Several years later in 1969, Istafa Khan’s daughter arrived from Pakistan. She came especially to Mussoorie to convey the Salaams-respects of Istafa Khan to Shri Nathji. She brought a letter from Istafa Khan which read:
To me, the greatest loss of partition has been the separation from you. I can no longer hear your voice and listen to your words – kalaam. I can no longer have your deedaar–darshan. Life has robbed me of the greatest of its joys.
“Partition kaa sab se barraa nuksaan mujhe huaa hai. Huzoor kaa deedaar naheen kar saktaa! Huzoor kaa kalaam naheen sun saktaa!”
However, Nawab Istafa Khan always remained alive in Shri Nathji’s sermons, and people would be thrilled to listen to Shri Nathji’s encounter with the man who had said at first sight:
Maaloon hotaa hai aap vo hain ke jin se nibh jaayegi. It appears that you are one with whom an enduring relationship will be formed.
It was a relationship that endured in life as well as in death. Indeed Shri Nathji was loathe to part from anyone who had held his hand.
Shri Nathji often quoted the Persian Verse:
Khud makun begaanagi baare choon midaani
Ke charkh aashnaayaa raa za yak deegar judaayi mi dihad
Desire not to be separated from one another, thyself,
For the skies shall being about a separation one day of itself.
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