Huzurala was in Calcutta in October 1964. I was only 14 but had been given the responsibility to run errands at the bungalow where he stayed in Alipore. One of our responsibilities was to cart the chair and table in a van to the location of Huzurala’s maghrib-isha namaaz. Not to our masjid, but the maidan skirting the Race Course. That’s right. Each evening Muqaddas Maula would conduct the evening prayers in the open on the field. On the field! I would reach early, help in setting up the place and then he would arrive. Well in advance of the mumineen driving in, he would would conduct his ‘office’ in the open –attending to files, looking at correspondence, signing papers, dispensing with raza. It was interesting seeing him at work – a side few got the opportunity to see – and liquidate his backlog before getting ready for namaaz. My precious memory is not just that. It is of him taking a break between attending to his work …aimlessly looking sideways into the distance, one leg crossed across the other while sitting on a chair, at peace with himself, not a soul to interrupt him, wonder he must be thinking, then quietly getting back to work. It’s amazing how something so innocuous about someone so grandfatherly can make my eyes go moist today. Bhai Aquil Busrai, New Delhi