Caption: 1) F. M. Khan with SOM Editor-in-Chief K.B.Ganapathy 2) Garden in front of the house with a fountain.

It was a fortuitous visit. Being Sunday, I decided to drive to Kodagu with a couple of my friends with a double intent — visit the coffee estate, this being the coffee picking season and to enjoy God’s rest day Sunday with good food in one of those innumerable resorts and holiday homes. And on our way back via Madikeri, at Boikeri, about 8 kms on Mysore road, I saw a frayed, grayed wooden sign-post with the legend Balayatrie Estate with a colourful flex board announcing the flower show. Instantly, I knew what it was — the annual flower show conducted by the owner of the estate F.M. Khan, a former Congress Rajya Sabha member and a good friend of former Chief Minister of Karnataka R. Gundu Rao.

For courtesy, I asked my friends if we could visit the show even as I swerved the vehicle to the kachcha road into the estate. A few metres inside and there were nearly 20 cars parked in two parking lots. Men, women and children were there enjoying the flower garden in front of the house with a dysfunctional fountain surrounded by angelic figures (see picture). There were many burqa-clad ladies among others. I wondered if there would come a day in our country when a fatwa would be unleashed to prohibit growing of certain varieties of flowers, as it happened in Kashmir where a fatwa was issued prohibiting playing of certain kind of songs and music by an all-girls band!

Poor Rock Band girls and their families are in hiding now. What a secular country this. Sometimes, I wonder if secularism in this country is applicable only to Hindus and not to other religious groups. A re-look into the definition of this nebulous word ‘secular’ or ‘secularism’ is needed because this word finds a place in our Constitution following an amendment, which was not there otherwise. Let it be.

To revert to F.M. Khan’s flower show, I have nothing but admiration for his efforts, a labour of love. I learn he has been holding this private flower show since 1998 and people are enjoying it thoroughly, for, after all, who would not love flowers. Flower saplings too were there for sale but when I went much of it was sold. Khan’s youngest daughter, who obviously must have taken total responsibility for the show, too was there at the sales point with a receipt book and a visitors’ book.

The name F.M. Khan was as familiar in Karnataka as in Delhi in the late 80s — during the period of Emergency — like R. Gundu Rao then and Shah Rukh Khan today in Bollywood. F.M. Khan and Gundu Rao were two names the Congress (I) party members in Karnataka respected as much as feared for they really did matter in politics of the day — thanks to their intimacy to Sanjay Gandhi the Terrible of the Emergency days. In fact, these two from Karnataka were the blue-eyed boys of Sanjay Gandhi.

It was Gundu Rao who went to the Bangalore Race Club and ‘trapped’ photographs of a few IAS officers who should have been in the Vidhana Soudha. And it made all-India news. I was in Poona then.

As for F.M. Khan, he was like a young stallion, a rising star. Sadly, he faded into oblivion as fast as he rose in politics. If my memory serves me right, I think he was also the Treasurer of the party.

Mrs. Indira Gandhi had visited this house and stayed there after she lost power, post-Emergency and it was big news. I was looking for a plaque somewhere outside the house commemorating the visit of such a great leader but could not find one. I also forgot to ask Khan or his daughter about Indira Gandhi’s visit.

The house, a typical British bungalow with tiled roof, is rather old, may be a hundred-year-old and looked its age needing restoration. The surroundings with service buildings too looked as if in need of care and maintenance. As I strolled around, I was mentally visualising the old glory and the flamboyant life the family, including F.M. Khan, led in the past as one of the richest coffee planters of Kodagu.

Times have changed and the young, debonair F.M. Khan too has changed — has become old like me, but a senior.

In his heydays in politics, he was confident and assertive. Always on short fuse. But now he seemed to have mellowed. He still carries that aristocratic bearing on his feeble shoulders. Heard, he was once mortally sick, but has bounced back. As visitors were trooping into the garden, he was standing at the steps giving a gentle welcome smile with a twinkle in his eyes, apparently feeling happy and nice about what miracle he has done with the flower show spreading happiness and fragrance.

My friends did not know him though they had heard his name. As a courtesy, I acknowledged his presence and wished him simultaneously introducing myself. He seemed to have recognised me. “Would you mind if I took a picture with you?” He smiled in approval (see picture) and as I took leave of him he said, “I am extending the show by a day till tomorrow. Would you publish it in your Kannada paper Mysooru Mithra?” I kept my word, of course.

Yes, I met our own F.M. Khan and reminded myself how nature and time, together, ravage man and all his creations.

Tailpiece: If only R. Gundu Rao had not overplayed his role and got expelled from the party at a critical time after losing the State elec-tion, I am sure, both he and F.M. Khan would have risen in the party and F.M. Khan would be playing the role of another Khan from Karna-taka, the present Minister for Minority Affairs K. Rehman Khan in Congress. With the sudden tragic death of their Godfather Sanjay Gandhi, their political fortunes faded for ever. Sadly, Gundu Rao too died young.

e-mail: kbg@starofmysore.com

source: http://www.StarofMysore.com / Home> Abracadabra…. Abracadabra /by K. B. Ganapathy / February 09th, 2013