the early 20th century.
Speaker 2:That I can't tell you because I was very young. I wasn't there. In fact, I was born in 1941.
Speaker 1:But this training? Why was it? You said the elite in society was sent to this training, to barristership. And didn't Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah? Didn't they also study in London and they studied law in some way in Lincoln's? And why was it this and why going to the UK? Why was that seen as like the pinnacle of what people should be studying and doing?
Speaker 2:You can call those days elite class think to become a barrister is a very much in. I think all the people, Jawaharlal Nehru and all these, they are all barristers they have done from Lincoln's Inn so he has also sent there for baristry. So for that study they were sent there and brought up there. It wasn't brought up so much that they went there for study, they took them there for study and brought up there. Yeah, I remember you telling me a funny story when I was getting.
Speaker 1:I went there to study. I took him there to study. I brought him here. I remember you telling me a funny story when I was getting married and you saw my black shirwani with gold buttons. That's not his.
Speaker 2:That's not his.
Speaker 1:That was your brother.
Speaker 2:My brother, yes.
Speaker 1:So, your brother also studied in London, was it yes?
Speaker 2:my brother also studied in London, was it? Yes, my brother also studied in London and he went to his Sherwani. He had such big gold buttons on his black Sherwani, just to use it if needed.
Speaker 1:So if he was stuck or something, he could sell his golden buttons and find his way home. But you said that your grandfather, when he came back, he considered himself, like you said, a Britisher. I think that was the word that you used in some way. What did that mean exactly? Britisher?
Speaker 2:Britisher toh nahi banke aayate Balke unne English etiquette. He liked the English style and the style of the elite class there. He liked that. So in the same way, they made their home a place for them, along with religion. Being a Muslim, everybody should know English, how to speak English and how to sit and eat on a dining table and chair, and all Although the kings had this method, but their way of eating and drinking was different. And all the although rajas had this method, but in their house the method of eating and drinking was different, sitting like this dining table and chairs and all these things. This did not happen in the king's house. Food was made in plates and eaten on plates really ok.
Speaker 1:So then they picked up that style and that obviously stayed in your home from your father's time to your time. So now I want to move on to what you do remember about your father. You know your father passed away when you were quite young, but he lived to see partition. He lived to see partition, he lived to see the creation of Pakistan and India, and I think that was a really interesting time for you and your family. So you were seven years old when partition was happening. And your father? What did the Indian state ask him to do when they approached Nagpur?
Speaker 2:When the independence movement started during the partition. People sacrificed a lot for it. People gave their property and everything for independence and they started going to Pakistan. They left everything behind. So in those days when the Indian government came, when Congress took place, there were sessions of Congress when Muslim League was part. The Muslim Muslim League was the member of the Muslim League. After the partition he got a seat in the Muslim League, but he also went to the Congress session in Lahore.
Speaker 1:Your father did Because, basically, he was asked to give up all of his arms, all of his weapons at the time.
Speaker 2:Guns, pistols, knives, kings and the nobles, all their property was sealed. What did they have to do? There was a war to do.
Speaker 1:They had to surrender. They had to surrender their weapon. They had to surrender.
Speaker 2:The government took over the entire jungle. They said this is the government's property. The actual property was mostly jungles. The land was of the Akashic region, which were not of much importance to them. The jungles were very important.
Speaker 1:Why were the jungles so important to them?
Speaker 2:Because the jungles were of the teak. Then there was a forest of tea and a forest of leaves. The leaves were used to make a cigarette. It's a sort of cigarette. They were used to make cigarettes and they were of the same type. The most expensive forest was of the same type and there was a forest where lakhs used to come out and lakhs for the stamp and I don't know what else was used for lakhs in those days. I don't know that.
Speaker 1:But it was very valuable real estate for the state.
Speaker 2:I heard that in 1940, before our birth, my father had a farmer who was buying leaves from the forest. He stopped the car at the station for one minute and our father was travelling on the train. My father's name was Muhyiddin, he was travelling, he didn't have time. So the buyer stopped the car and sat in the car and he wanted to meet him. So he said call him. He came. At those days in the 40s he sold a jungle worth 7 lakh rupees Wow, you can guess how valuable it was. So he had a jungle of hundreds of acres.
Speaker 1:So this was all very valuable real estate to the government, but your father actually wanted to do something different. He was quite upset at having to abandon his weapons, and there was something going on in Hyderabad that I'd only recently heard about. I'd never heard about this before as part of the independent story, but your father took all of you his children, you as the youngest daughter, and he took you guys to Hyderabad. Why why was he in Hyderabad?
Speaker 2:He refused to live in Nagpur without weapon. He said I will not stay here without weapon Because weapons were all surrendered. When Indian government came, Congress government came and surrendered all the weapons of Muslims and non-Muslims. When the weapons were surrendered, he said I can't live without the weapons. He went to Hyderabad, Dakkan, we went to Hyderabad, Hyderabad with the family. The system of Hyderabad was actually their state.
Speaker 1:It was an independent state. So we should explain to the listeners that a Nizam is like a level above Nawab, where Nawab is in charge of Not a Nawab.
Speaker 2:Yes, he was not a Nawab. He was not a Nawab?
Speaker 1:He's not a Nawab.
Speaker 2:He was the king of that state.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly so. A Nawab looks after a group of villages or towns, whereas a Nizam is like the ruler. The Nizams are under Nizam Hyderabad. Exactly so. Lots of Nawabs will report into a Nizam, a Nizam who rules the state. Now this Nizam of Hyderabad decided we are going to be an independent state within this newly formed India and we're going to ally ourselves with what he decided British government has been.
Speaker 2:When they left India, they decided that Nizam Hyderabad would remain as it is.
Speaker 1:That's crazy, because Hyderabad is nowhere near Pakistan or modern day Bangladesh.
Speaker 2:They didn't adopt Pakistan. He did not adopt Pakistan. Their state was a Muslim state and that state remained the same because their own army, their own everything, it was a state. Even the Bhopal state was the state. It remained the same.
Speaker 1:so your father's idea was let me go to Hyderabad and let me see if there is some life I can build here for myself, independent, and he really wanted to keep his weapons. Why did he really really want to keep the weapons? Why was that so so important to him?
Speaker 2:That I can't tell you. But for him it was very important that I cannot live without weapons. I will become helpless Without any weapon. I will become helpless. I will become helpless without any weapon. So his friends were there. Zaheer Yarjung, his state was Paiga, so in Dakhan Hyderabad there was Paiga state. Nawab Zaheer Yarjung had guests there. He was a guest for Nawab Zaheer Yarjan.
Speaker 1:And you guys stayed. So he went to see his friend who was the Nawab of this other region, paiga, and you guys stayed in a palace. At that time you said he had a big palace.
Speaker 2:He had a few palaces there, so he had kept us in one of few palaces there.
Speaker 1:So we were living there for a few months and then there was a law in the city of Dakan that whoever came there as a Nawab that visited had to go and almost show their respect and their allegiance for the Nizam and they had to pay some gold, some bounty to the Nizam.
Speaker 2:Just a gift for him. He had to take it. My father was ready to go there to meet him, but he told me there is a protocol that you bow down and bow down from the main gate.
Speaker 1:So he had to bow to the Nizam, which is quite an un-Islamic kind of concept To ho.
Speaker 2:Humaye wale ne kaha ki main yeh nahin karunga To unka baghair, is tara se to aap enter nahin ho sakte unke darbar mein To. He said ki I won't go. He refused to go there and he came back to his house. He came to Nagpur. He left Hyderabad at that time.
Speaker 1:You guys went back to Nagpur, but you went to Bombay as well in between. Was that right?
Speaker 2:No, After that, my father got sick.
Speaker 1:After he got sick, for his treatment he went there, bombay, and Bombay, or Mumbai as it's now called, what was it like at the time? Because you described it so, I think, differently from how people today.
Speaker 2:Imagine Mumbai or Bombay developed here to know see their house a key at the sorry Joe underground railways and under training and all these things. Yes, of us, etera, developed a distra London, me, polly, who are cut it up to now. London is also our advanced place.
Speaker 1:Just exactly the same type of uncertain it's so hard for me to imagine, because it's almost like speaking with you, naina. Sometimes it's like we're in a time machine and we're talking about a world that doesn't exist anymore. This is 1947, I think, or 1948, so we're talking about the year of partition 1947, as Muslims were you? Do you remember? I know you were a child, but do you remember being afraid during the time of partition? Did you hear about anything that was happening? The riots, the killings?
Speaker 2:No, it was happening a lot. It was happening a lot. We are all hearing all these things. Even when the Nizam Hyderabad had to surrender, the Indian government basically raided it and their army came and surrendered. The army raided the entire place, so in front of us, everyone was dying.
Speaker 1:So you saw the battle. When eventually, the Indian government came and they performed the siege of Hyderabad and the Nizam forces had to surrender, you saw that happen in front of you.
Speaker 2:I didn't see it with my own eyes, but I was hearing all these things. And the fault of the Dakan was that Pakistan was supported by the Nizam Hyderabad For Pakistan. The Nizam had transferred all his treasure to Pakistan and Nizam had operated his planes, free planes, from India to Pakistan.
Speaker 1:So he was basically in exchange for the gold that Hyderabad was sending to Pakistan. He was also sending people for free via planes from Hyderabad airport into Karachi for anyone who wanted to evacuate India and go to the newly formed Pakistan.
Speaker 2:He left his property. Liaquat Ali Khan left his state Nawab Liaquat Ali.
Speaker 1:Khan.
Speaker 2:Mahmoodabad also left. Nawab Liaquat Ali Khan also left. Nawab, who was he?
Speaker 1:All of these people were leaving. They were leaving and they were going to the newly formed Pakistan. Did your father ever think about doing it?
Speaker 2:Yes, he was very much. He was in the Muslim League and he wanted to come to Pakistan and his manager came to ask him how to transfer the property from India to Pakistan, property from India to Pakistan. But his life was so short that his age did not support him and after that he died in 1947.
Speaker 1:Your father fell unwell quite quickly and he passed away back then in 1947. And suddenly the he died in 1949.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, he then in 1947.
Speaker 1:And suddenly the In 1949, the title of Nawab was handed over to your eldest brother, who was also quite young. He was 16, 17 years old at the time.
Speaker 2:Right yes, both the brothers were very young. They were studying in one of them. The eldest one was studying in Aligarh and the younger one was studying in Dune School. Both of my brothers used to go on board and this is a place, just so the viewers who don't know.
Speaker 1:I've never been able to visit myself because post-partition it's been quite difficult for Pakistanis and people of Pakistani descent to attain visas and to go to India, so unfortunately I've never been able to visit this place, but I would love for you to describe to me what it was like. What it was like growing up. I've heard about gates that you had for elephants, because bother house used to have elephants and and large property was not the place for this, little far away from properties, Little far away from Nagpur.
Speaker 2:So the properties that we had, which are called Behla and Khujji state those properties were a little far. So what happened was the buildings that were built there. The British government built them. The Khujji building, it looks like a mahal and it's called mahal.
Speaker 1:You say mahal is palace Palace.
Speaker 2:Yes, and there are huge gates there which are called Hathi Thaan in that area, and similarly there is a huge building in Behle and there was also an elephant barn, so they had kept elephants there.
Speaker 1:What did they use the elephants, the hearties for? What were they used for?
Speaker 2:Normally the bridges were not made and the bridges that were made on it, the bridges were not bridge on the river. So when the river was full, the elephants crossed the river.
Speaker 1:So the elephants were an easier way to cross the river. But and I think this is something we should probably talk about the elephant or the tiger in the room which is there is a tiger skin on the wall behind which was I'm not going to say it was sourced ethically, but it was um shot a long, long time ago in an unfortunate time where tigers were were hunted massively. But that's a big part of our family history and it was actually, for people who know me a little bit better, I'm a massive wildlife, wildlife fan. I'm really into tigers, big cats, and that's because of me in my early days coming to this house seeing this tiger. But your family has a big history with wildlife and protecting that area and tigers. Especially your own mother, I think, killed a tiger when she was quite young.
Speaker 2:My mother killed two tigers.
Speaker 1:Were they bad tigers? Were they man-eaters?
Speaker 2:No, they are not man-eaters. My brother killed one man-eater. My mother killed a tiger when she was passing through. She had her own car or she was passing from inside the jungle. She was passing through the jungle and suddenly she saw a tiger. My father was not with her, her manager was sitting in front of her and the driver was driving. When they crossed the forest, they had guns. My mother had a gun and the manager also had a gun. So he asked Begum Sahiba, would you like to hunt a lion that is passing by? So my mother said yes, I will kill it. So my mother got ready to kill it. Then the car was ready to shoot him. The car stopped when he passed by, my mother fired the first shot. It was a proper fire, it was on his heart. So he started falling there, and the second fire has to be done by the manager, because the second fire is always done by another person.
Speaker 1:So for our viewers. You've seen, the lights have just come on. We've been filming in Pakistan in the middle of one of the many power cuts that happens here, and now it seems like the lights have just returned, and the air conditioning as well, alhamdulillah. So we're going to break here very quickly, nana, and when we return we're just going to make sure everything is running OK and the air conditioning is what is working okay my father was actually in those days.
Speaker 2:he he went to uh hunting game game. He said, don't clean it, let it be like this, I am coming. Then he came and just to congratulate him. He left his hunt in the jungle and came and he said that he came to congratulate them.
Speaker 1:We've just shifted the camera angle a little bit for our viewers because the electricity is back on, we have air conditioning and lights and all of that again, so hopefully it's not too jarring. So, naina, we were just talking about tigers and what it was like back then, but people used to really hunt these creatures nearly to extinction at that time, like Queen, I remember videos of a young Queen Elizabeth I don't even know if she was queen back then, but hunting tigers with Prince Philip on the back of an elephant, but it was something that the elites seemed to do and people would travel to India just to try and shoot a tiger. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Yes, it was very common the British Viceroy and all these people they would come there for shooting, tiger shooting. It was a hunting game actually, and we would sit on elephants and do it In the forests in the north. We would sit on elephants and do it normally. It was a hunting game and they did it in our jeep.
Speaker 1:I remember a story. So this tiger who's on the wall was shot by your brother. I remember a story you told me where there was a tiger in the area that was eating people. I think it had killed seven or eight people in the village, in the jungle.
Speaker 2:Yes, man-eater.
Speaker 1:It had turned man-eater. It usually happens when a tiger has become quite old and struggles to hunt deer and boar and buffalo, but it had killed a few people who were going into the jungle to cut wood, and your brother, who was quite young, had to go and kill this animal. So do you want to tell that story, because I remember it so vividly? Can I tell you what I remember and you tell me if it's right? So the tiger had just killed a young man in the wood in the jungle, and he was a woodcutter, and your brother arrived at the man's family's house where his parents had collected the body. What was left of the body? And your brother said what Can you please give me the body? Because I want to take the body back to where that tiger killed him, because it will likely return looking for its food, and meanwhile I will build a platform in the tree and I'll wait there for that tiger to come back. Is that what happened? He took the body back and he waited all night.
Speaker 2:Yes, and he was waiting for that and it didn't turn up. It didn't turn up that day and then the second time he injured someone, one of the villagers, so he injured him. Then he went there and then he got him injured. He sat there for him and he killed him to fear. He went there or fear Oscar or Karvaia, was Kelly, a bet, a whopper? And he killed him. Wow, oscar Mara, this is a good day job was cool, god, okay. Logo ninja whiskey. Is this cook at a cart case got paid, cut, kiss up. They cut the stomach and throw it away. So when it was all thrown away, the women of the village wore silver chains on their feet.
Speaker 1:So they had like bangles on there and that came out of the tiger's stomach.
Speaker 2:It all came out of the tiger's stomach.
Speaker 1:They had a lock profound effect on me. There was a story, I think, of how your father a tiger almost got got. He was standing on some termite hills and a tiger snuck up on him and he had to turn around and kill it quite quickly.
Speaker 2:My grandfather, my grandfather, joe T, he was walking towards the know you were. It is a principle of the hunter that if a lion is wounded, he should be found and killed. So someone.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? That someone has to find it and kill it. What is the rule?
Speaker 2:Somebody has injured a tiger. So when a tiger is injured it becomes out of control.
Speaker 1:Then he oh, so someone had injured it, had tried to kill it and it had failed. And the tiger just was going crazy.
Speaker 2:Many people 7-8 people were with him and they were searching it with the torches and all these things. So they went to find it. It was hidden from one place. They found out that it was in this area, so it was hidden in one place in a wounded condition. So when my grandfather went to look for him, he saw that he was coming out, so he started going back slowly. Other people ran away, but he didn't turn, he didn't run away.
Speaker 2:He slowly went back and there was an ant hill. It was a very big ant house.
Speaker 1:He slowly moved back and hid behind the ant house which is a very difficult thing to do, and it reminds me of a story of a tiger in Russia and it's recounted very nicely in a book called the Tiger by John Valiant, where similar stories. Some people tried to hunt a tiger. They failed and the tiger went on a revenge mission a revenge story to kill these men and the tiger found their home, broke into the home, waited for the men to come home and then ate them and left their body pieces all over and then a team had to go and and get rid of this tiger because it was just going on a rampage killing people. Um sorry, this is very different to our usual topics in the show, in what's the money talk, but um, all these stories are there.
Speaker 2:My father, nawab Mohiuddin Khan, has written them. Ali Muhammad Rashdi has written them in Pakistan when he came to hunt and he hunted here and he was staying there. So that book of that time is written. They came to hunt themselves, they hunted here and stayed there. There is a book of that time. My father was there. He stayed there for a year and hunted For a year. My father was a guest of Nawab Muhyiddin Khan when he stayed there.
Speaker 1:I'll have to find. You'll have to find the name of the book and tell me, because I'd love to see it.
Speaker 2:The book is with Irfan Bhai.
Speaker 1:Irfan Mahmood, who is my uncle and the current Nawab. I'll have to get it from him.
Speaker 2:I don't remember the name of the book we'll ask.
Speaker 1:We'll ask off camera, but thankfully tigers are protected now in India.
Speaker 2:They've made a big comeback now you can't do any shooting, not only tigers. You can't kill any, any wildlife, and they're massively protected. Not only tigers, you can't kill any. That's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, any wildlife and they're massively protected and where, at Kestrel, we do a lot of to make this Kestrel-related again we do a lot of work in Malaysia, where there are very, very few tigers left in Malaysia.
Speaker 1:I think they've just created their first tiger reserve, and an idea which I had at business school alongside Kestrel, with Dying, my co-founder, was what if we could create an Islamic finance product which allowed people to invest into nature reserves, into, like Malaysia, a tiger reserve which would protect the jungle and allow people to come and visit as tourists to see the animals, similar to how they do and people do safaris in India now to see the wildlife and see the tigers. Other countries like Malaysia could do the same and it could be a nice piece of revenue and a nice way of investing as well. So watch this space. Maybe we'll be able to do that at Kestrel. I think we could sit all day and just talk about your memories of Bhadra House and I remember you saying that once you had pets as well and you had two tigers who came as pets.
Speaker 1:My brother's pet, yes, there were two tiger cubs who came and they spent some time with you guys. But I want to talk about Pakistan, because you grew up in India. But then you married my grandfather, Papa, who sadly passed away just a couple of weeks ago and you got married in 1963 and moved to Karachi. So I want to know what was Karachi like back then, Because now we'll show some footage. It's very busy. It's a massive city. There's people everywhere you can probably hear throughout this podcast just the road, the traffic, the motorbikes, the horns, the electricity is turning off and on. But what was it like in 1963 when you first arrived? It?
Speaker 2:was actually itna traffic bhi nahi tha, itni cars bhi nahi thi. There was no traffic, there were no cars. It was a very clean city, neat and clean city. People were very. It used to happen that they liked the guests a lot in those days Because they had migrated themselves.
Speaker 1:Karachi is a city of immigrants, of people who came from India and settled here.
Speaker 2:He was from Karachi, so he was from Karachi. Mostly people came from Karachi.
Speaker 1:So I've seen the pictures. It looks very clean. A seaside city, pakistan's biggest city.
Speaker 2:The climate is excellent climate at those days. Yes, there was no fan in the houses Really At those days, yes, there was no fan in the houses, really.
Speaker 1:Yes, so what's so different now? Because now it's unbearable Climate change.
Speaker 2:It's a global change, a very big climate change, yeah. So because of that, now it's become very hot.
Speaker 1:And those memories of early Pakistan. What was it like here? Can you describe to the viewers? Because right now people have one idea of Pakistan, but in the 60s there were no crimes here.
Speaker 2:When the war of 1965 and 1971 took place, our doors were not closed. All the doors were open and we used to live in our homes. Nobody came in, nobody stole anything, nobody did anything. There were no such crimes. We didn't close the doors of our homes.
Speaker 1:It doesn't sound like Pakistan today, but that sounds very different.
Speaker 2:Especially in Karachi. Everything was open. There was a bomb near our house. It wasn't a bomb, it was a shell. Was this during the 1971 war with India? Running on the road? No one is scared in Pakistan. No one in Pakistan is scared that we will die, because they know that we have to die. Death will come when we die, so nobody is scared of death here in Pakistan. Muslims are never scared of death.
Speaker 1:Did you feel the same way during the recent war that happened just a couple of months ago with India, where missiles were struck near Lahore and Kashmir? There were drones seen above Karachi. People thought we were on the brink of nuclear war.
Speaker 2:Did you feel the same way or do you think people reacted differently now than they did back in the 70s?
Speaker 1:When you first got married to Papa in 1963, mashaallah, papa worked for KLM the airline, so you traveled the whole world together through that Nearly, nearly the whole world, and I remember we'll put up some pictures as well. Your honeymoon was basically the dream honeymoon. It was a wild trip where there's pictures of you guys in New York at the World Fair. You guys were in Lebanon.
Speaker 2:World Fair. You guys were in Lebanon World Fair first World Fair. We went to New York first. Then we went to Niagara Falls to see the Niagara Falls. We went to Buffalo and we were staying in Buffalo, Buffalo, and we were staying in Buffalo and watching Niagara Falls. There were some films in those days in which Niagara Falls was shown a lot. And there was this actress I don't remember the name now she went under the waterfall. Under the waterfall, yes, under the waterfall. She used to stand there. I wanted to do that, but papa said no, you can't go there. He didn't allow me to go there.
Speaker 1:He must have been a bit worried something would happen. But what was it like in New York in 1963? We're talking about the madman era. What was it like for a Muslim, for a Pakistani, in New York? Was it weird? Did people treat you differently or did you not even notice it?
Speaker 2:No, they didn't notice it. There was no special difference. America was very good in those days. It was very good, and people helped each other and they talked English all the time. We went to Paris first. In Paris, no one listens to anyone or Italian.
Speaker 1:Not much has changed in France.
Speaker 2:And India. We went to Italy too, but when we reached America, everything is very casual. All my children, especially one of them she doesn't want to wear the shoes.
Speaker 1:This is when you went back to America after your honeymoon and you had your four daughters, mashallah, the youngest of which is my mother. My father died In those days. He would take off his shoes and wear America after your honeymoon and you had your four daughters, mashallah, the youngest of which is my mother.
Speaker 2:Yes, we went with my children In those days. They would take off their shoes and wear slippers and nobody would mind it. But in England everyone would mind such things. They would count like this one, two, three, four, like this to the children. So we would get off the bus.
Speaker 1:So you liked America better than England Because you used to travel to both quite a lot, even before I was born, it was very broad and very clean and neat and everything is there and people are very casual.
Speaker 2:No one is looking at someone's clothes. No one is looking at someone's shoes. No one is looking at someone's shoes. They are very. What sort of people I can't explain.
Speaker 1:They were friendly.
Speaker 2:Very friendly. They used to eat so much food. They used to eat half and throw the other half away.
Speaker 1:It was their trend do you remember any of the world events that were happening back then? Do you remember the civil rights movements with Martin Luther King or when Kennedy was shot, when he was assassinated?
Speaker 2:we were not there.
Speaker 1:I remember that, but we were not there gosh, because it occurs to me you've lived through so many massive world events. Not there. I remember that, but we were not there, Because it occurs to me you've lived through so many massive world events that we read about in history books. You know you were born during World War II. World War II had not finished. That finished in 1945. No, World War II finished in 1945.
Speaker 1:You were a baby. I know you were born during that time. You lived during the Kennedy assassination, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the entire Cold War. I was studying in college. I was in college. I'm not implying you were involved in what happened.
Speaker 2:I don't know I can't tell you much about it.
Speaker 1:You saw Muhammad Ali fight Sonny Liston. I don't know you live through all of these times. It's just I don't know. There's so much that I want to ask you about and talk about.
Speaker 2:My husband was very much interested in all the games and all these things because he's a tennis player, games and all these things, because he's a tennis player. Or maybe all my four daughters, they are all players, tennis player and all these things, their colleges and everywhere. So they are very interested in these things. I'm not interested in games.
Speaker 1:What are you interested in Nana?
Speaker 2:I used to read the books, yeah.
Speaker 1:And especially I have done after my graduation. I, you studied geography at university, was that right?
Speaker 2:Geography. I did honors in geography. After honors I wanted to do masters. So I had to do my masters in co-education. My mother didn't allow me to go on co-education.
Speaker 1:Why was that? Why didn't she want you to do a masters? Was she worried about marriage and you getting married? No, not about this.
Speaker 2:She said that Nawab Mohyiddin Khan's daughter was studying with boys. She didn't.
Speaker 1:One of them was she wanted you to study segregated away from men. Basically.
Speaker 2:And geography without practical you can't do geography.
Speaker 1:In certain universities, certainly at Cambridge and Oxford, there are women's only colleges still today for reasons like that. So it was a big topic at the time, not just for Muslims but for non-Muslims as well. These special women's only colleges were around the world. I'm surprised there wasn't one in India as well, but I guess because of the practical element of your masters, you had to co-mingle with men.
Speaker 2:Yes, because of that only. And then there was also the fact that for practical reasons sometimes we had to go outside the city. So that too, our mother didn't allow us to do that.
Speaker 1:We've talked about so much. I want to ask you about a very interesting time in Pakistan's history, which was when General Zia-ul-Haq took over Pakistan. And it was an interesting time because he implemented Sharia law and he wanted 100% Sharia banking included. So overnight, every bank had to be 100% Sharia compliant and everyone would automatically pay Zakat through their accounts.
Speaker 2:I think so. From the beginning the law was Sharia law, but they didn't implement it. But Zia-ul-Haqq tried to implement Sharia law, but they cannot say whether they could implement Sharia law or not.
Speaker 1:I mean he died through a relatively mysterious helicopter explosion. But before that time, do you remember when? Because I've heard this story. I think Haris Irfan tells it on a different interview but there was a time in Pakistan where people were running around trying to get all their money out of bank accounts because the Zakat tax was going to be taken from it.
Speaker 2:Zakat tax yes.
Speaker 1:Do you remember how Papa?
Speaker 2:reacted how?
Speaker 1:you reacted in that time?
Speaker 2:No, I didn't react much. We didn't have a lot of money at that time. We didn't keep money in the bank because of interest.
Speaker 1:Because of tax.
Speaker 2:No because of the interest. Yes because of the interest. Yes, my mother is a very religious woman so she never kept money in the bank, that it would be haram. That means interest would come. There was interest in the bank in India. I am talking aboutega Bank mein interest tha waha India mein, main India ki baat bataari bank ke paison mein interest aata tha. Toh humayi bank mein paise hi nahi rakhe jaate tha Paise, jitna bhi paise aata tha wo sab ghar ki tijoriyon mein rakha jaata tha, ghar mein jo safe, the bade bade, wo safe mein rehta tha paise.
Speaker 1:And that's so interesting because do you remember when I I remember coming here, I just graduated from business school and I'd come up with the idea for Kestrel for my business, and I came and I was so excited and I said to you we're going to do this thing and it's going to be an Islamic bank. And do you remember what you said to me when I, when I told you the news?
Speaker 2:I don't know if you remember.
Speaker 1:I remember that you said you looked at me and then you said how is this going to make money? I ask you which I was so surprised about, because usually when you tell your grandmother you're doing something like starting a business, they're like, oh, that's really really nice, that's good. But mashallah, mashallah, you've always been so commercially minded that you've always questioned every element of a business plan I said it's not enough for them to have a family which you were right at the time, because at that time, that business plan did not work.
Speaker 1:It didn't work because we were just trying to be a digital bank and nothing else.
Speaker 2:In Pakistan the business of interest was very popular. Big banks used to give a lot of interest. It was very common in Pakistan at those days. So in that the was very difficult for the bank to change their style. And the Zakat Fund. In the beginning the Zakat Fund was cut. But when we saw that in the Zakat Fund, allah knows to what extent the Zakat Fund is not spent in the right places, but it is disappeared from the middle.
Speaker 1:It must be, because if Zakat were truly being implemented in this country, I feel like there would be no homeless. There would be no. I don't think people are hungry, but there's a lot of homelessness, there's a lot of poverty and something must be going wrong with the implementation of Zakat in Pakistan. But at that time, during Zia-ul-Haq's time, he wanted to do state-implemented Zakat where the government would do it, and I think people hated the idea of doing that, Because today people do their own Zakat. They send Zakat to their family, they send it wherever they want.
Speaker 2:They didn't have any belief that the government would do this. That's why people started giving their own zakat.
Speaker 1:Gosh, that's so interesting, but, Alhamdulillah. How do you feel about what I'm doing now with Kestrel, with the business? Do you still feel worried about it?
Speaker 2:No, I'm very happy, son. Allah has given us a great blessing that our children are going towards halal. It's a very big blessing from God. All our grandchildren know what is halal and what is haram.
Speaker 1:Who is your favorite grandchild?
Speaker 2:I can't say that, but I know that he was the papa's favorite child because he was the first child, first grandchild.
Speaker 1:I was just the first born grandchild. You had had four daughters and I was a boy, so I think there was something there, but Papa MashaAllah loved everyone in a different way.
Speaker 2:Every child has his favourite. Whatever comes in front of him, he becomes his favorite. He used to say, with this same technique, that my father is my favorite. My father is my favorite. So those children used to be happy.
Speaker 1:MashaAllah, it's been difficult. I think it's been difficult since papa's gone, but alhamdulillah there's still so much going on and we really want to inshallah, make what we're doing succeed. Succeed, because papa was really into what we were doing. There was one more thing I wanted to ask you about. You are an american citizen. You and papa spent years in america. Why are you making that face?
Speaker 2:you are you are, yeah, you spent.
Speaker 1:You spent years in america, uh, because of your four daughters. Two of them went to america, one of them went to england and had me. Two of them went to america. Do you remember when 9-11 happened? Were you in America during that time?
Speaker 2:We were flying at that moment. What you were in the air, we were in America, and the day we flew from America to Dubai, we were flying, we went to Dubai and our plane came up to Dubai. After coming up to Dubai, they said you all should come out of the plane because we were the transit passengers. We were coming to Karachi at that moment, so we didn't understand why they had us leave and we didn't understand why they had me sent out. I didn't even know. And then, after a few hours, another plane left. We were flying with Kalim.
Speaker 1:Do you remember how the attitudes had changed in America after 9-11? You guys were living in California, but did you see things change at the time? But you guys were okay. They didn't take you off of the plane.
Speaker 2:Because my husband was an employee. Oh, he was an employee of KLM at the time. We weren't removed, but a few Pakistani husbands were removed from there.
Speaker 1:They were removed.
Speaker 2:They were removed in Dubai. Do you remember Many Europeans or Americans, I don't know who were sitting there? They refused to go to the same flight. They said remove them from India and we will go on this flight.
Speaker 1:Really, they said we won't stay on this plane if these people are on the plane as well. Yes, they changed the plane was it a scary time in america during that time to be? Do you remember being scared or not? Really, I don't know to Pakistan.
Speaker 2:at that point I was so scared that our plane would be dropped somewhere on the way, but two elderly people.
Speaker 1:I don't think they were going to do that. Naina, for people listening. We have a lot of very young viewers. We have a lot of people who are just married, who are looking to get married. Do you have any advice to young people who are listening, or to your grandchildren who are listening, about life and how to do it?
Speaker 2:Mashallah. You lived a very peaceful life. I never, my child, will arrive in you. We, husband and wife, papa and I, never fought over it. Actually, the thing is that a man has to accept his wife. A woman can accept it. When a man accepts a woman, I have to live with this woman and this will my woman. Then life goes very smoothly. Actually, after marriage we should first think that doing nothing but a woman is not enough. It is important for a man.
Speaker 1:What do you think people get wrong about marriage these days?
Speaker 2:Do you think young people make mistakes? If he doesn't want to leave her, he will never leave her. If a man wants to leave her, then there will be separation. Until men will not decide to let her go, he will never leave her Because he needs protection. Every time he feels protection. Your, his feeling is protection. Your grandfather was on the bed Eight years. He was, but I never wanted him to move. It looks like a backbone of my mind. I thought this was my support always.
Speaker 1:Actually, this feeling they are the full support of the woman and they should feel completely supported and backed up by them. Well, I'm not going to argue with that. There are arguments.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but past things have to be given up. They have to give up. They have to give up. They have to fight, they have to give up.
Speaker 1:Well, naina, it's been an amazing interview. Thank you so much for speaking with us. I feel like there was a lot more we could share. Was there anything else that you wanted to talk about, or have we taken up too much of your time? We will, don't worry, we'll take care of it.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for it.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, Naina. We'll speak to you very soon, inshallah Assalamualaikum.
Speaker 2:Waalaikumussalam.