Story of my Grandfather

This is the story of my grandfather, a man with curiosity. There is a lot to learn from him..

---

In India, you can tell anyone’s religion or should I say ‘caste’ by their surname. But there are some exceptions, his surname is ‘Danwade’ and he is Muslim. Now, there is one more image you can make for a Muslim man in his 80s living in a small town, plausibly, a man with a long beard, wearing an Islamic cap and an Islamic dress. But he is a clean-shaven man with a Gandhi topi(cap) who wears a white shirt and white cotton pants. That’s my (Nana) grandfather, Allauddin Danwade or mostly known as Danwade Guruji(Teacher). He is 81 years old and here are some things I would like to share about him because I think he had a fascinating life.

I’m just in my early twenties, I never got to see his younger version. When I popped out, he had just got retired so you can say this is my observation of his post-retirement life.

A Teacher

A big part of his life is education. He was a primary school teacher for 37 years of his life. He used to teach everything from language like Hindi to the more challenging subjects like Maths and Science. I had an experience of his teaching in my 4th standard, for state-level scholarship exam. Teaching maths is his speciality (and especially the higher level maths required for scholarship exams).

I still remember how he taught me taking LCM, HCF of numbers and the concept of simple and compound interest with an example. He is a great teacher, it’s not the teaching method which makes him great but it’s that attitude of teaching. Being a teacher was never a duty for him, it was responsibility. In today’s world, most of the teachers will leave teaching if they don’t get paid for their job, that’s a major difference between a ‘duty’ and ‘responsibility’. He used to teach students for free, many of his students got success in those state-level scholarship exams(including me;) ). He made his students understand the importance of education.

A Liberal

Not every person who can read actually reads. Also, very few of the readers can actually understand what they are reading and possess their own thoughts about it. Liberals are readers. Liberals strive for reality. In this process, they make the world understand what reality is. That’s true with my grandfather too. He is a voracious reader. I think his love of reading and his profession of teaching made him understand the reality of society around him that created a desire to help people around him to follow a liberal path.

This journey led him to Sadhana Mandal(साधना मंडळ), a group founded by locals to guide and motivate students and youngsters towards a better life. Sadhna Mandal is a subpart of the Rashtra Seva Dal(राष्ट्र सेवा दल) a nationwide group which was founded by followers of Sane Guruji(follower of Gandhi) in 1941(before independence), to build a nation based on justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. His love of reading also made him join the local library (नगर वाचनालय) in his childhood. Due to his devotion to teaching and reading, he became the president of that library. He improved the library and made it well funded. He was a reputed teacher with excellent speaking skills that made him a member of the teachers association often fighting for teachers rights. As I said, he tried to liberalise the world around him in every way possible.

A Curious Mind, A Learner

This is one of the remarkable aspects of my grandfather, Curiosity. I think this is the most prominent reason behind all of the endeavours in his life. He is constantly reading about the things he is curious about, like all the religions, non-fiction books and social sciences. He makes himself learn new things. Even having a Marathi medium background, he taught himself to read English and Arabic scripts.

He taught himself Urdu words, reading Dohas of Kabir and knows Manache Shlok(मनाचे श्लोक), Tukaram gatha(तुकाराम गाथा). He has knowledge of Sanskrit literature as well and has knowledge of almost all religions but especially in Islam, being a Muslim he wanted to learn about his own religion. So, he learned Arabic and understood the meaning behind each word. In the end, he has his own notes in which he had translated the Quran line by line into Marathi. This example alone is enough to show his constant curiosity and acuteness towards the things around him. Another most striking thing can be that he learned Yoga in his 40s and is still doing it in his 80s which resembles his hunger for learning and doing the right things. He could do Shirshasana, a really hard pose in Yoga. He is curious about technology too, whenever I go to visit him he asks me to teach him how to operate various functions in his smartphone.

This man is more curious in his 80s than the kids in their teenage years and that makes him an inspiring figure for youngsters like me.

A Simple Man

Behind all of this, there lies a simple man. He is a follower of Gandhi. One thing you can tell instantly by looking at him is how simple he is. As I said, he wears a white shirt and white pants with a Gandhi topi. I never saw him wearing anything else. It’s not just about his dressing style but you can observe it in his nature as well. If you look at his room, you will see a wardrobe full of books, a desk with a lamp, a bunch of notes and a pen. You will see his bag hanging on the hanger and a neatly made bed and that’s it!.

There are no extravagant things, no shiny or glittery objects. You can observe it in his eating habits as well. I never saw him eating spicy, unhealthy food. Like Leonardo Da Vinci said “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”, he is truly a sophisticated person.

Family and Emotions

My grandfather got married when he was 24 with a girl named Shahajadi who was 22 at the time. She too was a primary teacher with high intellect. They have a total of five children, four daughters and one son. All of them are highly educated and married to highly educated persons. Teaching is in their DNA. Except for the son who is a cardiologist, all the daughters are teachers. My grandparents planted the seeds of simplicity, education and secularism in their children and which then followed the same for their children(I’m one of them). My other grandfather (Hello Nana) is also following this same ideology. In the end, it’s a happy and educated family.

Obviously, it was not all sunshine and rainbows for both of my grandparents. There were many instances where they faced the opposition of society like education of girls. In their post-retirement life, they faced some emotional challenges which were enough to break apart normal people. But it was their deep morals which kept them bound with their roots. All in all, they just completed 57 years of married life.

Conclusion

To be honest, I didn’t know much about him before writing this blog. I don’t get much time to be with him. But whenever I meet him, I have had this inspiration to live an active life as he does. I would have still respected him even if he would have not been my grandfather. He always tells me to read the Quran but I have always ignored it (I’m an Atheist, Sorry). 
In the end, I think he is living a great life. Yes, he could have achieved more and could have excelled in multiple other domains. But given his circumstances, he did a great job!
In India, very few can say “I have educated Grandparents”, I’m proud of being one of them.