Nirmala Mirza was unusual

She would sit in the last row, and leave as quietly as she entered. Who could have imagined that this low-profile regular at public meetings...

She would sit in the last row, and leave as quietly as she entered. Who could have imagined that this low-profile regular at public meetings on communal issues in Mumbai had, as far back as 1969, braved the threats of her wealthy Sindhi family to marry a Muslim?

Nirmala Shroff’s father had no problem with her decision to marry fellow Xavierite, Aziz Mirza: “If Gandhiji didn’t find Hindu-Muslim marriages wrong, who am I?” said the dhoti-clad businessman, who allowed his daughters to go swimming and wear sleeveless dresses to parties. But it took Nirmala all of eight years after his death, to become financially independent and free of her disapproving uncles, before she could marry Aziz.

En route, she even managed to convince Swami Chinmayanand about the marriage. The uncles had hoped that he would dissuade her! When threats of confining her to her house failed, they warned her that the Jan Sangh would be only to happy to tackle that Muslim boy. “Till then I was quite calm, I even told them Aziz was willing for an Arya Samaj marriage. But when they said that, I really got mad. I thought, if anything happened to Aziz my life would be over. So I told them ‘if you harm him, I’ll stab your son and happily go to jail’. They saw how aggressive I was and went away.”

Story continues below this ad

Her family stayed away after her marriage, but Nirmala had no time to miss them. She was busy reading books on the Quran and passing them on to her father-in-law, an IAS officer who prized reason above all else. She even tried to explain some of the intricacies of the Quran to her mother-in-law, the only namaazi in the family. It was the vegetarian Nirmala who introduced beef to the Mirza household. Noticing that her Christian neighbours ate it, she decided she wouldn’t deprive her little daughter of this cheap and nutritious meat. She never ate it herself, though she turned non-vegetarian because her mother-in-law’s tiffin, which she carried to office, was “so tasty”. Again, it was Nirmala who decided to put up aayaats from the Quran on the walls of her home and to celebrate Id, along with Diwali and X’Mas.

But the 1992-93 riots suddenly made this multi-hued woman feel that she was part of a minority community. With Aziz, now well-known, away at the annual film festival, and Shiv Sainiks sniffing around in her building, she found herself telling her son to stay over at his Hindu friend’s house, sending her daughter to Aziz’s Hindu brother-in-law’s house and seeking shelter for herself with a Christian family.

Last week, mourners of all communities filled the Arya Samaj temple where Aziz and his children bent to get their foreheads smeared with tilak, offered flowers in front of Nirmala’s laughing portrait and then stood outside to receive condolences for this generous woman, who passed away on June 17.