Samad 1984,1857

"The cricket test -which side do they cheer for? .. . Are you still looking back to where you

came from or where you are?" Norman Tebbit

6 The Temptation ofSamad Iqbal -1

Children. Samad had caught children like a disease. Yes, he had sired two of them willingly as

willingly as a man can but he had not bargained for this other thing. This thing that no one tells you

about. This thing of knowing children. For forty-odd years, travelling happily along life's highway,

Samad had been unaware that dotted along that road, in the creche facilities of each service station,

there lived a subclass of society, a mewling, puking underclass; he knew nothing of them and it did

not concern him. Then suddenly, in the early eighties, he became infected with children; other

people's children, children who were friends of his children, and then their friends; then children in

children's programmes on children's TV. By 1984 at least 30 per cent of his social and cultural

circle was under the age of nine and this all led, inevitably, to the position he now found himself in.

He was a parent-governor.

By a strange process of symmetry, being a parent-governor perfectly mirrors the process of

becoming a parent. It starts innocently. Casually. You turn up at the annual Spring Fair full of beans,

help with the raffle tickets (because the pretty red-haired music teacher asks you to) and win a

bottle of whisky (all school raffles are fixed), and, before you know where you are, you're turning

up at the weekly school council meetings, organizing concerts, discussing plans for a new music

department, donating funds for the rejuvenation of the water-fountains you're implicated in the

school, you're involved in it. Sooner or later you stop dropping your child at the school gates. You

start following them in.

"Put your hand down."

"I will not put it down."

"Put it down, please."

"Let go of me."

"Samad, why are you so eager to mortify me? Put it down."

"I have an opinion. I have a right to an opinion. And I have a right to express that opinion."

"Yes, but do you have to express it so often?" This was the hissed exchange between Samad and

Alsana Iqbal, as they sat at the back of a Wednesday school governors meeting in early July '84,

Alsana trying her best to force Samad's determined left arm back to his side.

"Get off, woman!"

Alsana put her two tiny hands to his wrist and tried applying a Chinese burn. "Samad Miah,

can't you understand that I am only trying to save you from yourself?"

As the covert wrestling continued, the chairwoman Katie Miniver, a lanky white divorcee with

tight jeans, extremely curly hair and buck teeth, tried desperately to avoid Samad's eye. She silently

cursed Mrs. Hanson, the fat lady just behind him, who was speaking about the woodworm in the

school orchard, inadvertently making it impossible to pretend that Samad's persistent raised hand

had gone unseen. Sooner or later she was going to have to let him speak. In between nodding at

Mrs. Hanson, she snatched a surreptitious glance at the minutes which the secretary, Mrs. Khilnani,

was scribbling away on her left. She wanted to check that it was not her imagination, that she was

not being unfair or undemocratic, or worse still racist (but she had read Colour Blind, a seminal

leaflet from the Rainbow Coalition, she had scored well on the self-test), racist in ways that were so

deeply ingrained and socially determining that they escaped her attention. But no, no. She wasn't

crazy. Any random extract highlighted the problem:

Mrs. Janet Trott wishes to propose a second climbing frame be built in the playground to

accommodate the large number of children who enjoy the present climbing frame but unfortunately

have made it a safety risk through dangerous overcrowding. Mrs. Trott's husband, the architect

Hanover Trott, is willing to design and oversee the building of such a frame at no cost to the school.

Chairwoman can see no objection. Moves to put the proposition to a vote.

Mr. Iqbal wishes to know why the Western education system privileges activity of the

body over activity of the mind and soul.

The Chairwoman wonders if this is quite relevant.

Mr. Iqbal demands the vote be delayed until he can present apa per detailing the main

arguments and emphasizes that his sons, Magid and MiUat, get all the exercise they need via head

stands that strengthen the muscles and send blood to stimulate the somatosensory cortex in the

brain.

Mrs. Wolfe asks whether Mr. Iqbal expects her Susan to undertake compulsory head stands

Mr. Iqbal infers that, considering Susan's academic performance and weight problems, a

head stand regime might be desirable.

"Yes, Mr. Iqbal?"

Samad forcefully removed Alsana's fingers from the clamp grip they had assumed on his lapel,

stood up quite unnecessarily and sorted through a number of papers he had on a clipboard,

removing the one he wanted and holding it out before him.

"Yes, yes. I have a motion. I have a motion."

The subtlest manifestation of a groan went round the group of governors, followed by a short

period of shifting, scratching, leg-crossing, bag-rifling and the repositioning of coats-on-chairs.

"Another one, Mr. Iqbal?"

"Oh yes, Mrs. Miniver."

"Only you've tabled twelve motions already this evening; I think possibly somebody else '

"Oh, it is much too important to be delayed, Mrs. Miniver. Now, if I can just '

"Ms Miniver."

"Pardon me?"

"It's just.. . it's Ms Miniver. All evening you've been .. . and it's, umm .. . actually not Mrs. It's Ms. Ms."

Samad looked quizzically at Katie Miniver, then at his papers as if to find the answer there, then

at the beleaguered chairwoman again.

"I'm sorry? You are not married?"

"Divorced, actually, yes, divorced. I'm keeping the name."

"I see. You have my condolences, Miss Miniver. Now, the matter I '

"I'm sorry," said Katie, pulling her fingers through her intractable hair. "Umm, it's not Miss,

either. I'm sorry. I have been married you see, so'

Ellen Corcoran and Janine Lanzerano, two friends from the Women's Action Group, gave Katie

a supportive smile. Ellen shook her head to indicate that Katie mustn't cry (because you're doing

well, really well); Janine mouthed Go On and gave her a furtive thumbs-up.

"I really wouldn't feel comforta - I just feel marital status shouldn't be an issue it's not that I

want to embarrass you, Mr. Iqbal. I just would feel more if you it's Ms."

"Mzzz?"

"Ms."

"And this is some kind of linguistic conflation between the words Mrs. and Miss?" asked

Samad, genuinely curious and oblivious to the nether wobblings of Katie Miniver's bottom lip.

"Something to describe the woman who has either lost her husband or has no prospect of finding another?"

Alsana groaned and put her head in her hands.

Samad looked at his clipboard, underlined something in pen three times and turned to the

parent-governors once more.

"The Harvest Festival."

Shifting, scratching, leg-crossing, coat-repositioning.

"Yes, Mr. Iqbal," said Katie Miniver. "What about the Harvest Festival?"

That is precisely what I want to know. What is all this about the Harvest Festival? What is it?

Why is it? And why must my children celebrate it?"

The headmistress, Mrs. Owens, a genteel woman with a soft face half hidden behind a fiercely

cut blonde bob, motioned to Katie Miniver that she would handle this.

"Mr. Iqbal, we have been through the matter of religious festivals quite thoroughly in the

autumn review. As I am sure you are aware, the school already recognizes a great variety of

religious and secular events: amongst them, Christmas, Ramadan, Chinese New Year, Diwali, Yom

Kippur, Hanukkah, the birthday of Haile Selassie, and the death of Martin Luther King. The

Harvest Festival is part of the school's ongoing commitment to religious diversity, Mr. Iqbal."

"I see. And are there many pagans, Mrs. Owens, at Manor School?"

"Pagan I'm afraid I don't under '

"It is very simple. The Christian calendar has thirty-seven religious events. Thirty-seven. The

Muslim calendar has nine. Only nine. And they are squeezed out by this incredible rash of Christian

festivals. Now my motion is simple. If we removed all the pagan festivals from the Christian

calendar, there would be an average of Samad paused to look at his clipboard 'of twenty days freed

up in which the children could celebrate Lailat-ul-Qadr in December, Eid-ul-Fitr in January and

Eid-ul-Adha in April, for example. And the first festival that must go, in my opinion, is this Harvest

Festival business."

"I'm afraid," said Mrs. Owens, doing her pleasant-but-firm smile and playing her punchline to

the crowd, 'removing Christian festivals from the face of the earth is a little beyond my jurisdiction.

Otherwise I would remove Christmas Eve and save myself a lot of work in stocking-stuffing."

Samad ignored the general giggle this prompted and pressed on. "But this is my whole point.

This Harvest Festival is not a Christian festival. Where in the bible does it say, For thou must steal

foodstuffs from thy parents' cupboards and bring them into school assembly, and thou shall force

thy mother to bake a loaf of bread in the shape of a fish? These are pagan ideals! Tell me where

does it say, Thou shah take a box of frozen fish fingers to an aged crone who lives in Wembley1!"

Mrs. Owens frowned, unaccustomed to sarcasm unless it was of the teacher variety, i.e." Do we

live in a barn? And I suppose you treat your own house like that!

"Surely, Mr. Iqbal, it is precisely the charity aspect of the Harvest Festival that makes it worth

retaining? Taking food to the elderly seems to me a laudable idea, whether it has scriptural support

or not. Certainly, nothing in the bible suggests we should sit down to a turkey meal on Christmas

Day, but few people would condemn it on those grounds. To be honest, Mr. Iqbal, we like to think

of these things as more about community than religion as such."

"A man's god is his community!" said Samad, raising his voice.

"Yes, umm .. . well, shall we vote on the motion?"

Mrs. Owens looked nervously around the room for hands. "Will anyone second it?"

Samad pressed Alsana's hand. She kicked him in the ankle. He stamped on her toe. She pinched

his flank. He bent back her little finger and she grudgingly raised her right arm while deftly

elbowing him in the crotch with her left.

"Thank you, Mrs. Iqbal," said Mrs. Owens, as Janice and Ellen

looked over to her with the piteous, saddened smiles they reserved for subjugated Muslim women.

"All those in favour of the motion to remove the Harvest Festival from the school calendar '

"On the grounds of its pagan roots

"On the grounds of certain pagan .. . connotations. Raise your hands."

Mrs. Owens scanned the room. One hand, that of the pretty red-headed music teacher Poppy

Burt-Jones, shot up, sending her many bracelets jangling down her wrist. Then the Chalfens,

Marcus and Joyce, an ageing hippy couple both dressed in pseudo-Indian garb, raised their hands

defiantly. Then Samad looked pointedly at Clara and Archie, sitting sheepishly on the other side of

the hall, and two more hands moved slowly above the crowd.

"All those against?"

The remaining thirty-six hands lifted into the air.

"Motion not passed."

"I am certain the Solar Covenant of Manor School Witches and Goblins will be delighted with

that decision," said Samad, retaking his seat.

After the meeting, as Samad emerged from the toilets, having relieved himself with some

difficulty in a miniature urinal, the pretty red-headed music teacher Poppy Butt-Jones accosted him

in the corridor.

"Mr. Iqbal."

"Hmm?"

She extended a long, pale, lightly freckled arm. "Poppy Burt-Jones. I take Magid and Millat for

orchestra and singing."

Samad replaced the dead right hand she meant to shake with his working left.

"Oh! I'm sorry."

"No, no. It's not painful. It just does not work."

"Oh, good! I mean, I'm glad there's no, you know, pain."

She was what you would call effortlessly pretty. About twenty-eight, maybe thirty-two at most.

Slim, but not at all hard-bodied, and with a curved ribcage like a child; long, flat breasts that lifted

at their tips; an open-neck white shirt, some well-worn Levis and grey trainers, a lot of dark red hair

swished up in a sloppy ponytail. Wispy bits falling at the neck. Freckled. A very pleasant, slightly

goofy smile which she was showing Samad right now.

"Was there something you wanted to discuss about the twins? A problem?"

"Oh no, no ... well, you know, they're fine. Magid has a little difficulty, but with his good marks

I'm sure playing the recorder isn't high on his list, and Millat has a real flair for the sax. No, I just

wanted to say that I thought you made a good point, you know," she said, chucking her thumb over

her shoulder in the direction of the hall. "In the meeting. The Harvest Festival always seemed so

ridiculous to me. I mean, if you want to help old people, you know, well, vote for a different

government, don't send them cans of Heinz spaghetti." She smiled at him again and tucked a piece

of hair behind her ear.

"It is a great shame more people do not agree," said Samad, flattered somehow by the second

smile and sucking in his well-toned 57-year-old stomach. "We seemed very much in the minority

this evening."

"Well, the Chalfens were behind you they're such nice people

intellectuals," she whispered, as if it were some exotic disease of the tropics. "He's a scientist

and she's something in gardening but both very down to earth with it. I talked to them and they

thought you should pursue it. You know, actually, I was thinking that maybe we could get together

at some point in the next few months and work on a second motion for the September meeting

you know, nearer the actual time, make it a little more coherent, maybe, print out leaflets, that

sort of thing. Because you know,

I'm really interested in Indian culture. I just think those festivals you mentioned would be so

much more .. . colourful, and we could tie it in with art work, music. It could be really exciting,"

said Poppy Burt-Jones, getting really excited. "And I think it would be really good, you know, for

the kids."

It was not possible, Samad knew, for this woman to have any erotic interest in him whatsoever.

But still he glanced around for Alsana, still he jangled his car keys nervously in his pockets, still he

felt a cold thing land on his heart and knew it was fear of his God.

"I'm not actually from India, you know," said Samad, with infinitely more patience than he had

ever previously employed the many times he had been required to repeat this sentence since

moving to England.

Poppy Burt-Jones looked surprised and disappointed. "You're not?"

"No. I'm from Bangladesh."

"Bangladesh

"Previously Pakistan. Previous to that, Bengal."

"Oh, right. Same sort of ball-park, then."

"Just about the same stadium, yes."

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