My dear Akbar! our grand parents (your great grand parents) lived in a village in South India. Its population was approximately two thousand and mostly Hindus. There were almost no jobs in that place and people lived primarily on agriculture and a few on business.
Our grand father whose name was Mohammed Madar had three sons and two daughters. His second son was my father and his name was Mohammed Akbar.
It was said that people had no animosity against one another and lived like brothers and sisters although of different religions.
Since there were almost no schools in the village, my father was very eager to get education. First he moved to Bowringpet and then to Bangalore. His education was upto high school and had enough religious teaching from a good scholar.
In those days if anyone boosted of having five rupees (about $35 in today's money) he was considered rich.
We don't remember to have seen our grand father as he left this world before we were born. However we had very pleasant memories of our grand mother who lived for about 100 years.
At the start of the World War or a few years before that our father and uncles moved to Bowringpet (now Bangarapet) and started joint business of wholesale grocery items. The town of Bangarapet had a population of about 5000, mostly Hindus. Since the town was close to Kolar Gold fields it had great scope in business. Out of the few Muslims our father and uncles were considered among rich class who enjoyed lot of respect.
India was under British rule at that time and no one had any problem about security and fair play. Everything looked well disciplined and organized. The key to this situation was lesser population and good control of the Govt.
Our father had regular habits and offered prayers five times a day. He was known to be open hearted and never hesitated to call spade a spade.